The EU doubtless regards it as only appropriate that it should be able to hang its "ring of stars" flag outside one of the most iconic political buildings in Britain, just as its new "Not the Constitution" comes into force - with the added sweetness that it will be like a final symbolic victory over Lady Thatcher, for whom it was the backdrop to her political triumphs of the 1980s.

Ever since she departed, the question of what the Tories insist on calling "EUROPE" HAS BECOME THEIR ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE, the issue they have to keep stuffed away in a cupboard FOR FEAR IT WILL REOPEN THE DISASTROUS PARTY RIFTS of the 1990s. For 10 years the Tories have allowed themselves to mention "Europe" only in very strictly confined terms - "No to the euro", "Yes to a treaty referendum" and that's it. Anything else is just what their leader, David Cameron, famously dismissed as "banging on about Europe".

The Tories must remain silent, because THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS TO THEM IS GETTING INTO GOVERNMENT. But when they do arrive in "government" they will get a fearful shock to find that, while they were not talking about it, MOST OF IT HAS DEPARTED - TO THAT REAL CENTRE OF POWER IN BRUSSELS.

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION intends to interfere with Member State civil protection capabilities as well as coordinate their response to disaster. Last March, the European Commission adopted a communication with the purpose "to reinforce the EU's disaster response capacity." The Commission wants to put in place an integrated disaster response for the EU. It has presented an action plan with proposals for enhancing the EU's response capacity and recommends the actions to be implemented by the end of 2008.

THE COMMUNICATION COVERS NATURAL OR MAN-MADE DISASTERS AS WELL AS CONFLICT-RELATED EMERGENCIES WHICH HAVE TAKEN PLACE EITHER INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE EU. The Commission has said in its communication that the European Parliament has urged it to put forward a proposal on a European rapid reaction force for emergencies based on the civil protection mechanisms of the Member States. The Commission wants to improve the European civil protection response capacity. IT HAS MADE CLEAR THAT IT WISHES TO COORDINATE THE MEMBER STATE CIVIL PROTECTION RESOURCES.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd made the remarks a day after ordering his country's 550 combat troops to head home after five years in Iraq. As one of the United States' staunchest allies, Australia was quick to pledge military support for the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. But that decision was made by conservative Prime Minister John Howard, whose 11 years in office came to an end in November's election. He dismissed one by one the reasons used by the Howard administration - and by association the Bush administration - to topple Saddam Hussein.

"Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No, they have not been, as the victims of the Madrid train bombing will attest," Rudd told Parliament. "Has any evidence of a link between weapons of mass destruction and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No. Have the actions of rogue states like Iran been moderated? No - Iran's nuclear ambitions remain a fundamental challenge. After five years, has the humanitarian crisis in Iraq been removed? No, it has not."

Rudd said there had been a "failure to disclose to the Australian people the qualified nature of the intelligence. For example, the pre-war warning that an attack on Iraq would increase the terrorist threat, not decrease it." In response to Rudd's remarks, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters Monday that "we acted on the intelligence that we had.... No one else in the world, no other government, had different information and so we acted based on what was the threat that was presented to us."

THE MRSA STRAIN, ST398, WHICH HAS BEEN LINKED TO DEATHS FROM PNEUMONIA, was first identified in the Netherlands in 2003 and is responsible for 30 per cent of the country's human cases of the superbug. Until recently, there were no reported cases in Britain. But Government laboratories in Scotland have discovered three cases in humans, none of whom work with pigs. This raises the possibility the superbug is being passed between humans or is reaching consumers buying pork on the High Street.

The cases were revealed after pressure from campaigners at the Soil Association. Its experts became aware of an unusual case of MRSA in Scotland and asked the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory to carry out further tests. It found the MRSA involved was the strain found in pigs and that there were at least two other cases.

Peter Clarke, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has warned that the CURRENT 28-DAY LIMIT WILL "UNDOUBTEDLY" SOON BECOME INSUFFICIENT TO GARNER ENOUGH EVIDENCE to charge a suspect in increasingly complex terrorist investigations. He added that plots uncovered since 2005 show that "the terrorist threat is still real and growing in scale and complexity."

