Investors have raced into commodities over the past month to hedge against inflation and the slumping dollar, sending oil to fresh peaks despite concerns about the economic health of top oil consumer the United States and rising fuel stocks. U.S. crude settled up $1.17 at $109.92 after racing to an all-time high of $110.20 earlier. London Brent gained $1.02 to settle at $106.27 a barrel, off a record $106.41 hit earlier in the day.

Analysts said crude's rise despite swelling inventories highlights the disconnect between supply and demand fundamentals and the current, speculator-driven price. "It is a ridiculously bearish report," said Stephen Schork, editor of The Schork Report. "We have major concerns regarding the economy in the United States, rising supply, falling demand. Why is crude oil trading at over $100 per barrel? It makes no fundamental sense."

The dollar tumbled to a record low against the euro as doubts grew about the long-term impact of recent Federal Reserve efforts to pump money into credit markets. A day earlier, the greenback rallied after the Fed said it would lend primary dealers $200 billion in Treasury securities and accept a wider array of mortgage debt as collateral to ease tight credit conditions.

Airbus, struggling with cost overruns on its star A380 superjumbo project and delays with its A400M military plane, made an operating loss of 881 million euros (1.4 billion dollars), worse than the loss of 572 million euros in 2006. The 2006 results were the first time the company had made a loss in its history.

As well as the operational difficulties with the A380 and A400M -- a programme for the midsized A350 plane was also relaunched -- Airbus and EADS struggled with the strong euro in 2007, which makes their exports less competitive on international markets and reduces margins. Nevertheless, Airbus won 1,341 firm orders in 2007, slightly fewer than arch US rival Boeing, but higher than the European company's previous record set in 2005 of 1,055. Airbus delivered 453 planes to customers, including the first of its A380s to launch client Singapore Airlines.

Late last month the US Pentagon defence department awarded an aerial refuelling tanker contract worth 35 billion dollars to EADS and the US group Northrop Grumman, instead of to US group Boeing, which has said it may protest the decision. It was a stunning upset for Boeing, until now the sole supplier of air refueling planes to the US military.

Despite warnings, and the potentially harmful effects of their actions, believers are allegedly still flocking to a hotelier's house in Erumeli near where the divine image is said to have appeared. "All our patients have similar history and symptoms? They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun," Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital's ophthalmologist said.

Even churches in the area have disowned the miracle after health officers and doctors approached the clergy. The house where the miracle is said to have occurred has apparently been the subject of rumours for months.

The hotelier, who has since moved, had claimed that statues of the Virgin Mary in his house have been crying honey and bleeding oils and perfumes.

The Bank of England joined forces with the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to pledge an injection of cash into the struggling banking system in the wake of the global credit crunch.

The biggest move was by the Fed, which announced a loans programme of up to £100billion ($200billion). The Bank of England said it was willing to lend London banks £10billion on March 18, and also offered another undisclosed sum on April 15. The European Central Bank added that it will lend banks up to £7.5billion for 28 days. The latest injection of funds comes as new figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed that new loans for home buyers fell to 50,300 in January, the lowest level for nine years, and half the rate of August last year.

Abroad, top banks including Switzerland's UBS and America's Citigroup were forced to go cap-in-hand to foreign investors to ask them for extra cash to shore up their finances. The U.S. economy is feared to have now slumped into recession because of soaring mortgage defaults and slumping property values. Commentators say Britain is equally vulnerable to the credit crunch because the burden of consumer debt here is even greater than in the U.S.

But it can get worse: now the European Union's only directly elected institution is struggling to fend off accusations of widespread fraud among its members. Last week details were published on the Internet of a secret report by the Parliament's own internal auditors that revealed a catalogue of scams used by some MEPs to pocket portions of their annual grant of $295,000 per member to hire office staff.

The scandal has been exacerbated by parliamentary leaders' clumsy attempts to cover up the report. Even within the Parliament, only a handful of MEPs on the budgetary control committee were able to see the report ? and they were obliged to read it in a guarded room, on condition that they took no notes and signed a pledge saying they would keep its contents secret. Although the Parliament's vice presidents agreed on Monday to review the system of hiring office assistants, they spent two weeks insisting the report was either non-existent or confidential.

The EU's anti-fraud unit, OLAF, has already launched an investigation into the allegations. But since the Parliament's own guidelines on hiring staff are vague, and do not even require receipts for expense claims, MEPs can claim they have not broken any rules.

British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, who read the report under guard, said the actions of some of his colleagues had disgraced the Parliament. "Make no mistake, we are talking about very large sums of money," he says. Davies wants offenders named and shamed, and the worst ones to be thrown in jail. But he says the Parliament shot itself in the foot by trying to keep the report secret. "It was utterly pathetic, naïve and hypocritical. You wonder what planet they grew up on," he says. "The European Parliament is doing good work. But in terms of recognition and acceptance by the wide European public, these incidents can only harm it."

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls - nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Douglas said screening tests are underused in part because many teens don't think they're at risk, but also, some doctors mistakenly think, 'Sexually transmitted diseases don't happen to the kinds of patients I see.'

