Since July 7, nine people were killed and two missing in Hubei Province, and 100,710 persons were evacuated, according to the ministry.

More than 206,900 hectares of farmland were inundated in Hubei, and 12,800 houses collapsed, causing direct economic losses of 1.35 billion yuan (177.63 million U.S. dollars), said the ministry.

In Henan Province, more than 4.38 million people were affected by floods and 331,000 people were evacuated.

The ministry has sent rescue teams to the provinces

For 60 years they have towered over some of London's most famous thoroughfares, admired by strolling tourists and office workers. At a time when Gordon Brown has pledged to make environmental issues one of his key priorities, the decision to chop down trees just yards from No 10 has been criticised by Tory MPs and environmental groups.

Conservative environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said he was 'depressed and unhappy' at the loss of the trees, which he said made the environment 'another victim of the so-called War on Terror'. The cull is part of a £25million 'streetscape' scheme agreed six months before the recent attempted bomb attacks on Central London. But a council spokesman has admitted that national security was one of the reasons for it.

Pope Benedict XVI urged Shimon Peres to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians in his new capacity as the President of the Jewish State. Peres will be sworn in as president at a special ceremony at the Knesset on Sunday evening.

"On the eve of your appointment as the President of the State of Israel I would like to express my deepest wishes and congratulate you for you appointment to the highest ranking position in your country," the Pope wrote in a letter sent to Peres. "Many people around the world, as well as Israel's citizens expect you to push the government and other relevant bodies to do everything to advance peace," the Pope added

"Mr. President," the Pope added, "Your reputation and achievements are exceptional, clear and absolute in the field of peace and the pursuit of justice. I am sure you will continue to influence and incite courage in other leaders to deal with the challenges of the future in the clear hope to advance the good of peace."

"This will be the best way to defeat the deadly terror and violence that are condemned by the whole world. The terrorists are betraying humanity," he said. Israel's Ambassador to Italy Oded Ben-Horin said the Pope's letter was personal, warm and unusual. Peres was congratulated by a string of world leaders that included the presidents of Egypt, Jordan, Russia and China.

WASHINGTON - The American State Department has issued a warning Saturday to citizens and residents of the US living in Israel. The warning was released after information was received that suicide bombings were planned against American institutes, restaurants and businesses in Israel that are connected to the US, especially in Jerusalem.

The warning refers to the "general state of security in Israel, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and to the repeated threats against American citizens and sites." The State Department added that "the Israeli authorities are concerned by the continued threat of suicide attacks," and that "the US government has received information that American interests might be targeted for terrorist attacks."

Americans were cautioned to leave the Gaza Strip immediately and to refrain from entering the West Bank. They are asked to be attentive in the vicinity of American buildings such as the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem.

American tourists are requested to "remain alert and watchful, and exercise discretion in restaurants, coffee shops, malls, work places and theaters." The Old City of Jerusalem is off limits for American diplomats and their family members at night and during Friday prayers.

The report followed two claims by the US army over the weekend implicating Iran in attacks against US forces in Iraq. According to an announcement on Saturday night, US troops in Iraq uncovered a field containing 50 Iranian-made rocket launchers, all aimed at a US army base.

The discovery came after the US claimed that an explosively formed penetrator - a high-tech device that the US military believes is smuggled from Iran - was used against US forces in the Baghdad area earlier Saturday. The penetrator was one of several bombs used in an attack that killed two American soldiers in the Iraqi capital. The Iranians denied the charge.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off US doubts of his government's military and political progress, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want." One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in an American laboratory."

A BOMB threat against supermarket giant Tesco closed 14 stores yesterday, three of them in Scotland. Last night, Tesco sources ruled out extremism of any kind, making it more likely the incident was an attempt at extortion against the UK's biggest supermarket chain.

Police closed the shops across the UK on Saturday afternoon but they reopened for normal trading on Sunday. Hertfordshire Police, which is leading the investigation, said each store had been searched and given the all-clear. "There is still no reason to believe that the incidents are linked to extremism of any kind," the constabulary added.

The supermarket giant is understood to have lost millions of pounds in sales as the 14 stores were forced to shut. Hertfordshire Police said the stores were closed on Saturday as a precaution and no-one had been hurt. Tesco is continuing to work closely with police, it added.

