Soon after the bombs fell on Baghdad, the topic came up in April 2003 as Ratzinger talked with fellow Cardinals Carlo Maria Martini of Italy and Paul Poupard of France at an intimate Vatican diplomatic reception. A Church official present that evening remembers the typically soft-spoken German shaking his fists, and blurting out in Italian: "Basta! Basta!" Enough! Enough!

Ratzinger did not elaborate then, nor since becoming Pope, about his opposition to the American military campaign, though he has spoken out about the Iraqi people's suffering. The intellectually rigorous Pope rarely sounds off on subjects that are not in his purview, say those close to him. "He's not an armchair politician," says one German scholar who's known Ratzinger for years. "He's not an armchair anything." STILL, BEING POPE, ESPECIALLY THE SUCCESSOR OF THE DIPLOMATICALLY ADROIT JOHN PAUL II, MEANS BENEDICT IS EXPECTED TO MAKE HIS MARK ON WORLD POLITICS.

As he arrives for his first papal visit to the world's lone Superpower, geopolitics remains the great open question in Benedict's three-year reign. The six-day visit to the United States - which includes a White House visit, an address at the United Nations and a prayer at Ground Zero - may be the best opportunity for the theologian pontiff to define his leadership in international relations. "The Pope per se is simply the custodian of the Catholic tradition," says a senior Vatican official. "HE CAN BECOME A GLOBAL LEADER IF HE MANAGES TO EMBODY A BATTLE OF IDEALS THAT IS PRESENT IN THE WORLD."

The fiery sermon, DELIVERED BY YUNIS AL-ASTAL AND AIRED ON HAMAS' AL-AQSA TV, predicted that Rome would become "an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe. Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion," al-Astal preached, "so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world."

"VERY SOON, ALLAH WILLING, ROME WILL BE CONQUERED, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad," he added. Al-Astal last June preached how it was the duty of Palestinian women to martyr themselves by becoming homicide bombers. "The most exalted form of jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah, which means sacrificing one's soul by fighting the enemies head-on, even if it leads to martyrdom," he said in a June 23, 2007 interview.

The pope will meet with about 150 leaders of other religions on Thursday as he visits Washington, and he plans to visit a synagogue in New York on Friday. Since his 2005 election, the pontiff has provoked concern and anger among Hindus, Muslims and Jews with highly publicized missteps. But leaders of those faiths said they are optimistic that interfaith dialogue will advance during his papacy.

"There have been a lot of positive steps," said Ravi Gupta, a religion professor at Centre College in Kentucky, a Hindu leader who will meet with the pope. "I'm hopeful ... in terms of what the possibilities are."

The main driver of crude's rally was a decline in the greenback relative to the euro on Monday, analysts said. Crude oil's recent run above $100 a barrel has been largely attributed to a steadily depreciating U.S. currency because a weakening dollar prompts investors to seek a safe haven in hard commodities such as oil and gold.

"We've seen another swing down in the U.S. dollar so I think we saw short-term traders go back into oil as a hedge against the falling dollar," said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at the ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia. Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose to $112.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange midmorning Tuesday in Singapore, surpassing the previous trading record of $112.21 set last week.

"This is just a time bomb," said hydrologist Wouter Buytaert at a meeting of geoscientists in Vienna. Those areas most at risk from a lack of water for drinking and agriculture include parts of the Middle East, southern Africa, the United States, South America and the Mediterranean. Rising global temperatures mean the melt water is occurring earlier and faster in the year and the mountains may no longer be able to provide a vital stop gap.

"In some areas where the glaciers are small they could be gone in 30 or 50 years time and a very reliable source of water, especially for the summer months, may be gone." Buytaert, from Britain's Bristol University, was referring to parts of the Mediterranean where her research is focussed but she said this threat also applies to the entire Alps region and other global mountain sources.

Daniel Viviroli, from the University of Berne, believes nearly 40 percent of mountainous regions could be at risk, as they provide water to populations which cannot get it elsewhere. He says the earth's sub-tropic zones, which are home to 70 percent of the world's population, are the most vulnerable. And with the global population expected to expand rapidly, there may not always be enough water to drink, let alone to water crops, which use about 70 percent of melt-water.

