The New York Times said on Sunday the US government was considering expanding the authority of the CIA and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in Pakistan. The US officials considering the move were concerned over intelligence reports that al Qaeda and the Taliban were more intent on destabilizing Pakistan, the newspaper said. Pakistani government and military officials dismissed the report and said Pakistan would not permit any such action.

"Pakistan's position in the war on terror has been very clear -- that any action on Pakistani soil will be taken only by Pakistani forces and Pakistani security agencies," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq. "No other country will be allowed to carry out operations in Pakistan. This has been conveyed at the highest level," he said. Military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad rejected the report as baseless, saying no US military operations, overt or covert, were allowed.

But the process must be treated with care if it is to boost revenues, according to some of the UK's leading broadcast executives. Following an European Union directive on broadcasting issued last month, member states have been given the option of permitting product placement in most genres of commercial television, but not news, current affairs, sport and children's programming.

It will bring Europe in line with the US and allow broadcasters to enter a market with an estimated global value of £1.7bn and a growth rate reckoned at 30 per cent annually. The UK has not yet formally stated its position, but senior officials involved in the decision-making process have told the FT that it is unlikely the government will oppose product placement. It is set to become legal in the UK within the EU's two-year timeframe.

ITV, the UK's main commercial broadcaster, is keen for product placement to be introduced. Rupert Howell, its commercial chief, told the FT: "We see carefully regulated product placement as a legitimate revenue stream that has the added benefit of supporting the production of original UK content." But he also spoke of his concern that, in the wrong hands, product placement could be a double-edged sword. "An effective regulatory regime would guard against some of the excesses seen in the US and protect the interests of viewers," Mr Howell said.

But while industry, electricity and transportation all add to the greenhouse effect, there's another villain less well known: our forests. Or, rather, the lack of them. Forests, especially in the lush tropics, suck and store carbon, which is released when trees are cut down or burnt. At the current rate of destruction, deforestation is estimated to account for up to 20% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

The amount of carbon stored in tropical forests is staggering - Brazil alone has nearly 50 billion tons - and its loss would ensure dramatic climate change. Scientists estimate that without a change in business as usual, more than half of the Amazon forest would be logged by 2030, releasing 20.5 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

While there are already international carbon trading schemes that help rich countries pay for reductions in carbon emissions from power or industry in poorer nations, no such mechanism exists for avoided deforestation. That nations are not compensated for protecting their forests has been a huge gap in anti-climate change efforts, and one that has to be resolved if the world is ever to achieve the kind of large-scale reductions in carbon emissions needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

Parts of the country's most populous state, New South Wales, have been cut off by heavy rain and have been declared natural disaster zones. There are similar problems further north in Queensland, which has also been battered by wild conditions. The floods are easing now but officials have warned that many communities could be isolated for several days.

Thunderstorms since late last week have dumped huge amounts of rain on Australia's east coast. Many rivers have been unable to cope and their banks have burst. Roads have been turned into lakes and bridges have been washed away. Entire towns in northern New South Wales have been cut off, while rising flood waters have forced hundreds of residents to leave their homes. In some areas, food and other essential supplies for trapped residents have been brought in by helicopter.

"There are some 3,000 people who remain isolated by flood waters," New South Wales State Emergency Service spokesman Phil Campbell told the French news agency AFP. Some people in isolated areas could remain cut off for as long as a week, he said.

Organisers originally hoped to put the message on just a handful of London buses, as an antidote to posters put up by religious groups which they claimed were "threatening eternal damnation" to non-believers. But after the campaign received high-profile support from the prominent atheist Prof Richard Dawkins and the British Humanist Association, the modest £5,500 target was met within minutes and more than £140,000 has now been donated since the launch in October.

Enough money has now been raised to place the message – "THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE" – on 200 bendy buses in the capital for a month, with the first ones taking to the streets . A further 600 buses carrying the adverts will be seen by passengers and passers-by in cities across England, Wales and Scotland, from Aberdeen and Dundee to York, Coventry, Swansea and Bristol.

