Wheat flour is a staple foodstuff in Pakistan, where rotis or unleavened bread are eaten with almost every meal. Last week Afghanistan appealed for foreign help to combat a wheat shortage while Bangladesh recently warned it faced a crisis over rice supplies. Global wheat prices are at record highs. Problems have been compounded by crop failures in the northern hemisphere and an increase in demand from developing countries.

Afghan Commerce Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang said wheat shortages could lead to serious problems during the winter. His call came amid rising discontent inside Afghanistan at the spiralling cost of wheat and other basic foods. Afghanistan does not grow enough wheat to feed all its people and is partially dependent on imports.

Initially, flour shortages pushed up the price on the open market in Pakistan to as much as 60 rupees (about $1) per kilogram in some areas. The average day labourer earns only 100 rupees a day. The state-run Utility Stores Corporation has been selling flour at 18 rupees per kilogram, but it does not have enough outlets to serve the population of 160 million.

"We see a new opportunity for peace here in the holy land and for freedom across the region," an optimistic Bush said upon landing in Tel Aviv. Bush is trying to build momentum for stalled Mideast peace talks and clear up confusion about whether the United States is serious about confronting Iran about its suspected nuclear ambitions.

Israeli President Shimon Peres underscored Bush's hopes - considered unrealistic by many in the Mideast - to bridge decades of differences in just one year and reach agreement for the establishment of a Palestinian statement. "The next 12 months will be a moment of truth," Peres told Bush at an airport arrival ceremony complete with red carpets and a military band. "It must not yield just words." Unpopular at home, Bush was greeted here with smiles and warm handshakes.

"You are our strongest and most trusted ally in the battle against terrorism and fundamentalism and a strong supporter of our quest for peace and stability," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the president. Bush also stressed the deep U.S.-Israel ties.

"The alliance between our two nations helps guarantee Israel's security as a Jewish state," Bush said. That remark lent support to Israel on one of the core issues in the conflict. The Palestinians oppose calling Israel a Jewish state, saying it rules out the right of Palestinian refugees to return to lost properties in Israel. They say the fate of the refugees is a matter for negotiations. Bush has referred to Israel as a Jewish state in the past but the reference - here in the region - had special significance.

Pledging to stand with Israel against terrorists, Bush said, "We will do more than defend ourselves. We seek lasting peace." Bush's challenge is to convince skeptical governments that, with just a year remaining in his presidency and Americans deep in the process of selecting his successor, he is willing to devote the time and effort necessary to bridge decades of differences in this troubled region.

BLAIR'S SPEECH TO UMP FUELS EU PRESIDENT SPECULATION - FT - The FT reports on Tony Blair's upcoming speech on Saturday to the French ruling UMP party, "thought to be the first time he has formally addressed a party not from Labour's centre-left political family". One member of the French government noted that Nicolas Sarkozy and Blair are now good friends, despite their terms in office only overlapping by seven weeks. "Sarko loves Blair", he concluded. The article notes that "THEIR RAPPORT WILL SUSTAIN SPECULATION MR BLAIR COULD BE MR SARKOZY'S FAVOURITE CANDIDATE FOR THE NEW POST OF PERMANENT PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION NEXT YEAR."

STABILITY OF EUROZONE IS THREATENED BY SOUTHERN STATES' DEBTS - TELEGRAPH - A comment piece in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warns that "mounting strains within the eurozone will set off a sharp jump in spreads on Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Portuguese sovereign bonds this year, forcing major changes in government policy across the region," according to a top French bank. He continues, "A spread shock of this order would be greater than anything seen since the launch of the euro. It would amount to a stark reappraisal of the EMU project, raising the risk of a chain reaction as rising debt costs erode budget deficits even further."

EU LEGISLATION DAMAGES ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE INDUSTRY - TELEGRAPH - The Telegraph reports that an EU directive that governs the labelling and marketing of medicinal herbs could seriously dent the herbal medicines industry. Under the terms of the EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, Pukka, a herbal medicine company, will need to pay for licences for each of its herbal remedies. It has about 30 different products and will face an initial fee of £50,000 per product and an additional £10,000 per year.

FORMER FRENCH PM CALLS FOR A "TRUE UNION" BETWEEN THE US AND EU - IHT - The IHT reports that former French PM Edouard Balladur has called for "a new alliance between Europe and America, and even more - a true union." He argues that such a union is the only way to halt the West's decline and decreasing influence in the world. The union would include a permanent Union secretariat to prepare common positions for international meetings, a common trans-Atlantic market, linkage between the dollar and euro, and the creation of a trans-Atlantic executive council of leaders that would convene every three months.

