Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, suggested that the tremors could be stopped through the simple expedient of repealing various liberalising laws on homosexuality that have been passed by the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, in recent years. Since decriminalising homosexuality in 1988, Israel has passed several laws on the subject, including decisions to recognise same-sex marriages carried out abroad, and granting inheritance rights and other benefits held by married couples to gay partnerships. Last Sunday, to the outrage of the religious Right, the country's attorney general, Meni Mazuz, ruled that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children.

In what Mr Benizri clearly believes is no coincidence, the first of last week's quakes hit the country just two days later. "Why do earthquakes happen? One of the reasons is the things to which the Knesset gives legitimacy, to sodomy," Benizri said during a parliamentary debate on earthquake preparedness. "We are looking for earthly solutions, how to prevent them," he said. "I have another way to prevent earthquakes. The Gemara says that one of the reasons earthquakes happen - which the Knesset (parliament) legitimises - is homosexuality."

Joy Goodman, a cake decorator, is seeking damages for personal injury and loss of earnings, claiming the top of her right index finger was severed when she delivered the mail. She claims she needs compensation because she is now unable to carry out her intricate job.

But the home owner vowed to fight the case. Paul O'Brien, 44, a self-employed engineer from Leeds, said: "When I received a solicitor's letter I thought someone was having a laugh. I actually told them they had sent it early. April Fool's Day is still six weeks away.

"I just cannot believe someone who came on to my property uninvited, to put junk mail through my door that I didn't want, can now sue me because they hurt themselves." He added: "There is nothing wrong with the letterbox. I haven't altered it or done anything to it. It's just like every other letterbox on this estate."

A law expert said that householders had limited duties of care to people who went on to their property such as delivery people or postmen. These duties of care include not having such things as bare electricity cables sticking out, but were not likely to extend to a letterbox providing it was a standard model.

Michael Fitzgerald, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, argued the characteristics linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were the same as those associated with creative genius.

Prof Fitzgerald cited Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, George Orwell, H G Wells and Ludwig Wittgenstein as examples of famous and brilliant individuals who showed signs of ASDs including Asperger syndrome. Beethoven, Mozart, Hans Christian Andersen and Immanuel Kant have also received post mortem diagnoses of Asperger's.

"We don't know which genes they are yet or how many there are, but we are talking about multiple genes of small effect. Every case is unique because people have varying numbers of the genes involved. These produce people who are highly focused, don't fit into the school system, and who often have poor social relationships and eye contact. They can be quite paranoid and oppositional, and usually highly moral and ethical. They can persist with a topic for 20-30 years without being distracted by what other people think. And they can produce in one lifetime the work of three or four other people."

Prof Fitzgerald said traits such as a need to be dominant and in control and autistic repetitiveness were critical to the success of politicians such as Charles de Gaulle, who famously said "I am France", US president Thomas Jefferson and Enoch Powell. Another example he said was science fiction writer H G Wells, whom he described as socially insecure, controlling, lonely, cruel and emotionally immature.

After months of failing to get other nations to share the burden of intense combat in southern Afghanistan, Ottawa announced that all its troops would be out by 2011. Stephen Harper, the prime minister, has grown increasingly frustrated that Canada's 2,500 troops take the brunt of the fighting and that his country's death toll of 78 is the third highest after those of Britain and America.

The decision came after Lord Robertson, the former Nato secretary general who took the organisation into Afghanistan, warned it was developing into a two-tier alliance. "There cannot be one tier for those to carry burdens and the bloody sacrifice and a tier for those who benefit from that contribution. Collective security is what it means - collective," he told a Chatham House conference.

It is thought that France is considering a plan to send a battalion to Kandahar province to assist Canada. But its decision, if it comes, seems too late to prevent the Canadian withdrawal.

Anthony Watts concludes in his investigation that the station at O'Hare is affected by an urban heat effect that would make temperature readings inaccurate as an indicator of what is actually occurring regionally. "The community around O'Hare was much smaller during World War II, when the airport was built, than it is now," says Watts. "The area had a significantly less-urban population and lacked the acres of concrete and asphalt that exist there today." The problems at O'Hare are similar to those found by Watts around the country in his study of temperature stations used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

What he has found elsewhere are temperature stations with sensors on the roofs of buildings, near air-conditioning exhaust vents, in parking lots near hot automobiles, barbecues, chimneys and on pavement and concrete surfaces - all of which would lead to higher temperature recordings than properly established conditions.

To qualify as a properly maintained temperature station, sensors must be placed in elevated, slatted boxes on flat ground surrounded by a clear surface on a slope of less than 19 degrees with surrounding grass and vegetations ground cover of less than 10 centimeters high. The sensors must be located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces and parking lots.

