That wannabe martyr - his 72 expectant virgins currently tapping their fingers impatiently in Paradise - had a head wreathed in fire and a Molotov cocktail in his hand. The Bishop of Carlisle is a diocesan bishop in the Church of England, not a sect commonly associated with acts of terror, while the as-yet-unnamed jihadi is, one guesses, an adherent of Wahabi Islam, a sect which very much is. And yet, on a spiritual level, it seems that they do share one thing. THEY BOTH BELIEVE IN A VINDICTIVE GOD.

We already know how this belief was translated into action in the case of that young man at Glasgow Airport. He was prepared to incinerate young children and women and Muslims - anybody, frankly, who was unlucky enough to be on the other side of the entrance doors when he crashed through them.

The Bishop of Carlisle's expression of retribution took a much milder form: HE EXPRESSED THE VIEW THAT THE RECENT FLOODS IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND WERE A SIGN OF GOD'S DISPLEASURE, NOT ONLY AT OUR ENVIRONMENTAL FECKLESSNESS BUT ALSO AT OUR WILFUL REFUSAL, AS A SOCIETY, TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS. "This is a strong and definite judgement because the world has been arrogant in going its own way," he said. "WE ARE REAPING THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR MORAL DEGRADATION."

The logic of this seems to suggest that God is prepared to kill innocent people in order to get his message across. And if the Bishop is right, it isn't just us that God is disappointed with. He's furious with the people of Pakistan, where serious flooding has left 900,000 homeless, and Afghanistan, where 80 have died in recent storms, and Kansas and Texas, too, where floods have devastated communities and left people homeless. Then again, with a killer this "indiscriminate" about collateral damage, only a bishop could be sure what the message is.

Of course, there are important differences between the bishop and the Glasgow attacker. The bishop restricts himself to condoning the actions of a terrorist God, while the human fireball appointed himself as a direct tool of divine wrath. It's hardly a distinction to be sneezed at in these dangerous times. BUT IT'S NOT QUITE ENOUGH TO QUELL THE SENSE THAT THE BISHOP FINDS HIMSELF IN A DISTANT INTELLECTUAL KINSHIP WITH THE SUICIDE BOMBER - BOTH WORSHIPPERS OF A GOD WHO COMMUNICATES THROUGH THE DEATHS OF INNOCENTS.

The murder on June 24 of Hesham Saymary in Ahvaz, the centre of Iran's oil-producing province in the south, was a blow to a regime that is already under pressure because of international condemnation of its nuclear program and the prospect of economic meltdown.

There have been other assassinations in Iran, notably in the Kurdish area, in the west near the Iraq border, but the Government is far more concerned about Saymary's death because stability in the province is crucial for its oil revenues. He may have been targeted because he was a prominent supporter of the regime. Protests that followed shortly afterwards over the rationing of petrol convulsed Iran and its increasingly discontented citizens.

The rationing is particularly damaging to Mr Ahmadinejad because those worst affected are the constituency that elected him, the poor and disenfranchised. During his campaign he adopted the slogan: "Oil money must be seen on the table of the people." He increased Iran's public spending budget, and promised dams, streets, stadiums, schools and hospitals. Few have been built. His biggest headache is that Iran, awash with crude oil but desperately short of refining capacity, has to import 40per cent of its petrol. Faced with UN sanctions and pariah status over its nuclear ambitions, the regime lacks the foreign investment it needs to build more refineries.

Little noticed in the media, but keenly watched in Tehran, is the Bush administration's donation of $52 million to Iranian opposition groups. The worry now is that the regime will crack down on domestic freedoms to distract attention from its problems.

As a doctor of microbiology, a physician and a colonel in the Red Army, he helped lead the Soviet effort. He told U.S. intelligence agencies that the Soviets had devoted at least 30,000 scientists, working at dozens of sites, to develop bioweapons, despite a 1972 international ban on such work.

He said that emigrating Russian scientists and others posed imminent threats. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he said, several specialists went to Iraq and North Korea. Both countries, he said, may have obtained anthrax and smallpox. The transfer of smallpox would be especially ominous because the Russians, he said, had sought to genetically modify the virus, posing lethal risk even to those who had been vaccinated.

His expertise, combined with his dire pronouncements, solidified his cachet in Washington. He simplified his name to Ken Alibek, became a familiar figure on Capitol Hill, and emerged as one of the most important voices in U.S. decisions to spend billions of dollars to counter anthrax, smallpox and other potential bioterrorism agents.

Officials still value his seminal depictions of the Soviet program. But recent events have propelled questions about Alibek's reliability: No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review by scientific specialists. His promotion of nonprescription pills - sold in his name over the Internet and claiming to bolster the immune system - was ridiculed by some scientists. He resigned as executive director of a Virginia university's biodefense center 10 months ago while facing internal strife over his stewardship.