TURKEY TO AMEND CONTROVERSIAL LAW - INDEPENDENT - Turkey's government will propose changes this week to a law that makes it a crime to insult 'Turkishness'. The existence of the law has been seen as a major obstacle to Turkey's bid for EU membership.

Soviet tanks had just rolled into Afghanistan. The Mullahs had seized US hostages in Iran. Pax Americana was on the ropes, and so was capitalism. Inflation had reached 14 per cent in the United States. The final spike in bullion occurred when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market, forcing up gold in tandem through arbitrage links. It collapsed within days.

If you strip out the Hunt anomaly, it is fair to say that gold established a "safe-haven" level of $600 - or $1,500 in today's money - that roughly lasted through the final phase of the Carter malaise, the oil shock, and the collapse of confidence in the monetary order. By this benchmark, last week's jump to $869 looks tame. Yet gold is undoubtedly flashing warning signs. The price has jumped 42 per cent since the US credit markets suffered their heart attack in August. It has tripled since Gordon Brown sold over half Britain's reserves, deeming it a barbarous relic. That conceit has cost taxpayers £3.4bn, after adjusting for returns from dollar, euro, and yen bonds.

The mounting risk that Pakistan's nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of al-Qa'eda is playing a role. So are fears that Western leaders have no credible answer to the banking crisis as it drags on for month after month. Note that gold smashed the 28-year record just days after the European Central Bank launched its monetary "shock and awe", showering half a trillion dollars on the banks, with parallel moves by the Fed, the Bank of England and the Swiss. Clearly, a small army of investors is betting - rightly or wrongly - that our debt-bloated democracies are now too decadent to take their punishment. The elites will opt for the easy path of reflation to postpone the day of reckoning.

In the Middle Ages gold fetched nearly $3,000 an ounce in real terms. The price fell to nearer $550 when Spain flooded the world with Aztec and Inca riches, and there it hovered for three centuries. But the modern era has been an aberration. Supply is exhausted. Perhaps we should now regard the Middle Ages as the proper benchmark price. One thing is certain: gold will outperform paper as long as governments keep increasing the global money supply 15 per cent a year.

"This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. "In this case, it's an early omen of solar storms that will gradually increase over the next few years." A sunspot is an area of highly organized magnetic activity on the surface of the sun. The new 11-year cycle, called Solar Cycle 24, is expected to build gradually, with the number of sunspots and solar storms reaching a maximum by 2011 or 2012, though devastating storms can occur at any time.

During a solar storm, highly charged material ejected from the sun may head toward Earth, where it can bring down power grids, disrupt critical communications, and threaten astronauts with harmful radiation. Storms can also knock out commercial communications satellites and swamp Global Positioning System signals. Routine activities such as talking on a cell phone or getting money from an ATM machine could suddenly halt over a large part of the globe.

"Our growing dependence on highly sophisticated, space-based technologies means we are far more vulnerable to space weather today than in the past," said Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "NOAA's space weather monitoring and forecasts are critical for the nation's ability to function smoothly during solar disturbances."

Bullion prices rose to a record nominal high after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan added to nervousness about the world economy. Part of gold's allure is its traditional status as a safe haven. It is seen as a store of value when everything else seems risky. But the bigger drivers behind the rising spot price are a depreciating dollar and the prospect of negative US real interest rates. A better way to think of gold may be as central bankers used to before America dropped the gold standard: not as a commodity, but as another currency. As long as the dollar stays weak, gold's bull run will last.

The arguments for further gains in the gold price are compelling. It looks cheap, despite climbing from a low of about $250 a troy ounce in 1999, when central banks were selling reserves. The UK's decision back then to sell 60 per cent of its official holdings looks particularly poor judgment. Prices have a long way to go before they approach the inflation-adjusted record touched in 1980 when Soviet tanks invaded Afghanistan. At Monday's $859, gold was trading at less than half that level. It could top $1,000 and still be at the lower end of what some analysts argue is a safe haven range.

Gold's rise shows investors are nervous. That is an important message for central banks contemplating interest rate cuts. The Fed must show it is not prepared to allow inflation to take off.

Bureau of Meteorology hydrologist Gordon McKay said some parts of New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, had experienced their worst floods in more than 50 years after a week of rain. Those trapped included 1,000 music fans attending a four-day music festival in the state. Floodwaters also isolated several communities in Queensland and the tropical Northern Territory, which was lashed by a cyclone over the weekend.

