Olympic chiefs remained concerned with smog, fearing the high level of pollution, which is 10 times that in London, would cast a pall over the Games. British athletes have been training in anti-smog masks. Poor conditions pose the greatest risk to endurance athletes such as world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe, an asthmatic.

Such has been the concern about the smog that men's marathon champion, Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, withdrew earlier this year citing air quality.

Barclays said the outlook would remain difficult. "It would be wrong to suggest that the market conditions over the foreseeable future will be anything other than tough," said chief executive John Varley - pointing to slowing economies around the world. "That means that we must remain very vigilant to managing risk."

He added that some parts of the business "may take quite some time" to return to the profitability of previous years.

The Department of Health has asked primary care trusts (PCTs) to offer the jab to all children up to the age of 18 not already fully protected. An epidemic of measles - which can be fatal - COULD potentially affect up to 100,000 young people in England alone. The MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps and rubella.

Experts say it is perfectly safe, but vaccination rates dipped following controversy about its safety. A study which raised the possibility that MMR was linked to autism has since been dismissed by the vast majority of research, but levels of public confidence in the jab have still not fully recovered. In 2006 and 2007 there were 1,726 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales - more than the previous 10 years put together. From 1996 to 2005 there was a total of 1,621 confirmed cases. Scientific advice from both the Department of Health and the Health Protection Agency suggests vaccination levels need to be increased as a matter of urgency.

Dr Patricia Hamilton, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "We cannot stress too strongly that all children and young people should have the MMR vaccine. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that it is safe."

"We view this as a serious and drastic move toward the fruition of extremist organizations to establish a temple in place of al-Aksa Mosque," said Zahi Nujidat of the Islamic Movement. "THIS REPRESENTS A REAL DANGER TO AL-AKSA." The Aksa Foundation issued a similar statement.

The course, offered at roughly 200 locations throughout Israel, comes during the two weeks leading up to Tisha B'Av, THE FAST DAY THAT COMMEMORATES THE DESTRUCTION OF BOTH THE FIRST AND THE SECOND TEMPLE. According to Chabad Lubavitch spokesman Rabbi Menachem Brod, the Muslim groups are cynically pointing to the short courses as proof that the Israeli establishment wants to destroy the mosque.

Tisha B'Av, the Fast of the Ninth of Av, will occur on the following days of the Gregorian calendar:

Jewish Year 5768: SUNSET AUGUST 9, 2008 - NIGHTFALL AUGUST 10, 2008

Jewish Year 5769: sunset July 29, 2009 - nightfall July 30, 2009
Jewish Year 5770: sunset July 19, 2010 - nightfall July 20, 2010
Jewish Year 5771: sunset August 8, 2011 - nightfall August 9, 2011
Jewish Year 5772: sunset July 27, 2012 - nightfall July 28, 2012

MOURNING OVER THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM IS NORMAL IN THE MONTH OF AV, but at the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faith Movement all focus is on the "big day" - the day in which the Third Temple will be built. As part of the preparations, hundreds of teenagers are expected to sign the "Temple Treaty" and to proclaim, "We commit to doing everything in our power to abide by this commandment and to devote at least half an hour a week toward this effort."

In the youth conference conducted by the Temple Institute in the Old City of Jerusalem, scheduled for Thursday, participants will discuss possible plans of action to further the building of the Temple. Under the title, "Building the Temple, it's in Our Hands," lessons will be given by rabbis identified with the Temple and for the first time ever, a treaty pertaining to the necessity of building the Temple will be revealed.

"God commanded us in his Torah, 'build me a Temple and I shall dwell amongst you'," as written in the document, "All of Israel must do everything they can to obey this commandment. THIS TEMPLE IS NOT JUST SOMETHING HISTORIC STORED IN A MEMORY CHEST," said Glick, "everyone has the opportunity to contribute to this goal."

China's officially atheistic Communist Party forced Chinese Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, and the two sides have not restored formal relations. Many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church and often are arrested or harassed.

"It is important for this great country to open itself to the Gospel," said Benedict, who has made the improvement of relations with China a priority of his papacy. The pope sent a special letter to Catholics in China last year, praising the underground church, but also urging the faithful to reconcile with followers of the official church.

Freinademetz was proclaimed a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2003. Several thousand people had walked through fields and woods to reach the village and greet the pope, who is spending a two-week vacation at the seminary in the nearby town of Bressanone. Addressing them in front of the house, BENEDICT NOTED THE INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF CHINA IN THE WORLD

USING THE EVENT TO SHOWCASE CHINA'S EMERGENCE AS A POTENTIALLY DOMINANT WORLD POWER WAS ALWAYS PART OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY'S GAME PLAN. In this sense, the medals table, which China expects to dominate, is a metaphor for broader international competition for resources and influence. After centuries of humiliation by the West, few could fairly deny China a self-glorifying day in the sun. But how to stop Beijing over-egging its nationalist pudding - HOW TO PREVENT SUPERPOWER TURNING TO SUPER-ARROGANCE­ AS HAS HAPPENED ELSEWHERE - is the big post-Olympic question.

