He said the priority was to feed the hungry by closing a $755m (£380m) funding gap for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) this year. He urged donor countries to make more money available now. The WFP believes 100 million people are currently going short of food. It says only 62% of the $755m it needs to feed them has been pledged so far, and, of that, only $18m (£9m) has actually been received.

"We consider that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into an UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL PROPORTIONS that has become a crisis for the world's most vulnerable, including the urban poor," the UN said in a statement after a meeting of agency heads in the Swiss capital Berne. "The challenge is having multiple effects with its most serious impact unfolding as a crisis for the most vulnerable," it went on.

THIS INCREASES THE CHANCE THAT THE 1 JANUARY 2009 DEADLINE FOR THE DOCUMENT TO COME INTO FORCE ACROSS THE EU WILL BE DELAYED, ACCORDING TO EUOBSERVER.

Libération journalist Jean Quatremer says: "Some of you have asked me what would happen if Ireland, the only country to hold a referendum on the Treaty, voted no on 12 June. I think that an Irish no vote would not have the same impact as the French no had. The Danes voted no in 1992, and the Irish voted no to Nice in 2001. Well, the member states concocted some derogations for them and they then voted yes. A small, geographically peripheral country can only become more politically peripheral, not block the EU.

Brutally put: EUROPE WITHOUT FRANCE OR GERMANY MAKES NO SENSE, WITHOUT IRELAND OR DENMARK, IT DOES. The Union survives very well without Norway, Iceland, and even Switzerland..."

A senior European government source is quoted saying: "Changes that enter into force with the Treaty are more far reaching than people think." However, Waterfield notes "THESE ARE CHANGES THAT WILL ONLY BECOME APPARENT AFTER THE NEW EU TREATY HAS BEEN RATIFIED, BYPASSING ANY POSSIBILITY OF PUBLIC SCRUTINY OR ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE DECISIONS TAKEN."

Meanwhile, in an interview with Le Soir, Valery Giscard d'Estaing does not rule himself out as a future EU President. He also says he does not see the link between NATO and European defence. He says: "I don't really see the link between these two questions! WE NEED TO GIVE EUROPE A DEFENCE CAPACITY. Europe has a currency, a market, the beginnings of citizenship: it must have a defence, like all the other great human organisations.

Poland has indicated it would support a boost in Europe's defence activities, including setting up the bloc's own military planning headquarters. "We are in favour of a much stronger role for European defence, and that would include a military headquarters," said Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich

A piece in Le Monde argues that the EU Foreign Minister, who will also be a Vice-President of the Commission, could emerge as the strongest position in the system. It notes: "Everything will depend on the personality chosen and the shape of his future diplomatic service."

Billions of people, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, are victims of a GRADUAL AND UNSUSTAINABLE RISE IN THE PRICES OF ALL FARM PRODUCTS - wheat, soybean, rice, maize, milk, and meat. Riots are breaking out daily, and at least three dozen countries urgently need wheat and rice shipments. Why are farm prices so high? Improving diets in China, India, and many other countries are one reason. But the growing consumption of meat comes at a steep cost: FIVE TIMES MORE LAND IS REQUIRED TO FEED PEOPLE ON MEAT THAN ON CEREALS. The soaring costs of fuel and fertilizer are another major factor.

LITTLE CAN BE DONE TO CHANGE THOSE TRENDS IN THE NEAR FUTURE. But there is a policy that's rapidly aggravating the situation: repurposing land needed to produce food for biofuel production. This is putting food into conflict with fuel - at a time when both are scarce. IT'S A REAL, TRAGIC CONFLICT, AND WE MUST CHANGE COURSE. According to the latest surveys, using existing biofuel production technologies, the energy balance is only marginally positive, if not negative. Some distinguished experts maintain that 30 PERCENT MORE ENERGY IS NEEDED TO PRODUCE BIOFUELS IN THE UNITED STATES THAN THE ENERGY ACTUALLY PRODUCED.

People can no longer be allowed to starve to death in Africa simply because there are some people in the US or inside the European Union who consider that THE VOTES OF FARMERS OR LANDOWNERS ARE WORTH MORE THAN THE SURVIVAL OF MILLIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN. It is true that today's policies were decided at a time when we thought we were living in an energy-poor and food-rich world. But that is no longer the case today. It's imperative that we change policies as soon as possible, because the remedies that have been adopted so far are worse than the sickness they were designed to cure. GLOBALIZATION IS DEMANDING THE ADOPTION OF THESE SOUND POLICIES, and Italy certainly cannot evade her responsibilities.

Romano Prodi is Italy's outgoing prime minister.

Mr. Ahmadinejad and Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf said Monday - during the Iranian leader's first stop - that no barriers remained to signing a $7.6 billion pipeline deal that will provide both energy-starved Pakistan and India with natural gas. But the biggest challenge on Ahmadinejad's latest goodwill trip TO COUNTER US INFLUENCE AND REKINDLE DIPLOMATIC FRIENDSHIPS WOULD BE IN INDIA.

