The United States asked Merkel to speak to Israeli officials and she told them Lebanon was in a fragile state and should not be destabilised, the magazine said, in a preview of its latest weekly edition.

Merkel's office and the foreign ministry were not immediately available for comment. Merkel hosted U.S. President George W. Bush during a visit to Germany on Thursday.

The German government said Merkel spoke with Jordan's King Abdullah on Saturday afternoon from St. Petersburg, where she is attending a Group of Eight summit.

"The German chancellor and the foreign minister, along with their counterparts from other EU countries, are having numerous conversations, including with representatives of Israel and the Arab countries," the statement said.

"The conversations are aimed at contributing to a de-escalation of the situation and stabilising the Lebanese government," it said.

Germany has acted as a mediator between Israel and Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hizbollah in the past.

Steinmeier said in a statement he had spoken by telephone with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Saturday and the two had agreed that all efforts must be directed towards an easing of the situation.

Steinmeier said he had been in intensive talks in recent days with officials in the region, including the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt and Syria.

Israel launched an offensive against Lebanon after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in St Petersburg)

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds".

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. "For a start, the expected deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending on health care than to changing demographics," he said.

"This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much of short-sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more pressing."

The US has been supporting Lebanon's independence and leading calls for an end to Syria's interference in the country.

Yes, America is concerned that Hezbollah is still a political force in the country and represented in the government.

It has called on Lebanon take steps to disarm Hezbollah.

But America wants to strengthen - not weaken - Lebanon as an independent state.

When Israel targets Lebanon, it undermines those efforts and increases the sectarian divide in a country that is trying to emerge from decades of civil war.

Deliberate provocation?

Then there are the broader regional issues.

The US fears that this is a deliberate attempt by Tehran and Damascus to provoke Israel and divide international opinion.

Is this also an attempt to divert attention from Syria's interference in Lebanon and the controversy over Iran's nuclear programme?
Is it an effort by those countries to further feed Muslim anger against America?

Will there be repercussions for America's presence in Iraq? The alarm bells have already sounded.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that any Israeli attack on Syria would provoke a fierce response.

This has the potential to spark a wider conflict in the whole region.

Limited options

So what can the United States do? It can hardly condemn Israel for its response to an act of "terrorism".
At best President Bush can urge restraint. The question is how much pressure does the US place on Israel.
In public, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has already stepped up that pressure.

Speaking on her way to the G8 summit, she said it was "extremely important" that Israel exercised restraint in its acts of self-defence. In private those messages will be put more forcefully.

America hopes that restraint by Israel can avoid a split in the international community. The US does not want to be the only country left defending Israel's actions. Washington wants to turn international condemnation towards Hezbollah, Syria and Iran instead.

But it is very hard to see how the US can turn the current crises in Lebanon to its advantage.

"The Zionists and their protectors are the most detested people in all of humanity, and the hatred is increasing every day," the president was quoted as saying by Iranian state television.
"The worse their crimes, the quicker they will fall," added Ahmadinejad, who has already called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map" and relocated as far away as Alaska.
Israel, the president asserted in his latest attack, "has blackened the pages of history".
The official news agency IRNA reported earlier that Larijani, during a flying visit to close ally Syria on Wednesday, had declared "the Islamic republic's decisive support for the Palestinian and the Lebanese resistance against Israel."
The report said Larijani had met "Palestinian movement leaders who are against the peace process", including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC).
The visit came as Israel launched offensives against both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip over the killing and capture of Israeli soldiers by militants.

And by understanding embryo developmental processes better, a host of other diseases might be treated using stem cells, they say.

The study is published in the journal Developmental Cell.

Growing sperm

The experiment was carried out using mice and produced seven babies, six of which lived to adulthood.

However, the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth, and other problems, such as difficulty breathing.

As well as the safety concerns, using stem cells from embryos to create sperm also raises ethical questions.

"For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm" said Professor Karim Nayernia

Stem cells are special because they have the potential to develop into any tissue in the body.

Professor Karim Nayernia and colleagues at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, took stem cells from a mouse embryo that was only a few days old and grew these cells in the laboratory.

Using a specialised sorting instrument they were able to isolate some stem cells that had begun to develop as sperm.

