MPs will now vote whether to go ahead with lifting the ban. The amendment was moved by Lord Alli, a Labour peer who is himself homosexual, and was backed by lords from all parties on a free vote, in the face of fierce opposition from some church leaders, by 95 to 21.

Supporting the move Baroness Butler-Sloss, the retired high court judge who sits as a cross-bench peer, said: "I believe that same sex couples should be able to have religious services in religious establishments where that particular religious establishment permits them do to so." She added that the Quakers and some liberal Jewish synagogues had expressed an interest in conducting services for homosexual couples.

A Government spokesman said that a decision had yet to be taken over whether MPs would also be allowed to vote with their conscience when the Bill comes back before the Commons in the next few weeks.

There is no clear leadership framework, nor is there a budget. Nevertheless, the service has become the subject of intense debate in capital cities throughout the 27-member bloc. Diplomats from Germany and France are displeased with the personnel preferences being shown by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, according to an article in the Guardian. Citing anonymous sources, the paper says there is concern that four of the 12 positions in her Brussels office have been given to Britons and that several important jobs in the new EU diplomatic service have gone to UK diplomats.

Ashton has occupied her new position, created when the Lisbon Treaty entered into force last December, for three months. More time will pass before she submits her official proposal for how the EU's new foreign policy apparatus should look. Ultimately, it will likely include some 130 European Union ambassadors and 7,000 diplomats - and discussions on how those positions might be divvied up are underway among Europe's 27 foreign ministers. Already, though, the first governments are sounding the alarm.

Further criticism is inevitable. Skeptics say the EU's new diplomatic service is doomed to failure. The experiment will end in disappointment, the Europe columnist of Britain's Economist magazine wrote in his Charlemagne blog. Even the upgraded service won't be able to achieve any more than the EU Commission has in its diplomatic efforts to date, the columnist added, because it doesn't enjoy confidence: every member state will continue to put its interests first and even go as far as undermining the common EU interest, if necessary.

The question of how to deal with Greece's debt, which has triggered talk about the possible breakup of the euro zone, is set to come to a head on Friday at talks in Berlin between Merkel and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. "The pressure is growing - the chancellor knows that. She is still waiting for the right time to justify the billions (in aid) for Greece," wrote the center-right Die Welt. "But by then the situation in the financial markets could have spun out of control... The billion euro question is now therefore 'when will Merkel move?'" it added.

Polls show most Germans are against taxpayers bailing out Greece and the debate has at times degenerated into a spat between Berlin and Athens about war claims dating back to the Nazi occupation. However, there are discrete talks among euro zone governments on possible mechanisms to support Greece if necessary, EU sources say. Germany would have to be involved.

"We think some sort of financial help will be needed at some point," said Giada Giani, an European economist at Citigroup, adding euro zone states seemed to be working on a coordinated deal in which France and Germany would play the biggest roles. "They (politicians) in Germany and elsewhere are trying to prepare public opinion and they will try to find a form of financial help that is not a direct loan... they are looking for the most politically acceptable solution," she added.

"If aid is to come, Merkel's job may be made easier by a more understanding media. One of the strongest arguments for aid was put by the center-left Berliner Zeitung. What would happen if the European currency Union actually fell apart? German banks - among the country's biggest creditors - would be dragged into the mess," it wrote. "But the most important reason to keep the euro is political. If the currency union were to collapse, conflict, uncertainty and economic losses would loom and THIS COULD PIT THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE AGAINST EACH OTHER.

Whether it's textiles in the Carolinas, paper in New England or steel in the Midwest, most industrial cities and mill towns "are on pins and needles," says Donald Schunk, an economist at Coastal Carolina University. "Day to day, week to week, any manufacturing facility seems vulnerable. People don't know if they'll be there." Anxiety over possible layoffs or closings can disturb workers as much as the real thing, experts say.

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert says it's uncertainty that really bothers people: They feel worse when they think something bad might happen than they do when they know it will happen. Kate Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell labor relations professor who studied the 1990 Ravenswood lockout, says that if the second plant closes "that town would die." Other communities sustained by manufacturing face a similar fate, she adds: "We had ghost towns in the past. We could have them again."

The difference is that people could leave a ghost town - miners to work new veins, farmers to till fresh land, merchants to move closer to road or rail. Today, Tim Shumaker sees no such options. In past layoffs, he always found work somewhere; now there seems to be none anywhere. So, like almost everyone else here, he's staying put, wondering whether Ravenswood could become a new kind of ghost town: a place where people stay, because they have nowhere else to go.

