In addition, up to 66.5 percent of the farmland in the province, or about 2.67 million hectares, has been affected by the drought, while 19 reservoirs have dried up. The province has spent more than 300 million yuan (US$37.5 million) for disaster relief and dispatched more than 2 million people to combat the drought.

Latest nationwide statistics show that the number of Chinese without drinking water has risen by 320,000 in the past several days to 8.68 million as drought tightened its grip on the country's northeastern regions. The drought had affected 11.07 million hectares of arable land -- including 9.2 million hectares of crops -- and 7.6 million heads of livestock, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Monday.

In northeast China's Liaoning Province, 2.05 million hectares, or 49 percent, of the province's crops are affected by drought. In the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, 870,000 people, 1.48 million head of livestock and 460,000 square kilometers of pasture are suffering water shortages.

On Monday afternoon, lightning killed five people building a tomb in Zhejiang. Altogether 48 people have died and 12 are missing after a week of heavy rains and thunderstorms that swept up the Yangtze River valley and across southern China. Nearly 10,000 people were evacuated, thousands of houses collapsed and thousands of acres of farmland were destroyed, according to a report on the central government's Web site

Lightning was the main cause of death, claiming 37 of the victims. In Jiangxi on Sunday, lightning struck 12 farmers while they were working in the fields, and a grandmother and grandson were killed when they sought shelter from rain under a corrugated iron roof, the Xinhua news agency said. Two urban residents in the province also died from lightning strikes while huddling together underneath a tree, it added.

The months from May to September are flood season in central and southern China as torrential rains, typhoons, tropical storms and lightning hit densely populated areas.

"The general strike is suspended with effect from midnight," a joint statement issued by unions and the government said on Saturday. Union leaders met government negotiators after receiving a letter from Umaru Yar'Adua, Nigeria's president, pledging to freeze petrol prices at the pump for a year.

The general strike had halted most economic activity in Africa's most populous nation, but vital crude oil exports were not affected. The price of petrol will remain frozen at 70 naira ($0.55) per litre for a year, up from the previous price of 65 naira per litre.

"It was president Yar'Adua's personal intervention that halted the strike - after listening to all the parties and examining the issues of contention," Olusegun Adeniyi, presidential spokesman, said. The strike had forced the closure of schools, government offices, banks and filling stations. Fuel price had soared to three or four times the normal price on the black market during the strike. Virtually all domestic flights were grounded, with few nternational flights leaving the country.

The study has been jointly released by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org who say that based on a survey conducted in 18 countries, the majority of people approve of strengthening the UN while rejecting the idea that the US should continue to be the preeminent world leader.

According to the two globalist think tanks, the results show that most people believe the UN should have the right to authorize military force and to usurp the national sovereignty of nations should it be necessary where cases of aggression, terrorism, and genocide are concerned.

"In general, there was recognition that many problems now transcend borders and require strengthened multilateral institutions and approaches to dealing with them," Christopher Whitney, executive director for studies at The Chicago Council said. "GIVEN THAT THESE TWO THINK TANKS ARE FUNDED AND POPULATED BY A VAST ARRAY OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS GLOBALISTS AND HEADS OF WORLD CORPORATIONS IT IS NO SURPRISE THAT THEY ARE LAUDING THE FINDINGS."

The CCGA was formed in 1922 as an offshoot of the Council On Foreign Relations which was founded one year earlier. It is comprised of representatives from every globalist main player there is including the Federal Reserve, JP Morgan Chase and Company, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mayer, Brown and Rowe and General Electric to name but a few.

In addition the World Public Opinion group is directly funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund among others. The Rockefellers, who also created the Trilateral Commission, have stated and proven many times that their goal is to undermine national sovereignty, subvert cultural norms, bring about a one world order and lead the way towards total control over society.

"Government has directed manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers to reduce prices of basic commodities - by up to 50 percent with immediate effect as it takes measures against the wave of unjustified price increases over the past few weeks," the Herald newspaper said. Zimbabwe, once one of Africa's most prosperous countries, is suffering a deep economic crisis, marked by soaring inflation and poverty, high unemployment and chronic shortages of fuel, food and foreign exchange.