They encouraged these early-stage sperm cells, known as spermatogonial stem cells, to grow into adult sperm cells and then injected some of these into female mouse eggs.

The fertilised eggs grew and were successfully transplanted into female mice and produced seven babies.

Professor Nayernia, who now works at Newcastle University in the UK, said: "For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm. This will help us to understand how men produce sperm and why some men are unable to do this.

Restoring fertility

"If we understand this we can treat infertility in men."

In the future, men with fertility problems might be able to have their own stem cells harvested using a simple testicular biopsy, matured in the lab and then transplanted back.

It is estimated that one in seven UK couples have difficulty conceiving - about 3.5 million people. In about a third of all couples having IVF, male fertility is a contributory factor.

About 1% of all men don't produce sperm and a further 3-4% of men have a low sperm count that could lead to infertility.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield and honorary secretary of the British Fertility Society, said: "To be able to make functional sperm under controlled conditions in the laboratory will be very useful to study the basic biology of sperm production.

"There are currently many things we don't know about how sperm are formed let alone why it sometimes goes wrong and leads to infertility in some men."

But he added: "It is more difficult to say whether artificial sperm produced this way could ultimately be used as a new treatment for male infertility. There are many technical, ethical and safety issues to be confronted before this could even be considered."

Ethical and safety issues

Professor Harry Moore, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Sheffield, said: "These processes in the test-tube are far from perfect as the mice that were born by this process were abnormal.

"We therefore have to be very cautious about using such techniques in therapies to treat men or women who are infertile due to a lack of germ stem cells until all safety aspects are resolved. This may take many years."

Anna Smajdor, a researcher in medical ethics at Imperial College London, said: "The creation of viable sperm outside the body is a hugely significant breakthrough and offers great potential for stem cell research and fertility treatments.

"However, sperm and eggs play a unique role in our understanding of kinship and parenthood, and being able to create these cells in the laboratory will pose a serious conceptual challenge for our society."

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, agreed.

She said the use of adult stem cells from sources such as umbilical cord blood had consistently produced more promising results than the use of embryonic stem cells.

Professor John Burn, professor of clinical genetics at Newcastle University, believes stem cells will be a treatment for all types of diseases.

"The same approach could ultimately allow us to control the development of liver cells, heart cells or brain cells... and make treatments for virtually any tissue that is damaged or diseased."

Mr Reid also said that he intended to continue to impose control orders on terror suspects, despite two high court rulings that they breached human rights laws. The Home Office confirmed last night that a further order had been imposed since Mr Justice Sullivan's ruling that they amounted to "an affront to justice", bringing the total in force to 15 - six on British nationals.

The home secretary is battling against both rulings in the court of appeal.
The public system of five different threat levels, ranging from "normal" to "critical" will be introduced next month in response to criticisms that the existing secretive, but widely leaked, system is complicated and misinterpreted. However, the intelligence which led to the threat assessments will remain secret, as will the measures the police and security services take in response to intelligence.

The assessments will be made on the "best judgment" of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (Jtac), based at MI5's headquarters. Senior Whitehall officials said yesterday that an attack may come without warning, as it did on July 7 last year when there was no intelligence.

The officials said the threat levels applied in general terms to the whole country, and not to an immediate threat to a specific target. Controversy over the existing system erupted when it emerged that Jtac had lowered the threat level a month before the July 7 suicide bombings. It then raised the threat level to "critical", the highest. It was about to downgrade the threat on the morning of the failed attacks of July 21.

It is now at "severe (general)", indicating that an attack is a "priority for the terrorists and is likely to be mounted".

As Mr Reid was publishing a detailed counter-terrorism strategy in the Commons, Tony Blair was preparing to meet the Algerian president today to secure a "no torture" agreement so that Algerian terror suspects in Britain - the majority of the 27 held pending deportation - can be sent back.

Whitehall officials have given up hope that they will be able to secure a formal "memorandum of understanding" with Algeria. Instead the Foreign Office is hopeful that a "deportation with assurances" deal will be struck alongside a separate extradition agreement.

