But agreeing to perform gay marriages, which are currently not allowed under civil law, could bring the Quakers into conflict with the government. The issue of active homosexuality has bitterly divided other churches. But the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the Quakers had been more prepared than other churches to reinterpret the Bible in the light of contemporary life.

The Quakers - also known as The Religious Society of Friends - are likely to reach consensus on the issue of gay marriage without a vote at their annual gathering in York on Friday. THEY WILL ALSO FORMALLY ASK THE GOVERNMENT TO CHANGE THE LAW TO ALLOW GAY PEOPLE TO MARRY. Quaker registrars, like rabbis and Church of England priests, have the authority to marry heterosexual couples on behalf of the state. But many British Quakers feel it is wrong to exclude a religious commitment from civil partnerships and want the right to marriage extended to same-sex couples too.

But within Britain's Christian community more widely the issue of homosexuality has caused major confrontations. MOST RECENTLY, THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, THE RIGHT REVEREND MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI, TOLD A NEWSPAPER THAT HOMOSEXUALS SHOULD "REPENT AND BE CHANGED".

Towering 1,200ft above the tropical stillness of the Sunda Strait in Indonesia, one of the most terrifying volcanoes the world has ever known has begun to stir once more. Almost 126 years to the day since Krakatoa first showed signs of an imminent eruption, stunning pictures released this week prove that the remnant of this once-enormous volcano is bubbling, boiling and brimming over.

With an explosive force 13,000 times the power of the atomic bomb that annihilated Hiroshima, the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa killed more than 36,000 people and radically altered global weather and temperatures for years afterwards. The eruption was so violent and catastrophic that no active volcano in modern times has come close to rivalling it, not even the spectacular eruption of Mount St Helens in the US in 1980. Now, almost a century-and-a-half on, are we about to experience the horrors of Krakatoa once again?

'Volcanic prediction is getting better,' says Professor Jon Davidson, chair of Earth Science at Durham University and a volcanologist who has studied Krakatoa first-hand. 'But we are never going to be able to fully predict big and unusual eruptions, precisely because they are unusual.' Yet there is little doubt that if Krakatoa were to erupt again with such force and fury, THE IMPACT WOULD BE FAR MORE DEVASTATING THAN THAT WHICH WAS EXPERIENCED IN THE 19TH CENTURY.

Official records of the time show that the 1883 eruption, together with an enormous tsunami it generated, destroyed 165 villages and towns, seriously damaged a further 132 and killed 36,417 people outright. Nearly 150 years on, the region where Krakatoa is situated between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago is more densely populated, with small farmers drawn to the rich and fertile volcanic soils of the area. IT IS NOT INCONCEIVABLE THAT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE COULD BE KILLED IF THERE WERE ANOTHER MASSIVE ERUPTION.

EVERY CRISIS HAS ITS WINNERS. A group of them is sitting in the Stuyvesant Room at the Marriott Hotel in New York. The conference room, where the shades are drawn and the lights are dimmed, is filled with men from Iowa, Sao Paulo and Sydney - corn farmers, big landowners and fund managers. Each of them has paid $1,995 (€1,395) to attend Global AgInvesting 2009, the first investors' conference on the emerging worldwide market in farmland.

A man from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) gives the first presentation. Colorful graphs travel up and down his PowerPoint charts. Some are headed downward as the year 2050 approaches. They represent the farmland that is disappearing as a result of climate change, soil desolation, urbanization and the shortage of water. The other lines, which point sharply upward, represent demand for meat and biofuel, food prices and population growth. THERE IS A GROWING GAP BETWEEN THESE TWO SETS OF LINES. IT REPRESENTS HUNGER.

According to most prognoses, there could be 9.1 billion people living on earth in 2050, about two billion more than today. IN THE COMING 20 YEARS ALONE, WORLDWIDE DEMAND FOR FOOD IS EXPECTED TO RISE BY 50 PERCENT. "These are pessimistic prospects," says the OECD man.

FOOD IS BECOMING THE NEW OIL. Worldwide grain reserves dropped to a historic low at the beginning of 2008, and the ensuing price explosion marked a turning point, just as the oil crisis did in the 1970s. There were bread riots around the world, and 25 countries, including some of the biggest grain exporters, imposed restrictions on food exports. Then came the second crisis of 2008, the economic crisis. Two fears - the fear of hunger and the fear of uncertainty - converged, TRIGGERING WHAT SOME ARE ALREADY CALLING A SECOND GENERATION OF COLONIALISM.

As obesity rates rise, paramedics in Nebraska and Iowa are faced with carrying more obese patients. In turn, paramedics find creative ways to move them, and some fire departments are looking to borrow or buy specialized equipment. Lincoln Fire & Rescue, for example, is considering putting a construction crane and a forklift on call for patients who are too big to get out a door or down steps.

