Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA HAS REFUSED FOR TWO YEARS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s. "I ASSUME THAT WHAT IS THERE IS HIGHLY DAMAGING," Mr Horner said. "These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."

His fight mirrors one in Europe that has sprung up over the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the UK after thousands of e-mails from the center were obtained and appear to show researchers shaving their data to make it conform to their expectation, and show efforts to try to drive global warming skeptics out of the conversation. The center's chief has stepped down pending an investigation into the e-mails.

The center has also had to acknowledge in response to a freedom of information request under British law that it tossed out much of the raw data that it used to draw up the temperature models that have underpinned much of the science behind global warming. Mr Horner suspects the same sort of data-shaving has happened at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), another leading global warming research center.

In an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the UN climate summit starting Monday, Yvo de Boer said the e-mails pilfered from a British university fueled skepticism among THOSE WHO BELIEVE THE SCIENCE IS MANIPULATED TO EXAGGERATE GLOBAL WARMING. "I think a lot of people are skeptical about this issue in any case," de Boer said. "And then when they have the feeling... that scientists are manipulating information in a certain direction then of course it causes concern in a number of people to say 'you see I told you so, this is not a real issue.'"

E-mails stolen from the climate unit at the University of East Anglia appeared to show some of the world's leading scientists discussing ways to shield data from public scrutiny and suppress others' work. Those who deny the influence of man-made climate change have seized on the correspondence to argue that scientists have been conspiring to hide evidence about global warming.

Climate skeptics meeting in downtown Copenhagen for a panel discussion organized by a Danish nationalist party said the leaked e-mails highlighted the limitations of global warming research. "There has been a lot of this kind of activity going on, THERE HAS BEEN SUPPRESSION OF VIEW POINTS," said Roger Pielke, Jr, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado.

Critics call the holding pens — and a range of other security preparations made as thousands of government officials, heads of state, environmental groups and assorted anarchists descend on the Danish capital — over the top. The police say the detractors' reactions are overheated, if predictable.

"This is surely the biggest police action we have ever had in Danish history," said Per Larsen, the chief coordinating officer for the Copenhagen police force. "But I think the complaints are the kind we are very used to hearing in this country." Mr Larsen said that about $122 million was being spent to secure the city and to fortify the Bella Center, a sprawling site southeast of central Copenhagen where more than 15,000 negotiators and onlookers will gather to forge the framework for an agreement to address climate change.

Officials have made it clear that they aim to keep the peace during the 12-day conference, organized under United Nations' auspices. From new laws rushed through Parliament allowing stiffer fines and extended detentions for those deemed unruly, to public displays of newly acquired anti-riot and emergency equipment, leaders here say they are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. Meanwhile, a variety of protest and advocacy groups — some with obscure political lineage — have signaled in online postings and other public statements that they will not be cooperating.

Copenhagen's city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to 'Be sustainable - don't buy sex'. "Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes," the approach to hotels says.

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.

The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, DESCRIBED HIS VISIT AS "OPPORTUNISTIC" and a "waste of time". Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: "It is almost as if we are the product of an unwanted affair... he has done nothing for us."

Sapper Matthew Weston, 20, is one of the most seriously injured soldiers to have survived. He lost both legs and his right arm when a bomb exploded on a dirt track outside Sangin. He said: "I didn't want to speak to him, I didn't want to waste my time talking to SOMEONE WHO WAS JUST TRYING TO MAKE THEMSELVES LOOK GOOD. I spent the day with my family instead. Half the lads didn't want to speak to him and those that did pretty much blamed him for everything. Many of the lads just closed their curtains and hid themselves away.

"I met Prince Charles and Sir Richard Dannatt [when they visited Selly Oak]. I have respect for them. Prince Charles spoke to me for two hours. I really didn't want to speak to Gordon Brown."

The Rev Rod Thomas, the leader of the conservative evangelical group Reform and a member of the General Synod, said: 'I feel deeply ashamed that this is happening in the Anglican Church. I THINK A SCHISM IS ABSOLUTELY INEVITABLE.' But St Paul's Cathedral's Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser, a leading liberal, said: 'THIS IS ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF CHRISTIAN HOMOPHOBIA.'

Canon Glasspool, 55, has openly stated that she has lived with her partner, Becki Sander, since 1988. American Gene Robinson became the first gay Anglican bishop in 2003.

Although they account for less than 5% of staff in RBS's investment division, the traders and corporate financiers who have been lured away are estimated to have earned it between £600m and £700m last year — almost 8% of its 2008 income. A stand-off with the government over the payment of bonuses for 2009 threatens to spark a fresh wave of resignations in the new year, according to banking sources.

The rate of departures is believed to have been accelerated by the storm over bonuses. To stem the tide, the RBS board wants to boost the bonus pool at the investment bank by at least 50%, to about £1.5 billion. The board believes that profits generated by the investment bank, which employs 14,000 people, are vital to getting money back for taxpayers — who will soon own 84% of RBS as the state's stake rises. Although Gordon Brown has indicated that RBS will not be discriminated against in the government's bonus crackdown, Treasury sources have suggested that an increase on last year's bonus pool is unlikely.