Prices of basic goods, such as cooking oil, flour and milk, are rising on a daily basis, with increases on some items jumping as much as 300 percent in the past week. Many of the country's 15 million people now are unable to feed themselves or their families.

Inflation hit 3,700 percent on an annualized basis in April, according to the latest official data, and is expected to continue rising throughout the remainder of the year.The value of the Zimbabwean dollar has tumbled on the country's thriving black market, where it was trading recently between 170,000 and 200,000 to the U.S. dollar. The official rate for the currency is 15,000 to the U.S. dollar.

Under the government's new pricing plan, businesses must revert to the prices quoted on June 18, 2007 while a commission investigates whether the recent jump in prices was justified, the paper said, quoting International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu. Prices of basic commodities, including bread, flour, salt, sugar, cooking oil, beef and fuel, are among those affected.

The disaster declaration makes portions of El Dorado County eligible for immediate state aid, and is the first step in requesting emergency federal assistance to fight the blaze, which rained ash on the pristine lake and darkened skies in the high Sierra.

"The circumstances of this wildfire, by reason of their magnitude, are beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities of any single county," said Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who signed the proclamation declaring the emergency Monday

The number of firefighters battling the blaze nearly doubled, to about 800, on Monday morning, as officials also stepped up an aerial assault, using nearly a dozen tankers and helicopters to drop water and retardant over the heavily wooded, parched terrain.

Last week, I was invited back to see how the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston, Berkshire, could design and build the next generation of British nukes. A £180 million laser facility called Orion is part of a £1 billion, three-year refurbishment programme that will run until 2008, with the same again to be spent on running costs.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, which ruled that Britain could no longer carry out nuclear testing in the Nevada desert, seemed to signal the end of the development of nuclear weapons technology. Not so, according to Dr Brian Bowsher, Aldermaston's director of research and applied science. Using supercomputers, bomb makers are able to detonate virtual 3D nuclear explosions using complex mathematical modelling, data from non-nuclear laboratory tests, information gathered from the 45 British nuclear tests between 1952 and 1992, and the ultra-high temperatures and pressures which will be generated by Orion's lasers.

When Orion's lasers are fired, a millimetre-sized target will be bombarded with laser light from 10 angles. Almost simultaneously, two other laser beams will fire shorter pulses, heating the sample to up to 10 million degrees, and compressing it to 100 times the density of water.

AWE has also invested in a £20 million Cray XT3 "Redwood" supercomputer, which provides the power of six billion people doing 7,000 calculations a second. With it, virtual nuclear weapons can be endlessly detonated to test and hone designs.

After bidding the Dr Strangeloves goodbye, I was struck by the surreal picture emerging in Aldermaston; one of enthusiastic young boffins who want to build a weapon of mass destruction that is kinder to our planet: a green nuke.

As a result, the perpetrator was handed two concurrent 18-month sentences for his abuse. Anyone who doesn't have soup for brains would join the condemnation of the ruling. The poor girl, whom the judge referred to as a "young woman", has been let down by the law. But what about her guardians? She has been in the care of a local authority since she was four. Did those professionals in charge of her upbringing believe that it was ok to let her go out wearing a thong and a frilly bra?

G-strings, cropped tops and high heels should definitely be on the What Not To Wear list for pre-teen girls. However, since the advent of the so-called tweenager, it has become acceptable to dress children as miniature adults. Little boys wear camouflage cargo pants; girls wear sparkly lip-gloss and show lots of flesh. Even at Clarks, the trusted sensible shoe shop of my own childhood, it is depressing to survey the racks of high-heeled shoes aimed at my two small daughters.

And to play with, we give them Bratz dolls. They're the ones that look like Barbie's slutty big sister - all lipstick and pelmet skirts - and are a favourite with five-year-olds. We are told, pretty much weekly, by surveys and think tanks, that our children are unhappy with their bodies and that it leads to low self-esteem and depression. They turn into fat teenagers or anorexic teenagers: either way, something must be done. Why, then, are we steering our children towards body consciousness at such a young age? Why do we put three-year-olds in mini skirts and babies in bikinis, and tell them they look adorable?

