Mr Blair "and his mates" decided war was necessary, and "everything was done on a wing and a prayer", Ms Short said. She quit the cabinet two months after the March 2003 invasion, in protest at planning for the war's aftermath. In her evidence to the Iraq inquiry, during which she was highly critical of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, she said the cabinet had not been a "decision-making body" and called Parliament a "rubber stamp".

Ms Short, who was given a round of applause after her three-hour appearance, added that she had been "conned" into staying on as a minister until May 2003, despite her misgivings about the war. The Attorney General provisionally advised Mr Blair in January that year that it would be unlawful to invade Iraq without a further United Nations Security Council resolution. But he changed his mind a month later after being persuaded to talk to senior US government lawyers and Britain's ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock.

A definitive statement circulated at cabinet on 17 March 2003, three days before the war began. Ms Short said there was no suggestion given that he had had any legal doubts, and said that any discussion of the legal advice was halted at that pre-war cabinet meeting. She had been "shocked" that the Attorney General's advice was so late but was "jeered at" to be quiet by other ministers when she asked why.

This bizarre state of affairs, which was reported on in the Independent today, appears to be worryingly widespread. Professor Michael King of University College London apparently believes that a sixth of psychiatrists and psychotherapists have tried to reduce or convert a patient's sexual orientation.

I dare say that there are young and insecure gay people who would happily sign up for a miracle conversion to heterosexuality. But shrinks who prey on the anxieties of gay people are not helping the lot of gay people one bit and don't deserve referrals from the NHS.

The Government wants to pointlessly force gay rights on the Catholic Church, but shouldn't they instead put their own house in order and ban these offensive, money-wasting referrals?

At that moment, 192 laser beams housed in a building the size of three football pitches will focus on a target the size of a peppercorn to trigger a self-sustaining fusion reaction. If all goes according to plan, this could be achieved in October. Although no more than a test of the technology, it could mark the start of a revolution that will change the science and politics of energy for ever.

Scientists have spent decades chasing the dream of fusion power, which holds out the promise of producing unlimited amounts of clean energy from hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Nuclear fusion happens when the nuclei of atoms are driven together so hard that they fuse to form a heavier particle. A self-sustaining chain reaction occurs as more atomic nuclei collide, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process.

Stars are driven by nuclear fusion, as is the immense destructive power of the hydrogen bomb. But no one has yet managed to contain and sustain a fusion reaction under controlled conditions. The biggest problem facing fusion scientists is how to generate the enormous temperatures and pressures necessary for long enough in a confined space. Self-sustaining fusion requires conditions more extreme than at the centre of the Sun, with temperatures of around 100 million centigrade.

At its heart the ''nut'' is a tiny beryllium capsule the size of a peppercorn, designed to hold a dash of nuclear fuel in the form of deuterium and tritium. Both are isotopes, or different atomic versions, of hydrogen. The aim is to focus the laser beams on the capsule and blast it with a pulse of energy that causes the fuel to implode in an instant, reaching temperatures and pressures greater than those at the centre of the Sun. Crushed together, the deuterium and tritium nuclei will fuse, releasing a flash of energy. If the experiment is a success, more energy will be generated than was pumped into the capsule in the first place.

The team believe that the breakthrough could also lead to an extended shelf life for other fruits, including bananas, and see the cost of their production tumble. They lengthened the life of the tomatoes by "turning off" genes linked to the production of two enzymes which cause the fruit to start to ripen. Similar chemicals are involved in the maturation of other fruits, meaning the technique has the potential to extend the lifespan of mango, papaya and bananas as well as tomato. The alterations did not cause any other changes to the plants, the researchers said.

As much as 40 per cent of harvested fruit can be wasted because it ripens too quickly, the researchers from the National Institute of Plant Genomic Research in New Delhi, India, estimate. "Overall the results demonstrate a substantial improvement in fruit shelf-life," said Dr Asis Datta, who led the study. The big supermarket chains, including Tesco, have a policy against stocking GM foods on their shelves. GM crops, which opponents have dubbed 'Frankenstein food', can also be sold in Europe only if they have passed rigorous safety tests and European law states that GM foods have to be clearly labelled, including when they are sold loose.

However, campaigners have warned that there is no compulsory labelling of meat or dairy products from animals which have been fed on GM crops, and that any long-term problems from eating the foods is still unknown. Although GM foods can only be planted in Britain as part of a trial, and even then only under strict conditions, millions of hectares of the crops have already been planted in the Americas.

