The cardinal warns that BRITAIN SHOWS SIGNS OF DEGENERATING INTO A COUNTRY FREE OF MORALS, because of its rejection of traditional values and its new emphasis on the rights of the individual. There are now "serious tensions" between Christians and secularist society, he says, in which atheists are becoming more "vocal and aggressive". HE CLAIMS THAT CATHOLICISM HAS BORNE THE BRUNT OF "LIBERAL HOSTILITY" in its battles to fight for values it considers to be "FUNDAMENTAL PILLARS OF A RIGHTLY ORDERED SOCIETY".

"The vocal minority who argue that RELIGION HAS NO ROLE IN MODERN BRITISH SOCIETY PORTRAY CATHOLIC TEACHING ON THE FAMILY AS PREJUDICED AND INTOLERANT TO THOSE PURSUING ALTERNATIVES," he says. In particular, the cardinal highlights the Church's opposition to liberal laws on abortion and homosexuality, its defence of faith schools and its support for marriage.

He blames the culture of individual rights, encouraged by the Human Rights Act, as responsible for creating A SOCIETY THAT CLAIMS TO BE TOLERANT, BUT IN FACT DENIES THE RIGHTS OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO ACT ACCORDING TO THEIR CONSCIENCE AND BELIEFS. "British society champions tolerance and freedom, but that freedom is dependent on responsibility," he says.

The president-elect also said for the first time that he will "launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms," he said in the address.

The president-elect is bringing new elements of his domestic agenda into his economic recovery plan, committing to a path toward giving every American access to an electronic medical record as part of an "economic recovery plan… that won't just save jobs, it will save lives." Obama had talked in the campaign about lowering health care costs by investing in electronic information technology systems, but not in the context of the economy. Now, his key initiatives – education, energy, health care – are all being tied back to jobs.

When Congress reconvenes in January, I look forward to working with them to pass a plan immediately," Obama says in the address. "We need to act with the urgency this moment demands to save or create at least two and a half million jobs so that the nearly two million Americans who've lost them know that they have a future. And that's exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States."

Government in Zimbabwe was now broken and the state was unable or unwilling to protect its people, he said. Mr Brown added that medicine would get to those who needed it, regardless of any differences with Mr Mugabe. In a statement, Mr Brown said that over the coming days the first priority would be delivering aid to Zimbabwe, such as rehydration and testing packs.

He said: "THIS IS NOW AN INTERNATIONAL RATHER THAN A NATIONAL EMERGENCY. International because disease crosses borders. International because the systems of government in Zimbabwe are now broken. There is no state capable or willing of protecting its people. International because - not least in the week of the 60th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights - we must stand together to defend human rights and democracy, to say firmly to Mugabe that enough is enough."

Mr Brown said he had "been in close contact with African leaders to press for stronger action to give the Zimbabwean people the government they deserve". He added: "The people of Zimbabwe voted for a better future. It is our duty to support that aspiration." He also said he hoped the United Nations Security Council would meet "urgently" to consider the country's plight.

For many, FAMILY TIES AND FRIENDSHIPS HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY A PERVERTED SENSE OF LOYALTY TO THE GANG, underpinned by the fear of reprisals should anyone break ranks, the urban equivalent of Lord Of The Flies. Violent, degrading group sex, if not gang rape, is often a rite of passage for members or 'soldiers' as they style themselves - such as losing your virginity or going to the pub would be for other young men. The opposite sex is almost always treated as sexual prey. It is the reason why a petty dispute between a 14-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy escalated into gang rape.

Nine boys took part in the attack. They are due to be sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday. Yesterday, a judge ruled that all but two of the nine could be identified. What is becoming increasingly clear is that what happened is far from uncommon. THE MAJORITY OF VICTIMS - 60 PER CENT - WERE WHITE. Scotland Yard identified certain characteristics among attackers. Around 40 per cent of suspects were described as Afro-Caribbean. A further 13 per cent were of Indian or Pakistani appearance. Most perpetrators already had convictions for street crime and were aged between 15 and 21.

