For a few hours on September 25, the site where US presidents are traditionally inaugurated, will essentially be turned into A GIANT OUTDOOR MOSQUE. The Jummah service – weekly Friday prayers – will "echo off of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and other great edifices that surround Capitol Hill," according to the organizers.

They explain that the objective of the gathering is to "invite the Muslim Communities and friends of Islam to express and illustrate the wonderful diversity of Islam. We intend to manifest Islam's majestic spiritual principals [sic] as revealed by Allah to our beloved prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) of Arabia. Likewise, we intend to inspire a new generation of Muslims to work for the greater good of all people."

The event, organized by a mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey, is billed as a "Day of Islamic Unity. Thousands of Muslims from all races, creeds, colours and ethnicities will gather for the sole purpose of prayer," the organizers' website states, and "the peace, beauty and solidarity of Islam will shine through America's capitol."

THE WEBSITE PAGE CONCLUDES, "OUR TIME HAS COME."

The attacks in April left their 11-year-old victim fighting for his life at the foot of a steep ravine near Doncaster, his unconscious body bleeding from a slashing head wound and half-submerged in the waters of a former brick quarry. His nine-year-old friend and nephew was found wandering the streets of Edlington, South Yorkshire, dazed, covered in mud and bleeding from head to foot with a knife wound to his arm. Both boys had also been burnt with cigarettes.

The CPS decision means that the gruesome details of the case — which has chilling echoes of the 1993 James Bulger case — will no longer be have to heard in court although the events will be outlined in a sentencing hearing later this year. The brothers, who were in the care of social services, had moved to Edlington only three weeks earlier, having been placed with foster carers in the village.

The pair also pleaded guilty today to robbing one of the boys of a mobile phone and the other of cash. They also admitted two counts of intentionally causing a child to engage in sexual activity. The brothers had also been charged with one count each of attempted grievous bodily harm with intent and making a threat to kill in connection with an attack on another 11-year-old boy in Doncaster on March 28 — a week before the other attack.

Gordon Brown faced a backlash at home and abroad after it was confirmed that the Libyans had been told privately that he did not want Abdelbaset Al Megrahi to die in jail. And the Foreign Office was accused of tearing up a 'cast-iron' promise given to the Americans and the United Nations a decade ago that the terrorist - released last month on compassionate grounds - would stay behind bars in Scotland.

Some senior Labour figures are in despair at the Prime Minister's handling of the affair, and there was ill-disguised fury in the US, where there were claims that the Obama administration had been given only ten minutes' notice of the decision to release Megrahi.

Former US Justice Department official David Rivkin, who worked in both the Reagan and Bush administrations, said the Prime Minister had shown 'no interest' in keeping promises made to the US. 'THIS WILL DAMAGE US RELATIONS WITH BRITAIN FOR YEARS TO COME,' he said. 'This is the kind of duplicitous behaviour that most people here do not expect from Britain. I really can't think about a more duplicitous act by Britain vis-à-vis the United States in the post-war period.'

An extraordinary editorial in the New York Daily News called Mr Brown a 'sellout Prime Minister' who had 'broken faith and ties with the US. Can he remain in power having been revealed as at least complicit in an atrocious miscarriage of justice and breach of faith?' it demanded. 'AS FOR THE "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP" between the US and Britain, the alliance built on the resolve of World War II and carried on through Thatcher and Blair, through Iraq and Afghanistan, IT IS, IN A WORD, GONE.'

GERMANY IS LEADING DEMANDS that the Pittsburgh summit start discussions on how to scale back the bail-out. Peer Steinbrück, its Finance Minister, has called FOR THE REDUCTION OF FISCAL MEASURES as soon as possible. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has echoed the call for an exit strategy. An insider at the Bundesbank, said: "I never walk into a room without knowing how to get out of it."

Philip Shaw, chief economist at the investment bank Investec, said: "The authorities are aware that if they START EXITING TOO QUICKLY THEY RUN THE RISK OF KILLING OFF ANY RECOVERY. In the 1930s they tightened policy too early and it set everything back. THE RISK OF LEAVING IT TOO LATE IS THAT YOU CREATE AN ASSET BUBBLE, leaving interest rates too low for too long. That is precisely the sort of behaviour which sparked off the asset bubble that led up to the current crisis."