About 50 million pounds of the meat went to schools, said Eric Steiner, deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service's special nutrition programs. Of that amount, about 20 million pounds have been eaten, 15 million pounds are on hold at storage facilities and 15 million pounds are still being traced, he said.

The USDA shut down Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. and issued the nation's largest beef recall after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video of workers kicking and shoving sick and crippled cows and forcing them to stand with electric prods, forklifts and water hoses. The plant produces about a fifth of all the meat in the federal school lunch programs, said Bill Sessions, associate deputy administrator for livestock and seed Programs with USDA's agriculture marketing service.

He announced in August that his Mehdi Army would not attack rival armed groups or American forces in Iraq. This was widely credited with reducing sectarian tensions and contributing to the recent overall drop in violence. US military officials have publicly recognised this contribution as helping to stabilise parts of Iraq.

Other key developments that have helped reduce the violence have been the surge of US troops in and around Baghdad, and the emergence of US-backed Sunni militia who have taken on al-Qaeda in Iraq in western areas of the country. The continuation of the ceasefire is expected to be announced at mosques connected to Mr Sadr at Friday prayers.

Correspondents say the decision to renew the ceasefire will be unpopular with some of the Mehdi Army, some of whom have been continuing to fight. The Americans have been pursuing what they call rogue elements, who - they say - are armed and encouraged by Iran.

There is a new commandment in the land: "THOU SHALT NOT DRINK BOTTLED WATER." It is taken as an indisputable truth that anyone who has a proper regard for his or her health will drink eight glasses of water a day. Given that the average glass will hold about eight ounces of water, this is frequently described as the "rule of 8x8".

As Rose Shapiro notes in her new book, Suckers, the bottled drink industry has warmly endorsed the ludicrous PSEUDO-MEDICAL FAD which suggests that we are at great risk of dangerous levels of dehydration unless we spend much of our day glugging down water.

This organised panic about dehydration seems to stem from a misreading - quite possibly deliberate - of guidelines from the US Food and Nutrition Board in 1945. These stated that "a suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 LITRES DAILY in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is one millilitre for each calorie of food. MOST OF THIS QUANTITY IS CONTAINED IN PREPARED FOODS." As Shapiro notes, the last sentence of that advice is always left out, leading to the idea that we need an extra eight glasses of water over and above our actual requirements.

Other commodities traded mixed, with crude oil retreating from $100 a barrel and agriculture futures rising. The dollar's decline versus the 15-nation euro has been a major driver of precious metals, which are seen as safer alternative investments used to hedge against inflation and economic and political uncertainty. Platinum has gained 38 percent this year, gold 11 percent and silver 19 percent.

GOLD Jumped on the dollar's drop, with the April contract rising $11.40 to settle at $949.20 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier touching an all-time high of $958.40. Gold broke the $950 barrier for the first time Wednesday, raising expectations that the metal could breach the psychologically important $1,000 mark in coming weeks or months.

SILVER rose to its highest level since 1980, with the March contract hitting a record $18.075 an ounce on the Nymex before settling at $17.835, up 19 cents.

PLATINUM also extended its record-setting rally amid supply concerns fed by a power shortage in South Africa. An ounce of platinum for April delivery surged $49.40 to settle at $2,188.20 on the Nymex, after earlier pushing to an all-time high of $2,194.80.

Nymex COPPER for March delivery added 10.20 cents to settle at $3.8105 a pound after falling back from a record $3.8465.

ANTIQUES DEALER ARRESTED AT GUN POINT UNDER EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT ON BASELESS GROUNDS
Antiques Trade Gazette - reports how a London-based antiques dealer Malcolm Hay was seized under a Greek-issued European Arrest Warrant, having been unwittingly caught up in a case of stolen Greek artefacts simply by doing business with a regular customer, a registered antiques dealer based in Athens. At one point Hay was arrested at gunpoint at London's City Airport and spent two days in custody before being taken before an extradition tribunal. Following his arrest and remand in custody, Hay was released on a £20,000 bail and spent the next six months fighting extradition in the English courts and simultaneously charges of theft in the Greek criminal court relating to the 1999 transaction. His eventual discharge from the Warrant in England came on January 9 after UK magistrates ruled that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to clarify whether or not the Warrant was valid because of the lack of a formal summons in the Greek courts.

GOVERNMENT ADMITS IT UNDERESTIMATED NEW LISBON TREATY POWERS
Europe Minister Jim Murphy has issued a statement saying that the Lisbon Treaty will introduce majority voting in 51 areas, as opposed to 50 as previously claimed. He said, "The Explanatory Memorandum on the Lisbon Treaty stated that the Treaty extended qualified majority voting (QMV) in a total of 50 articles. It should have stated that there were 51 articles, including the move to QMV on the statute, seat and operational rules of the European Defence Agency (EDA)."

