It says, "Having needlessly emitted an estimated 15 tons of CO2 on the flights, they'll sit down to discuss the world's great problems, including a favourite topic, carbon emissions. This flying example of euro-hypocrisy is the result of petty vanity".

Asked about the financial and environmental costs of the December EU summit, a Portuguese government spokesman explained that, "This is the price to pay for the new treaty." How rich. On the BBC Daily Politics show Open Europe's Neil O'Brien criticised the "pathetic vanity" of the Belgian and Portuguese governments, accusing them of being "completely out of touch with reality."

Last week, four days after Musharraf declared martial law, Bush called him and said, "you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform. You can't be the President and the head of the military at the same time." This Friday he is dispatching his Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, to tell Musharraf in person that he needs to do both those things and to restore civilian rule.

The unraveling in Pakistan is testing Bush's diplomatic abilities, and it's not just because the crisis is requiring him to confront a leader with whom he has had close ties since 9/11. More importantly, Bush is working without a clear strategy: even at this late date the White House still doesn't have a plan for protecting American interests in Pakistan without Musharraf. In essence Bush and the White House are winging it, trying to back Musharraf down from the current crisis while coming up with a longer-term approach to securing U.S. interests in the region.

The goal at least is clear, even if the Administration doesn't know how to get there. Says one official involved in the interagency discussions: "At the end of the day, how do we get maximum cooperation with the Pakistani government in light of the fact that the most recent National Intelligence Estimate says al-Qaeda is trying to reestablish its headquarters in the tribal areas?"

The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.

The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz is a "red line" drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.

The IAEA says the uranium being produced is only fuel grade (enriched to 4%) but the confirmation that Iran has reached the 3,000 centrifuge benchmark brings closer a moment of truth for the Bush administration, when it will have to choose between taking military action or abandoning its red line, and accepting Iran's technical mastery of uranium enrichment.

US generals are reported to have warned the White House that military action would trigger a devastating Iranian backlash in the Middle East and beyond.

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report detailed cases of people ill in May of 2006 and from March to June of 2007 with a strain of the virus called adenovirus 14 in New York, Oregon, Washington state and Texas."Whether you're a healthy young adult, an infant or an elderly person, this virus can cause severe respiratory disease at any age," said John Su, who investigates infectious diseases for the CDC and contributed to the report.

"What makes this particular adenovirus a little different is that it has the capability of making healthy young adults severely ill. And that's unusual for an adenovirus, and that's why it's got our attention," Su said in a telephone interview. Two of the 10 people who died from the new strain were infants, Su said. The CDC report said about 140 people were sickened by the virus and more than 50 hospitalized, including 24 admitted to intensive care units.

Local officials and Red Crescent workers said at least 328 deaths have already been confirmed while hundreds more were injured or missing following the cyclone, which struck overnight packing winds of 250 kph (155 mph). "The death count is rising fast as we get more information from the affected districts," an official at the food and disaster ministry said.

The cyclone, which followed devastating floods in July-September that killed more than 1,000 people, posed a new challenge to the interim administration, mainly tasked to hold a free and fair election before the end of next year. The cycle triggered a tidal surge that inundated the towns of Patuakhali, Barguna and Jhalakathi, cutting off communication links. A government official in Dhaka said there was no immediate information about casualties from the area.

Nearly a million people were evacuated in 13 coastal districts, officials said.

And the phenomenon of emigration among Eastern-rite Christians worries the Holy See, and in particular Benedict XVI, affirmed Cardinal-designate Leonardo Sandri, who will be elevated to cardinal in the Nov. 24 consistory.

In an interview granted to L'Osservatore Romano last Saturday, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, the prefect said, "The Holy Land is everyone's land. It is the family from which we come. It's the home that has to be maintained and loved."

The phenomenon of migration "is a real challenge at present. We are worried, as is the Pope. People uprooted from their original traditions run the risk of losing the deep religious values that guided their lives as individuals and communities," he affirmed.

