The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, convened by Senator John F Kerry of Massachusetts, focused on what so far has received only modest attention in the climate change debate: the effect it is bound to have on national defense. "Addressing the consequences of changes in the Earth's climate is not simply about saving polar bears or preserving the beauty of mountain glaciers," retired Navy Vice Admiral Lee F Gunn, president of the American Security Project, told the panel. "CLIMATE CHANGE IS A THREAT TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY."

Gunn and other military specialists said that climate change could have broad effects on how the US military operates. It will likely expand the number of humanitarian missions the Pentagon will have to undertake, they said, and even change how it deploys its fighting forces. For example, they warned that rising sea levels could swamp critical US military bases in the Indian Ocean and even the headquarters of the Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, which could be under water after just a one-meter rise in the ocean level.

In a second day of testimony on the Fed's semiannual monetary policy report, Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee that THE US CENTRAL BANK WANTS TO SHIELD MONETARY POLICY FROM POLITICAL INTERFERENCE, but understands the need to be accountable to taxpayers. "We do think that the Congress has the right to see how we are using taxpayer money. Where we are concerned is that the Congress would be intervening in our specific policy decisions relating to monetary policy and the economy," Bernanke said when asked about a proposal to expand audits of the Fed.

"So yes, we are quite willing to work with Congress to try to figure out exactly where the line should be," he said. The Fed has pushed back hard against a bill that has already won sponsorship by a majority of the US House of Representatives, and a companion Senate measure, that would expose monetary policy decisions to audits by the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog.

THE CENTRAL BANK HAS ARGUED SUCH AUDITS WOULD ALARM FINANCIAL MARKETS AND DRIVE US BORROWING COSTS HIGHER as investors would come to let politics, not economics, drive monetary policy-making. Some investors are already nervous that the Fed might face pressure to create money to finance record US budget deficits. The Fed says these concerns would intensify if there was any move to put its policy under political sway.

US lawmakers have responded to public anger over last year's crisis and subsequent multibillion-dollar bailouts of investment bank Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group by DEMANDING GREATER FED ACCOUNTABILITY.

Roche missed forecasts with a 29 percent drop in first-half net profit on Thursday, hit by costs related to the Genentech purchase earlier this year, but its stock rose thanks to the strength of its underlying business. The world's largest maker of cancer drugs upped its earnings guidance and now expects double-digit core earnings per share growth in 2009 and 2010, compared to a previous target to stay at the 2008 level.

It said sales at both its pharma and diagnostics should grow well ahead of the market this year. It also said it will use cash flow to repay debt, expects to repay 25 percent of debt by the end of 2010 and to return to a positive net cash position by 2015.

Total production capacity for antiviral Tamiflu, which has been boosted by sales linked to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, will be expanded to 400 million packs annually by the start of 2010, Roche said. Tamiflu sales rose more than 200 percent to just over 1 billion francs and Chief Executive Severin Schwan said Roche was able to meet all orders.

That should help ease concerns about any possible upset in the relationship, under which Japan has for decades kept in lockstep with the United States on security policy in return for the shelter of its "nuclear umbrella." Analysts say the change in emphasis by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is both a bid to avoid alienating voters ahead of the August 30 poll and a sign of a new realism as it confronts a growing probability of taking power.

"The stage is completely different now," said Yukio Okamoto, a former diplomat now of think tank Okamoto Associates. "They have to really, realistically think about what they are going to do," he added. "The line they have been insisting on so far is untenable, unsustainable in the face of the stark realities of the world security situation."

The long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has made the US-Japan alliance the core of its diplomatic and security policies since the end of World War Two, and has stretched the limits of its pacifist constitution, often at US urging. In an effort to erode the rival Democrats' lead in opinion polls, the LDP has repeatedly accused opposition leaders of lacking the experience to handle growing regional threats.

As concern mounts about the spread of the virus, which has killed at least 29 people in the UK, some Anglican churches have begun to allow "intinction" or dipping bread in communion wine rather than sharing the chalice, while others have stopped offering wine altogether. The practices are permitted under the 1547 Sacrament Act, introduced after the plague, which requires both bread and wine to be given "except necessity otherwise require"

In London's Southwark diocese parishioners have been advised to hug rather than shake hands as a "sign of the peace", while in Chelmsford they have been discouraged from using shared holy water stoops to dip their fingers and make the sign of the cross.

