UK voters will elect 72 MEPs and the Dutch 25 for the 736-member parliament. The rest of the EU's 27 states will vote in the coming days. The first results are expected late on Sunday, the day the bulk of countries go to the polls. But this is the first big electoral test across Europe since the region has been hit by economic meltdown, the BBC's Dominic Hughes in Brussels says.

In Britain, the European election, held at the same time as local elections, follows weeks of scandal over what some MPs have been charging to their expense accounts. Correspondents say no one quite knows how the public will respond.

More than 375 million people are eligible to vote for the 736 seats up for grabs under various forms of proportional representation. Germany, with the biggest population, gets the most seats - 99 - while Malta will have just five. The newly elected MEPs will take their seats in one of Europe's most powerful political institutions, scrutinising and shaping legislation that covers everything from air quality to the cost of mobile phone calls.

Despite all this, in the past Europeans have failed to be moved by the elections, our correspondent says. Last time around in 2004, turnout in the UK was 38% and in the Netherlands 39%.

Some of the pages are marked "highly confidential safeguards sensitive." While there is security at the facilities, the list could presumably be useful for terrorists or anyone else who would like to harm the United States.

The publication of the list was first reported in an online secrecy newsletter Monday. The document details the location of the nuclear sites and what is being done there. For instance, there are nuclear reactors at the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This facility is currently working on research into what happens when there are accidents with the nuclear reactors. The project started in 2006 and is expected to end in 2012, according to the document.

Boddington's Berries, which produces 200-tons of fruit each season, was told the farm had to install walkways and bridges between each row of strawberries, cordon off potholes in the fields and install handrails near open ditches.

Phil Boddington, 45, who owns the farm in Mevagissey, Cornwall, said: 'When we tell people why we stopped doing pick-your-own, there is a lot of eye-rolling. To us it's a pick-your-own farm but to the insurers and the health and safety people it's a strawberry factory. The insurers want us to cotton wool the place by adding walkways and bridges, and making restricted zones with cordons. They even wanted us to put handrails in. It is a sad day when a pick-your-own farm is closing because of heath and safety fears.'

Ian Johnson, spokesman for the National Farmers' Union, said: 'It's a very sad and unfortunate incident at Boddington's. After such a long time of letting people enjoy coming to pick fruit, they won't be able to do that any more. We live in a very litigious age.'

The swindle was only detected by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) using new scientific techniques because the non-chicken material had been so highly processed it passed standard DNA tests. Thousands of restaurateurs and café owners are likely to have been conned into buying chicken containing the powder – which binds water into chicken breasts – while diners have been unwittingly consuming traces of other animals when eating out.

Britain's two million Muslims, Jews and Hindus are forbidden from eating either pork or beef. Muslims would ordinarily eat halal chicken and Jews kosher chicken sold through approved caterers and butchers.

The Hindu Forum of Britain described news of the adulteration, which will be confirmed publicly today, as "shocking and potentially very distressing". Its secretary general, Bharti Tailor, said: "Eating beef is expressly forbidden because cows are considered to be sacred as they are a representation of the bounty of the gods, even unknowingly. The fact that the protein powders injected into chickens served in restaurants and cafes contain even traces of beef or pork is horrific. And [the fact] that Hindus will have been eating beef contaminated chickens will be mentally agonising. Many will feel that they have broken their religious code of conduct."

The food regulator acknowledged the serious consequences of its findings. "Use of these proteins does not make chicken products unsafe, but it is important that people are given accurate information about their food," the FSA said. The fraud has been taking place for at least the past two years, and still continues because of inaction by the authorities in three EU states, believed to be Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

"We do not intend to bomb Iran, and nobody will solve their problems with our hands," Lieberman told journalists. "We don't need that. Israel is a strong country; we can protect ourselves," Lieberman told reporters. "This is not an Israeli problem."

"But the world should understand that Iran's entrance into the nuclear club would prompt a whole arms race, a crazy race of unconventional weaponry across the Mideast that is a threat to the entire world order, a challenge to the whole international community. So we do not want a global problem to be solved with our hands."

According to a statement by Israel's Foreign Ministry, Lieberman and his hosts agreed to continue promoting economic ties between the two states and cooperation in the realms of space technology and hi-tech, cultural cooperation, and the international law for the protection of investments. Ministers Liberman and Lavrov also signed a Protocol on Consultation between the two foreign ministries for 2010.

