The two men spoke for half an hour in the 12th century Tower of St John, a private area in the Vatican gardens which is used by the pope for private reflection. A source close to the Vatican said that Mr Bush was the most "Catholic-minded" president since John F Kennedy, who famously played down his Catholicism.

MR BUSH HAS FILLED THE WHITE HOUSE WITH CATHOLIC SPEECH-WRITERS AND CONSULTANTS and is also thought to have asked a Catholic priest to bless the West Wing. Before he became president, Karl Rove, his former political adviser, invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to lecture the candidate on the church's teachings. Mr Bush appointed the Catholic judges Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

However, it is thought unlikely that Mr Bush would convert until after he has left office. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, has already converted to Catholicism. Catholics have noted that during the contested election in 2000, Jeb Bush travelled to Mexico and prayed to the icon of Our Lady of Guadelupe. His victory was announced by the Supreme Court on December 12, the feast day of the Lady of Guadelupe.

The council has 29 members including Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Sri Lanka. It was the Sri Lankan envoy who raised concerns over the British monarchy. The resulting report said Britain should have a referendum on the monarchy and the need for a written constitution with a bill of rights. The monarchy costs each adult in Britain around 62p a year but even groups representing taxpayers said there was no case for getting rid of it.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "With so many human rights abuses around the world the UN should be busy reporting on issues of starvation, execution and the denial of the vote to huge numbers of people around the world. Saudi Arabia and Cuba should pay a little more attention to their own human rights record."

The UN report was also critical of the UK's treatment of immigrants from Sudan. Syrian representatives accused the UK of discriminating against Muslims and Iran complained about the UK's record on tackling sexual discrimination. A royal source said: "People here certainly haven't detected any appetite for a referendum. The Queen is a focus for national unity, identity and pride."

The blaze already had destroyed at least 20 homes. Authorities on Thursday had closed all roads to Paradise and ordered 9,000 people to leave. In recent days, hot temperatures, steady winds and tinder-dry vegetation have fueled a series of destructive blazes in the northern heartland of California.

Across the country, authorities in North Carolina issued an air quality advisory for Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham through Friday after smoke from a wildfire burning in a wildlife refuge drifted westward. The lightning-sparked blaze has burned more than 60 square miles in and around the Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge, and was only 40 percent contained.

Authorities say without a massive rainstorm, firefighters can do little to extinguish the blaze and put an end to the smoky weather.

A hospital in the city of Cedar Rapids was flooded and its patients evacuated after the Cedar river burst its banks and swamped more than 400 streets. Iowa Governor Chet Culver has declared 83 of the state's 99 counties to be disaster areas and said that nine rivers are at, or above, record levels.

THE FLOODS HAVE ALSO DESTROYED MOST OF THE MIDWEST'S CORN AND SOYBEAN CROPS. The damage has helped push prices for the foods to record levels this week. Wheat, oats and rice production has also been affected.

One of the worst flooded areas in Iowa has been Cedar Rapids, the state's second largest city with a population of 124,000, where at least 438 city centre streets were inundated by rising water from the Cedar river and a railway bridge collapsed. Flooding has also swamped parts of Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas and Indiana. So far, officials in Indiana have reported three flood-related deaths and at least two deaths in Iowa.

France and Germany have described the No vote in the referendum as a serious blow but have urged the EU to press ahead with the project. EUROPEAN COMMISSION HEAD JOSE MANUEL BARROSO SAID THE TREATY WAS NOT DEAD. But Czech President Vaclav Klaus said the treaty was finished, since any further ratification was impossible.

His is a lone voice among EU leaders, but his views will probably resonate with many European voters who did not get a say in a referendum, says the BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels. The third failed referendum on an EU treaty in three years can only be seen as a serious blow to the EU's credibility at home and abroad, our correspondent adds.

The European Commission says nations should continue to ratify the treaty, designed to streamline decision-making. BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY DAVID MILIBAND SAID THE UK WOULD PRESS ON WITH ITS RATIFICATION.

Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper says bankers have detected a curious pattern where customers are withdrawing cash directly from branches, screening the notes to determine the origin of issue. They ask for paper from the southern states to be exchanged for German notes.

