Her warning, made during a closed-door lunch in Brussels, highlighted renewed debate over whether Europe could afford to impose tougher rules on genetically modified, or GM, products than other parts of the world.
Some EU officials say the region should maintain its skeptical stance toward the technology on safety grounds, while others argue for a more pragmatic approach to enhance the region's competitiveness and help the agricultural sector.

"Along with our zero-tolerance policy toward GM feed stuffs in Europe there also is a major potential cost impact," Michael Mann, a spokesman for Fischer Boel, said Monday. One of the reasons why European policies toward GM feeds raise costs is that ships bound for Europe must be thoroughly cleaned to make sure that feeds are not intermingled with feeds grown using GM seeds that have not yet been approved for use in the EU.

Environmental groups that oppose any slackening of the rules on imports of GM products say many of the arguments used to justify a relaxed policy on GM feed in Europe are specious. Helen Holder, a GM expert with Friends of the Earth in Brussels, said prices were rising because more farmers in parts of the world like the United States were growing crops for biofuels at a time when demand was rising for crops to feed livestock.

Holder called on the EU to drop proposals to mandate more use of biofuels and change EU rules so that farmers can use more home-grown feeds rather than relaxing rules on imports from parts of the world like the United States. "The EU needs to stand firm and defend its biosafety rules," she said.

There will be a great cocktail party, a fantastic photo opportunity, and perhaps a Mondial [World Cup tournament] can be arranged there," Lieberman said in an interview with the Knesset Channel. "But there is no chance for a breakthrough. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not represent anyone."

The Israel Beiteinu chairman, who has been embattled from the right for failing to quit the Olmert government ahead of the parley, stated that serious negotiations were not an option as long as Abbas was not in control of the Gaza Strip. "Because he (Abbas) is so weak, even our basic requirements are beyond his ability to deliver."

Opposition head Binyamin Netanyahu also criticized the government's decision to negotiate with the Abbas. "We want dialogue and real peace" Netanyahu said. "However, in order to attain that you need two strong partners - and that cannot be found in Annapolis."

"You need a strong Palestinian partner, but today we have a weak PA that is unwilling to lift a finger against terror," the Likud chairman said. "This process will not lead to peace but rather to the danger of further compromises on Israel's vital interests. We need different partners and a different government."

What has abruptly changed is the twin revolution of biofuel politics and Asia's switch to an animal-protein diet. Together, they have shattered the fragile equilibrium.

The world's grocery bill has jumped 21pc this year to $745bn (£355bn), hence the food riots ripping through West Africa, Morocco, Yemen, Bengal, and Indonesia. Three people were killed this month in China at a cooking oil stampede in Chongqing. Mexico has imposed a ceiling on corn prices to quell a tortilla revolt. Russia has re-imposed a Soviet price freeze on bread, eggs, cheese, milk, sugar, and vegetable oil until January. Russian bread prices have doubled this year.

Global wheat prices have surged from $375 a bushel to $826 since mid-2006.The FAO says the food spike has a different feel from earlier cycles. "What distinguishes the current state of agricultural markets is the concurrence of the hike in world prices of, not just a selected few, but of nearly all, major food and feed commodities," it said.

The US Department of Agriculture says the Taiwanese eat nine times as much animal protein as the Chinese. Why does it matter? Because IT TAKES 16LB OR SO OF ANIMAL FEED - MOSTLY SOYA OR CORN - TO PRODUCE A SINGLE POUND OF ANIMAL FLESH. IT TAKES 50 TIMES AS MUCH WATER.

Until last year, China was able to grow enough grain to supply its ubiquitous poultry and fish farms. It has now become a net importer of corn for the first time in its modern history. Urban sprawl across China's eastern seaboard is stealing most of the fertile land, and the water tables of northern China are drying up. The same trends are under way in India, Vietnam, and much of emerging Asia.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration aims to supply 20pc of total US fuel needs from biofuels within a decade, up from 3.5pc today - a ploy to break dependence on oil demagogues and slash the trade deficit. Credit Suisse says worldwide biofuel targets will take up 12pc of global arable and permanent cropland in 10 years, although new technology using the non-edible stalks will mitigate food displacement up to a point.