Similar practices have emerged in the Catholic church, with some priests now passing bread into worshippers' hands rather than on to the tongue. The Right Reverend Christopher Budd, the bishop of Plymouth, advised in a recent letter: "In the light of the decision to designate the swine flu outbreak a pandemic, I now recommend suspending the chalice and giving the Sacred Host in the hand only." Michael Fay, a spokesman for the diocese, added: "Some people say they are receiving the body of Christ and he will protect you, but it's not a magic potion. We need to be prudent."

Key findings:
- The US Government has SPENT MORE THAN $79 BILLION OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY SINCE 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, propaganda campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks. MOST OF THIS SPENDING WAS UNNECESSARY.
- Despite the billions wasted, AUDITS OF THE SCIENCE ARE LEFT TO UNPAID VOLUNTEERS. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of "global warming" theory and to compete with a lavishly-funded, highly-organized climate monopsony. Major errors have been exposed again and again.
- Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. BANKS, WHICH PROFIT MOST, ARE CALLING FOR MORE. Experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 - $10 trillion in the near future. HOT AIR WILL SOON BE THE LARGEST SINGLE COMMODITY TRADED ON GLOBAL EXCHANGES.
- Meanwhile, in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying just $23 million to skeptics — less than a thousandth of what the US government spends on alarmists, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in 2008 alone.
- The large expenditure designed to prove the non-existent connection between carbon and climate has created a POWERFUL ALLIANCE OF SELF-SERVING VESTED INTERESTS.
- By pouring so much money into pushing a single, scientifically-baseless agenda, THE GOVERNMENT HAS CREATED NOT AN UNBIASED INVESTIGATION BUT A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY.
- Sound science cannot easily survive the vice-like grip of politics and finance.

The firm, which is one of several commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to produce a vaccine, said it had already agreed contracts for 195 million doses with 16 countries worldwide. But it emerged today that THE DRUG GIANT IS CHARGING THE NHS £6 PER DOSE, EVEN THOUGH IT ADMITS THE VACCINE ONLY COSTS £1 TO PRODUCE. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: 'This is clearly a bonanza for the company.'

'They have done the work so should legitimately benefit, but this is a staggeringly substantial return. I will write to the National Audit Office to determine whether we got the best deal for the taxpayer.' The Government has ordered 60million doses, MAKING THE DRUG GIANT'S TOTAL PROFIT ABOUT £300 MILLION.

Geoff Martin of London Health Emergency said: 'It's a scandal that any company could use the swine flu pandemic as an opportunity to jack up profits. The Government should step in and impose a windfall tax on private companies that have hit the jackpot as a result of the flu crisis.'

Is all this really necessary? To start with, swine flu is far milder than we first feared, so the case for vaccinating millions of healthy adults against a disease that is no more unpleasant than a bad cold is questionable. There is a stronger argument for vaccinating those at greater risk, such as those with lung, heart or kidney disease, those with suppressed immune systems (such as those on cancer treatment), pregnant women and children under 5 — BUT ONLY IF THE VACCINE WORKS AND IS SAFE. But there are serious doubts about this.

Rushing the vaccine on to the market means we will have no idea how effective it is, although we do have a body of research on the effectiveness of flu vaccines in general, which gives some idea of what we might expect from the swine flu vaccine. Provided that we have matched the vaccine well with the virus, it is likely to be up to 80 per cent effective in healthy adults, the group at least risk from the virus.

A number of trials have looked at the effect of flu vaccination on children's asthma and have failed to demonstrate any benefit; ONE TRIAL EVEN SUGGESTED THAT THE VACCINE MADE ASTHMA WORSE. There is no good evidence that the vaccine helps those with chronic health problems or pregnant women. However, we do know that the immunisation offers no more than a modest benefit in the elderly; indeed, the effectiveness of the vaccine is known to decrease sharply after 70 years of age.

There is a case for offering the vaccine to those at risk, but not without informing them of the uncertainty over the vaccine's safety and effectiveness. TO VACCINATE THE WHOLE POPULATION WOULD BE A HUGE AND FOOLHARDY EXPERIMENT FOR WHICH THERE IS CURRENTLY NO SCIENTIFIC RATIONALE.

