Now the town, which lies on south-west fringes of Sydney, is confronting a very 21st Century issue: the proposal to construct AN ISLAMIC SCHOOL FOR SOME 1,200 MUSLIM PUPILS. Behind the proposal is the Sydney-based Quranic Society, which has purchased 15 acres of land on the fringes of town, and produced detailed plans and designs. Back in November, more than 1,000 local people took part in a public meeting. MANY PARTICIPANTS EXPRESSED THEMSELVES WITH LITTLE REGARD FOR POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

"This has to be one of the nicest places in New South Wales," said one woman, who has lived in Camden for the past nine years. "Everywhere is being destroyed. WHY DON'T WE TELL THE TRUTH. THEY'RE WRECKING AUSTRALIA. THEY'RE TAKING US OVER," she said. "Why hasn't anyone got any guts? They've got terrorists amongst them. They want to be here so they can go and hide in all the farm houses. This town has every nationality - but Muslims do not fit in this town. We are Aussies, OK." Some of the loudest cheers of the night greeted a speech from a local man in his late 70s. "Can I just say this without being racist or political?" he said. "In 1983, in the streets of London a parade by Muslims chanted incessantly 'IF WE CAN TAKE LONDON, WE CAN TAKE THE WORLD'. Don't let them take Camden."

Camden does not harbour a large Muslim community - census figures suggest about 150 families. Most of the pupils at the proposed school would therefore be bussed in from Sydney, a journey that takes about an hour each way.

Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times. "THEY'RE EXPLOSIONS CAUSED BY METEOROIDS HITTING THE MOON," explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope."

"We started our monitoring program in late 2005 after NASA announced plans to return astronauts to the Moon," says team leader Rob Suggs of the MSFC. If people were going to be walking around up there, "it seemed like a good idea to measure how often the Moon was getting hit."

"Almost immediately, we detected a flash." These explosions don't require oxygen or combustion. METEOROIDS HIT THE MOON WITH TREMENDOUS KINETIC ENERGY, TRAVELING 30,000 MPH OR FASTER. "At that speed, even a pebble can blast a crater several feet wide. The impact heats up rocks and soil on the lunar surface hot enough to glow like molten lava - hence the flash."

Under the SCHEME PEOPLE WOULD BE GIVEN AN ANNUAL CARBON LIMIT FOR FUEL AND ENERGY USE - which they could exceed by buying credits from those who use less. The MPs admitted THE PUBLIC WERE LIKELY TO BE OPPOSED TO THE MOVE, but urged the government to be "courageous".

Committee chairman Tim Yeo said it found that personal carbon trading had "real potential to engage the population in the fight against climate change and to achieve significant emissions reductions in a progressive way. The idea is a radical one. As such it inevitably faces some significant challenges in its development. It is important to meet these challenges," he said.

Meanwhile - a new computer model developed by German researchers suggests that THE EARTH'S TEMPERATURE MAY STAY ROUGHLY THE SAME FOR A DECADE, AS NATURAL CLIMATE CYCLES ENTER A COOLING PHASE, SCIENTISTS HAVE PREDICTED.

Dr Bob Ballard, an oceanographer, has admitted that he had to locate and inspect the remains of the vessels, which sank during the 1960s, in A TOP SECRET MISSION FOR THE US NAVY BEFORE HE WAS ALLOWED TO LOOK FOR THE TITANIC. He said: "I couldn't tell anybody. There was a lot of pressure on me. It was a secret mission. I felt it was a fair exchange for getting a chance to look for the Titanic." He added: "We handed the data to the experts. They never told us what they concluded - our job was to collect the data. I can only talk about it now because it has been declassified."

In 1982, Dr Ballard approached the US Navy for funding to search for the Titanic with a robotic submarine craft he had developed. He was told that the military were not prepared to spend large sums of money on locating the liner, but they did want to know what had happened to the submarines. OFFICIALS WERE ANXIOUS TO FIND OUT HOW THE NUCLEAR REACTORS HAD FARED AFTER BEING UNDER WATER FOR SO LONG.