"It's a total disaster for those who are starving," says Jean Ziegler, the UN's food Rapporteur. "IT TAKES 232KG OF CORN TO MAKE 50 LITRES OF BIOETHNANOL. A child could live on that amount of corn for years," he said. Mr Ziegler wants a five-year ban on biofuels.

It also said that the campaign is aimed at deflecting attention from its recent massacre of Fatah supporters at a Gaza rally.

Recent Hamas speeches warned of "the shame and disgrace" of the meeting in Annapolis. It called on Arabs and Muslims to censure the "Zionist enemy" for alleged attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque at the Temple Mount. "Israel continues damaging Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque. It is planning to excavate additional tunnels under the mosque [and] right-wing Israeli activists 'invaded' the Al-Aqsa mosque precinct," Hamas has told its followers.

Hospitals and schools are struggling to cope with a huge influx of Eastern European children, new figures show. The number of Polish babies born in UK hospitals has almost quadrupled since the 2004 EU expansion. On current trends, there will be more than 13,000 such births this year, costing the NHS more than £20million. It is an inevitable consequence of the influx of up to a million Poles - the vast majority of them Roman Catholics in their 20s - since their former Soviet Bloc country joined the EU.

In addition, more than 240,000 Eastern European children have arrived in Britain's schools - with head teachers warning that some are now close to breaking point. Figures compiled by the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank show there are some 170,000 children from Poland, 30,400 from Lithuania, 28,700 from Slovakia and 12,900 from the Czech Republic.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the figures showed the Government had not properly planned the consequences of its immigration policy. He added: "The Government predicted 13,000 a year would come from the EU. The number has exceeded 700,000.

Continuous U.S. mediation in post-conference negotiations, including pressure on Israel, he says, "can turn things around" and lead to a comprehensive settlement before President Bush's term expires in 13 months.

But, speaking in Paris just hours before his scheduled arrival in the U.S., Prince Saud warned Israelis that they would have no peace until Israel withdrew from Arab territories captured in the 1967 war. Saud, who will be the highest ranking Saudi to ever attend a peace conference with the Jewish state, added that he would not shake the hand of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or make a symbolic visit to Jerusalem before a peace deal.

"The hand that has been extended to us has been a fist so far," he said. He warned Israelis against seeking a surrender, adding, "We don't need a Versailles for the Arab world, a peace that will only be an instigator of future wars."

"The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women," Huckabee said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we're paying so that the Saudis get rich ? filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas - schools that train the terrorists," said Huckabee. "America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It's absurd. It's embarrassing."

Huckabee said "I would make the United States energy independent within 10 years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil just like they can keep their sand, that we won't need either one of them."

As participants gather for tomorrow's Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland, the spotlight is on the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Saudis-? but the most important consideration lies closer to home: how will President Bush fare in a belated attempt to play peacemaker.

The reasons propelling the various parties to attend the conference are well known. They include the common domestic weaknesses of Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Mr Bush himself. For all three, a genuine and concerted push for peace would improve their standing at home.

But if the moment is unusually propitious for negotiation, never have the obstacles to a peace deal been higher. It was not clear yesterday whether even a joint document would be agreed. The Saudi foreign minister is refusing to shake hands with the Israelis.

With Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians are divided. Mr Abbas speaks for only part of his people; without Hamas' backing, any deal he does strike could be meaningless. Weakened at home, Mr Olmert will have to show real courage to make concessions that will be bitterly opposed by the settler movement and his religious coalition partners.

At best, what will emerge is a declaration that both sides want a settlement, based on resolution of the familiar "final status" issues: Israeli settlements and the borders between the states, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and Jerusalem.

The best-selling author and former presidential candidate is on the eve of launching his new epic book: DAY OF RECKONING: HOW HUBRIS, IDEOLOGY AND GREED ARE TEARING AMERICA APART. This time, Buchanan goes all the way: "America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive."

- The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America's global commitments.

- The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments.

- U.S. manufacturing is being hollowed out.

- The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico.

- The culture is collapsing and the nation is being deconstructed along the lines of race and class.

- A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed.

- All these crises are hitting America at once -- a perfect storm of crises.

Specifically, Buchanan contends:

- Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam.