The deal, said to be for $660m (£324m), has yet to be approved by a judge. It would be the biggest compensation payment the Church has made since the sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002. It would take the total paid out by the Church in the US to $2bn since 1950, with the LA diocese paying about one quarter of that.

The settlement figures have not yet been officially announced. The diocese is expected to sell property to raise the compensation funds. Ray Boucher, lead plaintiff lawyer in the case, said the settlement also called for the release of confidential priest personnel files. "Transparency is a critical part of this and of all resolutions," he said.

Since 2002 nearly 1,000 people have filed such claims against the Roman Catholic Church in California alone.

In February 2004, a report commissioned by the Church said more than 4,000 Roman Catholic priests in the US had faced sexual abuse allegations in the last 50 years.

The Pope sent that message to the participants in the first meeting of Christian Movements and Communities, held Saturday in Stuttgart with the theme "Together Pro-Europe." Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, read the message to the participants. The meeting gathered 10,000 Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox and Anglicans, and was linked to 158 European cities by satellite. The event in part celebrated the entry of 10 new countries into the European Union.

THE [PONTIFF] BEGAN HIS MESSAGE BY SAYING THAT THE STEPS THAT ARE BEING TAKEN IN THE PROCESS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ARE DUE TO THE COMMITMENT OF THE "FATHERS" OF EUROPE, the great majority of whom were Christians, who understood the need for reconciliation in the Old World in the wake of World War II.

However, the Pope added that the Christian faith is not something that forms part of the European past. "It also represents the present and the future of Europe," he said."In the commitment to bring about a more humane society, open to others and solidaristic in love, we must not cease to open our hearts to the Gospel," the Pope exhorted the movements and communities.

"Ecumenical dialogue contributes decisively to develop a European identity based on the Christian faith," he said. To this end, "thanks to a careful and respectful dialogue, the movements offer an important contribution to consolidate among Christians the Lord's commandment of love."

The papal message concluded: "The new evangelization gives a soul to Europe and helps the Continent not to continue living for itself, enclosed in its borders, but to build a more humane society that respects life, and to have a generous presence on the world scene."

So much so that scientists talk about the "Anthropocene" - the destructive Era Of Man. Our gases are polluting the atmosphere and warming the skies. Our chemicals taint the seas and the rivers; our farms and cities gobble up the landscape, pushing flora and fauna aside like sand before a bulldozer. Our green-and-blue world is still beautiful, but it is far from pristine.

In fact, the first things to happen after the disappearance of humanity would be very dramatic - and destructive. Within a week, the emergency fuel supply to the diesel generators that circulate cooling water around the world's 441 operating nuclear reactors would run out. After that, one by one, the reactors would overheat, burn, melt and in some cases explode. Several hundred Chernobyl disasters would play out, simultaneously, across the deserted world. Huge quantities of radioactive material would be released into the air, rivers and oceans.

But much to everyone's surprise, the flora and fauna around the Chernobyl disaster site has thrived. The ecologist James Lovelock, a pro-nuclear Green, argues that wildlife, by and large, does not notice radiation.
Certainly, from then on, planet Earth would probably give a sigh of relief at our passing, as a spectacular environmental recovery would begin to take place. Quickly, the oceans would cleanse themselves; similarly the air, the streams and the rivers. In a remarkably short time, Mother Nature would reassert herself over her old dominions.

In the new, human-free world, a few species would do badly - the rats, cockroaches and starlings that cling to our coat-tails would suffer. So would cows, sheep and other farm animals. The human head-louse would become extinct within a year, and HIV would vanish. In Africa, an orgy of feasting would take place as an exploding lion and leopard population guzzled its way through the continent's millions of cattle, no longer protected by the herdsmen's spears and guns.

Britain's farmlands would see the rapid growth of fescues and lupins, tangled swathes of grass and wild mustard. Within years, oak shoots would sprout from the former fields of wheat, barley and rye. After a couple of centuries, Britain would revert to a pre-medieval knot of forest and undergrowth, its ancient patchwork of fields and hedgerows gone for ever.

