Mr Putin quickly qualified his remarks, made after a summit with European Union leaders in Portugal, by saying that US-Russian relations had moved on since the Cold War and that he and George W. Bush, the US president, had a good personal relationship.

But Mr Putin's deliberate evocation of one of history's most dangerous episodes did little to soothe the nerves of his European hosts who, like their US allies, are struggling to stabilise a relationship with Russia that has more points of friction than at any time since the Soviet Union's demise in 1991.

Mr Putin has never disguised his hostility to the US proposal to station a missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland, a plan that he says threatens Russia but which the US says is intended to counter a possible missile threat posed by Iran.

Earlier, Mr Putin eased the atmosphere of the EU-Russia summit by saying he would allow observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to monitor December's parliamentary elections. EU leaders praised the move, even though some election specialists say the OSCE observers should have been allowed into Russia much sooner in order to make a proper assessment of the election campaign.

A ship off Kauai fired a target missile at 9:15 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time Friday, or 3:15 a.m. EDT Saturday. Minutes later, soldiers with the U.S. Army's 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade launched an interceptor missile from Kauai that destroyed the target over the Pacific, according to the agency.

The military says it already can shoot down missiles in their last stage of flight by using Patriot anti-missile batteries. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system would be able to protect larger areas than the Patriot system because it intercepts targets at a higher altitude. The new system had its first successful test last year at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and two more successful tests earlier this year at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.

Saturday's announcement said the most recent test was the 31st "hit to kill" intercept in 39 tests since 2001 by ground and sea-based interceptors against short, medium and long-range ballistic missile targets.

Indonesia's Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation raised the alert on Mount Anak Krakatau to the second-highest level on Friday after it threw up showers of ash. The volcano, which lies in the Sunda strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra, is about 130 km west of the capital Jakarta. It gradually formed after the famous Krakatau volcano blew up in a massive eruption in 1883, triggering tsunamis and killing thousands of people.

Saut Simatupang, a senior official at the centre, said that volcanic tremors at Anak Krakatau, which is a popular tourist attraction, had increased in the past two days. Officials are also monitoring two other volcanos. Mount Kelud volcano in East Java has been on the highest state of alert for several days as it appears to be very close to erupting. The volcano, which has a lake in its crater, is about 90 km southwest of Surabaya, Indonesia's second-biggest city.

Mount Soputan, in North Sulawesi, erupted last week spewing columns of ash 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) into the air, but its activity has since decreased, Simatupang said. Indonesia has the highest number of active volcanoes in any country, sitting on a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity known as the "Pacific Ring of Fire".

On Friday, Australian Treasurer Peter Costello had warned of an approaching INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL "TSUNAMI", with China at its epicentre. "We are entering a more difficult time of economic management. There are storm clouds on the international economic horizon," Howard told Channel 9 television on Sunday.

"I don't think its panicking anybody to say that the subprime meltdown in the United States, which has already had an impact on market interest rates, because of the globalized nature of our economy, is going to have an effect," Howard said.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday, Costello said global financial markets faced a "huge tsunami". The U.S. economy would weaken in the wake of its subprime mortgage meltdown, and the breakneck pace of Chinese growth also could not continue, Costello said.

At some stage, likely to coincide with a move to a floating of the Chinese currency, CHINA WOULD UNLEASH GREATER INSTABILITY ON GLOBAL MARKETS than the United States had, he said. "That will be a wild ride when that happens. That will set off a huge tsunami that will go through world financial markets," said Costello, one of Australia's longest-serving Treasurers.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning that 27 sub-Saharan countries now need help. But what appear as isolated disasters brought about by drought or conflict in countries like Somalia, Malawi, Niger, Kenya and Zimbabwe are - in reality - systemic problems.

It is African agriculture itself that is in crisis, and according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, this has left 200 million people malnourished. It is particularly striking that the FAO highlights political problems such as civil strife, refugee movements and returnees in 15 of the 27 countries it declares in need of urgent assistance. By comparison drought is only cited in 12 out of 27 countries.

The implication is clear - Africa's years of wars, coups and civil strife are responsible for more hunger than the natural problems that befall it. The result is that a continent that was more than self sufficient in food at independence 50 years ago, is now a massive food importer. The book The African Food Crisis says that in less than 40 years the sub-continent went from being a net exporter of basic food staples to relying on imports and food aid.