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said the adverts were "overwhelmingly positive" and were intended to reassure agnostics and atheists that there is nothing wrong with not believing in God.

The Council called on Jews to visit the Temple Mount on Tuesday morning, January 8, and to "pray for the cancellation of evil plans." Earlier this week, Minister for Internal Security Avi Dichter issued a ban on Jewish prayer at the site, calling it a "provocation" and saying individual prayers would "almost certainly lead to bloodshed."

Jewish groups have long been forbidden from conducting "inflammatory" public prayer services on the Temple Mount, but individual prayers have been permitted.

The warning comes a month before the British government begins its phase-out of tungsten bulbs, scheduled to be completed in 2011. The switchover to CFL bulbs will save at least five million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, the government said. Health experts warned this week that people with certain skin ailments will suffer from the new eco-friendly bulbs which cause conditions such as eczema to flare up. Additionally, the bulbs have been linked to migraine headaches in some people.

The Environment Agency's latest advice focuses on the 6 to 8 milligrams of toxic mercury in each bulb. Users who break a bulb should vacate the room for at least 15 minutes, the new guidelines say. The debris should not be removed with a vacuum cleaner, which could put toxic dust into the air, but with rubber gloves. The broken glass and all residue is to be placed into a sealed plastic bag and taken to a local official recycling site for proper disposal.

The calculations suggest that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can now hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a century of playing second fiddle to the Americans. It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year, compared with £23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength of the pound against the dollar but also the UK economy's record run of growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s.

In those days, according to Oxford Economics, Britain's GDP per capita was 34% below that in America, 33% less than in Germany and 26% lower than in France. Now, not only have average incomes crept above those in America but they are more than 8% above France (£21,700) and Germany (£21,665). "The past 15 years have seen a dramatic change in the UK's economic performance and its position in the world economy," said Adrian Cooper, managing director of Oxford Economics. "No longer are we the 'sick man of Europe'. Indeed, our calculations suggest that UK living standards are now a match for those of the US."

Although many people will be surprised by the figures, Americans have long complained that average incomes have been stagnant in their country. One often-quoted statistical comparison suggests that in real terms the median male full-time salary in America is no higher now than it was in the 1970s.

"The occupied territories are awaiting their first visit by the crusader Bush and the mujahideen are also waiting for him," said Gadahn, a California native and now an Al Qaeda spokesman. Gadahn is the star of the latest al Qaeda propaganda video to be posted online by the group's media wing, As Sahab. In his newest dramatic gesture, Gadahn tore up his U.S. passport in protest of the imprisonment of fellow al Qaeda followers Abu Zubaydah, John Walker Lindh and Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. "I don't need it to travel anyway," he said afterwards.

Jerusalemites are accustomed to waiting in traffic jams as convoys of black sedans shuttle visiting dignitaries around the city, the seat of Israel's government. But Bush, who arrives for three days beginning Wednesday, constitutes a VIP of a different order. Israel is pulling out all the stops to impress a man who is perhaps its staunchest foreign ally in his first visit as U.S. president.

Jerusalem is spending nearly $400,000 to spruce itself up for the visit, said Jacob Avishar, the city official in charge of coordinating preparations. Garbage teams are in a furious race to clean the city's often dusty streets and walls tagged with spray paint, he said. More than 10,500 policemen and security personnel will be deployed to protect Bush and keep order during the visit - more than one-third of Israel's entire police force, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. "There will be so much security nobody will be able to get anywhere near the president," Rosenfeld said.

The security personnel will include snipers, bomb-sniffing dogs and bodyguards from the Shin Bet internal security service, including reservists called up especially for the visit, according to police officials. The operation, dubbed "Clear Skies," will cost Israel $25,000 for every hour Bush is in the country, Israel Radio reported.