The Home Office disclosed yesterday that a third element of Mr Blair's 12-point action plan has also fallen by the wayside. After consultations the prime minister has given up his attempt to impose a maximum time limit on extradition cases involving terrorism. He has already dropped his plan to close mosques which are used to foment extremism.

Iran has the second largest reserves of crude oil on the planet. Iran is the second largest oil exporter in OPEC and the fourth largest in the world, shipping more oil than Venezuela, Nigeria or Mexico. Iran's territory nearly surrounds the all-important Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly all Persian Gulf oil must pass.

At the same time, Iran is the country now threatening to choke off the vital supply of energy to the West, using its oil as the ultimate economic weapon of mass destruction. If Iran's threats were vague or coming strictly from low-level officials, Bush, Blair, Putin & Company might not have to pay too much attention. But the threats are coming unambiguously from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leaving the G8 leaders in a collective state of shock. Just last month, Khamenei proclaimed that any Western attempt to punish Tehran over its nuclear program would jeopardize energy shipments. And he directly implied that Iran would seek to choke off the massive amounts of oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Indeed, according to our resident arms specialist, John Burke, Iran can deploy helicopters, dedicated mine layers and Russian-built Kilo-class submarines. It can launch its large fleet of fast-attack "swarm boats." It can deploy its vast array of sea, air and land-launched missiles targeting commercial and military ships that must pass through the Strait.

This is critical. The Persian Gulf is responsible for 32% of the world's oil production capacity ... 45% of the world's natural gas ... and 57% of the world's oil reserves.

Problem: Almost all of this oil and gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Only a very small percentage leaves the region through alternate routes, such as the East-West oil pipeline across Saudi Arabia. So just as soon as the West threatens Iran with sanctions, Iran can threaten the Strait of Hormuz, cut off up to one-third of the world's energy supply, and drive prices into the stratosphere.

If Ayatollah Khamenei were just a religious figurehead, the threat might be pooh-poohed.
But nothing could be further from the truth. In the surreal world of Iranian politics, Khamenei can ? and does ? overrule Iranian energy ministers, Iranian Parliament, Iranian courts and even the increasingly powerful Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His word is final.

If Iran had a history of empty threats and false alarms, the Western powers might also be somewhat less alarmed. But alas, that, too, is contrary to the facts. Over a quarter-century ago, the Shiite revolutionaries of Iran threatened to keep 55 U.S. diplomats hostage, and they did. They threatened to drive world oil prices to the stratosphere, and they did. They said they would create turmoil for the economies of the West, and they did.

Most alarming of all ...

If the threat from Iran were purely about oil, a measured counter-threat from the West might be adequate.

But, unfortunately, that is also not the case. Along with its threat to cut off oil supplies, Iran is also plowing full speed ahead with its master plan to become a nuclear power. And unlike Saddam's Iraq, where no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, the evidence is overwhelming that today's Iran is second only to North Korea in the rogue development of nuclear technology.

Iran is also The World's Largest and Most Blatant Sponsor of International Terrorism

Many still think al Qaeda is the biggest threat to America's interests. But as I've been warning for months, you're now starting to hear more about Shiite militias, especially those operating in Iraq. Just yesterday, these militias rampaged through Baghdad, spreading terror, dragging Sunnis from their homes, killing at least 40, and plunging Iraq deeper into violent civil war. What is the primary source of their financing and training? Iran! And most prominent among the Iranian organizations behind the Iraqi militias is an international organization called "al Quds."

Unlike al Qaeda, al Quds is not a nationless, renegade band. It's a highly organized strike force operating under the leadership of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. And unlike al Qaeda, al Quds doesn't have to beg for refuge or financing. It gets all the protection it needs on Iranian soil ... and all its funding from the Iranian treasury, which, in turn, is liberally lubricated with oil money. Moreover, al Quds (meaning "Jerusalem") is not an upstart. For about two decades, al Quds has been operating in Lebanon, providing military guidance and support for terrorist attacks against Israel, especially those carried out by Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist organizations.
For many years, al Quds has also been operating as an elite international hit squad, responsible for political assassination in Europe and the Middle East.