- Bush's invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of "democratism" to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11.

- Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.

- The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America's borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.

- Free trade is shipping jobs, factories and technology to China and plunging America into permanent dependency and unpayable debt. One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush.

- "Sovereign Wealth Funds," controlled by foreign regimes and stuffed with trillions of dollars from U.S. trade deficits, are buying up strategic corporate assets vital to America's security.

- As U.S. wages are stagnant, corporate CEOs are raking in rising pay and benefits 400 to 500 times that of their workers.

- The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to our survival as one nation than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq. European-Americans, 89% of the nation when JFK took the oath, are now 66% and sinking. Before 2050, America is a Third World nation.

- By 2060, America will add 167 million people and 105 million immigrants will be here, triple the 37 million today.

- Hispanics will be over 100 million in 2050 and concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans believe belongs to them.

SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 242, 1967 - This was passed on 22 November 1967 and embodies the principle that has guided most of the subsequent peace plans - the exchange of land for peace. The resolution is famous for the imprecision, in English, of its central phase concerning an Israeli withdrawal - it says simply "from territories".

CAMP DAVID ACCORDS, 1978 - There were several peace plans following the 1967 war, including one by Yigal Allon, an Israeli general who proposed that Israel give back to Jordan the highlands of the West Bank while retaining a defensive line along the Jordan valley. However, nothing happened until after the war in October 1973, during which Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal. There followed a new mood for peace, at least between Israel and Egypt, as was shown by a historic visit to Jerusalem by the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in November 1977. The treaty has lasted, and it substantially strengthened Israel's position. However the peace between Egypt and Israel has not been warm. President Sadat was himself later assassinated.

THE MADRID CONFERENCE, 1991 - The symbolism of Arab countries other than Egypt openly negotiating with Israel was probably the main achievement of the Madrid conference. The Palestinian track soon gave way to secret talks that led to the Oslo agreement.

ISRAELI-SYRIAN TALKS - After the Madrid conference in 1991, direct talks began between Israel and Syria. Syria's main demand was for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee that Israel had captured in 1967. Syria claims that in talks in 1995, the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed to a total pullback. However, the Israelis say this was only a theoretical acceptance and that it depended on the full normalisation of relations, a condition that Syria, it claims, did not accept.

OSLO AGREEMENT, 1993 - The Oslo negotiations tried to tackle the missing element of all previous talks - a direct agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, represented by the PLO. Its importance was that there was finally mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. The PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands. There was opposition within Israel from settler-led groups. Oslo was only partially implemented.

CAMP DAVID, 2000 - Various attempts were made (including at Taba in 1995, the Wye River in 1998 and Sharm el-Sheikh in 1999) to speed up the withdrawal and self-government provisions of Oslo. Then in 2000, President Bill Clinton sought to address the final status issues - including borders, Jerusalem and refugees - that Oslo had left on one side for later negotiation. The failure at Camp David was followed by a renewal of the Palestinian uprising or intifada.

TABA, 2001 - Although he was about to leave office, Bill Clinton refused to give up and he presented a "bridging proposal" which set up further talks in Washington and Cairo and then Taba in Egypt. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, fighting an election campaign, said that "nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon " and said that he could not commit a subsequent government to what he called the "ideas" coming out of the talks. With the election of Ariel Sharon in February 2001, time ran out.

SAUDI PEACE PLAN, 2002 - After the failure of bilateral talks and the resumption of conflict, the Saudi peace plan presented at an Arab summit in Beirut in March 2002 went back to a multilateral approach and in particular signalled a desire by the Arab world as a whole to put an end to this dispute. Its strength is the support given by Arab countries to a two-state solution. Its weakness is that the parties have to negotiate the same issues on which they have failed so far.

ROAD MAP, 2003 - The road map is a plan drawn up by the "Quartet" - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. It does not lay down the details of a final settlement, but suggests how a settlement might be approached. The road map has not been implemented. Its timetable called for the final agreement to be reached in 2005. It has been overtaken by events.

