However, Le Monde notes, "If, during the French EU Presidency which begins on 1 July, Washington does not support a real military planning and operations centre in Brussels, that will mean that Paris has no interest in retaking its full place within NATO as Sarkozy wants."

The Times notes that there are signs that earlier reports of 1,000 extra French troops in Afghanistan could already be unravelling, with Prime Minister François Fillon yesterday pledging "several hundred" extra troops to the mission. The article reports on an acrimonious debate in the French Parliament yesterday, and notes that only 15 per cent of the public back the deployment.

The IHT reports that senior officials in the French Socialist opposition party have dubbed Afghanistan a "new Vietnam" and criticised what they called Sarkozy's "Atlantic obsession." According to the paper, Jouyet said the uproar illustrated that for Europe to reinforce its defense capacity, it was imperative to do so under a European banner. "If we want Europeans to back this, it needs a European identity," he said.

Lord McNally, Lib Dem leader in the Lords said, "We will not abstain on a referendum amendment in the Lords. The arithmetic in the Commons is different from the Lords." He told reporters outside the Lords chamber that he would not even be moving an amendment on continued membership of the EU. He added: "WE WILL VOTE WITH THE GOVERNMENT AGAINST A REFERENDUM ON THE TREATY."

Director of the 'I Want a Referendum' campaign Neil O'Brien is quoted on PA: "The Liberal Democrats promised a referendum at the election, abstained in the Commons, and are now against a referendum in the Lords. THE LIB DEMS HAVE BEHAVED IN A DEEPLY HYPOCRITICAL AND DISHONEST WAY, SAYING ONE THING AND DOING ANOTHER."

"This is a humiliation for Nick Clegg. He has been unable to make his own peers follow his policy. This is very damaging for the Liberal Democrats' credibility. Baroness Shirley Williams, who is rumoured to have threatened defection to Labour if the Lib Dems backed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty said of the promise of a referendum: "That commitment was embarrassing. I believe it was not in the interests of this country or in the interests of a good relationship with the rest of the EU."

Labour former leader Lord Kinnock, an ex-EU Commissioner, who also spoke in the debate, said the Treaty "DOES NOT CREATE A SINGLE NEW COMPETENCE FOR THE EU".

The work is part of investigations into a number of illnesses and the university has said it may lead to the development of new therapies for debilitating human conditions such as Parkinson's disease and strokes. Embryos were created by implanting DNA derived from human skin cells into eggs taken from cows' ovaries with virtually all their genetic material removed. These lasted for up to three days in the laboratory. By law, hybrid embryos have to be destroyed after 14 days.

Professor John Burn, head of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University, said the research was licensed by the UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The leader of Scottish Roman Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, used his Easter Sunday sermon to warn that the bill was a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life". Last week, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, bowed to demands that MPs be given a free vote on the bill before parliament next month.

The comments came against a backdrop of increasing Chinese accusations that Tibetans were planning violent attacks in their quest for increased autonomy, which the Tibetans deny. "Security must take priority," Hu was quoted as saying in the People's Armed Police News, published by China's paramilitary police force. "Without security guarantees there cannot be a successful Olympic Games, AND WITHOUT SECURITY GUARANTEES THE NATIONAL IMAGE WILL BE LOST."

In one of the latest accusations, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau, Wu Heping, said Tuesday: "TO OUR KNOWLEDGE, THE NEXT PLAN OF THE TIBETAN INDEPENDENCE FORCES IS TO ORGANIZE SUICIDE SQUADS TO LAUNCH VIOLENT ATTACKS. They claimed that they fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice." A senior official in the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, immediately denied the Chinese accusations.

"TIBETAN EXILES ARE 100 PERCENT COMMITTED TO NON-VIOLENCE," said the official, Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche. "But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans." The People's Armed Police News said that a "political mobilization order" had gone out to security forces telling them to prepare for an arduous time ensuring order and control before and during the Games.

"The drums of war are sounding, a decisive battle is at hand," the newspaper said. "For the sake of the Chinese nation's image and for the honor of the People's Armed Police, let us never forget our duty."

Recent indications suggest China's war of words against the Dalai Lama, denouncing him in increasingly shrill terms as a separatist and a terrorist, has increased international support for him. On Tuesday, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that THE DALAI LAMA COULD BE INVITED "SHORTLY" TO BRUSSELS TO MEET WITH EUROPEAN UNION FOREIGN MINISTERS.

Appearing before a House committee, the executives were pressed to explain why they should continue to get billions of dollars in tax breaks when they made $123 billion last year and motorists are paying record gasoline prices at the pump. "On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said, aiming his remarks at the five executives sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a congressional hearing room.

Markey was not impressed. "These companies are defending billions of federal subsidies - while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone," he said. The companies are reaping "a windfall of revenue" while poor people have to choose between heating and eating because of high energy prices.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, many independent truckers parked their rigs and others slowed to a crawl on highways to protest high fuel prices.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), foreign leaders and overseas companies engaging with China could appear complicit if they failed to speak out about the rights violations, the London-based watchdog said on Wednesday as the volume of criticism of China grows around the world. Beijing signed up for the Games hoping they would showcase the country's progress and national unity, but the Olympics year so far has seen pressure mount, chiefly over China's policy towards Sudan and Myanmar and its human rights record, most recently in Tibet.

