According to the Green New Deal Group, humanity only has 100 months to prevent dangerous global warming. Its proposals include major investment in renewable energy and the creation of thousands of new "green collar" jobs. The name is taken from President Franklin D Roosevelt's "New Deal", launched 75 years ago to bring the US out of the Great Depression.

The new grouping says rising greenhouse gas emissions, combined with escalating food and energy costs, mean the globe is facing one of its biggest crises since the 1930s. Its members include former Friends of the Earth UK director Tony Juniper, Green MEP Caroline Lucas and Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF).

The authors said their proposals drew inspiration from President Roosevelt's 1933 New Deal. During 100 days, he sent a record number of bills to Congress, all of which went on to become law, including banking reforms and emergency relief programmes. The prolific reforms were credited with turning around the US economy. The authors say that that within "the very real timeframe of 100 months" the world will reach the point where the risk of "runaway" climate change becomes unacceptably high.

In the first speech to the Knesset by a UK prime minister, he will call Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threat to wipe Israel off the map "abhorrent". Tehran must abandon its nuclear programme, he will say, or face "growing isolation" - a hint that further sanctions could be considered. He will also vow to stand beside Israel in its "fight for liberty".

In a message likely to go down well with his hosts, he will insist that the UK, the European Union and the United States are determined to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon - Israel's key strategic fear. His expression of support for Israel comes a day after he and the country's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, voiced differing views over settlements in Palestinian territories. But Mr Brown will talk of his father's "lifelong affection" for Israel, adding: "For the whole of my life, I have counted myself a friend of your country."

As well as Mr Olmert, Mr Brown met Israeli President Shimon Peres, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on his first visit to Jerusalem as premier.

Begbies Traynor, the business rescue, recovery and restructuring specialist, said 4,258 companies faced critical problems, including moves to wind them up, in the three months to June 30, compared with 542 the same time last year.

This was also up 28.7 percent on the first quarter, with construction, information technology and retail companies suffering the most.

"With credit conditions still tightening, these new figures demonstrate that the effects are certainly getting worse, and we would anticipate that they will continue to do so, certainly until the end of this year at least," Begbies Executive Chairman Ric Traynor said in a statement.

It's a situation that keeps Franco Calo up at night. Across Europe and the world, chariot racing, perhaps the most Roman of all sporting events, is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. Events are held in cities from Bulgaria to Germany to France. There is even a hippodrome in Brazil.

But in Calo's native Rome? So far, the 27th generation Roman points out ruefully, there is nothing. That, though, is something Calo is setting about to change. He is pushing for the Italian capital to reclaim chariot racing and establish an event of its own.

"Rome is the only large Italian city without a unique historical manifestation, such as Siena's Palio horse races or Venice's Regata Storica," Calo told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Just as important, why did we have to wait for him to urge us to do something about restoring that faith before we either sink into a yelling chaos of knives, fists and boots, or swoon into the strong, implacable arms of Islam? Most of our home grown prelates are more interested in homosexuality or in spreading doubt about the gospel or urging the adoption of Sharia law. Then again, why did it take the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to explain to us that our parliamentary system was the best guarantee of liberty in the world and to remind us of the courage and valour of our people in war?

This is not what British leaders say or even think, not least because they are busy pulling the constitution to pieces. It is not what our children are taught in schools. In fact, any expression of national pride is viewed with suspicion by the state, by the education system and above all by the BBC.

It was not always so. Half a century ago, we had churchmen, broadcasters, academics and military men who thought it normal to love their own country, normal to support the Christian faith which made us what we are, and were willing to defend it. THE QUESTION IS, WHAT HAPPENED IN THE YEARS BETWEEN?

Those who wonder what they would have done if they had lived at the time of some terrible injustice now know the answer. We do live in such a time. And we do nothing. I had resigned myself to the fact that WE ARE A CALLOUS AND BARBAROUS SOCIETY, SELFISH ALMOST BEYOND BELIEF AND SO TWISTED THAT WE NOW REGARD CHILDREN AS A BURDEN. I had thought the most practical way of dealing with this was to try at least to cut the age at which abortions can take place. But I now think that was wrong.

The abortionists are not interested in compromise. Why should they be? They have always known what they were doing. They must know by now that the more abortions you allow, the more you have. They have - for the moment - won the argument that you can kill if it's convenient. And our whole society has adopted the same self-serving view, often without realising it.

Who cares about 3,000 road deaths a year? Nobody but the victims' families. The rest of us would fight (to the death?) against the lower speed limits and the tough driving tests that would prevent this. Who cares about the discarded old, stuffed into homes, drugged, bullied, then crammed with morphine to speed their departure? And these are the attitudes of nice people, responsible, educated, clean in their habits.

It's not surprising that the feral poor have spotted that they live in a country where life is not much valued. So why not end Friday night by kicking someone's head as if it were a football? It's not as if anyone will take it seriously.