ANY BONUSES PAID OUT BY RBS ARE LIKELY TO SPARK A PUBLIC OUTCRY in the present economic climate. Many large British companies have enforced pay freezes on staff to help ride out the recession. Investment banks, however, are enjoying a boom in profits due to the loss of competition in the sector after the demise of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, and because of the trillions of pounds in financial stimulus pumped into the system by governments around the world. Threats by regulators to clamp down on bonuses have encouraged banks to raise salaries instead. BARCLAYS CAPITAL LAST WEEK TOLD SOME STAFF TO EXPECT PAY TO DOUBLE — AND THE RISE WOULD BE BACKDATED TO JUNE.

On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200. "WE THOUGHT THEY WERE NOT GOING TO HAVE MANY CARS, DUE TO IT BEING A CLIMATE CONVENTION," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report."

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "WE'RE HAVING TO DRIVE THEM IN HUNDREDS OF MILES FROM GERMANY AND SWEDEN."

AND THE TOTAL NUMBER OF ELECTRIC CARS OR HYBRIDS AMONG THAT NUMBER? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish."

As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles. A Republican US senator, Jim Inhofe, is jetting in at the head of an anti-climate-change "Truth Squad." THE TOP HOTELS – ALL FULLY BOOKED AT £650 A NIGHT – are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges. The hot air this week will be massive…

Figures released by the Department of Health reveal that 20,247 WOMEN UNDER 25 HAD A REPREAT ABORTION - with 5,000 of those being teenagers. The alarmingly high numbers were released to the Conservative shadow health minister Anne Milton in answer to a Parliamentary Question. She said that they demonstrated the "failure" of government policy.

"These figures demonstrate the Government's failure to produce a coherent and effective sexual health policy for England," said Mrs Milton, a former nurse. "It is of huge concern that such a high number are having repeat abortions. Why is it that we are not able to reduce the number of young girls who not only end up with one unwanted pregnancy, but then just go back and have another?"

But NHS statistics show that around 3,800 women have had four or more abortions, AND THAT ABOUT A THIRD OF ALL LAST YEAR'S 195,296 TERMINATIONS IN ENGLAND AND WALES WERE REPEAT ABORTIONS. In all, 46,336 unattached women of all ages ended a pregnancy for at least the second time in 2008, as did 9,536 married women, of whom 5,774 were under 35 and 3,762 older, according to the answers. A further 6,304 whose marital status was classed as "other/not known" did the same, pushing the overall total to 62,176.

After suffering the long delay and a lengthy queue to be served, Mr Haynes was understandably hungry. He saw some egg sandwiches on sale behind the bar that looked appetising, but when the 58-year-old came to order he was astonished to be told he couldn't buy one. Mr Haynes explained that he was not trying to get a free meal and was happy to pay, BUT THE STEWARD AGAIN TOLD HIM THAT HE COULD NOT SELL HIM A SANDWICH.

Recalling the bizarre exchange yesterday, Mr Haynes said: 'When I asked the man why not he said it was for health and safety reasons. I told him I didn't understand how health and safety came into selling a hungry stranded passenger an egg sandwich on a broken-down train.'

Mr Haynes said that when he asked for an explanation a second time, the steward replied: 'Don't you see? IF THE TRAIN HAS TO BE EVACUATED YOU COULD CHOKE TO DEATH ON THE SANDWICH.' Mr Haynes, a bar manager himself, said: 'I've never, ever heard anything so ludicrous in my life. There was a queue of people behind me and they all looked shocked.'

They have also engaged lawyers to write to Attorney General Baroness Scotland and the coroner Nicholas Gardiner calling for a full re-examination of the circumstances of his death. The doctors are asking for permission to go to the High Court to reopen the inquest on the grounds that it was improperly suspended. If Baroness Scotland rejects that demand, or the court turns them down, their lawyers say they will have grounds TO SEEK JUDICIAL REVIEW OF THE DECISION.

Dr Kelly was found dead at a beauty spot near his Oxfordshire home in 2003, days after he was exposed as the source of a story that Tony Blair's government 'sexed-up' its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq. In one final phone conversation, he told a caller he wouldn't be surprised 'if my body was found in the woods'. The inquest into Dr Kelly's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as 'fulfilling the function of an inquest'. LORD FALCONER, A FORMER FLATMATE OF TONY BLAIR, WAS ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR PICKING LORD HUTTON TO RUN THE INQUIRY.

Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by severing an ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers but he skated over the controversies about the causes of death. The bulk of his report was dedicated to the political row between Downing Street and the BBC, which revealed the sexing-up of the dossier. Dr Kelly's death certificate states that he died of a haemorrhage, but the results of a post mortem examination have never been made public. Crucially, the doctors say that Lord Hutton had no witnesses on oath and did not have to make a finding, as the coroner does, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Others have voluntarily moved to part-time positions rather than lose their jobs, with official statistics showing a record one million people who want to work full time are now unable to secure anything other than reduced hours work. The Treasury calculates that by accepting these measures 1.7 million who might have been made redundant in the recession have been saved from the dole queue.

