Postal workers, teachers, air traffic controllers and hospital staff are holding a 24-hour stoppage to protest against planned pay and job cuts. Students are also upset over plans to grant universities more autonomy. It could be the largest protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's reform plans since he took power in May.

Meanwhile, transport workers are beginning the seventh day of an indefinite strike against planned pension cuts. Their protests have affected millions of commuters across France. Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the dispute was costing France at least $440m (£215m) a day.

It says fishing crews often continue catching large amounts of fish, such as cod, by accident after exceeding quotas and have no option but to dump them. The practice leaves crews struggling to make a living, while damaging hopes for sustainability, say environmentalists. EU commissioner Joe Borg acknowledges the problem but sees no clear solution.

Trawler skipper Phil Walsh told BBC News the quota for cod and other white fish he and other inshore fishermen were allocated by Brussels this year was tiny. By June he had landed all of the cod he was allowed. So, since then, he has been fishing for prawns and dumping prime whiting, haddock and cod, which would fetch as much as £13.50/kg on a supermarket shelf.

Trawler skipper David Mell sums it up: "I feel very bitter because we've been so long trying to protect the cod. We've had decommissioning, increased our mesh size, we've been through a lot of pain really. But I thought I would never see the day that I had to throw adult cod overboard. It doesn't make sense when we have people in this world dying of starvation."

After reintroducing the Latin Tridentine Mass, the Pope wants to widen the use of Gregorian chant and baroque sacred music. In an address to the bishops and priests of St Peter's Basilica, he said that there needed to be "continuity with tradition" in their prayers and music. He referred pointedly to "the time of St Gregory the Great", the pope who gave his name to Gregorian chant.

Mgr Valentin Miserachs Grau, the director of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, which trains church musicians, said, "Due to general ignorance, especially in sectors of the clergy, there exists music which is devoid of sanctity, true art and universality." Mgr Grau said that Gregorian chant was the "cardinal point" of liturgical music and that traditional music "should become again the living soul of the assembly".

The autumn leaves are still dropping and there is more than a month to go before Christmas Day. Yet the pressure to buy, buy, buy has seldom been more intense. Shops are piping glutinous Yuletide music through their sound systems. Fake snow has been squeezed into the corners of window displays. The seasonal lights are twinkling - no, pulsating - in London's Oxford Street and false-bearded Santa Clauses are expected to take up residence in their grottos soon.

Out goes the message to all citizens: if you don't fill your shopping bag with goods, you cannot hope to be happy; if you don't join in this orgy of consumerism, you are a spoilsport; welcome to one and all, provided you have good credit. Excess is somehow depicted as normal.

The second half of November may seem early to denounce the excesses of Christmas but the reality is that this is the time of year when, in terms of extravagance, much of the damage is done. If you can detect a faint aroma of burning it may be another family's credit card that has gone into meltdown. Again, see, I try to make light of it. But for each family that goes seriously over its spending limits you can be sure there will be countless domestic arguments and tense encounters between husbands and wives. This is what Christmas does to too many households.

The Chancellor failed to provide a convincing guarantee that all £25billion of Bank of England loans would be paid back. With Mr Darling failing to calm the markets, the FTSE 100 index plummeted almost 3 per cent, with £40billion wiped off the value of blue-chip companies.

Mr Darling insisted: "The money lent by the Bank of England is secured against assets, such as mortgages, held by Northern Rock. So we fully expect to get it back." But there is concern that much of the £113billion in assets Northern Rock held in July has already been sold off, and the current level is dangerously close to the £25billion loan figure.

While investors are nursing heavy losses, the bank's chief executive Adam Applegarth, who resigned last Friday, managed to cash in when the price was close to its high. He made £1.1million from share sales in 2006 and sold a further 135,963 for £1.62million last January. Applegarth allegedly used some of the cash to buy luxury cars, including an Aston Martin for himself and a Ferrari for his wife.

Guidelines introduced in April mean every patient at risk should be assessed for treatment to cut the toll of deep vein thrombosis, or DVT. But only one in three trusts is taking action, according to the damning report from the All Party Parliamentary Thrombosis Group.

It estimates that the failure to implement the guidance has cost 10,700 lives from DVT in the past seven months - nearly three times the number of deaths from the MRSA superbug and C Difficile infections. The death toll in a year is greater than that from breast cancer, Aids and traffic accidents combined. The report says it is a "public health emergency" yet preventive drugs given at the time of surgery cost just £1 a day, while compression stockings can help others.