Research by Times Online can reveal that BA has increased the surcharge on long-haul flights 23-fold in less than fours year despite a less than threefold rise in the price of fuel. In May 2004, when BA first introduced a fuel surcharge, customers paid an extra £2.50 on longhaul flights. From today passengers will pay an extra £58.00 on a one-way long-haul flight taking longer than nine hours. Since 2004, the price of Brent crude has risen from $36.97 a barrel to $91.07.

A spokesman at the Air Transport Users Council (AUC), said that stripping out the cost of fuel was "misleading", because it is a cost of business and should be included in the price of the ticket. He said: "Companies try and make out that the actual price of the ticket is cheap for example, a ticket to America costs £100 but it is actually £250 because the other £150 covers surcharges and other costs. These are the cost of business and should be included in the overall price."

In nearly four years, BA has increased fuel surcharges ten times, mostly on long-haul flights. The carrier has reduced prices only once, on long-haul flights lasting less than nine hours, by £5 to £30.00.

He conjured up visions of "Fortress Britain" as he unveiled a succession of security measures at airports, railway stations, sports venues and other public places. There is also to be a huge "hearts and minds" drive aimed at diverting young Muslims away from the influence of fanatics.

The Prime Minister said a review of vulnerable buildings and crowded spaces like shopping centres had led to a rethink of the way they are protected. More than 250 busy railway stations, airports and seaports as well as 100 "sensitive" installations like power stations and electricity substations will be given extra security.

This could include screening luggage at major stations like London King's Cross or Manchester Piccadilly using mobile checking devices that can be moved around the country. More buildings will be defended by barriers to stop car bomb attacks, extra blast-proofing, vehicle exclusion zones and metal detectors.

For every journey, security officials will want credit card details, holiday contact numbers, travel plans, email addresses, car numbers and even any previous missed flights. The information, taken when a ticket is bought, will be shared among police, customs, immigration and the security services for at least 24 hours before a journey is due to take place.

Anybody about whom the authorities are dubious can be turned away when they arrive at the airport or station with their baggage. Those with outstanding court fines, such as a speeding penalty, could also be barred from leaving the country, even if they pose no security risk. The information required under the "e-borders" system was revealed as Gordon Brown announced plans to tighten security at shopping centres, airports and ports.

This could mean additional screening of baggage and passenger searches, with resulting delays for travellers. The e-borders scheme is expected to cost at least £1.2billion over the next decade. Critics warned of mayhem at ports and airports when the system is introduced, beginning in earnest from mid-2009. By 2014 every one of the predicted 305million passenger journeys in and out of the UK will be logged, with details stored about the passenger on every trip.

The scheme will apply to every way of leaving the country, whether by ferry, plane, or small aircraft. It would apply to a family having a day out in France by Eurotunnel, and even to a yachtsman leaving British waters during the day and returning to shore. The measure applies equally to UK residents going abroad and foreigners travelling here. The information will be stored for as long as the authorities believe it is useful, allowing them to build a complete picture of where a person has been over their lifetime, how they paid and the contact numbers of who they stayed with.

Powerful aftershocks rattled northern Chile on Thursday, startling residents and emergency workers a day after a large earthquake killed two people and injured more than 100 in the mineral-rich region. The quake was measured officially at 7.7 magnitude.

Wednesday's large quake cut power to some of the world's largest copper mines, forcing them to work on backup generators on Thursday. Copper prices jumped on Wednesday by more than 6 percent to $3.3040 a pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division. That price backed off 4.11 percent in early trade on Thursday.

"They have covered the entrance and refuse to come out and are threatening to blow themselves up," an official in the local prosecutor's office told Reuters by telephone. "They threaten to detonate a gas tank and blow themselves up."

The cult members, who include 29 adults and four children, are hidden inside a snow-covered hillside in the Penza region of central Russia. A Penza police spokeswoman said they had moved into the dug-out on November 7. "No one wants to take on the responsibility of provoking them - because our information is that there are children among them," said the official.

