John Burton, Mr Blair's political agent in his Sedgefield constituency for 24 years, says that Labour's most successful ever leader – in terms of elections won – was driven by the belief that 'good should triumph over evil'."It's very simple to explain the idea of Blair the Warrior," he says. "It was part of Tony living out his faith."

"I truly believe that his Christianity affected his policy-making on just about everything from aid to Africa, education, poverty, world debt and intervening in other countries when he thought it was right to do it. The fervour was part of him and it comes back to it being Christian fervour that spurred him into action for better or worse." Mr Burton says that inherent in Mr Blair's faith was the belief that people should be treated fairly: "He applied that same principle in everything he did – from establishing the Social Exclusion Unit to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and ridding Iraq of the evils of Saddam Hussein's rule."

Tony Blair complained in 2007 that he had been unable to talk about his faith while in office. "It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," he said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter."

Since leaving Downing Street, he has set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and given a number of interviews about his faith. Last month, HE CHALLENGED THE ATTITUDES OF THE POPE ON HOMOSEXUALITY, and argued that it is time for him to "rethink" his views.

With the worldwide recession, prices have been retreating in the developed world. But they remain stubbornly high in many poorer nations, and with the return of tight supplies and high demand grain markets are again flashing warning signs that could prove expensive for world consumers. "I would say our (grain) markets are going to be quite well supported in this early part of the growing season, and I think potentially explosive at THE FIRST SIGN OF ANY SERIOUS WEATHER ADVERSITY after the crop finally is planted," said Rich Feltes, senior vice president at MF Global Research in Chicago.

US food prices jumped 5.5 percent last year - the biggest jump since 1990 - but are expected to moderate this year with a 3-4 percent rise tempered by lower dairy and meat prices. Food prices remain high in developing countries, however, and are clinging to record levels in some locales, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. THE AGENCY SAID "FOOD EMERGENCIES" PERSIST IN 32 COUNTRIES.

"Keeping people fed is always job one of most governments." said Dan Basse, president of the consultant AgResource. "As you see Saudi Arabia, China, others are now building strategic stockpiles, knowing that if anybody has a weather calamity or there's a supply disruption that there will be a food price shock." With South America's crop a disappointment, much focus is on the world's breadbasket, THE UNITED STATES, TO COME THROUGH WITH A BIG CROP FOR CORN, SOYBEANS AND WHEAT. And so far it's getting off to a soggy, slow start, but it could still produce solid results.

SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 TRILLION DEBT, A NATIONAL DEFICIT OF $11 TRILLION. At what point do we run out of money?

OBAMA: Well, WE ARE OUT OF MONEY NOW. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades. So we've got a short-term problem, which is we had to spend a lot of money to salvage our financial system, we had to deal with the auto companies, a huge recession which drains tax revenue at the same time it's putting more pressure on governments to provide unemployment insurance or make sure that food stamps are available for people who have been laid off.

So we have a short-term problem and we also have a long-term problem. The short-term problem is dwarfed by the long-term problem. And the long-term problem is Medicaid and Medicare. If we don't reduce long-term health care inflation substantially, we can't get control of the deficit. So, one option is just to do nothing. We say, well, it's too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can't afford it. We've got this big deficit. Let's just keep the health care system that we've got now. Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything...

The couple, whose names are being withheld until a demand letter can be filed on their behalf, told their attorney a county government employee knocked on their door on Good Friday, asking a litany of questions about their Tuesday night Bible studies, which are attended by approximately 15 people.

They were told that they must stop holding "religious assemblies" until she and her husband obtain a MAJOR USE PERMIT FROM THE COUNTY, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. And if they fail to pay for the MUP, the county official reportedly warned, the couple will be charged escalating fines beginning at $100, then $200, $500, $1000, "and then it will get ugly."

Dean Broyles of the Western Center for Law & Policy, which has been retained to represent the couple, told WND the county's action not only violates religious land-use laws but also assaults both the First Amendment's freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. "The First Amendment, in part, reads, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'" Broyles said. "AND THAT'S THE KEY PART: 'PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE.' We believe this is a substantial government burden on the free exercise of religion."

He continued, "If one's home is one's castle, certainly you would the think the free exercise of religion, of all places, could occur in the home." Broyles confirmed the county official followed through on his threat. The pastor and his wife received a written warning ordering the couple to "cease/stop religious assembly on parcel or obtain a major use permit."