Altogether, 99 per cent of 140 NHS Trusts surveyed in the report are fully aware of the guidelines, but only 32 per cent are taking steps to assess patients at risk. These include patients in hospital for longer than four days with reduced mobility, severe heart failure, respiratory failure, acute infection, inflammatory illness or cancer.

John Smith, chairman of the parliamentary thrombosis group, said: "DVT causes more than 25,000 deaths each year. It is worrying that some NHS Trusts are still failing to adhere to these guidelines, which could reduce deaths by over 40 per cent." In March 2005, a report from the Health Select Committee warned the NHS was systematically and dangerously underestimating the threat from bloodclotting. It found preventive drugs were cheaply and easily available but not widely administered.

Hugo Chavez's visit to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran followed a failed weekend attempt by the firebrand duo to push the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States away from trading in the slumping greenback.
Their proposal at an OPEC summit was overruled by other cartel members led by Saudi Arabia, a strong U.S. ally. But the cartel agreed to have OPEC finance ministers discuss the idea, and the two allies' move showed their potential for stirring up problems for the U.S.

"Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist," Chavez said upon his arrival in Tehran, according to Venezuela's state-run Bolivarian News Agency. "God willing, with the fall of the dollar, the deviant U.S. imperialism will fall as soon as possible, too," Chavez said after a two-hour closed meeting with Ahmadinejad, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

An estimated 500,000 people have downloaded the insult featuring the words "Why don't you shut up?", generating a reported 1.5m euros ($2m). King Juan Carlos asked Hugo Chavez to "shut up" at a summit in Chile last week after the president said Spain's ex-PM Jose Maria Aznar was a "fascist". Branded mugs, t-shirts and websites featuring the row are also profitable.

In Venezuela, a group of students who oppose Mr Chavez's government have also been downloading the ringtone, a US newspaper reported. "It's a form of protest," a 21-year-old student in Caracas told the Miami Herald. "It's something that a lot of people would like to tell the president."

In a Times letter, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said the plans were "profoundly wrong" and undermined "the place of the father in a child's life". But campaign group Stonewall said the move was a "logical and timely step". The measures are contained in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, being debated in the Lords later.

The Bill includes recognition of same-sex couples as legal parents and would remove the current requirement on IVF clinics to be sure that a father is involved in the upbringing of any child created after he donates sperm. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor wrote, "This radically undermines the place of the father in a child's life, and makes the natural rights of the child subordinate to the desires of the couple. It is profoundly wrong."

Stonewall dismissed his concerns, saying that, at a time when three million children were growing up in single parent households in the UK, it would give more children the chance of a two-parent home.

The Bill would also open the door to experiments involving human-animal hybrid embryos, including "cytoplasmic" embryos, which are 99.9% human, and "true hybrids", carrying both human and animal genes. In addition, "chimeras" made of a mosaic-like mix of cells from different species, and "human transgenic embryos" - human embryos modified with animal DNA - will be allowed under licence.

The series of three vaccinations are required for girls aged 12 to 13 years old beginning in 2008 with an additional catch-up program for women up to 18 years old to start later. This program will come at a large cost to the national heath system. Estimates are it will cost 100 million pounds a year, with the catch-up program costing an additional 200 million pounds over the next two years. This makes it the most expensive vaccination program undertaken.

The vaccinations will be administered at the public schools with the private schools taking the responsibility to see the program is implemented in their facilities. It was added that the parents have the final say whether or not their child will receive the vaccine.

This move by the DoH just added more fuel to an already heated debate on mandating the vaccination against HPV. The ARGUMENTS AGAINST VACCINATING YOUNG GIRLS INCLUDE: it will encourage them to become more sexually active, the vaccine contains aluminum - causing SIDE EFFECTS OF CHRONIC JOINT AND MUSCLE PAIN AND FATIGUE, the HPV virus is not caught through casual contact or proximity like small pox or measles, and THE DIRECT LINK BETWEEN HPV VIRUS AND CERVICAL CANCER HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN IN A CONTROLLED STUDY.

Gardasil, jointly developed by Merck of the United States and Sanofi Pasteur of France, is the first European Union approved vaccine. The potential sales income from Gardasil could be Merck's biggest money earner with estimated sales of at least 2 billion USD. THIS IS INCOME BADLY NEEDED BY MERCK TO MAKE UP FOR THE VIOXX SCANDALS. IN ORDER FOR MERCK TO REAP THIS INCOME, GARDASIL VACCINATION WOULD HAVE TO BE A REQUIREMENT TO ATTEND SCHOOL.

