Three days after 150mph Cyclone Sidr flattened villages along the coast of Bangladesh, the Army and aid workers are still struggling to reach remote villages. The Bangladeshi Red Crescent Society has cautioned that the final toll could be far higher than the 3,113 deaths estimated by the Army last night. The Red Cross believes that 900,000 families - roughly seven million people - are affected by the devastation. Survivors on the isolated southern coast, where many areas were still out of reach for aid convoys, gave warning that they would soon die unless help came.

Abdul Zabbar, a 50-year-old teacher, said that the situation in the area - already one of the most impoverished places on Earth - was unbearable. "There is no food and drinking water," he said. "Bodies are still floating in the rivers and paddy fields." He added that the rice harvest - representing four months of food - had been washed away.

That makes the dire tone of the just-released final report from the fourth assessment of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a network of thousands of international scientists, all the more striking. Global warming is "unequivocal." Climate change will bring "abrupt and irreversible changes."

The report, a synthesis for politicians culled from three other IPCC panels convened throughout the year, read like what it is: a final warning to humanity. "Today the world's scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who attended the publication of the report in Valencia, Spain. Climate change "is the defining challenge of our age."

As if the potential consequences of climate change weren't scary enough, the IPCC emphasized just how little time we have left to try to change the future. The panel reported that the world would have to reverse the rapid growth of greenhouse gases by 2015 to avert the worst consequences. The clock was running. "What we will do in the next two, three years will determine our future," said Pachauri. "This is the defining challenge."

Is the world headed for a food crisis? INDIA, MEXICO and YEMEN have seen food riots this year. ARGENTINES boycotted tomatoes during the country's recent presidential elections when the vegetable became more expensive than meat; and in ITALY, shoppers organized a one-day boycott of pasta to protest rising prices. In late October, the RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT, hoping to ease tensions ahead of parliamentary elections early next year, announced a price freeze for milk, bread and other foods through the end of January.

What's more, WORLDWIDE FOOD RESERVES ARE AT THEIR LOWEST IN 35 YEARS, so prices are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future. SUPPLY AND DEMAND HAVE BECOME UNBALANCED, AND CAN'T BE FIXED QUICKLY. On the demand side, ONE OF THE KEY ISSUES IS BIOFUELS. Biofuels, made from food crops such as corn, sugar cane, and palm oil, are seen as easing the world's dependence on gasoline or diesel. WITH ONE-QUARTER OF THE U.S. CORN HARVEST IN 2007 DIVERTED TOWARDS BIOFUEL PRODUCTION, the attendant rise in cereal prices has already had an impact on the cost and availability of food.

Critics worry that the gold rush towards biofuels is taking away food from the hungry. Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on The Right to Food, recently described it as a "CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY" to convert food crops to fuel, calling for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production.

The hardline Iranian leader's comments also highlighted the growing challenge that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, faces from Iran and its ally Venezuela within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. "They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," Ahmadinejad told reporters after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. "All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency," Ahmadinejad said. "Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar?to form the basis of our oil trade."

Both Iran and Venezuela have antagonistic relationships with the U.S., suggesting their proposals may have a political motivation as well. While Tehran has been in a standoff with Washington over its nuclear program, left-wing Chavez is a bitter antagonist of Bush. During Chavez's opening address to the summit on Saturday, the Venezuelan leader said OPEC should "assert itself as an active political agent." But Abdullah appeared to distance himself from Chavez's comments, saying OPEC always acted moderately and wisely.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister even warned that even talking publicly about the currency's decline could further hurt its value. But by Sunday, it appeared that Saudi Arabia had compromised. Though the final declaration delivered Sunday did not specifically mention concern over the weak dollar, the organization directed its finance ministers to study the issue. OPEC will "study ways and means of enhancing financial cooperation among OPEC - including proposals by some of the heads of state and governments in their statements to the summit," OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri said, reading the statement.

Iran's oil minister went a step further and said OPEC will form a committee to study the dollar's affect on oil prices and investigate the possibility of a currency basket.