In France, children dress like children until they are grown-ups. Little girls don't wear T-shirts with "So Many Boys, So Little Time" on them. French girls wear sensible, Grayson Perry-style trapeze dresses until they are allowed to graduate to jeans, and polo shirts.

Meanwhile, despite my best efforts, my primary school daughter is campaigning for a bikini, which, as far as I can make out, is standard beachwear for six-year-olds.

Two-thirds of lesbian and gay pupils have experienced homophobic bullying, ranging from verbal abuse to violence and even death threats, the survey by equality organisation Stonewall found. And some pupils even claimed their teachers joined in with the abuse.

At least three people were killed in the severe storms that brought devastation to large parts of England. One man died after he wastrapped in a drain in Hull, while a 68-year-old man was killed while trying to cross a flooded road in Sheffield. Last night, police searching for a teenager who fell into the Sheaf river in Sheffield said they had found the body of a young man.

A tornado swept through Wellington in Shropshire, highlighting the " amount of energy in the rainclouds", the Met Office said. With much of England and Wales having received twice the average monthly rainfall for June, rivers were running dangerously high.

In South Yorkshire, motorists abandoned vehicles as roads flooded and police reported grid-locked traffic in Sheffield, where hundreds of people were left stranded in buildings. Twenty people were airlifted to safety from one building, while three were rescued from the roof of a building next to two that had collapsed. Another 200 were stranded on the first-floor canteen of a Royal Mail distribution centre.

Met Office spokesman said: "The rest of the week should be fairly dry but the outlook is still unsettled." With much of the country suffering, the British Chamber of Commerce said that the disruption could cost up to £400m.

GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL
"The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part - We have renounced everything that makes people think of a state, like the flag and the national anthem. El Pais (25 June)

GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the mandate approved by the EU will "PRESERVE THE SUBSTANCE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY". Agence Europe (25 June)

SPANISH PRIME MINISTER JOSE ZAPATERO
"A great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured in the new treaties", Zapatero said. "Everyone has conceded a little so that we all gain a lot", added Zapatero. El Pais (25 June)

IRISH TAOISEACH BERTIE AHERN
"Given the fact that there was strong legal advice that the draft constitution in 2004 would require a referendum in Ireland, and given the fact that these changes haven't made any dramatic change to the substance of what was agreed back in 2004, I think it is likely that a referendum will be held - thankfully they haven't changed the substance - 90 PER CENT OF IT IS STILL THERE."

On the change of name for the EU Foreign Minister he said: "It's the original job as proposed but they just put on this long title - High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and also vice President of the Commission. It's the same job - it's still going to be the same position." Irish Independent (24 June)

DANISH PM ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN
Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen: "The good thing is- that all the symbolic elements are gone, and that which really matters - THE CORE - IS LEFT." Jyllands-Posten (25 June)

FINLAND'S EUROPE MINISTER
Finland's Europe Minister Astrid Thors: "There's NOTHING FROM THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTIONAL PACKAGE THAT HAS BEEN CHANGED" TV-Nytt, (23 June)

FRENCH PRESIDENT NICOLAS SARKOZY
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has claimed victory, saying, "This was France's idea from the start." Libération (25 June)

At the Paris Air Show Sarkozy also said that Britain keeping the pound amounted to unfair competition. He said other countries, "I can't go on imposing social, environmental, fiscal and monetary dumping' on Europe. I ask that we do with the euro with the US does with the dollar or even what our English friends do with the pound." CNBC (24 June)

Sarkozy also dismissed the change of the EU Foreign Minister's name as of no significance. "What does it matter what we call him?" Telegraph (24 June)

COMMISSION PRESIDENT JOSE BARROSO
Barroso said he was happy that his son was studying law, because under the new treaty: "lawyers have a beautiful future" Süddeutsche Zeitung (25 June)

But Olmert cautioned, in a speech in Jerusalem, against expectations of any breakthrough at the four-way meeting which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah will also attend in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Ahead of the summit, Israeli officials said Israel was reluctant to remove roadblocks and other West Bank restrictions to boost Abbas's new government, shorn of Hamas Islamists, until he did more to curb militants.
"This is the thrust of this evening's meetings and I hope that it will help project that spirit across the entire Middle East in order to move forward," he said.

