Airlines, package shippers and car owners are no longer the only ones being squeezed by the ever-mounting price of oil, which shot up almost $11 a barrel Friday, to a record $138.54. Companies that make hard goods using raw materials derived from oil, like tires, toiletries, plastic packaging and computer screens, are watching their costs skyrocket, and they find themselves forced into unpleasant choices: Should they raise prices, shift to less costly procedures, cut workers or all three?

THE SENSE THAT MANY COMPANIES MAY BE HITTING A WALL IS PALPABLE. U.S. corporate profits peaked last spring and have shrunk since then, Moody's Economy.com reports, drawing on U.S. Commerce Department data. The housing crisis and the weakening U.S. economy are big reasons, but oil prices are adding greatly to the pressure on profits AS U.S. RETAILERS FAIL TO PASS ALONG HIGHER PRICES TO CONSUMERS. That helps to explain why expensive oil has not yet pushed up the inflation rate.

Besides the severe weather threat, A SERIOUS FLOOD SITUATION HAS DEVELOPED ACROSS THE MIDWEST as well. Meanwhile, SEARING HEAT AND HUMIDITY WILL CONTINUE TO BLAST THE SOUTH AND THE EAST into the early part of the week. The Severe Weather Center reports that strong to SEVERE STORMS WILL CONTINUE TO BATTER AREAS FROM TEXAS NORTHEASTWARD INTO THE GREAT LAKES region into the week. A clash of very hot, humid air to the south and cooler air to the north will provide energy for the dangerous storms.

The storms are expected to aggravate already record flooding and cause more trouble from the Plains to the Midwest with locally heavy downpours expected. The threat for flooding will run high with soil already saturated and streams already swollen. THE MIDWEST REGIONAL NEWS STORY REPORTS THAT OTHER THREATS FROM THE STORMS WILL INCLUDE HAIL, DAMAGING WINDS AND EVEN DANGEROUS TORNADOES.

The heat wave over the East is another dangerous situation. High pressure remains parked off the Southeast coast, and this is forcing hot, sticky air from over the Gulf of Mexico into the East. Temperatures will continue to soar into the 90s all across the region. Some parts of the Southeast will hit in the 100s.

A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that THE THREAT OF A GLOBAL HETEROSEXUAL PANDEMIC HAS DISAPPEARED. In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO's department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa.

Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his career leading the battle against the disease, said understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to populations everywhere, it was now recognised that, outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk groups including men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers and their clients.

Any revision of the threat was liable to be seized on by those who rejected HIV as the cause of the disease, or who used the disease as a weapon to stigmatise high risk groups, he said.

Gordon Brown has ruled out a public vote, saying the treaty does not alter the UK's constitution. But Mr Wheeler, 73, has won the right to a judicial review of that decision. He says the public had "A LEGITIMATE EXPECTATION" OF A REFERENDUM. The government has said it is "confident" its case is strong.

The Bill - now in the Lords - will ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which was drawn up to replace the EU constitution after that was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Conservative Party donor Mr Wheeler claims a referendum was promised on the constitution and as, in his eyes, the Lisbon Treaty is virtually identical, it too should be put to a vote. The two-day review will be heard just days before voters in Ireland, the only EU state holding a referendum, go to the polls.

Mr Wheeler said in a statement that he hoped to prove the refusal to hold a referendum was "not only immoral but illegal, too". "This was a referendum the people of Britain were promised well before the last election, during it, and after it," he said. "But instead of fulfilling that promise, GORDON BROWN HAS TRIED TO PUSH THE CONSTITUTION IN VIA THE BACK DOOR BY REBRANDING A DOCUMENT AND PRESENTING IT AS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TEXT. This is a ridiculous argument."

"If Iran continues its nuclear weapons programme, we will attack it," said Shaul Mofaz, who is also transportation minister. "OTHER OPTIONS ARE DISAPPEARING. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear programme," Mofaz told the Yediot Aharonot daily.

He stressed such an operation could only be conducted with US support. A former defence minister and armed forces chief of staff, Mofaz hopes to replace embattled Ehud Olmert as prime minister and at the helm of the Kadima party.

UPDATE:- Israel yesterday attempted to play down a warning from a senior government minister that an attack on Iran was "unavoidable" if Tehran continued to develop nuclear weapons. THE THREAT CONTRIBUTED TO FRENZIED BUYING in the financial markets, where oil prices soared to a record $139, and sparked an international furore.

