She will later head to Moscow for a meeting of the Middle East Quartet, made up of the EU, US, UN and Russia. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in the Russian capital for the talks. In the Middle East, Baroness Ashton is also scheduled to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli President Shimon Peres. But it is her visit to Gaza which is arousing the most interest, says Jon Donnison, the BBC's Gaza correspondent.

Only two European foreign ministers have come to Gaza in the past year, our correspondent notes. Foreign officials are often refused entry by Israel, or their governments choose not to come because they do not recognise Hamas. The visit has been welcomed by the United Nations, which says the blockade of Gaza has left hundreds of thousands in Gaza living in poverty.

Baroness Ashton is on a regional tour that began in Cairo and also includes Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. On Wednesday she visited Jerusalem where she met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and held a joint press conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman. During the conference, she said that Israel must return to the negotiating table immediately.

The 20-strong commission will report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the top doctrinal body. For almost 30 years, the Virgin Mary has been said to appear daily in Medjugorje, dressed sometimes in a grey dress and veil and sometimes in gold, crowned with stars and floating on a cloud.

It is said she speaks in Croatian, uttering the words: "I've come because there are many true believers here. I wish to be with you to convert and reconcile the whole world."

Until the commission reports back to the Church's top doctrinal body, believers are likely to continue to flock to this small Bosnian town. Around 30 million are estimated to have visited since the first sighting of what they call "Our Lady".

Our academia, the university professors, left or right, dare not, because, most likely, they would lose their salaries. Our politicians dare not because they are master practitioners of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception, and they need your votes as well as your money. Our editors dare not because they would lose subscribers. Businessmen dare not because they might lose customers and clientele. Even ordinary clerks dare not because they might be discharged. So I thought I would tell you.

My fellow Americans, America is faced with a formidable enemy. This enemy has a name: Islam. I think it is time to revisit the First Amendment of the US Constitution and see if Islam is qualified as a religion. Is this an outlandishly absurd proposal? Not at all, serious problems require equally serious solutions. The call for evaluation of the First Amendment may be seen as an attempt to curb Islam or other militant cults. The truth is: it is. It is truly a matter of survival of the United States and the free world.

I argue that any belief system that licenses murder in the name of Jihad and the conquering and subduing of the world of the infidels by the Ummah, should be outlawed. Prophet Mohammed brewed up a militant, radical and extremely irrational imperialistic cult that sought world dominance. My fellow travelers, let us make one thing clear; Islam is no more a religion deserving our respect or legal recognition than is cannibalism.

It is time for the Americans to call upon the lawmakers of the United States of America to immediately create a safety board and commissioner to study and examine the dangers of Islamic dogma in our society. In the monumental task of dealing with Islam, every individual, group and government must combine their resources and energies to prevail. The destiny of the civilized life hangs in the balance. Shirking responsibility is an unpardonable act of every enlightened human being and organization that values human liberty and dignity.

The disclosure of Chinese military aid comes as the Obama administration tries to persuade Beijing to join other members of the UN Security Council, the EU and major non-aligned states such as Brazil to adopt a new set of tough sanctions to punish Iran for its nuclear-arms program. Proliferation of defense industrial know-how and brain power from Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics to Iran - specifically advanced anti-ship missiles, nuclear technology and ballistic-missile designs - has been at the top of US concerns since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Iran has made little effort to disguise what analysts say is a modern-day "underground railroad" of Russian and Ukrainian scientists who traveled to the Islamic state on what were officially deemed "tourist" visits or to attend scientific conferences with benign themes. In reality, the scientists are engaged in assisting Iranian weapons development programs. A 2009 CIA report to Congress states that assistance from Chinese and Russian entities "helped Iran move toward self-sufficiency in the production of ballistic missiles."

To many, peeling potatoes is a boring way to spend a few minutes that you would rather spend reading a book, watching a film or with your family. In the UK, there are people who really can't be bothered with the most basic of culinary chores. Figures out this week from the price comparison website mysupermarket.co.uk suggest there has been an increase over the past two years in the amount of money spent on a basket of "lazy food" products like grated cheese, sliced fruit and ready chopped vegetables.

Lesley Ball, a Wiltshire-based home economist who teaches children about healthy eating and food provenance, says ready-prepared ingredients distort our perception of food and where it comes from. "I work with children a lot and some of them think milk comes from a tiger or a chicken. Some products, such as ready-prepared mango, melon or passionfruit are great for giving to children to introduce them to new tastes without having to buy a whole one, but they then don't have a clue what a whole mango looks like. This happens even with something as simple as an orange. They associate food not with something that's grown, but with a shop."

