Operation Banner - the Army's support role for the police - has been its longest continuous campaign, with more than 300,000 personnel taking part. British troops were sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 after violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants.

When the first soldiers were deployed in August 1969, commanders believed they would be in Northern Ireland for just a few weeks. A total of 763 military personnel were killed during the campaign. At the height of the Troubles, there were around 27,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland.

It is intended that the soldiers based in Northern Ireland in future will be deployed in foreign trouble spots, not the streets of Northern Ireland.

The trade magazine the Grocer says shortages in the wake of the recent floods could last until the end of the year with the British crop of brussels sprouts badly hit. Torrential rain across much of the country has added to the woes of growers and threatened availability levels in supermarkets. Up to half of the UK's brussels sprout crop has been lost, fuelling fears of Christmas Day shortages, producers have warned.

Sarah Pettitt, a sprout grower, said: "When the sun is shining again the consumer will forget there was a problem, but the impact of this weather on crops will be felt into 2008. There will be shortages." She warned that staples such as spring cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower were also likely to run short. "Cauliflower and broccoli supplies will be sporadic with peaks and troughs for the rest of the year," she said.

THE MAGAZINE SAID THAT IN THE MEANTIME BROCCOLI IS BEING BROUGHT INTO THE U K FROM THE US TO KEEP SUPERMARKET SHELVES STOCKED. Ms Pettitt added: "THE SUPERMARKETS' INITIAL REACTION HAS BEEN TO HIT THE PANIC BUTTON. THEY HAVE GOT ON TO THE PRODUCE MARKETING COMPANIES AND TOLD THEM TO GET BUYERS OUT TO EVERY CORNER OF THE EARTH TO KEEP SUPPLIES GOING."

EU TREATY WILL TRANSFER SOVEREIGNTY.
A leader in Saturday's Times argued that "In terms of the sovereign powers transferred to Brussels, of expanded roles for the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament, of the potentially intrusive and legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, and of expanded majority voting in the EU Council, the - reform treaty - is indeed the old constitution revisited."WELCOME TO DEMOCRACY, AS DEFINED BY SELF-SERVING GRANDEES AND BUREAUCRATS."

EU TREATY WILL KEEP THE ADVANCES OF THE OLD CONSTITUTION THAT WE WOULD NOT HAVE DARED PRESENT DIRECTLY.
Saturday's Telegraph reported on European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pottering's letter to Valery Giscard d'Estaing last week, in which he admitted that the new EU treaty had been designed to "keep the advances of the old Constitution that we would not have dared present directly." The article quoted Labour ex-Minister Gisela Stuart saying it was "extremely misleading" to suggest that the Treaty gave more power back to member states than the abandoned constitution. She added: "IF WE ARE SO CONFIDENT THAT IT IS GOOD, WE SHOULD HAVE THE CONFIDENCE TO ASK THE PEOPLE."

BRITISH WINE INDUSTRY UNDER THREAT FROM NEW EU RULES
The Observer reported that British vineyards could be threatened under new EU rules. THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION PLANS TO BAN THE USE OF SUCROSE IN WINE, which is used extensively by wine producers in northern Europe - particularly in England and Wales - to increase the alcoholic content of fermented grape juice. In poor summers the sucrose is vital to produce a decent-strength wine. It is feared that the reforms could close down some smaller producers in the UK.

MITTAL WARNS EU EMISSIONS CAP WILL PUSH PRODUCTION TO UNREGULATED OVERSEAS PLANTS.
According to the Guardian, Arcelor-Mittal, the world's largest steelmaker, has warned that EU emissions caps could have "perverse" effects, pushing production (and pollution) to less regulated sites overseas. Michel Wurth, a boardmember, said: "By cutting the allocation of CO2 quotas, the European commission will limit our growth possibilities in Europe and encourage a surge of imports from countries unaffected by such controls."

SATURDAY'S TELEGRAPH REPORTED THAT SUSHI CHEFS ARE "HORRIFIED" by a new EU health and safety directive, WHICH REQUIRES FISH TO BE FROZEN TO KILL PARASITES - a process the chefs say ruins the quality of the sushi, which has been prepared from raw fish for centuries in Japan.

ROW OVER NEW EU OFFICE IN LONDON
THE 'ENGLAND EXPECTS' BLOG NOTES THAT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COMMISSION HAVE BEEN FORCED TO FIND A NEW LOCATION FOR THEIR NEW BUILDING IN LONDON. They refused to move into the building they had planned to rent because they were not going to be allowed to fly the EU flag from it.

"It is almost unbelievable that one of Gordon Brown's first has been to do the same." However, she writes that "There is still time for Gordon Brown to put this right."