In and around Beijing, Chinese authorities have silenced and imprisoned human rights activists in a pre-Olympics "clean up", Amnesty said. "These actions cast doubt on whether the Chinese authorities are really serious about their commitment to improve human rights in the run up to the Olympics," Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said in a statement. "The Olympic Games have so far failed to act as a catalyst for reform. Unless urgent steps are taken to redress the situation, a positive human rights legacy for the Beijing Olympics looks increasingly beyond reach."

Days of monk-led marches in Tibet's capital Lhasa devolved into a citywide riot on March 14 that saw Chinese shops trashed and burned and cars overturned. The government says the violence killed 18 civilians and at least one police officer. The Tibet government-in-exile says around 140 people died.

Britain's biggest opposition party, the Conservatives, were hoping the Liberal Democrats would abstain from the vote on the proposal to hold a popular poll on the EU treaty, just as they did in the House of Commons. But the abstention would have a different implication in the upper house, as the ruling Labour Party does not hold a majority there. In abstaining, the Liberal Democrats would boost the chances of the referendum.

Both the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party have criticised the move. Leading Conservative MP William Hague said that the Lib Dem position on Europe was "now in total chaos. They now have a three-way split between rebel MPs who want a referendum, Lords officially voting against a referendum and a leadership lamely abstaining," he said, according to the BBC.

But when setting out the Lib Dem position, Lord McNally said: "Our general election commitment to a referendum was on a constitutional treaty. That commitment died with the constitution which was rejected by the French and the Dutch." The EU's Lisbon treaty was adopted in December 2007. It includes parts of the European Constitution, which was agreed in 2004 but failed to achieve the popular support in France and the Netherlands needed for its ratification. The new treaty is due to be adopted in national parliaments, apart from Ireland where a referendum - required by a national constitution - is scheduled for June.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice, announced on Tuesday, comes in response to a case triggered by a German citizen, Tadao Maruko, in 2005. After Mr Maruko's partner died, a German pension fund refused to pay him any survivor's benefits, claiming that only married couples have a right to a widower's pension.

But the Luxembourg-based court found that this violated EU law, outlining a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation. In practice, a person should after the death of their life partner receive a survivor's benefit equivalent to that granted to a surviving spouse, but only if national law treats same-sex partnerships in a comparable way to marriages as far as the survivor's benefit is concerned.

Some conservative politicians in Europe have criticised the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the citizens' rights document, is to become legally binding under the EU's new treaty. They claim it could serve as a back door to allowing gay marriages as well as abortions and euthanasia, depending on how the European Court of Justice interprets its articles. Only Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands recognise full same-sex marriages, while Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the UK allow for legal partnerships. France and Luxembourg have established civil contracts.

He remains "in principle opposed to referendums, as they are incompatible with representative parliamentary government, the true hallmark of the British constitutional system. It is simply not true to say that referendums have become an unavoidable part of our constitution."

She warned: "If the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified and implemented, and devolution to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland continues apace, in fifteen to twenty years time, THIS HOUSE OF COMMONS WILL HAVE ONLY TWO FUNCTIONS - ONE WILL BE TO RAISE TAXES, AND THE OTHER WILL BE TO AUTHORISE WAR."

She also warned that "If the EU Health Directive as it stands goes through in ten years time we won't be able to run the NHS." She criticised the fact that "THINGS HAPPEN BY STEALTH" so often in the European Union, saying: "MY FUNDAMENTAL MISGIVING OF THE LISBON TREATY IS THAT IN TERMS OF CHECKS AND BALANCES, it has completed the tool box, with the exception of defence and taxation, so that if the EU wishes to do something in any member state, it can use one tool or another, whether it's legislation, or whether it's court cases, you name it - it can now do it. Because it is either shared competence, or it is by co-decision, it can always do it now." SHE SAID: "WE ARE MAKING FEWER AND FEWER DECISIONS THAT MATTER... I CAN'T TELL MY CONSTITUENTS WHERE THE BUCK STOPS."

We have three objectives: TO DEVELOP A BIGGER EUROPEAN CAPACITY FOR DEPLOYMENT AND PLANNING; SECONDLY, TO ACCELERATE EFFORTS TOWARDS STANDARDISATION OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT; THIRDLY, TO STRENGTHEN THE INTERNAL MARKET IN ARMS AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS. At the end, we will have to take on the budget problem. There cannot be solidarity in security policy without an examination of budgetary solidarity."

On the role of EU President, he says, "We need a character who has an awareness of European solidarity, who has sufficient authority to shed light on the work of the European Council but who knows when to take a back seat if necessary so that consensus can be found in the Council. Jacques Delors was very good at doing that. We need to find someone who fits this profile by December. The majority of our partners do not want a representative of a country which has the most exemptions. Tony Blair has a lot of charisma, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus emerging in his favour."