"Where we can be flexible, where we can show a degree of generosity, where we can establish an environment of goodwill, there, I think, we should do it. And this is the true basis upon which we will move forward in the near future." Olmert said.

Olmert was expected at the summit -- the first since Hamas routed Abbas's Fatah forces in Gaza more than a week ago -- to outline some of the measures he would be prepared to take to bolster a leader whom Israeli officials have called ineffective.

"The important thing for President Abbas is to revive the peace process and the political negotiations in order to end the Israeli occupation and establish a Palestinian state," senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Sheriff's Lt. Kevin House said the fire is less than 5 percent contained and has more than 500 homes in its path, but no injuries or deaths have been reported. The cause of the fire is still unknown. "This thing is raging out of control, and there's no estimate as to when that may change," House said. The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors has issued a declaration of emergency, House said.

Kit Bailey, the agency's fire chief for Lake Tahoe, said high winds hampered the battle against the fast-moving about five miles south of the lake. The Angora Lakes Resort and hundreds of homes in Meyers were evacuated, authorities said. The fire, believed to be caused by human activity, was reported Sunday afternoon on Forest Service land. Its huge smoke plume could be seen for miles.

State and federal fire officials had warned of a potentially active wildfire season in the Sierra Nevada following an unusually dry winter. The annual May 1 snow survey found the Tahoe-area snowpack at just 29 percent of normal levels, the lowest since 1988.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, crews worked to protect hundreds of homes tucked in the hills of the scenic Kenai Peninsula, where a fire has already destroyed dozens of homes and cabins.

It has burgeoned to 81 square miles since Tuesday, consuming 35 far- flung cabins in the Caribou Hills, state fire information officials said. Forty other structures, including sheds and outhouses, were also lost in the popular hunting and snowmobiling area about 80 miles south of Anchorage. The fire threatens another 600 homes and cabins, Hall said.

Much of Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi - where 200 died - is still without power. Forecasters say a cyclone and heavy winds are set to hit most of Pakistan's coast and much of India's west coast. More than 140 have been killed in the rains in India. There have also been a number of deaths in Afghanistan.
Much of Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi - where 200 died - is still without power.

Forecasters say a cyclone and heavy winds are set to hit most of Pakistan's coast and much of India's west coast. Officials in Karachi say that in just one area of the city, Gadap in the north-west, more than 1,000 homes have been destroyed. Gadap, like other areas of the city, is without drinking water. For weeks before the weekend floods, Karachi had been hit hot weather and power cuts, leading to protests and rioting. Sunday saw more riots.

Heavy rains have already caused the deaths of some 140 people in southern and western India. The states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have been the worst hit. In Bagalkot, Bijapur and Raichur, the worst affected districts of Karnataka, more than 4,000 people have been left homeless after their villages submerged in flash floods. Eleven relief camps have been opened for the homeless.

Keele University researchers said it showed petty crime was rife among the middle classes and exposed the "law-abiding majority" to be a myth.

Of those who admitted to an offence, nearly two-thirds (62%) had broken the law on up to three occasions and 10% admitted to nine or more offences. The study's author, Professor Suzanna Karstedt, said: "Contempt for the law is as widespread in the centre of society as it is assumed to be rampant at the margins and among specific marginal groups. "ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR BY THE FEW IS MIRRORED BY ANTI-CIVIL BEHAVIOUR BY THE MANY".

"Neither greed nor need can explain why respectable citizens cheat on insurance claims or in second-hand sales, and do not hesitate to discuss their exploits with friends in pubs." The study, of people aged 25 to 65, was published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London.