"The various governments are starting to talk about the need to draw up an exit strategy. It makes sense that since the bailout and stimulus packages were co-ordinated, the winding down of programmes should be co-ordinated too."

Last night Mr Darling said that the biggest risk to global economic recovery was complacency and that it was too soon to withdraw stimulus measures. "My view is that the biggest single risk to recovery is that people think the job is done," he told The Independent. He said that the situation was at a critical stage and added: "BANKS MUST REMEMBER THEY WERE RESCUED NOT FOR THEMSELVES BUT TO GET CREDIT GOING. THEY FORGET THAT AT THEIR PERIL."

We exposed Greenpeace's lie less than two weeks ago on our blog and on Big Hollywood, and forced the group to issue a rare "CLARIFICATION." Our piece and the companion video went viral. Even the pro-environment blog at the left-wing Guardian newspaper acknowledged that "GREENPEACE WILL BE BRUISED BY THIS FUROR."

But none of that exposure kept Kerry, Democrat representative for Massachusetts, from repeating and amplifying the lie in a predictably hysterical open editorial about "CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE" for the liberal Huffington Post. To justify his alarmism that global warming is a national security threat, Kerry parroted the tired and discredited claim about Arctic ice. "Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013," he wrote. "Not in 2050, but four years from now."

Greenpeace wasn't even willing to distort the truth that much when it mentioned melting Arctic ice in a July 15 article. The group pinpointed 2030 as doomsday, 17 years later than Kerry.

But even that claim was so bogus that Greenpeace's own leader recanted when pressed by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur. "I DON'T THINK IT WILL BE MELTING BY 2030 ...THAT MAY HAVE BEEN A MISTAKE," Gerd Leipold said last month on "Hardtalk." Kerry's decision to regurgitate and exaggerate the lie about melting ice just goes to show that NO FACT IS TOO SOUND FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS TO DISTORT and that they have NO QUALMS ABOUT USING THEIR SCARE TACTICS EVEN AFTER BEING CAUGHT IN A LIE. Being an environmentalist means never having to say you're sorry.

The new hardware on display also will include conventional cruise missiles and both short- and medium-range missiles, the Global Times newspaper reported, citing an unnamed People's Liberation Army source. "These missiles are domestically designed and manufactured and HAVE NEVER BEEN OFFICIALLY REPORTED BEFORE," the source, who is with the PLA's strategic missile defence unit, was quoted as saying.

THE WEAPONS HAVE ALREADY BEEN DISTRIBUTED TO THE MILITARY AND ARE READY FOR OPERATION, the source said. China's missile development programme has caused concern overseas, particularly in the United States, amid projections that it could soon tip the security balance in the Taiwan Strait. An August report by the Rand Corporation, a US think-tank, said China was increasing both the quantity and quality of its short-range ballistic missiles, which could challenge the US's ability to protect Taiwan from possible attack.

China also caused alarm overseas in 2007 when it successfully tested an anti-satellite missile, raising fears of a space arms race. China issued a military policy white paper earlier this year, saying its missile programme was aimed mainly at "deterrence". However, it added it was also capable of "conducting nuclear counter-attacks and precision strikes with conventional missiles."

China will stage a huge military parade and pageant in Beijing on October 1 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of communist China.

The 62-year-old also knew Tom Cruise in a former incarnation – when he was Japanese – and is now looking forward to making a Hollywood movie with him. "I believe he'd get it if I said to him, 'Long time no see', when we meet," she said in a recent interview. But it is her claim in a book entitled "Very Strange Things I've Encountered" that SHE WAS ABDUCTED BY ALIENS while she slept one night 20 years ago, that has suddenly drawn attention following last Sunday's poll. "While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," she explains in the tome she published last year. "It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green."

Though Mr Hatoyama is a multi-millionaire and the fourth generation of his family to rise to the top of the Japanese political world, his appearance is unconventional by rigid Japanese standards: his hair is unruly and he rejects the navy uniform of the political world in favour of suits of brown and moss green.

It is this refusal to bow to convention, as well as his tendency to drop conversation-stopping remarks – like his call, during the election campaign, for a "politics full of love" – that long ago led other Japanese politicians to dismiss him as an uchujin, an alien. Though not, presumably, the one who took Miyuki to Venus.