The oceanographer was given funding to embark on two expeditions, ONE TO FIND THE WRECK OF THRESHER IN 1984 OFF THE EASTERN COAST OF THE US, AND ANOTHER TO FIND SCORPION IN THE EASTERN ATLANTIC. It was only once these missions were complete that Dr Ballard located the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, which sank in 1912 after it hit an iceberg with the loss of 1,500 lives.

At a weekend congress in the eastern city of Cottbus, Lafontaine whipped up Left party delegates with attacks on market capitalism and basked in the glow of media reports that have dubbed him Germany's "secret chancellor". "We are being hailed as the most successful new party in decades and they say WE ARE SETTING THE POLITICAL AGENDA IN GERMANY," a beaming Lafontaine told some 600 "Linke" supporters gathered for the party's first national convention.

Now they are being credited with sparking the SPD and Merkel's left-right coalition into action on issues ranging from the minimum wage to unemployment benefits and lawmaker salaries. "Lafontaine is the one shaping the debate on social issues in Germany right now," said Wolfgang Nowak, head of the Alfred Herrhausen Society, a Deutsche Bank think tank. "HE IS EFFECTIVELY DEFINING POLICY FOR THE SPD."

In a nod to recent turbulence in financial markets, he unveiled a 12-point action plan to counter what he called the "perversity" of market-driven capitalism, including a ban on hedge funds and stock options. "We are having a huge influence," said Kathrin Vogler, a 44- year-old delegate from North Rhine-Westphalia who was an SPD member for 18 years before bolting for the Left. "We raise these issues and the coalition in Berlin shakes."

They may not think of themselves as agents of globalization, but an adventurous cluster of American farmers living in or near this booming town are evidence that some in the United States would rather join in the big opportunities flowing from Brazil's rapid rise as a global agricultural power than rail against it.

This north eastern Brazil town of 50,000 - known by the initials LEM - is growing at the fastest clip in the entire country. Though small in number, the AMERICAN FARMERS HERE ARE A WELL-KNOWN PRESENCE, AND THEY SEEM TO BE MOSTLY WELCOMED AS LANDOWNERS WHO EMPLOY LOCALS AND BRING COMMERCE TO THE AREA. "Absolutely," is how LEM's energetic mayor, Oziel Oliveira, responded when asked if more Americans would be welcome. "They're turning into Brazilians," he said.

A decade ago, this was a small, dusty, ramshackle frontier spot; now, it is full of noisy, soybean-laden trucks heading into or out of a vast bean-crushing plant owned by U.S.-based food giant Bunge, among others. The town is laid out in a large grid of dozens of streets yet to be paved, in the expectation that many more thousands will arrive for the agricultural jobs in the surrounding farm fields.

The Americans here come mostly from the Midwest. They say they grabbed an opportunity to manage big spreads WHERE LAND IS AFFORDABLE AND THE CLIMATE YIELDS TWO CROPS A YEAR. Both factors contrast with what they found back in the Midwest. "For somebody young, it would have been difficult to start farming [back home]," says Tyler Bruch, a 28-year-old farmer from northwest Iowa. "It's a new frontier."

U.S. crude oil hit an all-time peak on Thursday, climbing to $135.09, lifted by concern about long-term supply and a host of predictions of further rises from influential investment banks and investors. "WHAT WE SAY AND WHAT WE SEE IS THERE ARE NO PHYSICAL SHORTAGES," Shell's Jeroen van der Veer told Reuters television. He runs the world's second-largest fully publicly traded oil firm by market value.

"There are no tankers waiting in the Middle East, there are no cars waiting at gasoline stations because they are out of stock. THIS HAS TO DO WITH PSYCHOLOGY IN THE MARKETS AND YOU CANNOT FORECAST PSYCHOLOGY". His view that there are no shortages chimes with that of other oil producers, such as members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Others, such as the U.S. government, say supply is tight.

