The legislation - similar to laws already in force outlawing persecution on religious or racial grounds - will make criminals of those who express their views in ways that could lead to the bullying or harassment of gays. The maximum sentence is longer than the average of around five years handed to rapists.

The announcement widened the rift between opposing supporters of freedom of speech and gay rights. Christian groups condemned it as "a law to allow Christians to be locked up for what they believe". But the gay pressure group Stonewall said those who disapprove of homosexuals would have nothing to fear from the law if they express their views in a manner that is "temperate" and "polite".

Justice Secretary Jack Straw told MPs the gay harassment law will be included as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill currently going before Parliament, though ministers have yet to decide the wording. Mr Straw said: "It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last ten years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality. It is time for the law to recognise this."

He raised the prospect of extending the law to cover "transgendered" people and the disabled. The new law aims to catch those who do not explicitly call for attacks or discrimination against homosexuals, as this is covered by existing incitement laws. Instead, police will be allowed to pursue those who create an "atmosphere or climate" in which hatred or bullying can be fostered. Officials said it would not prohibit criticism of gay, lesbian and bisexual people or joke-telling.

The final decision over who has "crossed the line" will rest with the police.

The delegation, including representatives of the nation's government, explained that they study the Bible regularly and recently came upon a verse in Zecharia (6:16) reading "And the distant ones will come and build the Temple of G-d." They discussed the passage among themselves and decided that their faith obligates them to fulfill the verse.

West Papua, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, is rich in gold mines, so the delegation thought it natural to donate gold for the Holy Temple. The Holy Temple will be built in the place where the First and Second Temples once stood - on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The group heard of the Temple Institute in Israel, which deals with advancing the building of the Temple, and on Hoshana Raba - the 7th day of Sukkot - the delegation arrived at the Institute's headquarters in Jerusalem's Old City and presented the gold to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, a founder of the institute, and Yehuda Glick, its director.

The group presented a kilogram of gold and a large sum of money. They requested that the gold be used to construct vessels for the Temple and that the funds be used by the institute for any purpose it sees fit. The institute has a fund set aside for exclusive use for the actual construction of the temple, as well as funds for building the vessels and engaging in educational projects.

Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute and Israel National Radio, said that, in view of the Halakhic problems that could be caused by specifically consecrating money and gold for the Holy Temple, an escrow account was opened, as was a safe deposit box for all donations; both have been explicitly set aside for use in building the Temple, and will remain untouched until then.

Rabbi Ariel said the episode was emotional as it constituted the fulfillment of the words of the prophets that nations will come from afar to help build the House of G-d in Jerusalem. "There is no doubt that this is a sign that the rest of our prophets' prophecies will soon be fulfilled as well."

The London-based newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, said it was agreed that Jordanian citizenship would be granted to 90,000 east Jerusalem residents. According to the report, it is also likely that a supreme supervisory commission would be established, which would include representatives from the UN, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

When Israel and Jordan signed a peace deal in 1994, it was agreed that Israel would honor the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom over the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem and in a final Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, Israel would give high importance to Jordan's historic role over the holy sites. Israel Radio reported that Jordan had recently set up a new fund for the renovation of Al Aksa Mosque and Dome of the Rock to reinforce its presence there. The head of the fund even proposed that Jordan give Jordanian passports to some 90,000 east Jerusalem residents.

Meanwhile, Vice Premier Haim Ramon told Israel Radio that the question of who will have custody of Jerusalem's holy sites must not be discussed at the moment. "We must decide that in that area there will be a special regime which we will discuss in the future," he said. Ramon added that there was a consensus in the cabinet that "no Palestinian refugee should return to Israel under the law of return - legal or moral." However, he proposed a discussion over refugees who wanted to return for humanitarian reasons, saying that "the idea that this will cause Israel's collapse is ridiculous."

Despite provoking the worst banking crisis for decades, the bank last week offered a reporter posing as a first-time buyer a £180,000 mortgage even though he had a salary of only £30,000. The loan was at least £30,000 more than other leading lenders were prepared to offer. Repayments for the loan would have accounted for more than 60% of the fictional buyer's take-home salary.

The reporter, posing as another potential customer, was also offered a so-called "negative equity mortgage" worth 117% of the value of the property he claimed to be interested in buying. The mortgages offered by other banks to the same potential borrower were significantly lower. Financial experts were this weekend stunned that Northern Rock is offering such loans a week after it was forced to turn to the Bank of England for emergency funding. Yesterday it emerged that Northern Rock has been forced to borrow about £3 billion from the Bank in the past week.

Northern Rock is to court further controversy by pushing ahead with a plan to pay a £59m dividend to shareholders and executives this week. The Financial Services Authority gave special dispensation to the bank in July to dip into its assets to pay out the dividend - which is 30% higher than last year's payout.

Politicians yesterday expressed dismay that the government and its regulators had not stepped in to supervise Northern Rock's business practices following the government bail-out. George Osborne, shadow chancellor, said: "One week Alistair Darling [the chancellor] is attacking the lending culture in this country, the next he is issuing emergency guarantees for people's mortgages and savings."