In 1966-1970, net exports averaged 1.3 million tons of food a year, it states. "By the late 1970s Africa imported 4.4 million tonnes of staple foods a year, a figure that had risen to 10 million tonnes by the mid 1980s." It said that since independence, agricultural output per capita remained stagnant, and in many places declined.

An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess. "Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the Denver-based American Water Works Association. Water managers will need to take bold steps to keep taps flowing, including conservation, recycling, desalination and stricter controls on development.

The price tag for ensuring a reliable water supply could be staggering. Experts estimate that just upgrading pipes to handle new supplies could cost the nation $300 billion over 30 years. "Unfortunately, there's just not going to be any more cheap water," said Randy Brown, Pompano Beach's utilities director.

It's not just America's problem - it's global.

Australia is in the midst of a 30-year dry spell, and population growth in urban centers of sub-Saharan Africa is straining resources. Asia has 60 percent of the world's population, but only about 30 percent of its freshwater
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists, said this year that by 2050 up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages.

Heavy rain caused waterways to burst their banks, washing away roads and bridges and knocking down power lines. Some of the victims were electrocuted, others drowned or were crushed when their homes collapsed. Officials said the number of people killed could rise as relief workers reach districts cut off by the floods.

The torrential rain began falling late on Thursday and continued until Friday morning. Government officials have set up a committee to deal with the crisis. A particularly heavy rainy season across a broad stretch of Africa since June has led to the worst floods in 30 years, the United Nations has said.

The latest floods in the DR Congo brings the number killed to more than 400. Two million people across the continent have been affected, with many requiring shelter and food aid.

This is a very long and diverse list, including:

- wood, wood chippings and straw
- pellets or liquids made from wood
- biogas (methane) from animals' excrement
- ethanol, diesel or other liquid fuels made from processing plant material or waste oil

In recent years, the term "biofuel" has come to mean the last category - ethanol and diesel, made from crops including corn, sugarcane and rapeseed.

Bio-ethanol, an alcohol, is usually mixed with petrol, while biodiesel is either used on its own or in a mixture.

Pioneers such as Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel designed cars and engines to run on biofuels. Before World War II, the UK and Germany both sold biofuels mixed with petrol or diesel made from crude oil; the availability of cheap oil later ensured market dominance.

Ethanol for fuel is made through fermentation, the same process which produces it in wine and beer. Biodiesel is made through a variety of chemical processes. There is interest in trying biobutanol, another alcohol, in aviation fuel.

In principle, biofuels are a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional transport fuels. Burning the fuels releases carbon dioxide; but growing the plants absorbs a comparable amount of the gas from the atmosphere. However, energy is used in farming and processing the crops, and this can make biofuels as polluting as petroleum-based fuels, depending on what is grown and how it is treated.

What are the downsides?

From the environmental point of the view, the big issue is biodiversity. With much of the western world's farmland already consisting of identikit fields of monocultured crops, the fear is that a major adoption of biofuels will reduce habitat for animals and wild plants still further. Asian countries may be tempted to replace rainforest with more palm oil plantations, critics say. If increased proportions of food crops such as corn or soy are used for fuel, that may push prices up, affecting food supplies for less prosperous citizens.

The mixed picture regarding the climate benefit of biofuels leads some observers to say that the priority should be reducing energy use; initiatives on biofuels detract attention from this, they say, and are more of a financial help to politically important farming lobbies than a serious attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

A team of UK-based scientists suggested that reforestation and habitat protection was a better option. Writing in Science, they said forests could absorb up to nine times more CO2 than the production of biofuels could achieve on the same area of land. The growth of biofuels was also leading to more deforestation, they added.

"The prime reason for the renewables obligation was to mitigate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions," said Renton Righelato, one of the study's co-authors. "In our view this is a mistaken policy because it is less effective than reforesting," he told BBC News.

Dr Righelato, chairman of the World Land Trust, added that the policy could actually lead to more deforestation as nations turned to countries outside of the EU to meet the growing demand for biofuels.

For environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, it's a no brainer. "If you start to fuel cars with crops," says Ed Matthew, "you are instantly putting the world's one billion starving people in competition with the world's one billion motorists. It's as simple as that."

