The warning came as seven people were killed in the latest fighting between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's government. Reports say insurgents attacked and briefly took control of the southern town of Jowhar. One million Somalis have left their homes because of insecurity and hunger, the aid agencies say. Over the past year, Mogadishu has been rocked by almost daily violence and the agencies say a further 20,000 people flee the capital every month.

The continued fighting in Mogadishu was displacing 20,000 others every month, the agencies warned. The agencies said two million Somalis needed daily help to survive the crisis, which has been made worse by record food prices, hyper-inflation and drought in many parts of the country. Seasonal rains due to start soon are also predicted to fail. "For too long, the needs of ordinary Somalis have been forgotten," the agencies said.

Last month, the UN warned that Somalia was the world's "forgotten crisis".

The lengthy sale process started last June when Ford announced its intention to sell the companies as a package. Jaguar and Land Rover employ about 16,000 staff at plants across the West Midlands and Merseyside. Tata accounts for more than half of the sub-continent's truck market and has about 20% of India's car market.

The car workers union, Unite, has said that Tata was the preferred bidder for the company. BBC business editor, Robert Peston said: "Tata will commit to following an existing five year plan to invest in and develop the car manufacturing businesses."

"Jaguar and Land Rover require hundreds of millions in investment over the next few years, and returning Jaguar to profitability will neither be easy or without risks," he added. Robert also said that, to reassure the workforce, Ford will inject £300m into Jaguar and Land Rover pension funds. But it is thought that Ford has invested about $10bn in Jaguar since buying it in 1989, for $2.5bn.

Despite that investment, analysts say that Jaguar, which has plants at Castle Bromwich, West Midlands and Halewood, Merseyside, has never made a profit for Ford. However, Land Rover, which is based in Solihull, West Midlands, has been profitable under Ford's ownership.

Western Greyhound in south-west England has broken one route into three so that passengers have to change buses twice. The rules on routes longer than 50km (30 miles) are too costly to implement and the result is a farce, it says. But the European Commission says there is no problem elsewhere in Europe and the companies are trying to bypass laws which ensure drivers are not tired.

The EU insists the rules on driver safety were introduced in consultation with transport groups, and accuses firms of breaking up longer routes into shorter ones so they can ask staff to work for longer. "The companies are forcing clients to get on and off again. We don't decide how long a route has to be; we just want to be sure the average working time is nine hours a day," said the EU Transport Commissioner's spokesman, Michele Cercone. He also claimed the UK was the only EU member state which has had problems with the directive.

No state funded school should select children based on their family's beliefs and daily religious assemblies should be abandoned, the National Union of Teachers suggested. The union warned that the spread of separate faith schools under Government reforms threatens to undermine community relations, with children taught in segregated groups.

The NUT proposed a solution in which all state schools offer religious instruction to pupils who want it from different faiths. This should also include providing private prayer facilities in schools as well as food that is appropriate for all religious groups, the union said in a new policy paper, In Good Faith.

"I believe that there will be real benefits to all our communities and youngsters if we could find space within schools for pupils who are Roman Catholics, Anglican, Methodist, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim - to have space for more religious instruction in schools. You could have imams coming in, you could have the local rabbi coming in and the local Roman Catholic priest. If there were opportunities where they all talked together to the youngsters, what a fantastic example that would be."

The policy document was formally adopted by delegates at the NUT's annual conference in Manchester. The policy paper was released ahead of a planned debate at the conference on calls to abolish all state-funded faith schools.

The BBC has frequently been accused of biased coverage slanted against Israel; Israeli government officials have summoned the BBC to explain itself in the past. The "red-handed" false report in question was caught by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). CAMERA revealed that BBC used an old file photo to depict the alleged bulldozing of the home of the terrorist who slaughtered eight young yeshiva boys in Jerusalem this month.

"Hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his family home," reported the BBC - but it was untrue. The home of Ala Abu Dheim continued to stand unharmed, as did the mourning tent in which his family greets people who come to console and congratulate them on his achievement and subsequent "martyrdom."

Another well-documented false and biased BBC report, detected by a Jewish resident of Manchester, England, quoted United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as condemning Israeli attacks on Gazan civilians. The BBC used the quote several weeks later, out of context, to tie it to a specific IDF attack on Palestinian Authority terrorists in Gaza.

