Bishop Robinson, whose consecration has brought the worldwide Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, is on a visit to Britain timed to coincide with the Lambeth Conference, to which he has not been invited. He was preaching at St Mary's Church in Putney, south west London, on Sunday when he was interrupted by the heckler.

"At first, of course, I did not know what was going to happen and, with death threats having come in, that enters your mind," Bishop Robinson said. "I must say I was really overcome and got quite tearful afterwards with sadness for this young man. He clearly felt very strongly about what he believed. I thought, you know, there is this place in his heart that has been filled up with all this darkness and it could be filled with love."

Bishop Robinson has described the decision to bar him from the conference as a "mistake" but nevertheless expressed support for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who he said faced an "almost untenable" task in keeping the church together. "The Archbishop of Canterbury was doing exactly what he should be doing, which is trying to preserve the Anglican Communion," he said. "That is his intention and I support him in that."

ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court for an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the most senior figure pursued by the court since it was set up in 2002. Bashir is the first sitting head of state charged by an international court since Liberia's Charles Taylor and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic. The Sudanese leader dismissed the charges and said the ICC had no jurisdiction in Sudan.

SUDAN WILL SEEK SUPPORT FROM ALLIES SUCH AS CHINA AND RUSSIA to get the U.N. Security Council - which asked the ICC to investigate crimes in Darfur in 2005 - to block any warrant. China declined to comment on the case, which arises at a bad time for Khartoum's biggest arms supplier and a major investor in its oil industry just weeks before the Beijing Olympics.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) says only half of the extra land needed by 2030 is available without eating into tropical forested areas. A companion report documents poor progress in reforming land ownership and governance in developing countries. Both reports were launched on Monday in UK government offices in London.

"Arguably, we are on the verge of a last great global land grab," said RRI's Andy White, co-author of the major report, Seeing People through the Trees. "It will mean more deforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, more climate change and less prosperity for everyone."

Some academics place their hopes in agricultural technologies including genetic engineering to boost crop yields. But since the spectacular successes of the Green Revolution, advances have been slow. In some areas, yields are falling - a trend which is likely to be exacerbated by climate change. However, eating into tropical forests to create extra agricultural land would, in turn, exacerbate climate change, with deforestation currently accounting for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Collobrières, a village of 1,600 inhabitants in Provence, is motivated largely by profit: accepting the franc has boosted their business. "It's amazing how many francs people have kept at home," said Dominique Cardi, a gift shop owner. "Now they can spend them."

There is also a note of protest, however: nostalgia has grown for the colourful old money depicting French national heroes and its reappearance has warmed the hearts of those who complain that a distant Paris - not to mention Brussels - is out of touch. Ireland's rejection of the scaled-down constitution last month has aroused sympathy among the French: according to one poll 53% would have said no to the Lisbon treaty designed to facilitate the organisation of an enlarged 27-member EU.

In Collobrières the return of the franc coincides with widespread scepticism about an ever enlarging Europe. "HOW CAN WE GET 27 COUNTRIES TO AGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER?" asked Remy Fages, owner of a restaurant in the village square. "Perhaps in 100 years."

This approach was confirmed by Sarkozy's speech at the summit. He said: "THE GOAL OF THE SUMMIT IS TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE EACH OTHER IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, instead of continuing to hate and wage war". The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said after the meeting that the two sides had "never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today", despite not talking or meeting the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, who disappeared during Mr Olmert's speech.

On the relationship between the EU and the Mediterranean Union Sarkozy was clear stating: "The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable". WE WILL BUILD PEACE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN TOGETHER, like yesterday we built peace in Europe. WE WILL SUCCEED TOGETHER; OR WE WILL FAIL TOGETHER".

Mr Sarkozy's scheme is geographically ambitious, but politically modest. He is not proposing any supra-national laws or bureaucracies. All he wants is regular ministerial meetings. If only Mr Sarkozy would extend the logic to the EU, and drop his attempts to impose the Lisbon Treaty in plain defiance of the voters' verdict.