The major highway from the east to the west coast city of Perth remained closed yesterday because of a blaze that remained out of control, eight days after three truck drivers died in an attempt to drive through a wall of fire.
Federal lawmaker Barry Haase, whose 2.3 million-square kilometer electorate is described as the largest in the world, called for the Great Eastern Highway to be reopened despite the danger. The closure of the highway was proving costly for interstate trade, he said.

But state official Peter Keppel said the fire, which has burned 41,000 hectares of scrubland since it started Dec. 28, remained dangerous. With temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius yesterday, the fire could again cross the highway, which is closed between Southern Cross, 370 kilometers east of Perth, and Coolgardie, 560 kilometers east of Perth, Keppel said.

The double whammy means banks are squeezing their customers tighter than ever this winter, as they fight to protect their dwindling profits from the credit crunch and potential legal action over bank charges. New figures from the financial advisers Chase de Vere reveal that 18 banks and building societies - including high street names such as Alliance & Leicester, Halifax, Lloyds TSB and NatWest - have within the past month cut the rate on one or more of their savings accounts by more than December's 0.25 per cent cut in the Bank of England base rate.

Over the same period, 14 lenders also failed to reduce their standard variable mortgage rates by the full 0.25 per cent, according to comparison service Moneyfacts, including Egg and, once again, Alliance & Leicester.
Meanwhile, banks have been busy raising their charges and fees, as they desperately try to recoup the income they are losing as a result of the credit crunch. Most of the big banks have restructured their overdraft charges in the past few months, introducing an ever-more complex web of fees designed to catch out consumers.

Although customers are no longer able to reclaim unfair charges through the courts - pending the outcome of a test case between the Office of Fair Trading and eight of the country's biggest banks, due to begin next week - consumers are still being hit with fees as high as £60 for exceeding their overdraft by only £50. The squeeze has sparked a renewed backlash from politicians and consumer groups.

Even so, experts say, Chinese purveyors of genetically engineered drugs and vaccines -- targeting everything from cancer to Alzheimer's -- are growing at a frenzied pace and are likely to become major actors on the world stage. "There is no question that the sector is established," said Peter Singer of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto who was lead researcher of a study published Monday in Nature Biotechnology. "What we found really surprising is that in an industry that's only 10 years old, China has innovative products on the market," he told AFP.

For their study, Singer and his colleagues selected 22 small- and medium-sized biotech firms from literally thousands operating in the health sector for close scrutiny. They looked for companies that were innovative, both scientifically and in business. The portrait that emerged is of a dynamic sector that has been growing 30 percent annually over the past decade, reaching a turnover of three billion dollars in the domestic market in 2005.

A more recent development are international joint ventures and investment. Shenzhen Chipscreen Biosciences, for example, has developed an anti-cancer drug in cooperation with Huya Bioscience, based in San Diego, California. Once the medication is on the market, the Chinese partner will hold the rights for China, while Huya can lay claim to the rest of the world.

WuXi PharmaTech, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the summer of 2007, is the first biotech service company in China with major foreign clients, including US pharmaceutical giant Merck and Britain's AstraZeneca. The fact that WuXi has attracted such companies "punctures a little bit the legend that there is no intellectual property in China," said Singer. Another myth that may soon fall by the wayside is that China can only reproduce what others have done already. "There is no longer a hegemony on the part of industrialised countries in global biotech innovation," Singer said.

Merrill, itself one of Wall Street's biggest casualties of the sub-prime crisis, is the first major bank to declare that a recession in the world's biggest economy is now underway. David Rosenberg, the bank's chief North American economist, argues that a weakening employment picture and declining retail sales signal the economy has tipped into its first month of recession. Mr Rosenberg, who is well-respected on Wall Street, argues: "According to our analysis, this [recession] isn't even a forecast any more but is a present day reality."

His comments are the strongest sign yet that the gloom on Wall Street over the US economy is deepening as the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the credit rout show little sign of easing. Mr Rosenberg points to a whole batch of negative data to support his analysis, including the four key barometers used by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NEBR) - employment, real personal income, industrial production, and real sales activity in retail and manufacturing.

The issue of the faltering nature of the US economy continues to play a large part in the race to replace President Bush, with the majority of candidates seeing it as a key battleground.

The Tory, Labour and Lib-Dem MPs are demanding an amendment be introduced to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill to make sure religious leaders are not prosecuted for criticising homosexual lifestyles. The amendment says nothing should prohibit or restrict "discussion of, criticism of, or expression of antipathy towards conduct relating to a particular sexual orientation, or urging persons of a particular sexual orientation to refrain from or modify conduct according to that orientation".