Al Quds is joined at the hip with one of the most powerful Shiite militias currently operating in Iraq ? the Badr Brigade. And, most disturbing of all, a person who has played a prominent leadership role in the founding and training of both al Quds and the Badr Brigade is none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now the president of Iran. Now do you see why Iran has emerged as a far more urgent concern to the G8 heads of state than the U.S. trade deficit, the Chinese budget surplus or the sinking dollar?
And now do you see how important it is for you to pay attention to this rapidly deteriorating situation?

How the Next Few Days Could Seal the Fate of Your Money for Years to Come

Right now, sitting on the desks of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad is an offer to end Iran's nuclear research program. This is the offer submitted to Iran last month by Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council ? the U.S., U.K., France, China and Russia. So far, the only answers these countries have gotten from Iran is defiance or silence. But just two days from now, Wednesday, July 12th, Iran must respond or risk retaliation by the West. That's the deadline imposed by the U.S. and its allies. What will Iran do? No one can say for sure. But we do know what they say they'll do: They've vowed to ignore the July 12th deadline, providing no official response until August.

That leaves only two scenarios:
Scenario #1. The U.S. and its allies move promptly to retaliate against Iran. Result: Oil traders, fearing Iran will soon start choking off oil shipments, rush to buy oil before supplies dry up.

Scenario #2. The U.S. and its allies let the July 12th deadline pass with no action. Result: The entire world is given a spectacle of Iran's growing muscle and the West's fading prowess. Oil traders, fearing an emboldened Iran and still more trouble ahead, rush to secure oil supplies just the same.

In either scenario, oil prices are likely to surge, despite temporary setbacks. And in either scenario, you must be prepared. Oil Is Already Rising In Anticipation of What's to Come ...Although international investors still underestimate the potential magnitude of this crisis, they aren't entirely oblivious to the dangers.

That's why the price of oil shot up to $75.78 on Friday, an all-time high. That's why oil is widely expected to smash through the $80 mark very soon. And it's also why we've been urging you to allocate a portion of your funds to investments that are tied to oil ... and to assets that tend to move in tandem with oil, such as precious metals.

Two vehicles to consider:
Vehicle #1. Exchange-traded funds: Like traditional mutual funds, ETFs own shares in multiple companies, especially individual sectors or regions. Plus, there are now ETFs based on commodities ? gold and silver. A key advantage: Unlike most mutual funds, ETFs trade just like individual stocks listed on the exchanges. So you can buy and sell them throughout the trading day. You don't have to wait until for close.

Vehicle #2. Small-cap stocks: These offer some of the advantages of options without one of the key disadvantages: As with the purchase of options, there's no risk or obligation beyond your initial investment in these shares (plus any commissions you pay your broker, of course). And unlike options, there's no expiration date. Provided the company remains solvent, you can hold them as long as you want, and no one can place a time limit on the opportunity.

The leverage can be huge, including the potential to transform a modest investment of $6,000 into over $51,000.(That report was posted to our website on Saturday. So now there's only one day left for the opportunity he's talking about.)

Meanwhile, be sure to ... Avoid investments vulnerable to higher energy costs, accelerating inflation and rising interest rates. That includes long-term bonds, banks and virtually all housing-related industries. Make safety your first priority! That means keeping most of your money in investments that protect your capital in almost any market environment.
My favorites: Short-term U.S. Treasury securities or Treasury-only money market funds.

Good luck and God bless!
Martin Weiss, Ph.D.

World War III has begun. It's not perfectly clear when it started. Perhaps it was after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Perhaps it was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993.

What is clear is that this war has a long fuse and, while we are not in the full-scale combat phase that marked World Wars I and II, we seem to be heading there. The expanding hostilities mean it's time to give this conflict a name, one that focuses the mind and clarifies the big picture.

The war on terror, or the war of terror, has tentacles that reach much of the globe. It is a world war.

While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. Even the hapless wanna-bes busted in Miami ordered guns and military equipment from a man they thought was from Al Qaeda. Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun.

The feeling that the wheels are coming off the world has only one recent comparison, the time when America's head-butt with communism sprouted hot spots from Cuba to Vietnam. Yet ultimately the policy of mutual assured destruction worked because American and Soviet leaders didn't want their countries hit by nuclear bombs.

Such rational thinking is quaint next to the ravings of North Korean nut Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They both seem to be dying to die - and set the world on fire.