Israel, as well as the US and other Western nations are convinced that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often referred to the Jewish State as a "malignant growth" that must "vanish from the pages of history."

"I view with great skepticism the powers of the Fed, for example, and also how, within Europe, the Bank of England has carved out its own small line," Ms Merkel said in a speech in Berlin. "We must return together to an independent central-bank policy and to a policy of reason, otherwise we will be in exactly the same situation in 10 years' time." THE PUBLIC CRITICISM IS UNUSUAL - and not only because German politicians rarely talk harshly about central banks in public. When politicians around the world do criticize their central banks, they almost always gripe that they are too tightfisted.

The conservative German leader's comments came as Europe's statistical agency reported that unemployment in the 16 countries that share the euro rose to 9.2% in April - the highest level since September 1999 and still below the 11.5% that the European Commission forecasts for 2010. GERMAN OFFICIALS TRADITIONALLY HAVE BEEN ON THE MORE CONSERVATIVE END OF THE CENTRAL BANKERS' SPECTRUM, partly because the country's hyperinflation of the 1920s is seared into people's memories.

The ECB, the Fed and the Bank of England are increasingly vulnerable to criticism because they have played such a prominent role and CROSSED SO MANY TRADITIONAL LINES in the past several months - even though they do appear to have steered their economies away from a repeat of the Great Depression.

Although the administration of President Barack Obama has carefully avoided criticizing the Fed, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have questioned the wisdom of the Fed's power and its governance AS THEY CONTEMPLATE FAR-REACHING CHANGES TO THE NATION'S FINANCIAL REGULATORY STRUCTURE. Some private economists - and a few inside the Fed - say the Fed's aggressiveness is increasing THE RISKS OF AN OUTBREAK OF INFLATION.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, dealt the most serious blow to the Prime Minister's authority. It emerged that she will step down from the Cabinet when Mr Brown reshuffles his team after what Labour fears will be its worst performance at the polls for a generation. She had been under pressure for weeks over expenses claims made by her husband on her behalf, including for two pornographic films. However, the public disclosure of her departure before tomorrow's elections threw Mr Brown's reshuffle off course.

ON A TUMULTUOUS AND CHAOTIC DAY AT DOWNING STREET, it was also announced that Beverley Hughes would move aside from her job as Children's Minister and that Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office Minister and key ally of Mr Brown, would leave the Government. With speculation intensifying that Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, will become the most high-profile victim of the reshuffle, and that David Miliband might also be replaced as Foreign Secretary, it raised the prospect that the three great offices of state could change hands.

A GROUP OF OPPOSITION MPS SAID THAT THEY WOULD TABLE A MOTION NEXT WEEK SEEKING AN IMMEDIATE GENERAL ELECTION. Labour sources said that many of the party's MPs were in a state of panic. A private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party was described by MPs as "emotional and jittery," with several backbenchers openly accusing Mr Brown of lacking leadership and direction. Some Labour MPs reported that a list could be circulated soon with names OF THOSE WHO WANT MR BROWN TO STAND ASIDE FOR THE GOOD OF THE PARTY.

An interactive map maintained at Slate.com shows that the highest levels of unemployment are in Democratic state urban areas, including Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Newark and Washington DC – ALL CITIES THAT EXPERIENCED MAJOR RACE RIOTS AT THE END OF THE 1960s. A closer look at BLS statistics shows that unemployment in April 2009 among the white labor force was 8 percent, while unemployment among the black labor force was 15 percent.

In 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders argued that RISING EXPECTATIONS THAT HAD GONE UNFULFILLED WERE A MAJOR CAUSE OF THE 1960S-ERA URBAN RACE RIOTS. "Whether the same phenomenon will be observed with a black president remains to be seen," Corsi wrote. "The concern is that candidate BARACK OBAMA'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN THEMES OF "HOPE AND CHANGE" PERMITTED AFRICAN-AMERICANS TO EXPECT IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES IN THEIR ECONOMIC WELLBEING AND POLITICAL POWER would be experienced with President Obama in the White House."

