Back in the days when motor vehicles were invented, such biofuels seemed to be the way to drive them. HENRY FORD ORIGINALLY DESIGNED HIS MODEL T FORD TO RUN ON FUEL MADE FROM CORN AND HEMP, AND THE FIRST DIESEL ENGINE BURNED PURE PEANUT OIL. But these sources could not compete against the rapidly increasing supplies of cheap crude.

Now, oil's phenomenal 150-year growth is coming to an end. Experts believe we are rapidly approaching the point when its production will start to decline. And as supplies shrink, production will become ever more concentrated in potentially unfriendly areas such as Russia and the Middle East. And burning oil releases carbon dioxide. Biofuels address all these problems, while providing farmers with a new source of income. It is little wonder that governments have seized on them.

Earlier this year, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would cut its use of petrol by a fifth over the next decade, and make up for it by stepping up biofuel production to 35 billion gallons a year.
But a growing number of authoritative critics say it is DRIVING UP FOOD PRICES, EXACERBATING POVERTY AND HUNGER, CAUSING THE DESTRUCTION OF VITAL FORESTS AND WETLANDS, AND EVEN MAKING CLIMATE CHANGE WORSE.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the U.S. which has so far produced the greatest biofuels conundrum - with the worst worldwide consequences. The United States makes ethanol from its corn crop, but these fields also help to feed 100 - mostly poor - countries. AND JUST ONE TANKFUL OF ETHANOL FOR A FOURWHEEL DRIVE USES UP ENOUGH GRAIN TO FEED SOMEONE FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR.

By next year, nearly a third of the U.S. harvest will go to fuel American cars, rather than be exported to feed people. Inevitably, food prices will rise sharply. The cost of buying tortillas in Mexico has already shot up 60 per cent (due to rising flour prices), causing riots. Italian pasta makers are warning that prices will soar because farmers have switched from growing wheat for food to biofuels.

And, incredible as it may seem, so much traditional fossil fuel is used to grow, harvest and transport U.S. corn and turn it into ethanol that there may be little or no net benefit. ONE AUTHORITATIVE STUDY EVEN SUGGESTS THAT THE PROCESS CONSUMES NEARLY A THIRD MORE ENERGY THAN IS PRODUCED - THUS INCREASING, RATHER THAN REDUCING, CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS. And though the right use of biofuels can do much to ease the oil crisis, simple steps to conserve energy can do much more. Increasing the mpg of U.S. cars by just 20 per cent, for example, would save as much oil as using the country's entire harvest for fuel.

Palm oil, widely used to make European biodiesel, is a particularly good source of energy. But the downside is that rain-forests are being felled and peatlands drained in countries such as Indonesia to make way for palm plantations - driving the endangered orang-utan and Sumatran tiger towards extinction, and small farmers and indigenous peoples off their lands.

What's more, as the forests and peatlands are destroyed, vast amounts of carbon dioxide are released, far offsetting any benefit to the climate gained by substituting the biofuel for oil. Regardless, Malaysia alone plans to increase production a staggering 43-fold over the next 20 years. And similar problems face Brazil, which has led the world in the use of ethanol. Its sugar cane crops now provide 40 per cent of the country's motor fuel.

BUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS WARNED THAT A RAPID INCREASE IN PRODUCTION COULD HAVE 'A DEVASTATING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT' AS POOR PEOPLE ARE EVICTED FROM THEIR LAND, AND FOREST AND OTHER ECOSYSTEMS DENUDED.

Cattle soak up a phenomenal amount of water: it takes a staggering 990 pints of it to produce just one pint of milk. And their wastes often pollute rivers and the sea. A giant 'dead zone', stretching over 21,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, is partly caused by pollution from U.S. beef production, carried down the Mississippi.

But perhaps the greatest surprise is that cattle are responsible for more of the pollution that causes global warming than are cars. Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow their food, to produce meat and to transport it accounts for about 9 per cent of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.

