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.

Having in principle backed plans for mosque leaders to make the loudspeaker call, the Rt Rev John Pritchard said the "dark underbelly of British society" made a number of threats against his life. He said: "I received extraordinary mail. One said, 'resign' six times in a large font. One called for me to be beheaded and another said: 'I wish I lived closer so I could spit on you.' The dark underbelly of British society was coming out."

A spokesman for the representatives from Oxford's Central Mosque have repeatedly stated their wish to be able to play the muezzin's (caller's) traditional message to the Muslim faithful from speakers on a minaret.
Dozens of residents near the mosque, in Manzil Way, have urged the council to reject the plan, claiming it will turn the area into a "Muslim ghetto".

Children there learn key phrases in more than 40 languages - all spoken fluently by one or more pupils at the school. By the time they leave for secondary school, they boast far more than a mere smattering of French or Cantonese.

They can say something in everything from Afrikaans to Hebrew, Japanese to Norwegian. Teachers say Newbury Park's "language of the month" programme has also helped tackle the sense of alienation felt by newcomers to the school in Redbridge, East London. In little more than a decade, the proportion of pupils at the school who do not speak English at home has doubled to 80 per cent.

From 2010, the Government wants every primary school to ensure pupils start learning a language from the age of seven.

Analysts say traders are investing in commodities to protect themselves against the falling dollar. Another factor pushing up prices is last week's decision by producers' cartel Opec to keep output unchanged, despite rising demand in China. The dollar has been reaching new lows against the euro and other key currencies since last summer, and was hit again on Friday by a US employment report showing the labour market at its weakest in five years.

This has prompted traders to seek refuge in commodities, including oil and gold, which are more likely to sustain their value than the greenback. The high oil price is making petrol and energy costs more expensive around the world, putting financial pressure on businesses and household budgets.

"Those calling for the expulsion of Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem are hysterical and stupid and belong in the trash can," Salah said at the conference. He went on to deny any Israeli or Jewish historical claim to the city, denying that there ever existed a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount. "The claims of the Jews are big lies and they have no right to any speck of dust here," he said.

Israel, he claimed, was carrying out extensive digs under al-Aqsa mosque, and was hiding destructive tunnels under the compound which had already caused damage to the mosque and several houses in the Muslim Quarter.

In January, Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz filed an indictment against Salah, charging him with incitement to violence and racism in a speech he made last year protesting the archeological dig carried out at the Old City's Mughrabi Gate. During his sermon in Jerusalem's Wadi Joz neighborhood on February 16 of last year, Salah urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to "save al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the occupation."

Annual food product inflation has now reached 8.4 per cent - the highest since records began in 1986 - according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Rising meat prices were the main culprit behind soaring costs as fresh and preserved meat costs increased 5.5 per cent between January and February. Food manufacturers such as Hovis bread maker Premier Foods have also been labouring under soaring wheat costs. Today's figures showed imported cereal product prices up more than 6 per cent over the month and surging by almost 47 per cent in the year to February.

Manufacturing firms' raw materials prices also rose at record rates after fresh peaks in crude oil costs, which rose 3.3 per cent over the month, as well as higher metal prices. Overall factory gate inflation was sustained at 16-year highs of 5.7 per cent, continuing the headache for policymakers on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) charged with keeping a lid on prices. Global Insight's chief UK economist Howard Archer said: "The weaker pound reinforced the upward pressures coming from high oil, metal and food prices. This further jump in input prices maintains pressure on manufacturers to try to raise their prices to support their margins."

- Thousands of homes without electricity as power lines come down
- Port of Dover closed for hours due to churning seas
- 106 flights cancelled and trains disrupted
- 'Mindless' youths blasted for playing chicken with perilous waves
- Scores of residents in Wales evacuated.

But forecasters say conditions would worsen again this evening as the second bout of the massive storm dubbed Johanna hit the UK. The Bristol Channel, Severn Estuary and Somerset coast are now deemed most at risk of flooding but by tomorrow, forecasters predict almost the whole of England will be battered once again by gales of up to 80mph.

