More than 50 militants and 10 soldiers were killed and 33 wounded in the final, 35-hour assault by the elite Special Services Group which began early Tuesday, the army said. The dead including the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the mosque's militants to surrender to a weeklong siege mounted by the government following deadly street clashes July 3 with armed supporters at the complex in the heart of Pakistan's capital.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the compound.

An army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said troops moved from room to room in basements of the compound, blowing up foxholes where militants had been entrenched.

Already the country's deadliest hurricane with an estimated 8,000 deaths, the 1900 storm also would rank as the nation's third costliest, say hurricane scientists who sought to gauge the economic damage that historic storms would have caused if they had occurred in 2005.

Under the new analysis, which adjusted for inflation, population and coastal development, Hurricane Katrina and its $81 billion cost ranked second to the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, which caused damage estimated at almost $140 billion. Another Galveston hurricane, in 1915, ranked fourth with $57 billion in damage.

Put simply, the devastation wrought by Katrina in 2005 was not unprecedented.

That's significant in an era when some blame global warming for catastrophic hurricanes. The research concludes that economic damage from hurricanes, after being adjusted, has remained relatively constant during the last century.

Ayman al-Zawahri's 4-minute, 24-second address focused entirely on the clashes between Islamic students and Pakistan's army at the mosque.

The video was released by al-Qaida's multimedia branch, as-Sahab. Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, but two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups also reported it.

With investors fearful the US housing slump will hit the wider economy, the euro rose as high as $1.3784 before pulling back slightly to $1.3761. The dollar's latest fall came after the Standard & Poor's credit rating agency said it may downgrade $12.1bn of bonds backed by US sub-prime home loans.

Meanwhile, the pound hit $2.0336 as it extended its gains against the dollar. The pound is at a 26-year high against the US currency amid contrasting prospects for interest rates in the two countries.

As Jews around the world commemorate the Three Weeks of Mourning for the Holy Temples - beginning last Tuesday and ending on Tisha B'Av, July 24 - Jews in Israel appear to be embarking on a marathon of Temple-related studies and activities.

Mother- of- two Mokarrameh Ebrahimi has spent the last 11 years in jail for adultery with Jafar Kiani. Authorities in Tehran confirmed yesterday that Kiani had been executed last week. Now human rights groups fear 43-year-old Ebrahimi will suffer the same brutal fate.

A stoning pit, in which she will be buried up to her neck, has already been prepared for her. Under Islamic law a male convict is buried up to the waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female is usually buried up to her neck. Spectators and officials then carry out the execution by hurling rocks and stones. The stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not big enough to kill the person in just one or two strikes.

The stoning of Jafa Kiani brings to at least 110 the number of executions - by public hanging - carried in Iran this year. The death penalty is automatically imposed for murder, rape, armed robbery, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery, prostitution, treason and espionage.

Professor Keith Campbell believes the country's farms should be populated by superstrong, super-sized offspring of clones. The U.S. expects to be eating clone-farmed burgers, pork and bacon within two years, and supporters of the method say Europe must follow suit.

The Daily Mail revealed earlier this year how the daughter of a U.S. clone cow had been born on a British farm for the first time, making Frankenstein Farming a reality. The intention is that the cow - Dundee Paradise - will be used to help breed Britain's future milking cow herds.

Professor Campbell said yesterday that this should be the first step to a far wider use of cloned animals to produce food from cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep. Clone-offspring cows would be bigger and able to produce more milk than those from current breeding techniques. Pigs might also be much bigger, leaner or faster growing, so making them easier and cheaper to produce.

Professor Campbell, director of animal bioscience at Nottingham University, said cloning is a useful extension of existing selective breeding, which includes artificial insemination and embryo transfer. "It is just another technique that we can add to accelerate genetic improvements to farm animal species," he added. "Cloning allows us to multiply elite animals.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is expected to give approval for the technology, without a requirement for labelling, later this year. Dr Simon Best, chairman of the Bioindustry Association, believes labelling is unnecessary saying: "I don't think there is a scientific reason for doing it." He said: "THERE IS A WHOLE LOAD OF THINGS THAT THE PUBLIC COULD WANT TO KNOW, BUT YOU END UP WITH INFORMATION OVERLOAD".

