Before leaving for her summer holiday last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to give her last public address of the season. Her message to the people: EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY, everything is under control. In terms of the economy, she conceded, "things haven't gotten any easier," but it has been "more independent and robust" than ever before.

Less than 24 hours later, Germany's most important economic indicator, the Ifo Business Climate Index, released its latest report, which "dropped like a rock," as one Frankfurt banker put it. Analysts had forecast a decline to 100 points, but it's fall to 97.5 suggested the "economic upswing is coming to an end," Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn said.

THE RAFT OF BAD ECONOMIC NEWS FOR GERMANY CONTINUED INTO THIS WEEK. After the Ifo report's release, Germany's second-largest industrial concern, DAIMLER AG, announced profits had drastically collapsed - an announcement that caused its share price to take an 11.5 percent tumble. Finally, DEUTSCHE BANK, Germany's biggest financial institution, announced that profits had fallen by 63 percent during the second quarter.

Researchers found that giving the animals certain drugs could trigger an endurance gene, allowing them to run for longer. On average mice can normally run for only around 90 minutes and 900 metres before becoming exhausted. But scientists found that giving the mice one of two experimental drugs, neither commercially available, could significantly increase their endurance. Four years ago researchers bred genetically engineered mice that could run much further than normal, but this is the first test to prove that drugs can have the same effect.

One of the drugs lengthened the amount of time the mice could run by 44 per cent, allowing them to keep going for more than two hours. "It's tricking the muscle into 'believing' it's been exercised daily," Dr Ronald Evans of the Salk Institute in California, who carried out the study, said.

"It's basically the couch potato experiment, and it proves you can have a pharmacologic equivalent to exercise." The scientists added that they were aware of the potential for the drugs to be used to boost athletes' performance and have developed a test capable of detecting the presence of both in blood and urine.

This was affirmed by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, in a July 5 letter to the primate of the Anglican group, Archbishop John Hepworth. The conflict within the Communion has arisen over debate about the possibility of ordaining homosexual bishops and blessing homosexual marriages. A synod decision this summer to pave the way for the episcopal ordination of women has further alienated some Anglican leaders, many of whom were in disagreement with the Communion's decision to ordain women as priests.

According to Cardinal Levada's letter, "over the course of the past year, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has studied the proposals which you presented on behalf of the House of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion during your visit to the offices of this dicastery on Oct. 9, 2007. As the summer months approach, I wish to assure you the serious attention which the congregation gives to the prospect of corporate unity raised in that letter," the cardinal added.

The Traditional Anglican Communion states that its aim is "to recall Anglicanism to its heritage, to heal divisions caused by departures from the faith, and to build a vibrant church for the future based on powerful local leadership." By some counts, it has about 400,000 faithful. If the request for "corporate union" is deemed possible, IT WOULD IMPLY THE ENTRANCE OF ENTIRE PARISH COMMUNITIES INTO COMMUNION WITH ROME.

The political and military group's senior commander in southern Lebanon said in a rare interview that Hizbollah was far stronger now than when it fought the Israeli army in a conflict in 2006. Hizbollah, whose missiles killed 43 Israeli civilians during the war of 2006, is considered a terrorist organisation by the US and Britain.

Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, who leads Hizbollah's forces on Lebanon's border with Israel - the crucial battlefront of any future war, was speaking in the port city of Tyre. "The resistance is now stronger than before and this keeps the option of war awake. If we were weak, Israel would not hesitate to start another war," he said. "We are stronger than before and when Hizbollah is strong, our strength stops Israel from starting a new war... We don't seek war, but we must be ready."

Other sources say Hizbollah has trebled its arsenal in the last two years – from 10,000 missiles to about 30,000. These new weapons have longer ranges and heavier warheads. They include the Zelzal missile, which could strike as far south as Tel Aviv, and the C802 anti-shipping missile, capable of sinking Israeli warships. Any American strike on Iran, for example, could be the trigger for a Hizbollah attack on Israel.

