Protests and tight security have followed the Olympic torch around the world over the past month, putting China's domestic and foreign polices under the spotlight ahead of the Games in August. Beijing had hoped the torch's progress would be a symbol of unity in the run-up to the Beijing Games. However, it has turned into a public relations nightmare, forcing host countries to protect the torch with security measures usually afforded a state leader.

Anti-Chinese protests during the previous relay legs have sparked a wave of patriotism amongst Chinese at home and abroad, and on Thursday thousands of Chinese chanting "One China" packed the start and finish of the torch relay in the Australian capital. In a largely peaceful relay leg, Chinese six-deep lined the 16-km (10-mile) relay route, and hundreds of cars drove around Canberra carrying Chinese flags.

"The huge influx of Chinese nationals has given Canberra echoes of the feeling of being overwhelmed which prevails in the Tibetan capital Lhasa," said Australian Greens leader Bob Brown.

Garment makers are seeing demand shrink as consumers in the US and Europe are cutting back on spending. US cotton consumption is set to fall 6.5% from last year to less than a million tonnes whilst EU consumption is expected to fall 11% to about 460,000 tonnes, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) predicts.

At the same time, they are hit by more expensive raw materials and by soaring oil prices, which make their factories more expensive to operate and which pushes up the cost of shipping to foreign markets. In India, the weaving industry is in crisis. In China, the textile sector is squeezed. And, yet again, the root cause of their problems can be found in America.

In the US, ever more cotton farmers are switching to more lucrative crops - soybeans, corn, and wheat - whose market prices are rising even faster. The prices of these crops have been pushed higher by a mixture of subsidies, growing demand from biofuel producers and market speculation. As a result of the shift by farmers, "the cotton harvested area in the USA is projected to decline by a further 15%" in the year ahead, predicts the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC). That would bring the cotton acreage in the US to 9.5 million acres, down from 10.8 million in 2007 and from whopping 15 million acres in 2006. "It is obvious that cotton prices will be higher," ICAC says.

The change splits England into three and lumps those parts together with chunks of other countries to create "transnational regions". It is claimed these zones - which have been allocated their own budgets - are intended to boost trade between EU nations. But the Tories yesterday accused the Government of trying "to create a European superstate via the back door".

Under the programme, known as INTER-REG, counties along England's south coast form the "Manche Region" along with northern France. The "Atlantic Region" takes in western England, along with Ireland, Wales and parts of Portugal, Spain, France and Scotland. Meanwhile eastern England is part of the "North Sea Region", which covers areas of Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands.

The UK Government is fully behind the project, even though the words "England" and "Britain" are left off official maps of each area and the Manche Region renames the English Channel "The Channel Sea". Each region, which will be given taxpayers' money to promote trade links, cultural ties, transport policies and tourism, is to be run by a "managing authority" of unelected officials overseen by a director.

Eric Pickles, the Conservatives' communities spokesman, said: "We already knew that Gordon Brown had hoisted the white flag of surrender to the European Constitution. Now the Labour Government has been caught red-handed conspiring with European bureaucrats to create a European superstate via the back door. Gordon Brown literally wants to wipe England off the map."

Physicist Phil Chapman, the first native-born Australian to become an astronaut with NASA [he became an American citizen to join up, though he never went into space], said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed no spots on the sun. He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade.

"This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over." But scientists from the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Bolder, Colorado published a report in 2006 that showed the sun had a negligible effect on climate change.

Meanwhile, some Americans are stocking up on staples such as rice, flour and oil in anticipation of high prices and shortages spreading from overseas. Their pleas did not find a sympathetic audience at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where regulators said high prices are mostly the result of soaring world demand for grains combined with high fuel prices and drought-induced shortages in many countries.

The regulatory clash came amid evidence that a rash of headlines in recent weeks about food riots around the world has prompted some in the United States to stock up on staples. Families have been warned that the prices of basic foods will rise steeply again because of acute shortages in commodity markets.

Experts told The Times yesterday that prices of rice, wheat and vegetable oil would rise further. They also forecast that high prices and shortages - which have caused riots in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti - were here to stay, and that the days of cheap produce would not return. Food-price inflation has already pushed up a typical family's weekly shopping bill by 15 per cent in a year.

Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, said it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rice "due to recent supply and demand trends." U.S. rice futures hitting an all-time high Wednesday on worries about supply shortages.

On Tuesday, Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the largest U.S. warehouse club operator, said it has seen increased demand for items like rice and flour as customers, worried about global food shortages and rising prices, stock up. Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, is limiting sales of the 20-pound (9 kg), bulk bags of rice to four bags per customer per visit, and is working with suppliers to ensure the products remain in stock.

Warehouse clubs cater to individual shoppers as well as small businesses and restaurant owners looking to buy cheaper, bulk goods.

Increased demand from rapidly developing nations such as China, the use of crops for biofuels, global stocks at 25-year lows and market speculation are blamed for pushing prices of wheat, corn and rice to record highs. That in turn has sparked food riots in several African countries, Indonesia and Haiti. The FAO has said 37 countries face food crises but Director General Jacques Diouf on Wednesday said solutions were available.

"This is not Greek tragedy where fate is decided by the gods and humans can do nothing about it. No, we have the ability to influence our futures," he told a news conference in Paris. "It's a good thing that international institutions... are helping the poor gain access to food, but on our side we need to fight the most important battle today which is to ensure the 2008 farming season is a success."

The body of the friar, who died in 1968 and was said to have had the stigmata - the wounds of Jesus's crucifixion on his hands and feet - will be placed in a glass coffin in San Giovanni Rotondo on Thursday. Padre Pio's body was exhumed from a crypt on March 3 and found to be in "fair condition" after 40 years. Since then a team of medical examiners and biochemists has been hard at work preserving and reconstructing the body for display.

Its condition at the end of their work has been a closely guarded secret. Monks who have seen it were under orders not to talk to the media before it goes on display on Thursday at about 1 p.m. (7:00 a.m. EDT) after an outdoor Mass expected to be attended by at least 15,000 people. About 750,000 people from around the world, mostly from Italy, have made reservations to view the body up to the end of December, according to church officials. About 7,200 people a day will file past the glass coffin.

A poll in 2006 by Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana found that more Italian Catholics prayed to Padre Pio than to any other icon, including the Virgin Mary or Jesus. There are about 3,000 "Padre Pio Prayer Groups" around the world, with a total membership of 3 million.

Operators Ineos and the union held two days of talks at conciliation service Acas in a bid to halt the strike by workers at the Grangemouth plant. Up to 1,200 workers will walk out on Sunday and Monday over proposals to change pension scheme arrangements. The refinery processes 210,000 barrels of oil a day.

Ineos has already started shutting down Grangemouth and warned of fuel shortages from later this week if the strike went ahead.

Though they developed independently and remain quite different from one another, for many the scope of their mission has quickly expanded - with the support and encouragement of the federal government - TO COVER "ALL CRIMES AND ALL HAZARDS." The types of information they seek for analysis has also broadened over time to include not just criminal intelligence, but public and private sector data, and participation in these centers has grown to include not just law enforcement, but other government entities, the military and even select members of the private sector.

These new fusion centers, over 40 of which have been established around the country, raise very serious privacy issues at a time WHEN NEW TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT POWERS AND ZEAL IN THE "WAR ON TERRORISM" ARE COMBINING TO THREATEN AMERICANS' PRIVACY AT AN UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL.

Moreover, there are serious questions about whether data fusion is an effective means of preventing terrorism in the first place, and whether funding the development of these centers is a wise investment of finite public safety resources. Yet federal, state and local governments are increasing their investment in fusion centers without properly assessing whether they serve a necessary purpose.

The aim is to "PREVENT INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS WHO ARE CONSIDERED TO POSE A POTENTIAL THREAT TO THE MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC LAW AND ORDER AND/OR SECURITY FROM TRAVELLING TO THE LOCATION OF THE EVENT" - and to put in place: "The necessary arrangements for a quick and efficient implementation of the potential expulsion measures" - EU Security Handbook:

"The scope of the manual is now such that it applies to the security (both from a public order point of view as well as counter-terrorism) of all major international events, be it political, sporting, social, cultural or other."

"This is a reflection of the EU's definition of "security" at international events which is now defined as covering both "counter-terrorism" and "public order". Back in 2003 the bilateral exchange of information on "suspected troublemakers" between EU states for international events was agreed. What is proposed now is not the one-off exchange of information related to a specific event but A PERMANENT EU-WIDE DATABASE OF SUSPECTED "TROUBLEMAKERS", THIS IS UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE IN A DEMOCRATIC EUROPE."