Worse, their manure and wind produces at least a quarter of the pollution by methane, a 20 times more powerful gas. Wind from both ends of a single British cow - but mainly from belching - produces the equivalent of 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide a day, compared to 3,419 grams from the exhaust pipe of a Land Rover Freelander on an average 33-mile day's drive.

In all, the world's 1.5 billion head of cattle produce more greenhouse gases than all its cars, planes and other forms of transport put together.

The permission was granted in spite of longstanding fears from leading Israeli archeologists the Waqf might hide or dispose of Jewish Temple artifacts discovered during any Muslim digs.
The last time the Waqf conducted a large dig on the Temple Mount, during construction 10 years ago of a massive mosque at an area referred to as Solomon's Stables, the Wafq reportedly disposed truckloads of dirt containing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods.

After the media reported on the disposals, Israeli authorities froze the construction permit given to the Wafq, and the dirt was transferred to Israeli archeologists for analysis. The Israeli authorities found scores of Jewish Temple relics in the nearly disposed dirt, including coins with Hebrew writing referencing the Temple, part of a Hasmonean lamp, several other Second Temple lamps, Temple period pottery with Jewish markings, a marble pillar shaft and other Temple period artifacts. The Waqf was widely accused of attempting to hide evidence of the existence of the Jewish Temples.

Speaking to WND in a recent interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed." "About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

Asked about the Western Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad's horse and that it is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the Wall predates the mosque by more than 1,000 years. "The Western wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's where Prophet Muhammad tied his animal which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah." The Palestinian media also regularly state the Jewish Temples never existed.

In a series of WND exclusive interviews, Palestinian terror leaders denied the existence of the Jewish Temples. "We are fed up with this crap nonsense of the Temple Mount," said Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of Fata's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank.

"We do not know where this story came from. There is no historical or archeological proof that your legendary Temples existed. We are sick of this story. But Allah warned us that Jews will look for an excuse in order to corrupt life on earth, so we are not surprised from the fact that you keep raising this issue." "Go look for your stupid Temple elsewhere. And I am not saying this for political reasons. I say that the enemy invented this story in order to justify its occupation of Jerusalem."

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Mohammed took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" - believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia - to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with Jerusalem.

While environmentalists are usually vocal about perceived threats ranging from pesticides to global warming, there is a silence when it comes to one threat already harming the water supply - hormones from birth-control pills. According to the National Catholic Register, EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado studied fish in a mountain stream near Boulder, Colo., two years ago.

When they netted 123 trout and other fish downstream from the city's sewer plant, they found 101 were female, 12 were male, and 10 were strange "intersex" fish with male and female features. It's "the first thing that I've seen as a scientist that really scared me," university biologist John Woodling told the Denver Post.

The main culprits were found to be estrogens and other steroid hormones from birth-control pills and patches that ultimately ended up in the creek after being excreted in urine into the city's sewers.Two years after the Boulder findings, there has been no effort among environmentalists to stop the estrogen pollution of Boulder Creek. Dave Georgis, director of the Colorado Genetic Engineering Action Network which has been vocal against genetically modified crops, said, "It just has so much competition out there for stuff to work on."

He told the Boulder Weekly nobody needed to think about cutting back on birth control for the creek's sake.
"You can't have a zero impact, and this is one of the many, many impacts we have on the environment in everyday life," Georgis said. "Nobody is to blame for this, and I don't have a solution."

Errors in identifying patients led to at least 500 a week getting the wrong operation the wrong drugs or diagnostic tests, the National Patient Safety Agency said. Almost 3,000 of the incidents are estimated to have occurred because of confusion over wristbands used to identify patients. An investigation found that the colour red on a wristband had eight different meanings in different NHS trusts, ranging from "allergic to penicillin" to "does not have English as a first language".

The agency issued a warning notice to all NHS trusts urging them to take "immediate action" to produce a standard wristband. It set a deadline of July 2008 for its introduction. The wristband will be white and carry the last name of the patient followed by the first name, date of birth and NHS number. Only one other colour - red - will be permitted, to indicate patients at high risk.