Pete Riley, from campaign group GM Freeze, said: "The majority of the public are very sceptical about the benefits of GM foods and I don't think that this will do anything to persuade them. We have survived for millennia without needing to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. Also, as many vitamins decline after fruit is picked this product could be less nutritious than other tomatoes." He added that not enough was known about the long-term safety risks of GM foods.

Mr Zhu's comments follow talks between China and the Dalai Lama's representatives in China. The talks yielded little progress, with both sides reiterating positions that were "sharply divided". Mr Zhu talked at length about China's view on a possible meeting between Mr Obama and the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner. He said: "It will seriously undermine the foundations of Sino-US political relations."

Mr Zhu, of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, said China would retaliate. "If [the meeting] does happen we will take corresponding action to make relevant countries see their mistakes," he said. These comments come straight after a disagreement between China and the US about the sale of American military equipment worth $6.4bn to Taiwan, an island China considers its own. Mr Zhu was speaking at a press conference to discuss the recent five-day visit to China by the Dalai Lama's representatives.

The government said the bill, which is currently going through Parliament, would make the UK a fairer place. And gay rights campaigners have condemned the Pope's comments. The Pope told the Catholic bishops of England and Wales gathered in Rome: "Your country is well-known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society."

"Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed." Religious leaders have voiced concern that the Equality Bill may force churches to employ sexually active gay people and transsexuals when hiring staff other than priests or ministers.

The National Secular Society said it would mount a protest campaign made up of gay groups, victims of clerical abuse, feminists, family planning organisations and pro-abortion groups among others. President Terry Sanderson said: "The taxpayer in this country is going to be faced with a bill of some 20 million pounds for the visit of the Pope. A visit in which he has already indicated, he will attack equal rights and promote discrimination."

A spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said: "The Pope acknowledges our country's firm commitment to equality for all members of society. We believe everyone should have a fair chance in life and not be discriminated against. The Equality Bill will make Britain a fairer and more equal place."

The company, Beef Products Inc, had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company's ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli "to an undetectable level." They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.

With the USDA's stamp of approval, the company's processed beef has become a mainstay in America's hamburgers. McDonalds, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

The company says its processed beef, a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips, is used in a majority of the hamburgers sold nationwide. But it has remained little known outside industry and government circles. Federal officials agreed to the company's request that the ammonia be classified as a "processing agent" and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels.

Carl S Custer, a former USDA microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef "pink slime" in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, "I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling."

Wiccan cadets and officers on the Colorado Springs base have been convening for over a decade, but the school will officially dedicate a newly built circle of stones on about March 10, putting the outdoor sanctuary on an equal footing with the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist chapels on the base.

"When I first arrived here, Earth-centered cadets didn't have anywhere to call home," said Sergeant Robert Longcrier, the lay leader of the neo-pagan groups on base. "Now, they meet every Monday night, they get to go on retreats, and they have a stone circle." Academy officials had no tally of the number of Wiccan cadets at the school of 4,500, but said they had been angling to set up a proper space since the academic year began.

"That's one of the newer groups," said John Van Winkle, a spokesman for the academy. "They've had a worship circle on base for some time and we're looking to get them an official one." Since a 2004 survey of cadets on the base revealed dozens of instances of harassment and intolerance, superintendent Michael Gould has made religious tolerance a priority.

To battle potential threats from terrorism, crime and violent protests at the February 12-28 Games, 15,500 police, military and private security guards have converged on this western Canadian city, said officer Mandy Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (ISU).

But the security operation - and its one billion Canadian dollars (936 million US) budget - has drawn intense criticism. Vocal anti-games protesters say the money should go to social causes like Vancouver's notorious homelessness problem. Legal activists, meanwhile, say they fear civil rights violations, and have charged that police tactics of questioning protesters at their work or while shopping is harassment.

Organizers are tight-lipped about specific threats. "We are continually monitoring and examining all potential threats and risks. We don't elaborate on what information we receive," Edwards told AFP. The one billion dollar budget is consistent "with the types of security mounted at previous Games. Since Munich in 1972 there's been a growing concern about security."

The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait - and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.

American officials said the move is aimed at deterring an attack by Iran and reassuring Gulf states fearful that Tehran might react to sanctions by striking at US allies in the region. Washington is also seeking to discourage Israel from a strike against Iran by demonstrating that the US is prepared to contain any threat.