The policy chief of the organic farming group, the Soil Association, dismissed the claims as 'propaganda'.
Peter Melchett said: "THE FACT THAT SUPPORTERS OF CLONING ARE NOT PREPARED TO SUPPORT LABELLING AND WANT TO KEEP THE WHOLE THING SECRET SAYS IT ALL. It stinks."

Temperatures across much of the US Northeast surpassed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) - the hottest in the metropolitan area since a heat wave last year that was blamed for 40 deaths. Extra utility crews were on hand in case of power outages, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents to help prevent blackouts by conserving power.

He urged New Yorkers not to exert themselves in the sweltering conditions. "It is very hot," Bloomberg said. "I don't care how good a runner you are, I don't care how strong you are, you should take some precautions to prevent strokes." The temperature in Central Park hit 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) at 1 pm.

Last year, a heat wave in late July and early August caused 40 deaths from heat stroke and contributed to the deaths of another 60 people. On Monday, the city opened its network of 290 cooling shelters for the first time in 2007, offering people without air conditioning a break from the heat at senior centres and community buildings.
In Washington, DC, where the high temperature at Reagan National Airport was 97 degrees F (36 degrees C), the city set up several air-conditioned cooling where people could take a break from the heat and have a cup of cold water.

Unhealthy air quality also led some local transit systems to offer free bus rides in hopes of keeping cars off the roads.

Wet snow fell for hours on Monday, after freezing air from Antarctica collided with a moisture-laden low pressure system. In higher climbs in western and central Argentina, snow fell heavily and blanketed the region.
"Despite all my years, this is the first time I've ever seen in snow in Buenos Aires," said Juana Benitez, an 82-year-old who joined children celebrating in the streets.

Argentina's National Weather Service said it was the first major snow in Buenos Aires since June 22, 1918, though sleet or freezing rain have been periodically reported in decades since. "This is the kind of weather phenomenon that comes along every 100 years," forecaster Hector Ciappesoni told La Nacion newspaper. "It is very difficult to predict."

The snow followed a bitter cold snap in late May that saw subfreezing temperatures, the coldest in 40 years in Buenos Aires. That cold wave contributed to an energy crisis and 23 deaths from exposure. Two more exposure deaths were reported on Monday.

Officials hinted that the U.S. president is being forced to act to ease discontent in his Republican party. A damning report on the Iraqi government's failure to meet crucial goals could bring the issue to a head later this week. The progress study was demanded by Congress and approved by Mr Bush.

Washington analysts say he could use the Iraqi government's poor showing as an excuse to withdraw troops.
The New York Times suggested administration officials were discussing whether the president should announce an intention to gradually bring back troops from high casualty areas. The White House had hoped to buy time until September when the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq delivers his assessment of a troop 'surge' in the Baghdad area.

But with public support for the war plummeting still further and Bush's own approval ratings at the lowest of his presidency, he is facing unprecedented demands for a U-turn. Senior Republican leaders are understood to have warned the president the party faces a pasting in next year's presidential polls unless urgent action is taken to initiate a troop withdrawal.

Two weeks after failed car bombings in London and Glasgow, Ayman al-Zawahri warned of more in the first Al Qaeda tape aimed mainly at Britain. The Egyptian-born fanatic, who is credited with planning many of the terror network's atrocities, directed his message to Gordon Brown.

He declared: "I say to Blair's successor that the policy of your predecessor drew catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq and even in the centre of London. "If you did not learn the lesson then we are ready to repeat it, God willing, until we are sure you have fully understood."

In the tape - called Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves - Osama Bin Laden's number two lashed out at Britain for having making Bombay-born Rushdie a knight last month. He said it was an insult to Muslims to grant the honour to a man whose book, The Satanic Verses, is seen to defame the Prophet Mohammed. Al-Zawahri said: "I say to [Queen] Elizabeth and Blair that your message has reached us and we are in the process of preparing for you a precise response."