Christine Ranger, head of safer practice at the agency, said there were 24,382 incidents between February 2006 and January 2007 in which patients were "mismatched with their care." Of these more than 2,900 related to wristbands and their use. "These are causing patients to have the wrong operation, the wrong [blood] transfusion, the wrong medication or the wrong diagnostic test," she said. "Some incidents will involve significant harm and some have led to deaths."

Last year, the NPSA reported 41,000 medication errors between July 2005 to July 2006, which caused 36 deaths. A further 2,000 patients suffered "moderate or severe harm." In 2005, the National Audit Office reported that nearly one million errors or safety lapses had occurred in the previous year, causing 2,000 deaths. Half of the incidents could have been avoided if staff had learnt from past mistakes.

More than 50 militants and 10 soldiers were killed and 33 wounded in the final, 35-hour assault by the elite Special Services Group which began early Tuesday, the army said. The dead including the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the mosque's militants to surrender to a weeklong siege mounted by the government following deadly street clashes July 3 with armed supporters at the complex in the heart of Pakistan's capital.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the compound.

An army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said troops moved from room to room in basements of the compound, blowing up foxholes where militants had been entrenched.

Already the country's deadliest hurricane with an estimated 8,000 deaths, the 1900 storm also would rank as the nation's third costliest, say hurricane scientists who sought to gauge the economic damage that historic storms would have caused if they had occurred in 2005.

Under the new analysis, which adjusted for inflation, population and coastal development, Hurricane Katrina and its $81 billion cost ranked second to the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, which caused damage estimated at almost $140 billion. Another Galveston hurricane, in 1915, ranked fourth with $57 billion in damage.

Put simply, the devastation wrought by Katrina in 2005 was not unprecedented.

That's significant in an era when some blame global warming for catastrophic hurricanes. The research concludes that economic damage from hurricanes, after being adjusted, has remained relatively constant during the last century.

Ayman al-Zawahri's 4-minute, 24-second address focused entirely on the clashes between Islamic students and Pakistan's army at the mosque.

The video was released by al-Qaida's multimedia branch, as-Sahab. Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, but two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups also reported it.

With investors fearful the US housing slump will hit the wider economy, the euro rose as high as $1.3784 before pulling back slightly to $1.3761. The dollar's latest fall came after the Standard & Poor's credit rating agency said it may downgrade $12.1bn of bonds backed by US sub-prime home loans.

Meanwhile, the pound hit $2.0336 as it extended its gains against the dollar. The pound is at a 26-year high against the US currency amid contrasting prospects for interest rates in the two countries.

As Jews around the world commemorate the Three Weeks of Mourning for the Holy Temples - beginning last Tuesday and ending on Tisha B'Av, July 24 - Jews in Israel appear to be embarking on a marathon of Temple-related studies and activities.

Mother- of- two Mokarrameh Ebrahimi has spent the last 11 years in jail for adultery with Jafar Kiani. Authorities in Tehran confirmed yesterday that Kiani had been executed last week. Now human rights groups fear 43-year-old Ebrahimi will suffer the same brutal fate.

A stoning pit, in which she will be buried up to her neck, has already been prepared for her. Under Islamic law a male convict is buried up to the waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female is usually buried up to her neck. Spectators and officials then carry out the execution by hurling rocks and stones. The stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not big enough to kill the person in just one or two strikes.

The stoning of Jafa Kiani brings to at least 110 the number of executions - by public hanging - carried in Iran this year. The death penalty is automatically imposed for murder, rape, armed robbery, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, repeated sodomy, adultery, prostitution, treason and espionage.

Professor Keith Campbell believes the country's farms should be populated by superstrong, super-sized offspring of clones. The U.S. expects to be eating clone-farmed burgers, pork and bacon within two years, and supporters of the method say Europe must follow suit.

The Daily Mail revealed earlier this year how the daughter of a U.S. clone cow had been born on a British farm for the first time, making Frankenstein Farming a reality. The intention is that the cow - Dundee Paradise - will be used to help breed Britain's future milking cow herds.