Blythe said some doctors also are reluctant to discuss STDs with teen patients or offer screening because of confidentiality concerns, knowing parents would have to be told of the results. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports confidential teen screening, she said.

A Reuters witness saw at least 300 people escaping the area, where helicopters have strafed the foothills and hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers have poured into the forest since Monday, to flush out the little-known Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF). The Mount Elgon violence preceded a wave of ethnic killings around Kenya over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election in December -- but it shares some of the root causes like tribal tensions and resentment over land distribution.

Mount Elgon member of parliament (MP) Fred Kapondi said."What the government is doing to people here is inhuman. They are pounding on traumatised children and mothers. The March planting has been disrupted so now there will be no food ... This operation must be stopped," Kapondi told Reuters.

Allocation of government land in mid-2006 unleashed fighting between the Ndorobo and Soy clans of the Sabaot ethnic group. Opponents say the land was divided corruptly and favoured the Ndorobos and government supporters, at the expense of the more numerous Soy, some of whom were evicted from areas they had farmed for 30 years. The SLDF group is mainly Soy.

The Ferrari P4 - of which only three were made, in 1967 - was made in a back street factory in Thailand and is powered by a Subaru engine. The Authentics Foundation has used the car to warn against the growing tide of counterfeit goods. It says pirated medicines and food pose a real threat to human health.

Authentics Foundation president Timothy P Trainer said: "It has got more complicated because now counterfeiters are into everything. Twenty years ago they were more into luxury brands and so on. Today, they are into electronics, they are into medicine, they are into food."

The foundation said as much as 80% of the pharmaceuticals sold in Nigeria are fake.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1,938 years the linen garments of the lay priests are being produced in preparation for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the renewal of the Divine service. The last priestly garments to have been worn were those worn by the priests who were martyred by the Roman legions who brutally invaded and destroyed the Holy Temple on the ninth day of the month of Av, in the year 70 CE.

THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE HAS SPARED NO EFFORT in procuring the necessary materials for the performing of this Torah commandment, and once again has enlisted 21st century technology in order to do so in a manner befitting the Torah injunction that these priestly garments be "both dignified and beautiful". (Exodus 28:40)

To see photographs

HIS STATED REASON IS THAT JEWISH PRAYER ON THE TEMPLE MOUT IS AKIN TO INCITEMENT TO MOSLEM VIOLENCE. The Olmert government and Israeli police took no action to stop the recent Hamas radio broadcasts from the Mount calling for death to Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel. The New Jewish Congress has issued the following response.

"Minister Dichter's comments regarding Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount demonstrates HIS - AND THIS GOVERNMENT'S - TOTAL DISCONNECT FROM THE REALITY OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT, from the Jewish people, and from the government's obligations towards both. THIS STATEMENT IS YET ANOTHER INDICATION THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF EHUD OLMERT HAS CEASED TO BE A JEWISH GOVERNMENT ALTOGETHER, HAVING NOT THE SLIGHTEST CONNECTION WITH THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

"The irony of his statement is even more blatant in light of the fact that this same government encourages and enables THE ARCH-TERRORIST HAMAS ORGANIZATION TO BROADCAST FROM THE TEMPLE MOUNT. In reality, the Jewish people enjoy freedom of religious expression, including prayer and Torah study, throughout every location - except on THE TEMPLE MOUNT, THEIR ONLY HOLY SITE.

"Minister Dichter's comments convey hatred and discrimination towards the Jewish people. In due time this government will be held accountable for its actions and will stand trial in a Jewish court of justice that will be established by the Jewish people."

The two-month meeting of 225 members of the Society of Jesus ended Thursday in Rome. The congregation approved five decrees on 15 themes, and a declaration that affirms adherence to the letter Benedict XVI sent to then superior general Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach in January. In the letter the Pope urged the congregation to reaffirm "its own total adhesion to Catholic doctrine" in areas such as interreligious dialogue, liberation theology and sexual morality.

The declaration titled "With New Fervor and Dynamism, the Society of Jesus Responds to the Call of Benedict XVI," was approved by a large majority, reported L'Osservatore Romano. Father Adolfo Nicolás, elected Jan. 19 to succeed Fr. Kolvenbach, 79, as superior general, said to reporters Friday that the Jesuits' tradition of fidelity and obedience never stopped them "in their theological research or in their way of living the Christian faith. At the same time," he noted, "we understood that we need more humility because conflicts and difficulties are what make us grow."

One of the five decrees addressed the topic of obedience to the Pope and the special relationship that unites the Jesuits to the Successor of Peter. Jesuit Father Tom Feely wrote on the Web page of the 35th Congregation: "Anyone who looks at the history of the Society will see that we have always understood our role of service in the Church in relation to the papacy. Therefore, the decree goes on to offer some reflections on living our relationship of obedience to the papacy today, especially with regard to our mission in the broadest sense."

Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Torkom Manooghian, the Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Michel Sabbah, and Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, sent letters of condolence Friday to the Palestinian and Israeli leaders after an escalation in violence killed more than 130 Palestinians and 5 Israelis.