The most populous state in the US faces a budget deficit of more than $15bn (£7.6bn), and legislators are struggling to agree a spending plan. Mr Schwarzenegger says the cuts will save $100m a month and put pressure on politicians reach a budget deal. But a leading official in the state challenged the decision to cut pay.

Opponents said there was enough cash to pay full salaries and the state's financial controller, John Chiang, vowed to ignore Mr Schwarzenegger's order. California has one of the largest economies in the world but the governor says it currently has no way to pay contractors for many of the services it provides.

Some 30 American states face budget deficits, caused by rising costs and falling revenues in a slumping economy, but California is by far the largest.

EDF had been expected to announce a £12bn deal to buy British Energy. However, it is understood that shareholders argued that the soaring price of energy meant they should be able to command a higher offer. The rejection is a major setback to the UK's plans to cut greenhouse gases by relying more on nuclear energy.

The government holds a 35% stake in British Energy and is believed to have backed the deal, which would have raised as much as £4bn for the chancellor. But Invesco and Prudential, who together own about 22% of the firm, felt that the 765 pence-per-share offer was too low, said the BBC Business Editor, Robert Peston. Although the deal could yet be revived, the latest development was bound to be a disappointment for the government which wants to get the building of new nuclear power stations under way as soon as possible to replace the ageing Magnox reactors, our business editor said.

He added it was an "embarrassment" to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) which has responsibility for energy policy and controls. "The department was planning to hail the deal as facilitating plans to fill the gap between our energy needs and generating capacity that will yawn open in the coming decade."

The deficit of $27.33 a share compares with a profit of $891 million, or $1.56, a year earlier. Excluding costs GM considers one-time, the per-share loss was 4 times bigger than analysts projected. Labor strikes contributed to a $9.9 billion drop in North American revenue, and sales worldwide tumbled 18 percent to $38.2 billion.

The results step up pressure on Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner, 55, to show he can revive the largest US automaker. Wagoner, in his ninth year as CEO, has posted $69.8 billion in losses since 2004 and is trying to raise as much as $17 billion in cash while speeding the development of fuel-saving cars to replace the sport-utility vehicles being shunned by US buyers.

GM's fourth straight quarterly loss comes as a weakened US economy and soaring gasoline prices drag US auto sales to 15-year lows. Demand for GM products dropped 16 percent through June, and analysts expect the automaker to report a decline in that range when July sales are released today.

"It is an existential threat," Mofaz said at a forum on Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "We have to make sure we are prepared for every option." Mofaz, a former Israeli army chief of staff, is a potential future leader of Israel because of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's planned departure from office. Mofaz is competing with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for control of the ruling Kadima party after Olmert said July 30 that he won't compete in the party's Sept. 17 primary amid a corruption scandal.

While Mofaz accused the Iranian government of "buying time" in its resistance to international pressure to suspend uranium enrichment, he said the diplomatic "track" should continue. "We don't want war, we want peace," Mofaz said. "But we will not let the second Holocaust take place."

The comments from Mofaz, who also serves as transportation minister, echoed statements he made last month to the Jerusalem Post that "all options are on the table. If there won't be a choice other than a nuclear Iran or a military option, it's clear what our decision has to be."

Banks' primary credit borrowings averaged $17.45 billion per day in the latest week, the second straight week this had hit a record and up from $16.38 billion the previous week, Fed data showed on Thursday. "It shows there's a shortage of liquidity in the system," said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York.

Secondary credit the Fed extended, which is usually taken out by banks in need of emergency cash, rose to $89 million in the latest week, from $34 million the week before. Although these numbers are still very small compared with primary credit, "What that tells you is that there's an increasing number of banks that the Fed is classifying as 'unsound' or inadequately capitalized," Low said.

"The panic of last year is over. It's more orderly now, but the financial stresses remain and there will be more difficulties to come," said John Canavan, market analyst at research company Stone & McCarthy in Princeton, New Jersey.

"I may have been present as the world order crumbled. But at the same time, I have witnessed the emergence of a new world order where all of the world's countries are present and defend their rights," Jonas Gahr Stoere wrote in an opinion piece in the Norwegian paper of reference Aftenposten. "Just a few years ago, the United States and the EU resolved all disputes. When they agreed on a solution, that was often the way it turned out. Those days are numbered," he wrote, pointing to the mounting influence of countries like China, India and Brazil.