Many are concerned that the extension would be an assault on civil liberties and up to 50 Labour MPs could be planning to vote against the Government. But the Prime Minister has made it clear that he would rather lose the vote than compromise on the 42-day figure.

How should the Government balance the need for security with the obligation to uphold the freedom and rights which are an integral part of Britain? DOES THE TERROR THREAT TO BRITAIN MEAN THAT SECURITY IS NOW MORE IMPORTANT THAN CIVIL RIGHTS?

Late Monday, Willie Jessop, an elder for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said the church won't allow underage girls to marry. Jessop told the AP the new policy will forbid any girl to marry who is not of legal consent age in the state where she lives. Jessop said the church has been widely misunderstood, but he said the church will not sanction marriages of underage girls and will counsel members against such unions. He insisted marriages within the church have always been consensual.

Earlier, Texas District Judge Barbara Walther, responding to a state Supreme Court ruling last week, signed an order filed by attorneys for the parents and Child Protective Services, allowing the parents to begin picking their children up from foster care facilities around the state almost immediately.

"A lot of the mothers are considering their options, deciding where to go next and some families have purchased homes or gotten other housing," Susan Hayes, a lawyer for one of the children, told FOX News. "Other families will be going back to the ranch and some will be going back to the ranch with a little caution because we're not sure what else the state has in store for this case."

In a report released Monday, NASA's inspector general office called it "INAPPROPRIATE POLITICAL INTERFERENCE" BY POLITICAL APPOINTEES IN THE PRESS OFFICE. It said that the agency's top management wasn't part of the censorship, nor were career officials. NASA downplayed the report as old news on a problem that has since been fixed. NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said the space agency's new policies have now been hailed for openness by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The report found credence in allegations that National Public Radio was denied access to top global warming scientist James Hansen. It also found evidence that NASA headquarters press officials cancelled a press conference on a mission monitoring ozone pollution and global warming because it was too close to the 2004 presidential election.

In addition, the report detailed more than a dozen other actions in which it said the NASA public affairs office unilaterally edited or downgraded press releases having to do with global warming or denied access to scientists. NASA public affairs officials criticized by the report called it wrong, saying they were always open and truthful. Not so, according to the report. The report did not directly accuse them of lying, but used more nuanced terms such as "mendacity" and "dissembling."

The Senate climate bill expected to be debated much of this week would cut emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases by about 70 percent over the next four decades. The bill targets power plants, refineries, factories and transportation.

Supporters argue that the shift away from fossil fuels can be made without significant economic damage and that failure to address global warming itself would produce greater economic harm later this century. Bush, during a White House event that focused on keeping taxes low, said the Senate bill "would impose roughly $6 trillion in new costs on the American economy." The president in the past has expressed opposition to mandatory limits on carbon dioxide and other pollution linked to global warming.

"There's a much better way to address the environment than imposing these costs ... which will ultimately have to be borne by American consumers," said Bush, who has favored voluntary efforts and technology innovation to address global warming.

The U2 frontman, who was in Japan to take part in a major development conference last week, said that a United States of Africa "would be the dream" in the long term. "I think a kind of broader African identity is going to be very important to deal with tribal tensions," Bono told Tuesday's Asahi Shimbun, where he served as a guest-editor for a special Africa edition on Saturday.

The African Union was created in 2002 with inspiration from the European Union, but critics say the body has lacked the funds and political will to take effective action on the continent's flashpoints. It intervened in 2004 in the strife-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur, but has relinquished leadership to the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force. However, an African Union-backed force in March for the first time removed a renegade leader in an intervention in the Comoros island of Anjouan.

Born in Denmark and officially embraced as EU policy last year, "flexicurity" describes a combination of flexibility - easy hire-and-fire laws - with security - generous unemployment benefits, active retraining and incentives to return to work. The aim is to protect the worker, not the job, since in a fast-changing globalized economy few if any can expect to keep the same job for life.