Each country prints its own notes according to its economic weight, under strict guidelines from the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. The German notes have an "X"' at the start of the serial numbers, showing that they come from the Bundesdruckerei in Berlin. PEOPLE CLEARLY SUSPECT THAT SOUTHERN NOTES MAY LOSE VALUE IN A CRISIS, OR IF THE EUROZONE BREAKS APART. This is what happened in the US in the Jackson era of the 1840s when dollar notes from different regions traded at different values.

A group of leading German professors warned at the outset of EMU that the euro would tend to be weaker than old Deutsche Mark, and that it would fuel inflation over time. German citizens were never given a vote on the abolition of the D-Mark, which had become a symbol of Germany's rebirth after the war. Many have kept a stash of D-Marks hidden in mattresses to this day. A recent IPOS poll showed THAT 59PC OF GERMANY NOW HAD SERIOUS DOUBTS ABOUT THE EURO.

In St Peter's Square, the Pontiff paid tribute to St Columbanus, a monk from Co Meath who led a mission into Europe in AD500. He said, "With his spiritual strength, with his faith, with his love of God and neighbour, he became one of the Fathers of Europe, SHOWING US TODAY THE WAY TO THOSE ROOTS FROM WHICH OUR CONTINENT MAY BE REBORN."

"We have noted with certain concern that there are signs of growing protectionism in a number of areas," reads the union's statement to the World Trade Organisation issued on Wednesday (11 June). The document attacks "mounting restrictive import requirements for security purposes" as they represent a "considerable burden" on EU exporters. The EU has hinted it may challenge the measures in front of the Geneva-based body.

"The EU raised doubts about the compliance of these measures with World Trade Organisation rules and their professed intent," the statement concludes. The two sides are the world's export leaders, with transatlantic trade amounting to €3 billion per day.

The EU has also criticised more generous hand-outs foreseen in the new 2008 US Farm Bill, especially in the context of the ongoing Doha development round of world trade talks. The Doha development round began in 2001 with the aim of cutting farm subsidies and tariffs and boosting free trade. The bill is the work of the US Congress which is pushing higher subsidies despite opposition from President George W. Bush.

He was later pardoned by former French President Jacques Chirac, a close friend. Barrot was never barred from holding public office and FAILED TO DECLARE HIS PAST WHEN HE JOINED THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AS TRANSPORT COMMISSIONER IN 2000.

The Sun notes that his new job as Justice Commissioner will make him the second most powerful man in the EU, with control over laws on environmental crime, seizure of terrorist funds, copyright and patents across the 27 member states.

The Lisbon Treaty will also give him power to dictate how EU countries operate criminal law, policing, courts, rules of evidence, immigration and border controls. He will be paid £160,000 a year. Open Europe is quoted saying, "TO SAY THIS SMACKS OF POACHER TURNED GAMEKEEPER IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT."

"Instead of dwelling on our differences, we are increasingly united in our interests and ideals," Bush was to say in a speech Friday in Paris. "In leaders like Berlusconi and Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy, I see a commitment to a powerful and purposeful Europe that advances the values of liberty within its borders, and beyond."

With his own country and all the ones he is visiting far more interested in the race to find his successor than in his doings, Bush claimed a success that he would be passing on to the next president. "When the time comes to welcome a new American president next January, I will be pleased to report to him that the relationship between the United States and Europe is the broadest and most vibrant it has ever been," Bush said.

Bush will meet with the pope on Friday before departing to Paris to continue his farewell European tour. It will be Bush's third meeting with Benedict. The two last met in April at the White House in Washington.

According to many of the world's top scientists, the answer is yes, unless we take action now. This September, in Earth 2100, a dramatic ABC News 2-hour broadcast, the greatest minds across the globe will join together in a countdown to the year 2100 to tell us what we must do to survive the next century - And what may happen if we don't. The time to act is now, says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. "THE 21ST CENTURY IS GOING TO BE THE CENTURY WHICH DETERMINE[S] WHETHER WE LIVE OR DIE AS A SUSTAINABLE SPECIES," Gleick said. "As populations grow, as our use of resources grows, I think we get closer and closer to that edge."