George Mudie, a Labour member of the Treasury select committee said: "Of all the people, have Northern Rock learnt nothing? It is reckless."

At issue is the role of gays in the Anglican Communion and the status of Gene Robinson, a homosexual father of two daughters who was elevated three years ago to become the Bishop of New Hampshire. The appointment of Bishop Robinson, who lives openly with another man, his partner, Mark Andrews, is viewed as a slap in the face by conservative members of the American church and by the increasingly vocal and powerful Asian and African Anglican congregations, who see homosexuality as an affront to the will of God.

On Tuesday, the American bishops, the majority of whom are liberals, are expected to vote to support a greater role for gays and lesbians in the Church, both with regard to the creation of new bishops and the blessing of same-sex relationships. Unless they can be persuaded otherwise, it seems certain the move will irrevocably split the Church, ending the Anglican Communion and creating an alternative alliance between Africa and conservatives in the US.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, arrived for a frenetic round of last-minute shuttle diplomacy in a series of private meetings. He said, "This is not a very comfortable place to be, it is somewhat like the situation for soldiers in the First World War in the trenches - we can't remember how we got here and most of us don't want to be here."

It could not be more appropriate that the final battle is set for New Orleans, a city so steeped in its reputation for sin and debauchery that the fire-and-brimstone wing of America's Christian Right attributed the destruction of Hurricane Katrina to the cleansing wrath of the Almighty.

Words are more temperate in the Anglican Church. But the implications of a vote by the US bishops in favour of greater gay rights would be no less serious. The Most Rev Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria, met Dr Williams at Lambeth early last week and left him in no doubt as to the potential repercussions of such a step by the Americans. "This is a watershed in the history of the communion," admitted the Most Rev Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales. "This is a struggle for the heart of the Anglican Communion."

Both the conservative and liberal sides have been seeking support from Dr Williams for their positions, placing him under intense pressure. But by the time he headed for the city's Louis Armstrong International Airport, setting off on a visit to the Anglican community in Lebanon, the archbishop appeared to have accepted that on Tuesday the 159 bishops of the Episcopal Church, as the two-million-strong Anglican congregation is called in the United States, are almost certain to support a bigger role for gays.

American bishops at the summit have been quick to declare their support for Bishop Robinson, who had been so upset by an earlier call from Dr Williams for a choice to be made between gays and the communion that he accused the archbishop of "dehumanising" homosexuals.

The African archbishops and their allies believe that the pro-gay liberals have abandoned biblical teaching. In one of the most passionate speeches at last week's summit, the Rt Rev Mouneer Anis, Primate of the Middle East, accused the American church of "walking apart" from the standard teaching of the communion.

"You may believe you have discovered a very different truth from that of the majority in the Anglican Communion," he said. "But some say you are a different church, others even think that you are a different religion."

The Africans have already been plotting with conservative members of the American church to create a new alliance, in effect a separate communion, if they lose the fight over homosexuality.

An old Washington Post story indicates he did. On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.

The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees. Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time. So what about those greenhouse gases that man pumps into the skies? Weren't they worried about them causing a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet, as Hansen, Al Gore and a host of others so fervently believe today?

"They found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere," the Post said in the story, which was spotted last week by Washington resident John Lockwood, who was doing research at the Library of Congress and alerted the Washington Times to his finding.

Hansen has some explaining to do. The public deserves to know how he was converted from an apparent believer in a coming ice age who had no worries about greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming fear monger. People can change their positions based on new information or by taking a closer or more open-minded look at what is already known. There's nothing wrong with a reversal or modification of views as long as it is arrived at honestly.

But what about political hypocrisy? It's clear that Hansen is as much a political animal as he is a scientist. Did he switch from one approaching cataclysm to another because he thought it would be easier to sell to the public? Was it a career advancement move or an honest change of heart on science, based on empirical evidence?

If Hansen wants to change positions again, the time is now. With NASA having recently revised historical temperature data that Hansen himself compiled, the door has been opened for him to embrace the ice age projections of the early 1970s.

Could be he's feeling a little chill in the air again.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.

Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials. Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response.

In a speech yesterday, the Pope defended "religious liberty", which he said "includes the right to change religion, which should be guaranteed not only legally but in practice". He also said that "all authentically religious traditions must be allowed to manifest their identity publicly, free from any pressure to hide or disguise it".

Make no mistake about it: this Pope is deeply worried about the Islamisation of Europe, and the West's supine attitude towards the persecution of Christianity by its Muslim allies. In July, his closest aide, Mgr Georg Gaenswein, said that "attempts to Islamise the West cannot be denied" and, indeed, were being helped by naïve "respectfulness."

What a contrast with the attitude of the Catholic Church in this country, which rarely misses an opportunity to suck up to Islam, and indeed treats its own traditionalists rather as certain Islamic countries treat Christians.

Defra officials confirmed discovery of the insect-borne virus, which is usually found around the Mediterranean.

