The unofficial ballot was conducted by postal vote last month in 10 Labour and Liberal Democrat marginal seats. A total of 152,520 people voted, with 133,251 backing a referendum. IWAR claims the turnout is higher than that in local council elections.

Hundreds of children under the age of eight have been admitted to hospital suffering from the effects of alcohol, figures reveal. Last year, 95 under-eights needed emergency medical treatment for alcohol abuse, bringing the total since 2001 to 624. They were all suffering from "alcohol-related conditions", including the toxic effects of excess alcohol, alcoholic liver disease or mental or behavioural disorders caused by their alcohol intake.

Official statistics also reveal a steep rise in the number of school-age girls being taken to hospital with drink problems. In 2001, the numbers of boys and girls under the age of 18 being admitted to accident and emergency were level at around 3,000. But by last year, the number of girls taken to hospital had soared by almost 50 per cent to 4,538, compared with 3,686 boys.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "These are shocking figures, reflecting a culture where binge drinking is truly out of control. A child admitted to hospital because of alcohol before his or her eighth birthday is likely to suffer dreadful health consequences later in life."

Dealers said the continued weakness of the dollar was also helping drive crude prices, which have hit a string of records and led US President George W. Bush to urge the OPEC cartel to boost production. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for April delivery, traded briefly at a new high of 104.95 US dollars before easing to 104.30 in afternoon trading. It closed Wednesday at 104.52 dollars.

London's Brent North Sea crude for April delivery eased 22 cents to 101.42 dollars a barrel from its record close of 101.64 on Wednesday. In announcing it would maintain daily production at the current level of 29.67 million barrels, OPEC said Wednesday that the market was "well-supplied" -- a sentiment not fully shared by traders.

"The truth of the matter is there is not a lot of supply in the supply chain," said Justin Wilks, director of trading and operations at Global Commodities fund group in Australia. With prices over 100 dollars, Wilks said: "I WOULD SUGGEST THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO GET USED TO IT."

"More than one million people are currently facing critical water shortages due to poor consecutive seasonal performances in 2007 coupled with the current dry season," the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. It said the money was needed to fund water, sanitation, health, livestock and agriculture programmes.

So far, Ethiopia's military has dispatched 23,156 tonnes of food to five zones in the remote and arid Somali region, along the Horn of Africa nation's border with Somalia, the statement said. The United Nations is also seeking money to help fight water shortages for people and livestock in Borena, part of the Oromia region. Measles outbreaks had also been reported in parts of Oromia, OCHA said.

"If one country after the other adopts a 'starve your neighbor' policy, then eventually you trade smaller shares of total world production of agricultural products, and that in turn makes the prices more volatile," said Joachim von Braun, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, or IFPRI. A growing list of countries, including Egypt, India and China, has imposed bans, raised tariffs or unveiled other restrictions to limit crop, mainly grain, exports.

It's a bid to blunt the impact of a global boom in commodity and food prices, driven by tight stocks, growing biofuel production, and income growth in developing nations, a trend that takes the biggest toll on the poor.
IFPRI, an international research institute funded by governments and private foundations, cautions that such restrictions send erroneous price signals and will ultimately deter investment by eroding faith in market prices.

Wheat, corn and soybeans have all broken records in recent months, with the value of Chicago wheat increasing 77 percent in 2007 alone. But with high prices has come an influx of billions of dollars from investment funds diversifying their portfolios into commodities -- and historic volatility. While data is yet unavailable, Von Braun has a hunch these trends have prompted a reduction in the volume of world farm output traded on world markets, which has held steady for the last 40 years despite the advent of globalization.

While the La Nina weather pattern is delivering rain to farmers after the worst drought in a century, it's cutting profits for café owners, travel agents and insurers. Insurance Australia Group Ltd., the nation's largest home insurer, last week posted a sixth straight profit decline after hail storms cost it A$105 million ($97 million). The yearly 'Symphony in the Park,' which usually attracts 80,000 people, had 700 this year as the orchestra played behind a tarpaulin during a downpour.

After four years of water restrictions, Sydney saw about 50 percent more rain than usual this summer, according to Mike De Salis, a spokesman at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. No day topped 31 degrees celsius (88 degrees fahrenheit) for the first time since 1956. Average daily sunshine totaled 6.7 hours, an hour less than normal and the lowest since 1991-92. The average maximum temperature was 25.2, the coolest since 1996-97.

Dam levels rose to 64.4 percent at the end of February from 37.1 percent a year ago. Rain fall reached 439 millimeters this summer, compared with an average of 298 millimeters. "We're not whinging about the rain," said Ben Fargaher, chief executive officer of the National Farmers' Federation in Canberra, Australia's capital city. "Good living weather is not good farming weather."

At a recent security conference in Munich, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told European nations that they were under direct threat from Islamist extremists and that this phenomenon would not go away.