Green groups and aid agencies cite biofuels as forming part of the "perfect storm" of poor harvests, rising oil prices and a surge in demand for food from China and India that are all pushing up the price of everything from pasta to a loaf of bread.

In fact, the first flashpoint in the food versus fuel conflict has already happened. Mexican anger at more expensive corn flour led to the so called "tortilla riots" at the beginning of the year. The price rises were attributed to the United States' large-scale switch from food to fuel production, meaning less maize exported to its southern neighbour.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said he feared biofuels would bring more hunger. The growth in the production of biofuels has helped to push the price of some crops to record levels. He complained of an ill-conceived dash to convert foodstuffs such as maize and sugar into fuel, which created a recipe for disaster.

IT WAS, HE SAID, A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY TO DIVERT ARABLE LAND TO THE PRODUCTION OF CROPS WHICH ARE THEN BURNED FOR FUEL. He called for a five-year ban on the practice. Within that time, according to Mr Ziegler, technological advances would enable the use of agricultural waste, such as corn cobs and banana leaves, rather than crops themselves to produce fuel.

The growth in the production of biofuels has been driven, in part, by the desire to find less environmentally-damaging alternatives to oil. The United States is also keen to reduce its reliance on oil imported from politically unstable regions.

But the trend has contributed to A SHARP RISE IN FOOD PRICES as farmers, particularly in the US, switch production from wheat and soya to corn, which is then turned into ethanol. Mr Ziegler is not alone in warning of the problem. The IMF last week voiced concern that the increasing global reliance on grain as a source of fuel could have serious implications for the world's poor.

On the London Bullion Market, gold prices surged as high as 778.50 dollars per ounce, which was last seen in January 1980. In early European trade, the euro struck 1.4375 dollars -- the highest level since the single currency's creation in 1999.

Gold benefits from a weak US unit because it makes commodities that are priced in dollars cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies. Meanwhile, the price of New York crude surged past 92 dollars per barrel for the first time, lifted by rising tensions in the oil-rich Middle East and new US sanctions against Iran, dealers said.

Higher oil prices spark inflationary concerns, while gold is regarded as a haven in troubled times.

"We are still negative on the dollar. We bought stocks in companies that are earning their money in other currencies," he told reporters during a visit to Berkshire's Korean cutting tool maker subsidiary, TaeguTec.

Buffett, worth $52 billion according to Forbes magazine in March, said his Berkshire Hathaway company is still on the hunt for bargains as the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis plays out.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo Rato said on Monday the U.S. currency was still overvalued and that there was room for further depreciation.

More than a million people were evacuated and, for some, the threat to their homes has not yet passed. The number of properties destroyed had risen to nearly 1,600 by Thursday, the governor of California's office said.

While, in the Los Angeles area, many wildfires were almost out, in Orange and San Diego counties firefighters were still battling to get on top of the flames. Evacuation orders were still being issued and 16,000 homes were in the path of two wildfires that were still out of control, fire officials told the Associated Press.

The programme will go further than experts recommended, with all 12 to 13-year-olds eligible for the jab and a catch-up campaign up to the age of 18.

Earlier this year the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended routine vaccination for 11 to 12-year olds, including the possibility of a catch-up campaign - but only up to the age of 16. But the government wanted further evidence on the cost benefits of a programme before making a final decision.

Two vaccines have been developed - Gardasil, made by Merck and Sanofi Pasteur, which has been approved in 76 countries, and Cevarix, which is expected to be launched in Europe later this year. Both cost about £300 for three injections over six months.

Some have expressed concerns that providing a jab to protect against a sexually transmitted infection to children at a young age might encourage promiscuity, BUT PARENTS WOULD HAVE THE FINAL SAY AS TO WHETHER THEIR CHILD RECEIVED THE INJECTION.

About 80% of sexually active women can expect to have an HPV (human papilloma virus) infection at some point in their lives. It is held responsible for some 70% of cervical cancer cases, a disease which kills 274,000 women worldwide every year, including 1,120 in the UK.

In an editorial published last year, the Lancet called for mandatory vaccination against HPV for girls in all EU member states once they are 11 or 12. Other European countries including Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Luxembourg and Belgium have approved a vaccination programme. Experts said the programme would be more expensive than all other childhood immunisations and the benefits would not been seen for decades, but eventually it would be worth the cost.