When finished in 18 months' time, the facility will house Virgin Galactic's space tourism business and other firms working in the commercial space arena. It will cost the New Mexico government almost $200m (£121m). Steve Landeene, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, said: "THE FUTURE IS HERE AND WE ARE NOT TOO FAR OFF A NEW AGE OF SPACE.

"It is not just about private astronauts going up, it is about bringing the cost structure down and about new medicines, solar power in space and the entire range of scientific benefits that can come from it." When finished, Virgin Galactic - which hopes to begin regular tourist flights into space not long after the spaceport is completed - will base its headquarters and operations here, providing much of the spaceport's business, though Spaceport America is keen to point out it will not solely rely on the company.

If all goes to plan, the inaugural flight should carry Sir Richard Branson, his family and spaceship designer Burt Rutan on a sub-orbital ride within two years. They will be followed by a waiting list of 300 who have all ignored the current economic climate and are willing to pay about $200,000 for the privilege of experiencing six minutes of weightlessness during the two-hour flight.

In addition, a member of the Hamas terrorist organization's parliament in Gaza made similar accusations against Pepsi last year. Speaking on official Hamas TV station Al-Aqsa TV on April 23, 2008, Hamas MP Salem Salamah said, "There are companies established by the colonialists and occupiers - large companies with branches all over the world, like Pepsi, Pepsi Cola. This is a well-known company. Pepsi is an acronym. P-E-P-S-I - Pay Every Pence to Save Israel. Pay every pence - pence is one-hundredth of a dollar – to save Israel. Pay every pence to save Israel…"

Al-Aqsa TV promotes terrorist activity and incites hatred of Jews and Israelis, according to the Anti-Defamation League. More recently, this past February, Egyptian cleric Hazem Abu Ismail made a similar accusation. Speaking on Al Nas TV – a Muslim religious channel in Egypt that provides Islamic programming for Muslim Muftis – Abu Ismail all but CALLED FOR A MUSLIM BOYCOTT OF PEPSI BECAUSE IT STANDS FOR 'PAY EVERY PENNY SAVING ISRAEL.' Abu Ismail said a penny is "one-thousandth of a dollar."

They say: "Donate the small change you don't need, but give it to the right cause. If you collect small change, you can buy this drink." They took the first letter of each word - "Pay Every Penny Saving Israel" - and they formed the word "Pepsi." When you pay [to buy Pepsi], you are saving Israel. I am not talking about Pepsi, but about Coca Cola and all of them. I don't want to specify the products. See for yourselves. You are Muslims. You can tell me. I don't know. My little son knows more about the boycott than me. When we go shopping, he says to me: "Buy this, don't buy that." He knows them by heart. He has become an expert in this.

Carter's comments came during a joint press conference with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh following their meeting today in Gaza. The former president said he tried to convince Hamas leaders to denounce violence, accept the existing interim agreements and recognize the right of the Jewish state to exist. "Hamas leaders want peace and they want to have reconciliation not only with their Fatah brothers but also eventually with Israelis to live side by side, with two nations, both sovereign nations recognized by each other and living in peace," Carter said.

Haniyeh told Carter that he supported any plan that aims at preserving Arab rights and leads to the establishment of a sovereign Arab state on all the territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967 "WITH JERUSALEM AS ITS CAPITAL." He urged Carter to pressure Israel to lift the security blockade which was imposed on Gaza's border crossings to prevent weapons smuggling.

Asked about his feeling after touring Gaza, Carter said, "MY FEELING IS A FEELING OF SADNESS, ANGER AND DESPAIR AFTER SEEING ALL THIS DESTRUCTION THAT WAS CAUSED TO INNOCENT PEOPLE." He said that he would send President Obama a report explaining in details the situation in Gaza. The White House is livid with Carter, according to an experienced Middle East expert who was quoted on the website of the widely respected Foreign Policy magazine. "JUST LIKE WITH PRESIDENT CLINTON, CARTER IS BECOMING A HUGE PROBLEM AND A GROWING CONCERN FOR OBAMA," he said.

"Seldom can a British Government have gone into European negotiations with a greater lack of morale or democratic authority as a result of these elections", he said, according to PA. Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, criticised the appointment of Glenys Kinnock as Europe Minister, saying "to have a situation where the Europe Minister is not in the Commons, I think it is deeply, deeply unsatisfactory."

Labour MP for Glasgow South West Ian Davidson said that the results of the European elections were not solely due to the MPs' expenses scandal, adding "IT'S PERFECTLY CLEAR THAT BEING ASSOCIATED WITH EVER-CLOSER UNION IS TOXIC and I would have thought the Government would want to take that into account. I don't think the Government's commitment to democratic renewal will be taken seriously until we re-visit the question of a referendum on the European constitution."

An analysis in FAZ by Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger notes that US President Obama is said to have told David Cameron that, if he becomes the next PM, THEN THE QUALITY OF "OUR RELATIONSHIP" WILL DEPEND ON THE QUALITY OF BRITISH ENGAGEMENT IN THE EU.

