The draft treaty, unveiled on Tuesday at a Conference on Disarmament meeting in Geneva would prohibit the deployment of weapons of any kind in space, or the use or threat of force against space objects.

"China hopes the Conference on Disarmament will enter into substantial discussion on the draft as soon as possible in order to reach a common consensus," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in a statement.

"Towards this aim, China is willing to work with all member nations of the Conference. We hope that with the common efforts of the member nations, the Conference will be able to make positive progress this year." Washington's plans for satellite and missile defense systems remain shrouded in secrecy but have sparked fears of an arms race with both Russia and China.

The White House quickly rejected the draft plans by Russia and China, warning that ensuring compliance in any new peace treaty would be "impossible".

"The United States opposes the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit access to or use of space," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

According to a royal source, the Queen has not expressed any view on whether Dr Rowan Williams was unwise to say it was "unavoidable" that aspects of the sharia legal system could be incorporated into English law.

But as Supreme Governor of the Church of England she has been dismayed by the controversy that the remarks have generated at such a difficult period in the history of the Established Church, which faces possible schism over the issue of homosexual clergy.

The Queen, who approved the appointment of Dr Williams on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, takes her role as Supreme Governor very seriously.

One royal source said: "I have no idea what her view is on what the Archbishop said about sharia law. But the Queen is worried, coming at such a difficult time in the Church's history, that the fallout may sap the authority of the Church." Another royal courtier said: "The whole thing has not been skilfully handled. It can only have undermined the authority of the Church."

The Tokyo bourse has crumbled, suffering the worst start to the year since the Second World War. The Nikkei index is down 17 per cent since Christmas, and the shares of Japanese banks are leading the slide. Mizuho Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui have all been punished as hard or even harder than those US banks at the epicentre of the sub-prime debacle. The nagging fear is that Japan's lenders - the conduit for the world's greatest stash of savings - have taken on a far bigger chunk of mortgage securities, collateralised loans obligations and other exotica from America's structured credit boom than they have yet revealed.

Americans and Europeans have so far confessed to $130bn of the estimated $400bn to $500bn of wealth that has vanished into the sub-prime hole. Somebody, somewhere, must be sitting on a vast nexus of undisclosed losses. We may find out soon enough whether the hold-outs are in Japan. The banks have to come clean under the country's strict new audit codes by the end of the tax year in March. "We know from Bank of Japan's lending survey that the banks are already tightening hard, so something is brewing. Right now, we are in the lull before the second storm in global markets, and Asia is going to be the source of the nasty surprises," he said.

The iTraxx Japan index measuring default risk of 50 Japanese companies saw its biggest one-day jump ever on Thursday to 77.5. Rightly or wrongly, it is flashing a serious distress signal. China's mercantilist drive for export share is a double-edged strategy. The trade surplus has risen at $80bn a year, increasing tenfold since 2002 while the economy has merely doubled. The result is that China is as dependent on the US economy as Mexico.

So the storm spreads East. Haruhiko Kuroda, head of the Asian Development Bank, warned that the region would catch a cold after all as the US sniffles and sneezes. "Asian economies are not totally immune. A significant slowdown in the US economy will most certainly affect the region's growth," he said. The global watchdogs are scrambling to rewrite the script. The World Bank has cut its China growth forecast from 10.8 per cent to 9.6 per cent in 2008. Private banks are slashing deeper.

The Mortgage Bankers Association says default rates on all outstanding home loans in the US have reached 7.3pc, the highest level since modern records began in the 1970s. Arrears on "prime" mortgages have reached a record 4pc, confounding expectations that middle-class Americans with good credit records would be able to weather the storm.

While sub-prime and close kin "Alt A" total $2,000bn (£1,019bn) of debt, the prime market in all its forms is roughly $8,000bn. If prime default rates rise on their current trajectory, they could ultimately cause huge financial damage. The grim data comes amid further wild ructions this week on credit markets. The iTraxx Crossover index - a risk barometer that measures default insurance for Europe's low-grade bonds - rocketed to a fresh high of 575 yesterday. It is now above the extreme levels seen in August and November.

"We're now at, or close to, historic highs pretty much across the board on the credit indices," said Dr Suki Mann, an expert at Société Générale.

Under Government plans to be unveiled today, each pupil will be assigned a unique number which they will keep even after they leave school. Employers and colleges will be able to use this number to access students' records on the internet to check if they are telling the truth about their qualifications. It is hoped there will ultimately be a numbered database for every citizen aged over 14 years.

