The residents complain that there are no schools, either, in the camps, and that many of the children have to work to sustain their families. Those who remain in the villages sell their belongings for food and require aid from the UN and the Syrian government. The World Food Program (WFP) has begun distributing food to more than 200,000 people who stayed on the farms, and the Red Cross is funding delivery of water to them.

"We don't want to provide assistance to these people where they are now, and create a dependency syndrome," says Muhannad Hani, WFP country manager, regarding the refugees who reached the camps. "Those people are farmers," he told the BBC. "We're working in partnership with the government to make sure that those people return to that place and resume what they've been doing for decades and centuries," he said.

Ginsters' communications manager Larry File said the process saves thousands of food miles in the long run. 'The way in which most companies work these days is that products for all supplies are sent to a central regional depot,' he said. 'Products needed for each local store can be sent on one big order and on one lorry.'

'For people who don't work in the food industry this may appear odd at first sight but in fact this system does save thousands of food miles. Without this, each individual supplier would need to deliver to each individual store, which would result in a great many vehicles on our roads.' Ginsters, which is famous for its Cornish pasties as well as sandwiches and pies, brands its products as 'real honest food'. And during promotions for the new Cornish store, Tesco even boasted that it was situated 'right next to the Ginsters bakery'.

Apples that suppress appetite could also be in the pipeline, with the first varieties on shelves within five years. Researcher Roger Hellens of New Zealand firm Plant & Food Research, said: 'Now we have the sequence of the apple genome, we will be able to identify the genes which control the characteristics that our sensory scientists have identified as most desired by consumers - crispiness, juiciness and flavour.'

The decoding of the apple's DNA has also shed new light on its origins. It suggests that a plant that became the apple tree was born around 65 million years ago, when a comet is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The genetic blueprint comes after another group of scientists cracked the genetic code of wheat. More than 60 million tons of apples are grown worldwide each year - the equivalent of 20lb per person.

Although breeders try to cross the only the best plants, the slow growth of the apple tree means they don't know if have been successful until up to eight years later. Now breeders will be able to screen seedlings for key genes, vastly speeding up the process. Traits that hamper production can also be more easily bred out, the journal Nature Genetics reports.

Much as Chinese demand has driven oil and iron ore prices higher over the past decade, its imports of corn, wheat and rice could become a new force, pressuring up global inflation and giving farmers worldwide fresh incentive to boost output."It is inevitable that China will import more grains," said Yu Mengguo, a deputy general manager at Jinpeng International Futures Co in Beijing. "Living standards are going up and people need to consume more. What's worse, China has a lack of good land and water."

Scarred by memories of chronic hunger and bouts of devastating famine, China has defied its physical constraints in pursuit of food security over the past three decades. The government has spent vast sums on irrigation, pest control, grain reserves, the development of hardier crops and bio-technology research. The investment has paid off. With 9 percent of the world's arable land, China has more or less produced enough food for its own people, 21 percent of the world's population.

That is now changing. China first swung to a deficit in agricultural trade in 2004. Even though the rise in net imports since then has been incremental, this year has given warning that reliance on overseas production will accelerate in the future. China is already the world's biggest soy buyer and its demand for grains is picking up. Its agricultural deficit in the first half was $11.3 billion, nearly double that in the same period in 2009. A drought last year that hurt Chinese corn production is the main reason for the wider gap, but a big jump in corn shipments from the United States - the most in 15 years - is a sign of how tight China's domestic supply has become. In China's south, a shortfall in rice has led buyers to Vietnam. To get round import quotas, they have smuggled in nearly 600,000 tonnes of rice.

Sarrazin gave an interview to the respected Welt am Sonntag Sunday newspaper to promote his book entitled 'Deutschland schafft sich ab', which can be translated as 'Germany does away with itself'. In the book he claims the country is on the road to ruin because of the influx of immigrants from the Middle East which would overwhelm the indigenous population and create a nation of 'dunces'. In particular he singles out Muslims for failing to integrate and having low IQs.

This influx, he claims, has been going on virtually since the war while the birthrate of native Germans has been steadily falling. He asserts the result has been a 'dramatic fall' in literacy and numeracy. 'Germany is becoming more stupid,' he said. 'Muslims immigrants don't integrate as well as other immigrant groups across Europe. The reasons for this are apparently not based on their ethnicity, but are rooted in their culture of Islam,' he told Welt am Sonntag.

"This is a vital project for us as we begin to diversify our sales of strategic raw materials," Mr Putin said. "So far we have delivered most oil to Europe... The Asia-Pacific region has received insubstantial volumes." Russia began exporting oil this year from a new export terminal on the Pacific Ocean built to serve fields in east Siberia, one of the world's last untapped oil provinces. Some Kremlin-friendly oil companies have been granted tax breaks to speed development of east Siberian reserves and offset a decline in production in other regions.