And don't forget Osama Bin Laden's declaration that it is the duty of every Muslim to acquire a "Muslim bomb." Is there any doubt he would use it if he had it?

I sound pessimistic because I am. Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years.

But what choice does he have now that the pillars of his post-9/11 foreign policy are crumbling? As Harvard Prof. Joseph Nye argues in Foreign Affairs magazine, Bush's strategy of "reducing Washington's reliance on permanent alliances and international institutions, expanding the traditional right of preemption into a new doctrine of preventive war and advocating coercive democratization as a solution to Middle Eastern terrorism" amounted to a bid for a "legacy of transformation."

The first two ideas have been repealed. The third brought Hamas into power and has so far failed to take root in Iraq or anywhere else.

I believed Iraq was the key, that if we prevailed there, momentum would shift in our favor. Now I'm not sure. We still must prevail there, but Iraq could mean nothing if Iran or Bin Laden get the bomb or North Korea uses one.

Meanwhile, I'm definitely not using any tunnels.

Relations between the economic powers have been soured by trade disputes.

'Chinese wall'

Brussels has accused China of "dumping" cheap leather shoes on the European market and has imposed temporary tariffs on imports.

It is currently examining other cases of possible trade distortion involving items such as plastic bags, with a view to similar action.

As a member of the World Trade Organization and a key player in the global economy, China must respect trade rules, Mr Mandelson said.

This required it to give fair treatment to European firms doing business there and honouring intellectual property laws.

Failure to act by Beijing in this area would only fuel calls for greater protectionism in Europe, Mr Mandelson warned.

"China sometimes talks as if it is at the edge of the WTO system looking in," he said. "But China now is the system."

"Too often Europe's businesses meet a Chinese wall rather than an open door."

Accepting reality

The EU is China's largest trading partner, while China is the EU's second largest trading partner after the United States.

However, the relationship has become increasingly unequal with the EU's trade deficit with China growing to more than 100bn euros (£70bn).

In return for China accepting the responsibilities that come with being a global economic power, Mr Mandelson suggested that Europeans needed to turn down the rhetoric over cheap imports and unfair competition.

He said many European firms now used China as a low-cost manufacturing base to export to the rest of Asia, while complaining about the threat to jobs in their own markets from Chinese goods.

"Europe must accept the Chinese challenge to adapt and compete.

"What do we mean when we say that cheap Chinese exports are threatening European livelihoods?"

Friday's conference - addressing the challenges posed to Europe by China's economic growth - will be attended by Chinese vice minister of commerce YU Guangzhou.

The opening ceremony took place at the windswept border between the Indian state of Sikkim and Tibet.

Nathu La has opened just a few days after the first train service was launched from eastern China to Tibet.

The pass was given a festive look with Chinese and Indian flags fluttering and military bands playing.

China's ambassador to India and local officials from Sikkim and Tibet attended the opening ceremony at the border post in driving rain and bitter cold.

But the BBC's Subir Bhaumik, who was at the opening, says despite the poor weather conditions there was no shortage of enthusiasm among the hundreds of Indian and Chinese traders who had gathered there.

"We hope the reopening of the silk route will improve relations between the two countries," China's ambassador to India Sun Yuxi told the AFP news agency.

"Today the border is open for traders and we hope very soon it will be open for tourists. We are excited and feeling very good."

The BBC's South Asia correspondent, Navdip Dhariwal, says the reopening of the route signifies a huge leap forward in diplomacy and trade between both countries.

Local traders have welcomed the opening and say it will have a major impact on the regional economy.

"Our lives are going to change once trade gets going," a grocery supplier, Sonar Bhutia, is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

"We're hoping to profit by it."

But correspondents say the opening is more symbolic than substantive, with trade confined to some local goods.

India will import 15 items from China, including goat and sheep skins, yak tails and raw silk.

China, for its part, will import 29 items including tea, rice and spices.

"Trading will take place four days a week, Monday to Thursday," says Sikkim director of industries, Saman Prasad Subba.

Diplomatic triumph

Some analysts believe that trade through the land route could generate millions of dollars in trade eventually.

But at the moment most agree that there are more immediate political benefits rather than economic.