In a pamphlet co-authored with Katinka Barysch, 'Can Europe and China Shape a New World Order?', Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, highlights China's fierce adherence to principles of national sovereignty and non-interference. Its vetoing of Western efforts to rein in Zimbabwe's pariah regime is one recent example of a holdover non-aligned mentality.

ECONOMIC AND TRADE TENSIONS WITH EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES, the environmental impact of its rapid development, authoritarian governance and human rights abuses and its rapid military build-up are all factors feeding Western perceptions, measured in recent polls, that a resurgent CHINA REPRESENTS "THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GLOBAL STABILITY".

The MoD is carrying out research and development to enable the spy planes, which are equipped with highly sophisticated monitoring equipment that allows them to secretly track and photograph suspects without their knowledge, to be deployed within three years. The plans have been backed by the House of Commons Defence Committee but have attracted criticism from civil liberties campaigners concerned about the implications of covert surveillance of civilians.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can obtain clear images while flying at up to 50,000ft. If ministers give the scheme the go-ahead the UK will be among the first countries to use UAVs to monitor its own citizens. The Israeli military operates them over Palestinian cities such as Gaza and Ramallah, while the US Customs and Border Protection agency flies them over the Mexican border to detect illegal migrants along specified routes.

The UAVs will give law enforcement agencies huge scope for surveillance. Robert Emerson, a security analyst who specialises in deciphering aerial images, said: "Satellite images can be affected by clouds and lack of light, with UAVs you can avoid that by choosing the height at which you fly. There is now also Google Earth, but these are often old images out of date. There is tremendous potential in material gathered by UAVs."

However, the recent falls in crude oil prices will comfort policymakers this week as central banks of the US, eurozone and UK meet to consider interest rate policy. The US Federal Reserve, which meets on Tuesday, and the European Central Bank and Bank of England, which meet on Thursday, are all expected to hold rates steady as they weigh concerns about inflation and growth.

Michael Wittner of Société Générale said prices fell amid concerns that a slowing global economy was damping demand for fuel. Other factors pushing down oil prices included higher supplies from Opec, which mainly reflected Saudi Arabia's decision to boost its oil production to the highest level in more than 25 years.

Some traders also expressed doubts about the strength of Chinese consumption, saying it had been artificially boosted by stockpiling ahead of the Olympics. However, traders warned against calling the end of the oil rally, since prices have oscillated between $130 and $120 for the past 10 days without a clear trend emerging.

In the eurozone, prices for products leaving the factory gate rose by an annual 8 per cent in June, a new high for the nine-year-old currency bloc, raising fears that the ECB could raise rates in the autumn.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales from 2005 through 2008, appears likely to put a new focus on the approximately $48 billion in U.S. taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

The report from the oversight agency, the Government Accountability Office, estimates that Iraqi oil revenue from 2005 through the end of this year will amount to at least $156 billion. And in an odd financial twist, large amounts of that surplus money is sitting in a U.S. bank in New York - nearly $10 billion at the end of 2007, with more expected this year, when the accountability office estimates a skyrocketing surplus.

Even that number could overstate the success rate in most of Iraq, as $2 billion of the spending took place in relatively peaceful confines of the northern Kurdish region." The Iraqi government now has tens of billions of dollars at its disposal to fund large-scale reconstruction projects," Levin, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in the statement. "IT IS INEXCUSABLE FOR U.S. TAXPAYERS TO CONTINUE TO FOOT THE BILL FOR PROJECTS THE IRAQIS ARE FULLY CAPABLE OF FUNDING THEMSELVES. We should not be paying for Iraqi projects, while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank," Levin said.

US AND EUROPEAN BANKS HAVE HAD TO TURN TO INVESTORS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA to repair their balance sheets, further strengthening the global economic clout and reach of China and the oil-rich Gulf states. As consumers change their spending habits, certain businesses have reaped the rewards. State-controlled investment funds were a powerful force on the global business landscape long before the start of the credit crunch. But the cash crisis in the banking sector has accelerated the growth of so-called sovereign wealth funds, giving them an unprecedented opportunity to invest more of their colossal wealth in attractive corporate assets.

