THE NUMBER OF EXECUTIONS IS EXPECTED TO RISE TO A STAGGERING 10,000 PEOPLE THIS YEAR (not an impossible figure given that at least 68 crimes - including tax evasion and fraud - are punishable by death in China). Developed by Jinguan Auto, which also makes bullet-proof limousines for the new rich in this vast country of 1.3 billion people, the vans appear unremarkable.

They cost £60,000, can reach top speeds of 80mph and look like a police vehicle on patrol. Inside, however, the 'death vans' look more like operating theatres. Executions are monitored by video to ensure they comply with strict rules, making it possible to describe precisely how the person will die. After being sedated at the local prison, he will be loaded into the van and strapped to an electric-powered stretcher.

The Nazis used adapted vans as mobile gas chambers from 1940 until the end of World War II. In order to make the best use of time spent transporting criminals and Jewish prisoners, Hitler's scientists developed the vehicles with a hermetically sealed cabin that was filled with carbon monoxide carried by a tube from the exhaust pipes. The vans were first tested on child patients in a Polish psychiatric hospital in 1940. The Nazis then developed bigger models to carry up to 50 prisoners. They looked like furniture removal vans. Those to be killed were ordered to hand over their valuables, then stripped and locked inside.

As gas was pumped into the container and the van headed towards graves being dug by other prisoners, the muffled cries of those inside could be heard, along with banging on the side. With the 'cargo' dead, all that remained was for gold fillings to be hacked from the victims' mouths, before the bodies were tipped into the graves. NOW, SIX DECADES LATER, JUST LIKE THE NAZIS, CHINA INSISTS THESE DEATH VANS ARE 'PROGRESS'.

According to undercover investigations by human rights' groups, THE POLICE, JUDICIARY AND DOCTORS ARE ALL INVOLVED IN MAKING MILLIONS FROM CHINA'S HUGE TRADE IN HUMAN BODY PARTS. Inside each 'death van' there is a dedicated team of doctors to 'harvest' the organs of the deceased. The injections leave the body intact and in pristine condition for such lucrative work. After checking that the victim is dead, the medical team first remove the eyes. Then, wearing surgical gowns and masks, they remove the kidney, liver, pancreas and lungs.

For the Beijing regime, it is not a question of whether they should execute offenders, but how to do it most efficiently - and make the most money from it.

Until now ferry passengers on most routes in Britain have not been required to produce ID and internal flight passengers only face random police checks. But under new Government security rules that will come into force next year, personal data, including name, date of birth and home address, will be typed into a computer record for the police by the booking clerk or travel agent. Passengers will also face further ID checks when boarding their flight or ferry.

Under the new powers, police will be able to track the movements of around 60 million domestic passengers a year. The controversial measures were due to be introduced two years ago, but were dropped after protests from Ulster politicians, who said the plan would construct 'internal borders' in the UK. BUT LAST WEEK THE GOVERNMENT USED THE RELEASE OF ITS ANTI-TERRORISM STRATEGY TO QUIETLY REINTRODUCE THEM. Buried on Page 113 of the 174-page 'CONTEST' document was the announcement of 'new police powers to collect advanced passenger data on some domestic air and sea journeys'.

Last night a Home Office spokesman confirmed the measures would 'require passengers to show photo ID, such as a driving licence or the (proposed) Government ID cards, when booking tickets for domestic air and sea journeys'. He added that 'ferry journeys to the Isle of Wight or the Isle of Skye' and 'private jet passengers' would be included in the new measures, due to be formally announced later this year.

The heaviest snow and ice accumulated in south central and southwest Kansas. In Pratt County, 28 inches of snow fell, with snow drifts reported up to 6 feet. At least nine other counties reported 2 feet of snow, the Kansas Adjutant General's office said. About 17,000 customers in Kansas lost electricity, more than half of those in Sedgwick County.

In Oklahoma, where more than a foot of snow fell, Governor Brad Henry declared a state of emergency in 50 counties. More than 3,000 Oklahoma households were without power, state officials said. The State Department of Transportation had several roads blocked in the state and others remained impassible. In Missouri, the Kansas City International Airport was temporarily closed because of winter weather conditions.

Meanwhile, rain along the Gulf Coast battered areas around Mobile, Alabama, and Biloxi, Mississippi. Mobile County Emergency Management Director Walter Dickerson said 4 to 6 inches of rain fell on already saturated ground. Fifteen to 20 roads around Mobile were closed, and several people had to be rescued after flash flooding trapped their cars.

Harrison County, Mississippi, Emergency Management Director Rupert Lacy said water entered some homes in his area. Teams were out assessing the damage. Lacy said waters of three rivers were rising, including the Biloxi and Wolf rivers. There were no mandatory evacuations, but Lacy said some residents chose to leave on their own. Roads were also impassable in some parts of the Florida Panhandle. Officials in the Atlanta, Georgia, metro area, which is under flood watches and warnings, were keeping an eye on surging rivers and creeks

The Highway Patrol's announcement followed a news conference in which Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder, a Republican, suggested putting the director of public safety on administrative leave and investigating how the report was produced.

The uproar revolves around a report released last month by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a "FUSION CENTER" for local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to collaborate on domestic security issues. The report concerned militia movements in Missouri and across the US, and described how they had evolved over the last several years. BUT IT SUGGESTED THAT DOMESTIC MILITIAS OFTEN SUBSCRIBED TO RADICAL IDEOLOGIES ROOTED IN CHRISTIAN VIEWS AND OPPOSITION TO IMMIGRATION, ABORTION OR FEDERAL TAXES.

The report also stated that it was "not uncommon" for militia members to support third-party political candidates. The Highway Patrol's superintendent, Colonel James F. Keathley, released a memo saying the report did not meet the agency's standard for quality and would not have been released if it had been seen by top officials. "For that reason," Keathley wrote, "I have ordered the MIAC to permanently cease distribution of the militia report."

"I WILL NOT LET ANYONE TELL ME THAT WE MUST SPEND MORE MONEY," she said. The Spanish finance minister, Pedro Solbes, also dismissed new cash being pledged at Thursday's London summit. "In these conditions I and the rest of my colleagues from the eurozone believe there is no room for new fiscal stimulus plans," he said. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has insisted that "radical reform" of capitalism is more important than tax cutting.

The attacks on Brown's ambitions for the G20 to inject more money into the world economy come at the end of a week where the prime minister has travelled to three continents to build support for his proposals. The likely deadlock at this week's meeting will kill any remaining hope that Alistair Darling's April 22 budget will offer significant tax cuts.

The assault by European Union leaders also represents a defeat for President Barack Obama, who is desperate for other big economies to copy his $800 billion stimulus plan. "There will be a very long communiqué, but there won't be much in it," said a Washington economist. Adding to the disarray, a draft of the agreement Brown hopes to secure was leaked to a German news magazine, prompting suggestions of "dirty tricks" by Berlin.

The draft stated that Britain wanted a "$2 trillion" global fiscal stimulus. However, the figure appeared only in brackets, indicating agreement on the package had yet to be reached. The stimulus would boost world growth by 2% and employment by 19m, the draft said. The rest of the document was mainly general pledges.

A group of traditionalist Protestants has objected to the use of the European Union emblem on car registration plates in the Netherlands, on the grounds that the CIRCLE OF 12 GOLDEN STARS ON A BLUE BACKGROUND SYMBOLISES THE ROMAN CATHOLIC VENERATION OF MARY, the mother of Jesus. The National Foundation for the Preservation of the Political Reformed Principles is concerned that the symbol is too close to the 12-star halo surrounding Mary's head in Roman Catholic art.

According to the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano, THE DESIGNER OF THE EMBLEM, ARSENE HEITZ, SAID HE GOT THE IDEA FROM 19TH CENTURY REPORTS OF APPARITIONS OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN PARIS. The foundation works to promote Calvinist principles within the Netherlands' oldest party, the Political Reformed Party, which draws much of its support from Christians living in the country's Bible belt.

Now Mr Hunt has become the pioneer in a rejuvenated campaign FOR A WAY OF CANCELLING BAPTISMS GIVEN TO CHILDREN TOO YOUNG TO DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES whether they wanted this formal initiation into Christianity. However, baptism is proving a difficult thing to undo. The local Anglican diocese, Southwark, refused to amend the baptismal roll as Mr Hunt had wanted, on the grounds that it was a historical record. "You can't remove from the record something that actually happened," said the Bishop of Croydon, the Right Reverend Nick Baines.

The Church wonders aloud why, if atheists and secularists believe baptism is so meaningless, they are letting it upset them. Mr Hunt supplies his own answer.

"Evangelical noises are getting louder and louder. The recent change in European legislation has led to religious beliefs not being challenged at all, and there's no limit at all on what anybody can claim as a valid religious belief. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT MORE PEOPLE SPEAK OUT AND SAY THEY DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO THE HISTORIC BELIEFS OF THE CHURCH."

In 2006, Newcastle City Council blocked Davender Ghai's attempt to establish the UK's first approved site for open-air funeral pyres. It maintained the burning of human remains anywhere outside a crematorium was prohibited under the 1930 Cremation Act - a ruling the Ministry of Justice agrees was correct. Now Mr Ghai, a Hindu campaigner and founder of the Anglo Asian Friendship Society charity, is seeking a judicial review of the decision.

"I believe a person should live and die according to his own religion," said the Uganda-born 70-year-old, who has been living in the UK since the 1970s. "Local authorities routinely provide separate Muslim and Jewish burial grounds and out-of-hours registration and immediate or weekend burials. Hindus should cremate before the following sunset too and yet we, along with the general public, wait for up to a week."

Speakers will call on G20 leaders to pursue a new kind of global justice. A big security operation has been mounted in case the protest turns violent, but organisers say people want to express their views peacefully. Marchers gathered near Embankment spoke of "a carnival atmosphere".

Italian trade unionist Nicoli Nicolosi, who had travelled from Rome, said: "We are here to try and make a better world and protest against the G20." TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, who is due to address the rally, said there was no room for violence at the march. "If there are other groups who want to cause trouble, I don't want to see them anywhere near our event," he told the Today programme. He said he wanted to see G20 leaders agree a plan of action to deal with the financial downturn.

