BRITAIN IS TO BECOME THE FIRST WESTERN NATION TO ISSUE BONDS APPROVED BY MUSLIM CLERICS in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful". THE SCHEME WOULD MARK ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC ADVANCES OF SHARIA LAW IN THE NON-MUSLIM WORLD. It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.

The Government sees sharia-compliant bonds as a way of tapping Middle-East money and building bridges with the Muslim community. But CRITICS SAY THE SCHEME WOULD WASTE MONEY AND COULD UNDERMINE BRITAIN'S FINANCIAL AND LEGAL SYSTEMS. Senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: "I am concerned about the signal this would send - it could be the thin end of the wedge. British Common Law must be supreme and should apply to everyone."

A spokesman for the National Secular Society said: "There are lots of different ways to arrange financing. Constructing financial instruments to be sharia-compliant seems to me to involve a lot of unnecessary complication, which will serve only to make a lot of lawyers very rich." THE ATTEMPT TO EMBRACE ISLAMIC FINANCING WOULD ALSO APPEAR TO BE AT ODDS WITH MR BROWN'S PROMISE TO PROMOTE BRITISHNESS AND BRITISH VALUES AND INSTITUTIONS. The Treasury has already faced heavy criticism for removing Britannia from 50p coins.

Other Western nations have been reluctant to issue Islamic bonds. In the United States the bonds are banned partly as a result of claims that the money could be linked to terrorism. THE GOVERNMENT HAS ALREADY BACKED ISLAMIC CAR LOANS AND MORTGAGES. Sharia-compliant bonds were designed to get round the ban on paying interest - "riba" in Islamic law. The Koran says it is sinful to make money from money.

Unlike a conventional bond which is debt-based, a "sukuk" is asset-based. INSTEAD OF RECEIVING INTEREST, BOND HOLDERS RECEIVE "RENT" ON THE ASSET, THEREBY COMPLYING WITH SHARIA LAW. The Treasury consultation document says Government assets such as "buildings or a piece of infrastructure" would be switched to a "special-purpose vehicle" set up to administer the bond. This would be carried out by a contract known as an "ijara".

The asset would then be leased back by the Government, generating rental payments for the Islamic bond holders. When the "sukuk" matured, the Government would guarantee to buy back the asset, allowing the bond-holders to get their redemption payments. "Sukuk are akin to Islamic investment certificates," the document says. "They are designed to be in compliance with sharia law, the divine law in Islam which is based on the Quran."

Even the 2007 growth rate wasn't that high when compared with the peaks of the 1980s and 1990s, when GDP growth in some years surpassed 15 percent, coming out of the stagnation and even losses at the end of the Maoist era. The downturn is going to be welcomed in some Chinese leadership quarters because of the fear of runaway inflation from an overheated economy - now fed by food shortages and the impact of the worst winter in 50 years.

But a look over that horizon isn't good news either: massive unemployment is China's continuing biggest long-term problem. The macro-statistics look good: China's official GDP reached $3.43 trillion in 2007, the National Bureau of Statistics reported, making it the third-largest economy in the world after the United States and Japan. China is also the third-largest exporting country after the U.S. and Germany. China's foreign currency reserves are the largest in the world, driving up more than $1.4 trillion. And China appears to have shifted from a primarily agricultural country to an industrial one.

The official urban unemployment rate has typically remained around 4 percent, but that isn't the real story. Chinese unemployment statistics do not include the laid off - and workers can be laid off for up to three years before they officially count as unemployed. Nor did the officially "unemployed" include men past the age of 50 and women over 45 or those who have migrated to the cities and are thus not registered as formally urban dwellers.

The official long-term policy is for as many as 800 million people to migrate to the cities from the virtually stagnant rural areas where subsistence agriculture does not support them and is an impediment through land dispersion to a reform of agriculture. So, faced with something like 300 million people without jobs, it is easy to see why, despite all the talk about inflation (and pollution), Beijing leadership will always go for growth and providing new jobs. That is true even when threatened by inflation.

The flu shot is a good match for only about 40 percent of this year's flu viruses, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The situation has even deteriorated since last week when the CDC said the vaccine was protective against roughly half the circulating strains. In good years, the vaccine can fend off 70 to 90 percent of flu bugs.

Infections from an unexpected strain have been booming, and now are the main agent behind most of the nation's lab-confirmed flu cases, said Dr. Joe Bresee, the CDC's chief of influenza epidemiology. It's too soon to know whether this will prove to be a bad flu season overall, but it's fair to say a lot of people are suffering at the moment. "Every area of the country is experiencing lots of flu right now," Bresee said.