The big cities would crumble with remarkable ease. London or New York, like all large towns near the sea, would start to rot from their foundations up, as underground tunnels and conduits that carried trains and cables, roadways and sewage, started to fill up with water within days. The pumps that keep them dry would have simply ceased to operate. Within a few weeks, grass shoots would begin to shatter every road surface in the world.

Within 15 years, the M1 would look like one of those roads built in Africa in the 1960s and never since maintained. Within a decade, the combined onslaught of weeds, waterlogging from blocked drains and the freeze-thaw action of water seeping into cracks would combine to turn the foundations of the urban world to rubble.

Many buildings would start to fall apart within 20 years. Walls would groan and creak, roof tiles lift, joints between walls and roofs separate. Without central heating, with gutters permanently clogged and no maintenance, most of Britain's homes would be in ruins by 2040. America's cities, with their generally harsher climates, would fall apart even sooner.

"Don't be fooled," says David Olsen, an American materials scientist, "by massive steel buildings, steamrollers, tanks, railway tracks - without maintenance and painting - the steel fabric of our civilisation would soon crumble."

We live in the steel age, but we might also be said to live in the plastic age. Depressingly, it may be the plastic bag that proves to be one of mankind's most persistent legacies. Come back in ten thousand years, and most of them will still be there.

From the new book - "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman, of Arizona University

Not that June should be presented as evidence that global warming isn't happening, or that we're causing it. Relying on such a tiny sample would be unscientific and wrong, even if it involves an entire continent's weather patterns throughout the course of a whole month. No such foolishness will be indulged in here.

SADLY, THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING - AND WHO WOULD COMPEL US ALSO TO BELIEVE - AREN'T SIMILARLY CONSTRAINED. A few hot days are all they ever need to get the global warming bandwagon rolling; evidently it's solar powered. Here, for example, is an Australian Associated Press report on May's weather, which in places was a little warmer than usual:

"CLIMATE CHANGE GAVE MUCH OF AUSTRALIA'S DROUGHT-STRICKEN EAST COAST ITS WARMEST MAY ON RECORD, weather experts say."Global warming and an absence of significant cold changes had driven temperatures well above the monthly average, said meteorologist Matt Pearce. According to Mr Pearce, May's temperatures were "yet another sign of the widespread climate change that we are seeing unfold across the globe."

IF THAT'S THE CASE, SHOULDN'T JUNE'S COLD WEATHER - COLDEST SINCE 1950, REMEMBER - BE A SIGN THAT WIDESPREAD CLIMATE CHANGE ISN'T UNFOLDING ACROSS THE GLOBE? We're using the same data here; one month's weather. And, in fact, the June sample is Australia-wide while May only highlights the east coast. FEAR THE DAWN OF A GREAT "COLDENING"!

The Independent's environment editor, Michael McCarthy, said in April:"The possibility is growing that Britain in 2007 may experience a summer of unheard-of high temperatures, with the thermometer even reaching 40C, or 104F, a level never recorded in history."This would be quite outside all historical experience, but entirely consistent with predictions of climate change."

AS WIMBLEDON WATCHERS WOULD BE AWARE, WHAT WITH THE RAINIEST TOURNAMENT SINCE JIMMY CONNORS DEFEATED JOHN MCENROE IN 1982,
THOSE UNHEARD-OF HIGH TEMPERATURES REMAIN UNHEARD-OF.
SOMEONE MIGHT CONCLUDE, THEREFORE, THAT THE NOT-HOT SUMMER IS NOT ENTIRELY CONSISTENT WITH PREDICTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

But climate change is like Michael Moore's tracksuit - it can fit anyone. In 2005, Greenpeace rep Steven Guilbeault helpfully explained: "GLOBAL WARMING CAN MEAN COLDER, IT CAN MEAN DRIER, IT CAN MEAN WETTER, THAT'S WHAT WE'RE DEALING WITH." What we're dealing with, apparently, is weather.

Other defining features of British life - screaming, inaccurate nonsense from the Guardian, for example - will never be farewelled. CUE WET WIMBLEDON, THE COLDEST DAY FOR TEST MATCH CRICKET (7.4C) IN ENGLISH HISTORY, AND THIS BBC ONLINE HEADLINE: "WHERE HAS THE UK'S SUMMER GONE?"

