With winds of 145 mph, Jimena was a declared an "extremely dangerous" category 4 hurricane and the US national hurricane centre warned that it was close to becoming the strongest category 5 as it approached Mexico's Pacific coast.

"This may be the strongest hurricane ever to hit the region," said Jose Gajon, the director of Baja California Sur's civil protection agency. A state of emergency was declared in the beach resort of Los Cabos, home to world-class golf courses, miles of hotels and the mansions of many Hollywood stars and top American sportsman. Hurricane Jimena was predicted to make landfall on the peninsula early on Wednesday.

At August's town-hall meetings, voters often started with complaints about health care, ONLY TO SHIFT TO FRUSTRATIONS ABOUT ALL THE OTHER THINGS President Barack Obama and the Democrats have done or tried to do since January. The $787 billion economic-stimulus package, the government-led rescue of General Motors Corp and climate-change legislation all came in for criticism.

"A lot of the anxiety we face here has less to do with health care and everything to do with the overall state of the economy and government," said Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat. "I have seen a level of dissatisfaction and even anger that I haven't experienced in the years that I've been a member of Congress," Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told an audience at a health-care meeting in Kansas City on Monday.

"WHAT WE'RE SEEING HERE IS THIS LARGER DEBATE ABOUT WHAT THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IS," said William McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducts The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. "The health-care debate is at that fault line."

Panarin, doctor of political sciences and professor of the Russian Diplomatic Academy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told journalists during the unveiling of his new book yesterday that President Obama has done nothing to forestall the fast approaching crisis and that IT COULD BEGIN TO PROPERLY UNFOLD IN NOVEMBER.

Since 1998, Panarin has been warning of a future disintegration of the United States and the collapse of the dollar. The recent election victory for Japan's Democratic Party is another sign that the economic collapse of the US is imminent, according to Panarin. "Today I received another confirmation that the collapse of the dollar and the US is inevitable. Japan's Democratic Party won the election, and I'd like to remind you that its leader [Yukio Hatoyama] has the snubbing of the dollar among his economic plans."

"In plainer words, he plans TO TRANSFER JAPAN'S MONETARY RESERVES FROM US DOLLARS into another currency. The move will seriously accelerate the dollar's exchange slump as early as this November. Disintegration will follow shortly," he said, adding that NEXT YEAR CHINA WOULD ALSO BEGIN TO MASSIVELY DUMP THE DOLLAR and that Russia would begin to sell oil and gas for roubles.

HE FORESEES THE US BREAKING UP INTO SIX DIFFERENT PARTS, roughly along lines similar to those of 1865 during the Civil War, "The Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong," according to Panarin.

Longer term, Panarin predicts that THE BREAKAWAY STATES WILL EVENTUALLY BE TAKEN OVER BY THE EUROPEAN UNION, Canada, China, Mexico, Japan and Russia and America will cease to exist altogether, as depicted in the illustration above. "IN MY OPINION, THE PROBABILITY OF THE US CEASING TO EXIST BY JUNE, 2010 EXCEEDS 50%. At this point, the mission of all major international powers is to prevent chaos in the US," Panarin concluded.

And the same proportion of mums say they would not take their young children to be immunised, even though they are most at risk of catching the virus. It raises the prospect that many of the MILLIONS OF VACCINES THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS ORDERED - AT A COST OF MANY MILLIONS OF POUNDS - WILL NEVER BE USED because people do not trust ministers' insistence that they are safe.

Tonight the country's most senior nurse pleaded with mothers and children to have the jab, saying it was the most effective way of preventing thousands of deaths and illnesses from swine flu over the winter. Expectant women are one of the target groups for vaccination, and all will be offered the jabs before the end of the year. The polls raise further questions over the Government's planned mass vaccination programme. The jab, currently being processed, will be fast tracked and WILL NOT BE FULLY TESTED BEFORE IT IS ADMINISTERED TO PATIENTS.

There are also concerns the jab can spark cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, which can lead to paralysis and even death. A mass swine flu vaccination programme in the US in 1976 caused far more deaths than the disease it was designed to combat, and the Health Protection Agency watchdog has asked doctors to look out for cases of GBS when the vaccinations begin.

Not since the early 1970s when the three-day week was introduced to preserve coal has Britain faced the prospect of rationing energy use. The gap between Britain's energy needs and demand throws fresh doubt on the Government's assertion that renewable energy can make up for dwindling nuclear and coal capabilities. OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS, ONE THIRD OF BRITAIN'S POWER-GENERATING CAPACITY NEEDS TO BE REPLACED with cleaner fuels. But last night the Conservatives said that Labour had refused to face up to the problem.

Greg Clark, the shadow climate and energy change secretary, said: "Britain faces blackouts because the Government has put its head in the sand about Britain's energy policy for a decade. Over the next 10 years we need to replace one third of our generating capacity but Labour has left it perilously late, and has been forced to admit they expect power cuts for the first time since the 1970s.

