"The West and the Northwest are increasing in population growth like never before," said John Redding, regional spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise. "How do you quench the thirst of the hungry masses?" The population of the Western states grew nearly 20 percent in the 1990s, to more than 64 million, and continues to swell even as climate change poses new threats to the water supply.

Ironically, consideration of new dams comes even as older ones are being torn down across the country because of environmental concerns - worries that will likely pose big obstacles to new construction. In Oregon, a deal has been struck to remove four dams on the Klamath River to restore struggling salmon runs. There are lots of other ideas for increasing water supplies in the West. They include conservation, storing water in natural underground aquifers, pipelines to carry water from the mountains, desalination plants to make drinking water from the ocean, small dams to serve local areas.

Most of those ideas are much more popular than big new dams. "Our water future doesn't lie with new dams," said Dr. John Osborn, a Spokane physician and chairman of the Sierra Club chapter in Spokane. "It's water conservation."

Now, the chickens have come to roost, as Oklahoma wants a federal judge to stop 13 Arkansas-based poultry companies from dropping any more chicken litter in a once-pristine watershed. The preliminary injunction request is part of the state's 2005 lawsuit against the $2 billion poultry operation here - including Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer, Cargill Inc., George's Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc. - for polluting with chicken waste, which contains bacteria, antibiotics, growth hormones and harmful metals.

The Oklahoma-Arkansas region supplies roughly 2 percent of the nation's poultry and is one of several regions nationally where the industry is most concentrated. At stake is a practice thousands of farmers have employed for years: Taking the ammonia-reeking stuff - clumped bird droppings, bedding and feathers - and spreading it on their land as cheap fertilizer.

However inexpensive, decades of mass-dumping of the litter has wreaked havoc in the 1-million-acre Illinois River watershed, turning it into a murky, sludgy mess, environmentalists say. If a judge orders an end to disposing the waste here, the ruling could lead to similar environmental lawsuits nationwide against the industry, which produced more than 48 billion pounds of chicken in 2006.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to join the rebels in a war to overthrow hard-line Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a key ally of the United States, deploying tanks, fighter jets and thousands of troops along the Colombian border.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa also ordered troops to the border, expelled Colombia's ambassador and recalled its ambassador to Bogota, but left its embassy open. Venezuela closed its embassy in Colombia and ordered all diplomats home. A weekend battle sparked the mobilization, in which Colombian forces killed a top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in a camp in Ecuador.

"The obsessive conduct of those who prize the military option sharpens the armed conflict with grave possible consequences" read a statement from Venezuela's Foreign Ministry after the weekend killing of FARC's second in command, Raul Reyes. On his weekly Sunday talk show "Hello President," Mr. Chavez accused Colombia of "invading" Ecuador, and compared the action to Israeli attacks against Palestinians.

Medvedev had more than 70 percent of the vote with 97 percent of the precincts counted, according to the Central Election Commission. He is expected to rule in concert with his mentor, an arrangement that could see Putin calling the shots despite his constitutionally subordinate position as Russia's prime minister.

Medvedev, 42, the youngest Russian ruler since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, is expected to heed Putin's advice, continue his assertive course with the West, maintain state control over Russia's mineral riches and freeze out real opposition movements. "We will increase stability, improve the quality of life and move forward on the path we have chosen," Medvedev said Sunday, appearing alongside Putin at a celebration at the Red Square outside the Kremlin. "We will be able to preserve the course of President Putin."

Putin said Medvedev "has taken a firm lead" and congratulated his protege. "Such a victory carries a lot of obligations," Putin said. "This victory will serve as a guarantee that the course we have chosen, the successful course we have been following over the past eight years, will be continued."

Prince Alois, who once acknowledged he led a boring life, had been seen as conciliatory, distant or even timid. But his reaction to Germany's crackdown on secretive bank accounts in his principality has dramatically raised his profile. The 39-year-old prince lacks many of the fiery traits that make his father Hans-Adam II a controversial figure, but his 35,000 subjects have warmed to him as he grapples with one of Liechtenstein's worst recent crises.

"People had criticized him for being too cautious. Now he has shown he can act differently, and people liked it," said Kornelia Pfeiffer, a journalist at the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt daily newspaper. He accused Germany of violating the law by purchasing information on suspected tax dodgers from an informant the principality views as a criminal. "It is surely a crisis when one is shot at in this way by such a big country," the prince told a news conference in the capital Vaduz.

"Germany would be better off using its tax revenues to get its own tax system in order instead of paying millions for stolen data."

A US official confirmed launching a strike against "suspected terrorists". The US bombed the area a year ago and residents say it was the same plane. Six people were killed in the air strikes on Dhoble town and 20 wounded. Somalia's Islamist insurgents seized the town last week and one of their leaders Hassan Turki was reportedly in the area over the weekend.

Islamist spokesman Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said the US was trying to hit Islamist hideouts in the area. "The Americans bombed the town and hit civilian targets, thinking that they were Islamist hideouts. They used an AC-130 plane," he told the AFP news agency.

