During a 25-minute face-to-face audience in the Pontiff's private apartments, Pope Benedict XVI tackled Mr Blair on the continuing crisis in Iraq and the Middle East. Italian news agency reports said Pope Benedict also made direct criticism of New Labour laws allowing greater stem cell research on human embryos, easy access to abortion, same-sex marriages, and adoption by gay couples.

Friction even seemed to emerge as the Pope and Prime Minister appeared in public for the cameras. Mr Blair, joined by his wife Cherie, presented Benedict with a framed set of three antique pictures of Cardinal Newman, who converted in 1845 after more than 20 years in the Church of England clergy and is now a candidate for sainthood.

Mrs Blair said: "I believe you are very familiar with him and he is on the journey to sainthood." To which the Pope responded: "Yes, yes, although it is taking some time - miracles are hard to come by in Britain." The gift was seen as a highly significant indication of Mr Blair's wish to convert to the Catholic faith.

After the meeting, the Pope's office issued a strongly worded statement, saying the two men had a 'frank discussion on the international situation, in particular the delicate question of the Middle East conflict'. The actual wording of the communique contained the Italian phrase 'franco confronto', literally translated as 'frank confrontation' - inflammatory language seen as highly unusual in Rome. It then commended Mr Blair's 'vivid desire to involve himself in particular for peace in the Middle East and for inter-religious dialogue'.

But the statement was seen as indicating the Vatican's continuing unease with the Iraq conflict, and also recent domestic legislation in Britain. In the language of diplomatic communiquÇs, 'frank discussion' is customarily seen as code for an argument. The statement was all the more surprising because the Vatican always uses carefully controlled language.

At the end of Mr Blair's audience with the Pope, Cardinal Murphy O"Connor was invited in and the three had a ten-minute discussion. Father Georg Ganswein, the Pope's personal secretary, said they had a 'meeting of six eyes' - a significant Italian phrase which means deeply personal and private. A senior Vatican source added: "The fact that Cardinal Cormac was invited in at the end is highly unusual.

"It is not customary at all for church figures from the invited party's home nation to be present at an audience."
Again this was seen as a sign that Mr Blair was looking for the Catholic Church's approval of his future path - which, as well as conversion, includes setting up an interfaith religious foundation. Mr Blair hopes that this will play a role in brokering peace in the crisis-torn Middle East.

Kuwait broke the dinar-dollar peg only when it became too painfully expensive to keep it. The steady decline of the U.S. dollar, which hit a record low against the euro in April, meant that the dinar fell gradually but steadily in price, too. That left Kuwait facing rising prices for everything it imports.

Not exactly a small problem for a country that imports almost everything. For example, only 1% of Kuwait is arable, so the country imports all its food except for fish and shrimp. Kuwait even imports much of its drinking water: 75% of the drinking water used by the population is either distilled from seawater or imported.

This all leaves the U.S. dollar in a very uncomfortable position. On the one hand, we are seeing a gradual move away from the dollar by the world's central banks in favour of baskets of currencies. This puts gradual downward pressure on the price of the dollar and leads to a gradual increase in U.S. inflation and U.S. interest rates, as well as a gradual decline in relative U.S. standards of living and U.S. financial market performance.

As in Kuwait, where such a move resulted in a 25% shift away from the U.S. dollar in favour of other currencies, I don't think the result is a stampede out of the U.S. dollar. The dollar balloon isn't about to burst. But we are witnessing the air gradually leak out of the currency.

I think this reflects global fundamentals. The U.S. economy is less dominant in the global economy today, with the rise of China, India and the European Union, than it was in, say, 1980. The size of the U.S. trade deficit also argues for a gradual depreciation of the dollar in order to bring global trade flows closer into balance.

This system as a whole relies upon a touching faith that enough countries will play by the rules of the market, so that the market will continue to function with rules that can be exploited as national self-interest dictates.

The United Nations agency appealed for $2.15 billion to combat drug-resistant TB under a program which it said could save up to 134,000 lives over two years.Extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB), a form virtually immune to antibiotics, has been reported in 37 countries in all regions since emerging in 2006, according to the WHO.