HOWEVER, AS A RESULT INCOME TAX RECEIPTS HAVE COLLAPSED.

The consequence is that the Government will next week confirm that it is facing THE BIGGEST PEACETIME DEFICIT IN HISTORY, with the amount it is set to borrow this year alone set to be close to £180 billion - the equivalent of the entire NHS and education budgets combined.

What European leaders fail to mention is that TWO-THIRDS OF THE EU'S CARBON DIOXIDE REDUCTION IS ACCOUNTED FOR BY CARBON CREDITS: investments in projects in the developing world that count towards a rich country's own greenhouse gas reduction commitment. And many of those carbon credits don't lead to any CO2 reduction at all.

The Kyoto protocol set up a system of trading in carbon credits called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In return for investing in clean technology in poor countries, rich countries are granted 'certified emissions reductions' or carbon credits. For instance, investing in a CO2 reducing project in Mexico gives the Netherlands the right to emit more CO2 at home. The logic behind carbon credits is that it doesn't matter where on the planet CO2 emission is reduced so long as it is reduced. So why not do it where it can be done cheaper?

IN PRACTICE, HOWEVER, CARBON CREDITS HAVE BECOME A BIG SWINDLE. CDM has resulted in little to no reduction in CO2 emissions. The credits are used mainly to pour money into energy projects that would have been carried out regardless of Western funding. LESS THAN 10 PERCENT OF CDM PROJECTS ARE EVEN DIRECTED AT SAVING ENERGY.

The importance of carbon credits to the negotiations in Copenhagen cannot be underestimated. They allow the EU countries to pat themselves on the back for committing to a 30 percent carbon dioxide reduction. What the European leaders never mention is that EU member countries have agreed among themselves that TWO-THIRDS OF THIS REDUCTION WILL BE ACHIEVED BY BUYING CARBON CREDITS in CDM projects in the developing world. SO EUROPE IS REALLY COMMITTING TO ONLY A 10 PERCENT REDUCTION BY 2020 AS COMPARED TO 1990.

If we want real climate change it is crucial for the European economy to change drastically both by saving energy and by generating renewable energy in substantial quantities in Europe itself. What is Europe's promise in Copenhagen to reduce greenhouse gases by 30 percent really worth if it plans to achieve that promise BY BUYING UP FAKE CREDITS ABROAD, WHILE REFUSING TO TAKE POLITICALLY CHALLENGING CLIMATE MEASURES AT HOME?

The two-decade compilation "Better Off Red" reveals trends in coverage – from glowing reports of Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev to perverse arguments that the end of communism was a setback for human rights – and cites dozens of liberal, pro-communist accounts. Lowlights include:

• CBS anchor Dan Rather asserting in 1987 that "Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy."

• NBC's John Chancellor lecturing that "the problem isn't communism; nobody even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages," as the Soviet coup unraveled in 1991.

• Time magazine's Strobe Talbott claiming the threat of totalitarian communism never even existed as he reported "Gorbachev is helping the West by showing that the Soviet threat isn't what it used to be, and what's more that it never was."

• CBS's Harry Smith scorned that "Yes, somehow, Soviet citizens are freer these days — freer to kill one another, freer to hate Jews," in 1990. "Doing away with totalitarianism and adding a dash of democracy seems an unlikely cure for all that ails the Soviet system."

MRC President Brent Bozell commented on the compilation: "The collapse of the Berlin Wall was the official END OF A BRUTAL AND VICIOUS DICTATORSHIP. But unfortunately for too many in the media, it was just THE START OF A SHAMEFUL TIRADE AGAINST CAPITALISM.

"This report shows the depths to which some 'reporters' went to cast a favorable light on communism. Their alarming distortions should offend those who suffered the nightmare of the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes in East Germany and across Eastern Europe. It should also enrage those of us WHOSE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN WILL HAVE TO RELY ON MEDIA FOR A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT.

Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, DESPITE TWO WEEKS OF NON-STOP REPORTING ON AND DISCUSSION OF CLIMATEGATE IN A WHOLE HOST OF MEDIA OUTLETS. Perhaps the broadcast networks only trust their fellow liberal press outlets, like the New York Times. Perhaps they don't realize the Times exhibited journalistic diligence on ClimateGate, with a front page story the day the story broke.

In the event that ABC News, NBC News and CBS News missed the news, the Media Research Center (MRC) is today rushing each of them a copy of the Times story, in the hopes that armed with this new information, THEY WILL FINALLY REPORT A STORY THAT HAS BEEN ROILING NEARLY EVERYWHERE ELSE FOR A FORTNIGHT. So as not to offend the networks' pro-global warming sensibilities, MRC President Brent Bozell is looking to have the stories delivered by bicycle messenger.