"We urge the European Union not to limit its action to purely calling for an end to the siege but also to apply political and practical pressure on Israel," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said. On Thursday, EU lawmakers urged Israel not to inflict "collective punishment" on Gaza's population, saying its isolation of the territory had failed and its actions were endangering civilians. Zuhri said Hamas welcomed the parliamentary resolution.

Israel said its tightened restrictions were in response to cross-border rocket fire by Gaza militants. Israeli air strikes and ground incursions into the Gaza Strip have killed some 300 Palestinians in the past year, including dozens of civilians, but have failed to prevent rocket fire which killed two Israelis in the same period.

Shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence after beating Abbas's Fatah faction in a parliamentary election two years ago, Hamas says it would cease fire if Israel stopped its military operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Hamas is also demanding an end to the Israeli-led blockade that has cut supplies to the territory's 1.5 million people. "As for rockets, the problem is the (Israeli) occupation, aggression and the siege imposed on our people. We in Hamas are ready to study any initiative that could contribute to ending the Israeli aggression on our people," Zuhri said.

The comments will reignite the row triggered by Delia's remarks last week about the need for cheap factory farm chicken to feed poorer families. In a BBC Horizon programme to be broadcast next week, Professor Lesley Regan challenges the commonly held belief that organic farming is better for health, the environment and animal welfare.

The professor is seen visiting both an organic and a conventional pig farm for the programme and comes away with the verdict that both have been able to show the animals are 'happy and healthy". She tells viewers: "I don't think we have uncovered anything to persuade me that there is a substantial body of evidence that can demonstrate that I should definitely only eat organic produce or should make organic produce the majority of my shopping basket."

A spokesman for the Soil Association said there was a growing body of evidence that organic food is more nutritious. Three studies looking at tomatoes, apples and peaches, published last year, concluded that organic crops contain higher levels of key nutrients. Policy chief at the Soil Association, Peter Melchett, said: "It is clear that buying organic is far more than a lifestyle choice, it is a rational, sensible and intelligent choice because there are nutrition benefits."

A report from the trade magazine The Grocer says the looming pasta crisis is the result of Italian farmers increasingly growing durum wheat for biofuel production rather than food. The report says the price of durum wheat is two-and-a-half-times higher than June last year as supplies have tightened, forcing some suppliers to cease pasta production because they are unable to pass on the soaring cost of raw materials to customers and stay viable.

Last week, chilled-foods manufacturer Bakkavör announced it was closing its pasta plant in Scunthorpe, with the loss of more than 100 jobs, because of rises in the cost of raw materials. Nigel Singh, UK representative for pasta giant Pasta Lensi, told The Grocer that cost pressures were forcing manufacturers in Italy and the UK to cease production.

He said: "The price of durum wheat has leapt 250 per cent since June last year, but a 500g pack of pasta has only increased by 31p to 61p. That's 100 per cent. For farmers, manufacturers and retailers to make a fair income, a 500g pack should sell for 90p." Last September, Italians went on a one-day "pasta strike" in protest at price rises of over 20 per cent for spaghetti and fettuccine.

The EU says 10 per cent of transport fuel must come from biofuels by 2020. But the industry has been blamed for dramatic rises in the price of food around the world. James Withers, deputy chief executive of NFU Scotland, said: "We have more people in the world to be fed, while land is lost through drought and flooding caused by climate change and targets to be met for biofuels. There is a 'perfect storm' situation building up which will make food security an issue for the first time since rationing during the Second World War."

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees. According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."

Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens? The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.

Even before Livni took the podium, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yonah Metzger, who usually refrains from any sort of political pronunciations, addressed the Foreign Minister directly, ASKING HER TO USE HER ROLE AS CHIEF NEGOTIATOR "WITH OUR ENEMIES" TO PREVENT JERUSALEM'S DIVISION. Recent reports from diplomatic meetings and Arab negotiators have Livni engaging in wrangling over the relinquishing of parts of the capital.

Rabbi Metzger said. "Jerusalem is above and beyond this conflict. Our right to Jerusalem is a proven, historic right. When the Muslims pray in the mosques on the Temple Mount, they pray with their backs to the site of the Temple; they pray toward Mecca with their backs to Jerusalem. Talking about Jerusalem harms us. If we unite for the sake of our capital, that its division cannot be discussed, we shall win it"

Jerusalem councilman and mayoral candidate Nir Barkat told the conference that he heard nothing encouraging in Livni's words. He said she said nothing to negate the claims of chief PA negotiator Ahmed Qurei (Abu Allah) that negotiations are underway, or the reports of a secret agreement between Chaim Ramon and Arafat-aide Muhammad Rashid.

Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, suggested that the tremors could be stopped through the simple expedient of repealing various liberalising laws on homosexuality that have been passed by the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, in recent years. Since decriminalising homosexuality in 1988, Israel has passed several laws on the subject, including decisions to recognise same-sex marriages carried out abroad, and granting inheritance rights and other benefits held by married couples to gay partnerships. Last Sunday, to the outrage of the religious Right, the country's attorney general, Meni Mazuz, ruled that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children.