Dire "global warming" predictions are based on bad science from the very start, says a veteran meteorologist who found surface temperatures recorded throughout the U.S. are done so with almost no regard to scientific standards. As a result of his shocking initial findings that temperature monitoring stations were constructed and placed without regard to achieving accurate recordings of natural temperatures, Anthony Watts set out to investigate the facilities used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

What he found were temperature stations with sensors on the roofs of buildings, near air-conditioning exhaust vents, in parking lots near hot automobiles, barbecues, chimneys and on pavement and concrete surfaces - all of which would lead to higher temperature recordings than properly established conditions.

To qualify as a properly maintained temperature station, sensors must be placed in elevated, slatted boxes on flat ground surrounded by a clear surface on a slope of less than 19 degrees with surrounding grass and vegetations ground cover of less than 10 centimeters high. The sensors must be located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces and parking lots.

After surveying a few randomly chosen temperature stations and being shocked at the shortcomings, he set forth on a plan to survey all 1,221 stations, taking photographs along the way. With the help of volunteers, Watts has systematically surveyed one-third of the official weather stations.

The vast majority of the stations surveyed to date fail to meet the prescribed standards. Using a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 reflecting proper maintenance and standards and 5 representing facilities that are severely compromised, Watts says 70 percent of those stations surveyed received a 4 or 5 rating, while only 4 percent received a grade of 1.

All of the most egregious violations he has observed in the study would result in artificially higher temperatures being recorded.

MPs and peers from all parties, backed by both Anglican and Catholic church leaders, will ambush legislation intended to let lesbian couples become parents to test-tube babies without any involvement of a father beyond donating sperm. The new law would remove the existing requirement on test-tube clinics to ensure that a father is involved in the upbringing of any child they help create.

This current rule, say campaigners, amounts to legal recognition that every child has the right to have a father - and its removal is of huge symbolic importance. The alliance of church leaders and Tories - augmented by some Labour rebels - will oppose the new law when it comes up before the House of Lords tomorrow. Their campaign is being backed by MPs from all parties, led by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday today, Mr Duncan Smith, who has undertaken pioneering research into the critical role that fathers play in keeping youngsters out of trouble, says the proposed new law is "another nail in the coffin of the traditional family and another blow against fatherhood".

He adds: "Just as we are beginning to appreciate the vital role fathers play in the successful upbringing of children, Labour Ministers are sending out the utterly wrong signal fathers don't matter." Mr Duncan Smith and his allies say the measure is in line with covert moves by the Government to undermine traditional families by removing terms such as "marriage, father, mother, husband, wife and spouse" from the statute book - and even from official forms.

In fact, in a study over 13 months in the entire British Isles, only one otherwise healthy child was found to have died following chickenpox and 'possibly due' to it.

That's one child out of ten million. What's more, vaccines wear off - which means that people who don't get the disease in childhood are more likely to get it as adults, when it is much more serious. The vaccination may also make shingles more common - because adults gain extra immunity against shingles through contact with children who have chickenpox.

For a start, I won't be able to leave Britain after June 2018, when my passport expires, because I refuse to go on the Identity Register and so will be denied a new passport after that date. But the steel door will swing shut well before then if Gordon Brown gets his way, and if the British do not rediscover their courage. Spied on, interrogated, searched, forced to disrobe and grovel by officious oafs so that we can travel abroad, we meekly submit to our own enslavement.

Resist, and they can lock you up without charge for weeks, much as in Burma or the other countries we pretend to disapprove of. 'Gordon Brown is the most effective supporter of terrorism in the free world. He does exactly what Osama bin Laden and the rest of them want him to do'. IF WE REALLY WERE FIGHTING A WAR, WE WOULD BE FIGHTING IT FOR OUR LIBERTY.

YET THIS 'WAR' INVOLVES ABOLISHING THE FREEDOMS IT HAS TAKEN A THOUSAND YEARS OF PATIENT, HEROIC STRUGGLE TO CREATE AND DEFEND. Our Prime Minister responds to the piffling outrages of these psychopaths (bad drivers kill and maim far more people every year than Islamist terrorists have ever murdered) by encouraging national panic.