"This resumption of border trade is more significant for Indian diplomacy, not for trade," says Jayantanuja Bandopadhyay, professor of international relations in Calcutta's Jadavpur University.

Sikkim is a former Buddhist kingdom that merged with India in 1975, a move that was opposed by China which lay claim to the state.

"By allowing trade through Nathu La, China has accepted Sikkim as part of India that it refused to do earlier," Mr Bandopadhyay says.

The Nathu La pass was closed in 1962 after war broke out between China and India.

The famed Silk Road was an ancient trading route that once connected China with India, West Asia and Europe.

China - Beijing (AsiaNews) 6/7/06 - Up to 400 million people in the People's Republic of China are hard hit by natural disasters (earthquakes, drought, floods, and landslides) every year. As a result, at least 10 million farmers are reduced to living below the poverty threshold.

Japan - Tokyo (Reuters) 06/07/06 - A powerful typhoon was nearing Japan's southern island chain of Okinawa on Friday, likely bringing strong winds and torrential rain to the area later in the day.

Germany - Berlin (Reuters) 08/07/06 - A state of emergency was declared in Berlin for seven hours as a violent summer storm lashed the German capital, local authorities said. Police and firemen attended to more than 1,000 emergencies. Meteorologists said Berlin had more than half its average monthly rainfall for July in just a few minutes.

Africa (UNICEF) 04/07/06 - The UN Children's Fund warns the humanitarian situation in the drought-affected countries of the Horn of Africa remains serious despite seasonal rains that have brought relief. UNICEF says child malnutrition rates in some regions are soaring.

Australia (News.com.au) 06/07/06 FARMERS in drought-stricken areas of WA are plunging into depression and in some cases have taken their lives, says the Anglican Archbishop of Perth. Farmers and their families are fighting for their livelihoods in the face of Western Australia's record dry.

Poland (Radio Polonia) 07/07/06 - Entry into more Polish forests has been prohibited due to continuous drought. Complete ban holds in one third of the woods of the central Lodz region. Following long heat and absence of rain, the humidity of forest bed in most places in the area dropped to around 10 per cent. Similar situation can be encountered all over Poland.

U.S.A. (Amherst Times) 08/07/06 - According to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor a map that indexes dryness nearly half of the country is experiencing conditions that range from abnormally dry to exceptional drought. This may seem hard to believe on the East Coast, where flooding has been the issue. But in much of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain West, it's all too easy to believe. In many ranching counties where the irrigation ditches run all summer long, the water has already been turned off. Hayfields in some places are yielding less than half of last year's crop, and ranchers who normally sell part of their hay are wondering whether to sell any at all.

Leaders of the Unio Europaea, who have had a wretched year grappling with the Constitutio Europaea, will be reaching for their dictionaries at their next shindig in Bruxellae.

The EU's notorious jargon, which baffles all but the saddest Brussels anoraks, turns into poetry when translated into Latin. The miserable Common Agricultural Policy becomes the majestic ratio communis agros colendi, which literally means "common scheme for cultivating the fields".

Classicists can catch up with the news in Latin every Wednesday thanks to two energetic Finnish Latin scholars. Tuomo Pekkanen and Reijo Pitkaranta already have a cult following among Finnish classicists who tune in every Sunday night to Nuntii Latini, a five-minute Latin news bulletin broadcast on YLE, Finland's BBC equivalent.

Dr Pitkaranta said: "Latin is not dead - it is still very much in use in different forms across the world today. Italians, French and Spaniards all speak a new form of Latin. I hope that EU documents are soon translated into Latin which is such a clear language."

Mia Lahti, the editor of the Finnish presidency's website, said: "Using Latin is a way of paying tribute to European civilisation and it serves to remind people of European society's roots, stretching back to ancient times."

Classicists hailed the initiative by Finland which is the only country, along with the Vatican, to broadcast news in Latin even though the Roman empire never reached Scandinavia.

Dr Bruce Gibson, a classics scholar at Liverpool University, said: "Finland has a distinguished tradition of classical scholarship and respect for the classics. The Finns are experts in languages: many Finns are fluent in Swedish and English as a matter of routine.