In what Mr Benizri clearly believes is no coincidence, the first of last week's quakes hit the country just two days later. "Why do earthquakes happen? One of the reasons is the things to which the Knesset gives legitimacy, to sodomy," Benizri said during a parliamentary debate on earthquake preparedness. "We are looking for earthly solutions, how to prevent them," he said. "I have another way to prevent earthquakes. The Gemara says that one of the reasons earthquakes happen - which the Knesset (parliament) legitimises - is homosexuality."

Joy Goodman, a cake decorator, is seeking damages for personal injury and loss of earnings, claiming the top of her right index finger was severed when she delivered the mail. She claims she needs compensation because she is now unable to carry out her intricate job.

But the home owner vowed to fight the case. Paul O'Brien, 44, a self-employed engineer from Leeds, said: "When I received a solicitor's letter I thought someone was having a laugh. I actually told them they had sent it early. April Fool's Day is still six weeks away.

"I just cannot believe someone who came on to my property uninvited, to put junk mail through my door that I didn't want, can now sue me because they hurt themselves." He added: "There is nothing wrong with the letterbox. I haven't altered it or done anything to it. It's just like every other letterbox on this estate."

A law expert said that householders had limited duties of care to people who went on to their property such as delivery people or postmen. These duties of care include not having such things as bare electricity cables sticking out, but were not likely to extend to a letterbox providing it was a standard model.

Michael Fitzgerald, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, argued the characteristics linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were the same as those associated with creative genius.

Prof Fitzgerald cited Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, George Orwell, H G Wells and Ludwig Wittgenstein as examples of famous and brilliant individuals who showed signs of ASDs including Asperger syndrome. Beethoven, Mozart, Hans Christian Andersen and Immanuel Kant have also received post mortem diagnoses of Asperger's.

"We don't know which genes they are yet or how many there are, but we are talking about multiple genes of small effect. Every case is unique because people have varying numbers of the genes involved. These produce people who are highly focused, don't fit into the school system, and who often have poor social relationships and eye contact. They can be quite paranoid and oppositional, and usually highly moral and ethical. They can persist with a topic for 20-30 years without being distracted by what other people think. And they can produce in one lifetime the work of three or four other people."

Prof Fitzgerald said traits such as a need to be dominant and in control and autistic repetitiveness were critical to the success of politicians such as Charles de Gaulle, who famously said "I am France", US president Thomas Jefferson and Enoch Powell. Another example he said was science fiction writer H G Wells, whom he described as socially insecure, controlling, lonely, cruel and emotionally immature.

After months of failing to get other nations to share the burden of intense combat in southern Afghanistan, Ottawa announced that all its troops would be out by 2011. Stephen Harper, the prime minister, has grown increasingly frustrated that Canada's 2,500 troops take the brunt of the fighting and that his country's death toll of 78 is the third highest after those of Britain and America.

The decision came after Lord Robertson, the former Nato secretary general who took the organisation into Afghanistan, warned it was developing into a two-tier alliance. "There cannot be one tier for those to carry burdens and the bloody sacrifice and a tier for those who benefit from that contribution. Collective security is what it means - collective," he told a Chatham House conference.

It is thought that France is considering a plan to send a battalion to Kandahar province to assist Canada. But its decision, if it comes, seems too late to prevent the Canadian withdrawal.

Anthony Watts concludes in his investigation that the station at O'Hare is affected by an urban heat effect that would make temperature readings inaccurate as an indicator of what is actually occurring regionally. "The community around O'Hare was much smaller during World War II, when the airport was built, than it is now," says Watts. "The area had a significantly less-urban population and lacked the acres of concrete and asphalt that exist there today." The problems at O'Hare are similar to those found by Watts around the country in his study of temperature stations used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

What he has found elsewhere are temperature stations with sensors on the roofs of buildings, near air-conditioning exhaust vents, in parking lots near hot automobiles, barbecues, chimneys and on pavement and concrete surfaces - all of which would lead to higher temperature recordings than properly established conditions.

To qualify as a properly maintained temperature station, sensors must be placed in elevated, slatted boxes on flat ground surrounded by a clear surface on a slope of less than 19 degrees with surrounding grass and vegetations ground cover of less than 10 centimeters high. The sensors must be located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces and parking lots.

About 50 million pounds of the meat went to schools, said Eric Steiner, deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service's special nutrition programs. Of that amount, about 20 million pounds have been eaten, 15 million pounds are on hold at storage facilities and 15 million pounds are still being traced, he said.

The USDA shut down Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. and issued the nation's largest beef recall after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video of workers kicking and shoving sick and crippled cows and forcing them to stand with electric prods, forklifts and water hoses. The plant produces about a fifth of all the meat in the federal school lunch programs, said Bill Sessions, associate deputy administrator for livestock and seed Programs with USDA's agriculture marketing service.