The biggest surprise has been how poorly the vaccine has performed. Each winter, experts try to predict which strains of flu will circulate so they can develop an appropriate vaccine for the following season. They choose three strains - two from the Type A family of influenza, and one from Type B. Of all flu samples tested this year, 4.6 percent have been resistant to antiviral medications. That's up from fewer than 1 percent last year. "This represents a real increase in resistance," Bresee said.

Ivan brought 1-minute maximum sustained winds to the region of around 212 km/h (132 mph). Wind gusts in the area may have been considerably higher. According to the Saffir-Simpson damage scale the potential property damage and flooding from a storm of Ivan's strength (category 4) at landfall includes:

Storm surge generally 4.0-5.5 metres (13-18 feet) above normal.
Curtainwall failures with some complete roof structure failures on small residences.
Shrubs, trees, and all signs are blown down.
Complete destruction of mobile homes.
Extensive damage to doors and windows.
Low-lying escape routes may be cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the centre of the storm.
Major damage to lower floors of structures near the shore.
Terrain lower than 3 metres (10 feet) above sea level may be flooded requiring massive evacuation of residential areas as far inland as 10 km (6 miles).

There is also the potential for flooding further inland due to heavy rain.

More than 316,000 cattle had perished since the onset of winter in mid December, Noor Padshah Kohistani of the National Disaster Management Commission said. "The figure for human losses stands at 926 today. It could go higher, for roads have been reopened and we will find unreported fatalities," he said.

Nearly half of the victims came from western areas and where more than 90 people have had their fingers or toes amputated because of frostbite. A special hospital is dealing with frostbite victims in the western city of Heart. Apart from human losses, the deaths of cattle are regarded as a huge loss for Afghanistan, an agricultural country that largely relies on foreign aid.

The festivities follow a statement by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci that Sunday would be a big day for "implementing the will of the citizens of Kosovo". But correspondents say the potential for trouble between Kosovo's Serbs and ethnic Albanians is enormous.

Posters have been stuck on the walls of buildings expressing thanks to the US, Britain and the EU for supporting Kosovan independence. In Belgrade, meanwhile, about 1,000 Serb demonstrators protested against the loss of territory they consider their heartland. On Saturday, the EU approved sending a police and justice mission to Kosovo. The 2,000-strong mission, known as Eulex, will begin deploying from next week and is expected to take over from the United Nations by early June.

Serbia has threatened to use diplomatic and economic measures against Kosovo, though it has ruled out using force. Russia's foreign ministry has indicated that Western recognition of an independent Kosovo could have implications for the Georgian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The UN has administered Kosovo since a Nato bombing campaign in 1999 drove out Serb forces.

Statistics show that only 38,680 Poles signed up to the Government's register of migrant workers in the third quarter of 2007, a slump of 18 per cent from the previous year. Polish officials also back these figures by saying that those leaving Britain outnumber those coming in.

Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, a total of 274,065 Poles have signed up for work permits in Britain. They make up 66 per cent of all applications from Eastern European countries. But a combination of tightening economic conditions in this country, a comparatively weak pound and an unprecedented surge in the Polish economy has made it unattractive for Poles to remain.

Krzysztof Trepczynski, the minister for economic development at the Polish embassy in London believes the end of 2007 marked the 'tipping point'. "It's a real change," he told The Times. "There are now definitely more Poles going back to Poland."

In China, officials are dealing with a different dilemma: keeping growth solid and inflation contained by slowly allowing the yuan to strengthen. Government data there shows that consumer inflation remains near an 11-year high. With continuing solid growth in the global economy, hardly any region in the world has not encountered higher prices on everything from cooking oil and gasoline to education and health care.

Inflation is at 16-year highs in Saudi Arabia, a 14-year high in Switzerland, a 25-year high in Singapore. And the list goes on and on. Australia's central bank bluntly warned Monday that it would need to raise interest rates further to contain inflation, even though it had lowered its outlook for economic growth.

The dilemma for the European Central Bank is difficult. The euro-zone economy has shown signs of slowing, and many fear it that will get worse if the United States falls into recession. But with inflation at 14-year highs, the European Central Bank's ability to follow the Fed's lead and slash interest rates aggressively is limited.

"Once the authorities give in to growth concerns, the euro will probably head even lower, and that will push inflation up even more," said Schultz, the executive at Allegiant Asset Management. "The biggest loser is going to be the Europeans."

The scientists at the Laurel, Md., institution were reporting this week on data collected from NASA's Cassini probe. "Several hundred lakes or seas have been discovered, of which dozens are estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than the entire known oil and gas reserves on Earth," wrote lead scientist Ralph Lorenz of the university's Applied Physics Laboratory in the Jan. 29 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

Lorenz also reported dark dunes running along the equator cover 20 percent of Titan's surface, comprising a volume of hydrocarbon material several hundred times larger than Earth's coal reserves. "Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material - it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," Lorenz wrote.