AQIM, - Gates tied European security to NATO success in Afghanistan. In fact, Western intelligence services have recently established operational links between al-Qaida in Afghanistan and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) whose goals include striking at the heart of Europe. Al-Qaida has not made any secrets of its eagerness to target Europe. Indeed, al-Qaida's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has repeatedly threatened Europe.

"AL-QAIDA PAKISTAN" - German authorities are particularly worried by the rise in the number of young German Muslims traveling to study in Pakistan. In July, Pakistani authorities arrested seven Germans who sought to join a terrorist training camp. THE PAKISTANI connection does not stop there: indeed, Pakistani extremists recently arrived in Algeria to train with AQIM members. This is all the more worrisome in that of all al-Qaida's affiliates, AQIM is most capable of striking at Europe.

THE "LONE JIHADIST" - A VERY WORRISOME TREND IN 2007 WAS THE EMERGENCE OF THE "LONE JIHADIST" loosely linked to al-Qaida. One was arrested on May 2 in Nancy, France. He was planning attacks against the US consulate in Luxembourg and a McDonald's restaurant. For months, the man had been in contact with AQIM militants via the Web, requesting material support. Sometimes these "invisible Islamists" decide to act on their own. "An isolated individual can inflict as much damage as an organization," said Christophe Chaboud, head of Uclat (Unité de Coordination de la Lutte antiterroriste), the French counter-terrorism czar.

The ministers were debating various courses of action, military and political, including a large-scale ground operation. Israel will continue its operations in the Gaza Strip so long as rocket attacks from the territory continue, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during the meeting, according to an Army Radio report. Late Tuesday night IAF aircraft fired at a number of Kassam launchers that were pointed at Israel. The pilots confirmed that the launchers were hit, Army Radio reported.

Known for its stables and boutique wineries, it seemed a perfect location to build the next generation of million-dollar show homes. And, in a twist to attract the eye of upscale Prius-driving buyers from Seattle, the houses would be built to the latest environmental standards. They would be marketed as low carbon footprint or "built green" in developer-speak. It was a win-win formula and so confident were the developers in their eco-marketing skills that they overrode the opposition of residents, certain that environmentally aware liberals wishing to flee Seattle, would scramble to buy the houses.

Today those dreams are in ruins, along with five of the luxury buildings, put to the torch in the early hours of Monday, apparently by members of the Earth Liberation Front. The FBI has been called in and the attack is being investigated as "a domestic-terrorism act" because "there's a claim of ELF responsibility", according to Fred Gutt, a special agent with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle.

Far from complementing the wooded wetlands, many believed any houses built there would threaten the delicate ecosystem and, with it, the endangered Chinook salmon. Opponents of the development argued forcibly but in vain that the development would pollute nearby Bear Creek as well as the wetlands that feed it. But it did not take a radical environmentalist to appreciate the potential harm posed by the development. After a near-miraculous journey across the Pacific Ocean and up Bear Creek, the Chinook salmon spawns in the icy headwaters.

There, the tiny alevins, with a transparent body and enormous eyes, develop. Millions are born in the streams that feed Bear Creek, surviving off their yolk sacs before turning into a fry, a real fish with small fins and scales capable of making its way back to the Pacific Ocean. However cleverly designed with the latest energy-saving materials, the very construction of new houses in the wetlands and new hardtop roads to service them created a source of oil-polluted runoff water that environmentalists say will potentially kill millions of tiny fish. For the ELF, it seems to have boiled down to a choice between the salmon and the expensive houses that no locals wanted anyway.

The Conservative leader has also accused ministers and councils of allowing fanatics to benefit from public grants to Muslim bodies. "The Government has allowed hundreds of thousands of pounds to local authorities to improve community cohesion, but there are worrying signs that ministers have taken their eye off the ball," he said."I will be making proposals to isolate extremists and make certain they cannot obtain public grants or get invited to sit on public bodies.

"That won't just apply to Islamic extremists. We will be equally vigilant in ensuring that groups linked to the BNP or animal rights militants are excluded too. The message should be clear - to those who preach hate, to those who encourage violence, you are not part of the mainstream, you will not get public funding."

Mr Cameron recently attacked Home Office ministers for considering a visa request from Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an extremist preacher who has previously spoken in London. The move that was condemned because of the cleric's hardline views on Jews and homosexuals. His latest visa request was turned down last month.

The searches by police officers in Greater Manchester, which has been plagued by gang shootings, even discovered a machine gun hidden under the bed of a ten-year-old boy. It is believed that some of the children had been asked to look after handguns for gang members because they are too young to be charged. Others claimed the weapons belonged to their mother or father or other close relatives. According to a senior police source, the ten-year-old kept the sub-machine gun in the bedroom of his house in South Manchester. It was not loaded. The source said: "It was absolutely astonishing. Apparently he was minding the gun for his brother who was in jail for firearms offences."

Only last month a gifted sportsman, Halton McCollin, 20, was shot dead in a Chinese takeaway in a case of mistaken identity. None of the children under ten was arrested or charged, as they are below the age of criminal responsibility, but campaigners have called for their parents to be prosecuted.