Transneft, the Russian oil pipeline monopoly, completed the construction of a pipeline from Taishet in the Irkutsk region to Skovorodino last year, the first stretch of a planned 2,757km pipeline to the Pacific. On completion in 2012, the pipeline will be capable of carrying up to 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, about one-third of Russia's current exports.

Julia Nanay, senior director at PFC Energy, the Washington-based oil consultancy, said the pipeline would give Russia flexibility to focus oil trade on premium markets. "There is more money to be made by exporting to Asia than to Europe. By building the spur to China, Russia is acknowledging commercial realities," she said.

Williams, sitting under a tent in a rain-soaked New Orleans, where the First Family commemorated the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, asked Obama why so many people were uncertain about something so fundamental as his faith. "I can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead," quipped Obama, who took a deep breath to gather his thoughts when asked if the poll reflected his inability to communicate with voters.

"The facts are the facts. We went through some of this during the campaign - there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly," said a visibly annoyed Obama, referring to "birthers," who have waged a guerrilla campaign questioning either the existence or the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate. "I will always put my money on the American people, and I'm not going to be worried too much about what rumors are floating around there."

A stunning 18 percent of Americans identify Obama as Muslim, according to a Pew poll released earlier this month. Only a third identified Obama, who speaks passionately about his faith in his autobiography, as Christian.

The takeover sprung upon Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, Canada, by BHP Billiton of Melbourne, Australia, is a seismic shift in the future of food. Demand for potash, a mineral salt that is mined and used as crop fertiliser, has risen because the world needs to produce more food to feed an increasing population, and there is limited land for cultivation. Added to this is the rising wealth of highly populated countries in Asia, with a growing appetite for meat. If you want to produce a lot of meat, you need a lot of grain - 7kg for every 1kg of beef - and the broad view is that to achieve this, you need large quantities of NPK - or fertiliser that combines nitrogen with potassium, the latter found in potash.

There is a finite quantity of naturally occurring potash, or potassium carbonate, in the Earth's crust. You can manufacture it by burning down forests of broad leaf trees - let's not go there. Digging it out of the ground is the agri-business-preferred option. Meanwhile, to produce the nitrogen for fertiliser you need to burn an awful lot of - er - crude oil. Yep, the world is going to look like a perforated airflow golf ball by the time we've finished with it.

Every government needs to pay attention to what is happening. This is the opportunity for a debate about what is the right way forward and it may well be that if, at this juncture, we choose the wrong food policy, there will be no going back. Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University, London, disagrees with the "hi-tech" argument but agrees that soil fertility is today's key food issue. "The potash story is very significant," he says. "This is an attempt at a commodity grab. The price of potash will rise and, with it, the price of food. Right now agriculture is like a junkie, hooked on things like potash and oil. If the challenge is about future soil fertility and human health, we can develop a system based on nutrient recycling.

Lang fears that the activities of BHP signify an attempt to control the food supply. I have similar fears about biotech firms. It is not that I believe eating a genetically modified salmon will result in a turnip growing out of the top of my head, but I dislike the idea that one organisation will own the world's soya seed supply. Finding the answer to feeding the world is becoming a battle for control. If Ian Fleming could pick up his pen now, the villain Blofeld would be taking a great interest both in potash and bio-technology.

In highly populated, fast-developing China, sudden unaffordability of food could cause a biblical catastrophe. This week we discovered for certain that we are already running out. Choosing what to do about it must be part of a democratic process. From now on, scrutiny of government food policy is as essential as using a knife, fork or pair of chopsticks, when it comes to putting food in mouths.

Mr Obama, who set Middle East peace as one of his top foreign policy goals when he assumed office in 2009, will make his first visit as president to Israel and the West Bank to persuade both sides to agree to concessions for the sake of peace. Mr Obama will oversee the relaunch of direct talks between the two sides next week in Washington.

Although Washington is pushing for a comprehensive peace deal within 12 months, implementation will be spread out over a 10-year period, according to a report in Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli newspaper. Washington wants the intensive talks to cover core issues, including borders, refugees and the future status of Jerusalem, according to the leaked White House protocols of a conference call held this week between senior administration officials and American Jewish leaders. If the sides fail to reach an agreement on a particular issue, US officials will intervene and offer a compromise, the report said.

At the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, will meet regularly, the paper reported, citing the leaked report. Such a strategy should appeal to Mr Netanyahu, who has proposed face-to-face talks with Mr Abbas every fortnight. However, the US president will have a difficult task ahead of him, as Israeli and American officials are still debating how to breach the first major hurdle expected in the talks: the end of Israel's 10-month West Bank settlement freeze on September 26th.

Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale. The 2012 storm has the potential to be even more disruptive. "The general consensus among general astronomers (and certainly solar astronomers) is that this coming Solar maximum (2012 but possibly later into 2013) will be the most violent in 100 years," News.com.au quoted astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke as saying.