Those who kidnapped and abused Jenny match this profile, BUT THEIR FAMILIES, IF THAT IS THE RIGHT WORD, DIDN'T SEEM TO KNOW OR, IT SEEMS, CARE ABOUT THE LIVES THEY WERE LEADING. Most are in denial about their behaviour. Some of the mothers we spoke to even blamed Jenny for getting their sons into trouble with the law. All of the boys were members of the gang or connected with it.

The Kingzhold Boys are one of at least 22 identified post-code gangs in Hackney. THEY ROUTINELY CARRY KNIVES AND SOMETIMES GUNS and have been involved in a long-running feud with rival Hackney gang London Fields. 'Everyone has got a point to prove. Everyone has got a score to settle. AND THERE IS NO REMORSE. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time they won't hesitate to stab or blast you.' Or gang-rape a 14-year-old girl.

Jenny, her mother and stepfather have been moved out of the area for their own protection. So, too, has another family who supported them.

Cambridgeshire County Council used the controversial REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS ACT (RIPA) to spy on eight paperboys thought to be working without permits. It sent undercover council officers to lurk outside a Spar in the village of Melbourn and take notes on the movements of the boys. The evidence was used in a criminal prosecution of the shop's owners for employing five of the boys without the correct documentation.

Cambridgeshire's approach is just the latest example of LOCAL AUTHORITIES USING THE RIPA FOR MINOR MISDEMEANOURS. SUCH ACTIVITIES HAVE BEEN LIKENED TO THOSE OF THE STASI, THE EAST GERMAN SECRET POLICE. A Cambridgeshire bylaw states that all paperboys must have a work permit issued by the council and signed by the child's employer, headteacher and parents.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was supposed to grant only the police and security services the power to spy on emails and phone calls. Councils in Derby, Bolton, Gateshead and Hartlepool used covert techniques to deal with dog fouling, while Bolton spied on suspected litter louts.

Male pilgrims, wearing two-piece seamless white robes, and women, covered head to foot except for their hands and faces, circled the sacred Kaaba stone structure seven times inside the Grand Mosque, which Muslims face during their five daily prayers. A pillar of the Muslim faith, the hajj is packed with symbolism and ritual aimed at cleansing the soul of sin. Every able-bodied Muslim who can financially afford to must perform it at least once in his or her lifetime.

The hajj culminates Sunday, when the pilgrims gather on Mount Arafat, 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Mecca in the desert, where Islam's Prophet Mohammed is said to have given his last sermon 14 centuries ago. At Arafat, pilgrims offer prayers from noon to shortly after nightfall in a ritual that's interpreted as a foretaste of the Day of Judgment, when Islam says every person will stand before God and answer for his deeds.

JUST 50 YEARS AGO, THE PILGRIMAGE ATTRACTED ONLY ABOUT 10,000 PEOPLE. This year, Saudi embassies world over have issued nearly 2 million visas. Just under a million pilgrims also come to the hajj from Saudi Arabia. Many others are believed to come without proper documents.

"THE INDUSTRY IS DOWN 20 PERCENT. It's by far the worst environment we've ever seen and we'll see a lot of funds going out of business," said Evan Rapoport, co-founder of HedgeCo Networks, which services hedge funds and organized the party. "A lot of people are looking for a job," said Nicole Alexander from Ovation Group, a corporate travel company. "THE JOKE IS THAT THE NEW STATUS SYMBOL, INSTEAD OF A PORSCHE OR FERRARI, IS HAVING HEALTH INSURANCE AND A DESK."

Job losses across Wall Street are forecast by New York state accountants to hit 48,000 by the end of next year. Hedge funds, which have long prided themselves on their resilience, are reeling. A new study by Morgan Stanley predicts assets under hedge fund management globally will drop to 900 billion dollars by the end of 2009, half the peak valuation earlier this year.

To admirers, hedge fund traders are risk-taking, profit-hauling buccaneers who can afford to bet big because they deal only with big players. Detractors say HEDGE FUNDS EMBODY UNDER-REGULATED, OVER-LEVERAGED AND GREED-DRIVEN BUSINESS PRACTICES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE US FINANCIAL CRISIS.

