The head of the Anglican Church and Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said that he fears that the Church may split over the row sparked by the appointment of openly gay US bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003.

The gay US bishop at the centre of controversy over his consecration has told a convention of US Anglicans "I am not an abomination before God, please, I beg you, let's say our prayers and stand up for right."

In December, two of the oldest and largest parishes in the US broke from their bishop and become a mission of the Nigerian Church over the issue. The head of the Anglican Church in Africa is Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who leads 37 million Anglicans and is increasingly influential.

"It's very difficult to answer the why question. But if you're asking what is the main driver of these results, it's the fact that for a long time children in Britain have been under-invested in; not enough has been spent on them." He said child poverty was twice as high as in 1979, while the government was "only just beginning" to put money into health and education.

The Unicef study found Britain had the lowest proportion of children who found their friends kind and helpful - 40%, compared to 80% in Switzerland, he went on. Professor Bradshaw said that this was an indication of a "dog eat dog society".

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne accused Chancellor Gordon Brown of having "failed this generation of children". "After 10 years of his welfare and education policies, our children today have the lowest well-being in the developed world," said Mr Osborne.
He also said government could encourage parents to have greater involvement with their children through "a framework of more flexible working".

But he added: "I don't actually think government has the answer to all these problems. "This is not all about politicians in Westminster passing laws, it's about social responsibility, it's about parents taking greater responsibility for their children, it's about trusting teachers in classrooms, it's about us as neighbours in a society playing our part as well."

CHILD WELL-BEING TABLE
1. Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Denmark
4. Finland
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Norway
8. Italy
9. Republic of Ireland
10. Belgium
11. Germany
12. Canada
13. Greece
14. Poland
15. Czech Republic
16. France
17. Portugal
18. Austria
19. Hungary
20. United States
21. United Kingdom
Source: Unicef

Suppliers said a predicted 30 per cent drop in this year's crop would probably affect prices in the UK, with varieties including pinot noir and sauvignon blanc being particularly hard-hit. Bryce Fraser, managing director of independent wine merchants Corney & Barrow Scotland, said producers and suppliers were not simply using the drought as an excuse to put prices up. "People forget, even in mass-produced wineries, this is still a farming activity and is still dependant on weather," he said. "Extreme weather can have a serious effect on the harvest.

The White House said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the Russian president's comments.

"We expect to continue co-operation with Russia in areas important to the international community such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction," said Gordon Johndroe, press secretary for the White House National Security Council.

Mr Putin told senior security officials from around the world that nations were "witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations".

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he said, speaking through a translator.
"This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law.

"This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons."

BBC defence and security correspondent Rob Watson, in Munich, said Mr Putin's speech was a strident performance which may well be remembered as a turning point in international relations.

Kenya - Eleven people have died of a highly contagious disease in parts of North Eastern Province. Seven people have died in Garissa and four others in Ijara District in the past two days. Symptoms of the disease include high fever, jaundice (yellowness in the eyes), vomiting blood, diarrhoea, headache and swelling on both legs and hands. "Most victims bleed through all body openings, leading to death in about 48 hours after infection.

Republic of Congo - Cholera has killed 41 people in the port city of Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo (ROC) since the beginning of January, Health Minister Alphonse Gando said .

California - Hundreds of thousands of rotting fish have been found along the shoreline of California's largest lake in a rare winter die-off due to last month's cold snap.

Indonesia - Thousands of dead fishes of various kinds were recently found on some beaches of Tabanan district, a local fisheries official said Wednesday. "The beaches along 35 km of coastline has been covered with dead fishes for the past three days," Nyoman Wirna Ariwangsa, head of Tabanan district's fisheries and marine resources office.

Scotland - Doctors alerted police after a patient at a Scots hospital displayed symptoms of Lassa fever - one of the world's most dangerous diseases. He lives in Edinburgh and had gone to Nigeria to meet his fiancee.

Australia - 34-year-old Victorian knackery [or renderer] worker infected with anthrax is recovering in hospital after handling cattle carcasses affected with the bacteria.

According to Patrich, the Temple, its corresponding courtyards, chambers and gates were oriented in a more southeasterly direction, sitting diagonally on what is the modern Temple Mount. The difference in orientation and the placement further eastward varies from the east-facing orientation of other scholars who believe the Temple was closer to today's Western Wall.

However, that difference is why, Patrich says, the Temple did not sit over the rock believed by Jews to be the site where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac and where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into heaven.

Patrich's siting of the Temple is derived from information collected by British engineer Sir Charles Wilson in 1866 on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Wilson mapped a series of ancient cisterns below the present Temple Mount platform. One of those, Patrich says, preserves a vestige of the Temple that stood until it was destroyed by Rome in A.D. 70.

The cistern mapped by Wilson, approximately 15 feet wide, 170 feet long and 45 feet deep, was located near the Temple Mount's southeast corner. It was oriented in a southeasterly direction with branches extending north and south.