The news report in question stated that Israel had deliberately attacked Gaza civilians. In the report, BBC refrained from reporting the intensified attacks on Israeli civilians, in some weeks more than 100 rockets were fired at western Negev communities by terrorists hiding among women and children in Gaza. The BBC did issue an official statement of apology for both incidents in which the organization had been caught.

The Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee, is Israel's largest reservoir, and its height is a mirror of Israel's water supply. If, because of heavy rains and water streaming into it from the northern mountains, it climbs to a height of 208.8 metres [685 feet] below sea level, its dams must be opened to prevent Tiberias and Ein Gev from being flooded. This last occurred some 17 years ago. The problems, however, usually occur in the opposite direction.

The Kinneret's level currently stands at only some 212 metres [696 feet] below sea level - and if it drops much further, the water will be unsafe for drawing. The official level as recorded on Monday was 212.06 metres below sea level, only two centimetres (3/4 inches) higher than last week. This can be compared to rainy years such as 2003, when rains and runoff helped the Kinneret rise an average of five centimetres [2 inches] each day during the month of March.

Shani, who served as ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Bureau Director several years ago, told the Committee that the reasons for the water crisis include the shift of rain concentrations to southern Israel, and the agricultural changeover from field crops to more water-needy orchards. March signals the beginning of the end of Israel's rainy season, which this year has produced only some 75% of an average year's rainfall. Since Israel transferred municipal sovereignty over most of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Authority some ten years ago, some underground water reservoirs which are part of the mountain aquifer have become unfit for drinking, due to overdrawing of water by local Arabs.

The "Miss Bimbo" internet game has attracted prepubescent girls who are told to buy their virtual characters breast-enlargement surgery and to keep them "waif thin" with diet pills. Health-care professionals, a parents' group and an organization representing people suffering from anorexia and bulimia criticized the website for sending a dangerous message to impressionable children.

In the month since it opened the site, which is aimed at girls aged from 9 to 16, "Miss Bimbo" has attracted 200,000 members. Players keep a constant watch on the weight, wardrobe, wealth and happiness of their character to create "the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world." Competing against other children, they earn "bimbo dollars" to buy plastic surgery, diet pills, facelifts, lingerie and fashionable nightclub outfits.

Dee Dawson, the medical director of the Rhodes Farm Clinic in north London, which treats girls aged from 8 to 18 who suffer from eating disorders, said: "This is as lethal as pro-anorexia websites. A lot of children will get caught up with the extremely damaging and appalling messages." Susan Ringwood, the chief executive of Beat, a Norwich-based organization that supports those suffering from eating disorders, said that the website could make girls believe that weight and body size manipulation were acceptable.

MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, THE FINANCIAL WORLD IS NOT ABOUT TO IMPLODE. At the very least, some market pricing and financial commentary has invoked a systemic collapse akin to 1929's stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed.

Let's put that in context. U.S. historians estimate that in the first 10 months of 1930 some 744 U.S. banks failed - rising to a total of 9,000 by the end of the 1930s. Savers lost the equivalent in today's money of $140 billion in deposits by 1933. U.S. unemployment rose to 25 percent from 4 percent in 1929 and prices and incomes fell by 20 to 50 percent over the same period.

The debate, as German government spokesman Thomas Steg noted this week, has become "hysterical." THIS CRISIS IS SERIOUS, FOR SURE. But there is a pretty good chance it is not 1929 - even if the U.S. Federal Reserve has adopted depression-era tactics to address it. "To justify a repeat of last week, you really have to start believing this is going to be 1929 again," said Jim O'Neill, chief global economist at Goldman Sachs. "With the Fed moving so quickly, I think that is unlikely." BUT WITH INVESTORS ALREADY POSITIONING FOR A "WORST CASE" SCENARIO, THERE IS A CHANCE OF A LARGE PENDULUM SWING.

By 11.43 a.m., the FTSE 100 was up 200.7 points at 5,695.9. The UK benchmark index ended the previous session down 0.9 percent and has shed nearly 12 percent so far this year due to investors' fears of a U.S. recession, more credit-related writedowns and further jarring in credit markets. Asian shares posted strong gains and U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open after a robust rally on Wall Street the previous day.

Banks together added 60 points to the UK benchmark index, with HBOS leaping 13.6 percent to lead gains in the sector. Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, which like HBOS have been among the hardest hit stocks over the last nine months, jumped between 8 and 9 percent.