Brown's vision included, "A NEW WORLD BANK; A NEW INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND; A REFORMED AND RENEWED UNITED NATIONS, mandated and resourced, that is greater than the sum of its parts; strong regional organisations from THE EUROPEAN UNION to THE AFRICAN UNION able to bring to a troubled world the humanitarian aid, peacekeeping and the support for stability and reconstruction that has been absent for too long - all built around a new global society founded on revitalised international rules and institutions, and grounded in the great values we share in common."

He also spoke of the need to "secure a new global climate change agreement - WITH THE UNITED NATIONS AT ITS CENTRE - with binding targets for all developed countries, including America and Britain. I want to see at least a halving of global emissions by 2050. And we need new incentives for developing and emerging economies - helping them slow their growth in emissions through new flows of finance and technology. A global agreement is more than a set of targets: it must include AN INTERNATIONAL CARBON MARKET as the surest and most efficient way to achieve our aims - EVENTUALLY GENERATING UP TO $100 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR TO FUND 'GREEN' DEVELOPMENT."

THE CHANGE WILL ALSO EXTEND EUROPOL'S MANDATE. Currently, it is only authorised to help member states prevent and combat organised crime. As an EU agency, it will also be able to help member states fight terrorism and other serious crimes, even where there is no link to criminal gangs. Agence Europe reports THAT EUROPOL "IS SEEN AS THE EMBRYONIC BEGINNINGS OF A FUTURE EUROPEAN POLICE FORCE."

Agence Europe quotes French Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie saying "I've had enough of all the meetings where there is a lot of fine talk and no progress. It's time to translate words into action," after taking part in the EU Justice and Home Affairs meeting. Saying that she wanted to begin work in a large number of areas, she announced that, during the upcoming French EU Presidency, she intended to bring forward a proposal to combat cyber-crime.

"We need to have a technical head-start on terrorists and serious crime," she said. She also revealed that among the work being prepared was joint training for European police officers, and the launch of genuine European civil protection.

He writes, "PUBLIC DEBATE NOW IS INCONVENIENT. The message from our rulers is clear: Now is not the time to think about or debate the EU." He quotes a diplomat saying, "Some budgetary reforms may be difficult for some countries. PERHAPS IT IS BETTER NOT TO DEBATE THEM IN THE OPEN BEFORE THE TREATY IS RATIFIED."

ABC News has discovered that Gore used computer generated footage in his documentary that was taken from the 2004 natural disaster film 'THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW' TO FRAUDULENTLY EMPHASIZE THE GLOBAL WARMING THREAT.

IF GLOBAL WARMING IS SUCH A DIRE THREAT TO US, WHY WOULD GORE NEED TO USE COMPUTER GENERATED FOOTAGE IN THE DOCUMENTARY TO JUSTIFY HIS POINT? The bottom line is that Gore's film is based off of lies in order to scare the public into believing that man made carbon emissions are the cause of all of the planet's environmental problems.

GORE IGNORES SCIENTIFIC DATA that indicates solar activity is the real cause for planetary warming. Mars and other planets have also experienced rising temperatures the same time that warming has been reported on Earth. So unless man is on other planets emitting carbon, it is clear that solar activity is the cause for the planetary warming. Gore also ignores the fact that this past winter saw record snowfalls and record low temperatures in various parts of the world which indicate that this warming cycle might be coming to an end.

Al Gore's travelling global warming show, the award-winning documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth,' includes a long flyover shot of majestic Antarctic ice shelves. But this shot was first seen in the 2004 blockbuster 'The Day After Tomorrow.' Sculpted from Styrofoam and later scanned into a computer, the ice shelf "flyover" looks real.

THIS IS BLATANT FRAUD on the part of Gore and more proof that his film is nothing more than propaganda DESIGNED TO MISDIRECT PEOPLE'S LEGITIMATE ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS towards something THAT HELPS THEIR GOAL OF A GLOBAL CARBON TAX. It is entirely dishonest for Gore to be using computer generated video footage in a documentary that is supposed to be based off of facts. Gore is using this footage to exaggerate his phoney claims.