Last month alone the UK was hit by a hosepipe ban, saw tarmac melting on roads and the population was issued health warnings about the dangers of too much sun. Yet despite the heatwave, it was also the wettest July ever recorded. According to provisional statistics from the Met Office, the country was 46 per cent wetter than average and some areas faced devastating floods.

Britain was not alone. The mercury climbed to its highest point in decades in other parts of Europe, the US and Japan as record temperatures were recorded. In Russia the army was drafted in to battle the wildfires which were threatening dozens of towns and villages. Thick smoke and ash slowed firefighting efforts and thousands of people were being evacuated. A state of emergency was declared after swathes of the country were engulfed in flames and thousands were left homeless. More than 2,000 people are said to have died in the region since the beginning of July as they tried to cool down in lakes and rivers.

And in Greece dramatic blazes on the island of Samos have wreaked havoc. Hundreds of tourists were evacuated as the fires spread and helicopters along with more than 150 firefighters were brought in to tackle the flames. The fire, which broke out in a ravine on Monday, is the second to strike the island in a week.

But Met Office climate change scientist Peter Stott insisted the extreme weather patterns were not unexpected and in keeping with climate change theories.

'What we have observed generally is a tendency for more heavy rain fall, a tendency towards a greater risk of flooding and also a greater risk of drought as well. These are consistent with what we know about climate change,' he said.

The move comes after a Daily Mail campaign to get the banks lending again, which has highlighted their refusal to provide credit to the small businesses which are the engine of the economy. Ministers have already warned that banks could face a fresh clampdown if they refuse to relax tight lending rules blamed for driving 500 businesses a week to the wall. Mr Cameron said he saw such lending as a key priority in helping Britain's economic recovery.

'We are going to see this week some pretty big figures coming out of the banks in terms of profits, so they've made that sort of recovery,' he said. 'We've got to make sure that money is getting out of the banks and into businesses. I'm going to be meeting the Governor of the Bank of England... to make sure we find ways of encouraging the banks to help small businesses particularly, many of whom have got good ideas and are prepared to meet the terms of lending but can't get the money out - so it's got to happen.'

But the Prime Minister's words initially appeared to fall on deaf ears. Nationalised bank Northern Rock today revealed it would halve its lending target for this year from 9 billion pounds to less than 5 billion pounds - even though it is sitting on a cash pile of more than 7 billion pounds. Just a day ago, HSBC revealed that its UK loan book had shrunk by 20 billion pounds over the past year. This was despite the bank revealing its profits for the first half of this year had more than doubled to 7 billion pounds, compared to the same period last year. The moves will dismay first-time buyers and raise fears that a credit drought will cripple the fragile economic recovery.

Mr Ugarte said the boy, who had Downs syndrome, died of bubonic plague on July 26. He said on Monday that most of the infections were bubonic plague, with four cases of pneumonic plague. The former is transmitted by flea bites, the latter by airborne contagion. The disease is curable if treated early with antibiotics.

The first recorded plague outbreak in Peru was in 1903. The last, in 1994, killed 35 people. The bubonic plague is believed to have been the cause of the Black Death, which swept through Europe in the 14th century, killing one third of the population, or more than 25 million people.

The competition is aimed at promoting self-confidence and pride for gays all over the world. Figure skating is among 35 different sporting events at the games.

Shortly before leaving France for Britain for a visit that could define Pakistan's troubled relations with the West, Zardari set the stage for a difficult meeting with Cameron, saying he hoped a "frank exchange" would clear the air. During a visit to India last week, Cameron said Pakistan must do more to prevent "the export of terror," comments that infuriated Islamabad, which summoned Britain's envoy on Monday.

In a statement released by his office overnight, Zardari's office quoted him as saying it was "unfortunate that certain individuals continue to express doubts and fears about our determination to fight militants to the end. Pakistanis were disappointed by Cameron's comments especially as he said them in India and for this reason it was even more important for the president to visit Britain to address this issue," the statement said. "Such fears will only weaken the international effort to fight militants and extremists."

In an interview with Le Monde, Zardari gave a stark assessment of the nine-year Afghanistan war, and said the West was to blame for failing to win the support of ordinary Afghans. "I believe that the international community, which Pakistan belongs to, is in the process of losing the war against the Taliban," Zardari said. "And that is, above all, because we have lost the battle for hearts and minds."

Some relatives of 9/11 victims are against the building of a mosque. Sarah Palin and other prominent Republicans have attacked the mosque plan, but New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said Muslim religious freedom must be respected.

The backers of the Cordoba House cultural centre believe it will become a symbol of good inter-faith relations. But the opponents say it is tasteless to have a mosque so near to a site where Islamist extremists killed thousands. Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin wrote that "to build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks". The building is already being used as a makeshift mosque.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would respond "aggressively" to any attack. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said militants would not "stand idle" if Israel attacked again. In a speech transmitted via video link to thousands of supporters massed in Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, Sheikh Nasrallah said his militants had been ready to fight in the border clash, but that he had ordered them to stand down to avoid an escalation.