"There is somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000, we roughly estimate, cases of extensive drug resistant TB each year," Paul Nunn, coordinator of WHO's Stop TB Department, told a briefing. "Ultimately, to face down this epidemic, we need new tools -- we need new drugs, we need new diagnostics," he added.

Some 8.8 million people each year develop normal TB, a bacterial infection that usually attacks the lungs and which kills 1.6 million people a year, according to the WHO. About 450,000 get a multi-resistant form (MDR-TB) each year which is resists the main first-line drugs, but XDR-TB occurs when there is resistance to even second-line drugs.

"The possibility is that you could replace that epidemic with a drug-resistant epidemic, in other words you could have 8 million cases of drug-resistant TB wandering around. And then you will be back to the pre-antibiotic era," said Nunn.

It's well known that young Muslim men are taught they will be rewarded with 72 virgins in the afterlife. But what is the appeal of martyrdom to women?Here are excerpts of what Yunis Al-Astal said about Muslim women's "duty" to engage in violent jihad.

"The most exalted form of jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah, which means sacrificing one's soul by fighting the enemies head-on, even if it leads to martyrdom. Martyrdom means life next to Allah. When jihad becomes an individual duty, it applies to women too, because women do not differ from men when it comes to individual duties."

"The most important message is that our enemies should know that there is no place for them on the land of Palestine. Each and every boy and man, and each and every girl and woman, is a potential martyrdom-seeker. The enemy should know that we are prepared to wear explosive belts, and to throw ourselves in the midst of the enemy, in order to make them taste the evil consequences of their deeds. They should know that they have no other choice - either they leave or they will die, even if it takes a long time."

AT ISSUE ARE THE RULES OF THE PROPOSED EU CONSTITUTION WHICH GIVE A DISPROPORTIONATE INCREASE OF POWER FOR BERLIN. The German government is intent on forcing this through at any price whilst Warsaw attempts to resist the increasing disempowerment of the smaller EU member states.

The Polish foreign minister's representative for bilateral negotiations with the German government, Mariusz Musczynski, said "At the moment, Germany appears to be striving only for power in the EU". On account of its resistance, German politicians and EU representatives are threatening Poland with reduction in its EU subsidies. A strategy paper by high-ranking Social Democrat MPs made clear exactly what the aims of German policy are.

They demand the creation of a European army, removing the ability of nations to make decisions about peace or war. Atomic weapons are included. The Polish commentator Piotr Buras wrote this concerning the critical negotiations "THE DILEMMA OF A EUROPEAN GERMANY OR OF A GERMAN EUROPE, WHICH EXERCISED EUROPEAN CAPITALS DURING THE NINETIES, IS NO LONGER AN EMPTY FORM OF WORDS".

The only sure result will be that warring gangs in the West Bank will use every new weapon to continue the mayhem and that the millions paid out won't buy as much as a bottle of milk for Palestinian Arab civilians. Instead, the money will end up in the pockets and bank accounts of the same crooks who lost Gaza.

Indeed, why try to recreate a world that has just crumbled? America and Israel may want to wait for what may turn out to be a changing of the guard: Arab voices, both expert and popular, are rising in vociferous denunciations of the once sacrosanct Palestinian Arabs.

"PALESTINIANS TODAY NEED TO BE LEFT WITHOUT A SHRED OF A DOUBT" AS TO WHAT OTHER ARABS THINK OF THEM," a widely read opinion commentator for the Saudi daily Asharq Al Awsat, Mamoun Fandy, thundered on Monday. "WE NEED TO TELL THEM THE ONLY THING THEY HAVE PROVEN OVER 50 YEARS IS THAT THEY ARE ADOLESCENTS WHO CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED TO RUN INSTITUTIONS OF STATE OR ANY OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS."

While it could be argued that the overwhelming public outrage in Saudi Arabia reflects resentment over the collapse of the much-vaunted reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah ? which was personally brokered by King Abdullah earlier this year in Mecca ? the anger expressed across the Muslim Arab world reflects deep embarrassment at the discredit Hamas has brought, in the name of Islam, through its savagery against Fatah.

Two senior US administration sources told the BBC that the PM's aides have indicated he is interested in the role.

