"Palestinians and Israelis are capable of living together in peace, each in their own territory, each enjoying their security, their dignity, and their rights," he affirmed. "But to attain that peace, it is necessary to believe that Israelis and Palestinians are equal in all things, that they have the same rights and the same duties, and that both parties must adopt the ways of God, which are not the ways of violence, whether they be carried out by the state or by extremists."

Archbishop Sabbah contended that recent proposals to establish "religious states" in the Holy Land do not provide a viable solution. "In this land, which is holy for three religions and for two peoples, religious states cannot be established because they would exclude or place in an inferior position the believers of the other religions," he said. "A state that would exclude or discriminate against the other religions is not suitable for this land made holy by God for all of humanity.

Europe just got bigger. At one minute after midnight local time on early Friday morning, border controls vanished for nine more European Union members, many of them former members of the Soviet Bloc. Fireworks, cheers, music and speeches throughout the morning welcomed the expansion, which means that travelers can move from the far corners of Estonia all the way to the Atlantic coast in Portugal without once encountering a border guard.

"This is an especially beautiful moment," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a Friday morning ceremony at the German border with Poland and the Czech Republic. "It is a source of great pleasure that coming generations will experience open borders as the European normalcy." The ceremony was just one of many across Eastern Europe as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Malta all joined the so-called Schengen zone, as the open-border area is known. The Schengen Agreement is named for the village in Luxembourg where it was first signed in 1985.

There are now 24 countries -- including two non-EU states, Norway and Iceland -- populated by 400 million people in the border-free travel zone. Switzerland is set to join in 2008, with Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria likewise in line. Most of those countries entering Schengen on Friday were behind the Iron Curtain just 20 years ago. The opening of the border between Germany and Poland -- one of the most contested in the past centuries of European history -- was of particularly symbolic importance.

The report assesses that a nuclear war would last approximately three weeks and ultimately end with the annihilation of Iran, due to Israel's alleged possession of weapons with a far larger yield. Even if Iran gained the means and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, according to the report it would still be limited to 100 kiloton weapons, which can cause a far smaller radius of destruction than the 1 megaton bombs Israel allegedly possesses.

Possible targets for an Iranian strike are the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and Haifa bay, while the list of possible targets in Iran includes the cities Teheran, Tabriz, Qazvin, Esfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, Kerman, Qom, Ahwaz and Kermanshah. The report cites Israel's Arrow missile defense system as an obstacle facing a possible Iranian strike and says that it could shoot down most of the missiles. Israel, on the other hand, would be capable of hitting most of the Iranian cities with pinpoint accuracy due to the high resolution satellite imagery systems at its disposal.

Another scenario presented by the report includes Syria joining the bandwagon in case of a war and lobbing missiles with chemical and biological warheads into Israeli cities. According to the report, up to 800,000 Israelis would be killed if that were to happen. Syria, however, would be forced to grapple with the deaths of approximately 18 million of its citizens were Israel to respond with its nuclear arsenal.

Israel, the report says, would launch a nuclear attack on Cairo and additional Egyptian cities, and would destroy the Aswan Dam if Egypt joined the fray.

Some Catholics condemned his previous support for causes which were apparently inconsistent with Church doctrine. But they drew a rebuke from senior figures in the Church, who said the Pope's welcome for the new recruit was the final word. Sources said Mr Blair's conversion 'is not retrospective' and that he does not have to account for his actions and beliefs in the past.

Over his decade in office Mr Blair frequently attended Catholic Mass with his family, and was once rebuked for taking communion while still an Anglican. Mrs Blair stood as his 'sponsor' on Friday night. Despite his private faith, as Labour leader and Prime Minister he oversaw legal changes which were fiercely opposed by the Church, including civil partnerships and embryo research.

Britain has never had a Catholic in Number 10, and Mr Blair is known to have taken advice on the constitutional implications. His former spokesman Alastair Campbell once famously told reporters: "We don't do God", but has since said that his ex-boss "does do God in quite a big way".

It quoted officials saying much of the money was diverted to weapons systems designed to counter India, rather than to fighting Islamist militants. The US provides the money to reimburse Pakistan for military operations carried out in its "war on terror".

The US Congress recently voted to restrict some military aid to Pakistan. It did so to put pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to restore democratic rights.