LIFE'S NOT JUST CHEAP IN MODERN BRITAIN. IT'S ON PERMANENT SPECIAL OFFER. So let's have an end to the polite truce about abortion. If it must be legal, then let it at least be despised. Since Parliament's not going to curb it, let us call it what it is, a massacre conducted to suit the selfish. Let's not have any slippery rubbish about its supporters being 'pro-choice', when in fact they're 'pro-death'. What choice has the poor baby about being dismembered?

PC Cogman, who attends his local Church of England church with his family in Sea Palling, North Norfolk, said he had been subject to a series of investigations over complaints that he is homophobic, turning his life into a "nightmare". The 49-year-old father-of-two, who joined the Norfolk force in 1993 after 12 years in the RAF, insists he loves his job but said: "Internal politics are making it difficult to do what we should be doing."

He added: "We get more flak from inside the force than outside these days. The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult. I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith."

In his claim to the tribunal, being prepared by barrister Paul Diamond - who defended Nadia Eweida after she was suspended by British Airways for wearing a cross - he will argue that the police force, locally and nationally, has become obsessed with inclusiveness to the detriment of those who adhere to Christian beliefs.

Without a private place in which to live his life and raise his family, a man is not free. If the State can march in when it feels like it, then we live in a tyranny. We all accept that sometimes the police may need to force their way into a house. But it is hard to see why WE NOW NEED 1,043 SEPARATE LAWS ALLOWING THOUSANDS OF STATE INSPECTORS TO ENTER OUR HOMES AGAINST OUR WILL.

Among the pretexts for these State-sponsored home invasions are the supposed need to check that unregulated hypnotism is taking place - or if rabbits or dancing bears are present. Various bodies are also empowered to examine pot plants, fridges and hedges.

This dangerous, nosy-parker rubbish results from the simple-minded good intentions of politicians, who pretend to be able to solve all the problems of the world but in the end can only pass new laws for others to implement and suffer. Yet, as it mounts up into a substantial hill of new powers, IT CEASES TO BE SILLY AND BECOMES SINISTER. The time has come for a bonfire of such powers - and a resolve by Ministers to think before they regulate.

What's most striking about the past 50 years of our history is how we have given in without a fight to those who want to revolutionise our society. It is all very well going on about Winston Churchill, but Archbishop Rowan Williams is a figure much more representative of modern Britain. This prelate whimpered last week that Christianity was 'offensive' to Muslims.

Offensive? I know we have been urged to stop being horrid to this inept, terrifyingly well meaning man - and it really is nothing personal - but he does rather ask for it. A few months ago he mused on the possibilities of allowing a little light Sharia Law in this country. This is, I suppose, a point of view. I just can't work out why the leader of a Christian church should hold it.

The Ernst & Young Item club, which uses the Treasury's economic model, will argue in a report tomorrow that the economy will struggle to avoid recession. This comes as a survey by the Institute of Directors shows that business confidence has slumped to the lowest level ever recorded, with company chiefs increasingly gloomy about the investment climate.

These reports follow an interview with Alistair Darling in which the chancellor ADMITTED THE DOWNTURN WOULD BE MORE "PROFOUND" AND LAST LONGER THAN HE HAD EXPECTED. Also, Sir Win Bischoff, chairman of Citigroup, the American financial giant, believes that house prices in Britain and America will keep falling for another two years.

China's emerging rivalry with America as a global superpower will move into the sporting arena next month as its Olympic athletes strive to oust their US counterparts from the top of the medals table for the first time. In a showdown reminiscent of the Cold War-era battles for Olympian dominance, China has put unprecedented effort into ensuring that Beijing 2008 will be a sporting triumph as well as a logistical one. With their athletes already dominant in events such as gymnastics, table tennis and martial arts, Chinese sporting chiefs have spent the past few years focusing on disciplines where Americans have traditionally excelled, including swimming, basketball and athletics.

China's attempt to end America's run of supremacy at the last three Games will add an East-West frisson not seen since the demise of the Soviet Union, which topped the medals board eight times in the post-war period. While the rest of the world's eyes will be on the heroics of the individual contestants, Chinese officials will pay closest attention to the total medal tally.

Mao Zhi Xiong, professor of sports psychology at Beijing Sports University, insisted it was only a "possibility" that China would secure the biggest medal sweep. But he agreed that a Chinese victory would be boost its international prestige. "If you win a lot of medals, then it shows you have advanced as a country," he said. "It means the economy is growing, that living standards are improving and that there is better technology."

Some Zimbabweans are already calling for higher denominations in a country where the official annual inflation rate has exceeded 2,200,000%. Independent economists believe the real rate is many times higher. Zimbabwe's meltdown has left at least 80% of the population in poverty, facing mass shortages of basic goods. The country's central bank has introduced several new notes already this year in response to the hyperinflation. In January, a Z$10 million note was issued, followed by a Z$50 million. By June the denominations had reached tens of billions.

