There is an animal welfare argument in all this. Religious commentators say the more traditional techniques used by their respective faiths are actually more humane than the mass-production methods used across Britain. Animal rights activists cite the lack of a stun gun in the process, which instantly makes the animal unconscious before slaughter.

THERE IS A CERTAIN CRUELTY IN MANY ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS - and their sympathisers - who value animal life to the point where they, consciously or subconsciously, rate it over humans. They do so out of sentimentality. Animals don't hurt our feelings. They do not kill their own species, apart from on the rare occasions when two males clash in a manner which results in the death of the competitor.

But this is not because they are somehow better than us. It's because ANIMALS BEHAVE ONLY ACCORDING TO THEIR INSTINCT. They do not have the capacity for abstract thought. They have no concept of ideas, or philosophy. From a human point of view, which is the only point of view we can possibly have, they are less important than humans. That seems a childish and imbecilic statement, but it is, unfortunately, one that needs saying. Many animal rights activists and ordinary members of the public seem to have forgotten it.

IN THE WEST, WE HAVE SENTIMENTALISED ANIMALS. The same is not true in the rest of the world, of course, where life still carries with it the necessity of survival. THERE, THE CONCEPT OF HAVING A PET IS LUDICROUS. ANIMALS ARE THERE TO HELP HUMANS SURVIVE, EITHER THROUGH FOOD, OR LABOUR, OR MATERIAL.

So the arguments about which method of slaughter is more humane are entirely irrelevant to me. Muslims and Jews are entitled to slaughter animals for food in any way they choose. Not because of their religion, but because of their status as human beings.

This is the theory, as he puts it with brutal simplicity: 'LORD MANDELSON IS DESTROYING LABOUR FOR THE SAKE OF THE EU.' In a nutshell, Mr Hannan believes the newly appointed First Secretary is so desperate to see a European superstate established that he is determined to prop up our increasingly unpopular Prime Minister until after the re-run of the Irish referendum, which will take place in October.

If you ask me, what we are witnessing here is the greatest conspiracy against our democracy in my 55-year lifetime. IF IT SUCCEEDS, WE CAN KISS GOODBYE TO THE BRITISH SUBJECT'S ANCIENT RIGHT TO HAVE A SAY IN HOW OUR COUNTRY IS GOVERNED.

The ministry unveiled the revision of the Defense Reform 2020 initiative drawn up in 2005. The updated plan is focused on securing independent capabilities to remove North Korea's asymmetrical military threat of nuclear and missile programs by deploying sophisticated surveillance, reconnaissance and striking assets.

In the case of an emergency, THE MILITARY COULD CONDUCT PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES AGAINST NUCLEAR AND MISSILE FACILITIES, an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. "That depends on a decision by the leadership," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Under an integrated defense mechanism, the Air Force's multi-purpose satellite, early warning aircraft and high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles, along with a ground-based early warning radar, conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions around the clock, according to the defense reform plan. Once signs of unusual movement, such as missile and nuclear tests, are detected, F-15K and other advanced aircraft are to conduct surgical strikes against the relevant facilities, it says. Both ship-based and ground-based interceptors are ready to shoot down missiles from the North, it says.

It goes on to argue, "To justify a revote, EU leaders put on a big show at last week's summit, giving the impression of tough negotiations in which Dublin supposedly won important concessions... Oh really?

According to the EU summit's own conclusions, the protocol 'will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon.' So the Irish will vote on the same text they previously rejected by a seven-percentage-point margin despite assurances by their government as recently as last month that this would not happen."

Meanwhile Adrian Michaels in the Telegraph writes, "IF DEMOCRACY IS ABOUT LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE, THEN IRAN ISN'T THE ONLY PLACE WHERE THINGS HAVE GOT A BIT STRAINED. A year ago, 53 per cent of Irish voters declined to ratify the substantial increase of the European Union's powers and reach enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty. Yet in early October, the country will be holding another referendum, in which the people will be given a chance to come up with a better answer."

Speaking in Dublin this morning, McCreevy admitted that the treaty would have been rejected in most member states if it had been put to a public vote. He said MANY EU LEADERS WERE GLAD THEY HAD NO LEGAL OBLIGATION TO HOLD REFERENDA ON THE TREATY IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES.

Jackson, who had a history of health problems, had been due to stage a series of comeback concerts in the UK, beginning on 13 July. Speaking on behalf of the Jackson family, Jermaine said doctors had tried to resuscitate the star for more than an hour without success. He added: "The family request that the media please respect our privacy during this tough time. And Allah be with you Michael always. I love you."

Civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton paid tribute to his friend. "I FEEL LIKE HE WAS NOT TREATED FAIRLY. I hope history will be more kind to him than some of the contemporary media." Melanie Bromley, west coast bureau chief of Us Weekly magazine, told the BBC the scene in Los Angeles was one of "pandemonium". "I FEEL THIS IS THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY STORY IN A LONG TIME AND HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE THE PRINCESS DIANA OF POPULAR CULTURE."

The singer had been dogged by controversy and money trouble in recent years, becoming a virtual recluse. He was arrested in 2003 on charges of molesting a 14-year-old boy, but was found not guilty following a five-month trial.

The increase in births means more than one in five children born in Britain in 2007 had a mother born overseas.

Meanwhile, the study also showed that the highest proportion of births to foreign-born women in 2007 were in the London boroughs of Newham (74.8 per cent) and Brent (72 per cent).

The 14-page ONS report said rising fertility rates among UK-born women had been the largest single factor increasing the overall number of births since 2004. Official figures show that the number of births in the UK increased each year between 2001 and 2007, a time which saw the proportion of foreign-born women in the childbearing population increase to 14 per cent.

The report stated: 'The rise in the overall total fertility rate is mainly due to increasing fertility among UK-born women, since fertility among foreign born women has remained relatively stable since 2004. However, foreign-born women, who generally have higher fertility, are making up an increasing share of the population, which is also acting to push the overall total fertility rate upwards. A consequence of these changes is that two-thirds of the total increase in births between 2001 and 2007 can be attributed to women born outside the UK.'

THE PRESIDENT MAY HAVE CHANGED, BUT THE EXCESSES OF AMERICAN POLITICS HAVE REMAINED. Barack Obama and George W Bush, it has become clear, are more similar than they might seem at first glance. Ex-President Bush was nothing if not zealous in his worldwide campaign against terror, transgressing human rights and breaking international law along the way. Now, Obama is displaying the same zeal in his own war against the financial crisis - AND HIS WEAPON OF CHOICE IS THE MONEY-PRINTING MACHINE. The rules the new American president is breaking are those which govern the economy. Nobody is being killed. But THE STRATEGY COMES AT A PRICE - AND THAT PRICE MIGHT BE AMERICA'S POSITION AS A GLOBAL POWER.

In his fight against terrorism, Bush had the ideologue Dick Cheney at his side. "We must take the battle to the enemy," he said - and sent out the bomber squadrons toward Iraq on the basis of mere suspicion. The result of the offensive is well known. Obama's Cheney is named Larry Summers. He is Obama's senior-most economic advisor, and like the former vice president, he is a man of conviction. THE FINANCIAL CRISIS MAY BE LARGE, BUT SUMMERS' SELF-CONFIDENCE IS EVEN LARGER. MORE IMPORTANTLY, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA FOLLOWS HIM LIKE A DOG DOES ITS MASTER. The crisis, Summers intoned last week at a conference of Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society in Washington, was caused by too much confidence, too much credit and too many debts. It was hard not to nod along in agreement.

BUT THEN SUMMERS ADDED THAT THE WAY TO BRING ABOUT AN END TO THE CRISIS WAS - MORE CONFIDENCE, MORE CREDIT AND MORE DEBT. Just as the US public initially rallied behind the war President Bush - even to the point of re-electing him - Americans have now thrown their support behind the debt president Obama. The mistakes of the Bush administration are now widely accepted. THE MISTAKES OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ARE STILL NOT RECOGNIZED AS SUCH. THEY ARE SEEN AS THE TRUTH.

THE GERMAN RESPONSE TO THE EXCESSES OF THE BUSH ERA WAS REFUSAL AND OBSTINACY. Gerhard Schröder refused to go to war in Iraq with America and he organized a European resistance front that reached from Moscow to Paris. Germany still hasn't provided its response to the Obama administration's fiscal policy excesses. PERHAPS ITS TIME FOR MERKEL TO TAKE HER CUE FROM SCHRÖDER.

THE FT AND WSJ report that China has denied claims made by the EU, US, and other countries that it is practicing protectionism and illegal trade subsidies, and retaliated with its own complaint to the World Trade Organisation.

THE LA TIMES quotes an IMF study concluding that Ireland is experiencing the worst recession in the developed world, with its economy shrinking by 8.5% and its budget deficit expected to reach 20% of GDP in 2010.

Writing in THE GUARDIAN, Timothy Garton Ash argues that, "the most important thing the Lisbon Treaty does is to create the institutional machinery for a better co-ordinated and more effective European foreign policy. The machinery - not the thing itself. That requires the political will of ­sovereign member states."

PROSPECT MAGAZINE reports that the EU is divided on foreign and defence policy and that it seems to be 'slipping backwards', adding that "it must learn to speak in one voice, or others will shape the new world order".