The Irish government last week announced the commissioning of an opinion poll to find out why its citizens voted the way they did. The report is expected to be completed by early September. EU leaders are due to hold a summit in October, although Irish officials told the paper it is unlikely the government will be in a position to present an action plan. That may have to await the December council.

The intention to revive the Treaty within this timeframe is echoed by the Spanish Europe Minister López Garrido, who is quoted in El Pais as saying, "The ideal would be a ratification of the Lisbon Treaty with sufficient time for it to be applied in the European elections."

POLISH RADIO REPORTS that Polish President Kaczynski, also attending the meeting in Paris, will today assure Sarkozy that Poland will not stand in the way of the ratification process.

PRAGUE MONITOR REPORTS that over one half of Czechs are of the view that their Parliament should not ratify the Lisbon treaty, according to a poll conducted by the STEM agency in June and released to CTK Friday.

Regulators took over the Pasadena-based lender on Friday after a bank run in which customers - panicked over IndyMac's survival prospects - WITHDREW $1.3 BILLION OVER 11 BUSINESS DAYS, regulators said. At a branch at IndyMac's headquarters, customers began arriving at 4am, five hours before the doors opened. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp now operates the thrift's 33 Southern California branches.

"I didn't think anything like this would happen," said retired teacher Charles Tengeri from Pasadena, who was first to emerge from the branch after withdrawing $171,000 - about two-thirds of his life savings. "I withdrew as much as I could. I know it's going to take a little time."

John Bovenzi, an FDIC official working as IndyMac Federal's chief executive, talked with customers as they waited for the doors to open, assuring one that "this bank is as safe and as sound as any bank in the country right now."

TAXPAYERS WILL BE SADDLED WITH DEBT if Congress approves U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's request for the authority to buy unlimited stakes in and lend to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Daniel Zimmerman predicted the mortgage finance companies' shares may fall another 35 percent.

"I don't know where these guys get the audacity to take our money, taxpayer money, and buy stock in Fannie Mae," Rogers, 65, said in an interview from Singapore. "So we're going to bail out everybody else in the world. And it ruins the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and it makes the dollar more vulnerable and it increases inflation." The chairman of Rogers Holdings, who in April 2006 correctly predicted oil would reach $100 a barrel and gold $1,000 an ounce, also said the commodities bull market has a "long way to go" and advised buying agricultural commodities. The U.S. economy is in a recession, possibly the worst since World War II, Rogers said.

"THEY'RE RUINING WHAT HAS BEEN ONE OF THE GREATEST ECONOMIES IN THE WORLD," Rogers said. Bernanke and Paulson... "ARE BAILING OUT THEIR FRIENDS ON WALL STREET but there are 300 million Americans that are going to have to pay for this."

Santander said A&L shareholders would get one of its shares for every three they now hold in the UK bank. Shares in A&L soared by nearly 50% on Monday after it disclosed that it had received a bid approach, which the BBC revealed was from Santander. Santander is effectively offering 317 pence per A&L share and expects the deal to be completed by October.

"So there will be some concern that the disappearance of A&L as an independent entity would leave too much power in the hands of the big banks." David Cumming, head of UK equities at Standard Life Investments, described it as "a gorgeous deal" for Santander, saying the bank was acquiring Alliance & Leicester "on giveaway terms".

"Given the potential integration benefits, other banks must surely be reviewing their options. I would be amazed if no one else counters with a higher offer in the next few months." Shares in other lenders soared on the news, with Bradford and Bingley shares rising by more than 25%.

Full scale work by the Chinese begins to rebuild 2,050 miles of roads in the Democratic Republic of Congo, left to rot in the rainforest after the Belgian colonialists pulled out 48 years ago and further shattered by seven years of war. The vast project, which will triple Congo's current paved road network, is part of China's largest investment in Africa, a £4.5 billion infrastructure-for-minerals deal signed in January. As well as the roads, Beijing has promised to repair 2,000 miles of largely defunct railways, build 32 hospitals and 145 health centres, install two electricity distribution networks, construct two hydropower dams and two new airports.