But Mr Darling told the Independent: "The biggest single risk to recovery is that people think the job is done." Britain also says a French plan to cap banker bonuses would be "unworkable". Removing government stimulus packages is expected to be on the agenda when G20 finance ministers meet in London from Friday, ahead of the G20 leaders' summit in Pittsburgh later this month.

Mr Darling told the newspaper: "There is a real risk that either governments or people generally think 'We have done that, we are on the path to recovery'. A lot of obstacles" remained to be negotiated on the path to recovery, including rising oil prices and unemployment, Mr Darling said. "We are at a critical stage," he added.

In comments ahead of the finance ministers meeting, being held in London, Sweden's Anders Borg said it was "VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE AS POLITICIANS GIVE A CLEAR MESSAGE THAT OLD BONUSES MUST COME TO AN END. THE BANKERS ARE PARTYING LIKE IT'S 1999, AND IT'S 2009. The bonus culture must come to an end and it must come to an end in Pittsburgh," he said, calling for finance ministers to have a "common message" on bonuses.

The BBC quotes Johnson saying that the Directive was "open to people to construe it as a naked attempt BY PARIS AND BERLIN TO ATTACK THE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE CITY OF LONDON... those suspicions in my view are not wholly unfounded." In City AM, Johnson argues that "If we allow this directive to go ahead unamended, these alternate investment funds will not migrate to Paris or Frankfurt, they will go to New York, Shanghai or Singapore."

PA quotes Johnson saying, "In London alone, the private equity and venture capital industry directly employs around 7,000 people and we estimate a further 35,000 people are employed directly and indirectly by hedge fund managers."

Writing in the FT, Director of Investment Affairs at the Association of British Insurers Peter Montagnon argues that "The restrictions on access to the European market that [the Directive] would place on fund managers in 'third countries' that do not adopt equivalent regulations are protectionist. The compliance burden is enormous and will stifle choice, while the purported protections are not particularly helpful to professional investors. Some of those managers the directive will hit are about as remote as you can get from the origins of the financial crisis."

Meanwhile, former Green Party MEP and Chairwoman of the People's Movement Patricia McKenna is considering a legal challenge against the Referendum Commission, claiming an information booklet on the Lisbon Treaty from the body is "EVASIVE", "INACCURATE" AND "MISLEADING" and must be changed or withdrawn immediately. The Irish Times quotes her saying, "This document which the voters believe to be balanced and non-partisan is one of the most disturbing aspects of the campaign to date".

The Irish Times reports that John Burke, an Irish cattleman, has told the High Court that he intends to challenge the legality of the second referendum on the Treaty on the grounds that no means no and that no written evidence of legal changes to the Treaty had been put before the electorate. He told the Court, "That vote [the first referendum] still stands and the Taoiseach has since told the electorate they have been misinformed and that they will have to vote until such time as they decide to vote the opposite".

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services called this a "historic settlement," which "will return nearly $1 billion to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government insurance programs." Meanwhile, Mike Loucks, acting US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts crowed "The size and seriousness of this resolution... reflects the seriousness and scope of Pfizer's crimes."

What exactly has Pfizer done that has officials basking in their success? Well, once again it has been charged with promoting off-label uses for its drugs and for "certain payments to healthcare professionals." In other words, representatives of the company were PROMOTING THE DRUGS FOR CONDITIONS THAT THEY HAVEN'T BEEN APPROVED for and giving doctors kickbacks to encourage them to prescribe the meds.

This is the largest such settlement in the US for claims of off-label drug promotion, topping the $1.42 billion Eli Lilly (LLY) agreed to pay earlier this year for off-label sales of its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug. Moreover, the $1.3 billion criminal penalty related only to Bextra is "the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States for any matter," according to the US Department of Justice.

The $1.0 billion in civil payments for infractions that Pfizer "expressly denies" except in the case of certain improper actions related to the promotion of Zyvox - break to approximately $503 million related to Bextra, $301 million for Geodon, $98 million for Zyvox, and $50 million for Lyrica. It also includes a civil payment of approximately $48 million to resolve allegations of kickbacks to healthcare professionals involving nine other Pfizer medicines.

THE COMPANY IS NO STRANGER TO SUCH ALLEGATIONS. In 2004, Warner-Lambert (which Pfizer acquired in 2000) paid a $430 million fine for promoting Neurontin off-label as a painkiller. 1,200 cases are still pending in the matter.