Mr Berlusconi, who is due to return to Rome from his home in northern Italy on Tuesday, won control of both the senate and lower house of parliament. The decisive victory gives him a third term as prime minister. Fter being congratulated by defeated rival Walter Veltroni, the media mogul said he would work with the opposition to pass much needed economic reforms. The polls were held three years ahead of schedule following the collapse of Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition.

Mr Berlusconi's new government will be Italy's 62nd since World War II. Mr Berlusconi said his immediate priorities would be the sale of the loss-making national airline Alitalia and the crisis caused by uncollected mountains of rubbish in Naples. His government also faces the task of reviving Italy's ailing economy, with zero growth forecast for the coming year. Although Italy is saddled with a massive public debt, he has promised tax cuts and handouts to voters.

Mr Berlusconi has served two terms as prime minister, last resigning in May 2006. One of Italy's richest men, he is the head of a business empire that spans media, advertising, insurance, food and construction, and includes the top flight football club AC Milan.

This target will rise to 5% by 2010. The move is aimed at making transport fuels more environmentally friendly and will not change how cars work. But some scientists and green groups say biofuels contribute more greenhouse gases than they save.

The idea behind the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) is to reduce the climate change emissions from transport - which produce more than a quarter of overall greenhouse gases in the UK - by using renewable fuels instead of fossil fuels. But some critics say the biofuels' carbon benefits may be outweighed by negative effects from their productions.

For example Oxfam said millions of indigenous people faced clearance from their land to make way for biofuel plantations such as palm oil. The aid agency is also concerned that the switch to energy crops from food production - including a large-scale drive in the US to produce bioethanol from maize - is contributing to rising food prices. Oxfam joined campaigners from Friends of the Earth and the RSPB for a protest outside Parliament on Monday aimed at urging the government not to go ahead with the new rules.

The research suggests the country's greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007. The University of California team will report their work in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management. They warn that unchecked future growth will dwarf any emissions cuts made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol. The team admit there is some uncertainty over the date when China may have become the biggest emitter of CO2, as their analysis is based on 2004 data. Until now it has been generally believed that the US remains "Polluter Number One".

If it becomes widely accepted that China's future emissions are likely to be much higher than previously estimated, that will have to factored into any future global climate agreement if the Chinese are to be persuaded to take part. In brief, although this study looks bad for China's reputation, it may be good for China's negotiating position. The Chinese - and the UN - insist that rich countries with high per capita levels of pollution must cut emissions first, and help poorer countries to invest in clean technology.

He is expected to discuss the credit crunch and its effect on the UK. The meeting, with figures including heads of major lending banks, comes a day after Mr Brown insisted keeping the economy on track was his "sole focus". Downing Street said the talks were not a crisis summit and had been on the diary for some time. They come as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is reporting a fall in the cost of property during March.

The Treasury's inflation figures for March are also due out - February's rate of 2.5% was above the Bank of England's 2% target. Mr Brown will travel to the US this week to meet finance chiefs to discuss the global credit crisis.

That changes this week, and President Bush is pulling out all the stops: driving out to a suburban military base to meet Pope Benedict XVI's plane, bringing a giant audience to the South Lawn and hosting a fancy East Room dinner. These are all firsts. Bush has never before given a visiting leader the honor of picking him up at the airport. In fact, no president has done so at Andrews Air Force Base, the typical landing spot for modern leaders.

A crowd of up to 12,000 is due at the White House on Wednesday morning for the pope's official, pomp-filled arrival ceremony. It will feature the U.S. and Holy See anthems, a 21-gun salute, and the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. Both men will make remarks before their Oval Office meeting and a send-off for his popemobile down Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House crowd will be the largest of Bush's presidency. It even beats the audience last spring for Queen Elizabeth II, which numbered about 7,000.

"One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith," Bush told the EWTN Global Catholic Network in an interview aired Friday. He added that he wanted to honor Benedict's conviction that "there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies."