They are thought to have taken food and fuel supplies in with them and Russian television pictures from the scene showed smoke or steam coming out of a hole in the snow-covered ravine where it was built. A police patrol was guarding the area to prevent anyone provoking them.

"They are simple Christians," a local priest, Father Georgy, told NTV television station. They say: "The church is doing a bad job, the end of the world is coming soon and we are all saving ourselves." Media reports said the cult members believed the world would end sometime in May next year. Police expected them to emerge when their supplies ran out.

Achim Steiner of the UN Environment Programme (Unep) said there was an urgent need for standards to make sure rainforests weren't being destroyed. Biofuel makers also had to show their products did not produce more CO2 than they negated, he told BBC News. Critics say biofuels will lead to food shortages and destroy rainforests. They point to the destruction of Indonesia's peat swamps as an example of biofuel folly.

The swamps are one of the richest stores of carbon on the planet and they are being burned to produce palm oil. Mr Steiner implied that because of Indonesia's inability to police its land use, biofuels from palm oil grown by the nation might never be deemed to be sustainable. But he said some biofuels could be considered sustainable. He highlighted ethanol production in Brazil, and a dry land crop called jatropha, which is resistant to pests and droughts.

He said enlargement was "our most powerful tool" for extending stability. In his first major speech on the UK's relationship with Europe, he said the EU would not become a "superpower" but should be a "role model" for the world. It could be a "model power of regional co-operation" dedicated to free trade, the environment and tackling extremism.

He said the EU must "keep our promises to Turkey", adding: "If we fail.... it will signal a deep and dangerous divide between east and west. Beyond that we must keep the door open, retaining the incentive for change that the prospect of membership provides."

Mr Miliband made his address at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, where Baroness Thatcher delivered her famous warning against "some sort of identikit European personality" almost exactly two decades ago in September 1988.

He will join lawmakers and ministers on the steps of the state Capitol to pray for rain. While public prayer vigils might raise eyebrows in other parts of the nation, they are mostly shrugged off in the Bible Belt, where turning to the heavens for help is common and sometimes even politically expedient.

"Christianity has more of a place in the culture here than in some other region," said Ray Van Neste, a professor of Christian studies at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. "And it's only natural, in a way, for the public to pray for rain."

Perdue won't be the first governor to hold a call for public prayer during the epic drought gripping the Southeast. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley issued a proclamation declaring a week in July as "Days of Prayer for Rain" to "humbly ask for His blessings and to hold us steady in times of difficulty."

The loudest opposition to Perdue's move has come from the Atlanta Freethought Society, a secular group that is expecting about a dozen of its 125 members to protest at the vigil. "The governor can pray when he wants to," said Ed Buckner, who is organizing the protest. "What he can't do is lead prayers in the name of the people of Georgia."

With rivers and reservoirs dropping to dangerously low levels across the region, a prayer rally at a high school football stadium in the Georgia town of Watkinsville drew more than 100 worshippers last week, and a gospel concert dedicated to rain attracted hundreds more two weeks ago at an Atlanta church.

"We need to try a different approach," said Rocky Twyman, who organized the concert. "We need to call on God, because what we're doing isn't working. We think that instead of all this fussing and fighting, Gov. Perdue and all these others would come together and pray."

A Baptist, Perdue has several times mentioned the need for prayer ? along with water conservation ? as the crisis has worsened. Over the summer, he participated in a day of prayer for agriculture at a gathering of the Georgia Farm Bureau.

Emergency protection zones were immediately set up around the site of the outbreak.

If the disease spreads it is feared it could devastate the industry in the run-up to Christmas. Tests confirmed yesterday that a turkey at the farm in Redgrave near Diss had died from the H5 strain of bird flu. Further tests overnight are expected to reveal whether it had the especially dangerous H5N1 subtype which has killed millions of birds worldwide.

The farm is operated by Gressingham Foods, whose operations director Geoffrey Buchanan said: "We believe the outbreak has been contained and that the measures are in place to allow us to continue to serve our customers.