Financials rose across the world after JPMorgan Chase & Co lifted its offer for Bear Stearns to $10 a share from $2, helping alleviate concerns that other investment banking shares could tumble. Financials also gained on optimism the Bank of England will provide more funding. "It's a highly deserved and very necessary relief rally," said David Buik of Cantor Index. "The worst is over," he added. "But we've still got a long way to go...I don't expect to see the FTSE rally seriously towards 6,000 until the last quarter of this year."

Caseloads have almost doubled just since 2001, with 1.1 million residents now collecting benefits, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Low wages, unemployment and the rising cost of groceries, gasoline and other necessities are to blame for financial hardships facing many Ohio families. Caseloads have been rising steadily in the past seven years, said Brian Harter, spokesman for the state agency which oversees the food-stamp program.

"Look at unemployment during this time," he said. Ohio's jobless rate is 5.3 percent, up from 4.4 percent in 2001. "The economy and loss of manufacturing jobs are at the root of what's going on. But lately (it's) the rising cost of transportation and food - people who were barely getting by, are not getting by," said Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services.

"It has pressed folks to the edge to have to rely on food stamps." Advocates estimate another 500,000 Ohioans are eligible but not enrolled in the food-stamp program.

A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic. The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.

The bottom ten, surprisingly, do not include Iraq. They are listed as Gaza and the West Bank, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

It was acknowledged that it was a little unfair to put the Vatican at the top because it did not face the sort of threats and economic pressures of other countries. But under the rating system, which took into account each nation's political structures, social and economic trends, military and security risks and external relations, the Vatican state scored an average of 99 out of 100. Sweden and Luxembourg were also rated 99, with the UK not far off, with an average of 97, but scoring 100 for its politics, economics and external relations.

The binge has produced some supposedly healthy economic growth and provided everyone with lots of nice stuff. BUT NOW DEBT COLLECTORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD ARE KNOCKING. That's why today's turmoil in U.S. financial markets will end in a massive transfer of wealth from America to the rest of the globe. The housing bust, the subprime catastrophe, the Bear Stearns evaporation, and the tanking markets have already dented household wealth. BUT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING. These events are only the trigger to a larger problem that affects America's standing in the global economy.

THAT PROBLEM IS AMERICA'S VAST, UNSUSTAINABLE TRADE DEFICIT WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD. The deficit has created stuffed storehouses of dollars and dollar-based securities at many of America's most important trading partners. The dollar reserves are especially large in Asia, where export-oriented countries like China and Japan have run large trade surpluses with the U.S. Since China ended its currency peg in mid-2005, the yuan has risen 17% against the dollar and hit an all-time high last week. But the trade deficit with China hasn't budged.

THE REAL CAUSE OF THE TRADE DEFICIT IS THAT AMERICANS SPEND TOO MUCH AND SAVE TOO LITTLE. THAT'S TRUE FOR BOTH THE GOVERNMENT, WITH ITS MAMMOTH BUDGET DEFICITS, AND THE AVERAGE CONSUMER.

So the outcome is inevitable. As the financial crisis in the U.S. persists, the combination of decreasing asset prices and a weakening dollar will make the U.S. cheaper and cheaper to foreign investors. IRRESISTIBLY CHEAP. The U.S. is, after all, still a highly desirable place to own property, companies and securities. Foreign investors will see the crisis as a golden opportunity to buy prime pieces of Americana at bargain-basement prices. SO ALL THOSE DOLLARS IN BANKS AROUND THE WORLD WILL FLOOD BACK INTO THE U.S. TO BUY STOCKS, BONDS AND PROPERTY.

DEBT-BURDENED AMERICANS, DESPERATE FOR FRESH CASH, WILL BE ONLY TOO HAPPY TO SELL - OR BE FORCED TO SELL. The U.S. will become one giant garage sale, where the buyers are Japanese banks, Chinese state-run investment funds and oil-rich Arab sheikdoms

There is, simply put, no way out of this situation for America. If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe Warren Buffett. The Sage of Omaha predicted this very scenario in 2003 in an article in Fortune. He tells the story of two fictional islands, Thriftville and Squanderville. In Squanderville, the residents live beyond their means by importing from Thriftville in return for IOUs. Eventually, Thriftville converts this debt into Squanderville assets until Thriftville owns all of Squanderville. America, Buffett warned, was facing the same fate. "Our trade deficit has greatly worsened, to the point that our country's 'net worth,' so to speak, is now being transferred abroad at an alarming rate," Buffett wrote.