This year Queensland has gone frosty. Townsville's June was its coldest since 1940; June 24 saw the coldest Brisbane morning on record.Think of these little factoids the next time your read a report linking a hot day or month or year to global warming.

Iran wants yen-based transactions "for any/all of your forthcoming Iranian crude oil liftings," according to a letter sent to Japanese refiners that was signed by Ali A. Arshi, general manager of crude oil marketing and exports in Tehran at the National Iranian Oil Co. The request is for all shipments "effective immediately," according to the letter, dated July 10 and obtained by Bloomberg News.

The yen rose on speculation for an increase in demand for the currency, the result of Japan's annual 1.24 trillion yen ($10.1 billion) of oil imports from Iran. Central bankers in Venezuela, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates have said they will invest less of their reserves in dollar assets because of the weakening currency.

"What else can Japan do but to accept the request, once the oil producer sent its wish?" said Hirofumi Kawachi, an analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co. in Tokyo. "The tensions between the U.S. and Iran are escalating, and it's Iran's measure to hedge risk." Iran is cutting its U.S. dollar reserves to less than 20 percent of total foreign currency holdings, and will buy more euros and yen as tensions with the U.S. increase, Central Bank Governor Ebrahim Sheibany said on March 27.

Iran isn't alone in wanting to drop the dollar for pricing oil. Russia has been examining plans to price the Urals oil export blend in rubles to curb currency risks. The nation plans to open the Energy Stock Exchange in St. Petersburg in the first half of next year to trade oil in rubles, UBS AG reported June 14.

Iran asked the refiners to use the yen exchange rate quoted at the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ on the date oil cargoes are loaded. The use of yen-based letters of credit for oil "has finally been approved" by the Iranian central bank and the NIOC, according to the letter, titled "New payment mechanism for Iranian Crude Oil Cargoes."

The prospect that China can be a major economic power is feeding widespread paranoia in the United States. The fear is that developing nations, led by China and India, may out-compete the advanced nations for high-tech jobs while keeping the low-skill, labor-intensive manufacturing jobs they already own. China already is the world's biggest producer and exporter of consumer electronics and it is a matter of time before it becomes a major player in auto exports. Shipbuilding is now dominated by China and aircraft manufacturing will follow.

The US Navy is now dependent on Asia, and eventually China, to build its new ships, and eventually the economics of trade will force the US Air Force to procure planes made in Asia and assembled in China.
China has more than 1.3 billion people, a fifth of the world's population, and a workforce of 700 million as against a US workforce of 147 million. To avoid being overtaken by China in aggregate national income, US wages would have to maintain a gap of five times Chinese wages.

The US is waking up from its self-delusion to the reality that free trade never leads to balanced trade. Free trade always works against the weaker trading partner, even with the principle of comparative advantage.The US was happy to promote free trade when unbalanced trade was in favor of the stronger US economy. Balanced trade between unequal partners requires managed trade at the expense of the stronger partner, which is achieved by the weaker economy resorting to government interference for more favorable terms of trade.

In a neo-liberal free-trade regime, the US has a choice of losing jobs or losing economic dominance and geopolitical power to China. That is the key dilemma in US economic policy toward China. There is an economic basis behind militant US antagonism toward China. The United States won both previous world wars primarily by its wartime productive power. This fact has not been forgotten by US policy-planners. While the US manufacturing base has been seriously eroded by neo-liberal global trade in the past two decades, a shooting war with China would relocate much of the lost manufacturing back to the US in short order.

A war between the US and China can have no winners, particularly on the political front. Even if the US were to prevail militarily through its technological superiority, the political cost of military victory would be so severe that the US as it currently exists would not be recognizable after the conflict and the original geopolitical aim behind the conflict would remain elusive, as the Vietnam War and the Iraq war have demonstrated. By comparison, the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts, destructive as they have been to the US social fabric, are mere minor scrimmages compared with a war with China.

US policymakers have an option to make China a friend and partner in a peaceful world for the benefit of all nations. To do so, they must first recognize that the world can operate on the principle of plentitude and that prosperity is not something to be fought over by killing consumers in a world plagued with overcapacity.

The vast majority of Iraqis live by the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers or one of their many tributaries. The two rivers, which defined the ancient land of Mesopotamia (from the Greek "between the rivers"), join near Basra in the south to form the Shatt al-Arab river basin. Iraq is also gifted with high-quality groundwater resources; about a fifth of the territory is farmland.