In the north, lorries were forced to shelter at the side of the Trans-Pennine route to avoid being toppled by the gusts. Snow ploughs were out to keep the road open, as blizzards swept across it. The Government's emergency committee, Cobra, met in Whitehall yesterday to discuss how to handle the effects of the storm and Gordon Brown is being kept updated with developments.

In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book. Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion - or more - by 2017. Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

The two economists say their calculations are conservative, because they don't encompass many "hidden" items in the U.S. budget. Their basic projections also exclude the potentially huge debt-service cost - on which CBO approximately agrees - and the cost to the U.S. economy of global oil prices that have quadrupled since 2003, an increase analysts blame partly on the Iraq upheaval. Estimating all economic and social costs might push the U.S. war bill up toward $5 trillion by 2017, they say.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils. Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics. "Within bioethics there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning. Girotti, in an interview headlined "New Forms of Social Sin," also listed "ecological" offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race. Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green".

The dollar's drop has fuelled speculation about the potential for yen-selling intervention by Japanese authorities, who have a long history of aggressively fighting currency strength to shield Japanese exporters from any damage. As the dollar falls below levels where the Bank of Japan has intervened in years past, analysts are becoming more convinced that Japan is unlikely to stand in the way even if the dollar were to slide below the psychologically key 100 yen for the first time in more than 12 years.

Japan would have a hard time justifying currency intervention at a time when the Group of Seven nations have been calling on China to allow greater exchange rate flexibility. Japan's economy has pulled out of its decade-long bout of economic stagnation and deflation, which served as part of the justification for the massive intervention in 2003 and 2004 when the Ministry of Finance spent 35 trillion yen ($342 billion) in just 15 months, mostly buying dollars.

At the same time, the yen's surge has come as the dollar has suffered a broad-based slide to record lows against a basket of major currencies. Against other currencies, the yen has not strengthened so much. "I think there is virtually no possibility of intervention," said Tohru Sasaki, chief foreign exchange strategist for JP Morgan Chase Bank in Tokyo.

Asif Ali Zardari, who became head of the PPP after Bhutto's assassination in December, signed an agreement on Sunday with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to form a coalition government. The pact sets the scene for confrontation with U.S. ally Musharraf, particularly as Zardari and Sharif promised to reinstate judges Musharraf dismissed in November while still army chief (just as they were expected to rule his October re-election by legislators unconstitutional).

The two leaders also agreed that the PPP should nominate a candidate for prime minister as it won the most seats in elections on February 18, though not enough to rule alone. Sharif's party came second while the main pro-Musharraf party came a poor third. Consultations would continue over the next few days and Zardari would announce the candidate after Musharraf convened the first session of the new National Assembly, she said.

Musharraf said last week it would be a week or more before the National Assembly was convened but Sharif and Zardari said on Sunday the session should be called immediately.

The Commons defence committee said operational costs for this financial year were now forecast to reach £3.297bn - a 94% increase on last year. This included a 72% rise in spending on Iraq to £1.648bn, despite ongoing falls in troop numbers. Last year's total spending on the two conflicts was £1.698bn.

Overall, the MoD has said it needs an additional £2.192 billion for the current financial year compared with its previous estimate made at the end of 2007. The committee said it was concerned that the forecasts were "insufficiently robust". Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth told the BBC: "The numbers of personnel [in Iraq] have declined but they are still doing a vital and dangerous job and we have continued to invest in force protection."

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Nick Harvey said: "This clearly shows how the Iraq war is continuing to bleed our finances dry, leaving soldiers in Afghanistan overstretched and under-equipped."

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe. But the presence of so many prescription drugs - and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen - in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health. In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas - from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

How do the drugs get into the water? - People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue. While researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies - which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public - have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects," says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime. Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses. That's why - aside from therapeutic doses of fluoride injected into potable water supplies - pharmaceuticals are prescribed to people who need them, not delivered to everyone in their drinking water. "We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.