Broyles also explained to WND that oppressive governments, such as communist China or Nazi Germany, worked to repress home fellowships, labeling them the "underground church" or "subversive groups," legally compelling Christians to meet only in sanctioned, government-controlled "official" churches. "Therein lies my concern," Broyles said. "If people can't practice their religious beliefs in the privacy of their own homes with a few of their friends, that's an egregious First Amendment violation."

"On all of these matters related to the disclosure of sensitive information, I wish I could say that there is a simple formula," Obama said. "But there is not. These are tough calls involving competing concerns, and they require a surgical approach. But the common thread that runs through all of my decisions is simple: we will safeguard what we must to protect the American people, but we will also ensure the accountability and oversight that is the hallmark of our constitutional system. I WILL NEVER HIDE THE TRUTH BECAUSE IT IS UNCOMFORTABLE. I will deal with Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. I will tell the American people what I know and don't know, and when I release something publicly or keep something secret, I will tell you why."

Joseph Farah, WND's editor and chief executive officer, reacted to Obama's statement in stunned amazement. "This is a guy who has no trouble turning over sensitive documents from previous administrations, but he still refuses to release for public view something seemingly so innocuous as his own birth certificate," said Farah. "This is a double-standard wide enough to sail the Queen Mary 2 through. Statements like this need to be challenged by a vibrant and free press. And that's what our 'Where's the birth certificate?' billboard campaign is all about."

"AS OBAMA TRANSFORMS THIS COUNTRY FROM SELF-GOVERNING CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC TO ONE GOVERNED BY A CENTRAL RULING ELITE, the simple fact remains that no controlling legal authority has established that he is indeed a 'natural born citizen' as the Constitution requires," Farah said. "Obama's promises of transparency have become a bad joke as he continues to hide simple, innocuous documents like his birth certificate and his student records." THE IDEA BEHIND THE BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN IS TO MAKE SURE OBAMA CANNOT AVOID THIS QUESTION ANY LONGER.

Germany has no shortage of events to celebrate in 2009. This fall, it will be exactly TWO DECADES SINCE THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, THE LANDMARK EVENT WHICH LED TO THE REUNIFICATION OF GERMANY. And on Saturday, the country will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the democratic Federal Republic of Germany. Indeed, the latter is just as astounding as the collapse of communist East Germany. After Germany was thoroughly devastated in World War II, an economic phoenix rose from the ashes.

The new constitution was signed on May 23, 1949 in Bonn, which would be West Germany's capital until it ceded to post-reunification Berlin in 1999. At the time, the country was in worse shape than it had ever been. World War II and the Holocaust had transformed Germany into a pariah among nations. What had once been the home of poets and thinkers, admired across the world, was now denounced as the refuge of inveterate warmongers, murderers and barbarians. Wherever they traveled, Germans were looked upon as criminals. Their country was divided among the war's victors, and it barely escaped being completely broken up and transformed into an agrarian state with no industry.

SIXTY YEARS LATER, GERMANS ARE LIVING IN PEACE WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS. Together they share a common currency - the euro - as well as the political institutions of the European Union. From a heap of bomb-destroyed ruins, GERMANY HAS EVOLVED INTO THE WORLD'S THIRD-LARGEST INDUSTRIAL NATION AND THE WORLD'S LEADING EXPORTER. In one half of the divided country, West Germans built up a model democracy, remarkable for its stability. Once the citizens of East Germany tore down the Berlin Wall in 1989, the division of Germany came peacefully to an end. It was one of the final bits of the Iron Curtain to fall.

Police said they would investigate the allegation that an officer tore up an Iraqi migrant's Koran while checking his identity papers in Athens last week. "But this isolated incident cannot justify these acts of violence," said Interior Minister Christos Markoyiannakis.

Waves of illegal immigration in recent years have led to an influx of Muslims, mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan, living in run-down parts of central Athens.

The Pope affirmed this today when he received in separate audiences the presidents of BULGARIA AND THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA, together with their delegations. The presidents' visit to the Pontiff has become a tradition to celebrate the co-patrons of Europe, Cyril and Methodius.