"The water we have in Iraq is more than enough for our living needs," said chief engineer Adil Mahmood of the Irrigation Authority in Baghdad. "In fact we can export water to neighboring countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan - who manage shortages in water resources with good planning." But now Iraqi farmers struggle to get water to their crops. There is severe lack of electricity to run pumps and fuel to run generators.

"The water is there and the rivers have not dried up, but the problem lies in how to get it to our dying
plantations," said Jabbar Ahmed, a farmer from Latifiya south of Baghdad. "It is a shame that we, our animals and our plants are thirsty in a country that has the two great rivers." Iraq now imports most agricultural products because of lack of irrigation.

The average household in Iraq now gets two hours of electricity a day. About 70% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, and only 19% have sewage access, according to the World Health Organization. Unemployment stands at more than 60%.

BEIJING - After weeks of watching the mercury soar, hardening the already cracked earth of their wilting orchards and farms, a group of farmers on the outskirts of Beijing gather in the Fragrant Hills that line the western fringe of China's capital city. Unlike their ancestors, they do not assemble to perform a rain dance or gather in a temple to pray to the Lord Buddha to bring the rain.

Instead, they grab rocket launchers and a 37-millimeter anti-aircraft gun and begin shooting into the sky. What they launch are not bullets or missiles but chemical pellets. Their targets are not enemy aggressors but wisps of passing cloud that they aim to "seed" with silver-iodide particles around which moisture can then collect and become heavy enough to fall.

According to Wang Guanghe, director of the Weather Modification Department under the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, each of China's more than 30 provinces and province-level municipalities today boast a weather-modification base, employing more than 32,000 people, 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and 30-odd aircraft across the country.

"Ours is the largest artificial weather program in the world in terms of equipment, size and budget," Wang said, adding that the annual nationwide budget for weather modification is between US$60 million and $90 million.

It is no coincidence that the world's biggest such project is in China. The country's leadership has never been cautious about harnessing nature, taking on a slew of what were once thought impossible engineering challenges, such as the Three Gorges dam, the world's biggest hydroelectric project, and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's longest highland railroad.

For a largely agrarian country like China, the weather was thought of as far too important to be left to the whim of gods or nature. As a result, Chinese scientists began researching man-made rain as far back as 1958, using chemicals such as silver iodide or dry ice to facilitate condensation in moisture-laden clouds.

In the beginning, the idea was to ease drought and improve harvests for Chinese farmers, but over the decades other functions have evolved such as firefighting, prevention of hailstorms, and replenishment of river heads and reservoirs. Artificial rain has also been used by some provinces to combat drought and sandstorms. In 2004, Shanghai decided to induce rain simply to lower the temperature during a prolonged heat wave to bring relief to an increasingly hot and sweaty urban populace.

And now China's weather officials have been charged with another important task: ensuring clear skies for the Summer Olympic Games next year. Zhang Qiang, the top weather-modification bureaucrat in Beijing, said her office has been conducting experiments in cloud-busting for the past two years in preparation for the Games' opening ceremony on August 8, 2008.

She said that according to past meteorological data, there is a 50% chance of drizzle on that day. To ensure blue skies, the Beijing Weather Modification Office is busy researching the effects of various chemical activators on different sizes of cloud formations at different altitudes. The aim is to catch pregnant clouds early and induce rainfall ahead of the big day so that during the opening ceremony the sky is cloud-free.

Wang said similar efforts in the past have already helped to create good weather for a number of international events held in China, including the 1999 World Horti-Expo in Yunnan and the 1993 East Asian Games in Shanghai.

Conservationists and wild-fish interests say farmed fish can carry disease and affect the genes of wild species if they reproduce. Roger Brooks, chairman of the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland, said, "In an average year there are ten escaped salmon in the sea for every wild fish returning to Scotland. That is appalling. They are contaminating the countryside, their genetics are mucking up wild fish when they cross breed and they are just a pest."

Scottish Executive figures show that between 2002 - when statutory reporting began - and 2006, the number of escapees totals 1.58 million. However, annual figures have dropped from 312,655 to 155,653 over that period.