The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said non-Muslims may find it difficult to live or work in some places. He said there was "hostility" in those areas and described the government's multicultural policies as divisive. Muslims and some politicians have accused the bishop of scaremongering. But other politicians agreed with the bishop, saying he had highlighted a real problem.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Dr Nazir-Ali said there had been a worldwide resurgence of Islamic extremism, leading to young people growing up alienated from the country they lived in. It had also turned "already separate communities into 'no-go' areas". He said there had been attempts to "impose an 'Islamic' character on certain areas", for example, by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques. The Muslim Council of Britain said the mosque call was no different from church bells ringing.

Well, sort of. Pope Benedict XVI is alive and well and attending to his mission as absolute ruler of the Roman Catholic Church for the foreseeable future. But just down the block from St. Peter's Square, church elders - though not all so old, and without a Cardinal among them - have begun gathering for a closed-door meeting to elect the man dubbed the "black pope." That's the moniker historically assigned to the leader of the Jesuit order: for the color of the simple priestly vestments he keeps on wearing, for his lifetime posting, and for the planetary influence he carries.

The Jesuits' outgoing Superior General is a soft-spoken Netherlands native named Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, who has served since 1983. The 79-year-old last year became the first ever Jesuit leader to ask for, and receive, papal permission to retire from the post. White-haired and goateed, Kolvenbach has kept a low public profile during his quarter-century reign, but is widely praised for his skills in reestablishing good ties with the Holy See after the run-ins with top Vatican officials of his predecessor, a charismatic Basque-born progressive named Pedro Arrupe.

Though more recently established, more traditionalist movements and religious orders such as Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ have gotten more attention of late, the Jesuits are still far and away the largest clerical order in the Church. Though there is no set date for the election, which requires a three-fourths majority of delegates, Jesuit sources say by mid-January there should be a new Superior General.

The order was founded with a special mission to directly serve the Pontiff, and has been dubbed the "Pope's cavalry," engendering suspicion in the past of conspiracies and secret powers. Even Popes, including John Paul II, have criticized them for their apparent autonomy. "Yes, we are in the vanguard of the Church," says Jose de Vera, head spokesman for the order. "It is not our job to just repeat the catechism, but to do research. Sometimes looking for real truth, you can step over the line." Just last year, the Vatican's doctrinal office issued a "Notification" to Spanish Jesuit scholar Jon Sobrino, a proponent of Marxist-inspired liberation theology, for what they called "erroneous ... and even dangerous" writings.

India's tourism minister said Thursday that the dollar will no longer be accepted at the Taj Mahal and other national tourist sites. For years tourists visiting most sites in India were charged either $5, or 250 rupees. After falling 11 percent in 2007, hitting nine-year lows to hover around 39 rupees, the dollar is out.

Charging only rupees now seems more practical and will save tourists money because "the dollar was weaker against the rupee," Tourism Minister Ambika Soni told the CNN-IBN news channel. "Before the dollar lost its value, there was a demand to have (admission tickets) just in rupees," he added. The Taj Mahal, India's famed white marble monument to love, began refusing dollars in November.

It means just one more place where American tourists will have to shell out more money - now nearly $20. And it's likely to get worse in booming India. The dollar hit record lows of $1.4967 against the euro on Nov. 23, the weakest since that currency began trading in 1999, and was down against almost every major currency Thursday.

The Federal Reserve announced Friday that it is increasing the amount of money available to banks through the new auction process it created to ease the nation's severe credit squeeze. The Fed again pledged to continue the auctions "for as long as necessary." The Fed said that it will increase the amount offered at each of the next two auctions from $20 billion to $30 billion, a 50 percent jump. Those two auctions will be Jan. 14 and Jan. 28.

The Fed announcement indicated that the auction process it began last month has been successful in providing a source of loans for cash-strapped banks. The first two auctions offered $20 billion each and attracted bids for about three times that amount.

In excerpts of an interview with Channel 2 aired on Saturday night, Bush said that if he was an Israeli citizen, he would take Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threats seriously, and as the US president, he too takes them very seriously. Bush reiterated that an Iranian attack on Israel would lead to "World War III." He said that the US was always considering a military option to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue since the most effective diplomacy is conducted when all the options are on the table.