He welcomed the report on the civilian nature of the Iranian nuclear program by the US National Intelligence Estimates (NIE), but, at the same time strongly rejected allegations in the report that Iran had a weapons program before 2003. "Iran had never had a weapons program to stop in 2003," he said.

Hosseini said that Iranian nuclear activities had always been in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and that the International Atomic Energy has verified non-diversion of the Iranian nuclear program several times so far. "The Supreme Leader has already made it clear that Iran respects the religious prohibition of nuclear arms and the international conventions consistent with the nuclear program." Hosseini said.

Pointing to the threat of the Mediterranean Union, Merkel said it could ultimately lead to the 'corrosion of the EU's core area'. "This could unleash explosive powers in the EU which I do not wish for," added the German leader, speaking at a conference in Berlin.

Merkel, who is due to meet Sarkozy in Paris on Thursday, said common EU resources should not be used to create a Mediterranean Union. The French president has repeatedly called for such a strategic alliance since winning elections in early May.

Sarkozy seeks to include countries like Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, in this union. Merkel has been at odds with Sarkozy on several issues including the French nuclear deal with Libya and the degree of autonomy of the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank.

Both leaders are also openly vying for the European leadership role.

The cost of everything from bread and milk to meat and vegetables has already risen sharply for shoppers in Britain over the past 18 months. An expansion of biofuel farming could push maize prices up more than two-thirds by 2020 - and increase oilseed costs by nearly half, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said.

Global cereal stocks - a key buffer used to fight famines around the world - have sunk to their lowest level since the 1980s due to reduced plantings and poor weather, said the institute's director, Joachim von Braun. "The world eats more than it produces currently, and over the last five or six years that is reflected in the decline in stocks and storage levels. That cannot go on, and exhaustion of stocks will be reached soon," he told a conference in Beijing.

There are so many problems - and they are all interrelated.

CLIMATE CHANGE - Heavy rains this year hampered the harvest of grain in many countries, leaving them vulnerable to disease. Meanwhile, floods caused by extreme weather have devastated crops in Britain and around the world. In Australia and the south-eastern United States, a major drought has had a similar effect - creating a shortage of staple goods.

HIGHER DEMAND ON ENERGY - Demand from industrialising countries such as China has sent the price of oil soaring to almost $100 a barrel. Extreme weather is also causing high energy consumption as homes and businesses fight heat and cold.

SHIFT TOWARDS BIOFUELS - Demand for biofuels is increasing as prices for oil, gas and electricity continue to rise and drivers switch to biofuel vehicles in response to tax incentives which discourage gas-guzzling 4x4s.

REDUCED GLOBAL FARMING INCOME - Worldwide income from agriculture will fall by 16 per cent by 2020, despite the potential for increased yields in some colder areas and the fertilising impact on plants of having higher carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

DEMAND FOR WINDFARMS - High costs for gas and oil have made wind and wave energy more feasible, especially in Scotland, where ministers want 31 per cent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2011.

AGFLATION - Rising commodity prices due to an increasing link between energy prices and food costs have been dubbed "agflation" by economists. Food prices are rising faster in the UK than almost anywhere else in the Western world. Bread, for example, is up more than 15 per cent in the past year. The biggest supermarkets - Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's - will charge, on average, 6 per cent more for a basket of 25 Christmas foods than last year.

INFLATION - Rising prices mean falling consumer confidence. Tesco says its food prices are rising at 0.8 per cent annually compared to UK inflation of about 2 per cent, and it has called for a cut in interest rates.

INCREASED GLOBAL TRADE - The switch of low-margin manufacturing to the developing world brings wealth but also reduces self-sufficiency for food. Every year for the last decade, China has lost fertile land equivalent to the area of Scotland.

MORE TRANSPORT - Increased global trade, including the rising popularity of Fairtrade products from developing countries, means higher demand for air freight and shipping, both of which contribute substantially to harmful emissions. Greater imports of food, made necessary by shrinking numbers of local farmers, mean more damage to the environment through greater food miles.

POLITICAL INSTABILITY - In the developing world, rising food prices will have a more serious effect on standards of living and social order. In China and India, food accounts for 33 per cent and 45 per cent of their consumer price indices respectively. In Britain, the figure is closer to 10 per cent.