"A bold statement and one to be taken seriously by those it will affect most, namely airline companies, communications companies and anyone working with modern GPS systems."

"They can even trip circuit breakers and knock out orbiting satellites, as has already been done this year," added Reneke. No one really knows what effect the 2012-2013 Solar Max will have on today's digital-reliant society. Dr Richard Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics division, told Reneke the super storm would hit like "a bolt of lightning", causing catastrophic consequences for the world's health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

NASA said that a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause "1 to 2 trillion dollars in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to 10 years for complete recovery". They claim satellites will be aged by 50 years, rendering GPS even more useless than ever, and the blast will have the equivalent energy of 100 million hydrogen bombs. "Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the Earth and it's rapid, just like a lightning bolt. That's the solar effect," he added.

The findings are published in the most recent issue of Australasian Science.

Under the plans, the US Marines would be invited to fly from the British carriers in joint operations and the Navy is also examining the prospect of leasing aircraft from the Americans. Major cost savings are necessary because the Treasury budget for the carriers only covers the costs of building an empty shell - leaving no money for the aircraft to fly from them.

A senior military source said: 'The US Marines have the aircraft. Their aircraft would fly from the British carriers. Or we could borrow some from them.'

'The Treasury are happy to pay for the carriers but there's an issue over the cost of the aircraft.' The carriers are due to enter service in 2014 and 2016 respectively and the remaining Harriers, famous for their ability to take off and land vertically, are currently due to be retired in 2018.

The country's own debt agency described the analysis as "flawed". It claimed that S&P's outlook was based on an "extreme and unrealistic" scenario of the cost of recapitalising the banks and questioned its calculations. S&P cut the rating one step from AA to AA-, its lowest since 1995.

This follows clearance earlier this month for an additional injection of 10 billion euros into Anglo Irish Bank. The agency now forecasts that net government debt - the sum of all borrowing - will rise to 113% of GDP in 2010. That would be a substantial increase on the 64% level recorded in 2009. It would also make it one of the highest in the eurozone and well above its projections for Spain (65%) and Belgium (98%).

The rating could be cut again if the costs of the bail-out rise or the economic recovery becomes more sluggish, S&P warned.

The jab is being offered to girls between 12 and 18 as part of a nationwide programme designed to protect them against the sexually transmitted HPV virus, which causes 70 per cent of cervical tumours. Opponents have argued that giving girls the jab and protecting them against a sexually transmitted infection before they are even teenagers is giving them the go-ahead to experiment sexually.

Norman Wells, director of Family and Youth Concern, said: 'Giving the vaccination to girls without the consent of their parents is unethical and a recipe for disaster. It is sending out the message that girls under 16 have a right to a private sex life and is treating parents with contempt.'

The Department of Health confirmed that parental consent was desirable but not essential.

While Beck billed his event as nonpolitical, conservative activists said their show of strength was a clear sign that they can swing elections because much of the country is angry with what many voters call an out-of-touch Washington.

Palin told the tens of thousands who stretched from the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the grass of the Washington Monument that calls to transform the country weren't enough. "We must restore America and restore her honor," said the former Alaska governor, echoing the name of the rally, "Restoring Honor." Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008 and a potential White House contender in 2012, and Beck repeatedly cited King and made references to the Founding Fathers. Beck put a heavy religious cast on nearly all his remarks, sounding at times like an evangelical preacher.

"Something beyond imagination is happening," he said. "America today begins to turn back to God." Beck exhorted the crowd to "recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us." He asked his audience to pray more. "I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees but with your door open for your children to see," he said.

His speech came in the wake of a string of disappointing US economic data in the past month that point to a sharp slowdown in the second half of the year. Earlier on Friday the US Commerce revised its estimate of second quarter GDP growth down to 1.6%, although this cut was much lower than most Wall Street analysts had expected. It stands in sharp contrast to a small upward revision of UK economic data, and very strong economic growth in Germany.

Mr Bernanke was keen to emphasise the apparent success of earlier quantitative easing - including the purchase of $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage debt - in lowering borrowing costs. The Fed already decided to extend this policy on 10 August, when it announced that any mortgage repayments it received on its investment would be reinvested in US government bonds. Other options included reducing to zero the interest paid on excess reserves held by banks with the Fed, and committing to maintain rates low for a longer period. He also discussed the option of raising the Fed's inflation target - something proposed by some economists - though he said it had no support at the Fed.

In his review of the US economy, Mr Bernanke expressed particular surprise at the rise in the savings rate of US consumers, and the sharp rise in the US trade deficit. He also noted that business investment in structures - such as commercial real estate - had failed to rebound. In order for the recovery to be sustained, he said, consumer spending and business investment needed to pick up more quickly.