There's a clear environmental issue with the rise of "lazy food". Diced onions come in a plastic bag. An un-diced onion comes in its own natural packaging - onion skin. Rosalind Rathouse, principal of London's Cookery School, isn't surprised by the rise in sales of so-called lazy food - seeing it as a reflection of how people are distanced from the cultivation of what we eat. Many of those passing through her cookery classes have little idea about seasonality and sustainability of ingredients.

The whole idea of buying your food has an intrinsically "lazy" element. You didn't kill it or grow it yourself. The concept of the supermarket is a further slide into laziness. It obviates the need to trawl round the butcher, the baker and greengrocer.

Fiji sent naval patrol boats laden with supplies and support staff sailing for the northern islands that bore the full brunt of the storm, while Australian and New Zealand air force planes began airlifting emergency supplies to the island group. "It is evident that wherever (Cyclone) Tomas has struck, the damage has been overwhelming," Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Fiji's prime minister and military chief, said Wednesday as the first reports began to roll in.

Cyclone Tomas, packing winds of up to 130 mph (205 kph) at its center and gusts of up to 175 mph (280 kph), started hitting Fiji late Friday. It blasted through the northern Lau and Lomaiviti island groups and the northern coast of the second biggest island, Vanua Levu, before losing strength as it moved out to sea Wednesday, the nation's weather office said.

National Disaster Management Office spokesman Pajiliai Dobui said an airplane was carrying out aerial surveillance over some northern islands Wednesday "and we hope to tell from the air how serious the damage has been." Offshore islands remained out of all contact "so we have still not got any word about casualties," he said.

Jews refer to the compound as the Temple Mount and consider it their holiest site because the second Temple stood there before the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD.

Rival Palestinian factions united in condemning the high-security opening of the landmark synagogue, which had last been destroyed 62 years ago in fighting with Jordan during the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation. "This is no mere synagogue," said Hatem Abdel Qader, the official in charge of Jerusalem affairs for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement. "This synagogue will be a prelude to violence and religious fanaticism and extremism, and this is not limited to Jewish extremists but includes members of the Israeli government," he added.

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, declared Tuesday a "day of rage and alarm" and called on Arabs and Muslims to "come to the aid of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa." The US State Department took strong exception to the Palestinian statements, saying "such incitement" would heighten tensions. Palestinians were all the more irate since Israeli police have restricted access to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound since Friday and the army has sealed off the West Bank, fearing unrest.

Eight Palestinians were taken to hospital, with fractured bones, eye and stomach injuries, and dozens more were treated on the spot, according to the emergency services of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said six officers were taken to hospital and 42 Palestinians arrested.

There were clashes near Jerusalem's Qalandia checkpoint with the West Bank, in the Shuafat refugee camp and in several other parts of east Jerusalem which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognized by the international community. Clashes also broke out in the nearby city of Hebron in the... West Bank. As the rioting was under way Hamas deputy politburo chief Mussa Abu Marzuk called for a popular Palestinian uprising. "The intifada must enjoy the participation of all of Palestinian society," he told Al-Jazeera television. "Every Palestinian should rise up... against the forces of the (Israeli) occupation."

In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip thousands of people took to the streets, chanting: "With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice for you, Jerusalem." Anger was high among Palestinians over plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits - billions more each year. Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes - nearly $29 billion more. Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg.

Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs - in the form of Treasury bonds - which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices. Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion-dollar deficits for years to come.

The documentary - due to be broadcast in France on Wednesday - used the ruse of a TV show to explore how even a game show host had the authority to persuade participants to inflict horrendous pain on other people. "It's more about the notion of power than about the individual," the show's producer, Christophe Nick told Reuters Television. "When a person is alone, face to face with someone abusing their power, then he or she becomes completely malleable and obedient."

The fake TV contest was called "Zone Xtreme" (Extreme Zone) and the documentary says that 81 percent of those who took part were persuaded by the show's host to deliver intensifying electric shocks to victims, despite increasing howls of pain. Urged on by the game show host, around 70 percent of contestants laughed at least once during the ordeal, the program producers said, and only 19 percent put a stop to the game before reaching the maximum charge of 420 volts.

Milgram's study began a few months after the start of the Israeli trial against Nazi Adolph Eichmann for his role in organizing the transport and murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust and was meant to measure the willingness to obey an authority figure who instructed participants to perform acts that conflicted with their personal consciences. By adapting the experiment to the television, Nick said serious issues were raised about the pervasive role TV has taken on in modern society, and the powerful influence it can have on human behavior when abused.

