Meanwhile, studies suggest that children tend to thrive best when they're brought up by married parents, with gay couples in third place after cohabiting heterosexuals. In the absence of more evidence, therefore, many feel it's best to play safe with children's welfare - placing them, where possible, with married couples. THIS IMPLIES NO BIGOTRY AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS. It is prompted only by concern for the child's best interests.

But that's not how the Government-funded British Association for Adoption and Fostering sees it. In its Pink Guide to Adoption for Lesbians and Gay Men, the association CONDEMNS ALL THOSE WHO SHARE THESE CONCERNS AS 'RETARDED HOMOPHOBES'. Leave aside the grossly offensive language - and the fact that, in that outrageous phrase, THE BAAF DISMISSES THE TEACHINGS OF EVERY WORLD RELIGION.

Doesn't this guidebook speak volumes about an adoption and fostering service which seems increasingly to put zealotry before the interests of the child? There have been countless cases in which married couples have been refused permission to adopt because they are considered too old or overweight, because they smoke - or even because they are thought too middle-class. Yet here is the BAAF, taking a leap into the unknown and gambling with children's welfare by ACTIVELY ENCOURAGING GAYS TO ADOPT, WHILE DEMONISING MARRIED COUPLES AND TURNING THEM AWAY.

Procedures have already been started against France, Greece, Ireland, Latvia and Spain. The UK and Hungary were already operating under the procedure prior to the onset of the financial crisis.

"It is vital that we apply the stability and growth pact …and devise an adjustment path to correct deficits and debts in a timely way," said economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia. "This is key to preserve the sustainability of public finances in the medium-to-long term," he added. Under the rules, EU member states are not allowed to run budget deficits in excess of 3 percent of their gross domestic product.

Following Wednesday's decision, the reports will now be handed to a committee of financial experts whose opinion is taken into account before the commission asks EU finance ministers to endorse corrective measures for the four states at their next meeting in June. The states then have six months to adopt the necessary measures aimed at bringing down their budget deficits within a specific timeframe, deficits largely caused by falling tax receipts and expansionary fiscal policies in 2008.

"WE CAN'T KEEP ON JUST BORROWING FROM CHINA," Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. "We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children's future with more and more debt."

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually "get tired" of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. "It will have a dampening effect on our economy." The president pledged to work with Congress to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and said he was confident that the House and Senate would pass health-care overhaul bills by August. "MOST OF WHAT IS DRIVING US INTO DEBT IS HEALTH CARE, so we have to drive down costs," he said.

Worse, nobody at the Fed seems to have any idea what the losses on its $2 trillion portfolio really are. "I AM SHOCKED TO FIND OUT THAT NOBODY AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS KEEPING TRACK OF ANYTHING," Grayson says. Grayson asked Coleman if her agency had done any research into the decision not to save Lehman Brothers, which "sent shockwaves through the entire financial system," Coleman said it had not.

"What about the $1 trillion plus expansion of the Federal reserve's balance sheet since last September?" Grayson asked. "We have different connotations," Coleman replied. "We're actually conducting a fairly high-level review of the various lending facilities collectively." Translation: NOBODY AT THE FED KNOWS WHERE THE MONEY WENT.

Do you know what who got the $1 trillion or more in the Fed's expansion of its balance, Grayson pressed. "I do not know. We have not looked at this specific area at the particular point on that specific review," Coleman answered. What about the trillions of off-balance transactions since last September, Grayson asked. Coleman demurred again, saying the IG does not have jurisdiction to audit the Federal Reserve.

Coleman's answer: Not enough yet to even respond. "We are not in a position to say if there are losses." Grayson concluded, "I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the inspector general, is keeping track of this."

NO LISTS OF PARTICIPANTS ARE DISCLOSED, no press conferences are held; spill the beans and you're out of the magic circle. Since BILDERBERG DOES NOT OFFICIALLY EXIST, it cannot deny anything and is therefore manna from heaven for the conspiracy theorist. Eurosceptics are convinced that the future development of the European Union was plotted here — EU commissioners have always been welcomed into the coven, with Peter "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" Mandelson a particular favourite.

The Bilderberg consensus is that national problems are best solved by an internationally oriented elite, that a global network of decision-makers should have a common language and that the boundaries are fluid between the monied and the political classes. And so there has been a natural bias towards inviting conservatives and market liberals. The only socialists invited are those who "understand money".

Ed Balls has taken part and the most indiscreet Bilderberger of all time was Denis Healey, the former Labour Chancellor and fierce Atlanticist. "TO SAY WE WERE STRIVING FOR A ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT IS EXAGGERATED, BUT NOT WHOLLY UNFAIR," Lord Healey told the author Jon Ronson for his book Them: Adventures with Extremists. "Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on for ever fighting one another for nothing. SO WE FELT THAT A SINGLE COMMUNITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WOULD BE A GOOD THING."