Speaking in French to Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, the Pope expressed his wish that Bulgaria would "effectively contribute to the BUILDING UP OF A EUROPE THAT REMAINS FAITHFUL TO ITS CHRISTIAN ROOTS." May "the values of solidarity and justice, liberty and peace, constantly reaffirmed today, find effectively even more strength and solidity in the eternal teachings of Christ, translated in the lives of his disciples in every age," he added. Sts. Cyril and Methodius are "founts of light and hope," the Pontiff continued, and emphasized that "their spiritual legacy has marked the lives of the Slavic peoples."

Then, in his meeting with Macedonian President Gjeorge Ivanov, Benedict XVI said in English: "The annual celebration of the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, teachers of the faith and apostles of the Slavonic peoples, INVITES ALL OF US WHO ARE UNITED BY THE ONE FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, to contemplate their heroic evangelical witness. At the same time we are challenged to conserve the patrimony of ideals and values that they have transmitted by word and deed. In fact this is the most precious contribution that Christians can offer to THE CONSTRUCTION OF A EUROPE OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM, which aspires to a future of progress, justice and peace for all."

Emergency services estimated that 21,500 people were isolated by the flooding, which has caused widespread evacuations from the Gold Coast in Queensland to the northern rivers region of New South Wales (NSW). One man, aged 70, died when his car was swamped by raging torrents that swept through the NSW town of Coffs Harbour, 340 miles north of Sydney, overnight.

Flood warnings were in place for ten rivers in northern NSW. Residents of the coastal town of Kempsey were ordered to evacuate in the early hours of the morning before the Macleay River breached its levy, cutting off the town. Nathan Rees, the NSW premier, has declared seven local government areas in the north of the state as disaster zones.

Large parts of the region's road network, including the Pacific highway which runs from Sydney to Brisbane, were also under water, further hampering evacuation efforts. It is the third time in recent months that some towns have been swamped by heavy rain. THE FLOODS FOLLOW A ONCE-IN-A-CENTURY HEATWAVE in southeastern Australia, in which more than 2,000 homes were razed by major wildfires and 173 people died.

Writing in the Times, he said: "Many will now be wondering whether the point has not been adequately made." The archbishop's comments come after Tory MP Nadine Dorries complained of a "McCarthy-style witch-hunt" for MPs. The archbishop said: "THE CONTINUING SYSTEMATIC HUMILIATION OF POLITICIANS ITSELF THREATENS TO CARRY A HEAVY PRICE IN TERMS OF OUR ABILITY TO SALVAGE SOME CONFIDENCE IN OUR DEMOCRACY."

But Labour MP John Mann told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the public had "a right to know" about MPs' expenses and that, ultimately, British politics could be strengthened by the affair. He said: "Clearly there's major embarrassment, there will be casualties, we don't know politically who the casualties will end up being, and so it's major trauma for the political system and for politicians."

"But if we handle it well from now on, we'll recover confidence and we could have a far better political system even within a matter of months." Mr Mann was speaking after Tory MP Nadine Dorries described the situation at Westminster as "completely unbearable" and suggested an MP might commit suicide under the pressure.

He claimed that he acted because campaigners were being frustrated in their attempts to access full details of how taxpayers' money was being spent. And so much of the information which Parliament was preparing to release this summer was red-acted that many of the worse scams and claims would have gone undetected.

Mr Wick – who commanded a British anti-terrorism team during his ten-year military service – is now the head of a corporate intelligence company which specialises in negotiating the release of hostages in foreign war zones.

SUGGESTING HE HAD BEEN MOTIVATED BY THE GROWTH OF THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY, he said: 'We've reached a stage where they want to know everything about us – I THINK WE'RE ENTITLED TO KNOW ABOUT THEM.' He added: 'Parliament will be a better place, society will be a better place. I have played my part in history

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.7 and was centered 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of the capital. The Mexican seismological service measured it at 5.9. Many ran outside across the metropolis of 20 million. Evacuation officials steered crowds away from power lines and other potential hazards, and anxious people waited for several minutes before returning indoors.

FRIDAY'S EARTHQUAKE WAS STRONGER AND CLOSER TO THE CAPITAL THAN ONE THAT HIT LAST MONTH. But Bruce Tresgrave of the U.S. Geological Survey said it was 35 miles (56 kilometers) below ground — deeper than normal — and thus unlikely to cause major damage.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard also said no damage was reported, and the capital's water system, hospitals and subway were not affected. Officials were conducting a more detailed survey. The capital has lived through powerful earthquakes, including one in 1985 that killed as many as 10,000 people. Parts of Mexico City rest on the shaky soil of a former lake bed, which tends to magnify the effect of earthquakes.