"Iran will undoubtedly be trying to woo New Delhi, especially now because India is a rising economic power," says M.J. Gohel, a security analyst and director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London. "India is very short on energy, so there are economic reasons for India to maintain a working relationship with Iran," he adds. "However India's long-term and strategic relationship is definitely with Washington, and I think that has been made very, very clear."

"THERE IS A GREAT DEAL HAPPENING BETWEEN INDIA AND IRAN WHICH IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC REALM," India's National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan said last week. India would not take part in "conflict diplomacy," Mr. Narayanan said, adding that Iran has "tremendous influence" in the region and that "India is better poised, better placed than anyone else" to talk to Iran.

Shoppers at some branches of supermarket chains Supersol and Mega on Friday and Saturday were amazed to find signs limiting purchases to two kilograms of rice per customer. In a statement released Sunday, Supersol explained that its policy was an outcome of record rice prices, leading to concerns that hoarders might try to purchase significant stocks of rice and sell them once supplies dwindle. "The Supersol chain has limited the sale of rice to prevent merchants from hoarding the product and making a fortune at the expense of consumers," said Supersol in response to the move.

David Finkelstein, CEO of Sugat, which imports 70% of Israel's rice, said that while no shortage was expected, the company was forced to raise prices as commodity prices surged. Finkelstein said he realized price increases were going to have a serious effect on many Israeli consumers, especially the country's poor. "It's not just rice; its potatoes and pasta and everything else," said Finkelstein. "There are no alternatives."

But Guy Rotenberg, CEO of MarketPlace, points to another factor which is pushing up prices, one which has no connection to either farmers or consumers, but rather to the markets that bridge between them. "Today there are no good alternatives for investments," said Rotenberg in a GlobesTV interview. "So there is a very heavy flow of capital into the commodities market. I believe that this is the main factor driving up prices. World rice exporters, including India and Vietnam, have taken the matter into their own hands, curbing exports in order to ensure adequate domestic supply. That has forced prices up even farther."

MORE THAN 700 PEOPLE ARE KILLED BY HEROIN IN BRITAIN EVERY YEAR: most die from overdoses, accidental and deliberate, but many victims are addicts whose bodies simply succumb to years of abuse and neglect. Then there is the collateral damage: the victims of the countless muggings, thefts and burglaries committed in pursuit of the next fix; the squalid lives of the young women driven by the craving for drugs to sell sex cheaply on the streets and make themselves vulnerable to beatings, rape and - in the case of the five heroin-addicted victims of the Suffolk Strangler - murder.

TERRORISM, BY CONTRAST, KILLED NO ONE IN BRITAIN LAST YEAR, NOR THE YEAR BEFORE and has not claimed a life since July 7, 2005, when Mohammad Sidique Khan and his cohort murdered 52 London transport passengers. Since then there have been plots and attempted attacks - some sophisticated and ambitious, others crude and inept - but al-Qaeda has been thwarted.

Yet it is terrorism that Gordon Brown says we must fear above all else. There are, he and his ministers and security officials keep telling us, 30 active plots against Britain - although keen observers might note that the number never seems to change no matter how many conspiracies are foiled. Terrorism is a high-visibility threat and rightly commands a well-resourced and highly visible response. Serious organised crime prefers to operate in the shadows - beatings behind the locked doors of brothels, drug deals done in dank stairwells on sink estates. But out of sight should not mean out of mind.

It believes that hot money accounts for between $20 to $30 of the recent increase in oil prices and that about $40 billion (£20 billion) has been invested in the sector so far this year - equal to all the money pumped into oil last year. The price rise comes despite a 400,000 barrel-a-day reduction in physical demand from the United States, which is consuming less because of its economic slowdown. This has been more than offset by funds seeking alternative investments to the falling US dollar.

Michael Waldron, energy analyst for Lehman Brothers, said: "There has been an increase in financial demand as many funds have poured into oil as a hedge against inflation and the weakening US dollar. This has been the main factor in driving the price in recent months. We do not think the fundamentals justify oil at $120 and, without financial demand, we think it would be trading at $20 to $30 below that level."

The high price of oil is having an impact on the global economy, with airlines failing and drivers paying more to fill their cars. Eos, the business-class-only airline, went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday and joins at least six other carriers that have also been grounded in the past two weeks by high costs.

For years, the original iron and concrete shelter that was hastily constructed over the reactor has been leaking radiation, cracking and threatening to collapse. The new one, an arch of steel, would be big enough to contain the Statue of Liberty. Once completed, Chernobyl will be safe, said Vince Novak, nuclear safety director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development which manages the $505 million project.