He announced in August that his Mehdi Army would not attack rival armed groups or American forces in Iraq. This was widely credited with reducing sectarian tensions and contributing to the recent overall drop in violence. US military officials have publicly recognised this contribution as helping to stabilise parts of Iraq.

Other key developments that have helped reduce the violence have been the surge of US troops in and around Baghdad, and the emergence of US-backed Sunni militia who have taken on al-Qaeda in Iraq in western areas of the country. The continuation of the ceasefire is expected to be announced at mosques connected to Mr Sadr at Friday prayers.

Correspondents say the decision to renew the ceasefire will be unpopular with some of the Mehdi Army, some of whom have been continuing to fight. The Americans have been pursuing what they call rogue elements, who - they say - are armed and encouraged by Iran.

There is a new commandment in the land: "THOU SHALT NOT DRINK BOTTLED WATER." It is taken as an indisputable truth that anyone who has a proper regard for his or her health will drink eight glasses of water a day. Given that the average glass will hold about eight ounces of water, this is frequently described as the "rule of 8x8".

As Rose Shapiro notes in her new book, Suckers, the bottled drink industry has warmly endorsed the ludicrous PSEUDO-MEDICAL FAD which suggests that we are at great risk of dangerous levels of dehydration unless we spend much of our day glugging down water.

This organised panic about dehydration seems to stem from a misreading - quite possibly deliberate - of guidelines from the US Food and Nutrition Board in 1945. These stated that "a suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 LITRES DAILY in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is one millilitre for each calorie of food. MOST OF THIS QUANTITY IS CONTAINED IN PREPARED FOODS." As Shapiro notes, the last sentence of that advice is always left out, leading to the idea that we need an extra eight glasses of water over and above our actual requirements.

Other commodities traded mixed, with crude oil retreating from $100 a barrel and agriculture futures rising. The dollar's decline versus the 15-nation euro has been a major driver of precious metals, which are seen as safer alternative investments used to hedge against inflation and economic and political uncertainty. Platinum has gained 38 percent this year, gold 11 percent and silver 19 percent.

GOLD Jumped on the dollar's drop, with the April contract rising $11.40 to settle at $949.20 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier touching an all-time high of $958.40. Gold broke the $950 barrier for the first time Wednesday, raising expectations that the metal could breach the psychologically important $1,000 mark in coming weeks or months.

SILVER rose to its highest level since 1980, with the March contract hitting a record $18.075 an ounce on the Nymex before settling at $17.835, up 19 cents.

PLATINUM also extended its record-setting rally amid supply concerns fed by a power shortage in South Africa. An ounce of platinum for April delivery surged $49.40 to settle at $2,188.20 on the Nymex, after earlier pushing to an all-time high of $2,194.80.

Nymex COPPER for March delivery added 10.20 cents to settle at $3.8105 a pound after falling back from a record $3.8465.

ANTIQUES DEALER ARRESTED AT GUN POINT UNDER EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT ON BASELESS GROUNDS
Antiques Trade Gazette - reports how a London-based antiques dealer Malcolm Hay was seized under a Greek-issued European Arrest Warrant, having been unwittingly caught up in a case of stolen Greek artefacts simply by doing business with a regular customer, a registered antiques dealer based in Athens. At one point Hay was arrested at gunpoint at London's City Airport and spent two days in custody before being taken before an extradition tribunal. Following his arrest and remand in custody, Hay was released on a £20,000 bail and spent the next six months fighting extradition in the English courts and simultaneously charges of theft in the Greek criminal court relating to the 1999 transaction. His eventual discharge from the Warrant in England came on January 9 after UK magistrates ruled that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to clarify whether or not the Warrant was valid because of the lack of a formal summons in the Greek courts.

GOVERNMENT ADMITS IT UNDERESTIMATED NEW LISBON TREATY POWERS
Europe Minister Jim Murphy has issued a statement saying that the Lisbon Treaty will introduce majority voting in 51 areas, as opposed to 50 as previously claimed. He said, "The Explanatory Memorandum on the Lisbon Treaty stated that the Treaty extended qualified majority voting (QMV) in a total of 50 articles. It should have stated that there were 51 articles, including the move to QMV on the statute, seat and operational rules of the European Defence Agency (EDA)."

BROWN ON "SYMBOLIC" VISIT TO BRUSSELS
The IHT reports that Gordon Brown is today making his "symbolic" first visit to the EU institutions in Brussels, since he took office. He is expected to meet with the Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes to discuss whether Britain's plan to nationalise Northern Rock complies with EU state-aid rules.

MIGRANTS MUST EARN CITIZENSHIP, SAYS BROWN
Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will outline a system of "earned citizenship" for new migrants to Britain, aimed toward enhancing integration of individual migrants into British society, reports the Guardian. The new scheme would create a more rigorous five-year probationary period for migrants before they can apply for citizenship, which will emphasise English language acquisition, obedience to the law, and payment of taxes, and may include periods of community and voluntary work.