POVERTY - Global cereal stocks have sunk to their lowest level since the 1980s due to reduced plantings and poor weather - hampering efforts to fight famines and tackle the world's worst poverty blackspots.

Helicopters rescued some 300 people this week from flooded areas battered by Monday's fierce storm. While some flood waters are receding, entire neighborhoods and streets remain flooded with several feet of water. Cars, trees and even some homes were awash with brown, muddy waters.

Hundreds were forced to flee - some plucked from the rooftops of their own homes by rescue helicopters. About 50,000 residents still remain without power throughout the state and several counties and cities remained under flood emergency. "The town of Boistford doesn't have any running water, so we're trying to get drinking water to them and to the residents of Pe Ell," said Det. Sgt. Stacy Brown, Lewis County Sheriff's Office.

Two hikers were found dead Tuesday from an avalanche in the Cascade Mountains, King County sheriff's officials said. The hikers were killed as heavy rain atop heavy snow increased the avalanche danger.

A communiqué released Monday confirmed the presence of a Vatican delegation at the Dec. 3-14 meeting, led by Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, apostolic nuncio to Indonesia.

"Given that the sessions of the Convention on Climate Change are held once a year in various countries," the communiqué reads, "the Holy See is usually represented at such meetings with a delegation led by the apostolic nuncio and made up of experts from the area, so as to take advantage of local resources and to achieve a broader and more differentiated vision of the questions being examined."

More than 180 countries are meeting in Bali to draft a climate change framework that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that expires in 2012. Other members of the Holy See delegation include Monsignor Andrew Thanya-anan Vissanu, nunciature counselor in Jakarta, and three local experts from the Philippines and Indonesia.

Lomborg's 'Sceptical Environmentalist,' BLASTS THE GROWING 'HYSTERIA' AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE and has drawn the ire of virtually the entire scientific community. "The polar bear, which is close to extinction, has become an icon in the warming debate, when it would be enough to simply stop hunting hundreds (of the animals) each year," said Lomborg.

In his latest book, 'Cool It,' published this year, the Dane violently attacks the Kyoto Protocol on climate change for being "too expensive and inefficient" and calls on world leaders to "keep their cool" and to AVOID "A STATE OF PANIC THAT WILL PREVENT THEM FROM MAKING RATIONAL DECISIONS. I don't refute global warming. It is real but has been exaggerated by many. We must stop this climate obsession and address other more urgent problems," he said.

"Reducing CO2 emissions will not make the world a better place to live," he said, insisting that "even if we do achieve the fixed (emission reduction) objectives, we will only slow global warming by two years by the end of the century. That's very little for a lot of money," Lomborg said, calling instead for "research into alternative and cheap technologies and energy development to reduce the dependence on fossil fuel pollutants."

Few environmental warriors make the blond-haired Dane fly off the handle like former US vice president Al Gore, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "It is ironic that the prize is being given to someone WHO SPENT A GOOD PORTION OF HIS CAREER CONSIDERABLY EXAGGERATING THE CONCLUSIONS OF UNITED NATIONS' EXPERTS" on global warming, he said.

LOMBORG ALSO SLAMS GORE'S "EXCESSES" IN HIS CELEBRATED FILM 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH,' including HIS CLAIMS THAT SEA LEVELS COULD RISE SIX METRES (20 FEET) if nothing is done to cool the planet. "THE UN PANEL TALKS OF 30 CENTIMETRES (ONE FOOT)," HE SAID.

BUT CRITICS SAY THEY ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE VERY PROBLEM THEY AIM TO SOLVE. "Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."

Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a team of U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat waves.

Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung holiday destinations -- first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.

THE U.N. ESTIMATES 47,000 TONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND OTHER POLLUTANTS WILL BE PUMPED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE DURING THE 12-DAY CONFERENCE IN BALI, MOSTLY FROM PLANE FLIGHTS BUT ALSO FROM WASTE AND ELECTRICITY USED BY HOTEL AIR CONDITIONERS.

"If correct," Goodall said, "that is equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million people, such as Marseilles, France, would emit in a day." But he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what the African country of Chad churns out in a year.