The survey found that many parents gave out 'breakfast money' so their children could buy food on the way to school instead of eating at home. However, a substantial slice of that went on unhealthy snacks. Children spend £646million a year on biscuits and cake as well as Peperami meat snacks, pasties and burgers as they travel to classes, the report said.

Nutritionist Kathy Cowbrough has warned that children's performance in the classroom will suffer as a result of their diet as they lose concentration and cause disruption. 'How often have we all seen young children not wanting to co-operate with harassed parents, or school children unable to stay alert for valuable lessons at school?' she said. 'This is because missing a decent breakfast means we can be saying goodbye to up to a quarter of the nutrients and energy we need for the day, making us more tired, irritable and less able to concentrate in the morning.'

Hospitals quickly filled with scores of injured people after the magnitude 7.0 quake struck off the southern coast of the main island of Java, where most of Indonesia's 235 million people live. The death toll was expected to rise. Disaster officials said homes and buildings had collapsed in three districts in densely populated West Java. About 30 people were trapped under rocks and dirt in one village, the official Antara news agency reported.

In the capital, Jakarta, 120 miles from the epicenter, panicked office workers ran onto the streets. The quake was felt as far away as Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, about 300 miles northeast of Tasikmalaya, and on the resort island of Bali, about 435 miles to the east. The US Geological Survey said the underwater quake was magnitude 7.0 and had a depth of about 30 miles.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago, straddles continental plates and is prone to seismic activity along what is known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. A huge quake off western Indonesia caused a powerful tsunami in December 2004 that killed around 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi from prison last Thursday after doctors said he had prostate cancer and has only months to live. Faced with mounting domestic and international pressure, the Scottish Parliament was recalled on Monday to discuss the matter. Opposition politicians strongly criticised Mr MacAskill's decision, and President Barack Obama also called it a "mistake".

Archbishop Conti, however, said that he, and many other Scottish Catholics, "admired the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on grounds of compassion", as this was "one of the principles inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament by which Scotland's government should operate". The Archbishop said: "The showing of mercy is not a sign of weakness. Indeed, in this situation, with the pressures and circumstances of the case, it seemed to me a sign of manifest strength."

Despite the barrage of criticism justice minister Kenny MacAskill has received, the Archbishop said he believed the decision ultimately to release Mr Megrahi would "be respected in the international community". "I have been impressed by the expressions of understanding and insight from Dr Jim Swire and other relatives who lost loved ones on the Pan Am flight who have acknowledged both the rightness of the gesture of compassion and THEIR DOUBTS AS TO THE SAFETY OF THE ORIGINAL CONVICTION," the Archbishop said.

Like them, the Archbishop said, HE DID NOT BELIEVE THE FULL TRUTH OF THE LOCKERBIE BOMBING HAD EMERGED. "I would welcome any move which would try to find clearer answers as to what happened and why," he added.

That Caldwell is so mainstream, well-respected and analytical makes his conclusion all the more devastating - that the mass migration of Africans and Asians into Europe since the Second World War was an unprecedented, economically unnecessary and ill-thought-out plan that has had a profoundly negative impact on our way of life.

Enoch Powell was right, at least in accuracy if not morality. His 1968 prediction about a non-white population of 4.5 million by 2002 was mocked - IN REALITY IT WAS 4.6 MILLION BY 2001. In 1970 he was again scorned for suggesting that Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Inner London would be between a fifth and a quarter non-white by the turn of the century. The figures were 22.2 per cent, 29.6 per cent and 34.4 per cent and rising.

Furthermore, he says, the mass importation of Muslims at a time WHEN EUROPE HAS LOST ITS OWN FAITH and Islam has developed a dangerous and powerful radicalism threatens the very freedom of Europe. The collapse of Christianity, and THE INTRODUCTION OF NOVEL MORALS such as the belief in sexual freedom and gay equality, totally at odds with both Muslim culture AND EUROPEAN CULTURE OF ONLY HALF A CENTURY AGO, has made conflict between Europe and the new Europeans even harder. That is why surveys consistently show Muslims and non-Muslims thinking the other side are "disrespectful" to women, or why a large minority of young British Muslims advocate the death penalty for apostasy or homosexuality.

Christopher Caldwell's new book - 'Reflections on the Revolution in Europe'