In London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said a new chapter in relations between the two countries had begun. Earlier, a memorial service attended by Defence Secretary John Hutton took place in Basra for the 179 UK personnel who have died during the conflict. The focus was a memorial wall featuring the names of the 234 UK and foreign troops who lost their lives while serving under British command in Iraq. The end of combat operations came a month ahead of schedule.

Mr Brown, who held talks with Iraqi counterpart Nouri Maliki at Downing Street, said: "Today Iraq is a success story. We owe much of that to the efforts of British troops. Our mission has not always been an easy one, many have said that we would fail. Britain can be proud of our legacy that we leave there."

Obama's ratings must be pleasing to his eye. Voters like him and his wife immensely and approve of his activism in the face of the economic crisis. But beneath this superficial support, Obama's specific policies run afoul of the very deeply felt convictions of American voters. For example, the most recent Rasmussen Poll asked voters if they wanted an economic system of complete free enterprise or preferred more government involvement in managing the economy. By 77-19, they voted against a government role, up seven points from last month.

And in the Fox News poll — the very same survey that gave Obama a 62 percent approval rating and reported that 68 percent of voters are "satisfied" with his first hundred days — voters, by 50-38, supported a smaller government that offered fewer services over a larger government that provided more.

For Americans to conclude that they disapprove of their president in the midst of an earth-shaking crisis is very difficult. But as Obama's daily line moves from "I inherited this mess" to "There are faint signs of light," the clock starts ticking. If there is no recovery for the next six months — and I don't think there will be — Obama will inevitably become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Obama's very activism these days arrogates to himself the blame for the success or failure of his policies. Their outcome will determine his outcome, and there is no way it will be positive. Why?

• You can't borrow as much as he will need to without raising interest rates that hurt the economy;

• The massive amount of spending will trigger runaway inflation once the economy starts to recover;

• His overhaul of the tax code (still in the planning phases) and his intervention in corporate management will create such business uncertainty that nobody will invest in anything until they see the lay of the land;

• His bank program is designed to help banks, but not to catalyze consumer lending. And his proposal for securitization of consumer loans won't work and is just what got us into this situation.

So Mr. Obama should enjoy his poll numbers while he may.

And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still. Obama met citizens at an Arnold, Missouri, high school Wednesday in advance of his prime-time news conference. Both forums were a platform to review his progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.

At various times, he brought an air of certainty to ambitions that are far from cast in stone. His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating. He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.

Congress controls the purse strings, not the president, and it was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator. Obama supported the emergency bailout package in President George W. Bush's final months - a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger. The economy has worsened under Obama, though from forces surely in play before he became president, and he can credibly claim to have inherited a grim situation.

"We have begun to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off," Obama said. "I'm pleased with the progress we've made, but I'm not satisfied. I'm confident in the future, but I'm not content with the present." Obama said he wants Congress to approve legislation revamping U.S. financial regulation by the end of this year, expressed hope for a potential auto deal to save Chrysler LLC from bankruptcy and reiterated a pledge to cut the budget deficit in half during his first term.

Over the next 100 days the president will be dealing with a host of thorny issues, including getting his proposals on the budget, health and energy pushed through Congress and dealing with the war in Afghanistan. The Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and continued high approval ratings give him a strong hand.

Obama said environmental measures, such as his plan for a cap on carbon emissions, don't require a choice between jobs and protecting the planet. "There's a balance that can be struck, and the key principle is sustainability," he said. The 100-day milestone only represents the "beginning of another long journey" with many challenges ahead, Obama said.

The move comes after a 23-month-old Mexican child died in Texas - the first death from swine flu outside Mexico, where the outbreak originated. In Spain, officials confirmed the first case of swine flu in a person who had not travelled to Mexico.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon addressed the nation late on Wednesday, announcing the partial suspension of non-essential work and services from 1 May to 5 May. The efforts of the government were concentrated on containing the virus, Mr Calderon said, urging people to stay at home with their families during the shutdown.

Announcing the latest alert level after an emergency WHO meeting in Geneva, Director General Margaret Chan urged all countries to activate their pandemic plans, including heightened surveillance and infection-control measures. She said action should be undertaken with "increased urgency". She added: "It really is the whole of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic."

"It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.

Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman estimated there were between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt. Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza told reporters that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat so there would be no need for compensation.

Pigs can be found in many places around the Muslim world, often raised by religious minorities who can eat pork. But they are banned entirely in some Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya. In Jordan, the government decided Wednesday to shut down the country's five pig farms, involving 800 animals, for violating public health safety regulations.

Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease. "Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.

"That figure is not a figure that's come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico." Ms Allan said WHO had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in the Americas, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, two in Spain, two in Britain and three in New Zealand.

She said a real concern would be if the flu virus manifested in a country where a person had had no contact with Mexico, and authorities were watching all countries for signs of that. "There is no pattern that has emerged at this stage to be able to say that it is spreading in a particular way or it is spreading into a particular country... the situation is continuing to evolve," she said. "This virus is not airborne, it's caused by droplets... so it's not a time for worry. It's a time to be prepared," Ms Allan said.

The Catholic Church has long wanted control over part of the area – to turn it into an international religious centre for Catholics from all over the world, Diaspora Yeshiva officials say.

"We were forced to give over part of the compound to the Ministry of Religious Affairs," says Rabbi Mordechai Goldstein, founder and Dean of the Yeshiva, "which then gave it over to the Ministry of the Interior. Ever since then, the Church has been making demands and claims on the area, and has been making inroads. Their goal, ultimately, is to conduct religious services here, with hundreds of thousands of Christian tourists coming through.

"This area is very contested, by many different churches," Rabbi Goldstein told Israel National News. "Why should the Catholic Church claim be honoured more than that of others? Given such a situation, it is clear that the best solution is the status quo: Everyone is permitted to enter, but no religious services are allowed."

The Tourism Ministry has announced that it expects 15,000 to 20,000 Christians to visit Israel at the same time as the Pope, in mid-May, and a total of 1.2 million to visit during the course of 2009. The financial incentives to make the site "more Christian" are thus very great.

The news came as markets were already factoring in a rise in the World Health Organisation's pandemic alert to phase 4, indicating the risk of a deadly global outbreak. Mexican Labour Minister Javier Lozano said the country did not yet plan a mass closure of businesses to try to halt the spread of the disease that has killed up to 149 people. "Economic activity must continue," he said.

But markets were on edge. Most Asian stock markets slipped into negative territory after tentative early gains, and European stock futures prices pointed to a sharp decline when markets there open. The Mexican swine flu outbreak came just as many global policymakers were daring to proclaim the start of a tentative turnaround in the world economy after months of decline. Now, any recovery is in doubt.

"We almost have to wait to see not so much the contagion aspect but how deadly is this," said Alan Ruskin, chief international strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Connecticut. He said that while a mild strain would have only a limited global impact, "if you start getting a number of fatalities, then it ramps the issue up substantially at every level, from a human standpoint and from an economic standpoint."

The development marks the first time any plant has been engineered to make more than one vitamin. The creators argue the crop could help improve diets in poorer nations, but anti-GM campaigners are sceptical. The team, led by Dr Paul Christou from Spain's University of Lleida, transferred genes into immature embryos of a variety known as M37W.

The embryos were bombarded with metal particles coated with chunks of DNA that, if taken up by the embryo, would alter its internal biochemical processes to make it produce the vitamins. Subsequent analysis of sample plants grown from the genetically modified seeds showed that the corn was indeed successfully manipulated into producing the vitamins. The changes induced in the maize also persisted through a couple of generations of the plants, wrote the researchers.

The yield of vitamins "vastly exceeds" any produced by conventional plant breeding methods, wrote Dr Christou and his colleagues, from universities in Spain and in Germany, in their paper. Producing a plant that contains three vitamins could help those in poorer nations who subsist on one food and rarely eat a balanced diet, the scientists said.

The review was ordered in October after ministers announced that sex and relationships education (SRE) lessons should be made compulsory to help primary and secondary pupils to "NAVIGATE THE COMPLEXITIES OF MODERN LIFE" and to ensure that children learnt their sex education from the classroom, not the playground.

The changes to personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) classes mark the culmination of decades of campaigning by sexual health organisations, who believe that the patchy nature of sex education in schools is helping to fuel a record level of teenage pregnancy and STIs in England.

Simon Blake, national director of the sexual health charity Brook, said: "Young people need to understand the law – that YOU CAN GET CONTRACEPTION, that YOU CAN HAVE AN ABORTION – and understand THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF PRACTISING SAFER SEX. It would not be right for anyone to tell them that this is wrong, but IT IS OK FOR THEM TO BE TOLD THAT SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IT IS WRONG."

