Roman Catholic Labour MPs, who like the rest of the party will be under a strict three line whip to approve the third reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, are said to be "furious" at Mrs Kelly's stance. MPs of all parties were given free votes on four of the most controversial aspects of the Bill earlier this week, meaning they were able to vote with their conscience.

Mr Brown had been reluctant to offer a free vote on the measures, all of which he argued strongly for, but his hand was forced by the prospect of a rebellion by Mrs Kelly and two other Catholic Cabinet ministers. Sources said that Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, were under the impression that the Prime Minister had consented to a free vote on the condition that the three back the Bill at the third reading. They are said to be astonished that Mrs Kelly is now unwilling to go through with the deal.

Mrs Kelly is thought unlikely to vote outright against the legislation, which would automatically lead to her resignation from the Cabinet. Insiders say they expect her to obtain a "leave of absence" and abstain from the vote.

Baroness Vadera, a business minister and former adviser to Gordon Brown, made the comment as the price of oil experienced its biggest one-day increase in almost 20 years. The minister said the economy was facing "TESTING TIMES" but insisted that Britain was well-placed to withstand the global turbulence as fuel and food prices rose sharply. World oil prices jumped by $5 a barrel on Thursday ? the single largest rise in a day since the first Gulf war.

Yesterday, speaking in the House of Lords, Lady Vadera said: "WE ARE FACING A TESTING PERIOD IN THE ECONOMY. WE ARE FACING THE FIRST REAL INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CRISIS OF GLOBALISATION." She said it was an "uncomfortable situation".

However, Alan Duncan, the shadow business secretary and a former oil trader, said that the Government's strategy was misguided. "THE SIGHT OF GORDON BROWN BEGGING OPEC TO RAISE PRODUCTION IS A HUMILIATING SPECTACLE FOR THIS COUNTRY," he said. "He simply doesn't understand oil markets and should know that Opec can't just turn on the taps."

"We are not very happy with this increase in oil prices," said El-Badri during a visit to Ecuador. "Volatility has nothing to do with the fundamentals. It has nothing to do with world demand," he said, stressing that a dropping dollar was driving prices higher. "The price was at 130 dollars and today is at 135, so it's really a crazy market," he said. El-Badri, OPEC's secretary general, is on a week-long working visit to the two OPEC member states in Latin America, Venezuela and Ecuador. Tuesday he met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas and with Minister of Energy and Petroleum / President of PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez.

In a statement released by the cartel on Wednesday, El-Badri said that OPEC remained committed "to working for the stability of the international oil market, noting that the current high oil prices are not influenced by market fundamentals, as the market is well-supplied. OPEC will continue to monitor global oil markets regularly and is ready to act if and when necessary to ensure market stability and adequate supplies," the statement added.

Crude oil prices rocketed to record highs above 135 dollars on Thursday, driven by growing concerns that energy supplies will fail to meet demand, analysts said. Prices later pulled back to just below 133 dollars owing to profit-taking.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that THE STATE OFFERED "LEGALLY AND FACTUALLY INSUFFICIENT" GROUNDS FOR THE "EXTREME" MEASURE OF REMOVING ALL CHILDREN FROM THE RANCH, from babies to teenagers. THE STATE NEVER PROVIDED EVIDENCE THAT THE CHILDREN WERE IN ANY IMMEDIATE DANGER, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval, the appeals court said.

THE STATE NEVER PROVIDED EVIDENCE THAT TEENAGE GIRLS WERE BEING SEXUALLY ABUSED, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said. It was not immediately clear whether the children scattered across foster facilities statewide might soon be reunited with parents.

The appeals court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that any abuse claims could apply only to individual households. Julie Balovich, an attorney representing 38 mothers of the children, said the appeals court "has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given these mothers hope that their families will be brought back together." MEMBERS CONTEND THEY ARE BEING PERSECUTED BY STATE OFFICIALS FOR THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.

Morris was "cautiously optimistic about the prospects for peace" when the Oslo process started in 1993. "But at the same time I was scouring the just opened archives of the Haganah and the IDF. Studying the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict - in particular the pronouncements and positions of the Palestinian leadership from the 1920s on - left me chilled.

"THEIR REJECTION OF ANY COMPROMISE, whether a partition of Palestine between its Jewish and Arab inhabitants or the creation of a bi-national state with political parity BETWEEN THE TWO COMMUNITIES, WAS DEEP-SEATED, CONSENSUAL AND CONSISTENT."