Firefighters had to use a tarp to haul an 800-pound patient a few years ago. It's another example of how obesity can strain the health care system, whether that's hospitals or ambulance crews. The Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha in recent years has purchased heavy-duty beds and wheelchairs for obese patients.

Most notably, BOTH HOLY TEMPLES IN JERUSALEM WERE DESTROYED ON TISHA B'AV. Many tens of thousands of people spend Tisha B'Av, or parts of it, at the Western Wall – which, together with the Temple Mount, is the sole remnant of the Second Temple. Visitors spend hours mourning the destruction, the Exile of the Divine Presence and the unredeemed state of the Nation of Israel by reciting and studying the traditional Tisha B'Av lamentations and the Scroll of Eichah (Lamentations).

TISHA B'AV LAWS
The Sages enacted Yom Kippur-like restrictions on Tisha B'Av, including no eating, drinking, washing, or marital relations. Leather shoes are not worn, and even Torah study - a major source of Jewish joy - is restricted to topics connected with the Destruction of the Temples, prophecies of rebuke, Tisha B'Av, and the like. Sitting on chairs is not permitted until the afternoon.

The hour before the onset of Tisha B'Av is marked by a "mourning meal," consisting only of a hard-boiled egg dipped in ashes, bread, and water. It should be eaten while sitting on low stools or on the floor, with each person sitting alone in a different corner of the room.

The regular evening prayer service is followed by the reading aloud, in a traditional mournful melody, of Eichah.

When asked whether it was at all justified to mark something that had happened 2,000 years ago, 80% said that it was. Here too an analysis of the answers revealed that the positions on Tisha B'Av transcended religious divisions – 74% of seculars and 100% of ultra-Orthodox responded that dates like Tisha B'Av should be commemorated.

Gesher Director General Rabbi Danny Tropper told Ynet in response to the survey results: "We are a nation with a remarkable historic affinity. The Temple was destroyed 1,942 years ago, and almost two thirds of the population want to see it rebuilt, including 47% of seculars. I don't think this is a practical proposal, but it seems that Tisha B'Av really does constitute a day of meaningful memory to most of the people."

THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE WILL BEGIN BUILDING THE SACRIFICIAL ALTAR ON THURSDAY, Tisha B'av, a fast day when Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple some 2,000 years ago. The sacrificial altar was located in the center of the Temple, and upon it the Kohanim (priests) offered the numerous voluntary and obligatory sacrifices commanded in the Bible. The Temple Institute, which has already built many of the vessels for the Holy Temple, such as the ark and the menorah, has now embarked on a project to build the altar.

Construction begins Thursday IN MITZPE YERICHO (EAST OF JERUSALEM) at 5:30pm "Unfortunately, we cannot currently build the altar in its proper place, on the Temple Mount," Temple Institute director Yehudah Glick said. "We are building an altar of the minimum possible size SO THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO TRANSPORT IT TO THE TEMPLE WHEN IT IS REBUILT." Even a minimum size altar will work out to be approximately 2 meters tall, 1 meter long, and 1 meter wide. Workers have collected around 10 cubic meters of rocks weighing several tons already.

The rocks were gathered from the Dead Sea area and wrapped individually to assure they remain whole and are not touched by metal, as the Bible requires. "The Torah says that no iron tools should be used on the altar's stones," Glick explained. "The altar represents a connection to life and to the creation of the world. Iron is the opposite – it is used to build tools of war, death, and destruction."

MITZPE YERIHO is a communal Israeli settlement in the West Bank located 20 km east of Jerusalem. The village lies on one of the last cliffs marking the edge of the Judean highlands, and overlooks the ancient city of Jericho, the Jordan Rift Valley, and the Dead Sea, whence its name is derived. (en.wikipedia.org)

"It's almost immoral what they are doing," Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. "Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure," she said, adding, "They are the villains. THEY HAVE BEEN PART OF THE PROBLEM IN A MAJOR WAY. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening."

While public discontent is nowhere near the levels seen during the peak of the six-year-old war in Iraq, the increasing death toll in Afghanistan, and a sense that a resolution remains far off, are unsettling voters and there are signs this may grow into more widespread disaffection if no concrete progress is made.

"The Americans are there in force, but the other countries seem loathe to be there. It's just us and the Americans and I REALLY DON'T THINK THEY CAN WIN," said Keith Hicketts, a retired police officer from near the small market town of Amesbury on the edge of Salisbury Plain in England.

The sting of a global recession may make public support more fragile on both sides of the Atlantic. "Why are we fighting a war halfway around the world when the real war is here in America? WE SHOULD BE FIGHTING HOMELESSNESS OR JOBLESSNESS, NOT SOME ENEMY IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY," said Louis Hawkins, a pastor in Cleveland, a city in middle America.

It is, of course, not new to have a highly qualified scientist saying that global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon with many precedents in history. Many have made the argument, too, that it is rubbish to contend human behaviour is causing the current climate change. And it has often been well argued that it is totally ridiculous to suppose that changes in human behaviour - cleaning up our act through expensive sleight-of-hand taxation tricks - can reverse the trend.

