The current financial crisis in the United States has spread to other countries because of a massive debt that was not backed by enough real and liquid collateral. Banks and businesses gasping for financial breath are up for sale at basement prices, but no one is certain if the basement is the bottom.

"The possibility remains that more Arab white knights will be sought to rescue ailing financial institutions," wrote Dr. Mohammed Ramady, a former banker and Visiting Associate Professor at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in the Financial Adviser magazine. He said he fears that Arab investors will end up chasing their investments with more money to keep them from going under.

The growing Arab takeover of American businesses continues unhindered. The giant Dow Chemical company and a Kuwaiti company have agreed to set up world headquarters for their joint petrochemical venture in Dearborn, Michigan, which has a high concentration of American Arabs. The Abu Dubai Investment Council years ago entered the international media business, buying a nine percent stake in Reuters News Agency, which usually reports with an open anti-Israeli bias. However, Abu Dhabi's' director of international affairs, Yousef al Otaiba, has reassured American officials that its purchase of Citibank will not be used to exert political pressure on the U.S.

The five were released in return for the dead bodies of Hizbullah-kidnapped IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Nasrallah's "era of victories" speech came three years and one month after then-Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israel Policy Forum, "WE ARE TIRED OF FIGHTING; WE ARE TIRED OF BEING COURAGEOUS; WE ARE TIRED OF WINNING, WE ARE TIRED OF DEFEATING OUR ENEMIES."

As world media reported the cheering in Lebanon and the mourning in Israel after the terrorists were freed and the soldiers' bodies returned, Nasrallah told tens of thousands of cheering supporters that the deal achieved the goal that he stated at the end of the 2006 war - to force Israel to free Kuntar and the Hizbullah guerrillas. He said Hizbullah achieved another victory by forcing the Lebanese coalition government to give it and its pro-Syrian allies a larger Cabinet representation, giving it veto power over major decisions.

"THE AGE OF DEFEATS IS GONE, AND THE ERA OF VICTORIES HAS COME. This people, this nation gave a great and clear image today to its friends and enemies that it cannot be defeated," Nasrallah said in his brief appearance marked by a large number of bodyguards.

The video, which can be viewed on YouTube, is part of an international media campaign targeting the Arabic-speaking world. The video explains who "the real Samir Kuntar" and his supporters are: "Hizbullah is a terrorist organization that sees a cold-blooded child murderer as hero," reveals the narrator of the video, which aims to establish an Israeli moral victory over Hizbullah.

"For Hizbullah, Samir Kuntar is a first-rate hero, while for Israel and the rest of the civilized world he is the most despicable of murderers," the spokesman declares in Arabic. "He is no freedom fighter, but an abominable murderer." Samir Kuntar crushed the skull of a four-year-old girl and killer her father along with an off-duty policeman in 1979. He has been lionized in the Arab world as a hero for doing so, and respected as a martyr for the nearly three decades he spent in Israeli prisons. The video is an attempt by the Israeli government to combat global Arab propaganda on Israel's terms.

Rather than acquiesce to an Arab media that controls the prerogative of propaganda, the new Foreign Ministry initiative allows government spokesmen to speak directly to the Arab world on the internet. "The age of waiting for an interview with an Arab station is over," a Foreign Ministry spokesman told Ynet. "The aim is to create a dialogue through the YouTube channel's talkback mechanism. This video is the first, and in it we stressed the cynical way in which Hizbullah has exploited the families' grief and its and Samir Kuntar's boastful manner."

To twist their arm and try to make them go back on their decision is counter-productive because, in their overwhelming majority, those who voted no do not regret having rejected the treaty. The campaign was intense and the participation massive. Furthermore, this no vote came within the continuity of those expressed three years earlier by the French and the Dutch. PUBLIC OPINION, IN SEVERAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, IS HOSTILE TO CLOSER INTEGRATION."

"Personally, I regret that as I voted yes. But the EU cannot disrespect the sovereign choice of the Irish people, not without arousing in them a lasting sense of resentment. AFTER THE FRENCH NO VOTE, NOBODY ASKED THEM TO GO BACK ON THEIR DECISION BY MAKING THEM VOTE AGAIN ON THE SAME TEXT. But we'll do it with the Irish just because there are less of them and because this time they are the only ones who have had their say on the treaty through universal suffrage?"

Figures will show that six per cent of all NHS admissions are in some way caused by drink, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. And the rate of visits to hospital over alcohol-related problems is rising by 10 per cent every year. The figures indicate the true impact alcohol has on the NHS from accidents, violence and disease. They include for the first time estimates of the number of cancers caused by alcohol consumption as well as heart disease and strokes.

Alcohol is thought to cause about 17,000 cases of cancer a year and £2billion of NHS money is spent every year treating patients with alcohol-related diseases. Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, believes "lifestyle" illnesses will put an increasing strain on the NHS unless people behave more responsibly. Ministers fear that resources needed to tackle other diseases will have to be diverted if there is no change in behaviour.