Last night, the Government denied the individual numbers would be linked to ID cards. But a furious coalition of teachers, parents, opposition MPs and human rights campaigners united to condemn the "Big Brother" policy.
They pointed to the Government's abysmal track record on keeping data safe and warned the personal details of millions could be compromised.

Exxon Mobil is locked in a dispute over the nationalization of its oil ventures in Venezuela that has led President Hugo Chavez to threaten to cut off all Venezuelan oil supplies to the United States. Venezuela is the United States' fourth largest oil supplier. Tuesday's announcement by state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, was limited to Exxon Mobil, which PDVSA accused of "judicial-economic harassment" for its efforts in U.S. and European courts.

PDVSA said it "has paralyzed sales of crude to Exxon Mobil" and suspended commercial relations with the Irving, Texas-based company. "The legal actions carried out by the U.S. transnational are unnecessary - and hostile," PDVSA said in the statement. It said it will honor any existing contracts it has with Exxon Mobil for joint investments abroad, but reserved the right to terminate them if permitted by the terms of the contracts.

Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Margaret Ross declined to comment on the move by Venezuela but added that "it is our long-standing practice to take appropriate steps to meet our customers' needs." Exxon Mobil is challenging the Chavez government's nationalization of one of four heavy oil projects in the Orinoco River basin, one of the world's richest oil deposits. A British court issued an injunction last month temporarily freezing up to $12 billion of PDVSA's assets. Exxon Mobil also has secured an "order of attachment" from the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on about $300 million in cash held by PDVSA. A hearing to confirm the order is scheduled for Wednesday.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd led the parliamentary apology to members of the Stolen Generations of aborigines, who were forcibly taken from their families and communities when they were young children under old assimilation policies. In unprecedented scenes for Australia's parliament, a huge crowd of more than 7,000 people gathered on the lawns outside to watch as the apology was broadcast live to giant screens, with Aborigines and supporters cheering as Rudd said "sorry".

"It makes the indigenous community feel, for the first time in a real long time, really feel part of Australia, that it's embraced by the whole Australian nation," Stolen Generation elder Mark Bin Bakar told Reuters. "It's about us coming together as a country, acknowledging our past and moving on, accepting each other as brothers and sisters of this nation," he said.

Rudd also announced new plans to improve indigenous housing, and give aborigines constitutional recognition as the original owners of Australia.

Cardinal Walter Kasper spoke in an interview in a leading Italian newspaper a day after world Jewish leaders said the new prayer could set back inter-religious dialogue by decades. "I MUST SAY THAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY JEWS CANNOT ACCEPT THAT WE CAN MAKE USE OF OUR FREEDOM TO FORMULATE OUR PRAYERS," KASPER, A GERMAN, told the Corriere della Sera.

The Vatican on Tuesday revised a contested Latin prayer used by a traditionalist minority on Good Friday, REMOVING A REFERENCE TO JEWISH "BLINDNESS" OVER CHRIST and deleting a phrase asking God to "remove the veil from their hearts". Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men. It asks that "all Israel may be saved" AND KEEPS AN UNDERLYING CALL TO CONVERSION THAT JEWISH LEADERS HAD WANTED OMITTED.

"We think that reasonably this prayer cannot be an obstacle to dialogue because it reflects the faith of the Church and, furthermore, JEWS HAVE PRAYERS IN THEIR LITURGICAL TEXTS THAT WE CATHOLICS DON'T LIKE," KASPER SAID. In a separate interview with Vatican Radio, Kasper said: "The [Pope] wanted to say 'yes, Jesus Christ is the savior of all men, including the Jews'." He added: "But this does not mean we are embarking on a mission (to covert Jews). We are giving witness to our faith."

"While we appreciate that some of the deprecatory language has been removed ... WE ARE DEEPLY TROUBLED AND DISAPPOINTED THAT THE FRAMEWORK AND INTENTION TO PETITION GOD FOR JEWS TO ACCEPT JESUS AS LORD WAS KEPT INTACT," Abraham Foxman, US national director of the ADL, said in a statement.

The Rabbinical Assembly, which represents 1,600 Conservative rabbis worldwide, said it was "dismayed and deeply disturbed to learn of reports that Pope Benedict XVI has revised the 1962 text of the Latin Mass, retaining the rubric, 'For the conversion of the Jews.'"

In a resolution approved after an hour of debate over two days, the group praised improved Jewish-Catholic relations over the past 40 years and agreed to "seek clarification from the Vatican of the meaning and status of the new text for the Latin Mass which will be heard in Catholic Churches on Good Friday." Conservative Judaism is one of the main branches of the religion in many countries worldwide, along with Orthodox and Reform Judaism.