"The issue has nothing to do with the so-called 'old Tory agenda'. It has everything to do with the new Labour agenda: there was a manifesto commitment to a referendum on the EU constitution. ALL LABOUR MPS WERE ELECTED IN 2005 ON THAT MANIFESTO COMMITMENT."

Ms Stuart, who was one of Britain's representatives on the steering group that produced the EU Constitution, concluded: "The Prime Minister says that he wants to listen to people and involve them in decisions. He talks about 'wanting to renew democracy' and claims that 'this task does not fall to government alone, but to all the people of these islands'. He can prove that he means what he says by giving people the final say on the treaty by giving them a referendum."

Saturday's Sun reported that Frank Field MP was leading Labour demands for a referendum on Friday. He said, "SOVEREIGNTY IS TO BE TRANSFERRED IN THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL WAY. IT WILL BE THE EU - AND NOT MEMBER STATES - THAT WILL SIGN INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS ON FOREIGN POLICY, DEFENCE, CRIME AND JUDICIAL MATTERS.

"THE EU WILL BEGIN TO TAKE ON THE APPEARANCE OF A SEPARATE COUNTRY IN ALL BUT NAME. Results would be horrendous if Labour went into the next European elections denying people a direct say on the treaty that was being promised by the Opposition."

More than 700 people have been killed in floods, landslides, mudslides and storms across 24 provinces and 82.05 million have been affected. The water level in Huaihe River has started receding but incessant showers continue in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River. A 100-m stretch of a dam at Huajiahu in Fengtai County of Anhui in the lower reaches of the Huaihe collapsed on Saturday. The disaster occurred after 20 days of heavy downpours.

Hailstorms and rain claimed 10 lives and injured 300 people in Hubei in the past two days, and about 1,600 people had to be moved to safer places. China Meteorological Administration Chief Forecaster Wang

Drought.
Yongguang said abnormal weather will continue to plague most parts of China this summer and in the years to come. About 1.93 million people in South and parts of East China are facing acute drinking water shortage because of drought.

And about 1.61 million hectares of farmland in Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces don't have irrigation water, according to the website of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters (SFDH) office. Ministry of Water Resources officials said surface water in North China is shrinking fast, resulting in a 12 percent reduction in the Yellow, Huaihe, Haihe and Liaohe rivers.

Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia". Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland. With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.

But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life. Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness. Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.

Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments. Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp's first week and ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.

Attempting to raise Russia's dismally low birthrate even by eccentric-seeming means might be understandable. Certainly, the country's demographic outlook is dire. The hard-drinking, hardsmoking and disease-ridden population is set to plunge by a million a year in the next decade. But the real aim of the youth camp - and the 100,000-strong movement behind it - is not to improve Russia's demographic profile, but to attack democracy.

Under Mr Putin, Russia is sliding into fascism, with state control of the economy, media, politics and society becoming increasingly heavy-handed. And Nashi, along with other similar youth movements, such as 'Young Guard', and 'Young Russia', is in the forefront of the charge.

A poll this week of Russian teenagers showed that a majority believe that Stalin did more good things than bad.
IF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF UNIFORMED GERMAN YOUNGSTERS WERE MARCHING ACROSS GERMANY IN SUPPORT OF AN AUTHORITARIAN FUHRER, BAITING FOREIGNERS AND PRAISING HITLER, ALARM BELLS WOULD BE JANGLING ALL ACROSS EUROPE. SO WHY AREN'T THEY RINGING ABOUT NASHI?

Crabs, eels and other creatures usually found on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico are swimming in crowds on the surface because there is too little oxygen in their usual habitat, said Dr Nancy Rabalais of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. At 7,900 square miles, the oxygen-poor area is the third-largest ever mapped.

"We very often see swarms of crabs, mostly blue crabs and their close relatives, swimming at the surface when the oxygen is low," Dr Rabalais said from a research ship as it returned to Cocodrie, Lousiana from its annual measurement trip. But she added that eels, which usually live in sediments 60ft-70ft under water, were a less common sight on the surface.

The Gulf of Mexico annually develops a vast "dead zone" when the supply of oxygen shrinks, causing hypoxia.
Hypoxia occurs in the Gulf when fresh water pouring in from the Mississippi floats above the heavier salt water. Algae die and fall to the bottom, where their decay uses up oxygen faster than it can be replenished by being brought down from the surface. Eventually, the lower layer holds too little oxygen for aquatic life.

Nitrogen, from fertilisers, erosion and sewage, speeds up the process by feeding algae. Dead zones have appeared elsewhere in the United States, and have been reported off South America, China and Japan, and in the Baltic and Black seas.