The discovery comes from studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), light emitted when the Universe was just 400,000 years old. Their model may help explain why we experience time moving in a straight line from yesterday into tomorrow. Details of the work have been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.

The CMB is relic radiation that fills the entire Universe and is regarded as the most conclusive evidence for the Big Bang. Although this microwave background is mostly smooth, the Cobe satellite in 1992 discovered small fluctuations that were believed to be the seeds from which the galaxy clusters we see in today's Universe grew.

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, and colleagues from the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), now believes these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe "bubbled off" from a previous one. Their data comes from Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been studying the CMB since its launch in 2001. THEIR MODEL SUGGESTS THAT NEW UNIVERSES COULD BE CREATED SPONTANEOUSLY FROM APPARENTLY EMPTY SPACE. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular.

Much work remains to be done on the theory: the researchers' first priority will be to calculate the odds of a new universe appearing from a previous one. Professor Carroll urged cosmologists to broaden their horizons: "We're trained to say there was no time before the Big Bang, when we should say that we don't know whether there was anything - or if there was, what it was." If the Caltech team's work is correct, we may already have the first information about what came before our own Universe.

EUobserver notes that a report outlining visions for the EU's future foreign policy will today be discussed in the European Parliament. The head of the foreign affairs committee and one of the people behind the report, Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, said that EU foreign policy will move "from one era to another" with the new Lisbon Treaty. The new EU Foreign Minister, the diplomatic service and the possibility of "structured cooperation" in defence, he argued, mean that foreign policy is "one of the most innovative parts of the treaty." According to the paper he also said the EU looks set to develop its own army in future.

The report calls for Parliament to be "fully consulted" on foreign policy issues. "If we start sending soldiers into danger, it is up to the parliament to give its blessing," Saryusz-Wolski said. It also calls for more money to be injected into the EU's foreign policy budget. Saryusz-Wolski will next week travel to Paris to discuss the issue and the report with the French government.

One is the abandonment of the Treaty,
Another is Ireland's isolation as the other countries continue with the new rules under Lisbon.
The third is making them vote a second time, after securing some derogations, as happened with the Nice Treaty.

Monday 9 sees the adoption of the controversial agency workers directive;
On the 9th and 10th the courts hear Stuart Wheeler's judicial review of the Government's broken promise of a referendum;
Wednesday 11th is the crucial vote on the referendum in the Lords, and
Thursday 12th is the Irish referendum,
with results out on Friday 13th.

The tight circle of "securocrats", who sit on the Joint Operations Command (JOC) committee, are now believed to be in day-to-day charge of Zimbabwe's government. They ensured Mr Mugabe did not step down after his defeat in the presidential election's first round in March and are now masterminding a campaign of terror to suppress the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and guarantee victory for Mr Mugabe in the June 27 run-off.

The government indefinitely suspended all work by aid groups and non-governmental organisations, accusing them of breaching their terms of registration. "The army is no longer just in barracks, waiting to protect the country. The army is out there, taking a role in the day-to-day government of the country." Mr Mugabe does not fear his generals will actually overthrow him - they still need him as the regime's titular leader - or he would not have travelled to Rome for the United Nations food summit this week.

However, observers believe Mr Mugabe's age and his new dependence on the generals means he is no longer the sole arbiter of Zimbabwe's fate.

It was on July 1, 1858 that papers on the development of animals by Darwin and fellow scientist Alfred Wallace were presented to the Linnean Society in London representing the cream of scientific knowledge. They did not go down well. "There was very little reaction in the room," Linnean Society librarian Lynda Brooks said on Wednesday. "But the real furor didn't begin until Darwin published 'On The Origin of Species' the following year".

Darwin's fears were correct. He was pilloried by the scientific and religious establishment of the time. One famous caricature depicted him with the body of a monkey, so angered were people by the suggestion that they might have descended from the apes rather than having been created in the image of God. His theories are still rejected by some, notably creationists in the United States, and are less than welcome in the Middle East. Even in Britain a poll in 2006 showed that only 48 percent of people believed Darwin's evolutionary theories.

While his one-day stay isn't expected to allow for substantive progress on key issues, Mr. Medvedev's decision to make Germany his first Western stop holds promise of warmer ties between Moscow and Berlin.