The severe weather has caused hundreds of accidents, and reached as far south as Texas - where there was a 50-vehicle motorway pile-up. The storm has also felled trees and power lines and caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights. More heavy snow has been forecast as the storms move into the Great Lakes region bordering Canada.

Multiple vehicle pile-ups closed major highways in the central states over the weekend. In Minnesota alone, there were more than 300 road accidents and three deaths. Many in the pile-up were holidaymakers, including families with small children not dressed for the weather, police said.

Twenty billion dollars here, $20bn there, and a lush half-trillion from the European Central Bank at give-away rates for Christmas. Buckets of liquidity are being splashed over the North Atlantic banking system, so far with meagre or fleeting effects. As the credit paralysis stretches through its fifth month, a chorus of economists has begun to warn that the world's central banks are fighting the wrong war, and perhaps risking a policy error of epochal proportions.

York professor Peter Spencer, chief economist for the ITEM Club, says the global authorities have just weeks to get this right, or trigger disaster. "The central banks are rapidly losing control. By not cutting interest rates nearly far enough or fast enough, they are allowing the money markets to dictate policy. We are long past worrying about moral hazard," he says.

"They still have another couple of months before this starts imploding. Things are very unstable and can move incredibly fast. I don't think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park," he adds.

Despite England's official break with the pope in Rome during Henry VIII's reign more than 400 years ago, making Anglicanism and the Church of England dominant, Catholicism is now the most practiced faith in the land. Attendance at Anglican services has almost halved over the past 40 years as the country has grown steadily more secular, the research showed, with only Pentecostalism showing any rise in popularity among Christian denominations.

While attendance figures for both Catholic and Anglican services are declining, Catholic numbers are slipping by a lesser degree as new migrants arrive from east Europe and parts of Africa, boosting Catholic congregations. "When a former prime minister becomes a Catholic, that must be a sign that Catholicism really has come in from the cold in this country," Catherine Pepinster, the editor of Catholic weekly The Tablet, wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

"I would hope that my fellow Catholics will welcome Tony Blair into the Church as they welcome other converts."

This means that the established Church has lost its place as the nation's most popular Christian denomination after more than four centuries of unrivalled influence following the Reformation. Last night, leading figures gave warning that the Church of England could become a minority faith and that the findings should act as a wake-up call.

The rise of Catholicism has been bolstered by an influx of immigrants from eastern Europe and Africa, who have packed the pews of Catholic parishes that had previously been dwindling.

It is part of the changing face of churchgoing across Britain in the 21st century which has also seen a boom in the growth of Pentecostal churches, which have surpassed the Methodist Church as the country's third largest Christian denomination.

Worshipping habits have changed dramatically with a significant rise in attendance at mid-week services and at special occasions - the Church of England expects three million people to go to a parish church over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

In an attempt to combat the declining interest in traditional religion, the Anglican Church has launched radical new forms of evangelism that include nightclub chaplains, a floating church on a barge and internet congregations.

Churchgoing in Anglican and Catholic parishes had stood at about a million each for the past 10 years, though the relative equality in their numbers over recent years is surprising considering that there are 25 million people who regard themselves as Anglicans, and only 4.2 million Catholics.

Marks & Spencer, Halfords, PC World, Argos, Comet and Dixons launch web sales at 0001 GMT on 25 December. Industry body the Interactive Media in Retail Group predicted 3.57m Britons will hunt for deals on Christmas Day. The IMRG's CEO, James Roper, said: "The desire to shop doesn't go away and the web fills a niche when stores close."

BY CONTRAST, ONLY 2.8M PEOPLE ATTENDED A CHURCH OF ENGLAND SERVICE ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2006.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Conner, who led the service on Friday in which Mr Blair became Catholic, said he was "very glad" to welcome him. Last year, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said he had prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops into Iraq. And one of Mr Blair's final official trips while prime minister was a visit to the Vatican in June where he who met Pope Benedict XVI.

Catherine Pepinster, editor of Catholic magazine, The Tablet, said Mr Blair's conversion was "not a surprise" but was a "momentous step" for him. She said: "It would have been rather different if he had become a Catholic when he was still prime minister. I understand that one of the issues he was concerned with, because he was so closely involved in negotiations over peace in Northern Ireland, that perhaps some people there might have been uncomfortable with the prime minister converting to Catholicism at such a time.