(DR RICHARD HALVORSEN is a Central London GP and medical director of BabyJabs, a children's immunisation service. His book The Truth about Vaccines is published on August 7 )

UPDATE: DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Emergency plans to vaccinate half the population against swine flu by Christmas are at risk because of a hitch in production, it has emerged. Experts warned yesterday any delay could leave vulnerable people, particularly pensioners, waiting months longer for the jab. Pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, which will provide most of the UK's jabs, admitted it was having serious problems growing enough quantities of its vaccine.

Hillary Clinton's statement at the ASEAN meeting of foreign ministers in Thailand swiftly provoked an anxious reaction from Israel. Israel's minister for intelligence and atomic energy, Dan Meridor, bristled at the implication that Iran's nuclear status might be regarded as a strategic reality.

"I was not thrilled to hear the American statement that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella, as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran," he told Israeli army radio. "I think that's a mistake." Speaking at a meeting of Asian foreign ministers in Thailand, Mrs Clinton said that acquiring nuclear weapons would not make Iran more secure.

"We will still hold the door open (for talks with Iran), but we also have made it clear that we'll take actions, as I've said time and time again, crippling action, working to upgrade the defence of our partners in the region," she told Thai television.

The expert An Bord Snip report said last week that Dublin must cut deeper, or risk a disastrous debt compound trap. A further 17,000 state jobs must go (equal to 1.25m in the US), though unemployment is already 12pc and heading for 16pc next year. Education must be cut 8pc. Scores of rural schools must close, and 6,900 teachers must go. "The attacks outlined in this report would represent an education disaster and light a short fuse on a social timebomb", said the Teachers Union of Ireland.

Nobody is spared. Social welfare payments must be cut 5pc, child benefit by 20pc. The Garda (police), already smarting from a 7pc pay cut, may have to buy their own uniforms. Hospital visits could cost £107 a day, etc, etc. "Something has to give," said Professor Colm McCarthy, the report's author. "We're borrowing €400m (£345m) a week at a penalty interest."

No doubt Ireland has been the victim of a savagely tight monetary policy - given its specific needs. BUT THE DEEPER TRUTH IS THAT BRITAIN, SPAIN, FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, THE US, AND JAPAN ARE IN VARYING STATES OF FISCAL RUIN, and those tipping into demographic decline (unlike young Ireland) have an underlying cancer that is even more deadly. THE WEST CANNOT SUPPORT ITS GOLD-PLATED STATE STRUCTURES FROM AN AGING WORKFORCE AND DEPLETED TAX BASE.

My awful fear is that we will do exactly the opposite, INCUBATING YET ANOTHER CRISIS THIS AUTUMN, to which we will respond with yet further spending. This is the road to ruin.

Seismologist Ken Gledhill, of GNS Science, said the shift demonstrated the huge force of the tremor. But correspondents say that with more than 2,250km (1,400 miles) separating the countries, the narrowing will not exactly be visible. Nor, as the New Zealand media have observed, is it likely to bring cheaper air fares.

The quake was powerful enough to generate a small tsunami with a wave of one metre (3ft) recorded on the west coast of New Zealand. People in coastal areas were for a time advised to move to higher ground. While the south-west of the South Island moved about 30cm towards Australia, the east coast moved only one centimetre westwards, Dr Gledhill said."Basically, New Zealand just got a little bit bigger is another way to think about it," he told AFP news agency.

Although it was New Zealand's biggest earthquake in 78 years, it caused only slight damage to buildings and property when it struck in the remote Fiordland region west of Invercargill last Thursday. New Zealand frequently suffers earthquakes because it sits on the meeting point of the Australian and Pacific continental plates.

THE "PEACE MISSION 2009" FIVE-DAY EXERCISE in northeast China comes weeks after China's worst ethnic unrest in decades between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in the far-western region of Xinjiang that killed at least 197 people. "To some extent, the July 5 Xinjiang riot pushed forward anti-terrorism cooperation between China and Russia," the China Daily newspaper quoted Major Wang Haiyun, a former Chinese military attache to Russia, as saying. Russia itself has been grappling with rising violence in the North Caucasus regions of Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya. Russia and China are also wary of a rising tide of instability in post-Soviet Central Asia that has spilt over from Afghanistan.

"The situation in Central Asia itself, including Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan is not so good, so that's the most likely area of practical cooperation. And in fact they're learning new ways to fight against Islamic insurgents and Uighurs," said Vassily Kashin, a Chinese military expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Moscow. RUSSIA AND CHINA ARE CORE MEMBERS OF THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANIZATION (SCO) WHICH SOME EXPERTS SAY IS AN ATTEMPT TO FORM AN ALTERNATIVE MILITARY BLOC TO NATO to counter the rising threats of separatism and extremism in Central Asia.