Arriving for his first formal talks as PM with President Bush, he said the UK's "most important bilateral relationship", was that with the US. A foreign office minister had suggested the two countries would no longer be "joined at the hip" on foreign policy.

Analysts will be looking for signs of the Brown regime distancing itself from the US during the trip. BBC political editor Nick Robinson said Mr Brown was "walking a tightrope" in his dealings with America.

Earlier this month, Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch Brown said it was time for a more "impartial" foreign policy and for Britain to build relationships with European leaders. But en route to the US, Mr Brown described himself as an "Atlanticist and a great admirer of the American sprit".

"As prime minister I want to do more to strengthen even further our relationship with the US," he said. "It is firmly in the British national interest that we have a strong relationship with the US, our single most important bilateral relationship."

Mr Brown said the shared ideals of two centuries of history "HAVE LINKED THE DESTINIES" OF THE TWO COUNTRIES. HE ALSO QUOTED WINSTON CHURCHILL - THE FIRST BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TO VISIT CAMP DAVID - WHO ALSO SPOKE OF A "JOINT INHERITANCE".

With almost half of Bangladesh submerged, according to officials, and torrential rains pelting Nepal and India, at least 25 more people have died as a result of the weather since Saturday. In India, at least 15 people have drowned in the eastern state of Bihar, a disaster management official said, describing it as the worst flood there in 30 years. Adjacent West Bengal state reported another three deaths. Torrential rains in Nepal's western Gulmi district caused a landslide that smothered seven farm workers.

Snakes driven out of their usual habitat fatally bit nine people in villages in Bangladesh's flooded northern district of Pabna in the last few days, the daily New Age reported, while hospitals across the region have reported a rush of patients with diarrhea. Meanwhile, the lives of millions of other people in the subcontinent are simply on hold as they sit on their roofs, high ground or in relief camps, most relying on their governments to bring food, clean water, clothes and medicine.

About 4,000 people waded up with their livestock onto a river dyke in Sirajganj, 150 km (94 miles) north of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. Troops nearby were trying to plug a breached embankment.

The [Pope] spoke about young people's search for meaning, acknowledging that many youth act as if they do not need God, "even thinking that without God, we would be freer and the world would be broader. But after a while, in our new generations, we see what happens when God disappears."

He explained: "The major problem is that if God is not there and the Creator of my life is not there, in reality life is a simple part of evolution, nothing more, it does not have meaning in itself. But I must try to give meaning to this life." The Pontiff said that today in Germany, and also in the United States, there is a "fervent debate between so-called creationism and evolutionism, presented as if one of these alternatives excluded the other: Whoever believes in the Creator cannot think about evolution and whoever affirms evolution must exclude God."

However, Benedict XVI called this apparent conflict an absurdity. "Because on one hand," he explained, "there is a great deal of scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and that enriches our knowledge of life and of being as such. But the doctrine of evolution does not answer everything and does not answer the great philosophical question: Where does everything come from? And how does everything take a path that ultimately leads to the person?

"It seems to me that it is very important that reason opens up even more, that it sees this information, but that it also sees that this information is not enough to explain all of reality. It is not enough." The Pope urged a broader understanding of reason and the recognition of its vastness: "Our reason is not something irrational at heart, a product of irrationality. And reason precedes everything, creative reason, and we are truly the reflection of this reason.

"We are planned and wanted and, therefore, there is an idea that precedes me, a meaning that precedes me, which I must discover, follow and which, in the end, gives meaning to my life." This vision, the [Pontiff] continued, is necessary to understand the meaning of suffering as well.

"I would say that it is important to help youth discover God," he concluded, "discover true love that becomes great through renunciation, and therefore to help them discover the interior goodness of suffering, that renders me freer and greater."

The deal, which has taken almost two years to finalise after it was announced by Manmohan Singh and George W. Bush in Washington, is likely to face tough questions from the US Congress, which now has to approve it. India is not a signatory to the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

In a statement on Friday President Bush said that the deal marked an important step in "deepening our strategic partnership with India - a vital world leader."

Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state, who led the often difficult negotiations with his Indian counterparts, said it removed the "fundamental roadblock" in the way of a full global partnership between the world's largest democracy and its richest.

It is believed to be the first time an animal has been genetically engineered to have a mental illness. Until now they have been bred only for research into physical conditions such as heart disease. It will allow researchers to study the disease and develop treatments using a limitless supply of laboratory animals.

Animal rights campaigners have condemned the research, saying that it is morally repugnant to create an animal doomed to mental suffering. The mice were created by modifying their DNA to mimic a mutant gene first found in a Scottish family with a high incidence of schizophrenia, which affects about one in every 100 people. The mice's brains were found to have features similar to those of humans with schizophrenia, such as depression and hyperactivity.