"The flexibility of labor markets was coming about anyway but security requires a lot of work," EU Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said in an interview. He highlighted the importance of shaping reforms in a social dialogue among trade unions, employers and government, citing an agreement last month in free-marketeering Britain to give temporary agency workers more rights as a good example.

However, core eurozone countries have a long way to go. Germany and France retain stubbornly high long-term and youth unemployment, while Italy has the youngest retirement age and the lowest proportion of adults in work in western Europe. By contrast, Denmark has achieved virtual full employment, with a jobless rate of just 2.7 percent in April and the highest rate of labor market participation for men and women in the EU.

UN officials said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would call for the immediate suspension or elimination of price controls or other trade restrictions. But many observers have so far focused on Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, whose presence at the summit has been called "obscene" by the UK and Australia. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the Zimbabwean president was "the person who has presided over the starvation of his people".

The hosts of the Rome conference - the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - has warned the industrialised countries that unless they increase yields, eliminate barriers and move food to where it is needed most, a global catastrophe could result. The recent crisis is believed to have pushed another 100 million people into hunger worldwide. Poorer countries are faced with a 40% increase in their food imports bill this year.

In the short term, the report will call for a reduction in tariffs and the provision of subsidies for poorer farmers. The long-term measures will focus on increased investment.

The GLA, set up in 2005 to protect low-paid workers, says thousands of immigrants have worked in appalling conditions for below the minimum wage. The authority says it has revoked 25 employment agents' licences already this year - twice as many as last year. In response, it is to launch a major increase in enforcement operations.

The GLA currently licenses 1,200 gangmasters, but since its creation has revoked the licenses of 57. THE PROBLEM OF EXPLOITATION BY UNSCRUPULOUS EMPLOYMENT AGENTS IS PARTICULARLY ACUTE IN THE FOOD PROCESSING AND AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES, says the GLA. It reports people being forced to work in unsafe conditions, often for wages well below the legal minimum, and workers having their families back at home threatened.

The GLA was set up in 2005 to curb abuse of workers in agriculture, shellfish gathering and food processing, following the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, a year earlier.

Nearly two-thirds think the government has "gone back on its initial promise" to give them a say on the EU Constitution, even though it has been replaced by the Lisbon Treaty. The findings come ahead of a High Court battle this week between the government and eurosceptic millionaire Stuart Wheeler, who is seeking a judicial review to force a vote.

Ministers insist the treaty is substantially different to the constitution, which was formally ditched in 2005 after voters in France and Holland rejected it. But critics argue the treaty is the same in all but name to the constitution.

IAEA head Mohamed El Baradei did not say whether his inspectors would be granted access to the site during the planned June 22-24 visit. But a senior diplomat familiar with the details of the planned visit said agency personnel had been told they could visit the facility. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The building was flattened by Israel in September. Neither the United States nor Israel gave the IAEA information about the site until late April, about a year after they obtained what they considered to be decisive intelligence: dozens of photographs from a handheld camera that showed both the interior and exterior of the compound in Syria's eastern desert.

Since that time, Syria has not reacted to repeated agency requests for a visit to check out the allegations, using the interval to erect another structure over the site - a move that heightened suspicions of a possible cover-up.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party tonight to confront MPs who are threatening to inflict a humiliating defeat on the Government when the proposals come before the Commons later this month. As many as 50 backbenchers are thought to be preparing to rebel, and ministers have suggested that concessions will be offered which will prove sufficient to secure their support. But in a newspaper article, the Prime Minister made clear that there would be no concession on the main tenants of the Bill, saying: "I will stick to the principles I have set out and do the right thing."

The Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, has written a letter warning that the 42 day limit would be "excessive," and put Britain "way out of line" with the rest of Europe. But Mr Brown insisted: "The challenge for every government is to respond to the changing demands of national security, while upholding something that is at the heart of the British constitutional settlement: the preservation of civil liberties."