The deployment comes after Obama's attempts to emphasise diplomacy over confrontation in dealing with Iran - a contrast to the Bush administration's approach - have failed to persuade Tehran to open its nuclear installations to international controls. The White House is now trying to engineer agreement for sanctions focused on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, believed to be in charge of the atomic programme. Washington has not formally announced the deployment of the Patriots and other anti-missile systems, but by leaking it to American newspapers the administration is evidently seeking to alert Tehran to a hardening of its position.

Robert Gates, US defence secretary, is due to unveil the Obama administration's Quadrennial Defense Review, which shifts emphasis from the post-cold war doctrine that the US is able to fight two "major regional conflicts" at one time. According to a December draft, the US military will restructure its forces to "prevail in today's wars" and buy more of the helicopters and unmanned drones that have proved their worth in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the draft also highlights "a multiplicity of threats", including cyber-attacks and anti-satellite weapons, as well as terrorist groups and the prospect of more nuclear weapon states.

"It is no longer appropriate to speak of 'major regional conflicts' as the sole or even the primary template for sizing, shaping and evaluating US forces," the draft says. "Rather, US forces must be prepared to conduct a wide variety of missions under a range of different circumstances."

In an apparent nod to Iran, it says that within the next decade the US's adversaries could include "regional powers armed with modest numbers of nuclear weapons, as well as larger more powerful states". Despite President Barack Obama's emphasis on beginning a drawdown in Afghanistan in July 2011, the draft also envisages 75,000 US troops will remain in the country for the "near and mid-term future".

"The actions of UBS in the United States are very problematic. Not just because they are punishable but also because they threaten all of the bank's activities," Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told Le Matin Dimanche newspaper. "The Swiss economy and the job market would suffer on a major scale if UBS fails as a result of its licence being revoked in the United States," she said.

Switzerland and the United States have negotiated an agreement under which UBS would hand over information on some 4,500 account holders to US tax police. But a Swiss court ruling earlier this month put the deal in doubt.

Many in Switzerland, where banking secrecy is a source of pride and a key part of the economy, have accused the government of failing to protect UBS. "We have nothing to blame ourselves for. I don't think anyone could prove that we acted badly," Widmer-Schlumpf said in the interview.

The largest quakes in the current swarm have included two of magnitude 3.1 and one of magnitude 3.0 late Sunday and early Monday, according to the University of Utah, which helps monitor seismic activity in Yellowstone. Those who've felt some of the recent quakes include Tim Townsend, a law enforcement ranger at Old Faithful. Most haven't been alarming, he said, although one last week "had me running to cover, for sure."

One of the world's largest volcanoes slumbers at the core of Yellowstone. The volcano last had a caldera-forming eruption 640,000 years ago and last spewed lava 70,000 years ago. Geologists say Yellowstone could erupt again, although the probability of an eruption within anyone's lifetime is extremely low.

"If the Islamic Revolution had not occurred, liberalism and Marxism would have crushed all human dignity in their power-seeking and money-grubbing claws. Nothing would have remained of human and spiritual principles," he added. Ahmadinejad said that in the three decades of its history, the Islamic Revolution had inspired some great developments in the world.

The Iranian president made the remarks as the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution approaches. Iranians are expected to pour into the streets on February 11 to celebrate the occasion in public rallies across the country, as they have done annually over the past three decades.

"The economic crisis is causing the loss of many jobs and this calls for a huge sense of responsibility by everyone: entrepreneurs, workers, governing officials," the pope said after his weekly Angelus blessing. "I think of some difficult situations in Italy, like, for example, Termini Imerese and Portovesme - do everything possible to protect and spur job growth, assuring dignified and adequate work to sustain families."

US aluminum producer Alcoa Inc has said it will shut down its Portovesme and another Italian plant next month and carmaker Fiat has announced plans to shutter its Termini Imerese plant in Sicily. Some Alcoa workers from the Portovesme plant who risk losing their jobs held up a banner in St Peter's Square during the pope's address to the faithful.

In strongly Catholic Italy, labor unions and the government - which has asked Alcoa to reconsider its plans to shut the plants - seized on the pope's words and urged companies to ensure his appeal did not fall on deaf ears. "The pope's appeal must not fall by the wayside," said Luigi Angeletti, secretary-general of the UIL union.