All ruminants, which include cattle, sheep, goats and deer, can be infected, but the viral infection is not thought to pose a risk to human health. Since July there have been nearly 3,000 cases in Northern Europe, fuelling fears of its arrival in the UK.

It is transmitted by the Culicoides imicola midge. It is passed from animal to midge, and from midge to animal - it is not transmitted from animal to animal. The virus has long blighted Africa, but in recent years has begun to spread northwards into Europe as the range of the biting insects has increased.

Animals with the disease experience discomfort, with flu-like symptoms, swelling and haemorrhaging in and around the mouth and nose. They can also go lame and have difficulty eating properly. The news came as the farming industry has struggled with movement and export restrictions imposed due to the foot-and-mouth outbreaks in Surrey. On Saturday cattle on a fourth farm were slaughtered and the protection zone was extended after a further case was confirmed.

Both the bluetongue infection, and efforts to contain it, were different from foot-and-mouth, the Defra statement said. Once infected, up to 70% of a flock of sheep can die from the virus. While infected animals can recover - and become immune - productivity is reduced with milk yields in dairy herds dropping by about 40%.

Around 40 cows on the farm - which is within the 3km protection zone set up after the latest cases emerged - were slaughtered as a precaution. Tests were carried out after the animals displayed clinical signs of the disease.

A spokeswoman from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said last night: "Positive test results for foot-and-mouth disease have now been confirmed at the site where it was decided that cattle should be slaughtered on suspicion. The affected animals are within the existing Protection Zone and this now becomes the sixth Infected Premises since August 3 this year."

She said minor changes had been made to the protection and surveillance zones. Laboratory results have shown that the strain of the disease has been the same in all cases in the outbreak so far.

The latest four cases near Egham have emerged in the last two weeks - after officials declared the UK free of the disease following the August outbreak, which has been blamed on the virus escaping from leaking pipes at the nearby Pirbright laboratory site.

Some 1,800 animals have been slaughtered since the first outbreak on a farm in Normandy, near Guildford. Nearly 600 cows, sheep and pigs had to be culled there.

New York money manager John Paulson made a billion dollars on the money markets in a few months over the summer. The windfall meant he entered the list of the top 400 wealthiest Americans at number 165 - equal with Oprah Winfrey. They both have fortunes of £1.25billion.

Last night some analysts criticised Mr Paulson for cashing in on the plight of ordinary Americans. Others said he was simply a businessman who saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. "He gambled big," one said. "If things had gone the other way, he'd be bankrupt now."

Mr Paulson, 51, a former partner in the Bear Stearns international investment bank, runs his own company, the Paulson Hedge Fund. Such funds are basically huge pots of private money given by wealthy investors to one manager to wheel and deal on the financial markets in the hope of making big profits. Because they are private, they operate in great secrecy with fewer legal restrictions than other investment funds.

Mr Paulson made the profit by selling credit notes he did not have in the international banking markets at a fixed price at the start of a trading cycle. Sub-prime is the name given by banks to risky mortgages granted to those with poor credit ratings. As the sub-prime bubble burst, the value of those debts nose- dived and Mr Paulson was able to buy the credit notes for much less than he'd already sold them.

The same credit squeeze saw thousands of American families having their homes repossessed and a glut of property on the market.

The figures, seen by the BBC, were compiled for the first time by the Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody.

They cover deaths in prisons, police cells, secure hospitals and other establishments and include those from natural causes, suicides and murders.

The forum was established to help cut deaths in custody - but campaigners say it is toothless and lacks resources. The report is the first time figures from across the criminal justice system have been brought together for a complete look at deaths in state custody.

Pauline Campbell, whose daughter Sarah died in custody, told BBC News that improvements were essential. She said: "I think prisons are overwhelmed. They're being used as social dustbins for people who are mentally ill, drug and alcohol dependents, the homeless and so on. And given that we have such a high proportion of prisoners who have psychiatric difficulties, it is inevitable that these tragic deaths will occur unless action is taken to prevent this happening."

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies. Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

This would involve the closure of all border crossings with Israel and the transfer of all responsibility over the Palestinian territory to Egypt. The proposal, defense officials said, was recently raised by Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky during a series of meetings within the defense establishment.

While Israel removed its military positions and settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it has maintained a certain level of responsibility for the Palestinian population there, including coordinating the Gaza-based activities of humanitarian organizations such as UNRWA, the World Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

According to the proposal, which officials stressed was in its early stages, Israel would completely disconnect from Gaza by closing off the Erez, Karni, Sufa and Kerem Shalom crossings and instead directing humanitarian organizations to work with Egypt.

"The idea is to finalize what was started with the 2005 'disengagement,'" explained a senior defense official. "No matter how much we try and what we do, the humanitarian organizations consistently blame us for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. This way they will no longer have a case against us, since we won't be involved." The official said the proposal was being pushed strongly by Kaplinsky, who has said in a number of meetings that there is no longer a need for Israel to take responsibility for what happens in the Strip.