In 1968, the US economy was operating then at what was considered a full-employment level, with white unemployment averaging around 4 percent and BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT AVERAGING AROUND 8 PERCENT. If unemployment numbers continue to escalate throughout 2009, conceivably AFRICAN-AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT RATES COULD HIT 20 PERCENT before the end of the year.

WND has provided multiple reports on what is at stake when the Senate considers a national hate crimes proposal that is to add special penalties against individuals guilty of crimes based on ethnic, religious and racial hatred – and new classifications based on sexual orientation. The legislation has been described by critics as "The Pedophile Protection Act."

Operation Save America spokesman Reverend Flip Benham said members of groups he's organized to meet in Washington to oppose the "hate crimes" plan have been threatened with arrest for even going up the Supreme Court's steps while wearing the shirts, and have been forbidden entry in other locations. "There's no way you're going to bring that (shirt) into the halls of the Senate building," he told WND. "If we had a Muslim T-shirt, or a Barack Obama T-shirt, there would be no problem, but it's who we are as Christians," he said. "THESE THINGS ARE NEVER REPORTED THROUGH OUR MAINSTREAM MEDIA, BUT AMERICAN CITIZENS NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS OCCURRING AT OUR FEDERAL BUILDINGS."

As WND has reported, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 would provide special protections to homosexual people BUT LEAVE CHRISTIAN MINISTERS OPEN TO PROSECUTION should their teachings be linked to any subsequent offense, by anyone, against a homosexual person. He said the foundational problem with the bill is that it is based on lies: It assumes there's an epidemic of crimes in the United States – especially actions that cross state lines – that is targeting those alternative sexual lifestyles. It turns out there are fewer crimes now than there were 10 years ago."

Critics also have expressed alarm because in committee hearings Democrats admitted that a Christian pastor could be prosecuted under the law if he spoke biblically against homosexuality, someone heard the comments and then committed a crime.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity. But the US and other Western governments accuse Tehran of seeking atomic weapons. "Without going into specifics, what I DO BELIEVE IS THAT IRAN HAS LEGITIMATE ENERGY CONCERNS, LEGITIMATE ASPIRATIONS. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region," Obama said.

The comments echo remarks Obama made in Prague last month in which he said his administration would "support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections" if Iran proves it is no longer a nuclear threat. Iranian state television described the news as Obama recognizing the "rights of the Iranian nation," a phrase typically used to refer to Iran's nuclear program.

Obama left Tuesday evening on a trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia aimed at reaching out to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. He is due to make his speech in Cairo on Thursday. He said he hoped to deliver the message that democratic values are principles that "they can embrace and affirm." Obama added that there is a danger "when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture."

During a conference call in preparation for President Obama's trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he will address the Muslim world, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Denis McDonough said "THE PRESIDENT HIMSELF EXPERIENCED ISLAM ON THREE CONTINENTS before he was able to - or before he's been able to visit, really, the heart of the Islamic world - you know, growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father - obviously Muslim Americans (are) a key part of Illinois and Chicago."

Given widespread unease and prejudice against Muslims among Americans, especially in the wake of 9/11, the Obama campaign was perhaps understandably very sensitive during the primaries and general election to downplay the candidate's Muslim roots.

Back then, the campaign's "Fight the Smears" website addressed the candidate's faith without mentioning his father's religion: "Barack Obama is a committed Christian. He was sworn into the Senate on his family Bible. He has regularly attended church with his wife and daughters for years. But shameful, shadowy attackers have been lying about Barack's religion, claiming he is a Muslim instead of a committed Christian. When people fabricate stories about someone's faith to denigrate them politically, that's an attack on people of all faiths. Make sure everyone you know is aware of this deception."

Since the election, however, with the threat of the rumors at least somewhat abated, the WHITE HOUSE HAS BEEN INCREASINGLY FORTHCOMING ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S ROOTS. Especially when reaching out to the Muslim world. In his April 6 address to the Turkish Parliament, President Obama referenced how many "AMERICANS HAVE MUSLIMS IN THEIR FAMILIES OR HAVE LIVED IN A MUSLIM MAJORITY COUNTRY. I KNOW, BECAUSE I AM ONE OF THEM."