The looming problem in Britain is caused by the scheduled closure by 2015 of nine oil and coal-fired power plants. THEY ARE THE VICTIM OF AN EU DIRECTIVE DESIGNED TO CUT POLLUTION. In addition, four existing nuclear power plants are set to be shut, adding to the need for new sources of energy.

The open-pit mine at Mountain Pass, California, holds THE WORLD'S RICHEST PROVEN RESERVE OF "RARE EARTH" metals, a family of minerals vital to producing the powerful, lightweight magnets used in the engines of Toyota Motor Corp's Prius and other hybrid vehicles as well as generators in wind turbines. At the peak of its operations two decades ago, the mine produced 20,000 tonnes of rare earth oxides a year, accounting for the entire US supply and about a third of the world's total. Most of the rest came from China.

But as Chinese production and exports grew through the 1990s, rare earth prices worldwide plunged, undercutting business for Molycorp, then owned by oil company Unocal. Chinese rare earth production, meanwhile, has swelled to about 97 percent of global supplies, or 139,000 tonnes of refined material in 2008, experts say. Output is expected to reach 160,000 tonnes a year by the middle of the next decade.

But global demand is climbing faster, driven by the clamor for clean energy and clean cars, leading to projections of a 40,000-tonne annual shortfall by 2015. Plans call for mining to resume at Mountain Pass by 2012, at the rate of about 1,000 tons of ore a day, enough to produce 20,000 tonnes of rare earth oxides for sale each year. Smith said the mine has approval to double that volume in time.

"If we put our facilities into the fully permitted production rates, we could come very close to meeting the needs of most of the rest of the world," he said. But Molycorp first needs to drain some 95 million gallons (360 million litres) of water that has filled the pit's bottom and remove surface rock covering the ore, A TWO-YEAR PROCESS.

The Islamic production company responsible makes the case that the endtime global leader, also known as "THE BEAST OF REVELATION," WILL ACTUALLY BE THE CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH MESSIAH. Since being posted on YouTube in June, "The Arrivals" has gone viral with more than a quarter million views to date. According to sources in the United Kingdom, writes Joel Richardson, author of the new book, "The Islamic Antichrist," in a WND commentary today, the documentary has become extremely popular among Britain's Muslim youth population.

Richardson's book, "The Islamic Antichrist," stands in stark contrast to most other popular prophecy books of the last 40 years. The student of Islam and the Middle East says that after decades of reading popular prophecy books and even best-selling fiction like the "Left Behind" series, millions of evangelical Christians around the world are expecting the Antichrist to emerge from a revived Roman Empire, which many have assumed is associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the European Union. Not so, argues Richardson. His book makes the case that the biblical Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran's Muslim Mahdi.

Many evangelical Christians believe the Bible predicts a charismatic ruler, the Antichrist, will arise in the last days, before the return of Jesus. The Quran also predicts that a man, called the Mahdi, will rise up to lead the nations, pledging to usher in an era of peace. Richardson makes the case these two men are, in fact, one and the same.

But a source indicated that ALL THE MAJOR SUPERMARKETS WERE INVOLVED in the discussions except Waitrose. Multi-national giants have been involved in a wide-ranging campaign over the last year to suggest GM crops could be the solution to Third World hunger. That notion was rejected by a UN study last year. But the GOVERNMENT HAS ORDERED THE FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY TO CARRY OUT A YEAR-LONG SPIN CAMPAIGN TO WIN SUPPORT FOR GM. Earlier this year Sir Terry Leahy, boss of Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket, said supermarkets may have made the decision to reject GM products too hastily.

'It may have been a failure of us all to stand by the science,' he said. 'Maybe there is an opportunity to discuss again these issues and a growing appreciation by people that GM could play a vital role in feeding the world's growing population.' Friends of the Earth's senior food campaigner, Clare Oxborrow, said THE GOVERNMENT AND BIG BUSINESS APPEARED TO BE TRYING TO BRAINWASH THE PUBLIC INTO ACCEPTING 'FRANKENSTEIN FOOD'.

She said: 'During the 2002 GM debate the public delivered a resounding "no" to GM crops and foods. Ministers already know what the public think about GM but they don't like the answer'. Research assessing the impact of growing GM crops in Britain found they were more damaging to farmland wildlife than traditional farming.

Each electric Prius motor requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota's plans to boost the car's fuel economy, he said. Toyota plans to sell 100,000 Prius cars in the United States alone for 2009, and 180,000 next year.

Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.

Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium's magnetic properties at high temperatures. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries. Production of both hybrid cars and wind turbines is expected to climb sharply amid the clamour for cleaner transportation and energy alternatives that reduce dependence on fossil fuels blamed for global climate change.