There have been many boycotts before, but with its dominance in manufacturing, those vowing not to buy Chinese face an especially tough challenge. Sitting on the bus wending your way to work and wherever you are, you probably have a bit of China with you. Listening to your iPod. Made in China. Fiddling with your key ring. Made in China. Label on the inside of your underpants irritating you a little bit. It more than likely says "Made in China".

When there was a boycott of South African products during the Apartheid era or of France by irritated Americans in the run-up to the Iraq war, those were political statements that might have meant a little privation for those involved. But they weren't on the same scale as China.

A boycott of Chinese products really meets its match in the field of consumer electronics. There is some production still in Europe, particularly of expensive equipment, says Rob Follis, a public relations consultant for consumer electronics firms, but it is dwindling in the face of outsourcing to China.

Alan Milne, of Equitoy, the Association for Toy Importers, says it is impossible to put a precise figure on the level of Chinese toys imported, with EU trade rules complicating the matter. But it was estimated last year that of all the toys sold in the UK, 85% are made in China. Recent years have seen a steady stream of big names taking their production to China. British firm Hornby and the Swedish wooden train set maker Brio are among the recent departures.

Avoiding China is hard in the globalised world trade system. Something of Shanghai or Shenzen is in so much of what we own. Even the most hardened boycotter may inadvertently be buying the "wrong" thing.

The president made this affirmation Friday when he answered the last question posed him during an interview with Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) anchor Raymond Arroyo. Arroyo noted that Bush is planning an all-out welcome for the Pope, who arrives in the United States on Tuesday for a five-day visit. Most notably, Bush will go to the airport to receive the [Pontiff], a courtesy he has never extended to any visiting leader.

The president says he plans to do this "because [the Pope] is a really important figure in a lot of ways. One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith. And, three, that I so subscribe to his notion that... there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies, that I want to honor his convictions, as well."

The [Pope], Bush said, "represents and stands for some values that I think are important for the health of the country, and when he comes to America, millions of my fellow citizens will be hanging on his every word. And that's why it's important."

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader denied Chinese claims that he has called for Tibet to be split from China and that he is behind recent turmoil, saying instead that he is committed to pursuing Tibet's right to autonomy.
"The whole world knows that the Dalai Lama is not seeking independence, nor separation," he said at a news conference. Recent protests in Tibet against five decades of Chinese rule have been the largest and most sustained in almost two decades and have fueled protests that have disrupted the global torch relay for this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing.

"Our struggle is with a few in the leadership of the People's Republic of China and not with the Chinese people," the Dalai Lama said in a statement released after the news conference. "If the present situation in Tibet continues, I am very much concerned that the Chinese government will unleash more force and increase the suppression of Tibetan people." He said that if the Chinese stop such suppression and withdraw armed police and troops, he would advise all Tibetans to stop their protests.

Faced with having to ration domestic water supplies during the coming months, the regional government of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital, plans to import drinking water by ship from as far afield as southern France and from desalination plants in southern Spain. Officials said they were even considering buying water from other parts of the country and carrying it to Barcelona by train.

With water levels in some Catalan reservoirs at 20 percent of capacity, the regional government has banned Catalans from filling large swimming pools or watering their gardens and has switched off city fountains. At a national level, Spain's reservoirs are half empty, according to data published by the Environment Ministry last week.

This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes, but also jobs. In Ireland, Spain, Britain and elsewhere, housing markets that soared over the past decade are falling back to earth. Experts predict that some countries, like Ireland, will face an even more wrenching adjustment than the United States, with the possibility that the downturn could turn into wholesale collapse.

To some extent, the world's problems are a result of American contagion. As home financing and credit tighten in response to the crisis that began in the U.S. subprime market, analysts worry that other countries could suffer the mortgage defaults and foreclosures that have afflicted California, Florida and other states. Citing the far-flung reverberations from the American housing bust and credit squeeze, the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast Wednesday for global economic growth this year and warned that the malaise could extend into 2009.

"The problems in the U.S. are being transmitted to Europe," said Michael Ball, professor of urban and property economics at the University of Reading in England, who studies housing prices. "What's happening now is an awful lot more grief than we expected."