Since late February, Israel has been launching an offensive to stop the Islamist group Hamas from firing rockets into Israel. Israeli officials have halted military operations since Wednesday after rocket and mortar attacks launched from Gaza sharply dropped. In the note to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the religious leaders stated their hope to see "the unity of the Palestinian people" restored. The representatives of the Christian Churches offered their condolences "for all the victims who have fallen and are still falling in this wave of violence in Gaza."

The note said, "We know that you do not spare any effort in your attempts to reach a comprehensive and just peace. Nevertheless, we urge you to do whatever possible to find rapid and opportune ways to bring back the unity of the Palestinian people: Heal all the wounds, in order that the tragedy of which all of us are victims, today more than ever, will come to an end."

The leaders urged Abbas to work " in efficient ways to reach agreement with the concerned Israeli authorities to stop all violence, so as to work for the achievement of peace." Aware of the "grave difficulties" of the current situation, they expressed their hope that all involved will "work for the achievement of peace."

A court ruling that California parents "do not have a constitutional right" to home-school their children has touched off anger and bewilderment throughout America's home-schooling community and prompted a denunciation from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For a movement that has gained greater accommodation in recent years, a state appellate court decision last month is a setback that, if not overturned on appeal, could force some 166,000 home-schooled students in California to enroll in conventional schools. It may also prod California and other states with vague or nonexistent laws on home schooling to be more specific about what is allowed and what is required of home-schoolers.

California's education statutes, for instance, do not mention "home schooling," but officials have allowed the practice for decades. The appellate court, however, found that the state's laws have not been changed to allow home schooling since a case back in 1953 erected a major roadblock to the practice.

Governor Schwarzenegger said Friday he would go to the legislature if the ruling is not overturned.

For centuries, the Hadith - a collection of the words and deeds of the prophet Muhammad - has guided Muslims in their daily lives and served as a basis for Islamic jurisprudence, offering direction on everything from hygiene to war. The Hadith deals with events that took place some 1,400 years ago, but an ambitious Turkish project is aiming to reinterpret them to create a collection addressing modern-day concerns and STRIPPING OUT ELEMENTS THAT MANY THEOLOGIANS SAY CONTRADICT THE KORAN AND MUHAMMAD'S TEACHINGS.

Observers here say the project is part of a continuing effort by a growing segment of Turkish society to reconcile faith and modernity - a struggle being played out among Muslims worldwide, from African immigrants in Paris to young Arabs in Saudi Arabia. Many Islamic scholars even say that PARTS OF THE HADITH HAVE BEEN FALSELY ATTRIBUTED TO MUHAMMAD and that while many Hadith interpretations may have applied in the early Islamic period, particularly regarding women and Islam's relation to other religions, they deserve a new look.

"There have been things that people say the prophet did or said which conflict with the Koran," says Ismail Hakki Unal, head of the Hadith department at Ankara University's divinity school, where the Hadith project is centered and is increasingly known as a hotbed of liberal Islamic thinking. "The Koran is our basic guide. Anything that conflicts with that, we are trying to eliminate." Adds Unal, the Ankara University theologian: "WE DON'T SEE THIS AS A REFORM, BUT AS TRYING TO GO BACK TO THE BASICS AND ORIGINS OF ISLAM."

PHASE ONE was the wrenching liquidity squeeze of last summer and autumn, caused by a flight from risk as banks belatedly realised the scale of the problems in asset-backed securities.

PHASE TWO was the surfacing of the capital insufficiency that lay at the root of these liquidity problems as financial institutions began writing down the value of their rapidly diminishing assets.

Unfortunately, these first two phases were not discrete, but overlapping, and now they are about to decant further into THE MOST FRIGHTENING AND, PERHAPS, DESTABILISING PHASE of all as a contraction in US demand threatens to launch A VICIOUS SPIRAL OF DECLINING ECONOMIC ACTIVITY, SINKING VALUATIONS AND PROLIFERATING FINANCIAL INSTABILITY.

The risk is that those liquidity and capital problems will get much worse. If, as seems likely, Americans curb their consumption spending significantly, asset values will fall further, forcing a renewed retrenchment by banks and financial institutions, a tightening credit squeeze, further declines in activity and so on. IT'S SURELY TIME FOR THE AUTHORITIES TO THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT HOW TO HALT THIS BEFORE IT GETS REALLY UNPLEASANT.

Some kind of more direct bailout is now going to be necessary. THE GOVERNMENT could, for example, OFFER TO LEND THE NECESSARY SUMS AT VERY LOW RATES OF INTEREST to those millions of borrowers in danger of defaulting on their loans. It is only that kind of government guarantee to underpin the housing sector that will restore confidence. It will be ugly. It involves all kinds of moral hazard and it could end up costing a fortune, further clouding an already murky fiscal outlook for the economy. IN FACT, THE ONLY THING IT HAS TO RECOMMEND IT IS THAT ALL THE ALTERNATIVES ARE CATASTROPHICALLY WORSE.