Lorenz used the term "organic chemicals" in the sense that hydrocarbons are traditionally included within the study of "organic chemistry," not to imply any of the hydrocarbons discovered on Titan are of biological origin.

The announcement is another setback for the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, who is struggling to heal divisions between liberals and traditionalists. "We are not attending the forthcoming Lambeth (Conference)," Nzimbi told local broadcaster NTV. "We are not pulling out of the Anglican communion." Bishops in neighboring Uganda said on Thursday that they would not be attending the meeting, being held in July in Canterbury, southern England.

The consecration of openly gay U.S. Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003 has split the 400-year-old church and set a liberal minority against a conservative majority, mostly from Africa, Asia and Latin America. One of Australia's most powerful Anglican leaders has said bishops from Sydney will also miss the Lambeth Conference, a meeting of senior figures which is held every 10 years to discuss church governance and policy.

Some conservative Anglicans have announced plans to hold an alternative summit in Jerusalem in June.

The mission was formally endorsed at midnight on Saturday (11:00 p.m. British time on Friday) after none of the EU's 27 member states objected to an operation plan for the mission before an agreed deadline, a diplomatic source said. "The silent procedure was not broken," the source said, referring to the low-profile method used to push through the legal documents authorizing the mission.

After leaders of the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian majority declare independence, the EU will take over police, judicial and civil administration tasks from the current U.N. mission after a 120-day transition period.

He will meet Benin's President Thomas Yayia to discuss a US-funded plan to supply mosquito nets to tackle malaria. Mr Bush's six-day, five-nation visit is expected to focus on democratic reform, economic and military assistance, and the fight against HIV/Aids. The US president also wants to allay concerns about a new military command he wants to base in Africa. He will also try to rally leaders on the current crises in Kenya and Darfur.

In a BBC interview prior to his tour, the US president defended his stance on the Sudanese region of Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died and two million been displaced in a five-year conflict. Despite what he called a genocide taking place there, he said he had not wanted to send US troops into another Muslim country. He said the US had instead imposed sanctions on Sudanese leaders and companies, and that he would remind the president of China "that he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur".

Officials at Cheshire County Council are writing to the Government and European Union chiefs to challenge the rules governing great crested newts. Councillor Barrie Hardern, who has written to Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, said the newts had to be given a new habitat as a part of a planning application for building work at Fallibroome High School in Macclesfield. He said: "Around £15,000 per newt seems a ludicrous sum of money to me."

"They are a legally protected species under EU regulations because there are parts of Europe where they are quite rare. However, in Cheshire we have in the order of 16,000 ponds and newts are widespread and locally abundant. The EU regulations together with UK legislation carry substantial fines if we do not protect the newts as part of planning applications. I am very concerned about taxpayers' money being used in this way."

Great crested newts (Triturus cristatus) are Britain's largest newt species, they can live for 27 years and grow up to 17cm long. They are black with orange or yellow bellies with black blotches, and can be found across northern Europe. There are estimated to be 400,000 great crested newts in the UK in 18,000 breeding sites.

On the morning of 9 February 2004, The New York Times carried an exclusive and alarming story. The paper's Baghdad correspondent, Dexter Filkins, reported that US officials had obtained a 17-page letter, believed to have been written by the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi to the "inner circle" of al-Qa'ida's leadership, urging them to accept that the best way to beat US forces in Iraq was effectively to start a civil war. The letter argued that al-Qa'ida, which is a Sunni network, should attack the Shia population of Iraq: "It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis."

Later that day, at a regular US press briefing in Baghdad, US General Mark Kimmitt dealt with a string of questions about The New York Times report: "We believe the report and the document is credible, and we take the report seriously. It is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come in to this country and spark civil war, create sectarian violence, try to expose fissures in this society." The story went on to news agency wires and, within 24 hours, it was running around the world.

There is very good reason to believe that that letter was a fake - and a significant one because there is equally good reason to believe that it was one product among many from a new machinery of propaganda which has been created by the United States and its allies since the terrorist attacks of September 2001.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY, THERE IS A CONCERTED STRATEGY TO MANIPULATE GLOBAL PERCEPTION. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the president and the pope would continue discussions they began during Bush's trip to the Vatican in June 2007 on the importance of faith and reason in reaching shared goals.

Stanzel said the goals include advancing peace throughout the Middle East and other troubled regions, promoting interfaith understanding and strengthening human rights and freedom. The pope was also expected to address the United Nations, visit ground zero in New York and celebrate Mass in New York and Washington during his April 15-20 trip.