He notes that arguments such as the Treaty is "improving the situation" or giving Ireland "a bigger say in a better organisational structure" are not as grabbing as "we're going to get a whole lot of money through the Common Agricultural Policy or we're going to get a whole lot of money from structural funds."

From an Irish perspective, he says he would have preferred all European countries to hold a referendum on the Treaty to take off the "pressure" from Irish voters. He admits that the Lisbon Treaty was hard to comprehend, ADDING THAT HE HIMSELF HAS NOT READ IT IN ITS ENTIRETY. "I have a document that puts together what it would look like and I have read most of that," he says, adding "I would predict that THERE WON'T BE 250 PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE OF THE 4.2 MILLION POPULATION OF IRELAND THAT HAVE READ THE TREATIES COVER-TO-COVER. I further predict that there is NOT 10 PERCENT OF THAT 250 THAT WILL UNDERSTAND EVERY SECTION AND SUBSECTION."

British Liberal Democrat MEP Diana Wallis complained that the PROPOSALS WERE SCRAPPED BY SENIOR MEPS IN A CLOSED-DOOR MEETING WITHOUT WARNING. Parliamentary sources said that the leaders of the two biggest political groupings, the centre-right European People's Party and the leftwing Socialists, had lobbied for changes just hours before the crunch meeting.

BOTH ARE DOMINATED BY GERMAN MEPS IMPLACABLY OPPOSED TO SWEEPING REFORM. "It was chaotic. It is no way to run even a local parish council.

MANY EXILED TIBETANS WOULD LIKE TO GO FURTHER THAN THE CONCILIATORY "MIDDLE WAY" APPROACH OF THEIR SPIRITUAL LEADER, THE DALAI LAMA, who seeks autonomy. Yet they say it is Beijing that is to blame if their exiled movement turns violent. "The space for a militant leader is not being created by the Dalai Lama's policy, but because of China's stubborn unwillingness to negotiate with His Holiness," said Nawang Lobsang of Tibetan college students' mass movement group.

Chinese officials met representatives of the Dalai Lama earlier this month, but many Tibetan community leaders said the talks were not serious negotiations, but MERELY A PLOY TO IMPROVE BEIJING'S IMAGE AHEAD OF THE OLYMPICS.

China, which says it sent troops into Tibet in 1950 to liberate it from feudal serfdom, blames the Dalai Lama for the recent unrest and has vilified him as a separatist bent on independence for Tibet and disrupting the Beijing Olympics. "That way the Chinese are foolish because they are missing the opportunity to negotiate with a non-violent, peaceful man," Lobsang said. "THEY MIGHT HAVE TO DEAL WITH A RADICAL LEADER IN THE FUTURE."

Recently, "Server in the Sky" - a proposed international database - has ignited a firestorm of controversy. As have cavalier comments by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that fingerprints aren't "personal data." Yet earlier this week, A MEASURE CREATING A FEDERAL FINGERPRINT REGISTRY TOTALLY UNRELATED TO NATIONAL SECURITY PASSED A U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ALMOST WITHOUT NOTICE.

The legislation would require thousands of individuals working even tangentially in the mortgage and real estate industries - and not suspected of anything - to send their prints to the feds. The database and fingerprint mandates were tucked into housing and foreclosure assistance bills that on Tuesday passed the Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 19-2.

The measure the committee passed states that "an indvidual may not engage in the business of a loan originator without first obtaining A UNIQUE IDENTIFIER." To obtain this "identifier," an individual is required to "furnish" to the newly created Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry "information concerning the applicant's identity, INCLUDING FINGERPRINTS for submission" to the FBI and other government agencies. We have wrenching debates about privacy and freedom vs. national security when it comes to proposed anti-terrorist programs. BUT THEN A SIMILAR SCHEME IS DONE IN RESPONSE TO AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM, AND IT ALMOST ESCAPES WITHOUT NOTICE.