A Foreign Office spokesman said. "We will continue to tackle the threat from international terrorism as a priority in order to prevent the risk of attacks on British interests at home and overseas, including from Al Qaeda.
"These terrorists care nothing for the peoples of the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has been killing civilians of all faiths, including many fellow Muslims, for years." "It was quite predictable that Al Qaeda would try to use the knighthood to try to further their own goals of polarising Muslims and the West. It was not unexpected."

Experts believe it is only a matter of time before cloning animals becomes a commercial farming practice, and meat or milk from clones or their offspring is approved for human consumption. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been studying the implications of cloning for six years.

A draft report from the FDA recently concluded that edible products from cloned animals presented no additional risks to public. Dr Simon Best, the chairman of the BioIndustry Association, believes it will not be long before cloned pork or beef, or, more likely, meat from the offspring of clones, is on sale in the US and visiting Britons would get their first taste.

He said: "I think it's very likely that millions of Brits will be eating McDonald's hamburgers from cloned animals or their progeny in two or three years, but only in America." But there is no early prospect of meat from cloned animals reaching dining tables in Britain and the rest of Europe.

US law holds that labels are only needed if a scientifically derived food product is materially different from one that is natural. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is working closely with the FDA. But cloned meat will be more highly regulated in Europe than in the US.

The statement brought swift criticism from Protestant leaders. "It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity," said the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a fellowship of 75 million Protestants in more than 100 countries. "It makes us question the seriousness with which the Roman Catholic Church takes its dialogues with the reformed family and other families of the church," the group said in a letter charging that the document took ecumenical dialogue back to the era before the Second Vatican Council.

It was the second time in a week that Benedict has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-1965 meetings that modernized the church. On Saturday, Benedict revived the old Latin Mass - a move cheered by Catholic traditionalists but criticized by more liberal ones as a step backward from Vatican II.

Among the council's key developments were its ecumenical outreach and the development of the New Mass in the vernacular, which essentially replaced the old Latin Mass. Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers its ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATION BY LIBERALS, SAYING IT WAS NOT A BREAK FROM THE PAST BUT RATHER A RENEWAL OF CHURCH TRADITION.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed before becoming pope, said it was issuing the new document Tuesday because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II's ecumenical intent had been "erroneous or ambiguous" and had prompted confusion and doubt.

The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because THEY DO NOT HAVE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION - the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles - and therefore THEIR PRIESTLY ORDINATIONS ARE NOT VALID, it said.

The new document - formulated as five questions and answers - restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant and other Christian denominations because IT SAID THEY WERE NOT TRUE CHURCHES BUT MERELY ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES AND THEREFORE DID NOT HAVE THE "MEANS OF SALVATION."

The commentary repeated church teaching that says the Catholic Church "has the fullness of the means of salvation." "CHRIST 'ESTABLISHED HERE ON EARTH' ONLY ONE CHURCH," only one church," said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy's Dolomite mountains.

Despite the harsh tone, the document stressed that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

Burping cows and sheep are being targeted by UK scientists to help bring down Britain's soaring levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Experts at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth say the diet of farmed animals can be changed to make them produce less methane, a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide.

Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear, ends.

Mike Abberton, a scientist at the institute, said farmers could help tackle climate change by growing grass varieties bred to have high sugar levels, white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, a leafy legume, for their animals to eat. The altered diet changes the way that bacteria in the stomachs of the animals break down plant material into waste gas, he said.

The institute has started a new government research programme, with the universities of Wales and Reading, to investigate how this process could be improved. A similar project in New Zealand suggested that dietary changes could reduce methane emissions from sheep by up to 50%.

A baby mammoth unearthed in the permafrost of north-west Siberia could be the best preserved specimen of its type, scientists have said. The frozen carcass is to be sent to Japan for detailed study. The six-month-old female calf was discovered on the Yamal peninsula of Russia and is thought to have died 10,000 years ago.

The animal's trunk and eyes are still intact and some of its fur remains on the body. The 130cm (4ft 3ins) tall, 50kg Siberian specimen dates to the end of the last Ice Age, when the great beasts were vanishing from the planet.