"Until now no one has ever thought that the location of the cistern on the Temple Mount and its unique shape were derived from the shape and location of the altar and sanctuary," Patrich told YNetNews.
According to the archaeologist, this cistern is the only one found on the Temple Mount that corresponds to descriptions in the Jewish Mishnah the rabbinic oral tradition compiled in the 3rd century A.D. Of daily purification and sacrificial duties carried out by the priests on the altar in the Temple courtyard.

The Mishnah says water was drawn by a waterwheel mechanism from a cistern and held in a large basin, or laver, for daily purification by the Temple's priests before they ascended the nearby ramp to the altar to offer sacrifices.

Patrich believes the placement of the waterwheel and laver can be reconstructed from Wilson's map of the giant southeast-trending cistern and from that, the location of the altar and the Temple itself.
Patrich's siting has the Temple further east and south of locations proposed by other scholars and diagonal, rather than perpendicular to the Temple Mount's eastern and western walls. It also leaves the rock in the Dome of the Rock outside of the confines of the Temple itself.

Patrich said his research on the Temple's location is strictly academic, and political connotations should not be attributed to it.

The companies, such as cable provider Comcast Corp. and insurer Aflac Inc., are adjusting to the new political reality in Washington, where campaign contributions help buy access to a new group of lawmakers and committee leaders. The top 25 PACs poured more than $420,000 into Democratic candidate coffers between Nov. 8 and Dec. 31, about double the amount that went to Republicans, Federal Election Commission filings show.

"When power changes hands, money follows suit," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington research group that focuses on campaign finance. "Some of them are making up for lost time; they didn't bet on the right horse in the last election." A similar shift occurred in 1994, when the Democrats lost control of both the House and Senate, paving the way for what Republicans were counting on to be a permanent change.

Norquist, president of the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform, said the shift in political giving is misguided because Republicans better represent company interests, such as lower taxes. "What you're seeing is people paying protection money," he said. "Or you're buying access. Both of those are stupid investments."

Bolivia - Heavy rains in almost all of the Bolivian territory have caused the overflowing of major rivers, landslides and road obstructions isolating some rural communities.

Peru - Rain continues to hamper much of the central Andean region of Peru. The district of Pozuzo was cut off from the rest of civilization for three days after two bridges collapsed that connected the jungle region with the outside world.

Mozambique - The Shire river, the largest tributary of the Zambezi, has burst its banks, isolating over 43,000 people in Mutarara district, in the western Mozambican province of Tete. The river has burst its banks along 12 kilometres of its length, and in some areas the flood waters are two metres deep

Indonesia - Flooding killed five people and more than 100,000 others were left homeless in the Indonesian capital, an official said today as neck-high waters submerged large sections of the city.

Australia - Severe thunderstorms in the Adelaide River district, about 110 kilometres south of Darwin, have caused widespread damage to the Mount Bundey Station. More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from a shopping centre in Campbelltown in Sydney's south-west after serious flooding caused a ceiling to collapse.

Pakistan - Three children died, while several persons were injured in scores of house collapse here in the wake relentless heavy downpours that kept lashing with no respite since last 36 hours, while the flurry of rains heaped miseries in other cities as well.

India - Lightning killed two teenagers and injured many when a hailstorm lashed the rural hinterland of the Taj Mahal famous city, destroying standing crops, uprooting trees and affecting power supply.

Rwanda, - At least 10 people have been killed and hundreds more displaced in flooding after heavy rains in northwestern Rwanda, a government official said.

France - A Tornada rips off roofs ; mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned; moving autos blown off roads ; trees snapped or uprooted - millions of Euros in damage.

USA - A tornado ripped through the New Orleans area early Tuesday, ripping the roof off a hotel, knocking down power lines and injuring three people. Trailers were overturned in some areas and at least six homes collapsed.

It follows several reports of cases, where the rights of criminals appear to have been put above public safety.
These include a convicted paedophile being allowed to use a gym shared by school pupils and a suspected car thief who was served fried chicken during a 20-hour siege. Lord Falconer told the BBC that was "absolute nonsense".

"Common sense would tell you are not entitled to food if you are running away from the police. You are not entitled to not have your photograph shown if you are a convicted murderer on the run." He added: "What we are trying to do is to bust these myths". In some cases press reporting incorrectly attributed decisions to human rights legislation he said. But he admitted: "There have been problems with how human rights and the Human Rights Act have been interpreted."

Mr Frattini raised the prospect that the European Arrest Warrant could be used to detain executives of polluting companies and send them for trial in other member states. But he added: "it is not enough to punish and prosecute managers - it's very important also that corporations pay fines". The directive has set alarm bells ringing among those who fear the EU is taking over the powers of member states.

"It's a significant transfer of power to the commission," says Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the British Conservatives in the European Parliament. "The decision on whether or not to criminalise offences in Britain should be a matter for Britain, not for the EU. We all support penalties against environmental vandals but this sets an alarming precedent."