In Germany, the traditional link between Europe and Russia, hopes are high that the visit signals the beginning of a new era of Russia's ties with the West, which were badly strained during the final years of Vladimir Putin's rule, and the first step toward common ground on issues such as energy policy, human rights, and Kosovo.

"There are hopes that Russia will become more open to our values - human rights, democracy and rule of law - and that this very raw and aggressive stance toward Europe and the United States [under Mr. Putin] will get softer," says Stefan Meister, Russia program officer of the German Council on Foreign Relations, an independent advisory body. "This would obviously make it easier to cooperate with Russia."

While the specific location is still a mystery to the general public, Sweden's Dagens Nyheter reports the meeting is being held at the Westfields Marriott Hotel in Chantilly, Va., on the outskirts of the nation's capital.
The Bilderberg Group is an elite invitation-only conference of influential members of the business, media and political community. Past attendees have included Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The group meets at luxury hotels and resorts throughout the world. Last year's conference was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Istanbul, Turkey. Every four years the conference is held in the U.S. or Canada.
While the group claims its purpose is to facilitate discussion among western powers, many see the group as a means toward globalization.

The highly secretive meeting is off limits to press, but past reports from sources that have managed to penetrate the high-security venues have stated the gatherings emphasize a globalist agenda and dismiss national sovereignty as regressive. The BBC declared the Bilderberg Group to be one of the most influential organizations in the world. "It's officially described as a private gathering," BBC reported, "but with a guest list including the heads of European and American corporations, political leaders and a few intellectuals, it's one of the most influential organizations on the planet."

Pete Vere, a canon lawyer and Catholic journalist, has reported on the prosecution of Father Alphonse de Valk, a pro-life activist known across Canada, by the Canadian Human Rights Commission - "a quasi-judicial investigative body with the power of the Canadian government behind it. " What was Father de Valk's alleged 'hate act'? Vere wrote.

"Father defended the [Catholic] Church's teaching on marriage during Canada's same-sex 'marriage' debate, quoting extensively from the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Pope John Paul II's encyclicals. Each of these documents contains official Catholic teaching. And like millions of other people throughout the world and the ages - many of who are non-Catholics and non-Christians - Father believes that marriage is an exclusive union between a man and a woman," he wrote.

Vere wrote that the response he got from Mark van Dusen, a spokesman for the federal human rights prosecution office, shocked him. "We investigate complaints," Vere reported van Dusen told him. "We don't set public policy or moral standards. We investigate complaints based on the circumstances and the details outlined in the complaint. And - if - upon investigation, deem that there is sufficient evidence, then we may forward the complaint to the tribunal, but the hate is defined in the Human Rights Act under section 13-1.

"Our job is to look at it, compare it to the act, to accumulate case law, tribunal and court decisions that have reflected on hate and decide whether to advance the complaint, dismiss it or whether there is room for a settlement between parties," van Dusen told Vere. What is shocking about that, Vere wrote, is the admission that unjustified complaints can be dismissed, yet the case against de Valk has continued now for more than six months.

Vere's warnings were followed by one from Grace Harman, who noted on the website's forum: "It would appear that Canadian law is discriminating against people on the basis of their religious faith, or perhaps discriminating against God himself, who gave us the laws of nature and purpose of life."

"Terrorism in Southeast Asia will remain a continuing challenge. Across wider continental Asia, the rise of India and China represent great economic, environmental, energy policy and security reverberations for the future," Rudd said in a speech to the Asia Society Australiasia in Sydney.

"I believe it is time that we started to think about where we want to be with our regional architecture in 2020. We need to have a vision for an Asia-Pacific Community," he said, adding the world could learn from Europe where centuries of animosity had been transformed into transnational cooperation. Rudd said an Asia-Pacific Community, which should include the United States, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and the other states of the region, would encourage cooperation and action on economic, political and security issues but also develop a "genuine and comprehensive sense of community".

Rudd said the region faced a dynamic demographic challenge in the future, with populations becoming wealthier but older. He said the region's population by 2020 was projected to be 4.6 billion, out of a total global population of 7.7 billion. APEC estimates that its member economies demand for energy will grow by around 40 per cent by 2020 and Asia's energy consumption could grow by around two-thirds by 2020.