"Those currently riding high in the region - figures like Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - are true believers WHO ARE CONVINCED IT IS ALLAH'S COMMAND AND EVERY MUSLIM'S DUTY TO EXTIRPATE THE 'ZIONIST ENTITY' FROM THE SACRED SOIL OF THE MIDDLE EAST." This leaves Israel, Morris concludes, "profoundly insecure."

"THE ARABS WHO BECAME REFUGEES IN 1948 WERE NOT EXPELLED BY ISRAEL BUT LEFT ON THEIR OWN TO FACILITATE THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL," the senior PA journalist wrote, according to Palestinian Media Watch, which monitors the Arabic language PA media. "THIS PLAN TO LEAVE ISRAEL WAS INITIATED BY THE ARAB STATES FIGHTING ISRAEL, who promised the people they would be able to return to their homes in a few days once Israel was defeated."

PMW points out that the Al-Ayyam article's conclusion that Arab states are responsible for the Arab refugee problem undercuts a backbone of ARAB PROPAGANDA CLAIMING THAT ISRAEL EXPELLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF ARABS IN 1948. "In recent years, PMW has documented an increasing willingness among Palestinians to openly blame the Arab states and not Israel," the report concludes, citing five sources and witnesses' accounts conveyed in the PA media to support the claim

THE EU INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONS DIRECTIVE (IED) aims to tighten existing limits on emissions of oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, and will incorporate six existing environmental directives into one piece of legislation. This would remove the flexibility written into the current regime as set out under the Large Combustion Plants Directive (LCPD), which on its own is already contributing to a future electricity supply crunch in the UK.

The Express reports that many coal-fired power stations could shut down in the UK due to a new EU environmental directive which could cost the industry more than £2.7 billion. This, and the closure of ageing nuclear power plants, WOULD FORCE BRITAIN TO DEPEND MUCH MORE ON GAS IMPORTS FROM UNRELIABLE COUNTRIES LIKE ALGERIA AND RUSSIA.

Ian Fells, the Emeritus Professor of Energy Conversion at Newcastle University, said: "By about 2020 we could be about 23 gigawatts short of power generation, which is about one-third of our total. AS YOU GET TO 2015 OR THEREABOUTS, UNLESS WE REPLACE QUITE A SLICE OF THIS ENERGY, WE COULD HAVE BLACKOUTS. I am alarmed by this. The default position is to build more gas-fired power stations, but in terms of security of supply that is disastrous."

Lord Brittan attacked Lord Blackwell for resorting "to the essentially Bonapartist device of a referendum," while Lord McNally and Lady Upholland, leaders of the Lib Dems and Labour in the Lords respectively, described the amendment as "irrelevant".

The Lords also rejected an amendment put down by Lord Pearson calling for a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU. Lib Dem peers abstained on the vote despite their party's policy being in favour of such a referendum. A Lib Dem spokesman said the party did not want to "give succour" to eurosceptics by voting with the UK Independence Party. He said the Lib Dems wanted a referendum on whether Britain should remain in Europe from a "pro-European stance".

The government is considering the changes as part of its ongoing fight against serious crime and terrorism. Assistant Information Commissioner Jonathan Bamford has warned that the UK could be "SLEEPWALKING INTO A SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY". Others have questioned how such a database could be made secure. "While the public is "sleepwalking" into a surveillance society, the government seems to have its eyes wide open although, unfortunately, to everything except security," said Jamie Cowper, data protection expert at data protection firm PGP Corporation.

"The bottom line is - information of this nature should only be held if - and only if - it can be demonstrated that an appropriate system of checks and balances is in place and the security of the information being stored is of paramount concern," he added.

Public confidence in the governments' ability to look after data has been dented in recent months with high profile failures, including the loss of a CD carrying all the personal details of every child benefit claimant. According to Gus Hosein, a senior fellow at Privacy International, the latest proposals could be even more controversial. "THE IDEA THAT ISPS [Internet Service Providers] NEED TO COLLECT DATA AND SEND IT EN MASSE TO CENTRAL GOVERNMENT IS, WITHOUT DOUBT, ILLEGAL," HE SAID.

Over the next two years it could even climb as high as £1.46, they said. Petrol currently costs an average of £1.13 per litre following a month of almost daily price rises. There is already anecdotal evidence that motorists are "downsizing" their vehicles because fuel costs for family cars are now so high. Some face bills of more than £70 when filling up popular saloons and there is little prospect of price cuts.