The latest banks seized were Strategic Capital Bank and Citizens National bank, both in Illinois. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp will continue to insure regular deposit accounts of up to $250,000 at both banks. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation's banking division took over Strategic Capital Bank, based in Champaign, Illinois, while the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency took control of Citizens National Bank, based in Macomb, Illinois. The FDIC was appointed receiver of both banks.

The closures brought this week's total to three, after federal regulators seized struggling Florida thrift bank United FSB on Thursday. That closure was expected to cost the FDIC $4.9 billion, representing the second-largest hit to the FDIC's insurance fund since the financial crisis began felling banks last year.

The costliest was last year's seizure of California lender IndyMac Bank, on which the bank insurance fund is estimated to have lost $10.7 billion. The closure of Strategic Capital Bank is expected to cost the FDIC $173 million, while Citizen National Bank's closure will cost about $106 million. The list of bank failures is growing as falling home prices and rising unemployment cause more individuals and businesses to default on their debt. THE 36 BANK FAILURES THIS YEAR (SO FAR) IN THE US COMPARE WITH 25 IN 2008 AND JUST THREE IN 2007.

PA sources said giving up claims to the Temple Mount and handing over control to the 57-member Saudi-based Islamic Conference Organization is conditional on Israel's agreeing to a final status agreement. Iran, which is classified as Persian and not an Arab country, is part of the Islamic group. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has opposed agreeing to a new PA state without knowing ahead of time what it would entail.

THE PA RECENTLY HAS ESCALATED ITS PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN THAT DISASSOCIATES THE HOLY SITE FROM ANY CONNECTION WITH JUDAISM AND CLAIMS IT IS SOLELY A MUSLIM SITE. The PA's official website as far back as 2005 rejected the Jewish connection with the Western Wall (Kotel), the remains of the wall that surrounded the Holy Temple area. Muslim legend claims that Mohammed tied his horse to the wall before ascending to heaven, even though the city of Jerusalem is not even mentioned in the Koran.

Writer Daniel Pipes for several years offered one million dollars to anyone who can find the name "Jerusalem" explicitly written in the Koran. Rabbi Richman said that the PA's denial of the Jewish Temple's existence "is part of a campaign to totally eradicate, erase, and destroy all Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem and the land of Israel." The PA incitement against Israel, WHICH VIOLATES THE AMERICAN ROADMAP PLAN, also attributes the 1929 Arab pogrom to Jewish efforts to claim ownership of the Western Wall.

Germans have reacted with alarm to the new annual report on POLITICALLY MOTIVATED CRIMES from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country's domestic intelligence agency. According to the report there were 19,894 far-right crimes reported in Germany in 2008 - an increase of almost 16 percent over the previous year. German commentators were unanimous in their calls on the federal government to do more to fight right-wing extremism.

THE CENTER-LEFT SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG WRITES:
The vast majority of the Germany population supports democracy. They don't allow themselves to be easily seduced by the enemies of the state; indeed, after the experiences of World War II, THEY BELONG TO ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST PEACE-LOVING SOCIETIES. It's hard not to be bothered by the almost accountant-like lack of emotion with which Schäuble delivers the Office for the Protection of the Constitution's report year after year. The rising number of far-right crimes and acts of violence calls for a bit more passion. Without it, it will be hard to reverse this horrifying trend.

THE CONSERVATIVE DIE WELT WRITES:
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have been spreading with increased vigor since the beginning of the global economic crisis. But to assume from these facts that Germany is somehow heading 'right' would be nothing more than fearmongering. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution puts the figure of far-right extremists in Germany at 30,000, out of whom 4,800 are neo-Nazis. Germany's democracy can bear up against that many cretins.

THE LEFT-LEANING BERLINER ZEITUNG WRITES:
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble gets all excited when it comes to things like amending the constitution to let Germany combat pirates. And, for him, deploying military forces within Germany is an urgent matter, just like rolling back data privacy protections to aid in the fight against terrorism. YOU WOULD HOPE THAT HE WOULD BRING THE SAME ZEAL TO THE ISSUE OF FAR-RIGHT EXTREMISM - and not just when it comes to gathering information and conducting surveillance.