In the report, the panel, that includes Rob Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance and bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren, warns that financial regulatory reform measures proposed by the Obama administration and Congress must be beefed up to prevent banks from continuing to engage in high risk investing that precipitated the near collapse of the US economy in 2008.

The report warns that the country is now immersed in a "doomsday cycle" wherein banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management - and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government. "Risk-taking at banks," the report cautions, "will soon be larger than ever."

Without more stringent reforms, "another crisis - a bigger crisis that weakens both our financial sector and our larger economy - is more than predictable, it is inevitable," Johnson says in the report, commissioned by the nonpartisan Roosevelt Institute. The institute's chief economist, Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz, calls the report "an important point of departure for a debate on where we are on the road to regulatory reform."

The study says that "In 2008-09, we came remarkably close to another Great Depression. Next time we may not be so 'lucky.' The threat of the doomsday cycle remains strong and growing," they say. "What will happen when the next shock hits? We may be nearing the stage where the answer will be - just as it was in the Great Depression - A CALAMITOUS GLOBAL COLLAPSE."

"Far ranging plans have been put on the negotiating table, not only in east Jerusalem, but proposals have been made for Israel to relinquish Jewish sovereignty over Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, and the City of David," said Begin. Begin went on to say that "in the name of the Israeli government, such proposals and ones like them will not be considered under any condition."

Apart from the pastings received at the hands of the US dollar and the euro, sterling also fell by more than 1.7 per cent against Zimbabwe's much-mocked paper, completing a decline of more than 7 per cent since the end of January. Some economists are convinced that this could be the start of a sterling rout, with investors losing confidence in Britain's resolve to tackle the gaping hole in its public finances.

The weakness of sterling over the past two years has been welcomed by Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, as a boost for exporters. So investors believe the authorities will do nothing to shore up the currency. One senior banker said yesterday his big worry was that if a bailout of Greece was agreed, all the hedge funds that have been shorting the euro could turn their attention to sterling.

Technical factors may have been in play, such as the Pru's need to exchange sterling for dollars ahead of its $35.5 billion acquisition of AIG's Asian business. But a bigger influence was undoubtedly the Sunday Times poll predicting a Labour election victory. Gordon Brown has been accused of many things. But the prospect of his re-election resulting in Robert Mugabe's currency being preferred to sterling must surely be one of the most hurtful.

Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for "friendly mediation" between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton said she agreed that negotiations were a sensible way forward and offered "to encourage both countries to sit down". Her intervention defied Britain's long-standing position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands' 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in Buenos Aires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands. Britain insisted there was no need for mediation as long as the islanders wanted to remain British. "We don't think that's necessary," a Downing Street spokesman said.

What began as a last-minute change to Mrs Clinton's itinerary on her five-day sweep through Latin America has snowballed into a major diplomatic incident that has emboldened Argentina, caught the US largely unawares, and could force Britain to reassess the level of international support for its efforts to develop a hydrocarbons industry in the Falklands basin.

The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission. Under the standard, each liter of biofuel should reduce emissions by at least 35 percent compared with burning a liter of fossil fuel. Yet the study shows that palm oil increases emissions by 31 percent because of the carbon released when forest and grassland is turned into plantations.

Rape seed and soy also fail to meet the standard. The Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation this year requires 3.25 percent of all fuel sold to come from crops. The proportion is due to increase each year and by 2020 is required to be 13 percent. The DfT commissioned E4tech, a consultancy, to investigate the overall impact of its biofuel target on forests and other undeveloped land. The EC has conducted its own research, but is refusing to publish the results.

As Mr Sarkozy presses ahead with plans to ban the wearing of the burka in public places, the FT's latest Harris poll shows the move is not just strongly supported in France, but wins enthusiastic backing in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.

The poll shows some 70 per cent of respondents in France said they supported plans to forbid the wearing of the garment which covers the female body from head to toe. There was similar sentiment in Spain and Italy, where 65 per cent and 63 per cent respectively favoured a ban

The strength of feeling in the UK and Germany may seem particularly surprising. Britain has a strong liberal tradition that respects an individual's right to full expression of religious views. But here, some 57 per cent of people still favoured a ban. In Germany, which is also reluctant to clamp down on minority rights, some 50 per cent favoured a ban.