The president would reportedly like him to be an envoy for the quartet of the US, European Union, UN and Russia.

The White House officials told the BBC that the talks were preliminary, and did not have any comment on Mr Blair's reaction to the suggestion.

But later, the administration sources told the BBC's Jonathan Beale that both Israel and the Palestinians had signed up to the proposal.

Beale said: "Most important of all Tony Blair, or aides of Mr Blair, have signed up to this.

"It looks like this is going to be Tony Blair's next job and it looks like Tony Blair wants this job... that is the message I am getting from officials in Washington."

The "constitutional concept is abandoned", says a paper circulated by Germany, which will chair the summit.
The paper makes several concessions to EU member states opposed to key parts of the failed constitution.
But Poland and the UK are still warning they could use their vetoes if they do not get their way on a new treaty.

Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said a veto remained "highly likely" while UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said no deal was better than a bad deal. Mrs Beckett told Parliament: "If it comes down to deal or no deal at this European Council the UK government is clear no deal is better than buying any old pig in a poke." She added that Britain wanted a Europe "of sovereign nations, not a superstate".

Despite his warnings of a possible veto, Mr Kaczynski hinted Poland could drop its opposition if it guaranteed a strong voice in EU decision-making. "We realise we cannot stop the process [of reform] - that would be too risky for the future," Mr Kaczynski told Reuters news agency. He said there was a 50-50 chance of the summit ending in agreement.

Under the latest German proposals, Britain gets reassurances that the European Courts will have no power to examine foreign affairs policies. And at the request of the Dutch, the draft gives more power to national parliaments to block EU laws.

The warning - which began at 3 p.m. and is supposed to run through 8 a.m. Thursday - prompted Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighters to deploy extra personnel, firetrucks, bulldozers and water tenders to stations near dry hillsides including sites in Santa Clarita, Saugus and Malibu. The deployments were expected to continue through Thursday as temperatures are expected to reach into the high 90s.

Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service said the weather definitely bodes poorly for fire season, adding, "These are the conditions we don't normally expect until early September." Since so little rain has fallen in Southern California, plant growth has been minimal, Hurd said. This means fires have less new fuel - but it's drier. Firefighters across the state have been beefing up staffing levels and prevention efforts at the close of the driest weather season in history. Since July, Los Angeles has received just 3.21 inches of rain.

Firefighters have recorded a huge jump in wildfires this year - 2,100 blazes, compared with 296 from January to June last year. One last month burned up nearly 1,000 acres in Griffith Park.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal." Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

During his speech to Ireland's eighth annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election in which Hamas won 42 percent of the popular vote and a majority of parliamentary seats. Carter said that election was "orderly and fair" and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was "shrewd in selecting candidates," whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.

Far from encouraging Hamas's move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.

"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech. "This effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples now is a step in the wrong direction," he said. "All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together."

Carter was pessimistic this would happen soon."I don't see at this point any possibility that public officials in the United States, or in Israel, or the European Union are going to take action to bring about reconciliation," he said.

Schwarzenegger promised to meet Blair in London after the prime minister traveled to Long Beach last summer to announce a trans-Atlantic alliance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Environmental groups have called the trans-Atlantic alliance between Schwarzenegger and Blair largely symbolic. It calls for collaboration on research into cleaner-burning fuels and into the possibility of setting up a system for companies to buy and sell credits so they can continue releasing greenhouse gases.

Critics say such a plan could dilute California's goal of reducing such emissions 25 percent by 2020.
Schwarzenegger has since signed similar agreements with Australia and a province in Canada. The governor plans to return to Britain in the fall to speak to the country's Conservative Party, which recently replaced its traditional red, white and blue torch logo with an environmentally friendly green tree.

He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions. Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC. His statement came as a Dutch think tank reported that China had already overtaken the US as the world's biggest emitter of CO2.

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said China's CO2 emissions had risen by 9% last year, compared to 1.4% in the US. He pointed out that much of China's emissions growth was being driven by consumers in the West buying Chinese goods, and noted that China's emissions per person were still well below those of rich nations.

It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more than the average Chinese person.