Asked whether he is in favour of Javier Solana for EU Foreign Minister, he says: "It has not been ruled out. But on all these appointments, we mustn't underestimate the expectations of our citizens. With the Lisbon Treaty, they figure we are entering a new era and that it must be embodied by new personalities. IT WOULD BE DANGEROUS IF IN EUROPE WE UNDERESTIMATE THIS ASPIRATION FOR RENEWAL."

The program, in the form of a puppet show, was circulated by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). THE SHOW FEATURES A CHILD WHO HAS BROKEN INTO THE WHITE HOUSE AND THREATENS TO KILL THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT. When the latter calls for his guards, the child tells him, "There are no guards, and your people have surrendered." The boy, weeping sadly, tells the Bush puppet that he has come to kill him to avenge the death of his parents and siblings: "You killed daddy in the Iraq war... As for my mom ? you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!... You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword!"

The child also tells Bush that he has not come alone: "I have brought thousands of thousands of children from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. You have denied all these children their fathers and mothers. That's why I have come to take revenge on you and on all the criminal traitors who collaborated with you." Bush himself then begins crying, begging for mercy and offering the child toys, food and a visit to the White House. The boy then says, "You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House... because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam."

The boy also explains his desire to kill Bush "just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab" - a reference to the death of an opponent of Mohammed that is recounted at length in the Koran. The child then stabs the Bush puppet repeatedly, and the show ends with the boy saying with satisfaction, "Ahhh, I killed him." THE SHOW PROVIDES FURTHER CONFIRMATION OF THE PREMISE OF THE MOVIE FITNA, WHICH ATTEMPTS TO SHOW HOW THE KORAN ENCOURAGES MOSLEMS TO KILL INFIDELS AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

THE INTERNET IS ROUTINELY CENSORED IN CHINA but Beijing is committed by its "host city contract" to giving the estimated 30,000 media expected for the Olympics the freedom to report as they have at previous Games. "There was some criticism that the Internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks.

"Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous Games during Games time," added Gosper, speaking on the sidelines of the inspection of preparations for the August 8-24 Games. "I'm satisfied that the Chinese understand the need for this and that they will do it."

The Australian, also chairman of the IOC's press commission, said BLOCKING THE INTERNET DURING THE GAMES "WOULD REFLECT VERY POORLY" ON THE HOST COUNTRY but was confident the Chinese would fulfill the obligations of their agreement. "They've given us a huge commitment and CHANGED THEIR LEGISLATION EXTENSIVELY to enable the international press to report on the Games," he said. NEW LAWS LOOSENING THE RESTRICTIONS ON FOREIGN MEDIA IN CHINA WENT INTO OPERATION ON JANUARY 1 LAST YEAR BUT ARE DUE TO EXPIRE IN OCTOBER.

CHINA USED THE VISIT AS A TEST. If the communist regime could allow in a dozen or so capitalist sportsmen and manage to avoid total collapse, then perhaps it could afford to open up a little more. A year after their visit, US President Richard Nixon came to Beijing.

And China's course was set. The Starbucks, the McDonalds, Mercedes and BMWs you can see everywhere in China can be traced right back to the fact that Tim Boggan and his team-mates came here 37 years ago with their ping-pong bats. "WHEN YOU HEAR THAT SPORT AND POLITICS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER, WHAT DO YOU THINK?" I ASK. "I THINK IT IS CRAZY, YOU KNOW THAT THEY CERTAINLY DO," HE SAYS.

Liang Geliang was chosen to play the Americans in 1971. "We were all happy to see the American team come to China," he says. "We felt there was an urgent need for communications between us." After the ice broke, people like Liang Geliang began to enjoy opportunities they had never had before. Instead of demonising the West, China eventually allowed its people to live there - so Liang Geliang and his family moved to Germany for a while. "Playing ping-pong is an art, but the sport itself goes beyond this. Of course we want to win championships but there is more to it than that. WE MUST PUT POLITICS FIRST." After years spent hating money, China allowed its citizens to make it instead.

There is perhaps a certain symmetry here. China's first important sporting event - the ping-pong of 1971 - brought China, the US and the West together. Now, its second big event - the Olympics of 2008 - will test the strength of the ties made through sport.

It is a proverb world leaders might do well to bear in mind as their impoverished populations struggle with food costs driven ever higher by RECORD OIL PRICES, WEATHER AND SPECULATORS TRADING IN LOCAL MARKET PLACES AND ON GLOBAL FUTURES EXCHANGES. Anger over high food and fuel costs has spawned a rash of violent unrest across the globe in the past six months.

From the deserts of Mauritania to steamy Mozambique on Africa's Indian Ocean coast, people have taken to the streets. There have been "tortilla riots" in Mexico, villagers have clashed with police in eastern India and hundreds of Muslims have marched for lower food prices in Indonesia.

Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable: most people survive on less than $2 a day in countries prone to droughts and floods where agricultural processes are still often rudimentary. FOR AFRICAN HOUSEHOLDS, EVEN A SMALL RISE IN THE PRICE OF FOOD CAN BE DEVASTATING WHEN MEALS ARE A FAMILY'S MAIN EXPENSE.