The United States is sending more than 100 delegates, and all 27 countries of the European Union are flying in national teams. Non-governmental organizations also are attending, from groups advocating the rights of indigenous people to those seeking to protect rapidly dwindling forests - AND THERE ARE THOSE WITH SOMETHING TO SELL, including technology to produce drinking water and businesses ready to capitalize on future carbon trading markets.

Why did the mapmaker name the territory America and then change his mind later? How was he able to draw South America so accurately? Why did he put a huge ocean west of America years before European explorers discovered the Pacific? "That's the kind of conundrum, the question, that is still out there," said John Hebert, chief of the geography and map division of the Library of Congress.

The 12 sheets that make up the map, purchased from German Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for $10 million in 2003, were mounted on Monday in a huge 6-foot by 9.5-foot (1.85 meter by 2.95 meter) display case machined from a single block of aluminum. The case will be flooded with inert argon gas to prevent deterioration when it goes on public display December 13.

The map was created by the German monk Martin Waldseemuller. Thirteen years after Christopher Columbus first landed in the Western Hemisphere, the Duke of Lorraine brought Waldseemuller and a group of scholars together at a monastery in Saint-Die in France to create a new map of the world. "The actual shape of South America is correct," said Hebert. "The width of South America at certain key points is correct within 70 miles of accuracy. Given what Europeans are believed to have known about the world at the time, it should not have been possible for the mapmakers to produce it," he said.

The map gives a reasonably correct depiction of the west coast of South America. But according to history, Vasco Nunez de Balboa did not reach the Pacific by land until 1513, and Ferdinand Magellan did not round the southern tip of the continent until 1520. "So this is a rather compelling map to say, 'How did they come to that conclusion,'" Hebert said.

The mapmakers say they based it on the 1,300-year-old works of the Egyptian geographer Ptolemy as well as letters Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci wrote describing his voyages to the new world. But Hebert said there must have been something more. "From the writings of Vespucci you couldn't have prepared the map," Hebert said. "There had to be something cartographic with it." Although the map conceals many mysteries, one thing is clear: it represents a revolutionary shift in the way Europe viewed the world.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) took U.S. friends and foes by surprise after years of strident rhetoric from Washington accusing the OPEC member of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.

President George W. Bush said Iran remains a global danger, and that "all options" are on the table for dealing with Iran. U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman dismissed the chance of the report affecting oil markets.

Still, U.S. crude oil prices fell nearly $2 to below $88 a barrel on Tuesday after the report was released, as traders saw a slimmer chance of a disruption from the world's No. 4 oil exporter. Tensions between Tehran and Washington helped fuel the record rally that sent prices up 40 percent to just shy of $100 a barrel from August to late November amid concerns of a supply shortfall ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter.

The Department of Health (DoH) said the trials at two undisclosed locations were evaluating the "safety and effectiveness" of such services. The pilot is for drug-induced abortions up to the ninth week of pregnancy. Currently, abortions can be carried out only at NHS hospitals or certain clinics with two doctors' approval. The results of the trials - reported in Pulse magazine - are expected next year, but the DoH said it had not yet taken a decision on whether to allow abortions in GP surgeries.

In October, the Commons Science and Technology Committee called for a relaxation of rules surrounding terminating pregnancies. The group of MPs said there was no reason why women seeking an abortion needed the approval of two doctors. They wanted to see more involvement by nurses in carrying out all stages of early medical abortions. The committee also recommended that just one doctor sign the required consent form, rather than the two currently required by the Abortion Act.

In 2006 there were almost 200,000 abortions in England and Wales with a further 13,000 in Scotland. The vast majority were early abortions - 89% were carried out before 13 weeks and just 2% after 20 weeks.

The announcement comes a week after Mr Bush hosted talks at which Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged to seek a peace deal before the end of 2008. Iran will also be a key issue, after US intelligence said on Monday that the country is not actively developing nuclear weapons. Mr Bush said Iran remained dangerous and could restart a bomb programme.

The White House did not confirm Israeli reports that the president would visit Israel during his Middle East tour. But the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says such a visit is highly likely. It would be Mr Bush's first to Israel as US president.

And, our correspondent adds, any visit there would take on a particular significance in the wake of the US intelligence community's change of heart on Iran. The National Intelligence Estimate said with "high confidence" that it believed Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, but that it was continuing to enrich uranium. Responding to the new assessment, the Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said he believed Iran posed a threat to the entire world, which must be prepared to deal with this threat and foil it.