The US accused the Somali Islamists of harbouring those responsible for the 1998 attacks on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Islamists denied this, as well as reports they had links to al-Qaeda. Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991.

BUT ITS ANNUAL PROFITS STILL ROSE 10% TO $24.2BN (£12.2BN), UP FROM $22.08BN THE YEAR BEFORE. The write-down is the largest of the big-five UK banks because HSBC has large operations in the US. The bank said the global financial system had come under "extraordinary strain" in 2007. "The outlook for the rest of 2008 is uncertain," said HSBC chairman Stephen Green.

HSBC has a branch network in the US, where business, it says, is "challenging". Profitability is declining because of the decline in the housing market and increasing unemployment. The bank said it was actively trying to mitigate losses in the US, where defaults on mortgages and credit card payments are increasing. It has restructured its US operation, closing about 400 branches, and has reduced the amount of credit it extends.

HSBC shares rose in early trading - one of the few companies to see its shares rise in a falling market. By 0945 GMT its shares were up 1p at 767p. "HSBC has fared better than many of its competitors in shedding just 14% of its share price in the last year," said Richard Hunter from stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown. "However, it continues to be held back by the spectre of POTENTIAL FURTHER WRITE-DOWNS WITH, IN PARTICULAR, ITS EXPOSURE TO THE US MARKET HAVING UNNERVED MANY INVESTORS," he said.

"Until yesterday, I never would have believed that I would see the things I saw," said Rachel Shimoni, 66, as she stood amid shards of glass, blown out of the front window of her clothing store. "ALL OF A SUDDEN, THE REALITY HAS CHANGED."

Palestinian militants fire rockets nearly daily at Sderot and other Israeli border towns near Gaza. BUT BY REACHING ASHKELON, A CITY OF 120,000 PEOPLE ABOUT 11 MILES NORTH OF GAZA, HAMAS RAISED THE STAKES CONSIDERABLY. It is one of the largest cities in southern Israel, home to Mediterranean beaches, a college and strategic installations like an electric plant and a water purification plant. Gaza militants have managed to hit the outskirts of Ashkelon in rare instances in the past, but the latest fighting was the first time they've been able to do it on a regular basis.

Ashkelon's mayor said he would not accept the rockets becoming a normal reality. "THIS IS A STATE OF WAR, I know no other definition for it," said Roni Mahatzri, from his makeshift office in an underground bunker. "If it lasts a week or two, we can handle that, but WE HAVE NO INTENTION OF ALLOWING THIS TO BECOME PART OF OUR DAILY ROUTINE."

Ephraim Kam, a research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said HITTING ASHKELON SIMPLY BROUGHT TOO MANY CIVILIANS INTO ROCKET RANGE AND WAS UNACCEPTABLE TO ISRAEL'S LEADERS. "Ashkelon is much more significant than the places that have been hit so far," he said.

Speaking on his weekly television show, President Chavez also said Venezuela's embassy in Colombia would close. Mr Chavez said Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was a "criminal". He said the killing of Raul Reyes, a top commander of the left-wing Farc rebels, just inside Ecuador on Saturday was a "cowardly murder".

Mr Chavez has been mediating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - or Farc - to secure the release of hostages the rebels hold, and six have so far been freed under this initiative. But he lamented the killing of Reyes - whom he called a "good revolutionary" - and at least 16 other Farc rebels when he spoke on his show, "Alo, President".

While Mr Chavez is a vociferous critic of the US, Colombia's government has received billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight the guerrillas - the US, along with the EU, views Farc as a terrorist organisation.

The suspension came amid demonstrations in Gaza and fresh clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert vowed to carry on the assault, which came in response to militant rocket attacks on Israel. The violence intensified on Saturday, when nearly 70 people were killed in one of Gaza's bloodiest days in years.

Local doctors said at least 13 of the Palestinians were civilians, including eight children. The fighting has drawn international calls for restraint, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the US urging both sides to halt the violence. But Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said his country needed to prepare for an escalation of its air and ground operations in Gaza.

Rocket attacks on Israel have continued despite the assault on Gaza. Uri Bar Lev, police chief in southern Israel, told the BBC that the border town of Sderot had been targeted by 15 rockets on Sunday. He added that about 50 rockets were falling on the town each day. One Israeli died in an attack earlier this week. Palestinian rockets have reached as far as the Israeli town Ashkelon, 16km (10 miles) from the Gaza Strip.

Britain is throwing away half of all the food produced on farms, according to the starkest estimate yet of the amount of edible produce we waste. About 20m tons of food is thrown out each year: equivalent to half of the food import needs for the whole of Africa. Some 16m tons of this is wasted in homes, shops, restaurants, hotels and food manufacturing. Much of the rest is thought to be destroyed between the farm field and the shop shelf.

The total bill to the nation is estimated to be more than £20bn. The issue has come to the fore as supermarkets fight off criticism over billions of plastic carrier bags handed out free each year. Lord Haskins of Skidby, a former government adviser on rural affairs and chairman of Northern Foods, said yesterday that tackling the mountain of food wasted in this country every year would help to preserve the environment and go some way towards feeding an expanding global population in the face of unprecedented food shortages.