Mogadishu civilians have been fleeing intense fighting between Islamist guerrillas and pro-government forces. The government says it has regained control of a second part of the city. Mogadishu's deputy mayor Abdifitah Ibrahim Shawey said Islamist insurgents had been ousted from Dharikinley police station in the south-west of the capital, after the government took Yaqshid police base in the north of the city on Monday. Following an upsurge in violence over the past month, some 200 people are crossing the border into Kenya each day, the UN says.

Hassan Noor, Oxfam's humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, told the BBC's Network Africa programme circumstances in the capital were "very dire". "The situation is really appalling," he said. "There are hundreds of children all over the area with tubes on their faces and [saline] drips on their hands. Some of them are actually unconscious and suffering from all sorts of diseases, mainly acute diarrhoea and cholera."

"I have seen the situation in Darfur, northern Uganda, some parts of Congo, but what is actually happening now in Somalia is indeed the worst kind of humanitarian situation in Africa in many years," he added. Radical Islamist militia groups, Hisbul-Islam and al-Shabab, have been locked in see-sawing battles in the Somali capital with pro-government forces that have displaced more than 60,000 civilians since 7 May.

Uptake of the MMR vaccine fell sharply after controversial research wrongly linked it to a raised risk of autism. One in four children under five has not had both MMR injections, which are needed to give full protection against measles, mumps and rubella. As a result there have been measles outbreaks across the country, and experts at the Health Protection Agency now fear a measles epidemic is likely. Sir Sandy said: "Our attempts to persuade people have failed."

"The suggestion is that we ought to consider making a link which in effect would make it compulsory for children to be immunised if they are to receive the benefit of a free education from the state." Linking vaccinations to school admission is controversial but common in other countries. It happens in the US, most of Australia, Spain and Greece.

But in the UK vaccination programmes have relied on persuading and educating parents that immunisation is not only beneficial to their children but to society as a whole. The BBC has learned, however, through a freedom of information request that THE STRATEGIC HEALTH AUTHORITY IN LONDON ASKED THE GOVERNMENT IF IT COULD INTRODUCE COMPULSORY VACCINATIONS. Specifically the SHA asked about the "feasibility of requiring an immunisation certificate for measles before children go to school."

"I don't think we have to change strong support for Israel," Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio on Monday. "We do have to retain a constant belief in the possibilities of negotiations that will lead to peace," Obama said. "And that's going to require, from my view, a two-state solution."

Obama reiterated that no settlement expansion also includes "natural growth," an allowance made by his predecessor. Obama said that the peace process would require a freeze on settling Judea and Samaria, including expansion to accommodate successive generations of Jews living there, and for the Arab side to end "the incitement that understandably makes Israelis so concerned."

Jerusalem feels that the Obama administration has backtracked from previous agreements made under Bush's tenure allowing for "natural growth" in Jewish towns within Judea and Samaria. OBAMA FEELS THAT HIS "TOUGH LOVE" STANCE WITH ISRAEL WILL RESTORE AMERICAN CREDIBILITY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD, that sometimes accuses the US of playing favourites with Israel. "Obviously we are deeply sympathetic to Israel," the US President responded. "Given past statements that Israel should be driven to the sea, annihilated, you could see why the US would back Israel."

Nevertheless, Obama said that the US wouldn't treat Israel with kid gloves: "It is important for us to be clear about what we believe to lead to peace. This is unequivocal and there will be compromise on both sides," Obama said, "Part of being a good friend is being honest. And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also US interests. And that's part of a new dialogue that I'd like to see encouraged in the region."

He looks at the proposals of the so-called 'future group', which include plans for "the mass gathering of personal data" and a "Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation with the USA in the field of freedom, security and justice", which he argues "would go far beyond current co-operation and mean that POLICIES AFFECTING THE LIBERTIES AND RIGHTS OF EVERYONE IN EUROPE WOULD NOT BE DETERMINED IN LONDON OR BRUSSELS BUT IN SECRET EU-US MEETINGS."

He notes that a formal process will start when the Commission adopts proposals in June, and that the European Parliament will be consulted when it re-assembles in September. He concludes: "We can either leave these decisions to our leaders (and an elite group of civil servants) or we can insist on an open and meaningful debate now before it is too late. The idea that the surveillance society and database state is just a UK issue is naive: it is a European one in which our government plays a very active role."