It mirrors a similar clause in Labour's laws against incitement to religious hatred which was forced through only after a protracted battle in Parliament. The proposed law against incitement to hatred of homosexuals would carry a maximum penalty of seven years in jail - a longer sentence than the five years handed down to a typical rapist. It is considered so severe that it has drawn criticism from some homosexuals.

Miss Widdecombe said the amendment was vital to stop the further erosion of the right to free speech. "For the first time in our history you can have a policeman knocking on your door not for something you have done but for an opinion you have expressed and that should be totally contrary to the British way of life," she said.

A month ago Church of England and Roman Catholic bishops united to warn that: "Christians engaged in teaching or preaching and those seeking to act in accord with Christian convictions in their daily lives need to be assured that the expression of strong opinions on marriage or sexuality will not be illegal." They said the police had already shown themselves to be "over-zealous" against Christians who have publicly expressed traditional views on sexuality. Neil Addison, a barrister, said: "Increasingly "hate crime" laws are being used to harass and intimidate ordinary people who dare to disagree with PC orthodoxy."

Stephen Carter, chief executive of the Brunswick public relations firm, will attend Cabinet meetings and attempt to steer Mr Brown away from the sort of scandals which dogged him in 2007.

Last year, the Conservative Party appointed Andy Coulson, not a spin doctor but, as a former editor of the News of the World, wise to the ways of PR, as director of communications. The rise and rise of the profession is not confined to politics: even the McCann family, campaigning to find their daughter Madeleine, sought the help of a former BBC journalist, Clarence Mitchell, to manage their publicity.

When did PR become so important? Are spin doctors taking over the world? If so, does it matter? Is there any hope of curtailing the influence of spin in today's media-savvy society?

The Bank said yesterday it is considering cutting the amount of leeway it gives institutions to keep to their reserves targets - one of the key ways in which it interacts with City banks. The announcement came amid early, tentative evidence that the end may be in sight for the difficulties as interbank borrowing rates dropped yet again in London, and are now at their pre-crisis levels.

Before the start of the turmoil - which became so severe it forced the Bank and its overseas counterparts to plunge billions of extra pounds into the hardest-hit parts of the market - the Bank's rules meant that, after choosing how much to leave it in reserves each month, institutions had only 1pc leeway in keeping to the target during the month.

Amid the credit market crisis, this was widened dramatically to as much as 60pc, as banks struggled to keep their books in order. It remains unusually high at 30pc, and the Bank said while it would remain at this level for the next auction of money later this month, it was considering cutting it back in February. "The Bank will consider ahead of the February maintenance period, in the light of money market conditions at that time, whether some reduction in the target ranges is warranted," it said.

Lord Carey argues that the existing legal protections for Anglican Christianity are outdated and should be abolished. In the Commons tomorrow, MPs will debate an amendment to the current Criminal Justice Bill that would effectively abolish existing legal protections for Anglican Christianity.

As well as Lord Carey, they are supported by figures including Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford, in a letter in the Daily Telegraph today. Other signatories include Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Ricky Gervais, the comedian who created the BBC comedy The Office and Richard Dawkins, the Oxford academic and atheist and Nick Hytner the director of the National Theatre. They argue that the blasphemy law "serves no useful purpose" and offers Christian activists a means to intimidate broadcasters, publishers and performers.

"The ancient common law of blasphemous libel purports to protect beliefs rather than people or communities. MOST RELIGIOUS COMMENTATORS ARE OF THE VIEW THAT THE ALMIGHTY DOES NOT NEED THE "PROTECTION" OF SUCH A LAW," THE LETTER SAYS.

Zambia put half of its territory on alert, while floods in Mozambique, fed by heavy rains from there and Zimbabwe, killed six people and cut major transport links to neighbouring countries, relief officials said. The early heavy rains have swollen rivers to alarming levels across the region, catching authorities off guard and forcing governments and aid agencies to step up efforts to avert crisis.

"At least 1.5 million will be displaced by the floods and the government and aid groups will have to provide relief food and shelter to the families in tents for some time," said a senior Zambian government official who wished not to be named. Waters that had reached a depth of six metres (18 feet) forced some people to seek refuge on trees and rooftops in Mozambique, where the United Nations said it would take urgent measures to help victims of the floods.

Guy Robinson, president of umbrella farmers group the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU), told Reuters heavy rains had wiped out some plantings. He said the most affected area was southern Zambia, one of the country's major farming regions. "We are very concerned that the entire crop has been destroyed in some areas due to heavy flooding and it is still raining heavily," Robinson said.