But most of these scientific and academic voices have fallen silent in the face of environmental Jacobinism. PURGING HUMANKIND OF ITS SUPPOSED SINS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION HAS BECOME A RELIGION WITH A FANATICAL AND OFTEN INTOLERANT PRIESTHOOD, especially among the First World urban elites.

Plimer presents the proposition that anthropogenic global warming is little more than a con trick on the public perpetrated by fundamentalist environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians and government officials who love nothing more than an issue that causes public anxiety.

Plimer gets especially upset about carbon dioxide, its role in Earth's daily life and the supposed effects on climate of human manufacture of the gas. He says atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at the lowest levels it has been for 500 million years, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide is only 0.001 per cent of the total amount of the chemical held in the oceans, surface rocks, soils and various life forms. INDEED, PLIMER SAYS CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT A POLLUTANT, BUT A PLANT FOOD. PLANTS EAT CARBON DIOXIDE AND EXCRETE OXYGEN. Human activity, he says, contributes only the tiniest fraction to even the atmospheric presence of carbon dioxide.

Fewer than one in three callers to a Shanghai hotline knew how to avoid pregnancy, and only one in five were informed about venereal disease, the official China Daily quoted a survey by the city's 411 Army Hospital saying. "Sex is no longer considered taboo among young people today, and they believe they can learn everything they need from the Internet. But it doesn't mean they have developed a proper understanding or attitude toward it," the paper quoted hospital gynecologist Yu Dongyan saying.

Until the 1990s, doctors asked for women's marital status at abortion clinics, which were part of the family planning system that limited urban couples to one child. Now, government data shows that nearly two thirds of women who have abortions are between 20 and 29, and most are single, the paper said.

In the United States, by contrast, which has a population less than one-quarter that of China, official figures from the Center for Disease Control show there were 820,000 abortions performed in 2005, excluding California, Louisiana and New Hampshire for which no figures were provided.

Pluralities now say that the president's health care plan is a bad idea, and that it will result in the quality of their care getting worse. What's more, just four in 10 approve of his handling on the issue.

The poll also finds that Obama's overall job-approval rating has dropped to 53 percent. And it shows a public that has grown increasingly concerned about the federal government's spending as the administration defends its $787 billion economic stimulus and supports a $1 trillion-plus health-care bill.

And now, according to the poll, Republicans find themselves with a six-point advantage over Democrats on the question of which party would do a better job of reducing the deficit. It's the first time Republicans have led Democrats on this question since 1997. Republicans also now have advantages on controlling government spending and taxes — which McInturff says could make Obama's job to sell a health care bill (and the tax increases that would pay for it) more difficult.

In areas of north Essex it is possible to buy a gram of heroin, which, depending on your body's reaction, could be enough for four hits of the drug. Colchester has been labelled "brown town" by local addicts because of how easy it is to get hold of heroin.

The latest figures from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show the average street price for heroin is roughly £25-£40 per gram across the continent - four times more than the price you could get it in Colchester.

Katie Santos from Essex charity Open Road said she believed the price of heroin was directly linked to how much it is used. She said: "If people are using drugs and they can get them cheaper than a pint or cheaper than a meal than they're gonna use them. It's a frightening situation in the sense that it can cause so much damage to people very quickly."

It says new dealers often take the place of those arrested and can bring new problems such as violent turf wars. The Home Office said: "Harm reduction underpins every element of our approach to tackling this complex issue." The commission cites the example of the US city of Boston, where murder rates fell when police offered not to prosecute gangsters for dealing drugs if they stopped killing each other.

It said in the UK's entrenched drugs markets arrests can lead to damaging unintended consequences. For example, the arrested dealer may be replaced by someone who is more violent. Or if a backstreet, city-centre hot spot is shut down, dealers may move to a suburban area where the impact and fear imposed on the community is much greater. And arresting one king-pin drug dealer also raises the possibility of creating a power vacuum with the resulting turf war and spike in violence.

Under the guise of counseling "patience," Mr Gates again conveyed President Barack Obama's emphatic thumbs down on military force. The public outcome of Mr Gates's visit appeared polite but inconclusive. Yet Iran's progress with nuclear weapons and air defenses means Israel's military option is declining over time. It will have to make a decision soon, AND IT WILL BE NO SURPRISE IF ISRAEL STRIKES BY YEAR'S END. Israel's choice could determine whether Iran obtains nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.

Mr Obama's approach to Tehran has been his "open hand," yet his gesture has not only been ignored by Iran but deemed irrelevant as the country looks inward to resolve the aftermath of its fraudulent election. The hardliner "winner" of that election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was recently forced to fire a deputy who once said something vaguely soothing about Israel. Clearly, negotiations with the White House are not exactly topping the Iranian agenda.