Americans, meet Squanderville.

There is no shortage of ways to see just how short of water Lake Mead is. You can count the white bathtub rings of mineral deposits on the bedrock walls of the sprawling, 250 sq mile (647 sq km) reservoir, indicating the old high-water mark - NOW LEFT NAKEDLY EXPOSED 100 FT UP. You can look at the docks that have been moved repeatedly, chasing the receding lake. Or you can simply read a line graph at the reservoir's visitor center, which tracks the water elevation of Lake Mead since it was created by the construction of the Hoover Dam in 1935. After years of relative stability, starting in 2000 the graph resembles the record of a stock-market crash. The visitor center's chart stops at 2006, but as a park ranger tells me, "It just keeps going down from there."

THE WORRYING QUESTION IS WHETHER IT WILL EVER STOP. A major, prolonged drought, combined with rapid population growth in nearby urban areas like Las Vegas, has stressed Lake Mead and the rest of the Colorado River Basin, which provides water to farmers and cities from Colorado to Southern California.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif, last month estimated that there is a 50% chance that Lake Mead could be effectively dry by 2021 if the climate changes as forecast and water use is not curtailed. "I THINK WE'RE AT OR BEYOND THE LEVEL OF WATER IN THE SOUTHWEST AT WHICH CIVILIZATION CAN BE SUSTAINED," says Tim Barnett, a research marine physicist at Scripps who co-authored the study.

This winter, 27 nations of the European Union (EU) signed the Treaty of Lisbon. You may think, "innocuous enough," as Portuguese-inspired visions of the Tagus River and chicken piri-piri swirl before your eyes. But for England (Britain, actually) the Treaty of Lisbon isn't that appetizing. That's because, if ratified, it will become the decisive act in this creation of a federal European superstate with its capital in Brussels. Britain would become a province and its "Mother of Parliaments," a regional assembly. And that's no small humiliation for a country that gave the world English and saved Western civilization in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

The Eurocrat elite in Brussels might not admit it, but the Treaty of Lisbon is essentially a constitution for a "country" called Europe. More bluntly, it's a cynical repackaging of the EU Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to put the EU Constitution to the British people in a referendum. But his successor, Gordon Brown, has reneged on that promise. He insists that the Treaty of Lisbon is shorn of all constitutional content and that it preserves key aspects of British sovereignty. On March 11, the bill to ratify the treaty cleared the House of Commons. And now the Brown government is poised to win passage in the House of Lords, too.

But British resistance is stirring. In a recent series of mini-referendums, almost 90 percent of voters gave the Lisbon Treaty an emphatic thumbs down and demanded a nationwide referendum. If all 27 nations ratify the treaty this year, it will begin to come into effect on Jan. 1, 2009. The British will then be expected to transfer loyalty and affection to the EU and devote themselves increasingly to its wellbeing. With its flag, anthem, currency, institutions, regulations, and directives, the EU has long been indistinguishable from a nation-state-in-waiting.

Now the Lisbon Treaty gives it those requisites of nationhood it's always lacked: a president, a foreign minister (and diplomatic corps), a powerful new interior department, a public prosecutor and full treaty-making powers. Add to those its common system of criminal justice, an embryonic federal police force, and the faintly sinister-sounding European Gendarmerie Force, and what this union becomes is a monolithic state with great power pretensions.

Most alarmingly, though, is that the Lisbon Treaty can be extended indefinitely without recourse to further treaties or referendums. That 27 European nations are on the verge of being reconstituted as a federal European superstate is substantially the achievement of the fanatical French integrationist Jean Monnet, for whom the nation state was anathema.

At airports, this electronic ID bracelet will replace the need for a ticket and contain all necessary information about the person, and as a bonus, it can allow the passenger to be tracked through the terminal. Crew members would be empowered with radio frequency transmitters to subdue "hijackers."

The technology, made by Lamperd Firearm Training Systems, will override a person's central nervous system and zap them down quicker than you can say "Homeland Security." The company assures us that being dragged through the bracelet process is a "small inconvenience in order to assure your safe arrival." In fact, its studies show that most people would "happily opt" for wearing the bracelet to "ensure their own security."

Lamperd even posts a series of letters on its website showing interest in the product for use "outside of airport security," which, of course, is the real reason for the product. It can also be used for border control to subdue illegal aliens or by local law enforcement agencies to control the "criminal element!"