The new shelter is part of a broader $1.4 billion effort financed by international donors that began in 1997 and includes shoring up the current shelter, monitoring radiation and training experts. The explosion at reactor No. 4 on April 26, 1986 was the world's worst nuclear accident, spewing radiation over a large swath of the former Soviet Union and much of northern Europe. It directly contaminated an area roughly half the size of Italy, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

In the two months after the disaster, 31 people died of radioactivity, but the final toll is still debated. The U.N. health agency estimates that about 9,300 will eventually die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. Groups such as Greenpeace insist the toll could be 10 times higher. The old shelter, called a "sarcophagus," was built in just six months. But intense radiation has weakened it, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and rain and snow are seeping through cracks. The first step, shoring up the sarcophagus, is almost complete, Ukrainian and EBRD officials say. Later, the 20,000-ton arch ? 345 feet tall, 840 feet wide and 490 feet long ? will be built next to the old shelter and slid over it on railtracks.

Chakib Khelil, the Algerian Energy Minister and president of Opec, said that the falling value of the US dollar would continue to drive up oil prices as investors sought to store their wealth in other assets. Lehman Brothers, the bank, has said that high prices are being sustained by an influx of money into the oil market from investment funds.

It estimates that "hot money" accounts for between $20 to $30 of the recent increase in oil prices and about $40 billion (£20 billion) has been invested in the sector so far this year - equal to all the money pumped into oil last year.

Supply shortages are expected to get worse over summer, which is hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, demand usually rises in hot months when air-conditioning units are operating at full blast. If financial investors continue to pour money into oil funds, as the president of Opec has suggested, this could cause prices to spike even higher.

It's called "urban mining", scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket. The materials recovered are reused in new electronics parts and the gold and other precious metals are melted down and sold as ingots to jewellers and investors as well as back to manufacturers who use gold in the circuit boards of mobile phones because gold conducts electricity even better than copper.

"It can be precious or minor metals, we want to recycle whatever we can," said Tadahiko Sekigawa, president of Eco-System Recycling Co which is owned by Dowa Holdings Co Ltd. A tonne of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of gold on average, whereas a tonne of discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams (5.3 ounce) or more, according to a study by Yokohama Metal Co Ltd, another recycling firm.

The same volume of discarded mobile phones also contains around 100 kg (220 lb) of copper and 3 kg (6.6 lb) of silver, among other metals. Recycling has gained in importance as metals prices hit record highs. Gold is trading at around $890 an ounce, after hitting a historic high of $1,030.80 in March.

The enterovirus 71, or EV71, which can cause hand, foot and mouth disease, began spreading in Anhui province's Fuyang city from early March, Xinhua said, but was only publicly reported on Sunday. But in a sign of new attention to the outbreak, Health Minister Chen Zhu visited Fuyang at the weekend and other officials and doctors have gone to investigate.

The provincial health department will also host workshops to train more medical workers in prevention and cure of the virus, the report said. By Saturday, there were 789 cases, including 19 deaths, the majority of them children under the age of two. A total of 204 children remain in hospital, four in critical condition, Xinhua said.

Enteroviruses spread mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces and can cause high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain or its lining. EV71 outbreaks have occurred in past years in Southeast Asia and some East European countries.

The Korean Customs Service unveiled Thursday seven cloned Labrador retrievers being trained near Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. The dogs were born five to six months ago after being separately cloned from a skilled drug-sniffing canine in active service. Due to the difficulties in finding dogs who are up to snuff for the critical jobs, officials said using clones could help reduce costs.

The cloning work was conducted by a team of Seoul National University scientists who in 2005 successfully created the world's first known dog clone, an Afghan hound named Snuppy. The team is led by Professor Lee Byeong-chun, who was a key aide to disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk. Hwang's purported breakthroughs in stem cell research were revealed as false, but independent tests proved the team's dog cloning was genuine.

"They have a superior nature. They are active and excel in accepting the training," said Kim Nak-seung, a trainer at the Customs Service-affiliated dog training center. In February, all seven dogs passed a behavior test aimed at finding whether they are genetically qualified to work as sniffing dogs. Only 10 percent to 15 percent of naturally born dogs typically pass the test.

Police said the woman, identified as 42-year-old Elisabeth F, told them her father Josef had lured her into the basement of the block where they lived in the town of Amstetten in 1984, and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her. Three of her children were locked up since birth in the basement of the drab, grey building along with their mother and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.

Authorities in Amstetten, 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, were still piecing together details of the case, reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a windowless cell before escaping in August 2006.

"We are faced with a crime that is incomprehensible," Interior Minister Guenther Platter said on Austrian television. "Everything that has happened here goes beyond one's imagination. It is not going to be possible to go back to everyday normality after this," the daily Der Standard wrote in an editorial. "The whole country must ask itself just what is really, fundamentally going wrong," the paper said.

Broderick Lloyd Laswell, who is awaiting trial for murder, dropped to 22 stone (140kg) after eight months inside the Arkansas prison. He claims his vision has gone blurry while trying to exercise. The prison says the meals average 3,000 calories a day - more than the US recommended daily intake for adults. Laswell has filed a federal law suit complaining Benton County jail does not provide inmates with enough food.

According to the suit, Laswell weighed 29 stone (187kg) when he was jailed in September. Police say he has been charged with fatally beating and stabbing a man, the Associated Press news agency reported.