Fire crews battling the blaze in the Angeles National Forest tried desperately to beat back the flames and prayed for weather conditions to ease. The fire was the largest of at least eight burning across California after days of triple-digit temperatures and low humidity. The flames scorched 164 square miles of brush and threatened more than 12,000 homes, but the lack of wind kept them from driving explosively into the hearts of the dense suburbs northeast of Los Angeles.

"It's burning everywhere," US Forest Service spokeswoman Dianne Cahir said. "When it gets into canyons that haven't burned in numerous years, it takes off. If you have any insight into the good Lord upstairs, put in a request." Fire crews set backfires and sprayed fire retardant at MOUNT WILSON, home to at least 20 television transmission towers, radio and cell phone antennas, and the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. The observatory also houses two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs. It is both a landmark for its historic discoveries and a thriving modern center for astronomy.

The fire about a half-mile away was expected to reach the mountaintop sometime Monday night, said Los Angeles County fire Captain Mark Whaling. If the flames hit the mountain, cell phone service and TV and radio transmissions would be disrupted, but the extent was unclear.

Time pressures, a lack of treatment options, and parental reluctance to address weight problems prevented them having any effect, said staff. The government said no one group could solve obesity on its own. In the UK, AROUND 27% OF CHILDREN ARE NOW OVERWEIGHT.

Writing in the British Journal of General Practice, the researchers said there had been moves to involve primary care staff in spotting and treating overweight children. This includes 2006 guidelines from both the Department of Health and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence.

But in a series of in-depth interviews with GPs, practice nurses, school nurses and health visitors, the researchers found this view was not shared by those on the front line. GPs and practice nurses said they rarely saw primary school-age children in the surgery and when they did there were often more pressing problems to deal with than their weight. Dr Katrina Turner said, "WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AN OBESITY EPIDEMIC - the people who go to the GP are the tip of the iceberg."

Hans and Petra Schmidt have been teaching their children, Josua, 16, and Aaron, 14, for more than nine years in an attempt to shield them from what they hold to be a hostile moral and heavily secularised environment in German public schools. To date the Schmidts have been forced to pay nearly 13,000 Euros (US $18,300) in home schooling fines AND HAVE HAD A LIEN PLACED ON THEIR HOME BY THE GOVERNMENT.

This month, Germany's Supreme Court ruled that "the religious conviction of a minority" is subordinated to "a contradictory tradition of a differently inclined majority." The court fined the parents 80 Euros. The Court declared that "Consequently, the paternal right to raise children is restricted, in a constitutionally permissible way, by the concretization of the state's obligation to ensure a universal duty to compulsive school attendance." THE BAN ON HOMESCHOOLING IS ONE OF THE FEW BILLS INTRODUCED BY THE NAZI REGIME THAT IS STILL ON THE BOOKS TODAY!

IN SWEDEN AND BRITAIN, THERE IS GROWING CONCERN AMONG HOMESCHOOLING FAMILIES over government hostility to homeschooling. There are growing fears that these governments are attempting to impose similar restrictions to those of Germany.

Letters released yesterday prove Justice Secretary Jack Straw had originally intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement – negotiated around the same time as the BP deal in 2007 – allowing Libyans convicted in Britain to serve their sentences in Libya. But when Libya's ruling despot Colonel Gaddafi threatened to withdraw from the oil agreement, Mr Straw suddenly changed his mind.

Mr Straw repeats the Government mantra that Megrahi WAS RELEASED NOT UNDER THE TRANSFER DEAL BUT ON COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS BECAUSE HE HAS TERMINAL CANCER. The decision, he said, was taken entirely by Mr MacAskill. The compassionate grounds were a mere fig leaf to spare Scottish blushes, and a desperately inadequate one. The official diagnosis that Megrahi has less than three months to live was made by a GP. NO CANCER SPECIALIST WAS PREPARED TO GUESS AT HIS LIFE EXPECTANCY, prompting questions about how ill he really is.

With this dirty little deal, they have sold out the Lockerbie families, the fight against terrorism and the integrity of the English and Scottish legal systems. Worst of all, they have sold out the memory of the 270 who died.

Could this be the same Mr O'Leary who in 2005, after Ryanair had fallen foul of some typical Brussels regulatory stupidity, said: "I think we should blow the place up and shoot all the regulators"?

SURELY HIS CHANGE OF HEART HAS NO CONNECTION WITH THE FACT THAT MR O'LEARY HAS RENEWED HIS INTEREST IN BUYING AER LINGUS. Ireland's state airline is weakening in its earlier opposition to the bid. However, under EU competition rules it cannot go through without permission from Brussels.

Dr Paul Kroon said: "In the human body these compounds will be fermented by bacteria in the colon, creating metabolites that may be beneficial, for example with antioxidant activity." The research, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, shows the chemical which is normally not considered by food chemists - is an important part of a healthy diet.

Professor Fulgencio Saura-Calixto, who led the project, said: "These polyphenols are major constituents of the human diet with important health properties. To consider them in nutritional and epidemiological research may be useful for a better understanding of the effects of plant foods in health."