"This situation is different. Although he remains a public figure now, and clearly has a role to play in the Middle East, it isn't perhaps quite the same." The former Conservative government minister, Ann Widdicombe, who is also a Catholic, told the BBC that Mr Blair would have made specific commitments at the reception into the Catholic faith. "If you look at Tony Blair's voting record in the House of Commons, he's gone against church teaching on more than one occasion. On things, for example, like abortion.

Earlier this year, the former prime minister told the BBC that he had avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled "a nutter". His ex-spokesman Alastair Campbell once told reporters "We don't do God," but has since said that his former boss "does do God in quite a big way".

"We call upon all nations who cherish freedom and who believe in the word of God as manifest in the Torah of Israel and its prophets to rebuke the government of Israel for its disgraceful treatment of all that is holy to the Jewish people before the eyes of the entire world," said a statement by the New Jewish Congress, the Sanhedrin and the Holy Temple and Temple Mount movements.

Continued the statement: "The contemptible and vile consent of the government of (Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert for the Hamas terror organization to broadcast from the Temple Mount endangers and weakens Israel's peace and security. "Whoever cooperates with the Israeli government in its campaign to banish the Jewish people from the Temple Mount and close it before Jewish worshippers is party to bloodshed, negates any chance for peace in the future and fosters war and strife in this region and throughout the entire world."

The joint statement was read earlier today by Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the international department at Israel's Temple Institute and an English spokesman for the various groups that issued today's call. But the Israeli government barred all non-Muslims from ascending for the rest of the week due to a Muslim holiday. Along with the Jewish fast day, today also marked the start of Ein ul-Adhaa, which commemorates the Islamic belief of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael for Allah. According to the Jewish and Christian tradition, Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac, not Ishmael.

"Our broadcast is a victory for the Al Aqsa Mosque, which is suffering from Judaization efforts imposed by the Zionist government. Broadcasting daily radio is a way to bring Al Aqsa to the Gaza Strip and challenge the siege imposed on us by the Zionist entity," said Rami Kaoud, a manager at Al Aqsa Radio, Hamas' official radio network.

The ECB allotted $10bn (€7bn, £5bn) on Friday in funds to eurozone banks in its second dollar tender, which was made possible by a currency swap with the Fed. Demand for the latest funds, which saw 27 banks offering bids totalling $14.1bn for the 35-day money, was more modest than a similar operation ­earlier this week.

The ECB's boldest step was its decision at the start of the week to launch an unlimited offer of two-week funds covering the end of the year, which saw it pumping in almost €350bn ($502bn, £253bn) - the largest amount in an ECB money market operation. It then launched operations to mop up excess liquidity to ensure very short-term market interest rates did not fall below its main policy rate of 4 per cent.

The bank even managed to make money in the process. It said yesterday it had managed to reabsorb €141.6bn for six days at an interest rate of 4 per cent. That represented a profit-making move, as it had lent funds in this week's record two-week operation at 4.21 per cent. The results highlighted banks' apparent willingness to, in effect, pay for a guarantee that they would have sufficient funds at the end of the year, when they are under pressure to show strong liquidity positions.

At a summit of his growing regional energy alliance, Petrocaribe, the leftist firebrand attacked the United States and other rich consumer nations for squandering their unfair share of world resources. "In spite of the Yankees, our oil and gas will always be at the service, first of Venezuela, and at the same time of our brother nations of Latin American and the Caribbean," he said. "We have begun to create a new geopolitics of oil that is not at the service of the interests of imperialism and big capitalists," Chavez said in a speech.

Chavez, the fiercest antagonist of the United States in the region despite being a major U.S. oil supplier, opened a revamped Soviet-era refinery in Cienfuegos, Cuba that will supply diesel, gasoline and jet fuel to members of Petrocaribe. The Petrocaribe alliance, which has bolstered Chavez's regional influence since it started in 2005, grew to 17 countries on Friday with the entry of Honduras, a traditional U.S. ally. Guatemala's president-elect also wants to join.

He proposed debts be offset by local products and services, following the example of Cuba, which has sent 20,000 doctors and teachers to Venezuela in exchange for crude and refined products now estimated to value $3 billion a year.

Approximately 53 million travelers expect to go by motor vehicle (approximately 81 percent of all holiday travelers), a 0.9 percent increase from the 52.5 million who drove in 2006.

AAA expects 8.9 million Americans (13.7 percent of holiday travelers) to travel by airplane, a slight decrease of 0.3 percent from last Christmas holiday. A projected 3.3 million travelers will go by train, bus, or other mode of transportation.