"CHINA HAS ALREADY REACHED A STAGE WHERE THEY CAN PRODUCE OR DEVELOP THEIR OWN INDIGENOUS AND ADVANCED WEAPONS SYSTEMS. They're no longer totally reliant on Russian support." The exercise will involve some 3,000 army and air force personnel and over 40 fighters and helicopter gunships. Russia's Zvezda television channel said the movement of Russian troops and weapons to China for the exercises was the biggest deployment of forces abroad by the nation's Far Eastern Military District since World War Two, when the Soviet Union crushed Japan's armed forces in China and Korea.

A rustic group is winding its way towards Rome on a nine-day pilgrimage by tractor. Their aim? To gain a brief audience with Pope Benedict XVI so that they can urge him to help Europe's dairy farmers. The four men are hoping to draw attention to the farming community's misery, not just in their own rural corner of Germany but across Europe. Dairy farmers are suffering from a severe slump in prices and in Germany they are currently only making between 17 and 19 cents a liter of milk. Many are struggling to make ends meet and could soon be driven out of business.

The convoy of two tractors and a VW bus is traveling under the motto: "WE HAVE LOST OUR FAITH IN POLITICS, BUT NOT IN THE CHURCH." Although two of the group are not even Catholic that hasn't deterred them from hoping the Pope will grant them a brief audience. "THE POPE IS THERE FOR EVERYONE," De Vries, who came up with the idea of the pilgrimage, told the Neumarkter Nachrichten on Sunday.

38-year-old Albert Kobow may be a Catholic but, as he told Bild newspaper on Tuesday, "I only go to church for christenings, weddings and funerals." Nevertheless, he has faith in the 1,800 kilometer trip to Rome. "We wanted to do something new, a change from the usual demonstrations. We hope that society and politicians will finally wake up."

SPIEGEL: At the moment, the world is very scared of this new swine flu influenza virus. And some predict that, by next winter, one-third of the world's population might be infected. Are you personally worried? Are you and your family taking any precautions?

TOM JEFFERSON: I wash my hands very often - and it's not all because of swine flu. THAT'S PROBABLY THE MOST EFFECTIVE PRECAUTION THERE IS against all respiratory viruses, and the majority of gastrointestinal viruses and germs as well.

SPIEGEL: Do you consider the swine flu to be particularly worrisome?

JEFFERSON: It's true that influenza viruses are unpredictable, so it does call for a certain degree of caution. But one of the extraordinary features of this influenza - and the whole influenza saga - is that there are some people who make predictions year after year, and they get worse and worse. NONE OF THEM SO FAR HAVE COME ABOUT, and these people are still there making these predictions. For example, what happened with the bird flu, which was supposed to kill us all? Nothing. But that doesn't stop these people from always making their predictions. SOMETIMES YOU GET THE FEELING THAT THERE IS A WHOLE INDUSTRY ALMOST WAITING FOR A PANDEMIC TO OCCUR.

SPIEGEL: Who do you mean? The World Health Organization (WHO)?

JEFFERSON: The WHO and public health officials, virologists and the pharmaceutical companies. They've built this machine around the impending pandemic. AND THERE'S A LOT OF MONEY INVOLVED, AND INFLUENCE, AND CAREERS, AND ENTIRE INSTITUTIONS! And all it took was one of these influenza viruses to mutate to start the machine grinding.

Michael Steele, in remarks at the National Press Club, also said the President, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part OF A "CABAL" THAT WANTS TO IMPLEMENT GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE. "Obama-Pelosi want to start building a colossal, closed health care system where Washington decides. Republicans want and support an open health care system where patients and doctors make the decisions," Steele said.

ASKED IF OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE PLAN REPRESENTED SOCIALISM, STEELE RESPONDED: "YES. Next question." Obama has repeatedly said he does not favor a government-run health care system. Legislation taking shape in the House envisions private insurance companies selling coverage in competition with the government. Even so, numerous Republicans in Congress continue to level the accusation at Obama and congressional Democrats, and Steele did so in sharply critical terms.

"Many Democrats outside of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Waxman cabal know that voters won't stand for these kinds of foolish prescriptions for our health care. We do too. That's why Republicans will stop at nothing to remind voters about the risky experimentation going on in Washington," the party chairman said.