Professor Campbell said yesterday that this should be the first step to a far wider use of cloned animals to produce food from cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep. Clone-offspring cows would be bigger and able to produce more milk than those from current breeding techniques. Pigs might also be much bigger, leaner or faster growing, so making them easier and cheaper to produce.

Professor Campbell, director of animal bioscience at Nottingham University, said cloning is a useful extension of existing selective breeding, which includes artificial insemination and embryo transfer. "It is just another technique that we can add to accelerate genetic improvements to farm animal species," he added. "Cloning allows us to multiply elite animals.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is expected to give approval for the technology, without a requirement for labelling, later this year. Dr Simon Best, chairman of the Bioindustry Association, believes labelling is unnecessary saying: "I don't think there is a scientific reason for doing it." He said: "THERE IS A WHOLE LOAD OF THINGS THAT THE PUBLIC COULD WANT TO KNOW, BUT YOU END UP WITH INFORMATION OVERLOAD".

The policy chief of the organic farming group, the Soil Association, dismissed the claims as 'propaganda'.
Peter Melchett said: "THE FACT THAT SUPPORTERS OF CLONING ARE NOT PREPARED TO SUPPORT LABELLING AND WANT TO KEEP THE WHOLE THING SECRET SAYS IT ALL. It stinks."

Temperatures across much of the US Northeast surpassed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) - the hottest in the metropolitan area since a heat wave last year that was blamed for 40 deaths. Extra utility crews were on hand in case of power outages, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents to help prevent blackouts by conserving power.

He urged New Yorkers not to exert themselves in the sweltering conditions. "It is very hot," Bloomberg said. "I don't care how good a runner you are, I don't care how strong you are, you should take some precautions to prevent strokes." The temperature in Central Park hit 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) at 1 pm.

Last year, a heat wave in late July and early August caused 40 deaths from heat stroke and contributed to the deaths of another 60 people. On Monday, the city opened its network of 290 cooling shelters for the first time in 2007, offering people without air conditioning a break from the heat at senior centres and community buildings.
In Washington, DC, where the high temperature at Reagan National Airport was 97 degrees F (36 degrees C), the city set up several air-conditioned cooling where people could take a break from the heat and have a cup of cold water.

Unhealthy air quality also led some local transit systems to offer free bus rides in hopes of keeping cars off the roads.

Wet snow fell for hours on Monday, after freezing air from Antarctica collided with a moisture-laden low pressure system. In higher climbs in western and central Argentina, snow fell heavily and blanketed the region.
"Despite all my years, this is the first time I've ever seen in snow in Buenos Aires," said Juana Benitez, an 82-year-old who joined children celebrating in the streets.

Argentina's National Weather Service said it was the first major snow in Buenos Aires since June 22, 1918, though sleet or freezing rain have been periodically reported in decades since. "This is the kind of weather phenomenon that comes along every 100 years," forecaster Hector Ciappesoni told La Nacion newspaper. "It is very difficult to predict."

The snow followed a bitter cold snap in late May that saw subfreezing temperatures, the coldest in 40 years in Buenos Aires. That cold wave contributed to an energy crisis and 23 deaths from exposure. Two more exposure deaths were reported on Monday.

Officials hinted that the U.S. president is being forced to act to ease discontent in his Republican party. A damning report on the Iraqi government's failure to meet crucial goals could bring the issue to a head later this week. The progress study was demanded by Congress and approved by Mr Bush.

Washington analysts say he could use the Iraqi government's poor showing as an excuse to withdraw troops.
The New York Times suggested administration officials were discussing whether the president should announce an intention to gradually bring back troops from high casualty areas. The White House had hoped to buy time until September when the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq delivers his assessment of a troop 'surge' in the Baghdad area.

But with public support for the war plummeting still further and Bush's own approval ratings at the lowest of his presidency, he is facing unprecedented demands for a U-turn. Senior Republican leaders are understood to have warned the president the party faces a pasting in next year's presidential polls unless urgent action is taken to initiate a troop withdrawal.