The Lebanese army says Israeli soldiers crossed the border to uproot a tree which was blocking their view near the Lebanese village of Adaysseh. A Lebanese army spokesman said troops had fired warning shots and Israel had responded with fire from artillery positions and helicopters. However, UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon said later on Tuesday there was no evidence that Israeli soldiers had crossed the border, the BBC's Wyre Davies reports.

An Israeli army spokeswoman told the BBC that two officers had been attacked by "snipers from the Lebanese armed forces" in a "well-planned ambush" during maintenance operations on Israel's side of the border, near the town of Kiryat Shemona. Earlier, the head of Israel's Northern Command, Major-General Gadi Eizenkot, said the officers had been standing between 300 metres and 400 metres from the border, observing Israeli soldiers removing bushes near the border fence. "Sniper fire was directed at their position and as a result two commanders were injured as a result of the firing," he said.

Concerns are growing that the rise will lead to an increase in prices of flour-related products such as bread and biscuits. Gary Sharkey, head of wheat procurement at Premier Foods, which makes Hovis bread, told the Financial Times that the industry would be "unable to ignore a 50% rise in wheat prices". Russia was the world's fourth largest wheat exporter in the 12 months to June behind the US, the EU and Canada, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

And along with other former Soviet Republics such as Kazakhstan, it accounted for about 25% of the world's wheat exports last year, said Richard Feltes, senior vice president and director of commodity research at Chicago-based MF global. He added that while there was uncertainty over the volumes of crops being lost, such drastic change in production would severely cut into global supply.

"This is a big event, the most serious since 1975," he told the BBC News website. "The end user globally is very exposed here." Martin Deboo from Investec said it would have an effect on both food prices and food company profits. "Generally the wheat content of a loaf of bread is probably about 12-15 pence a loaf [in the UK]. So if this wheat cost increase has to be passed on then we're talking about 5p on a loaf of bread."

He added that the price of other food products could also go up. "Animals are fed on wheat or wheat derivatives and therefore this will feed through indirectly into meat and poultry prices, so this will have a significant effect on food price inflation generally."

For most comics, topicality hasn't been a problem. Whether the issue is the Nazi menace or Communist spies, crack cocaine or civil rights, at least a few superheroes have always been willing to jump into the cultural fray.

But Archie comics have been an exception. Originally based on the Bronx's upscale Riverdale neighborhood, Archie's gang actually lives in a mythical ur-suburbia where they rarely have to deal with anything more troublesome than Jughead's rumbling stomach or the sneaky schemes of Reggie Mantle. Although the series has evolved to absorb the trappings of various eras, Archie's world still evokes a comfortable 1950s ideal, where boys fix up jalopies and play football while girls scheme to get dates for Saturday night.

Because of this simple, sunny perspective, Archie comics have found a niche among conservative families, whose parents can comfortably hand their kids an Archie book without fear that it will contain challenging or upsetting themes. The series has encouraged this connection: In the 1970s, publisher John H Goldwater allowed one of his artists, Al Hartley, to produce religion-themed Archie comic books for Spire Christian Comics. The series, with titles like Archie's Clean Slate and Archie's Parables, feature the entire Archie cast addressing social ills and touting the positive power of Christianity.

In addition to spicing up the Archie-Veronica-Betty love triangle that has sold comics for the last 69 years, the interracial romance broke a barrier for the series, inspiring online rants and heated debate. The series' latest move is even more bold: In an upcoming issue of Veronica, the series' first gay character, Kevin Keller, will make his debut. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and eminently stylish, Kevin quickly catches the eye of perennial Archie crush Veronica. Hijinks ensue as Jughead convinces Kevin to keep his sexual preference under wraps while Veronica becomes increasingly desperate in her pursuit.

While Archie's recent moves are tame by the standards of contemporary society, they're radical in the context of the brand, and they're likely to alienate some conservative fans.

The Food Standards Agency watchdog doesn't even know where the cows at the centre of the investigation are, it has emerged, because the body responsible for registering all pedigree cows and bulls on farms, Holstein UK, would not disclose the information. The Mail revealed yesterday that milk from the direct offspring of a clone had been put on shelves, despite this being illegal.

Eight of these direct offspring of the same cloned cow have been born in Britain, and they have gone on to produce a further 97 animals, and very probably more. Worryingly for opponents of clone farming, there is currently no legislation against meat and milk from this next generation being supplied to UK consumers without special labelling.