And, as Alibek raised fear of bioterrorism in the United States, he also has sought to profit from that fear. By his count, Alibek has won about $28 million in federal grants or contracts for himself or entities that hired him.

The multi-million dollar redesign sees the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the world's largest military, ditching the long-standing but poorly-fitting olive green uniforms, trimmed with red and gold insignia. Referred to as the "07 Style", the makeover will see PLA ground forces donning pine green dress colours, the navy will take dark blue, while air-force personnel will don a deep blue-grey.

The changeover, expected to take about three years, will cost almost $800m.The switch comes as China steps up spending on its armed forces to create a better-trained and more technologically-advanced military.
Officially China's military budget rose this year by 17.8 per cent to $44.9bn, although many outside observers, as well as the CIA, say China's real military expenditure is much higher.

The uniform makeover will also see introduction of a new line of "digital camouflage" designed to help soldiers blend into natural environments.The computer-generated designs will make wearers less visible than the current combat fatigues worn by the PLA, the creators say. "With the application of pixel-matrix technology, the camouflage functions better as it blurs the divide between different colours."

Emirates Bank International and the National Bank of Dubai directors announced the deal on Monday after agreeing the terms of a merger first announced in March by Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE vice-president and prime minister.

The government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates federation, owns 76 per cent of Emirates Bank and 14 per cent of National Bank. Ahmad Humaid Al Tayer, chairman of EBI, said: "The objective of this merger is to create a strong entity that will play a major role in the banking industry."

They hover on the edge of space. Thin, wispy clouds, glowing electric blue. Some scientists think these mysterious clouds are seeded by space dust. Others suspect they're a telltale sign of global warming. Sky watchers on Earth see them, too, glowing in the night sky after sunset, although the view from Earth-orbit is better. Now a Nasa satellite has captured the first occurrence this summer of mysterious shiny polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth's surface.

The first observations of these noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds has been made by a satellite named "AIM" which means Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of these unusual clouds.

The clouds form in an upper layer of the Earth's atmosphere, called the mesosphere, during the Northern Hemisphere's summer season which began in mid-May and extends through the end of August and are being seen by AIM's instruments more frequently as the season progresses. This is is why they are also called Polar Mesospheric Clouds.

Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete cloud seasons over both poles, documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds for the first time.

"It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," said AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed."

The report, produced in co-operation with Chinese government ministries over several years, found about 750,000 people die prematurely in China each year, mainly from air pollution in large cities.

China's State Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and health ministry asked the World Bank to cut the calculations of premature deaths from the report when a draft was finished last year, according to Bank advisers and Chinese officials.

Advisers to the research team said ministries told them this information, including a detailed map showing which parts of the country suffered the most deaths, was too sensitive."The World Bank was told that it could not publish this information. It was too sensitive and could cause social unrest," one adviser to the study told the Financial Times.

Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, according to previous World Bank research.

Before trading started on Tuesday morning, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) set the midpoint at 7.5951, breaking the 7.60 barrier for the first time since China ended its peg to the US dollar in July 2005. The PBoC widened the yuan's daily trading limit against the US dollar to 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent on May 18, making it possible for faster gains. The yuan has appreciated 6.35 percent against the US dollar since the exchange rate reform in 2005.

However, that has failed to appease the Bush administration, American lawmakers and businesses. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday he was unhappy with the slow pace at which the yuan is rising in value. American lawmakers and businesses claim China is keeping the yuan artificially low to give its exports an unfair advantage and demand a faster rise in yuan's value.

Their findings add to a growing body of research that demonstrates the health benefits of wine. Moderate consumption of red is already known to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. However, the drink's antibacterial qualities, although well- known by the ancient Romans, have been little investigated, said Professor Gabriella Gazzani, writing in the American Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Professor Gazzani's team used bottles of supermarket Valpolicella and Pinot Nero for their research, pouring the wines into bowls containing bacteria. "Overall, our findings seem to indicate that wine can act as an effective anti-microbial agent against streptococci bacteria and upper respiratory tract infections," she said.

(Reader comment:-" I've got a sore throat and an ear ache. Should I have two glasses?")

A damning report by a Commons committee will warn that the growing shortfall - fuelled by a recruitment crisis - is leaving the military increasingly overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan. It found the number of RAF servicemen and Army officers returning to civilian life has hit a ten-year high.
Increasingly frequent overseas postings, heavier workloads, poor pay and disruption to family life were the key reasons more troops were quitting the military, MPs found.