Injuries caused by drink-fuelled violence or road accidents are also not fully recorded, they will say. Officials estimate that the true figure for alcohol-induced admissions last year was 811,000. The figures underline the seriousness of the problem and the strain it places on the NHS. They will show that admission rates are more than twice as high for men as for women.

A new Canadian study suggests that even these foods - most of which make nutritional claims on their packaging - aren't all they profess to be. University of Calgary researchers analyzed the nutritional benefit of more than 360 such products, often marketed as "fun foods," which are aimed at children.

Three-quarters of these foods, for example, came in packages bearing cartoon images. Researchers did not include junk food in their analysis, but they found that nearly 90% of kid products still did not meet established nutritional standards. What's more, 62% of the foods that researchers deemed to be of "poor nutritional quality" made positive nutritional claims on the package - such as being low-fat, containing essential nutrients or being a source of calcium. "If a parent sees a product that makes specific nutritional claims, they may assume that the whole product is nutritious," says author Charlene Elliott, a communications and culture professor at the University of Calgary. "Our study has shown that that is definitely not true in the vast majority of cases."

The food industry has long been under fire for advertising directly to children. They're an irresistibly lucrative target - children under 12 are estimated to spend more than $25 billion a year themselves, and may influence another $200 billion that is spent. But there's no doubt that some of that spending contributes directly to childhood obesity - 32% of American youngsters are overweight, and 50% of the calories kids under 18 eat come from fat or added sugars.

The Environmental Audit Committee also warned against the government allowing coal-fired power plants to be built that were "CCS ready" able to be fitted with carbon capture and storage technology once it is commercially proven and available. "Carbon capture and storage has undoubted potential, but there is a real question about when it will become technologically and, equally importantly, commercially viable," said committee chairman Tim Yeo.

"We cannot afford to develop new coal-fired power stations when we have no guarantee about when they will be fitted with CCS, if at all," he added. Carbon capture and storage is the holy grail in the battle against global warming because in grabbing emissions of climate warming carbon gases before they reach the atmosphere and burying them deep underground it allows business as usual.

BECAUSE OF A COMBINATION OF AGE AND EUROPEAN EMISSION LAWS, BRITAIN WILL BE FORCED TO CLOSE UP TO ONE-THIRD OF ITS POWER PLANTS WITHIN THE NEXT 15 YEARS.

No single country owning large amounts of dollar-based investments is inclined to dump them abruptly; nobody aims to start a panic. But fears have begun to grow that one day a country may get spooked that another is about to dump its dollars - and THAT COULD TRIGGER PRE-EMPTIVE PANIC SELLING.

"Foreigners could decide it's just not worth the risk and sell," says Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs. "The really dire scenarios have become a lot more likely than they were a year or two ago." Still, as Tilton and others are aware, one fundamental reality continues to offer assurances that foreigners will still buy American debt: IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY OF THE MOMENT, THE UNITED STATES ITSELF IS TOO BIG TO FAIL.

The logic for that assurance goes like this: The American consumer has for decades served as the engine of world commerce, using borrowed cash to snap up the accoutrements of modern living - clothes and computers and cars now manufactured, in whole or in part, in factories from Asia to Latin America. Eliminate the American wherewithal to shop, and the pain would ripple out to multiple shores. GLOBALIZATION, IN OTHER WORDS, ALLOWED CHINA AND JAPAN TO AMASS THE FORTUNES THEY HAVE BEEN LENDING TO THE UNITED STATES.

In other words, in the estimation of people in control of money, the United States cannot be allowed to collapse, just as Fannie and Freddie cannot be allowed to fail. Too much is riding on their survival. The central truth of that logic still seems to be apparent as the Treasury keeps finding takers for American debt.

So the government offers its rescue of the mortgage companies, and foreigners keep stocking the government's coffers. "They don't want the U.S. to go into the worst downturn since the Depression," Tilton says. BUT ALL THE WHILE, THE DEBT MOUNTS ALONG WITH THE COSTS OF AN ULTIMATE DAY OF RECKONING. Debate grows about the wisdom of leaning on foreign credit, and about how much longer Americans will retain the privilege of spending and investing money that isn't really theirs.

Bailouts amount to mortgaging the future to stave off the wolf howling at the door. The likelihood of a painful reckoning is diminished, while the costs of a reckoning - should one come - are increased.

THE COSTS ARE GETTING BIG.

Lord Justice Dyson, the judge overseeing the case, yesterday asked the Government to explain its actions. However Mr. Wheeler's application for leave to appeal has since been rejected this morning.

The front page of the Express notes that the ratification was only made public yesterday - 24 hours after the ceremony in Rome had taken place. Despite reports that Foreign Secretary David Miliband was due to make a statement to Parliament yesterday, in the end only a two-line written statement was submitted by Europe Minister Jim Murphy.

Open Europe's Lorraine Mullally is quoted in the paper as saying, "FIRST GORDON BROWN SIGNED IT IN BRUSSELS IN SECRET AND NOW THEY'VE RATIFIED IT ON THE SLY. THEY ARE ASHAMED OF IT BECAUSE THEY KNOW PEOPLE DON'T WANT IT. Gordon Brown has behaved in a cowardly way because he is scared of the voters." Meanwhile, Commons leader Harriet Harman insisted it was "in Britain's interest to be at the heart of Europe".