The Geneva talks collapsed Tuesday after nine gruelling days of negotiations aimed at reaching a consensus on subsidy levels and import tariffs for a new deal under the WTO's seven-year-old Doha Round. "The failure in Geneva should encourage us to develop a world order that is in line with a new era," Stoere said, insisting that the aborted talks should not be the final word on the matter.

Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, has traditionally imposed high duties on imported agricultural goods to protect its heavily subsidised farmers.

This is the first time that a GE product which has been cleared for use as food for humans and animals has shown signs of toxic effects on internal organs. The study, published today in the journal "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology", analysed results of safety tests submitted by Monsanto to the European Commission when the company was seeking authorisation to market its GE Maize variety MON863 in the EU.

The data shows that MON863 has significant health risks associated with it; nonetheless, the European Commission granted licences to market the maize for consumption by both humans and animals. The incriminating evidence was obtained by Greenpeace following a court case, and passed on for evaluation by a team of experts headed by Professor Gilles Eric Séralini, a governmental expert in genetic engineering technology from the University of Caen.

Professor Séralini's analysis now scientifically confirms these concerns. As the study states, "with the present data, it cannot be concluded that GM corn MON863 is a safe product." And yet, MON863 has been authorised for markets in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, the Phillipines, and USA, besides the EU. What are the chances we have already eaten this corn? I'd say pretty good, even though consumers aren't allowed to know if they are eating it. Don't you just love knowing you may be eating food produced by the same company that made PCBs and Agent Orange?

"Millions of vulnerable North Koreans are at risk of slipping toward precarious hunger levels," Jean-Pierre de Margerie, North Korea director for the organisation, told a news conference. "The last time hunger was so deep and so widespread in parts of the country was in the late 1990s." The famine in the 1990s was one of the world's gravest in recent decades, and yet passed largely unnoticed in the outside world until it was well under way due to the country's historic secrecy.

Hundreds of thousands - some estimates went as high as two million - people died, from a total population of 22 million. The immediate triggers for the current shortages are the floods and consequent poor harvests of last year. Mr de Margerie said there was an urgent need for £10 million of new food supplies, on top of aid already sent by neighbouring countries, to last till this year's harvest.

"We are running against the clock here," he said. The North Korean regime experimented with reforms to the state supply system in recent years, but has since revoked them and reimposed central control of the rice supply. The price of rice is now nearly three times what it was a year ago, Mr de Margerie said.

Money was no object as the flight would have cost the owner - thought to be a Sheikh - around £20,000. The move sparked fury from green campaigners. An airport worker said: "This car doesn't have a carbon footprint - more of a crater."

The overall cost of sending the Lamborghini to London for the oil change would have cost more than £23,000. His black-and-gold supercar costs £3,552 to service at an approved dealer - on top of the £20,000 to freight from Qatar to Britain. A cargo handler at Heathrow blasted the car's environmental damage. He said: "It would have been far more efficient to fly mechanics out there."

Peres said that there must be a separation between the Arabs of Jerusalem and the Jews, and that it must be in the form of a wall. "Jerusalem has become a security problem of late," Peres said. "We have to make both a wall and a bridge in Jerusalem. We have to ensure separation and also let them live differently, otherwise it will be like a pressure cooker that is liable to explode.

Without offering a carrot, there is no value to using a stick; sticks alone cannot educate. In the meanwhile, they are fortifying themselves, and Hamas is taking over the street, instilling fear on the Arab street in Jerusalem. It is not simple to solve this problem, and it can take time to find the right solution."

Fatah has arrested hundreds of Hamas members and leaders and is closing down businesses, schools and institutions associated with Hamas.

Hamas, which ousted Fatah from political power in Gaza after bloody clashes in June 2007, has charged that Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are cooperating with Israel by trying to wipe out Hamas's strength. Hamas has arrested more than 200 Fatah members in Gaza, and Fatah has retaliated in Judea and Samaria, causing an overflow in PA jails.