SÜDDEUTSCHE reports that Germany has reached an all time budget debt record of €86.1 billion, double the previous record from 1996.

Markus Knigge, Research Director for Pew Environment Group has said that "rather than encouraging sustainable fishing, SUBSIDIES HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO EVER-GREATER CAPACITY OF FISHING FLEETS AND IN TURN TO THE DEPLETION OF VALUABLE FISH STOCKS".

According to the paper, similar levels of subsidies exist in the current 2007-2013 budget period, with SOME OF THE BIGGEST CASH WINDFALLS GOING TO SHIPS NOTORIOUS FOR THEIR QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES. Greenpeace named a Spanish trawler which has received more than €4m in subsidies as "the most egregious offender against vulnerable stocks of Mediterranean blue fin tuna". A new website, "fishsubsidy.org" has been created to establish greater transparency about EU fishing subsidies.

Plants including Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Scunthorpe will be hardest hit by the latest cutback by the steel giant, which has already axed thousands of jobs this year. The new cuts will hit the firm's long products division, WHICH SUPPLIES STEEL TO THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, ONE OF THE WORST AFFECTED BY THE RECESSION. Unions described the job losses as "devastating" and called on the Government to offer help to the industry.

The company said in a statement: "Corus has already made significant cost savings with the support of its employee and union representatives since the downturn began, but several sites have suffered further deterioration in demand for their products. This additional restructuring will enable the business to align its production and manning levels with anticipated demand."

Corus said 2,045 jobs were at risk, including 1,500 in the company's production facilities, about 800 at the engineering steels sites, mainly Rotherham and Stocksbridge, about 370 in Corus Tubes in the UK and Holland, and about 375 at downstream rolling and finishing plants in Teesside and Scotland.

The four men, all believed to be teenagers as young as 17, were found guilty by a sharia court of stealing mobile phones and two guns. THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED A LAWYER AND COULD NOT APPEAL THE JUDGMENT. It is believed to be the first time such a sentence has been carried out in Somalia's capital, and illustrates the power of the al-Shebab movement, which now controls most of the city.

Mosque loudspeakers broadcast alerts that the amputations would take place at 8am on Thursday and witnesses said at least 300 people, many of them women and children, turned up to watch. "Their right hands and left legs have been cut off. They are due to be taken away by ambulance now for treatment," Mohamed Noh, a resident who was watching the punishment, told Reuters. "They were screaming." The sentence has shocked many Somalis, who traditionally follow a far more moderate branch of Islam than al-Shebab's hardline Wahabism.

The measures came as a budget crisis deepened in the most populous US state and the gridlocked legislature failed to pass a proposed $11 billion in cuts. "Next Wednesday we start a fiscal year with a massively unbalanced spending plan and a cash shortfall not seen since the Great Depression," Controller John Chiang said in a statement announcing that he would be forced to use IOUs to pay the state's bills beginning on July 2.

"The state's $2.8 billion cash shortage in July grows to $6.5 billion in September and after that we see a double digit freefall," Chiang said. "Unfortunately, the state's inability to balance its checkbook will now mean short-changing taxpayers, local governments and small businesses."

The airline had put the proposal to 40,000 staff. BA chief Willie Walsh has already agreed to work unpaid in July, forgoing his month's salary of £61,000. UNIONS SAID ASKING STAFF TO WORK FOR NOTHING WAS "UNREALISTIC". The airline, which is struggling in the downturn, says the move will save £10m.

Many firms across different industries have been reducing their workforces and cutting workers' hours in a bid to save costs during the economic downturn. "What makes BA stand out is that it is asking workers to work for nothing for a period, rather than simply reducing pay through fewer hours," said Jane Amphlett, an employment lawyer with Finers Stephens Innocent.

But the union Unite said that while it supported the current BA scheme which encourages part-time working, unpaid leave, and career breaks, it did not support this proposal. "The proposal for employees to 'work for nothing' is unrealistic," said Unite national officer Brian Boyd. "THE FACT THAT LESS THAN 2% OF BA'S WORKFORCE CHOSE TO TAKE UP THIS OPTION DEMONSTRATES THAT THERE IS NO REAL SUPPORT FOR THIS."

"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said. "The burkha is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

The issue arose in Britain three years ago when Jack Straw asked Muslim women wearing veils to remove them when they visited his Blackburn constituency surgery. He called the veils a "visible statement of separation and difference." The Daily Express weighs in this week with a call for the burkha to be banned in Britain, a demand echoed in the Daily Mail by Saira Khan, runner-up in the first series of "The Apprentice."

The Muslim Council of Britain has criticised Sarkozy. Individuals, it says, must have the freedom to choose their attire on the basis of deeply-held religious beliefs. It adds: "The MCB echoes US President Barack Obama's caution that 'it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.'"