"In Milgram's case 62 percent of participants obeyed abject orders; with television it's 81 percent," he said. "Therefore you have to ask yourself a question which is more than about submission to an authority, but about the power of a system, a global system, which is television."

The apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum Coetibus," published in November, offered a way for groups of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church through the establishment of personal ordinariates, a new type of canonical structure. In this way, they would be able to retain some elements of their liturgical and spiritual traditions while being unified under the Pope.

The petition from Canada, dated March 12, was sent to Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In it, the College of Bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC), a member of the Traditional Anglican Communion, expressed gratitude for the congregation's "positive response of December 16, 2009 to our letter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of October 5, 2007."

Leaders of the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has some 400,000 members worldwide, sent a letter to the Holy See in October 2007 to request full unity with the Catholic Church. They declared their adherence to Catholic doctrine, but expressed the desire to retain some distinct Anglican traditions.

The letter was received by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which responded in July 2008 with the promise to consider this possibility.

Ironically, in the very heart of Jerusalem lies a parcel of real estate which has been granted de facto some sort of extra-legal, extraterritorial status, a veritable "Wild West" where the rule of law does not exist and the most basic and inalienable democratic rights are not honoured. This is the Temple Mount.

Unlike any other group of human beings ascending the Mount (and thousands of tourists from around the world do so every day), Jews are not allowed to be on the Mount in gatherings of more than 10 or 20 at a time, and they are accompanied during the entire duration of their visit by police officers and a Waqf official to ensure that they do not violate the prohibitions. Needless to say, prayer books, the Tanach, tefillin or a tallit are strictly forbidden. Non-Jews (by and large, non-Israelis), who accompany Jewish visitors to the Mount (and many do so out of a desire to experience the Temple Mount from a Jewish perspective), are accorded the same shabby treatment.

It is a positive commandment for Jews to visit the Temple Mount, the site of the Holy Temple. This commandment is known as "showing reverence to G-d in the place of the Holy Temple," its source is Leviticus 19:30. It is enumerated by Maimonides, (Mishneh Torah, Sefer HaAvoda, Hilchot Beit HaBechira, chapter 7). As Maimonides explains, this commandment remains in effect, despite the fact that the Temple is in ruins.

The Temple Institute has declared this coming Tuesday, March 16, the first of the month of Nisan, to be International Temple Mount Awareness Day. We call upon our supporters to petition the government of Israel for change, and are inviting all who feel a connection to the place of the Holy Temple to join us as we ascend the Mount. The gathering is intended to be one of religious expression and is not political in nature. Our intentions are only peaceful. In the likely case that we are denied our democratic right to be seen and to be heard on the Mount, we will disperse peacefully.

So far the protests have remained peaceful and both sides say they want to avoid violence. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Monday rejected a demand from protesters to quit and call elections. The stand-off is the latest in a deep political schism in the country linked to the 2006 military coup which deposed former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

The protesters say the present government was installed illegally after Mr Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in 2006, and two subsequent allied governments were deposed by court action. On Sunday they held a mass rally in central Bangkok.

Wallis was in the news last week urging Christians to stop watching Fox News host Glenn Beck's program for Beck's remarks against churches that preach "social justice." The Associated Baptist Press described Wallis as a "politically progressive evangelical and longtime advocate for the poor." The Huffington Post identified Wallis as a "Christian author and social justice advocate."

Wallis, however, is a long time socialist advocate and founder of a far-left magazine, Sojourners, that has championed communist causes. He currently serves on Obama's White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He reportedly is a spiritual adviser to Obama and has known the president for years.

The world's five biggest AAA-rated states are all at risk of soaring debt costs and will have to implement austerity plans that threaten "social cohesion", according to a report on sovereign debt by Moody's. The US rating agency said the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Spain are walking a tightrope as they try to bring public finances under control without nipping recovery in the bud. It warned of "substantial execution risk" in withdrawal of stimulus.

"Growth alone will not resolve an increasingly complicated debt equation. Preserving debt affordability at levels consistent with AAA ratings will invariably require fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion," said Pierre Cailleteau, the chief author. "We are not talking about revolution, but the severity of the crisis will force governments to make painful choices that expose weaknesses in society," he said.

If countries tighten too soon, they risk stifling recovery and making maters worse by eroding tax revenues: yet waiting too is "no less risky" as it would test market patience. "At the current elevated debt levels, a rise in the government's cost of funding can very quickly render debt much less affordable."