Conservative MP Edward Leigh, the committee chairman, said: "The Ministry of Defence has been relying for too long on the goodwill and courageous spirit of our servicemen and women to compensate for the increasing shortages of personnel in all three services.

"There are simply not enough service people to meet levels of military activity planned some years ago, let alone the heightened demands now being placed on them by commitments such as the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. "Let us fervently hope that it will not take some future operational failure on the battlefield for the department to change its mind."

The pound rose to $2.0173 -- its highest level versus the dollar since June 1981 -- in New York trading before retreating to $2.0165. The dollar also dropped to within a cent of its all-time low versus the euro, as rising global interest rates made the currency less attractive to investors.

The 13-nation euro rose to $1.3637, just shy of its April 27 all-time high of $1.3682, before dipping back to $1.3623. Higher interest rates, a weapon against inflation, can bolster a currency by giving better returns on fixed-income investments.

The dollar has been especially weak for so many months, it's difficult to put a finger on a single catalyst for Monday's losses, said David Solin, a partner at Foreign Exchange Analytics in Essex, Conn. "What really triggered this sudden realization that the dollar should be sold off?" he said.

The dollar bought 122.32 yen, down from 123.14 yen late Friday. In other trading, the dollar bought 1.0562 Canadian dollars, down from 1.0626, and 1.2103 Swiss francs, dropping from 1.2219.

VERY STRONG HIGH PRESSURE ALOFT OVER THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED
STATES WILL CONTINUE TO INTENSIFY INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK.
THIS WILL PRODUCE VERY HOT CONDITIONS OVER THE SOUTHWEST ARIZONA
AND SOUTHEAST CALIFORNIA DESERTS THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

FORECAST HIGHS ON TUESDAY WILL RANGE FROM 113 DEGREES AT YUMA TO
AROUND 115 DEGREES AT PARKER. IT WILL LIKELY BE A FEW DEGREES
HOTTER ON INDEPENDENCE DAY...WITH EXPECTED HIGHS OF 116 AT YUMA...
117 AT IMPERIAL AND 118 AT PARKER.

Iraqi Bilal Abdullah, who was arrested at Glasgow Airport, worked as a locum doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Strathclyde Police said two further men were detained at residences there, though officers would not confirm whether they were doctors. Two controlled explosions were carried out on two vehicles at the hospital. One of the two suspected of driving the flaming Jeep loaded with gas canisters into the arrivals hall at Glasgow Airport, suffered severe burns and remains in a critical condition.

Police investigating failed car bombings at Glasgow airport and London have seized a man at Brisbane airport. The Australian arrest brings the number of people held to eight. PM John Howard said the 27-year-old man was a doctor and that a second doctor was also being interviewed by Australian police.

Mr Howard said Australian police had been acting on information from the UK authorities. The detained man was an Indian national who was arrested while trying to return to India with a one-way ticket, he added.

Security has been stepped up with extra police patrols and vehicle searches taking place at airports and transport hubs. In a Commons statement, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the country would not be "intimidated" by "those who wish to destroy our way of life and our freedoms".

Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who both regularly rail against Washington, met during an official visit by the Venezuelan leader to the Islamic Republic. Chavez arrived on Saturday after visiting Russia and Belarus. The Venezuelan leader, who wants to forge an alliance of leftist states to counter U.S. policies, told Ahmadinejad according to the official IRNA news agency:

"Cooperation of independent countries such as Iran and Venezuela has an effective role in defeating the policies of imperialism and saving nations."Ahmadinejad, whose country is embroiled in an escalating standoff with the West over its disputed nuclear programme, took a similar line.

"The pillars of the global arrogance have become shaky and victory (can) be achieved with resistance and standing firm," he told Chavez. "Global arrogance" is a term Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials use to refer to the United States and its allies, but like Chavez he did not name America in comments on IRNA.

The text is based on the Tridentine Mass promulgated by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. Originally this mass contained a Good Friday prayer for the conversion of "the perfidious Jews." But in the 1960s, after his historic meeting with the historian and Holocaust survivor Jules Isaac, Pope John XXIII ordered this terminology removed, and the version that will be used dates back to 1962, when this phrase had already been eliminated.

Some Catholic circles, particularly those most open to interfaith dialogue, are concerned this change will divide Catholics and undo some of the good work of the Second Vatican Council. Jewish groups are upset that the mass contain a prayer for the conversion of the Jews.

Contemporary Good Friday prayers no longer ask for the conversion of Jews, and in contrast to the old version, the Jewish covenant with God is presented as eternally valid. During Easter celebrations one can hear these words in the modern version: "Lord our God, who chose the Jews before all other men, to receive his word, help them to continue progressing in the love of your name and faithfulness to your covenant." The prayer continues with wishes that Jews may reach "the fulfillment of redemption."