Another way of viewing the club is that of Metropolitan Seraphim, the bishop of Piraeus, who said that the Bilderbergers represented a "CRIMINAL CABAL OF WORLD ZIONISM AND ITS EFFORTS TO SET UP A CRUEL WORLD DICTATORSHIP UNDER THE HEADSHIP OF LUCIFER". This line is quite common on the blogosphere, where the club's secrecy is taken as evidence of evil intentions.

Whether Lucifer will be down there on the sun-loungers remains to be seen. But what we have been able to establish from a World Bank spokesman, Alexis O'Brien, is that the organisation's president, Robert Zoellick, will be in Athens on unspecified business on May 14. And that US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's public schedule is mysteriously empty for the next two days. Jo Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank, will be travelling "somewhere in Europe". Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, will not be around until the end of the week. You get the drift. Something is going on. If only somebody would let us in on the secret.

Growers in South Australia have said they are "very frightened" that if heavy and regular rains do not fall over the next five months, hundreds of well-established vineyards will fail. Producers in the Riverland, Clare Valley and Langhorne Creek regions that surround the South Australian capital ADELAIDE HAVE BEEN HIT BY A SEVEN-YEAR DROUGHT, but also their location at the very end of the vast Murray Darling River system.

To reach their irrigation pipes, water must first travel through the populous New South Wales and Queensland farming regions, which consume 83 per cent of the basin's water. Inflows to the Murray Darling are at their lowest in 117 years and residents of Adelaide have been told their supply from the river, which the city relies on for 90 per cent of its water, can no longer be guaranteed.

Mr Arnold said the country needed regular drenching rains, of a least six inches, for the remaining growers to survive. He has admitted that is unlikely. "We are really heavily relying on a rain event to happen every couple of weeks for the whole winter and that's frightening, that's very frightening," he said. "But there's a lot of scepticism about whether it will rain again this year."

Representative Steve King, Republican, from Iowa said the bill provides protection for those with "sexual orientation" issues but then doesn't define the terms. SO HE SAID IT'S APPARENT THAT ALL OF THE 547 'PHILIAS' – OR AS HE DESCRIBED THEM "DEVIANCIES" – WOULD BE PROTECTED UNDER THE LAW. "Anything you can imagine, no matter how revolting it might be," King said. King also warned the bill provides federal money to have the Justice Department help local law enforcement agencies enforce their own "hate crimes" laws.

"A pastor might be preaching from Leviticus or Romans; that could be a direct violation of a city ordinance," he said. "Under Title 18 in the federal code, if you are shown to aid, abet, to counsel or to in some way influence one of those 'incidents,' you are as guilt as the principal," he said. "We could see pastors thrown in jail for a decade for the content of their sermons," he warned.

King said he read part of George Orwell's "1984" into the congressional record: "This is what was written in 1949: 'WE DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OVERT ACTION, IT'S THE THOUGHT WE CARE ABOUT BECAUSE IF WE CONTROL THE THOUGHT, WE CONTROL THE ACTION,' That's where we are today," he warned.

"It is the biggest challenge of the 21st century," Mr Zardari told a press conference in Downing Street. "It is not a short term affair, it is a long term affair. It is challenging our way of life, THEY ARE TRYING TO CREATE A NEW WORLD ORDER." Mr Zardari also dismissed as "incorrect" a BBC survey which has suggested that only 38 per cent of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province is under government control.

The two men stood side by side after an apparent snub to Mr Brown when he visited Pakistan last month and was forced to hold a press conference with Yusuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, instead. In another reference to tensions with the West, Mr Zardari said he was asking for "ownership" of American unmanned drones which have been launching attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan. The focus of the meeting was on fighting terrorism and Mr Brown promised £10m in additional aid to help those dealing with refugees fleeing the fighting in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Every year millions of people visit Canterbury Cathedral, a haven for pilgrims since the Middle Ages. The city's place in literary history was secured by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. But Pride in Canterbury is concerned with more present-day issues. The local council, it says, has failed to 'send out signals' that gays are welcome. As well as the absence of a suitable bar, a play staged at the city's Marlowe Theatre presented a gay character in a 'stereotypical' way.

The group is awaiting the outcome of an official complaint to the local government ombudsman. Spokesman Andrew Bretell said: 'We do not believe the council wants a thriving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in our city. They're more interested in ticking their equality boxes than they are in dealing with the real issues.'

The nearest gay bar is 17 miles away, in Margate, he added. 'Unless they are sending out signals that they welcome gays, then they are not creating conditions where there is likely to be a gay bar. We are not trying to turn Canterbury into Blackpool or Brighton, but we do think it's important for the gay community to have a focal point – somewhere they can go to and see LGBT culture. The area doesn't send out an image that it's OK to be gay. We're trying to work with the council to do this and don't feel we have made big demands, but we have had no success.'

The credit rating agency said the industry is being propped up by hundreds of billions of dollars of government support, especially for lenders considered too important to the financial system to fail. While efforts to spur lending, take bad assets off banks' balance sheets, and restart the market for packaging and selling securities may help the sector, S&P said banks will have a tough time surviving absent a bigger capital cushion than regulators require.