The Good Friday prayer in Latin would be heard by very few Roman Catholic congregations worldwide, but Jewish groups have expressed disappointment over its language, viewing it as a step backward after decades of improvement in ties between Jews and Catholics. Reforms in the 1960s led to the church dropping references to conversion of Jews in Good Friday prayers and WERE SEEN BY MANY JEWS AND CATHOLICS AS "AFFIRMING THAT GOD'S COVENANT WITH THE JEWISH PEOPLE HAS NEVER BEEN REVOKED," THE RABBIS SAID.

THE POPE HAD AGREED not to use the traditional Latin prayer because of its references to Jews' "blindness" over Christ and other language considered offensive. THE NEW PRAYER RELEASED LAST WEEK, HOWEVER, INCLUDED A REFERENCE ASKING GOD TO HELP JEWS "ACKNOWLEDGE JESUS CHRIST AS THE SAVIOR."

The range, named Lookin' Good for Jesus, was on sale at three Topshop outlets in the Asian city state. Catholics complained the cosmetics' marketing was disrespectful, full of sexual innuendo and trivialised Christianity. About 15% of Singapore's 4.4 million population is Christian.

The products included a "Virtuous vanilla" lip balm and a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream, featuring a picture of Christ flanked by two adoring women. "Why would anyone use religious figures to promote vanity products? It's very disrespectful and distasteful," the Straits Times newspaper quoted accountant Grace Ong, 24, as saying.

A spokesman for the Wing Tai company, which runs Topshop's outlets in Singapore, told the newspaper it did not want to offend its customers, and withdrew the products last month. It was not clear whether other shops were still selling the range, which is produced by the US-based company, Blue Q.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted, "Allah Akbar!" My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word "INFIDEL."

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13, I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends--killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London. WE WERE ARAB CHRISTIANS LIVING IN LEBANON.

As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves "WHY DO THEY HATE US?" The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. SIMPLY PUT, THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE ARE DEFINED IN THEIR EYES BY ONE SIMPLE WORD: "INFIDELS."

Under the banner of Islam "la, ilaha illa Allah, muhammad rasoulu Allah," (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.

TOLERATING EVIL IS A CRIME. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet APATHY is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.

AMERICA AND THE WEST ARE DOOMED TO FAILURE IN THIS WAR UNLESS THEY STAND UP AND IDENTIFY THE REAL ENEMY: ISLAM. You hear about Wahabbi and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper.

From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. AN ISLAM THAT IS AWAKENING FROM CENTURIES OF SLUMBER TO RE-IGNITE ITS WRATH AGAINST THE INFIDEL AND DOMINATE THE WORLD. AN ISLAM WHICH HAS DECLARED "INTIFADA" ON THE WEST.

If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, WE ARE GOING TO PAY A PRICE FOR OUR DELUSION. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, AMERICA'S LEARNING CURVE SINCE THE IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS IS SO SHALLOW THAT IT IS ALMOST FLAT. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.

Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject

Serbian President Boris Tadic has been pressing for international talks this week on the status of Kosovo, claiming the province's ethnic Albanian leadership is threatening to "illegally" declare independence Feb. 17.
Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has not confirmed the date, but Friday he proclaimed that, having received the backing of about 100 nations, Kosovo's split from Serbia is "a done deal."

Asked about the turmoil in the region, the apostolic nuncio to Serbia, Archbishop Eugenio Sbarbaro, told Vatican Radio, "We are in the middle of a very difficult situation and we don't know what will happen. The great majority are not happy and the possibilities are there that could result in another Middle East; I hope not, but the premises are there."

Serbia remains strongly opposed to the secession of the province, which it considers to be the cradle of its statehood and religion. According to a 2002 census, Serbia's population -- excluding Kosovo -- is 85% Serbian Orthodox, 5.5% Catholic and 3.2% Muslim. While in Kosovo the population is 90% Albanian Muslims, 6% are Serbian Orthodox Christians and 4% are Albanian Catholics, Serbian Orthodox maintain close ties to historically and culturally important Orthodox monasteries in the region.

Britain experienced some pretty bleak years in the last century, years you'd want to forget. 1940, when - on the brink of defeat - we stood alone against Hitler. Or 1926, the year of the General Strike. But it's difficult to imagine a year more ludicrous, or more damaging to the country, in the long term, than 1968.