In return, CHINA HAS WON THE RIGHTS TO FIVE COPPER AND COBALT MINES IN CONGO'S SOUTHERN MINERALS BELT WHICH BOASTS SOME OF THE WORLD'S RICHEST ORE DEPOSITS. The deal has confirmed Beijing as Congo's largest foreign investor and extended its dominance over swathes of Africa previously allied to the West.

Victor Kasongo, Congo's deputy minister of mines, said: "To be honest, China was Plan B. We first approached the Europeans but they said they did not have the muscle to do what we needed. China has stepped into that opening, very quickly."

The US Treasury and Federal Reserve plan, announced on Sunday evening, called for sweeping measures to lend money and buy equity if necessary in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, government-sponsored (GSE) enterprises owned by shareholders. The plan was hatched in an attempt to calm investors after stocks of both plummeted more than 40 percent last week on fears the companies, pillars of the housing market, were under capitalised and the credit crisis toppled a fifth U.S. bank.

Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee $5 trillion (2.5 trillion pounds) of debt, close to half the value of all U.S. mortgages. Foreign central banks, mostly in Asia, hold $979 billion of the bonds and mortgage-backed bonds sold by the agencies. "[Their] continued strength is important to maintaining confidence and stability in our financial system and our financial markets," U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a statement that he read on the steps of the Treasury building.

"Therefore, we must take steps to address the current situation as we move to a stronger regulatory structure," he said. Fannie and Freddie's shares have been savaged in recent days and reduced to a fraction of their value a year ago and analysts remain sceptical.

Fannie Mae - Formerly FNMA or Federal National Mortgage Association
Freddie Mac - Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation

But after a large mortgage lender in California collapsed late Friday, Wall Street analysts began posing two crucial questions: Just how many banks might falter? And, more urgently, which one could be next?

The nation's banks are in far less danger than they were in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when more than 1,000 federally insured institutions went under during the savings-and-loan crisis. The debacle, the greatest collapse of American financial institutions since the Depression, prompted a government bailout that cost taxpayers about $125 billion.

But the troubles are growing so rapidly at some small and midsize banks that as many as 150 out of the 7,500 banks nationwide could fail over the next 12 to 18 months, analysts say. Other lenders are likely to shut branches or seek mergers. The FDIC has $53 billion set aside to reimburse consumers for deposits lost at failed banks. IndyMac will eat up $4 billion to $8 billion of that fund, the agency estimates, and that could force it to raise more money from the banks that it insures.

A quarter-by-quarter breakdown suggests that the offending has accelerated over the course of the year, fuelling fears that the problem is getting worse. Opposition politicians described the tally as "shocking" and last night demanded action from ministers. Six people died in knife attacks in a 24-hour period last week, leading to an unprecedented statement from Scotland Yard aimed at reassuring the public.

Among the victims was Melvin Bryan, an 18-year-old who became the 42nd teenager killed in Britain this year and the 20th in London.

Gordon Brown called Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to Chequers yesterday, for urgent talks. The Prime Minister urged the Scotland Yard chief to make full use of new police powers to make pubs and clubs search customers for knives and guns.

"Before the enemies can put their fingers on the trigger, the armed forces will cut off their hands," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. The remarks, delivered Sunday, came just days after Iran conducted long-range missile tests and threatened to target "the heart of Israel" and 32 U.S. bases in the Middle East if those countries attacked Iran.

"This is only a small part of Iran's defense capabilities and in the future we will unveil more of our defense capabilities if it is needed," he said. Iranian officials said Wednesday that the country test-fired its Shahab-3 missile - a longe-range weapon that it says can reach Israel - and eight other missiles.

The U.S. airline industry - including Virgin America - has been battered by soaring fuel costs that are pinching even the healthiest airlines. "The financial state of the world is just about the worst I've ever known it," Branson told The Times newspaper in an interview. "It's getting perilously close to being worse than the 1990s."

"You have the perfect storm - you've not only got the banking crisis and the housing crisis, you've got the soaring fuel prices as well. One of the big American carriers will almost definitely go."