In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue. Now, JUPITER HAS A THIRD RED SPOT, again produced from a smaller whitish storm.

The spots extend above the surrounding clouds and their red color may be due to deeper material dredged up by the storms and exposed to ultraviolet light, but the exact chemical process is still unknown. For scale, the Great Red Spot has almost twice the diameter of planet Earth, making both new spots less than one Earth-diameter across.

The newest red spot is along the same band of clouds as the Great Red Spot and is drifting toward it. If the motion continues, the new spot will encounter the much larger storm system in August. JUPITER'S RECENT OUTBREAK OF RED SPOTS IS LIKELY RELATED TO LARGE SCALE CLIMATE CHANGE AS THE GAS GIANT PLANET IS GETTING WARMER NEAR THE EQUATOR.

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Many schools remained closed in Santiago and elsewhere after floodwaters churned up sediment at water treatment plants, while several rivers burst their banks farther south, deluging thousands of homes. "More than seven rivers have overflowed," said Juan Saldivia, undersecretary of public works. "We had a very complex situation overnight, and Route 5 (Chile's main north-south highway) has been cut in three places."

Landslides caused by the rains also forced the shutdown of the giant El Teniente copper mine, owned by state miner Codelco. Codelco said it could take 48 hours to clear rock, earth and floodwaters blocking access to the mine, which lies 50 miles south of Santiago.

Television footage showed a collapsed railway bridge in the wine-producing region of Maule, about 125 miles south of Santiago, which forced the suspension of rail services to the south. The government said 8,000 homes had been affected and that 316 people were stranded across the country. About 500 people were in shelters while most of around 15,000 forced from their homes were living with friends and family.

Fortune-tellers and astrologists will be bracketed with double-glazing salesman under the new Consumer Protection Regulations. The changes, WHICH IMPLEMENT AN EU DIRECTIVE ON UNFAIR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES, require businesses for the first time to act fairly towards consumers and will outlaw disreputable trading activities. Fortune-tellers will have to tell customers that what they offer is "for entertainment only" and not "experimentally proven". This means that a fortune-teller who sets up a tent at a funfair will have to put up a disclaimer on a board outside.

Similar disclaimers will need to be posted on the websites of faith healers, spiritualists or mediums where appropriate, as well as on invoices and at the top of any printed terms and conditions. Andy Millmore, a partner at the law firm Harbottle & Lewis in London, said: "WHAT IS SIGNIFICANT IS THE SWEEPING NATURE OF THE REGULATIONS. They will effectively criminalise actions that might in the past have escaped legal censure, even if they may perhaps have been covered by industry voluntary codes."

The Spiritualist Workers' Association attacked the changes, saying on its website: "We do not believe we are conducting a scientific experiment. To have to stand up and say so is a denial of our beliefs. IT IS ALSO SENDING OUT A MESSAGE THAT WE DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT WE ARE SAYING AND DOING." Lyn Guest de Swarte, a clairvoyant, said: "IT'S LIKE TRYING TO REGULATE GOD."

CUSTOMERS CAN CHOOSE BETWEEN A GUN OR A $250 (£125) GAS CARD, BUT MOST SO FAR HAVE CHOSEN THE GUN. Owner Mark Muller said: "We're just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want to." The dealership sells new and old vehicles, including General Motors and Ford cars and trucks, and its logo shows a cowboy holding a pistol. It has sold more than 30 cars and trucks in the past three days, an increase which the owners put down to their promotional offer.

He added that the promotion was inspired by recent comments from one of the Democratic nominees for the presidential election, saying: "We did it because of Barack Obama. He said 'all those people in the Midwest, you've got to have compassion for them because they're clinging to their guns and their Bibles.' I found that quite offensive. WE ALL GO TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY AND WE ALL CARRY GUNS."

The website advertisement for the offer, which continues until the end of the month, mentions that an approved background check on gun ownership is required.