Experts say that extreme changes in climate, combined with dwindling resources, famine, war and disease have the potential to create a post-apocalyptic world in less than a hundred years. Harvard University and Woods Hole climatologist John Holdrens says we cannot continue going down the same path. "If we continue on business as usual, we are going to see more floods, more droughts, more heat waves, more wildfires, more ice melting, faster sea level rise," Holdren said.

"We really have less than a decade to start getting this right. If we're still dragging our feet in 2015 I think it really becomes at that point almost impossible for the world to avert a degree of climate change that we simply will not be able to manage without intolerable cost and consequences."

"At least 500 million people in Asia and 250 million people in China are at risk from DECLINING GLACIAL FLOWS ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU," said Rajendra k. Pachauri, chairman of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) and winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, in an interview with circle of blue. "This is one of the great concerns - A STAGGERING NUMBER OF PEOPLE WILL BE AFFECTED IN THE NEAR FUTURE. There aren't too many researchers who have looked at this water situation and its far-reaching impacts."

Globally, the UN estimates that two-thirds of the world's population will live in areas of water stress within the next 20 years. Scientists and experts say an environmental catastrophe is brewing in the volatile region due to air and water pollution in China and global climate change - all of which foretell future water scarcity on an unprecedented scale. With more than a quarter of its land classified as desert, China has long sought Tibet's water resources.

Said Geoff Dabelko, director of the environmental change and security program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars in Washington, D.C., "NEARLY TWO BILLION PEOPLE ARE IN SOME WAY DEPENDENT ON WATER ORIGINATING ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU. By definition, that makes it high politics and critically important in a politically strategic sense."

There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, MURCIA, IS RUNNING OUT OF WATER. Swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert. The battles of yesterday were fought over land, they warn. Those of the present center on oil. But those of the future - a future made hotter and drier by climate change in much of the world - seem likely to focus on water, they say.

Murcia, traditionally a poor farming region, has undergone a resort-building boom in recent years, even as many of its farmers have switched to more thirsty crops, encouraged by water transfer plans, which have become increasingly untenable. The combination has put new pressures on the land and its dwindling supply of water. THIS YEAR, FARMERS ARE FIGHTING DEVELOPERS OVER WATER RIGHTS. They are fighting one another over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a rapidly growing black market, mostly from illegal wells.

"Water will be the environmental issue this year - the problem is urgent and immediate," said Barbara Helferrich, a spokeswoman for the European Union's Environment Directorate. "IF YOU ALREADY HAVE WATER SHORTAGES IN SPRING, YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE A REALLY BAD SUMMER."

"WATER IS ALL WE HAVE," said Gulbakhor, a 55-year-old mother of nine, pointing at swathes of parched land stretching towards the austere mountains of central Tajikistan. She did not want to give her last name. "BUT ALL THE PONDS AND RIVERS ARE DRY. We need to water our crop but we don't have enough even for ourselves." Gulbakhor's despair, shared by millions of Tajiks in this tiny ex-Soviet nation north of Afghanistan, reflects a growing sense of alarm throughout Central Asia where stability depends on the region's scarcest and most precious commodity: water.

Central Asia is one of the world's driest places where, thanks to 70 years of Soviet planning, thirsty crops such as cotton and grain remain the main livelihood for most of the 58 million people. Disputes over cross-border water use have simmered for years in this sprawling mass of land wedged between Iran, Russia and China. Afghanistan, linked to Central Asia by the Amu Daria river, is adding to the tension by claiming its own share of the water.

WATER SHORTAGES ARE CAUSING CONCERN THE WORLD OVER, BECAUSE OF RISING DEMAND, CLIMATE CHANGE AND SWELLING POPULATIONS.

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Dadirai Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window. The killing last Friday - one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe's regime since independence in 1980 - was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

About 70 local supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change gathered Wednesday in Patson Chipiro's small yard in Mhondoro to protect him. Inside the hut where his wife of 29 years died, women sang softly to a subdued drum beat next to the cheap wooden coffin. The thatched roof had been destroyed in the fire so they sat under the open sky. The lid could not be closed because Dadirai Chipiro's outstretched arm had burnt rigid. Her charred hand was found as women swept the hut.