He then uses that panic to bring in repressive laws that would have made Mussolini blush. They have the powers, in the terrifying Civil Contingencies Act and various other laws our pathetic Parliament has passed, to turn this country into an iron-bound dictatorship.

And I think they want to use them.

The Topps Meat Company, a 67-year-old New Jersey firm, closed its doors Oct. 5, sending 87 employees to the unemployment line, because 21.7 million pounds of its product contained E. coli 0157:H7. This strain "produces a powerful toxin and can cause severe illness, kidney failure and even death," according to the USDA. Every package of this contaminated meat contained a USDA inspection seal. Why did the USDA inspection fail to discover this contamination before it was shipped to stores across the nation?

On Nov. 3, Cargill Meat Solutions voluntarily recalled more than a million pounds of beef. Every package of the meat contained a USDA inspection seal. Why did the USDA inspection fail to discover this contamination before it was shipped to stores across the nation? Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the USDA, said that some processing operations are inspected every 15 minutes, while others may be inspected once a month. Typically, there is at least one inspector on every shift. Obviously, this inspection procedure is inadequate.

E. coli is a bacterium that lives in the intestines of animals. It can contaminate meat if the intestines are ruptured during processing. When contaminated meat is mixed with non-contaminated meat, as in the production of ground beef, the entire production run is contaminated.

Hotel chains are removing Bibles from guest rooms, replacing them with "intimacy kits" and adding "One Night Stand" packages as well as "romance concierge" personnel to their offerings, according to a new report in Newsweek.

"Marriott spokesman John Wolf says the Bible question is premature for the new venture, which he describes as 'cutting-edge,' 'more urban' and 'less values-oriented.' Now, there's a marketing slogan no one's tried yet: 'Sleep with us. Leave the values at home!'" Wolverson wrote.

Wolverson reported the American Hotel and Lodging Association confirms since 2001 the number of luxury hotels with religious materials in their rooms has dropped by 18 percent. "The new Indigo hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., a 'branded boutique' launched by InterContinental, also has no Bibles," the report said. Officials at that hotel, however, did offer a promotion on a "One Night Stand" package.

"Our 'One Night Stand' summer packages provide a cost effective way to enjoy our lower rates and remain in the heart of the active art, shopping, dining and nightlife venues of Old Town Scottsdale," said Laura Godfrey, sales manager for the hotel. "With this package, you'll feel good about the decision you made to stay in the area and stay the night." That package includes a "late check-out time" of 1 p.m.

Prof Ian Wilmut's decision to turn his back on "therapeutic cloning", just days after US researchers announced a breakthrough in the cloning of primates, will send shockwaves through the scientific establishment. He and his team made headlines around the world in 1997 when they unveiled Dolly, born July of the year before. But now he has decided not to pursue a licence to clone human embryos, which he was awarded just two years ago, as part of a drive to find new treatments for the devastating degenerative condition, Motor Neuron disease.

Prof Wilmut, who works at Edinburgh University, believes a rival method pioneered in Japan has better potential for making human embryonic cells which can be used to grow a patient's own cells and tissues for a vast range of treatments, from treating strokes to heart attacks and Parkinson's, and will be less controversial than the Dolly method, known as "nuclear transfer."

His announcement could mark the beginning of the end for therapeutic cloning, on which tens of millions of pounds have been spent worldwide over the past decade. "I decided a few weeks ago not to pursue nuclear transfer," Prof Wilmut said. Most of his motivation is practical but he admits the Japanese approach is also "easier to accept socially."

But with the future of that country's leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan's reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.

In recent days, American officials have expressed confidence that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is well secured. "I don't see any indication right now that security of those weapons is in jeopardy, but clearly we are very watchful, as we should be," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference on Thursday. "I AM CONFIDENT OF TWO THINGS," HE ADDED. "THAT THE PAKISTANIS ARE VERY SERIOUS ABOUT SECURING THIS MATERIAL, BUT ALSO THAT SOMEONE IN PAKISTAN IS VERY INTENT ON GETTING THEIR HANDS ON IT."