Many of Wall Street's top names were grateful for injections of cash from sources that, not too long ago, they may have been somewhat wary of. The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) invested $6.8bn in Citigroup shares and bought a 9% stake in Swiss bank UBS while fellow Singaporean fund Temasek acquired a 10% stake in Merrill Lynch. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority invested $7.5bn in a stake in Citigroup while the Kuwait Investment Authority snapped up a $6.6bn holding in Merrill Lynch.

The Gulf state of Qatar, via its Qatar Investment Authority, took a £1.7bn stake in Barclays. Chinese funding was also in demand with the China Investment Corporation - home to a fraction of China's vast foreign exchange reserves - shelling out $5.5bn to acquire a near 10% stake in Morgan Stanley.

Bank bosses welcomed these investments as a vote of confidence in their businesses and the chance for valuable future partnerships in fast-growing regions. But while many politicians backed this view, SOME WORRIED ABOUT THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC REPERCUSSIONS OF THE SHIFT IN THE BALANCE OF CORPORATE POWER THAT THIS CLEARLY REPRESENTED.

CHINESE WORKERS, THEY SAY, ARE GETTING TOO EXPENSIVE. Citing fast-climbing labor costs and pesky production quality problems, a growing number of German companies are doing an about face and pulling their manufacturing operations out of China. Some are searching for countries with lower wages while others are returning production to Germany.

The Association of German Engineers (VDI) estimates that one in five of the approximately 1,600 German companies with a presence in China are planning to pull out of the market, the TAGESSPIEGEL AM SONNTAG newspaper reported. "Many, many firms are naïve when they enter into the Chinese market and don't even think about the fact that wages are increasing there," VDI spokesman Sven Renkel told the newspaper. "For some companies and industries, China is already getting to be too expensive. They're now looking to other lower-wage countries, like Bangladesh, India or Kazakhstan, where production is cheaper, or they're bringing manufacturing back to Germany," he said.

According to Hans Röhm of the consulting firm Deloitte, the companies that are most likely to return to Germany are those that outsourced production out of cost considerations - including the consumer goods industry and textiles, which both produce in mass quantities. But manufacturers of high-quality goods are also looking at China with a more critical eye - at least in the long term. A dip in quality for these companies could damage their reputation. "That's why we're advising a lot of our customers to consider production in Germany," Röhm told the paper.

He notes that the Treaty could even make enlargement more difficult, particularly in terms of Turkey, as voting weights in the Council would be based more on population size. Furthermore he argues that the division of responsibilities between a President and a Foreign Minister under Lisbon could make the EU's foreign policy incoherent.

He notes, "EU efforts might well be devoted to the minutiae of setting up a new diplomatic corps rather than to more critical matters. When the call comes from Washington, as one U.S. government official put it, the reply might be 'don't bother us now - we're busy jockeying for appointments.'"

The government also committed to strengthen Northern Rock's capital base by converting £400 million of Treasury preference shares into ordinary shares and swapping up to £3 billion of outstanding debt into equity following the transfer of a Bank of England loan to the Treasury.

The bank, which was taken under state control in February after failing to find a suitable buyer after a funding crisis, cut the amount it had borrowed from the Bank of England by £9.4 billion in the first half to £17.5 billion, ahead of its plan.

Under the bank's business plan unveiled after the government took control it had expected to be loss-making this year and not return to a profit until 2011. It planned to repay the government loan by the end of 2010. The share of mortgages more than three months in arrears more than doubled during the first-half to 1.18 percent, due to the lender tightening its arrears policy and the deteriorating housing market.

The industry employs hundreds if not thousands and is known for its cutting-edge design. The Rip Curl boardmasters contest is being held in the UK's surf capital Newquay this week and 100,000 people are expected to turn out to watch the leading event in the country. With the best surfers from around the world competing, it is a chance to showcase the industry in Cornwall. But a cottage industry is under threat from cheaper mass-produced imported boards - and with it years of skilled craftsmen and Cornish heritage.

Matthew Barrow, 32, lives in Newquay. A surfer at eight years old, he made his first surfboard at the age of 16. His factory in Bodmin used to produce 1,800 bespoke handmade boards every year. He employed eight skilled craftsmen and shapers to carry out the painstaking work of sanding, shaping and spraying the fibreglass boards.

But they are all out of work now and the factory has been mothballed. He says why struggle on when there's no money in it anymore? "Way I see it, you can keep working here and break even but I don't see the point," he says. Surfing's popularity has been riding high over recent years, with more and more people able - thanks in part to the cheaper kit - to buy boards and try it out for themselves. Matthew Barrow, amongst other manufacturers in Cornwall, is simply asking what is the true price for those cheaper boards? For those in his industry, it is costing them jobs.