The Gaza-based group of Salafi Muslims, known as the Army of Islam (Jaish al-Islam), first made headlines a year ago when it kidnapped British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Alan Johnston near his Gaza City bureau office. "It was nothing personal," commented their leader, Abu Mustafa, in an interview published over the weekend by the German Der Spiegel. "It was a message to the West that they should release imprisoned Muslims." He added that at the moment foreign journalists are not in danger in Gaza.

Abu Mustafa does not consider Hamas to meet the criteria for real followers of Islam, however. "They are traitors. Compared to us, they are Islamism-lite." Whether they will come to violence over their differences, and ultimately a struggle for control of the region, is a separate issue.

"We will give them the chance to turn away from the false path," he said, but added that if Hamas does not comply, "Then there will be confrontation." In the long run, however, Abu Mustafa said he believes Hamas's "American style of Islam" will do the job for him. "They will destroy themselves."

Next came the federal takeover of IndyMac, following Sen. Chuck Schumer's, D-N.Y., ill-advised public release of his June 26 letter to the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation expressing concern over the bank's solvency.

Wall Street Journal editorial writer Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. made a strong argument that Freddie and Fannie ought to be privatized and their assets sold, with the goal of putting both quasi-governmental entities out of business once and for all.

What is certain is that more bank failures are likely in the coming months, as the crisis resulting from the bursting of the mortgage bubble works its way through billions of dollars in near worthless or deeply depreciated collateralized mortgage securities held by U.S. financial institutions in their asset portfolios. As many as 150 out of the 7,500 banks in the U.S. could fail in the next 12 to 18 months.

The system, which runs from Queensland in the country's north east to Victoria in the south, irrigates Australia's vast food bowl and drinking water to more than a million people. However, due to rising temperatures and a desperate lack of rain, inflows to the basin are at their lowest ever recorded levels.

Climate change minister Penny Wong yesterday said the Murray Darling was "in real trouble. We've had very low inflows, we've had a very dry June and the focus absolutely has to be critical human needs, that is the needs of the million-plus people who rely on the basin for drinking water," she said. "It just reminds us, yet again, the way in which this country is particularly vulnerable to climate change."

Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century, with water restrictions in place in most major cities and a forecast for more dry weather. The report said the parched Murray-Darling system should provide enough drinking water until the middle of next year. But the document, compiled by senior federal and state government officials, warned there could be difficulties supplying drinking water after that if rains did not arrive.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called the meeting "now or never" for the Doha round, which was launched nearly seven years ago with goals to cut farm subsidies and tariffs and to help developing countries prosper through trade. The talks also cover manufactured goods and services, areas where rich countries like the United States and the European Union hope to make gains that will help them sell politically painful farm trade reforms at home.

"Most of the world's farmers live in developing countries. They continue to be burdened by gigantic trade-distorting subsidies and prohibitive market access barriers in developed countries. Addressing these distortions effectively is the most important unfinished task in the WTO," developing country negotiating groups said in a joint statement on Sunday.

The United States has high tariffs for farm products such as sugar, dairy products, tobacco and meat, but is mainly being asked to dramatically cut its current WTO spending ceiling for trade-distorting farm subsidies. The latest WTO proposals call for a cut of about 70 percent in U.S. trade-distorting subsidies to $13-$16.4 billion. But current U.S. spending is already about half that at $7 billion thanks to soaring food prices.

In evidence to a House of Lords committee, ministers said that early warning systems for spotting emerging diseases were "poorly co-ordinated" and lacked "vision" and "clarity". They said that more needed to be done to improve detection and surveillance for potential pandemics and called for urgent improvement in rapid-response strategies.

The Government's evidence appeared in a highly critical report from the Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee, which attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "dysfunctional" and criticised the international response to the threat of an outbreak of disease which could sweep across the globe.

The Government said: "While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable." Ministers said it could kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and that such an outbreak would leave up to 75,000 people dead in Britain and cause "massive" disruption. Peers joined ministers calling for urgent action to build up early warning systems across the Third World that can identify and neutralise outbreaks of potentially deadly new strains of disease before they are swept across the globe by modern trade and travel.

Church officials did not recognize the ordination, and the Vatican has previously warned that women taking part in ordination ceremonies will be excommunicated. The group known as Roman Catholic Women priests held the ceremony at the Church of the Covenant, a Protestant Church in Boston.

The Archdiocese of Boston issued a statement decrying the ceremony. "Catholics who attempt to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the women who attempt to receive a sacred order, are by their own actions separating themselves from the church," the archdiocese said. The group says the women who are ordained remain loyal members of the church and will act as priests whether they are excommunicated or not. Sunday's ordination ceremony was performed by two women the group describes as bishops - Ida Raming of Stuttgart, Germany, and Dana Reynolds from California.

Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, has rebuffed calls to change traditional church teachings on the requirement that priests be male.