BROWN ON "SYMBOLIC" VISIT TO BRUSSELS
The IHT reports that Gordon Brown is today making his "symbolic" first visit to the EU institutions in Brussels, since he took office. He is expected to meet with the Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes to discuss whether Britain's plan to nationalise Northern Rock complies with EU state-aid rules.

MIGRANTS MUST EARN CITIZENSHIP, SAYS BROWN
Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will outline a system of "earned citizenship" for new migrants to Britain, aimed toward enhancing integration of individual migrants into British society, reports the Guardian. The new scheme would create a more rigorous five-year probationary period for migrants before they can apply for citizenship, which will emphasise English language acquisition, obedience to the law, and payment of taxes, and may include periods of community and voluntary work.

According to a report in German daily Die Welt, politicians from the Left Party as well as Peter Gauweiler, a centre-right politician from one of the governing parties - the CSU - are examining the text of the EU treaty to see if they can bring a case before the country's constitutional court. Their move could mean that the final formal step of ratification is delayed.

Mr Gauweiler had complained that the EU constitution took too much power away from the country's national parliament, arguing that the document overstepped the boundaries that the German constitution provides for the integration of state institutions in the EU.

So far Hungary, France, Slovenia, Malta and Romania have ratified the text, which needs to be approved by all EU member states for it to come into force. A delay in ratification by Germany would be embarrassing for chancellor Angela Merkel, who was largely responsible for getting a new treaty into shape again following the rejected constitution.

In a strategy some Western diplomats admit could badly backfire, the Bush administration has made clear it wishes to continue to support Mr Musharraf even after Monday's election in which the Pakistani public delivered a resounding rejection of his policies. "[The US] does not want some people pushed out because it would lead to instability. In this case that means Musharraf," said one Western diplomat.

Officials say the policy is driven by concern about possible instability in the aftermath of the election in which the president's parliamentary allies were soundly beaten. In such circumstances US and its Western allies are urging the election's winners - the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N)- to quickly move forward and form a coalition that includes all "moderate" elements.

But along with Mr Musharraf's future, the reinstatement of sacked Chief Justice Minister Iftikar Chaudhry and other Supreme Court justices - sacked by the president when they refused to ratify his imposition of a State of Emergency last November - has rapidly emerged as one of the most contentious issued in the aftermath of Monday's vote, as the PPP and PML-N negotiate to form a coalition government. Mr Sharif, whose party secured the second most number of seats, built his campaign around the reinstatement of Mr Chaudhry and has repeatedly insisted Mr Musharraf should stand down.

The West's approach has already drawn criticism. Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, said: "How is it that the US believes Musharraf can be the guarantor of any sort of stability when he is the source of instability?"

The embassy was closed and unprotected at the time. Reports say the Croatian and UK embassies were also attacked. The violence follows a peaceful protest by at least 150,000 people outside the main parliament building against Kosovo's declaration of independence. The US, the UK, Germany and Italy are among those to have recognised Kosovo.

The attacks overshadowed the earlier peaceful demonstration, when Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica addressed protesters in the main square, saying Kosovo would always be Serbian. Most Serbs consider Kosovo their religious and cultural heartland. In the coming weeks, an almost 2,000-strong EU mission will be deployed to help the country develop its police force and judiciary.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he had agreed "a common agenda" with the party of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. He had been in talks with Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Zardari, the new leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Such a government could put renewed pressure on President Pervez Musharraf.

He said the two parties had agreed that the country's chief justice minister, sacked by President Musharraf in November, should be immediately reinstated. Mr Zardari said there was "a lot of ground to cover" between the two parties, but "in principle, we have agreed to stay together". Doubts remain about who will emerge as a possible prime minister.

Mr Sharif has been deeply critical of the president and says he wants "to rid Pakistan of dictatorship forever". Mr Musharraf has said he will not resign or retire, but instead wishes to work towards stable democratic government in Pakistan. Mr Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 and was re-elected to the presidency in October in a parliamentary vote boycotted by the opposition as unconstitutional.

The economic and social cost associated with the "trauma and physical injury" suffered by victims is £7 billion a year and employers lose £2.1 billion through time taken off work, say the estimates. Violent crimes fell from 20,400 to 19,200 last year - a drop of 5.9 per cent. Overall crime levels were down 8.5 per cent. The NAO figures show nearly half of the perpetrators of violent crimes were thought to be drunk and 17 per cent under the influence of drugs at the time.

Firearms offences almost doubled between 1998 and 2006, from just over 5,000 to about 11,000, although there was a fall of more than 1,000 last year. Last year, guns were involved in 413 serious injuries and 58 homicides. Knife crime also fell last year, after doubling among 15- to 17-year-olds in the previous decade.

Weapons of some type were involved in a quarter of violent crimes, with knives the most common, followed by glass and bottles. There were 755 homicides last year, 636 attempted murders and 480 deaths involving a vehicle.