Animals descended from clones of prizewinning cattle are sought after by some farmers because they are supersized and able to produce vast quantities of milk. But critics claim the health effects on humans of clone or clone-descended produce are not yet clear. There are also ethical and animal welfare arguments against remodelling nature in the laboratory.

Sultanas and dates have shown similar jumps in price after a series of poor harvests in Turkey, the main growing area for many dried fruits. The Middle Eastern country produces 20 per cent of the world's apricots but suffered flash floods during the spring. The increases come just as suppliers and retailers firm up their plans for dealing in dried fruit over Christmas, according to trade magazine The Grocer.

Eat Natural, which makes fruit and nut bars in Halstead, Essex (UK), said it had avoided passing the increases on to customers, but will be forced to if profit margins continue to fall. Praveen Vijh, co-founder of the company, said: 'Prices have been climbing steadily for the last three years. It significantly puts up our ingredient costs and comes just as chocolate prices are going haywire. 'We're trying very hard not to put up our prices. But there will have to come a point when we will have to, if these ingredient costs continue at this rate.'

Aisha is a victim of Taliban brutality, her nose and ears barbarically hacked off by her own husband in a warped punishment for attempting to flee her cruel in-laws. Held down by her brother-in-law, the young bride endured the agony of the man she married disfiguring her face with a knife. Aisha's striking image stares out from the cover of US news magazine Time.

The photograph is a stark reminder of the fate awaiting independent-minded women if the Taliban regain power.

The magazine is running the front page, with the headline 'What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan', as coalition countries set a timetable for the withdrawal of international forces from the country.

An interminable sawing, screeching, drilling and hammering rips through the oppressive summer heat and humidity in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin. Here, on the city's dusty outskirts, hundreds of new apartment buildings and houses in every imaginable style are springing up.

In an air-conditioned showroom, salespeople in yellow uniforms take potential buyers on tours of the facility. "In one year, we already sold 90 percent of North America, Asia and Europe," customer consultant Qi Yunbu says proudly. "Now we're preparing Africa, Oceania and South America for sale."

"Xingyao Wuzhou," loosely translated as "Shining Star over Five Continents," is the name of this Chinese blend of Dubai and Disneyland, a 2.3 billion euros ($3 billion) development designed to imitate the world map. The gigantic residential and leisure complex is being built around and within an artificial lake.

The developers apparently want to make sure that the residents of this aquatic paradise will lack for nothing. The plans include the world's largest indoor ski center, golf courses, a seven-star hotel, the world's largest musical fountain and miniature replicas of famous structures like the Tower Bridge in London and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Calculated optimism forms the fragile base on which similar projects are thriving all across China. Doubts are taboo, especially now that the mood is beginning to shift, at least outside the flashy showrooms. There is more and more talk of the bubble bursting soon, with some saying that the tipping point has already been reached - with uncertain consequences for the rest of the global economy.

Chen Lei, a senior official at the China Three Gorges Corporation, told the China Daily that 3,000 tons of rubbish was being collected at the dam every day, but there was still not enough manpower to clean it all up. "The large amount of waste in the dam area could jam the miter gate of the Three Gorges Dam," Chen said, referring to the gates of the locks which allow shipping to pass through the Yangtze River.

The river is a crucial commercial artery for the upstream city of Chongqing and other areas in China's less-developed western interior provinces. Pictures showed a huge swathe of the waters by the dam crammed full of debris, with cranes brought in to fish out a tangled mess, including shoes, bottles, branches and Styrofoam.

Some 50,000 square meters of water (more than half a million square feet) had been covered by trash washed down since the start of the rainy season in July, the report said. The trash is around 60 centimeters (two feet) deep, and in some parts so compacted people can walk on it, the Hubei Daily added.

The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest hydropower project, and was built partly to tame flooding along the Yangtze, which killed over 4,000 people in 1998 and countless more over the centuries. Enormously expensive and disruptive, the dam has cost over 254 billion yuan ($37.5 billion) and forced the relocation of 1.3 million people to make way for the reservoir. Towns, fields and historical and archaeological sites have been submerged.

The leaked comments by Barak cast doubt on how much Israel is willing or able to reconcile with Turks outraged at its navy's killing of nine of their compatriots aboard an aid ship that tried to run the Gaza Strip blockade on May 31. Until relations soured, Turkey had been the Muslim power closest to the Jewish state, a friendship largely based on military cooperation and intelligence sharing.

In a closed-door briefing to activists aligned with his centre-left Labour Party at a kibbutz near Jerusalem on July 25, Barak still called Turkey a "friend and major strategic ally". But he described Hakan Fidan, the new head of its National Intelligence Organisation, as a "friend of Iran".

"There are quite a few secrets of ours (entrusted to Turkey) and the thought that they could become open to the Iranians over the next several months, let's say, is quite disturbing," he said in a segment of the speech broadcast by Army Radio.