In a notice in the state-controlled Herald newspaper, central bank governor Gideon Gono said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would introduce the new notes - known as special agro-cheques - to help consumers. "THIS NEW $100 BILLION SPECIAL AGRO-CHEQUE will go into circulation on Monday," the notice said. But Zimbabwe residents say the latest note is already worthless, and does not even cover their daily lunch. "Nowadays, for my expenses a day, I need about Z$500 billion," one resident said. "So Z$100 billion can't do anything because for me to go home I need Z$250 billion, so this [note] is worthless."

ZIMBABWE WAS ONCE ONE OF THE RICHEST COUNTRIES IN AFRICA. But it has descended into economic chaos in recent years, with many international observers blaming the policies of President Robert Mugabe.

Pope Benedict XVI told a crowd of about 200,000 people at the Catholic Church's World Youth Day event that they should build a new age free from greed. The world "needs renewal", he said, and challenged the young pilgrims to be agents of change. Earlier in the week, he apologised for abuse carried out by Catholic clergy.

The 81-year-old pontiff was at the centre of a spectacular finale to the Church's six-day-long youth festival, although the numbers attending Mass fell short of the 500,000-plus expected by organisers. The Pope flew by helicopter over many thousands of pilgrims, many of whom had camped out in cold weather at Sydney's Randwick Racecourse in preparation for Sunday's events.

"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading - an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair," he said in his homily. He said God was asking young people to be "prophets for a new age" in which "hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deadens our souls and poisons our relationships". At the close of his address, the Pope announced that the next World Youth Day, in 2011, would be held in Spain, and pledged to attend.

On that day, some 200 million Europeans went to the polls to elect their representatives to the European Parliament, consolidating the union's ascendancy. EUROPE'S PARLIAMENT LEAP-FROGGED THE US CONGRESS IN SIZE OF POPULATION REPRESENTED, with an additional two member states, Romania and Bulgaria, boosting the numbers still further to almost half a billion people in 2007. Even more critically, in 2005, the GDP of the EU overtook that of the States.

"THE EU IS NOW THE SINGLE LARGEST TRADING PARTNER WITH EVERY CONTINENT EXCEPT AUSTRALIA," he writes in his recent book, Exposed, which considers THE MASSIVE GLOBAL ECONOMIC POWER SHIFT that has occurred as a result of these changes. He looks at how companies and state governments in the US, China and the rest of the world increasingly take their legislative lead - whether willingly or dragged kicking and screaming - on issues such as environmental standards, health and safety regulation and consumer protection not from Washington, but Brussels.

"WITH WEALTH COMES TRADE, AND FROM TRADE COMES THE POWER TO WRITE THE RULES OF COMMERCE," he announces. The EU now is the new biggest economy, and what does this new biggest economy do? THEY START IMPOSING ALL SORTS OF RESTRICTIONS in terms of environmental protection. THEY DEMAND THAT CHEMICALS BE TAKEN OUT of a whole array of consumer products. THEY DEMAND MORE SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION practices and energy efficiency. NOTHING CLOSE TO THIS HAD EVER HAPPENED BEFORE TO AMERICAN COMPANIES.

But the five Lebanese militants who arrived home Wednesday in an exchange of prisoners and dead soldiers with Israel returned to a country that seemed momentarily united in victory. The Lebanese government declared a national holiday, and almost the entire Lebanese Cabinet - politicians who are more often plotting one another's demise than appearing together in public - received the new national heroes at Beirut airport with flowers, rice, pomp and circumstance.

The contrast with the mood in Israel could hardly have been greater. The very fact that the Israeli government had to barter for the return of two soldiers captured in July 2006 by Hizballah was disappointing enough. The Israeli government had launched a 33-day war to regain its lost boys and destroy the Shi'ite militia but failed on both counts. Moreover, the fact that the two soldiers were returned in black coffins left many Israelis bitter about the price paid by their government: the release of five dangerous militants and the return of the remains of 185 others.

But for all the group-hugging in Lebanon, the real winner of the day was Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who had orchestrated the trade. HE CLAIMED THE LOPSIDED DEAL AS LEGITIMACY FOR BOTH HIS DECISION TO CAPTURE THOSE TWO ISRAELI SOLDIERS IN THE FIRST PLACE AND HIS WIDER STRATEGY OF ARMED CONFRONTATION WITH ISRAEL. For almost 60 years, Arabs facing Israel have had to choose between defeat and peace, but now, according to Nasrallah, the success of Hizballah's asymmetrical warfare has offered a model for all the movements in the Middle East dedicated to destroying Israel. "The essence of the region is the resistance," he said in a rare appearance to welcome the returning prisoners.