Environmental groups have strongly opposed the introduction of GM crops. But the Commission insisted its decision was based on "a considerable volume of sound science". The Amflora variety was developed by German chemical and biotechnology firm BASF, for the special qualities of its starch.

BASF says: "Amflora starch can be used in many different ways. It makes yarn stronger and paper glossier; it also makes spray concrete adhere better to the wall and keeps glue liquid for longer." But it has been a political hot potato for seven years. BASF applied to grow it in Sweden in 2003. Sweden agreed but was obliged to seek EU permission.

The potato is expected to be planted in the Czech Republic and Germany this spring, and Sweden and the Netherlands in following years. The only other GM product currently grown commercially in the EU is Monsanto's MON 810 maize, which was cleared back in 1998. It is grown in five countries - Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania, Portugal and Slovakia.

In a news conference attended by MPs, representatives from the Metropolitan Police, charitable organisations, think-tanks and other groups, he called on Islamic leaders to convey the message that acts of terrorism cut people off as true followers of Islam. "They can't claim that their suicide bombings are martyrdom operations and that they become the heroes of the Muslim Umma (the wider Muslim community), no, they become heroes of hellfire, and they are leading towards hellfire," he said.

"There is no place for any martyrdom and their act is never, ever to be considered Jihad," he said. Dr Qadri, who spoke at length in both English and Arabic before his audience, said his fatwa, a religious edict or ruling, was an "absolute" condemnation of terrorism without "any excuses or pretexts".

"Good intentions cannot convert a wrong into good, they cannot convert an evil into good," he said. "Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts." He insisted that Islam was a religion of peace that promotes beauty, "betterment", goodness and "negates all form of mischief and strife".

In a year full of fiscal bad news for Greece, the country this week may be facing its most significant challenge yet. Needing to refinance 20 billion euros ($27 billion) in state debt by April and May, Athens will start this week with a 10-year bond issue worth up to 5 billion euros. At the same time, however, the European Union continues debating how best to help the country survive its precarious financial position - and on Monday, Brussels demanded that Athens do even more to cut state spending.

In an interview with the German business daily Handelsblatt on Monday, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who also heads up the euro zone, warned that the EU was willing to look into measures against speculators targeting Greece. "We have to strengthen the primacy of politics. We have to be able to stop the financial markets," he said. "We have the instruments of torture in the basement. We will display them if it becomes necessary."

The complex is the first 'supersize' cattle factory planned for Britain and follows growing concerns about the spread of 'zero-grazing' farming.

Justin Kerswell, of animal rights group Viva, said: 'This is factory farming - and it blows out of the water the pastoral image the dairy industry likes to portray.' The 40 million pounds farm will be built near Nocton, Lincolnshire, later this year. It will have eight hangars for 8,100 cattle and two 24-hour milking parlours.

The animals, fed on fodder, will spend most of their days inside where they will stand and sleep on sand rather than pasture. And they will be milked three times a day, while a typical dairy cow is milked just twice. Waste will be removed each day and fed into an anaerobic generator to produce enough electricity for more than 2,000 homes.

Robert Howard, a farmer behind the Nocton Dairies project, said the farm will be the largest in Western Europe and help the dairy industry compete against imports. 'Campaigners think cows should be like in the Anchor butter advert, with 50 to 100 cows dancing in a field,' he said. 'It is a lovely idea, but not the reality.' The Nocton Dairies' farmers hope to have planning permission by the end of next month and milk the first cow by September.

German Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner warned in an interview published on Monday that Internet giants like Google and Microsoft hold extensive amounts of personal data on Web users and said the firms should reveal what they know about people. Speaking ahead of the opening of Germany's annual CeBIT, the Hanover-based digital industry trade fair starting on Tuesday, Aigner said some IT companies had built up gigantic databases on their customers and that nobody knew how they were using the wealth of names, addresses and pictures at their disposal.

"Sector giants like Facebook, Apple, Google or Microsoft can compile entire personal profiles in the Internet," Aigner told the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung. "They know what we're interested in, what we buy, where we travel to and who we're friends with. Some consumers become really interesting for businesses as a result, while others may end up blacklisted and have problems finding work." She denied being hostile to Internet firms. "But everything has its limits. Some inventions such as face recognition software for mobile phone cameras to identify people on the street send cold shivers down my back. Even George Orwell wouldn't have dreamt of that."