"Though their own language is not a descendant of Latin, perhaps the Finns realise that Latin still provides a common linguistic and cultural heritage to Europe, and therefore are doing everything to promote it during their presidency. Other European nations closer to home might want to take note."

Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP who recently wrote a book comparing the EU unfavourably with the Roman Empire, was impressed. The author of The Dream of Rome said: "I think this is wonderful, I hope everybody reads it. The best and most significant step for European integration would be to oblige every child in Europe from the age of 14 to read Book Four of [Virgil's] The Aeneid.

"It is the best book of the best poem by the greatest poet. That would do far more than anything else to build up a common European culture. That is what is missing now: an awareness of our European civilisation and common roots."

Men in uniform
A Scotland Yard spokesman said about 40,000 people had turned out for the parade.

About 40 Royal Navy personnel paraded in their uniforms for the first time at the march.

Army and RAF personnel were not given permission to take part in their official uniforms, however.

The parade travelled along Oxford Street and Regent Street then on to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, then Whitehall and Victoria Embankment.

Mayor Ken Livingstone, who was at the front of the parade, said it was a chance to celebrate the lesbian and gay community's contribution to the city.

He said: "What this shows as we march through the city of London - one of the greatest cities on earth - is a city can be a wonderful place to live in with people of every race, religion and sexuality."

The United States would have no contact with him, but has made no decision about relations with the group as a whole, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"Of course we are not going to work with somebody like that and of course we would be troubled if this is an indicator of the direction that this group would go in," McCormack said.

"But let's wait, let's see what the collective leadership of this group does."

The council is a parliament for the Islamists, whose well-trained militias seized Mogadishu from US-backed warlords on June 5 after months of fighting that killed at least 350.

The rapists were to be stoned to death in Jowhar, which the Islamists took in the last phase of a campaign that saw them seize a strategic swathe of Somalia from the coastal capital northwest nearly to the Ethiopian border.

"Five men who raped four women on June 22 will be stoned to death today (Monday) in accordance with the Islamic sharia. They have pleaded guilty to the crime and also have been identified by the victims," Siyad Mohamed, a militia leader linked to Islamic courts, said to Reuters by phone from Jowhar.

Mr Mohamed later said the execution had been delayed as the courts looked to arrest a sixth suspect. He said it was not clear when the sentences would be carried out.

The Islamist victory dealt an embarrassing public setback to Washington's counter-terrorism campaign, as its support for the much-despised warlords gave the Islamists popular backing.

The Islamists at first tried to present a moderate face to the world, saying they only wanted to end anarchy and restore peace lost since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.

Asked about the appointment of Mr Aweys, Somalia's interim government was circumspect: "It is the internal business of the courts," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.

The foundation also has given nearly $21 million to International Planned Parenthood over the last seven years, where funds have been used to promote abortions in third-world nations and to set up pro-abortion family planning centers in South America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Buffet, whose wealth is second only to Gates', has announced he will leave about 80 percent of his estate to the Gates Foundation.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life women's network Susan B. Anthony List lamented Buffett's decision.

"It's tragic that much of Warren Buffett's billion-dollar attempt to improve the lives of people around the world is actually going to fund organizations that take the lives of unborn children and encourage others to do the same," said Dannenfelser.

Beginning next month, Buffett, 75, will make annual contributions to the foundation through stock options.

Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, will give the Gates Foundation more than 12 million shares of his company's stock, according to the Associated Press. At just over $3,000 per share, it would add $37 billion to the Gates Foundation's $29 billion, making it the world's largest charity.

Bill and Melinda Gates also have spent millions promoting abortion in their home state, having given nearly $2 million to Planned Parenthood of Central Washington and Planned Parenthood of Western Washington to fund abortion centers.

The Gates Foundation also gave the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada more than $1.3 million.

"The tragedy of Bill Gates' support of abortion and population control is that technology leads to development," said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, according to LifeNews.com

"Unfortunately, the developing world will grow old before it develops because of population control. Gates, in supporting population control, is out of step with other great minds who have viewed people as humanity's greatest resource," Mosher said.

At Microsoft's 2003 annual shareholders meeting, Mosher's group failed to win approval for a motion to stop Microsoft from directly contributing to charities, citing its support for Planned Parenthood.