The threat of legal action is a last resort after months in which Prince George's has struggled to get its 131,000 students immunized for chicken pox and hepatitis B, as mandated by the state. More than 2,300 students have not been immunized and have been barred from attending schools, almost two months after a Sept. 20 deadline for meeting the requirement. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but it's got to get done," Prince George's State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey (D) said at a news conference in Upper Marlboro. "I'm willing to move forward with legal action."

Nichols and Ivey sent another round of letters to the families still out of compliance. Nichols's letter ordered the parents to show up at Prince George's Circuit Court for a court hearing and a free vaccine; Ivey's letter warned that "unexcused absences by your child may subject you to a criminal charge."

They expect almost 1,700 children to show up Saturday with their parents for the first in a series of Circuit Court hearings on the matter. School officials said the parents would receive a verbal reprimand from the judge and be ordered to have their children immunized in the courthouse. The students would then be allowed to return to school.

The minister spoke in his official capacity as Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, from the Knesset podium, in response to a parliamentary question by MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) regarding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Speaking from the plenum floor, MK Eldad asked Majadle pointedly: "Does Israeli law apply on the Temple Mount or does it not?"

'The law was meant to respect religion, not the other way around' Majadle answered: "In my opinion, certainly not." Eldad reminded him that in answering parliamentary questions he speaks for the entire government, but Majadle was unfazed: "I will say my opinion. Before I am a government minister I am first and foremost a person and a citizen and a Muslim. With all due respect for the law, the law was meant to respect the religion, the person and the citizen and protect him, and not the other way around, enslave him," he explained.

"Therefore I say clearly: Al-Aksa, Al-Haram al-Sharif [as the Temple Mount is called by Muslims], cannot be under the authority of Israeli law."

Eldad interrupted him repeatedly, reminding him that he had sworn allegiance to the State of Israel and its laws, but Majadle insisted: "I hereby inform you, esteemed MK Eldad, that I may be a minister for one, two or ten years but I was born a Muslim and a Muslim I shall die. I respect Israeli law... but if there is a contradiction between the law and my deep faith as a Muslim, I announce that I will know what to choose."

Immediately after this exchange, MK Eldad wrote to the Prime Minister demanding that Majadle be fired from the government. In addition, he asked the Attorney General to open a police investigation against him, on suspicion of breach of trust.

Pseudomonas is dangerous because it is especially virulent in intensive care units and has become increasingly resistant to treatment, says Professor Mark Enright, an authority on healthcare-acquired infections.

"Pseudomonas is a nightmare for hospitals - a real struggle," said Prof Enright, of Imperial College, London."It is not as common as MRSA or C diff, and not one of the most aggressive pathogens, but Pseudomonas is probably untreatable in a lot of cases. It ends up killing some people because it is so resistant to antibiotics."

Pseudomonas bacteria, which breed in water, are spread through contaminated medical equipment. Although not officially classed as a superbug, Pseudomonas is usually found in specialist wards and can cause a wide range of illnesses, including meningitis, and can also lead to blindness or the loss of limbs.

Three days after 150mph Cyclone Sidr flattened villages along the coast of Bangladesh, the Army and aid workers are still struggling to reach remote villages. The Bangladeshi Red Crescent Society has cautioned that the final toll could be far higher than the 3,113 deaths estimated by the Army last night. The Red Cross believes that 900,000 families - roughly seven million people - are affected by the devastation. Survivors on the isolated southern coast, where many areas were still out of reach for aid convoys, gave warning that they would soon die unless help came.

Abdul Zabbar, a 50-year-old teacher, said that the situation in the area - already one of the most impoverished places on Earth - was unbearable. "There is no food and drinking water," he said. "Bodies are still floating in the rivers and paddy fields." He added that the rice harvest - representing four months of food - had been washed away.

That makes the dire tone of the just-released final report from the fourth assessment of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a network of thousands of international scientists, all the more striking. Global warming is "unequivocal." Climate change will bring "abrupt and irreversible changes."

The report, a synthesis for politicians culled from three other IPCC panels convened throughout the year, read like what it is: a final warning to humanity. "Today the world's scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who attended the publication of the report in Valencia, Spain. Climate change "is the defining challenge of our age."

As if the potential consequences of climate change weren't scary enough, the IPCC emphasized just how little time we have left to try to change the future. The panel reported that the world would have to reverse the rapid growth of greenhouse gases by 2015 to avert the worst consequences. The clock was running. "What we will do in the next two, three years will determine our future," said Pachauri. "This is the defining challenge."