Nikhil Khandelwal, who raises money at ThornWood Capital, gleefully described his company's ability to charge clients sharply increased interest on loans that banks now refuse. "It's a sad reality but we make money when others lose it," he said, not sounding sad. Khandelwal had no sympathy for those in the mayhem. "YOU COME TO A HEDGE FUND TO MAKE EXCESSIVE MONEY, SO YOU KNOW THE RISKS."

Additionally, if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers fail to close the current fiscal year's budget shortfall soon, California, the most populous U.S. state, may in March delay payments to its vendors or hand them notes promising payment, (IOU's) according to a December 1 letter to top lawmakers from the director of the Department of Finance, Michael Genest. A copy of the letter was obtained on Friday by Reuters.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned that the state may issue the warrants, which are a promise to pay with interest, to suppliers and contractors as the seizure in credit markets may make it too costly to borrow.

"IT'S GETTING WORSE VERY QUICKLY," Schwarzenegger, a 61-year-old Republican, told reporters Dec. 1 after declaring a fiscal emergency and ordering the Legislature into a special session to find ways to close the deficit. "IT'S LIKE AN AVALANCHE IN THAT IT GAINS MOMENTUM AND THAT'S WHAT WE'RE IN RIGHT NOW, SO IT'S A REAL CRISIS."

"To reduce this threat, the administration is also proposing legislation to increase internal borrowable cash resources," Genest added. "However, even with this cash solution the state will not be able to pay all of its bills in the absence of quick action on the budgetary solutions." The last time California, THE WORLD'S EIGHTH BIGGEST ECONOMY and the largest issuer of U.S. public debt, issued payment promises to vendors was in the early 1990s.

The share of mortgages 30 days or more overdue rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.99 percent while loans already in foreclosure rose to 2.97 percent, BOTH ALL-TIME HIGHS in a survey that goes back 29 years, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report today. The gain in delinquencies was driven by an increase of loans with payments 90 days or more overdue.

"Until we see a turnaround in the job situation, we're not going to see these numbers improve," said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist of the Washington-based bankers group, in an interview. "We're seeing more loans build up in the 90-days bucket as lenders work to modify loans and states put in place programs that delay foreclosures."

THE U.S. ECONOMY HAS SHED 1.91 MILLION JOBS THIS YEAR, while falling home prices have made it difficult for people who can't pay their mortgages to sell their property. Payrolls declined in each month of 2008 through November, the Labor Department said today in Washington.

Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession. "You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. "They can't spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store."

Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores. It's not a new concept — experts estimate there are at least 2,000 local currencies all over the world — BUT IT IS A PRACTICE THAT TENDS TO BURGEON DURING ECONOMIC DOWNTURNS.

During the Great Depression, scores of communities relied on their own currencies. And it's completely legal. As long as communities don't create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce their own greenbacks — and they don't even have to be green.

Drought has become a regular occurrence in South Australia, which already receives the least rainfall of any Australian state. Lack of rainfall and a sharp reduction in the amount of water flowing into the Murray River meant the state could not guarantee water levels for 2009.

The state's water security minister, Karlene Maywald, said she had purchased 61 billion gallons (231 gigaliters) of extra water for 2009. Water levels in the vitally important Murray Darling basin - WHICH PRODUCES 40% OF THE COUNTRY'S FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND GRAIN - have fallen to critically low levels.

Mr Rann defended his minister's move. "We've been buying water for years, but this is water that's being bought as back-up water for critical human needs," he was quoted by ABC News as saying. "I think what she's done is absolutely prudent and sensible in THE WORST DROUGHT IN A THOUSAND YEARS ACCORDING TO THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS."

This pesticide had been applied to rapeseed and sweet cornseeds in the Rhine River Valley. Piles of dead bees were discovered at the entrance of hives in early May 2008. Clothianidin was found in the tissues of 99% of the dead bees. This is the time when corn seeding takes place according to Walter Haefeker, president of the European Professional Beekeeping Association. The Julius Huehn Institute(federal agricultural research agency) stated "IT CAN BE UNEQUIVOCALLY CONCLUDED THAT POISONING OF THE BEES IS DUE TO A RUB-OFF OF THE PESTICIDE INGREDIENT CLOTHIANIDIN FROM CORNSEEDS." This chemical is estimated to have killed two-thirds of the bees in this state.