Lucy Cope, from Mothers Against Guns, said: "The consequences of an inquisitive eight-year-old getting their hands on a gun do not bear thinking about." Professor Peter Squires of the Gun Control Network, which campaigns for tighter controls on guns of all kinds, said: "In the more troubling cases serious offenders will have given young children guns to carry because they are off the surveillance radar." Three children caught with guns were aged 11 while a further 12 were 12 years old, 16 were aged 13, 27 were 14 years old, and 50 were aged 15.

"Just when we thought the indoctrination in California's public schools couldn't get any worse, state lawmakers introduce bills that will further brainwash innocent children," said a statement from Capitol Resource Institute, a traditional values and family advocacy organization based in California. "We're in California. Of course it has a chance of succeeding," CRI spokeswoman Karen England told WND. "These people get bolder and bolder every year."

Her organization, along with several others, already has been battling over lawmakers' orders, already placed in law, that public schools in the state teach nothing but positive messages about homosexuality, transsexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyles.

Those plans are being challenged in court, by citizens' attempts to place the issue on the 2008 election ballot and by family advocates who say the best option is for families to abandon public schools for private schools or other alternatives.

Al-Naimi said that in April 2003 - LESS THAN FIVE YEARS AGO - when a barrel of oil cost one-quarter of this week's whopping $100, and when prices were regarded as high enough to keep oil-rich countries happy. Which brings up the question: HOW LONG WILL THE PRICE OF OIL REMAIN SKY-HIGH? Judging by the analysts' predictions, it could be several years. "PRICES ARE GOING TO BE SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER," says John V. Mitchell, an OPEC expert and associate fellow at Chatham House in London.

That realization deepened this week when OPEC's president, Algeria's Oil Minister Chakib Khelil, rebuffed President Bush's appeal for OPEC to boost production and so help avert a U.S. recession by easing oil prices on the world market. Instead Khelil said that production quotas for its 13 members - who supply about 40% of the world's oil - will "either decrease or be stable" when OPEC oil ministers next meet in Vienna on March 5.

BUT ANALYSTS SAY THAT THE PROBLEMS DATE BACK YEARS, AND COULD TAKE SEVERAL MORE YEARS TO FIX. When oil prices were low during the 1980s and 1990s, big oil companies and governments decided it was not worth investing in new oil fields or in building thousands more oil refineries - projects that cost billions of dollars and can take about seven years of work before any new oil is sold. THAT DECISION TURNED OUT TO BE A BAD MISCALCULATION, say analysts. It ignored the biggest factor that has sent the world's oil demand soaring - the economic boom in China and, to a lesser extent, India. "NO ONE SAW THIS COMING DOWN THE LINE 10 YEARS AGO," says Harry Tchilinguirian, senior oil market analyst for BNP Paribas in London.

The price may also be affected by something a little more volatile: the action on WALL STREET, where investors have poured money into the New York Mercantile Exchange, trading oil contracts - WHAT ANALYSTS CALL "PAPER BARRELS" - IN SEARCH OF QUICK PROFITS. "People are looking at oil as a hedge against inflation," says David Kirsch, an analyst for PFC Energy in Washington.

Oil companies are finally scrambling to lock in exploration contracts in key growth areas like the Caspian Sea, Canada and the West coast of Africa. THAT NEW OIL COULD TAKE YEARS TO START FLOWING. And so oil prices are likely to remain high for years, and "could go higher, at least temporarily," says Waterlow.

The draft, submitted by the nationalist Radical Party on Tuesday, is backed by the party of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and by the Socialists of late President Slobodan Milosevic. Altogether they hold 144 of the assembly's 250 seats. The resolution condemns the EU's deployment of an "illegal" supervisory mission to Kosovo after the former Serbian province seceded last month, and calls on the EU to withdraw it. It also asks all EU countries that have recognized Kosovo as independent -- Britain, France and Germany among others -- to annul their decision.

"We, the representatives of the people of Serbia warn the EU that only a whole, not a fragmented Serbia can and wants to negotiate on European integration," the resolution states. "Parliament calls on the EU to clearly and unequivocally affirm the entirety of Serbia's territory as a condition for the resumption of talks on Serbia's association with the EU."

State-owned Gazprom cut supplies by a further 25% on Tuesday, following a 25% cut a day earlier - thereby cutting supplies by half. Prior to the news, the EU called for an emergency internal meeting amid fears the row could hit European supplies. Much of the gas Russia sells to Europe passes through pipelines in Ukraine.

The EU said the meeting would ensure "a fully coordinated EU response to the situation," adding "we look to both parties to ensure that gas supplies to the EU remain unaffected". The news of the second cut was made after a 1700GMT deadline on Tuesday. "If the Ukrainian side does not return to the negotiating table, I do not exclude a further reduction in supplies," Sergei Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesman, said on state television.

The dispute started after Russia said Ukraine had not paid its debts for previous deliveries, which Gazprom says totals $1.5bn (£770m). But Ukraine maintains the payments have already been made.