A YEAR CHOCK FULL OF DELUDED TEENAGERS, of fatuous slogans, of bombs and sit-ins and bad music and worse films. A year when everything the country believed in was turned on its head by extremely ill-kempt people who perhaps went a long time between baths. And even longer between shaves. People we should, by rights, have entirely ignored, or just smiled at indulgently. A YEAR OF DRUGS, VIOLENCE, "FREE SEX" and the lionising of congenital idiots like the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, the German social theorist Jurgen Habermas and a multitude of self- styled freedom fighters wearing frankly embarrassing headgear.

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A YEAR WHEN THINGS FIRST STARTED TO GO BAD, WHEN THE LUNATICS AT LAST GOT THEIR GRUBBY PAWS ON THE CONTROLS OF THE ASYLUM, 1968 IS IT.

THE REMARKABLE THING IS THAT THE HALF-BAKED AND NARCISSISTIC IDEOLOGIES OF THAT DISMAL 12 MONTHS ARE STILL WITH US, in our schools, in our law courts, in our social services; they have permeated every facet of our lives. A DISRESPECT FOR AUTHORITY, CONTEMPT FOR THE FAMILY UNIT, MULTICULTURALISM, "YOOF CULCHA" AND AN EMPHASIS UPON RIGHTS RATHER THAN RESPONSIBILITIES.

A permissiveness and indulgence shown towards every anti-social phenomenon from the use of illegal narcotics to single mothers and suicide bombers ("We really need to understand them better") - all that stuff was forged in the rather tepid British spring and summer of 1968. And now, AS WE CELEBRATE THAT YEAR'S 40TH ANNIVERSARY, you can expect to see a parade of its noisome luminaries on your television screens - because 1968 is still a year dear to the hearts of many in the media and especially, I would reckon, the BBC.

In retrospect, it proved to be the first time anyone in power anywhere took the slightest notice of what teenagers had to say about anything - and BACK THEN IT SEEMED THAT TEENAGERS WERE ABOUT TO INHERIT THE WORLD. We are fighting to rid ourselves even now of most of the cultural nonsense imposed upon us by 1968 and those years immediately prior to it. THE BIZARRE EXCESSES OF MULTICULTURALISM, founded in a belief that the white establishment orthodoxy was an imperialistic construct, corrupt and useless, is only now being kicked into touch.

When the children are naughty they must never be struck; indeed they must hardly be gainsaid, still less chastised. Radical feminism - which in 1968 reached its apogee with the radical writer Valerie Solanas's shooting of the pop artist Andy Warhol - has won every battle it set out to fight. THAT WONDERFUL NEW SEXUAL LIBERATION HAS LEFT US WITH A COUNTRY FULL OF SINGLE MOTHERS ON BENEFIT, THE CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY, MILLIONS OF DIVORCEES AND SOME VERY RICH LAWYERS. The overthrowing of the art establishment has given us a Turner Prize winner in a bear suit and a soiled mattress or a stuffed shark sold for tens of thousands of pounds.

Similarly, firefighters are facing a torrent of abuse and mindless attacks from yobs as they attempt to save lives. In a "sad reflection of today's society" motorists refuse to stop for funeral processions and regularly cut up hearses.

The shocking reports from undertakers come as firemen reveal they regularly come under fire from yobs. Union chiefs are warning that firemen need more protection from violent thugs - with 40 crews a week facing serious attacks. Gangs of yobs are luring crews on to the streets with hoax calls or by setting fire to rubbish bins or cars.

The firemen are then surrounded and pelted with stones, bricks, bottles and even petrol bombs. There have also been stabbings, booby-trap explosions and crews shot with airguns, while verbal intimidation and abuse have become commonplace. Assaults leapt from 1,300 to 1,500 last year according to the Fire Brigades Union.

The boat had been captured in 2004 together with six Royal Marines and two sailors in the Shatt al Arab waterway that divides Iraq and Iran. To outrage in Britain, Tehran humiliated the servicemen by parading them blindfolded on TV and forcing two to read out apologies after alleging they had strayed into its territorial waters - claims categorically denied by Britain. Yesterday Iran sought to embarrass Britain once again, trundling the boat through the capital raised up on the back of a lorry.

Hundreds of thousands cheered as the boat, with messages extolling the glories of Iran's Revolutionary Guard tied to its side, passed by. The boat had once been part of the Navy's fast reaction combat patrols in the Shatt al Arab. It was one of three seized by the Iranians in 2004. Although the servicemen were released, the boats have never been returned to Britain.

Last March there was a similar incident in which 15 sailors and Marines were captured by Iranian troops, together with two boats, in the Gulf. Again, they were put on state TV before being released. Yesterday's parading of the boat through Tehran was part of celebrations to mark the 29th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran.