The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods - from pet food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu for taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 when he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The court then issued the death penalty, the report said. Concern over Chinese exports has been increasing as more instances of poor hygiene and the use of banned substances are uncovered.

Pet food ingredients, spiked with the chemical melamine and related compounds, have been blamed in the deaths of dogs and cats in North America. The U.S. government has stopped all Chinese toothpaste imports after reports that some products sold in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama were tainted with diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also warned consumers not to buy or eat imported fish from China labeled as monkfish because it might actually be pufferfish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin.

"We have Israeli Arab brothers who are members of the Brigades who live in Israel and will make in the coming days and weeks shootings and suicide bombings," said the Brigades leader, who spoke on the condition his name be withheld. "Even in the case that there will be a cease-fire in Gaza, will keep attacking Israel. They will see the importance of our cells in Jerusalem with more attacks in the near future," the Brigades leader said.

The pagan conference will feature presentations on a variety of topics, including Magic and Witchcraft in the 21st Century, Pagan Parenting, Pagan Marriage, Pagan Symbolism and Practice and Ancient Greek magic. A workshop in tribal dance will be held at the university Student's Association.

"It will be an opportunity for people to listen to talks on various aspects of modern paganism and socialize with like-minded people in a relaxed, tolerant atmosphere," said John Macintyre, presiding officer of Pagan Federation Scotland. "Most people now recognize that the old stereotypes about witches and witchcraft are way off the mark and there is nothing remotely sinister about it."

In 2005, WND reported plans to begin banning Bibles from Edinburgh student halls of residence due to concern they are the source of discrimination against students of other faiths. The ban was a response to student association protests as well as an agenda to equally support all faiths, a university spokesman told the Times of London.

While a Gideon Bible had traditionally been placed in the room of all new students, officials decided they could be offensive to some. Removal, advocates said, was about "respecting diversity," not attacking Christianity.
The previous year, Edinburgh removed prayer from graduation ceremonies. "This seems to be a clear case of discrimination," said Matthew Tindale, a Christian Union staff worker. "It's okay for other religions, such as the pagans, to have their say at the university, but there appears to be a reluctance to allow Christians to do the same. All we are asking for is the tolerance that is afforded to other faiths and organizations."

Simon Dames, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, called the university's action an example of "Christianphobia." "This appears to be a clear case of double standards," he said. "The principles of a pluralistic democracy revolve around an acceptance of competing ideas and universities should be enshrining this principle. Anti-racism groups would never be asked to put up posters saying there are alternative views."

Pagan Macintyre has no sympathy for the Christians' appeal to fairness, stressing that followers of his faith are tolerant and support the university's equality policies . "Pagans, as a rule, don't believe that sexist or homophobic views are acceptable and discrimination on that basis is deplorable," he said.

Five women and a married man, all Roman Catholics, have been ordained as priests and deacons by a female Catholic bishop. However, the Vatican says it will not recognise either the ordinations or the group carrying them out.

The ordination ceremony was held at a Protestant church on the outskirts of Toronto known for its liberal views.
The building was packed with an enthusiastic congregation. They watched as Bishop Patricia Fresen, one of the most well-known figures in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, led the five women and one married man through a number of rituals to mark their ordination.

Bishop Fresen was herself ordained in a secret ceremony in Spain in 2003. But the archdiocese of Toronto said that the organisation responsible for the ordinations had no affiliation or any dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. It said that ordaining men into the priesthood was a sacrament that cannot be changed.

But the bishops in the Womenpriests movement claim they are part of the Church's valid apostolic succession, because Catholic bishops in good standing ordained them secretly.

People who refused to give their name or explain what they were doing could be charged with obstructing the police and fined up to £5,000. It is likely that police would need a 'reasonable suspicion' to stop and question the public.

The new 'anti-terror' laws are set to form part of a package being put together by Home Secretary John Reid as he prepares to quit the cabinet. But cabinet colleague Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland where the powers are already in force, warned the tough new anti-terror restrictions could become 'the domestic equivalent of Guantanamo Bay'.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said any proposals would need public support while Lib-Dem home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg accused the government of seeking a 'police state' and warned it would only increase radicalism.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: "Stopping and questioning anyone you like will backfire because people will be being criminalised." Mohammed Shafiq, spokesman for the Manchester-based Muslim advocacy group the Ramadhan Foundation, said: "It's going to alienate the Muslim community further. We all want to tackle extremism, but it can't be done at the expense of civil liberties."

All three cases in the territory were diagnosed within the past eight days and are believed to have been contracted locally, the report said. While the patient had spent a day in the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen early this month, the trip "may not be related" to the disease, the paper quoted an unnamed health official as saying.

There have been no reported cases on the Chinese mainland since a deadly outbreak in 2005, the article said. It added that the bacterial infection is rarely fatal in humans, but an unusually virulent strain killed more than 30 people in Sichuan province in 2005. Eight cases were reported last year in Hong Kong, with 13 -- two of them fatal -- in 2005.

Pork prices have soared on the Chinese mainland after an outbreak of blue ear disease, or Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) which surfaced a year ago. Experts and industry sources have said it wiped out as many as a million pigs.

By 2010, the newly found deposits will raise the city's gas output to 24 billion cubic meters and surplus to more than 4.3 million tons, according to a Dazhou official at the on-going Western China International Economy-Trade Fair on Saturday.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's biggest oil and gas producer, and Sinopec Corporation, China's largest refiner, plan to build five purification plants in Dazhou and are expected to purify a total of 74 million cubic meters of natural gas a day by 2010.

Dazhou City, located in eastern Sichuan, covers an area of 16,600 square kilometers with a population of 6.46 million.

EU spokesman Pietro Petrucci said Friday that the 28-member panel, which advises the European Commission and EU governments on data protection issues, wants Google to address concerns about the company's practice of storing and retaining user information for up to two years.

"This group has addressed a letter to Google raising a number of questions," Petrucci said, adding that EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini was backing the investigation. "He considers those questions raised by the letter to be appropriate and legitimate," Petrucci said.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said the company was doing a lot to protect personal data gathered from users on its search engine. "We believe it's an important part of our commitment to respect user privacy while balancing a number of important factors, such as maintaining security and preventing fraud and abuse," Fleischer said. He added that Google was "committed to engaging in a constructive dialogue."

Google said it would answer the EU's privacy concerns before the panel's next meeting at the end of June.

"It continues spreading the 'China threat' theory, seriously violates the norms of international relations and is a gross interference in China's internal affairs," it added. "The Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to this."

The U.S. Defense Department report released on Friday said that while Beijing remained focused on the Taiwan Strait as a potential flashpoint, it also appeared to be looking to project its growing military strength elsewhere.

Not so, China's foreign ministry said. "China is a peace-loving country which sticks to a path of peaceful development and adopts a defensive national defense policy," it said. "The international community has a fair judgment that China is an important force in promoting peace in the Asia-Pacific and in the world." In March, China said it would boost defense spending by 17.8 percent to about $45 billion in 2007.

"It is the responsibility of any sovereign country to conduct necessary national defense build-up to safeguard national security and territorial integrity," the foreign ministry statement added.

"The report's whipping up the 'China threat' theory is completely wrong and will be in vain." "Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory and China firmly opposes any country that interferes in China's internal affairs through any means," she said.

"The Chinese government adheres to the principles of peaceful reunification and 'one country, two systems.' We will show our utmost sincerity and do our best in seeking peaceful reunification of the motherland but we will never tolerate 'Taiwan independence' and allow any secessionist activities." "We urge the United States to adhere to the one-China policy adn the three joint communiques, oppose 'Taiwan independence', stop selling weapons and sending any wrong signals to Taiwan secessionists," Jiang said.

Iraqi officials said the meeting between US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi was cordial and focused solely on Iraq. The disputed nuclear issues which have been lingering between the two nations are not to be discussed at the meeting. "There are good intentions and understanding and commitment between the two countries," Ali al-Dabagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, told reporters.

The talks were held at Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office in the Green Zone compound in Baghdad. Iraq was being represented at the talks by National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie. Ust before 10:30 a.m., al-Maliki greeted the two ambassadors, who shook hands, and led them into a conference room, where the ambassadors sat across the table from each other. Al-Maliki then made a brief statement before leaving.

He told both sides that Iraqis want a stable country free of foreign forces and regional interference. The country should not be turned into a base for terrorist groups, he said. He also said that the US-led forces in Iraq were only here to help build up the army and police and the country would not be used as a launching ground for a US attack on a neighbor, a clear reference to Iran.

Speaking in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday the talks could lead to future meetings, but only if Washington admits its Middle East policy has not been successful. "We are hopeful that Washington's realistic approach to the current issues of Iraq by confessing its failed policy in Iraq and the region and by showing a determination to changing the policy guarantees success of the talks and possible further talks," Mottaki said.

The Baghdad talks are the first of their kind and a small sign that Washington thinks rapprochement is possible after nearly three decades of animosity. Iran, angry over the blunt show of US military power off its coast, almost refused to come.

Human trials are planned this year to chill volunteers so they go into 'induced hibernation' and sleep safely, possibly for months. Research teams in Boston, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh are racing to be first to successfully carry out the procedure.

The American teams developed an injectable mix of salt and ice to cool the blood quickly. The plasma rapidly sends body temperature from 98.6f (37c) down to 50f (10c). The mixture puts the human body into hibernation by slowing the metabolism, delaying the onset of shock and limiting wound damage, said researcher Hasan Alam, a surgeon at Massachusetts general hospital and a consultant to the U.S. army.

So far it has worked on pigs, sending them into a state of suspended animation for several hours.
Nasa, the U.S. space agency, abandoned work on induced hibernation 20 years ago, but the European Space Agency has been quietly taking another look at it for the last three years.

American researchers followed suit - and the idea got a major boost last December after a Japanese businessman, Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, 35, was found on a snowy mountain side 24 days after vanishing. When searchers discovered him, Mr Uchikoshi appeared to be in a frozen coma. His pulse was almost undetectable. His body temperature had dropped to 71f (22c) and his organs had mostly shut down.

He was treated for hypothermia-multiple organ failure and blood loss from his fall. Remarkably, he recovered fully with no lasting ill effects. When rescuers found Mr Uchikoshi, who broke his hip when he slipped and fell down the mountain, he had lost a lot of weight. Until becoming unconscious the businessman had survived by sipping the remains of a bottle of barbecue sauce that he had been carrying with him when he fell.

His doctors believe he survived unscathed because he went into some kind of frozen hibernation. One of his doctors said: "He was frozen alive and survived. If we can understand why, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for the future."

Torn from his family and sent to languish in jail as a convicted sex attacker, the innocent father-of-two imagined he was due a hefty sum for the miscarriage of justice. Instead, he was flabbergasted to learn the Home Office now intends to charge him nearly £7,000 for "board and lodging". The money is for the cost of food and accommodation while he was behind bars, and will be deducted from whatever compensation he receives for wrongly imprisonment.

Mr Blackwell, 37, said: "I can't believe it, they've got to be joking. They are going to charge me for my porridge!
Mr Blackwell was jailed in 1999 on the evidence of a woman who had a history of making false claims against blameless men. He was cleared at the Appeal Court in September last year after her background was exposed. He said: "It's absolutely ludicrous. They accept they put me in prison wrongly, and accept I'm due compensation.

"Then they turn around and say, 'Thank you for your stay with us, hope you didn't miss your family too much during three years in the clanger, now off you go - oh, and here's your bill.'" He added: "I'm going to challenge it on the grounds of discrimination. I mean, burglars and murderers who actually did commit a crime, and deserve to be in jail, don't get charged for being in prison. So why charge me?" He said the ruling amounted to the guilty staying in jail for free, while the innocent are charged.

Research shows that E211 - found in drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max - can switch off vital parts of DNA, causing serious damage to cells. Laboratory tests suggest this could even result in degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and cirrhosis of the liver. However, the Food Standards Agency and drinks manufacturers insisted that the additive had been rigorously assessed before being approved for use.

The research into E211 - or sodium benzoate - was carried out by Peter Piper, a molecular biology expert at Sheffield University. He found that it could damage an important area of DNA called mitochondria. "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it, they knock it out altogether," he told a Sunday newspaper. "The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously.

"And there is a whole array of diseases now being tied to damage-to this DNA - Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."
Sodium benzoate has been used as a preservative for decades by the £74billion global carbonated drinks industry.

It is used to kill yeast, bacteria, and fungi in soft drinks, jam, fruit juice and salad dressing. When mixed with vitamin C it forms benzene, a carcinogenic substance. It is found naturally in cranberries, prunes, greengages, cinnamon, ripe cloves and apples. Professor Piper claimed that tests on sodium benzoate carried out by the European Union and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were too old to be reliable.

"By the criteria of modern safety testing, the safety tests were inadequate," he said. "Like all things, safety testing moves forward and you can conduct a much more rigorous safety test than you could 50 years ago.
We are feeding vast amounts of them to children inadvertently. Is this a completely safe process?

The Victorian state civil and administrative tribunal ruled the Peel Hotel could ban patrons based on their sexual orientation. The pub's management said the move would stop groups of heterosexual men and women abusing gay people. Civil liberties groups have supported the decision.

The tribunal's president said groups of straight women found homosexual men entertaining but that such attention was dehumanising, the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney says. Managers complained raucous hen nights and stag parties created a poisonous atmosphere for its gay clientele, our correspondent says. "If I can limit the number of heterosexuals entering the Peel, then that helps me keep the safe balance," the hotel's manager, Tom McFeely, told Australian radio, according to the Reuters news agency.

He said while Melbourne had 2,000 venues catering for heterosexuals, his was the only bar aimed exclusively at gay men. Civil liberties groups said homosexuals should be allowed to relax in places without fear of bullying or intimidation. Australia's equal opportunity laws prevent discrimination based on race, religion or sexuality.

A man remained missing in Texas after his sport-utility vehicle was swept away in a swollen creek, officials said. Several other people were rescued, and Gov. Rick Perry activated search and rescue teams. Perry activated National Guard troops to be deployed in Waco, Austin and San Antonio for the weekend.

About 100 homes, apartment buildings and businesses sustained minor damage Friday, and a few minor injuries were reported, said Dennis Baker, the Bell County emergency management coordinator.

In Kansas, rivers and creeks continued to rise Friday in the central and south-central parts of the state following a downpour two days earlier. The most serious flooding was expected along the Arkansas River in Harvey County, the National Weather Service said.