GENEVA ACCORD, 2003 - While official efforts foundered, an informal agreement was announced in December 2003 by Israeli and Palestinian figures - Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of Oslo, on the Israeli side, and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo on the other. It reverses the concept of the Road Map, in which the growth of security and confidence precede a political agreement and puts the agreement first, which is then designed to produce security and peace. This envisaged a return to the 1967 lines, an open city of Jerusalem and an end to the Palestinian claim to a right of return to former homes.

Condoleezza Rice, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian ex-PM Ahmed Qurei want to agree a joint document for the Annapolis meeting. President Bush, who will host the meeting, said he remained personally committed to Middle East peace. Syria said it would be joining more than 40 countries expected to attend.

The meeting, at a US naval academy in Annapolis, Maryland, will be the first fully-fledged talks on Middle East peace since 2000. The White House has been downplaying the possibility of a breakthrough in the Middle East peace process, however, indicating instead that it will be the start of negotiations.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the verdict on the meeting has been written before the gathering has even taken place, with most experts pessimistic about real progress. But it might just serve to reopen serious negotiations, our correspondent says.

Police sources said the two were riding a stolen mini-motorcycle, and that neither was wearing a helmet. The teenagers were not being chased by police at the time of the accident, a police source told the Reuters news agency.

Dozens of youths clashed with police and set fire to buildings, injuring a number of police officers and firefighters. The unrest is taking place in the suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, and neighbouring Arnouville. In 2005, the deaths of two youths in nearby Clichy-sous-Bois led to France's worst civil unrest in over 40 years.

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the dead teenagers said that the rioting "was not violence but an expression of rage".

The former prime minister's comments came as he admitted for the first time that his faith was "hugely important" in influencing his decisions during his decade in power at Number 10, including going to war with Iraq in 2003. Mr Blair complained that he had been unable to follow the example of US politicians, such as President George W. Bush, in being open about his faith because PEOPLE IN BRITAIN REGARDED RELIGION WITH SUSPICION.

"It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," Mr Blair said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally.

"YOU TALK ABOUT IT IN OUR SYSTEM AND, FRANKLY, PEOPLE DO THINK YOU'RE A NUTTER. I mean - you may go off and sit in the corner and - commune with the man upstairs and then come back and say 'right, I've been told the answer and that's it'."

Even Alastair Campbell - his former communications director who once said, "WE DON'T DO GOD" - has conceded that Mr Blair's Christian faith played a central role in shaping "what he felt was important".

The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev John Sentamu, said: "Mr Blair's comments highlight the need for greater recognition to be given to the role faith has played in shaping our country. Those secularists who would dismiss faith as nothing more than a private affair are profoundly mistaken in their understanding of faith."

However, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, has been attacked by commentators WHO SAY THAT RELIGION SHOULD BE SEPARATED FROM POLITICS AND BY THOSE WHO FEEL THAT MANY OF HIS DECISIONS BETRAYED THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.

Mr Rudd said he would overturn a number of his predecessor's policies and sign the Kyoto Protocol and pull Australian troops out of Iraq. He also promised to attend next month's UN climate change summit in Bali.

US President George W Bush - a close ally of Mr Howard - was among world leaders to congratulate Mr Rudd on his election victory. In a statement Mr Bush said he looked "forward to working with this new government to continue our historic relationship". Mr Rudd, a former diplomat, is of the same mind, says the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney, but his plans for a phased withdrawal of 500 Australian combat troops from Iraq may put those close ties to the test.

In his first news conference since his election, Mr Rudd promised "action and action now" on climate change. He said he looked forward to meeting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after receiving his invitation to the Bali conference.

Population increases mean more people are affected when catastrophic weather events take place, it says in a report. Global warming is to blame for the growing number of weather disasters, Oxfam adds. An average of 500 such disasters are now taking place each year, compared to 120 in the 1980s, the report says. The number of floods has increased six-fold over the same period.

The agency expresses particular concern about the increase in small and medium-sized weather events, which it says affect great numbers of people, but do not attract as much international aid as large, well-publicised natural disasters. The report argues that climate change is responsible for the growing number of weather-related disasters - more intense rain, combined with frequent droughts, make damaging floods much more likely.

Unless the global aid community begins preparing for the future growth in weather-events, Oxfam warns, its ability to respond to natural disasters will be overwhelmed.