What they found makes uncomfortable reading for those who thought they understood the basics of biology, but it does provide tantalising hints of new ways to fight disease.

This, the most detailed study of DNA, is a landmark in genetics research, for the more scientists understand the details of how our bodies work, the easier it will be to fix them when they go wrong.
The analysis was led by Dr Ewan Birney, a computer scientist at the European Bioinformatics Institute, near Cambridge, who said the work "poses some interesting mechanistic questions". IN LAYMAN'S LANGUAGE, THIS IS AN ADMISSION THAT BOFFINS ARE BAFFLED.

Indeed, Dr Birney said scientists might even have TO REVISE WHAT THEY MEAN BY THE TERM "GENE". "It is really challenging our dogmas," he said.

The most striking finding is that much of the "junk" DNA is not rubbish but crucial for staying alive. Instead of finding that just 1.5 per cent of the genome is critical in cells, most of it appears to be active. Using a computer metaphor, junk DNA seems to be the cell's "operating system" running the genes.

This could have major implications for the use of animals in research, said Dr Birney. "It means, for example, THAT HOW THE KIDNEYS WORK IN MICE AND HUMANS IS NOT THE SAME - not all of those bits of biology will use the same DNA; that is, remain the same between different mammals."

IN OTHER WORDS, LAB MICE MAY DIFFER IN SOME RESPECTS FROM US, WHICH IS A MAJOR SHIFT FROM THE CURRENT POSITION THAT, AT THE GENETIC LEVEL, WE ARE PRETTY MUCH BIG, TAILLESS RODENTS.

To reveal more secrets, the team now plans to finish the job with another £50 million. After four more years, they will probably prove the first law of biology: LIFE IS ALWAYS MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU THINK.

Full article:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/06/19/scigenome119.xml&page=1

"When the Americans say that military action in regard to the nuclear issue has not been put aside, Iran can also say that it will not put aside oil as a tool," Iran's OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, told Iran's Sharq newspaper.

Washington says it wants a diplomatic end to a row over Iran's nuclear ambitions but has not ruled out force if that route fails. Iranian officials say they do not want to use oil as a weapon but have also said they might do so if pushed.

Asked what would be the impact if Iran stopped its oil exports, Kazempour Ardebili said: "Definitely the market will be faced with a new shock and oil prices will increase strongly."He added that prices would climb above $100 a barrel. Although Iran is OPEC's No. 2 oil producer, it has to import about 40 percent of its domestic gasoline needs to meet domestic demand for fuel because it lacks refining capacity.

The water on Lake Superior is so low that he couldn't put his docks in the water this year. Where he used to see water, he now sees sandbars. Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake, has dropped to its lowest level in 81 years. The water is 20 inches below average and a foot lower than just a year ago. The dropping levels have had serious environmental and economic consequences. Wetlands have dried up. Power plants run at half capacity. Cargo ships carry partial loads. Boaters struggle to find a place to dock.

The changes can be seen all along the 2,800-mile shore of Lake Superior, the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes. The water has receded, sometimes 50 feet or more, from its normal shoreline.Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are at low levels, as well, although not quite as extreme.

A drought and warm weather are the immediate cause of the drop in water levels. In the past year, precipitation was 6 inches less than the average of 31 inches. The lake's southern shore had a green Christmas in 2006. The ice and snow pack that usually cover the lake arrived late, allowing water to evaporate. The Edison Sault Electric power plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., will operate at less than 50% capacity this year because its water flows have been slashed as a result of the low lake levels, the company said. That pushed the company to buy high-cost power elsewhere and increase rates.

Cargo ships run partly empty, especially those that carry heavy materials such as coal and iron ore. On a recent trip, the 1,004-foot freighter James R. Barker had to leave 7,000 tons of coal behind, so the boat would draft 26 feet under water, instead of 29 feet.

Away from shore, Lake Superior is doing fine. A 19-inch drop doesn't make a big difference in a lake that is 1,330 feet at its deepest. The fishing has never been better. Alexander says he's catching huge amounts of trout and whitefish. For now, he's waiting, like everyone else, for the water to rise. "It seemed normal last October," Shalifor says. "Then it dropped and never came back."