The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales welcomed the opt-out. "This is a crucial right in a community where parents are the first educators of their children, because PARENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING UP THEIR CHILDREN, AND NOT THE STATE," it said.

"We have had big problems in southwest France for many years, but also now in Italy and Germany." Last year, about 30 percent of Europe's 13.6 million hives died, according to Apimondia figures. Losses reached 50 percent in Slovenia and as high as 80 percent in southwest Germany. With 35 percent of European food crops relying on bees to pollinate them, it poses a big threat for farmers, said Ratia.

Mystery has surrounded the recent decline of bee numbers, but most keepers blame modern farming methods and the powerful new pesticides used on crops like sunflower, maize and rapeseed. Two main factors were responsible for weakening bee colonies: insecticides and the parasitic mite Varroa, says Apimondia's scientific coordinator Gerard Arnold. Once weakened, the hives are then decimated by viruses and other diseases.

Earlier this year, the European Union voted to phase out the most toxic pesticides after years of wrangling, but many bee-keepers feel ignored by politicians. The honey industry's concerns are drowned out by the interests of the giant corporations that produce the pesticides, said Apimondia's Ratia. "Politicians are more susceptible to the big lobbying of the chemical industry," he said. "We beekeepers can talk and talk, but we don't receive much consideration."

The financial crisis began as turmoil in one small segment of the US mortgage market. Within months it had morphed into a global meltdown affecting almost everyone on earth. "THE SPEED AT WHICH THESE EVENTS UNFOLDED WAS UNPRECEDENTED," said the World Economic Forum's 2009 report on global risk. "It has demonstrated just HOW TIGHTLY INTERCONNECTED GLOBALISATION HAS MADE THE WORLD AND ITS SYSTEMS." Disease, too, can spread faster than ever before. Modern air travel means that any contagious outbreak can be worldwide in a matter of days. In the past, it would have taken months or years. The more complex and efficient a system, the faster and wider any contagion can spread.

The complexity that makes financial shocks more potentially dangerous also means that pandemics can wreak greater havoc. Analysts point out that when the Black Death plague hit Europe in the 14th century, killing around a third of the population, society did not collapse, because economic and social systems were relatively simple and so insulated from shocks. By contrast, a plague that hit the Roman empire in the 2nd century, with a similar death rate, caused chaos - Roman society was much more complex and economically advanced.

In its 2007 report on global risks, the World Economic Forum imagined the consequences of a simultaneous pandemic and global liquidity crisis - a scenario that was purely speculative then but which now seems eerily prescient. The result, it said, would be "a backlash against globalisation, which in turn compounds the hit on global demand". Across the world, it said, INCREASED MILITARISM AND AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES WOULD RESHAPE GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS. The events of the next few months may show just how accurate such a scenario could be.

She said she accepted the public did not want such sensitive data kept on a single database or under the control of the state. SHE STILL INTENDS TO MONITOR THE PUBLIC'S EVERY INTERNET CLICK AND PHONE CALL, however, except that the data will be stored by the service providers. Miss Smith's change of policy raised immediate questions about the future of similar schemes such as the Contact-Point children's database, the £12billion NHS patient computer system and the ID cards National Identity Register.

There is still widespread concern about the revised £2billion plan. According to a consultation document published yesterday, every internet and phone company will have to allocate an ID to each customer. They would then have to store alongside that ID details of every phone call made and text message sent and every click on the internet - including visits to social networking sites such as Facebook - for a minimum of 12 months. The actual content of calls and emails would not be kept.

Police, security services and other public authorities could request access to the data as part of investigations. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'The big problem is that the Government has built a culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime.

The WHO has raised its alert level from three to four, two steps short of declaring a full pandemic. Mexico earlier said it believed 149 people had now died from the swine flu, though only 20 cases are confirmed. The US, Canada, Spain and Britain have confirmed milder versions. The WHO's decision to raise the alert level to four came after an emergency meeting of experts, brought forward by a day because of concerns over the outbreak.

WHO PANDEMIC ALERT PHASES
Phase 1: No viruses circulating among animals causing infections in humans
Phase 2: Animal influenza virus causes infection in humans, and is considered potential pandemic threat
Phase 3: Influenza causes sporadic cases in people, but no significant human-to-human transmission
Phase 4: Verified human-to-human transmission able to cause community-level outbreaks. Significant increase in risk of a pandemic
Phase 5: Human-to-human transmission in at least two countries. Strong signal pandemic imminent
Phase 6: Virus spreads to another country in a different region. Global pandemic under way