"Where I hope we will see a consensus emerge is in the recognition that unless they act together, then the problems are only going to get worse. This, unlike any other recession, is a recession right across the world." IN BERLIN, thousands of protesters have also taken to the streets with a message to the G20 leaders: "WE WON'T PAY FOR YOUR CRISIS".

Saturday's march will be followed by a series of protests on Wednesday and Thursday by a variety of coalitions and groups campaigning on a range of subjects, from poverty, inequality and jobs to war, climate change and capitalism.

Due to lower wheat prices, the North Dakota Wheat Commission already was expecting wheat plantings from North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota to drop sharply to 12.3 million acres from 12.8 million last year.

That spring wheat reduction may now double, with another 500,000 former wheat acres planted instead with later-seeding crops like soybeans, sunflowers and dry beans, or not planted at all, said Jim Peterson, marketing director of the farmer-run commission. The U.S. Agriculture Department has predicted that at least 1 million acres in North Dakota will go unseeded this spring.

Mr Hannan's assault came after the Premier had given a keynote speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. As Mr Brown looked on through gritted teeth, shaking his head, the Tory lambasted him as a 'Brezhnev era apparatchik' who was ' pathologically incapable' of taking responsibility for his role in the financial crisis.

The 37-year-old, who was the youngest British member elected to the European Parliament in 1999, yesterday received plaudits for his tongue-lashing. Broadcasters - including the BBC - failed to report Mr Hannan's onslaught despite giving full coverage to Mr Brown's most pro-European speech to date.

The clip features Mr Brown looking on with a frozen smile, while Mr Hannan warned how Britain was entering the recession in a 'dilapidated condition' with an 'almost unbelievable' deficit. After accusing Mr Brown of losing his moral authority, he finished with the pay-off line: 'You are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.'

Mr Soros – speaking days after AN AUCTION OF GOVERNMENT BONDS FAILED for the first time in 14 years, RINGING ALARM BELLS ABOUT BRITAIN'S ABILITY TO FUND ITS GROWING DEBTS – said that Gordon Brown might have to go begging for billions of pounds in international aid. He also warned that next week's G20 summit in London was the last chance to avert a full-scale depression that could prove worse than that in the 1930s.

"You have a problem that the banking system is bigger than the economy... So for Britain to absorb it alone would really pile up the debt," he said. Asked about the chances of Britain having to seek help from the International Monetary Fund, he said that if the banking system continued to collapse, it was "a possibility". At this stage, he added, it was "not a likelihood".

HE WAS NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE G20 MEETING, SAYING THE ODDS WERE THAT IT WOULD FAIL BECAUSE THERE WERE SO MANY DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. The price could be years of economic devastation worse than the Great Depression. "It is really a make-or-break occasion."

Wayne Swan, Australia's treasurer, said "alternative proposals" would be considered from the Beijing-based metals group but it could not approve the deal if it included Oz's Prominent Hill copper and gold mine, located in the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia. "It is not unusual for governments to restrict access to sensitive areas on national security grounds," Mr Swan said.

Mr Swan's surprise decision will fuel speculation Canberra may also block Chinalco's controversial plan to invest $19.5bn in Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining group. Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board is assessing the deal by the Chinese aluminium producer on "national interest" grounds, which includes investments made by state-backed entities.

Blocking the deal also threatens Oz's survival. The miner, which had already warned it risked bankruptcy without the Minmetals takeover, is locked in talks with bankers owed A$1.3bn to extend debt repayments beyond March 31. The Woomera Prohibited Area includes a weapons testing range that Mr Swan said made a "unique and sensitive contribution to Australia's national defence".

The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees. "Some banks have taken this precaution," he said. "If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with… German customs can take me in and question me."

The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation. The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: "Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America."

However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries. "PRIVATE BANKERS AREN'T EVEN TRAVELLING TO FRANCE. THE PARTNERS ARE NOT LEAVING GENEVA AT ALL," said a senior industry figure close to several private banks. No bank contacted by the Financial Times wanted to discuss the matter publicly. The restrictions come ahead of next week's Group of 20 summit where a clampdown on tax havens is set to be discussed.

He said an extra 4,000 US personnel would train and bolster the Afghan army and police, and he would also provide support for civilian development. Pakistan would also be a focus, with a $7.5bn programme of "direct support". But he said this support would not come as a "blank cheque", and Pakistan would have to demonstrate its own commitment to rooting out al-Qaeda and associated forces.

HE PAINTED A BLEAK PICTURE OF THE SITUATION, WITH INSURGENTS INCREASING THEIR CONTROL OF TERRITORY IN THE REGION AND ATTACKS RISING. He said American strategy must relate directly to the threat posed to the Americans by al-Qaeda and its allies - who, he reminded his listeners, were behind the 9/11 attacks on American soil eight years ago.

And he said multiple intelligence estimates suggested fresh attacks on the US were being planned. But he said targeting al-Qaeda was not only in the interests of American people, but populations around the world and Afghans themselves.