He said in a televised speech that Iran would not retreat from its path towards a peaceful atomic programme. The US intelligence report released on Monday said that Iran had halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003. The US and its European allies are still pushing for sanctions but China has said the report raises questions about the need for new measures.

The US National Intelligence Estimate report had said with "high confidence" that it believed Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, but that it was continuing to enrich uranium. US President George W Bush said on Tuesday that Iran remained a threat and his view that a nuclear Iran would be a danger "hasn't changed".

However, China's ambassador to the UN, Wang Guangya, said "things have changed" and the push for new sanctions would need to be questioned.

On the first night of Chanuka 5768, (December 4), the menora, with the aid of a robotic crane capable of climbing stairs, will be moved in the direction of the Temple Mount, home of the once and future Holy Temple. The new temporary home of the menora will be in the open plaza next to the Rabbi Yehuda Halevy stairs, which lead from the Jewish Quarter to the Western Wall plaza and the Temple Mount.

There it will be once again on display for the millions of pilgrims and tourists and passers-by each year as they head to and from the Western Wall and Temple Mount. Chanukat HaMenora, a rededication ceremony will take place on Rosh Chodesh Tevet, (the new month of Tevet), the seventh day of Chanuka, (December 12). Rabbis and dignitaries will be in attendance.

From its new location the menora will be overlooking its ultimate destination - the location of the Sanctuary of the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount.

The menora was painstakenly crafted only after years of extensive research by the Temple Institute's full time staff of researchers. The conclusions upon which the constuction of the menora was based took into account archeological evidence and, of course, the halachic (Jewish law) requirements of materials, dimensions, ornamental affects and manner of manufacture as first delineated in the Book of Exodus, and further explicated by Jewish sages throughout the millennia. The menora weighs one-half ton. It contains forty five kilograms of twenty four karat gold. Its estimated value is approximately three million dollars. The construction of the menora was made possible through the genorosity of Vadim Rabinovitch, a leader of the Jewish community of Ukraine.

The tzitz is made of pure gold, was fashioned over the course of a more than a year by the craftsmen of the Temple Institute, and is ready to be worn by the High Priest in the rebuilt Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

The words "Holy for G-d" are engraved on the headplate, in accordance with Exodus 28:36. Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, explained to Arutz-7 that until it can actually be used, the tzitz will be on view in the Institute's permanent exhibition display, together with other vessels and priestly garments fashioned for use in the Holy Temple by the Institute.

Asked what project they're working on at present, Rabbi Richman said, "We have begun work on 120 sets of garments for 'regular' priests, not the High Priest. This involves special thread from India, etc. In addition, we have begun work on architectural blueprints for the Third Temple, including cost projection, modern supplies, electricity, plumbing, computers, etc."

"At present," Rabbi Richman explained, "people are in despair, and wonder if we're not dreaming futilely while around us our leaders are planning to give the country away. We say to them: It appears that those who went to Annapolis are the dreamers, thinking that their efforts to make peace will succeed, or that the public is with them in their efforts to give away our Jerusalem, our Temple Mount, and other national historic assets."

"We are now approaching the holiday of Chanukah," Rabbi Richman continued, "which is the holiday that commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple. We're not just building beautiful vessels; we're interested in granting G-d the dwelling place that He wants in this world; the Temple is not merely a building, but a way of bringing G-d into our lives in a very real way. And that is what we aim to do. This tzitz is G-d's Chanukah present to us, and our Chanukah gift to the Jewish People."

Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, said there was "some problem" with God Save the Queen. It is one of a series of radical suggestions mooted by Lord Goldsmith, who was appointed by Gordon Brown to head a "citizenship review".

God Save The King/Queen became the world's first national anthem. The origins of both words and tune are unknown. But by the start of the 19th century composer Thomas Arne's arrangement had become acknowledged as the national patriotic song and the idea of having one was being copied across Europe.

Julie Kirkbride, a former Tory culture spokesman, said: "The point about a national anthem is that it should be patriotic and traditional. We should not be rewriting them to conform to the political correctness of any particular time." Downing Street moved to distance Scot Gordon Brown from the Goldsmith initiative. A spokesman said: "This does not reflect the Government's views. We are proud of our national anthem and the traditions it represents."