Clothianidin is widely used insecticide marketed in Europe under the brand name Poncho. This insecticide is a derivative of nicotine which acts systemically as a neurotoxin which poisons the nervous system of insects. AFTER APPLICATION TO THE SEEDS OF PLANTS CLOTHIANIDIN SPREADS THROUGHOUT ALL PLANT TISSUES. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified clothianidin as "highly toxic" to honeybees. This chemical was approved for U.S. use in 2003 and German use in 2004.

Beekeepers and pesticide critics rejected this explanation and called for Germany to join France in banning this chemical and other nicotine based insecticides. Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, stated "We have been pointing out THE RISK OF NEONICOTINOIDS for almost 10 years now. This proves without a doubt that that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn't be on the market."

In July 1993, U.S. counterterrorism agents arrested eight individuals later convicted of plotting an elaborate, multistage attack on key sites in Manhattan. The militants, who were linked to Osama bin Laden's then-relatively new group, al Qaeda, planned to storm the island armed with automatic rifles, grenades and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In multiple raids on key targets combined with diversionary attacks, they aimed to kill as many people as possible.

The planned attack, which came to be known as the "Landmarks" plot, called for several tactical teams to raid sites such as the Waldorf-Astoria, St. Regis and U.N. Plaza hotels, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and a midtown Manhattan waterfront heliport servicing business executives and VIPs travelling from lower Manhattan to various New York-area airports. The militants carried out extensive surveillance both inside and outside the target hotels using human probes, hand-drawn maps and video surveillance. Detailed notes were taken on the layout and design of the buildings, with stairwells, ballrooms, security cameras and personnel all reconnoitred.

ULTIMATELY, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LANDMARKS PLOT AND THE MUMBAI ATTACK IS THAT THE MUMBAI ATTACK SUCCEEDED. The failure of the Landmarks plot probably provided key lessons to the planners of the Mumbai attack, who were able to carry out the stages of the attack without detection and with the full element of surprise. GAUGING BY THE SUCCESS OF THE MUMBAI INCIDENT, WE CAN EXPECT SIMILAR STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN FUTURE ATTACKS.

They are demanding to know whether a move to sell out Britain to Brussels and adopt the euro was on the agenda. The controversy followed the confession by the president, Jose Manuel Barroso, that he has talked to "the people who matter in Britain" about the country joining the European single currency.

As anger intensified about the threat of another Labour surrender to Brussels, Mr Brown was given a stark warning of the degree of public hostility. An exclusive poll for the Daily Express was deluged with thousands of votes yesterday, WITH 94 PER CENT SAYING BRITAIN SHOULD KEEP THE POUND. Only six per cent were in favour of switching to the euro.

Tory frontbencher William Hague promised to raise a series of Parliamentary questions designed to expose the full extent of Mr Brown's involvement. The Shadow Foreign Secretary said: "Mr Barroso's meeting with Gordon Brown raises some very interesting questions. "The president is an intelligent man. HE WOULD NOT HAVE SAID WHAT HE DID IF THE PRIME MINISTER HAD TOLD HIM THERE WAS NO WAY THAT BRITAIN WAS GOING TO JOIN THE EURO."

The proposal was revealed on Monday in the Israeli daily paper Haaretz, though officials from the office of the Palestinian President in Jerusalem said the EU had been in touch with the President's office on the issue for years, and continuously indicated their support for the re-opening of the Palestinian institution.

The Haaretz report said Israeli officials were "deeply concerned" over the proposal's suggestion, and presumed THE IDEA OF REOPENING THE INSTITUTION WOULD CAUSE A "CLASH" BETWEEN THE EU AND "WHATEVER NEW GOVERNMENT ISRAELIS ELECT IN FEBRUARY." In previous years the United States looked for ways to secure the opening of the Orient House offices, but without satisfactory results.

The Orient House has been the center of government and diplomatic activity for Palestinians for over a century, and is recognized internationally as the headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in East Jerusalem. The building was occupied by the Israeli army and shut down in 2001 on order from the Israeli Minister of Security.