Ministers are also facing a wave of disruptive fuel protests organised by hauliers struggling to cope with the rising cost of diesel. Around 260 petrol stations, many in far-flung parts of Scotland and Wales, have already broken through the £6-a-gallon (£1.31-a-litre) barrier for diesel.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is planning to bring in a 2p rise in fuel duty this autumn and an increase in vehicle excise duty next year, which means some popular family cars will see their road tax bills double. However, the Treasury will pick up a windfall of more than £1 billion from the higher oil price and is now under pressure to abandon the tax rises.

The equivalent of almost 100 children a week ended up in hospital because of their drinking in 2006/7, according to data from the National Health Service. The figures also found, overall, the number of people admitted to wards in England due to their drinking has doubled in just over a decade.

In total 207,800 people were admitted to wards because of their drinking, either they were drunk, had liver cirrhosis or a secondary disorder such as heart disease brought on by heavy drinking. They may also have been injured or assaulted while drunk.

Soaring food prices are the cause of the huge bill - likely to be up 26% on the 2007 total - said the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The most economically vulnerable countries will bear the biggest burden, the report said, with costs rising 40%. But the FAO said there were signs that some food prices were starting to fall.

However, it said prices were "unlikely" to return to the low levels of previous years - largely because of the higher costs associated with food production, primarily fuel. The need to replenish stocks and the expected greater consumption - or utilisation - of crops, meant that demand would stay high, the report added. In its analysis, the FAO said that developing countries have felt the cost of food inflation far more than wealthier nations.

"Rice has caught the headlines in recent weeks, but from dairy to wheat and soybeans to sugar, price spikes and market volatility appear to have become more the norm than the exception," the report said. "Soaring food prices have led to serious difficulties, especially for vulnerable population groups that spend a substantial part of their incomes on food."

The latest surge was driven by data showing that supplies of crude in the US had fallen by 5.4 million barrels. Higher oil prices push up the price of fuel at the garage forecourt, home energy bills, air travel and food. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is working with international partners to persuade the Opec oil producers' cartel to increase supply.

His spokeswoman said that Mr Brown recognised the increases were having an effect on UK consumers and he would be raising this at the forthcoming EU and G8 summits. But one analyst said Mr Brown's efforts were likely to prove in vain and political pressure should, instead, be exerted on leading producers to invest more in long-term capacity.

"All this excess profit that has been generated by the oil industry really needs to be invested in refineries, pipelines and oil wells," Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities research at Merrill Lynch, told the BBC.
"This is what the market is asking for at the moment and we just need to ensure? we have the political goodwill also supporting this investment." Opec has so far blamed price rises on speculators and says there is no shortage of oil. All but three of Opec's members are already at their maximum daily limits for oil output and pressure has grown on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, which do have spare capacity.

Investors moving money into oil from other areas have also been blamed for rising prices. "Oil has performed better than equities and bonds," said Victor Shum from the energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz in Singapore.
"There is money looking for better returns and oil has offered better returns and continues to offer better returns."

The negotiations, mediated by Turkey, are the first for eight years. If an agreement is reached, the map of the Middle East would be redrawn and the region's strategic balance changed dramatically. Both sides have much to gain from a settlement. Syria wants the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied during the Six Day War of 1967. Meanwhile, Israel wants Syria to break its alliance with Iran and stop supporting Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Syria's foreign ministry said that negotiations through Turkish mediators had begun and both sides "expressed their desire to conduct the talks in goodwill and decided to continue dialogue with seriousness to achieve comprehensive peace".

Most Israelis oppose any withdrawal from the Golan Heights, where 18,000 Jewish settlers live. America's role in the peace talks is uncertain. In the past, Washington has opposed openings to Mr Assad.

"This is unacceptable. People must not take the law into their own hands simply because they suspected someone," said Mwangi Ngunyi, the head of Nyamaiya district. "We will hunt the suspects down," he added. The gang of about 100 people moved from house to house late Tuesday, tied up their victims and set them ablaze, the official said.

Ngunyi added that the mob also torched 50 houses in Nyakeo village, located some 300 kilometres (180 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi. "I can't believe my wife of many years would be killed so brutally by people who cannot prove their case even before God," said Enoch Obiero, a pastor. "My mother has always been a role model to the entire village and why the mob had to kill her will remain a mystery to me forever," lamented 32-year-old Emily Monari.

The region, populated mainly by the Kisii tribe, has been dubbed Kenya's "sorcery belt" due to mob attacks on women suspected of witchcraft. Efforts by the authorities to clamp down on vigilante and mob justice have been unsuccessful.