"There's nothing to say that this banking crisis can't go on for another three or four years," S&P Managing Director Tanya Azarchs said. S&P on May 4 said it may lower its ratings for 23 U.S. banks and thrifts, including 10 that underwent stress tests, citing concern about the industry's capitalisation. It said the 23 companies had at least a 50 percent chance of being downgraded within 90 days.

THAT IS MARGINALLY LESS THAN THE 4.6 PER CENT FALL IN GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT RECORDED FOR 1931 - THE WORST YEAR OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. Any rebound from 2010 will be 'protracted' and sluggish because of the continued woes of the financial sector, Mr King added. The public spending cuts or tax hikes needed to curb Labour's record budget deficits will also act to dampen the pace of recovery. And households will be forced to spend less and save more as unemployment increases, the Bank said in its quarterly Inflation Report.

The report said inflation will undershoot the Bank's 2 per cent target until 2012, suggesting rates will stay at their current ultra-low 0.5 per cent level. That will provide some relief for mortgage holders, but cause fresh anguish to pensioners struggling to survive on income from savings interest. The Bank's bleak outlook deals a new blow to Chancellor Alistair Darling, whose Budget forecasts were dismissed in the Commons as 'utter fantasy' last month.

The Bank may have to expand its money-printing scheme, which aims to counter the risk of deflation. It has agreed to a £150 billion ceiling for 'quantitative easing' with the Treasury, but this may have to rise even higher. Mr King said: 'THE ECONOMY WILL EVENTUALLY HEAL, BUT THE PROCESS MAY BE SLOW.'

GM, facing a U.S. government-imposed deadline of June 1 to restructure or file for bankruptcy, is expected to send termination notices to up to 2,000 dealers - a third of its roughly 6,000 U.S. dealers, the sources told Reuters.

Chrysler, which filed for bankruptcy on April 30, will also tell up to 1,000 of its 3,189 U.S. dealers it is terminating their franchise agreements, according to the sources who asked not to be identified because the controversial closure plans have not been yet announced.

The moves to shut down auto dealerships underscores how the economic pain caused by the downward spiral of both automakers - NOW OPERATING UNDER U.S. GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT - is spreading beyond their home base in Detroit.

The document, which has been signed by President Dmitry Medvedev, listed top challenges to national security and outlined government priorities through 2020. "The INTERNATIONAL POLICY IN THE LONG RUN WILL BE FOCUSED ON GETTING HOLD OF ENERGY SOURCES, including in the Middle East, the Barents Sea shelf and other Arctic regions, the Caspian and Central Asia," said the strategy paper that was posted on the presidential Security Council's Web site.

"Amid competitive struggle for resources, attempts to use military force to solve emerging problems can't be excluded," it added. "The existing balance of forces near the borders of the Russian Federation and its allies can be violated." The paper didn't elaborate or name any specific nations.

In the Times Peter Riddell points to a Populus poll undertaken over the weekend, which found that 82% of people agreed with the statement "If Ireland and other countries ratify the Lisbon Treaty on the future of the European Union, Britain should hold its own referendum on the issue". 52% agreed strongly, and only 14% disagreed. The proportion of voters agreeing with the statement was 76% among Labour supporters, 85% among Lib Dem supporters, and 92% among Conservative supporters.

The poll also showed that 58% of voters believe that the balance of powers between Britain and the EU gives too much power to the EU, including a clear majority of supporters of all main parties. 28% say the balance is about right and 6% say too little power has been given to the EU.

The government adviser's report published today is the most detailed yet into the threat posed to baby boys by chemicals that block the action of the male sex hormone testosterone, or mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen. Professor Sharpe says many could be harmless on their own - but warned that their cumulative effect could be devastating for developing foetuses and warned women trying for a child to avoid them. 'You can't do anything about chemicals in the environment but you can control what you expose a baby to through your lifestyle choices,' he said.

'Because we don't know the complete list of chemicals that may be hormone disrupters, and we don't know how they interact, we can't point a finger at an individual chemical. The message is to avoid them, just as you should avoid alcohol and drugs.' Doctors are concerned about rising levels of birth defects, with 7 per cent of British boys born with partially descended testes and seven in 1000 with malformed genitals. The latest estimates indicate that one in six men in the UK has a low sperm count and will struggle to father a child.

Professor Sharpe said TDS has its origins in the period between the eighth and 12th week of pregnancy, when exposure to hormone-mimicking chemicals can interfere with testosterone production in a foetus, preventing the sex organs from developing normally. Chemicals shown to cause problems include pesticides such as DDT, fungicides such as vinclozolin; a group of chemicals called PCBs used in electrical circuits, paints, flame retardants and glues; and phthalates, which are used to soften plastics.

Elizabeth Salter Green of the charity CHEM Trust, which commissioned Professor Sharpe's report, said: 'Chemicals that have been shown to act together to affect male reproductive health should have their risks assessed together. She advised pregnant women to keep cosmetic use to a minimum, choose unscented products, stop using perfume, avoid colouring hair and avoid DIY.