"These mutant mice may provide an important new tool for further study of the combinations of factors that underlie mental illnesses like schizophrenia and mood disorders," said Takatoshi Hikida, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a leading researcher.

The egg cells of mice were genetically modified by inserting a gene associated with schizophrenia into their DNA. The eggs were fertilised and grown into viable baby mice using surrogate mothers. Animal Aid, a campaign group, said rodents were not a reliable way of modelling human disease.

Simon McDonald, the prime minister's chief foreign policy adviser, left the impression that he was "doing the groundwork" for Gordon Brown, according to one of those he consulted. Brown, who arrives at Camp David in Maryland today to meet President George W Bush, said yesterday that "the relationship with the United States is our single most important bilateral relationship".

Downing Street remains emphatic that he will not unveil a plan to withdraw British troops, who are due to remain in southern Iraq until the Iraqi army is deemed capable of maintaining security. A spokesman said there had been no change in the government's position. Behind the scenes, however, American officials are picking up what they believe are signals that a change of British policy on Iraq is imminent.

McDonald, a senior diplomat who formerly ran the Iraq desk at the Foreign Office, was in Washington this month to prepare for the summit. He asked a select group of US foreign policy experts what they believed the effect would be of a British pull-out from Iraq. "The general feeling was that he was doing the groundwork for a Brown conversation," said a source. Most of the experts felt it was a question of when, not if, Britain would leave.

Globalisation is blamed for many of the ills of the modern world, but it is also praised for bringing unprecedented prosperity. But what is globalisation, and what are the forces that are shaping it?

Many economists believe globalisation may be the explanation for key trends in the world economy such as:
-Lower wages for workers, and higher profits, in Western economies
-The flood of migrants to cities in poor countries
-Low inflation and low interest rates despite strong growth

Globalisation has played a key role in the unprecedented increase in prosperity in the last 50 years, which is now spreading from the United States and Europe to include many formerly poor countries in Asia, including China and India.

IN ECONOMIC TERMS, GLOBALISATION REFERS TO THE GROWING ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WORLD, AS TRADE, INVESTMENT AND MONEY INCREASINGLY CROSS INTERNATIONAL BORDERS (WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE POLITICAL OR CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS).

Trade has been the engine of globalisation, with world trade in manufactured goods increasing more than 100 times (from $95bn to $12 trillion) in the 50 years since 1955, much faster than the overall growth of the world economy.

Since 1960, increased trade has been made easier by international agreements to lower tariff and non-tariff barriers on the export of manufactured goods, especially to rich countries. In the post-war years more and more of the global production has been carried out BY BIG MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES WHO OPERATE ACROSS BORDERS.

Multinationals have become increasingly global, locating manufacturing plants overseas in order to capitalise on cheaper labour costs or to be closer to their markets. And globalisation is even harder to track now that one-third of all trade is within companies, for example Toyota shipping car parts from Japan to the US for final assembly.

More recently, some multinationals like Apple have become "VIRTUAL FIRMS" outsourcing most of their production to other companies, mainly in Asia. Meanwhile in the US, the Democratic victory in the November Congressional elections had a lot to do with worries about the effect of globalisation on wages and jobs.

The speed and scale of economic change has made it increasingly DIFFICULT FOR GOVERNMENTS TO KEEP THEIR ECONOMIC DESTINY IN THEIR OWN HANDS. And what is most disturbing for many people is that NO-ONE SEEMS TO BE IN CHARGE, OR BE ABLE TO AGREE FAIR RULES for the new global economic order.

The key question is whether the growing globalisation of the world economy will lead to a parallel increase in global regulation - and whether that would be good or bad for world economic growth and equality.

Normal EU rules stipulating that documents must at least be in German, French and English have been suspended. AN OFFICIAL ENGLISH VERSION IS ONLY EXPECTED NEXT MONTH, WELL AFTER SUMMER RECESS BEGINS FOR PARLIAMENT.

Officials admitted to the newspaper that "CORNERS ARE BEING CUT" AND PARLIAMENTS ACROSS EUROPE HAVE BEEN SNUBBED IN THE RUSH TO SEAL A TREATY DEAL BY OCTOBER. "We believe it is a problem but we have a mandate that is tight."

THERE IS URGENCY. "Doing all this within six months is unprecedented and there are going to be real limitations to the process," one official told the paper. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said "GORDON BROWN WANTS THE BRITISH PEOPLE TO KNOW AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE ABOUT THE MAJOR TRANSFER OF THEIR OWN POWERS TO BRUSSELS THIS TREATY WILL BRING ABOUT."