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, he said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had failed to demonstrate that God is "welcoming". He also repeated accusations that the Church was "obsessed" with the issue of gay priests. He said it should rather be focusing on global problems such as Aids.

"Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict," said Archbishop Tutu, 76. "God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality."

Archbishop Tutu referred to the debate about whether Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, could serve as the bishop of New Hampshire. He said the Anglican Church had seemed "extraordinarily homophobic" in its handling of the issue, and that he had felt "saddened" and "ashamed" of his church at the time. Asked if he still felt ashamed, he said: "If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes.

"IF GOD, AS THEY SAY, IS HOMOPHOBIC, I WOULDN'T WORSHIP THAT GOD."

And that's the problem: Geology experts agree that Israel is long overdue for the next "Big One," and it can happen at any time. This poses a significant threat to population centers in the country, since many buildings in Israel were erected prior to the formulation of earthquake-resistant construction codes. There is also substantial doubt that the codes are being strictly enforced. With the barrage of immediate threats competing for Israelis' attention - whether terrorism, car accidents, global warming or secondhand smoke - a major earthquake may seem like an improbable, even paranoid fear.

While predicting the time of the next earthquake is nearly impossible, says Dr. Amos Salamon of the Israel Geological Survey, "We know one thing - we are sure there will be an earthquake in Israel." This is because Israel is situated on two significant fault lines: the Dead Sea Fault and the Carmel Fault. To understand which parts of the country would be most vulnerable to a major earthquake, geologists must base their knowledge on previous events - and in this case, modern technology is of surprisingly little help.

For that reason, Marco has made it his mission to build a timeline of Israel's earthquakes by delving into history and archeology, in addition to geology. On the historical side, Marco has studied hundreds of ancient documents that contain references to earthquakes, in translations from the original Greek, Latin and Arabic. The originals of some of these documents are assumed to reside in the Vatican vaults. Even the Bible offers clues, as earthquakes are sometimes mentioned as markers of time, Marco explains. For example, prophets are often said to have become active a certain number of years "after the earthquake."

With the aid of these documents, Marco has helped determine that a series of devastating earthquakes hit Israel in the past two thousand years. The major ones were recorded in the Jordan Valley in the years 31 BCE, 363 CE, 749 CE and 1033 CE, "so roughly," says Marco, "we are talking about an interval of every 400 years. If we follow the patterns of nature, a major quake should be expected any time because almost a whole millennium has passed since the last strong earthquake."

Prince Saud Al-Faisal was overheard ruling out a proposal from Iran and Venezuela to discuss pricing crude in a private meeting at the oil cartel's conference.

In an embarrassing blunder at the meeting in Riyadh, MINISTERS' MICROPHONES WERE NOT CUT OFF during a key closed meeting, and Prince Al-Faisal was heard saying: "My feeling is that the mere mention that the Opec countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an impact that endangers the interests of the countries. There will be journalists who will seize on this point and WE DON'T WANT THE DOLLAR TO COLLAPSE INSTEAD OF DOING SOMETHING GOOD FOR OPEC."

Prince Al-Faisal added: "This is not new. We have done this in the past: decide to study something without putting down on paper that we are going to study it so that we avoid any implication that will bring adverse effects on our countries' finances."

AFTER AROUND 40 MINUTES PRESS OFFICIALS CUT OFF THE FEED, WHICH HAD BEEN ACCIDENTALLY BROADCAST TO THE PRESS ROOM.

Iran and Venezuela have argued that the meeting's final communique should voice concern about the level of the dollar, which has recently fallen to new record lows against the euro. THEY ARE PUSHING FOR OIL TO BE DENOMINATED AGAINST A BASKET OF CURRENCIES.

The dollar also weakened slightly against the pound, although sterling's own recent weakness has pushed it down from $2.10 to $2.0457 during the week.

Nigerian finance minister Shamsuddeen Usman said that OPEC could declare in the communique that: "While underlining our concern for the continued depreciation of the dollar and its adverse impact on our revenues, we instruct our finance ministers to study the issue exhaustively and advise us on ways to safeguard the purchasing power of our revenues, of our members' revenues."