Britain supported earlier proposals to criminalise environmental offences, but on a different legal basis. This would have left it to the member states to set the penalties. But that framework decision by the EU Council of Ministers was overturned by the European Court of Justice in 2005. Judges ruled that the EU's competence on environmental law overruled the member states' powers on criminal justice.

In their ruling, judges said: "The European Community has the power to require the member states to lay down criminal penalties for the purposes of protecting the environment."

DHS Secretary Chertoff set the tone in a staffwide memo last year, when he described as "extremists" the two dozen Muslim terrorists who plotted to blow up 10 airliners over the Atlantic. Unlike British authorities, Chertoff did not mention the religious motivation of the terrorists. Nowhere in the one-page memo were the terms "Muslim" or "Islamic" used.

"It's ridiculous. 'Extremists' could mean anyone. Who are we talking about here? Neo-Nazi extremists? Environmental extremists?" another DHS official said. "It's so politically correct. If the head of Homeland Security can't say it, who can?" In a press conference on the sky-terror plot, President Bush called the British terrorists and their ilk "Islamic fascists" but quickly backed off the remark after the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Muslim groups complained.

A former senior CIA analyst says America is losing the war on Islamic terror because of such political correctness. "We are losing in Iraq and Afghanistan because the political leaders in both parties and their politically correct acolytes in the media, the academy and the general officer corps refuse to square with the American people about the enemy's motivation," said Michael F. Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit.
He says the enemy is motivated by faith in Islam and is carrying out a jihad, or holy war, against the West. Headquarters has already engaged in such outreach programs. For example, it recently dispatched a senior DHS official to personally take CAIR officials on a VIP tour of the department's anti-terror-screening operations at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the nation's busiest airport.

CAIR, a Washington-based group that's been tied to terrorists and terror groups, had complained Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed by Customs and Border Protection agents at inspection stations.
"CAIR had a special inside tour of airport security," an outraged American Airlines official at O'Hare told WND. "I work here. There's no way any of us would qualify for that tour."

CAIR has been invited by DHS headquarters to train Customs and Border Protection agents manning inspections booths at international airports to be more sensitive to Muslims and Muslim customs.

Mammoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, asked Ismail Haniya, the current Hamas-nominated prime minister, to form the new government. Abbas and Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Hamas, signed the deal in a palace overlooking the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine. The deal sets out the principles of the coalition government, including a promise that it will "respect" previous peace deals with Israel, delegates said.

Meshaal said the accord "will unify our ranks. There is a commitment and unity. We will preserve this partnership". Reacting to the agreement, an Israeli government spokeswomen said that any new Palestinian unity government must abide by previous Western demands regarding the Jewish state.

"Israel expects the new Palestinian government to accept and respect all three of the international community's principles - recognition of Israel, acceptance of all former treaties and a clear renunciation of all terror and violence," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman in the office of Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister.

Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, welcomed what she described as an "important" agreement between rival Palestinian factions. "We welcome the ongoing efforts to end the violence and promote intra-Palestinian reconciliation," Beckett said in a statement released by the foreign ministry.

"The First Amendment protects the right to engage in religious speech on a public sidewalk," ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman said. "Members of the Gideons have been highly respected for decades as peaceful providers of free Bibles to those who want them."

The arrest happened Jan. 19, when Mirto and Simpson were on the sidewalk outside of Key Largo School in Key Largo, Fla., and were distributing copies of the Bible to those interested. "Neither man entered school grounds," the law firm said. "After the school's principal called police, a Monroe County sheriff's officer asked the men to leave immediately or face trespassing charges. As the men prepared to leave, the officer decided to arrest both individuals."

"Officials cannot use fear of arrest as a means of bullying law-abiding Christians into silence," Cortman said. "These men broke no laws when they decided to communicate their message on a public sidewalk."

The Muslims view anything that Israel is doing in Jerusalem as a sign of Israeli hegemony over the city -- an affront to their ideology, said Dr. Mordechai Kedar of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies near Tel Aviv. That is why they are protesting so much, Kedar said in a telephone interview.

Some Muslims claim that all of Jewish history was concocted after 1948 just to validate Jewish claims to the land and the city. They are afraid that if there is digging around the Temple Mount, the archeologists will find evidence that the Jews were here 2,000 years ago and that would mean that Jerusalem was and should be the Israeli capital, Kedar said.

The Muslims came to Jerusalem in the 7th century. For them, everything before that -- whether Christian or Jewish -- is irrelevant. Claims based on previous ownership have lost their validity. Islam did not come to live side by side with Christianity and Judaism. It came to replace it and to build on its ruins, Kedar said.

This is why they are so "vociferous" in their complaints about the Temple Mount, he said. Kedar noted that it didn't bother the Islamic Movement in Israel when bulldozers dug under the Temple Mount several years ago (hollowing out what has been described as the largest mosque in the Middle East), but when Israel removes something from the site, it's a different story. "This is how they behave. This is how they talk. This is a wave of propaganda," said Kedar.