Lord Haskins, whose former employer is one of Britain's largest food suppliers, urged governments to press their citizens to help "avoid disaster by dramatically reducing the ... unacceptable levels of food waste, which are a shameful feature of most modern consumer societies". He called recent controversy over supermarkets' free distribution of plastic bags "a red herring".

Instead, it was a nation in crisis. "Britain is in a very, very uncomfortable place," he said. In a wide-ranging speech on the country's "broken society", the Ugandan-born archbishop called for Britain to regain the values of "mission and enterprise" that had made it so effective when it had an empire. His comments follow weeks of debate between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on Britain, which has centred on claims from fellow senior bishops that the country has no-go areas for non-Muslims and will adopt aspects of Islamic sharia law in due course.

Speaking at Cambridge University, the archbishop accused the Government of trying to put a positive spin on the impact of its policies when, in fact, Britain had lost its standing abroad and was in crisis domestically because it no longer had a "vision for coherence or purpose".

"The loss of purpose has led to a crisis in Britain and a crisis for Christianity," he said. "At the heart of the empire was very strong mission and enterprise. British goods used to be very good, but not any more. Something has gone wrong. Britain needs a bigger vision." He stressed the importance of Britain not losing its Christian heritage which, he said, could be a "medicine" for the nation's ills.

Without an agreement, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies will begin implementing a water-sharing plan of their own, Kempthorne said in a letter to the governors."Regrettably, it will necessarily be a solution being directed to the states instead of our much hoped for solution coming from the states," he wrote in the letter, released Saturday. Kempthorne said the talks, which began last fall, yielded more progress in three months than at any time during the last 18 years.

But he said the negotiators could not reach a comprehensive agreement and called it "unfortunate" that the states are moving forward with ongoing litigation."It is our hope that developments in the courts will not frustrate further progress in resolving the remaining technical issues we face together," he said.

The three states have been feuding for nearly two decades over water rights in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basins, which run south through Georgia into Alabama and the Florida panhandle. Georgia is fighting to hold back more water in federal reservoirs around Atlanta to serve its growing population. Florida and Alabama argue that Georgia hasn't adequately planned for growth. The extra withdrawals, they argue, would damage the environment and dry up river flows into their states that support smaller municipalities, power plants, commercial fisheries and industrial users like paper mills.

With a record drought creating a critical water shortage last fall, President Bush dispatched Kempthorne to try to settle the dispute. But the talks appeared doomed from the start, with Florida almost immediately backing away from an initial agreement to allow Georgia to temporarily hold back more water in Lake Lanier outside Atlanta as the governors worked toward a longer-term pact by Feb. 15. Then Georgia lost a major court ruling in a case that raised questions about whether the federal government can allocate the state more water from the river basins without first getting approval from Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court.

After a series of meetings, the governors missed the Feb. 15 deadline but said they would continue talking until March 1. The talks appeared to unravel further in recent days, with Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue saying the water problems facing Florida and Alabama are not as critical as Georgia's and accusing the other states of approaching the talks without the same urgency as Georgia.

The visit gives Ahmadinejad a chance to highlight the improved relationship his nation has with post-Saddam Hussein Iraq while also serving as an act of defiance toward the U.S., which accuses Iran of aiding Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Among the delegation of Iraqi officials gathered at Baghdad international airport was Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who told The Associated Press that Ahmadinejad plans to leave Monday morning. Upon Ahmadinejad's arrival, the group piled into a military convoy headed for a meeting at Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's residence.

Security was tight along the airport road, once among the most dangerous in this war-torn city, with Iraqi army patrols stationed every 100 yards or so. The U.S. has said it would not be involved in providing security for Ahmadinejad's visit. Iran and Iraq are both led by Shiite Muslims. The two countries were hostile to each other during Saddam's regime and fought a long and destructive war during most of the 1980s. But Ahmadinejad sought to reassure Iraqis ahead of the trip that Iran is not fueling violence in Iraq.

Dr Muawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza emergency medical services, told AFP at least 61 people were killed as a "great number of rockets fired by Israeli planes" slammed into the northern Gaza Strip. At least seven civilians were among the dead and about 100 people were wounded, several of them critically, he said. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed on Saturday in Gaza, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel reported, but there was no immediate confirmation from the army.

Tanks supported by helicopters moved into the area in and around the crowded town and refugee camp of Jabaliya and nearby Tufah in northern Gaza just after midnight, witnesses said. By midday troops had pushed nearly three kilometres (two miles) inside the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses. The urban battlefields were littered with debris as frightened residents hid inside their homes and imams read Koranic verses over mosque loudspeakers.

"We are in the middle of a total war. We hear the rockets and the explosions everywhere - we cannot leave our homes," Jabaliya resident Abu Alaa, 40, told AFP by telephone as he and his children took cover. Since the talks were formally revived at least 275 people have been killed, the vast majority of them militants in Gaza, where Abbas no longer has any power, according to an AFP tally. The latest deaths brought to at least 6,236 the total number of people killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence since 2000, most of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.