It reported record UK losses in 2008 and tens of thousands of staff have lost their jobs. According to the Mail on Sunday, the RBS corporate hospitality package is costing up to £300,000. An email leaked to the paper describes the bank's booking of an "entertainment suite" for more than 42 guests for each of the tournament's 13 days, at a cost of at least £19,500 a day.

In addition, the bank will pay up to £100 for each Centre Court seat and £75 a head for lunch. Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said the spending was "TOTALLY INSENSITIVE". He added: "THE PUBLIC MOOD WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS KIND OF SELF-SERVING EXTRAVAGANCE. It's not acceptable for corporate fat cats to have a good time at the public expense."

John Mann, a Labour MP on the Commons Treasury Select Committee, said: "There is no place whatsoever for this kind of largesse at the current time. THESE PEOPLE ARE QUAFFING CHAMPAGNE WHILE MAKING THEIR EMPLOYEES REDUNDANT. THIS IS GREED FEEDING GREED."

An unusually cool late spring may be helping keep the infection going in the US Northeast, especially densely populated areas in New York and Massachusetts, the officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And infections among healthcare workers suggest that people are showing up at work sick - MEANING THAT WORKPLACE POLICIES MAY BE CONTRIBUTING TO ITS SPREAD, the CDC officials said. The new strain of swine flu is officially a pandemic now, according to the World Health Organization.

So far the virus is causing mild to moderate disease, but it has killed at least 167 people and been confirmed in nearly 40,000 globally. The United States has been hardest hit, with upward of 100,000 likely cases and probably far more, with 44 deaths and 1,600 hospitalized. "THE FACT THAT WE ARE SEEING ONGOING TRANSMISSION NOW INDICATES THAT WE ARE SEEING SOMETHING DIFFERENT," the CDC's Dr Daniel Jernigan told a news briefing.

"And we believe that that may have to do with the complete lack of immunity to this particular virus among those that are most likely affected. And those are children," Jernigan added. CDC's Dr Mike Bell said, "WE'RE BEGINNING TO SEE A PATTERN OF HEALTHCARE PERSONNEL-TO-HEALTHCARE-PERSONNEL TRANSMISSION in some of the clusters, which is also concerning, because it gets to the issue of people showing up to work sick."

"The government told us several times they would help us and they didn't," he said, crouching barefoot on the ground in traditional Afghan loose shirt and trousers and explaining he feeds a family of 15 on occasional work as a day laborer. "If the government or the aid organizations don't help us - yes we will have to start growing opium," he said.

Wadud and around 30 other village elders from the area had gathered on a hillside deep inside the Hindu Kush mountains, to attend a "shura," or meeting, organized by provincial authorities to dissuade the men from growing the drug.

Their Badakhshan province in remote northern Afghanistan has been a showcase for government efforts to battle the drugs trade, WHICH ACCOUNTS FOR NEARLY ALL THE WORLD'S HEROIN. Until 2006 Badakhshan was one of the main opium growing areas in Afghanistan, producing the country's second biggest crop. Despite a marginal drop in production, AFGHANISTAN LAST YEAR STILL PRODUCED MORE THAN 90 PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S OPIUM, a thick paste from poppies which is processed to make heroin.

Last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. ONE REASON: THE DISCLOSURE OF SUCH RECORDS MIGHT IMPINGE ON PRIVILEGED "PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS."

The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."

The hard line appears to be no accident. After Obama's much-publicized January 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno.

But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said THE NEW STANDARD APPLIES "IF PRACTICABLE" FOR CASES INVOLVING "PENDING LITIGATION." Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other "lawyerly hedges" means the Holder memo is now "astonishingly weaker" than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)

Druid ceremonies took place alongside music and Morris dancing, however overcast skies obscured the sun. The event to mark the dawn of the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere has grown in popularity since a four-mile exclusion zone around the site was lifted nine years ago.

Druid King Arthur Pendragon told the BBC shortly before sunrise: "It's a very nice atmosphere and everything's fine at the moment. There have been more police present this year, more security, but everything's passed off very jovially and everyone's in a good mood. And the police for the most part are wishing people a happy Solstice and so are the security guards."

English Heritage issued an advisory note to visitors which warned: "The police will be on site during the access period and will take immediate action against anyone flouting the law. Summer Solstice is not a good time to experiment with drugs - the crowd, the noise and the sheer size of the place are likely to make any bad reaction much, much worse."

Senior bishops have signalled their backing for the paper, which is set to trigger a debate at the General Synod, the Church's parliament, over the alleged marginalisation of religious broadcasting. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, met with Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, in March to challenge him about the issue. Now a motion prepared for the Synod calls on the corporation to explain the decline in its coverage of religion and its failure to provide enough programming during key Christian festivals.

The document accompanying the motion, published ahead of next month's General Synod in York, criticises the lack of regular religious programmes on BBC television and ALLEGES THAT MR AHMED, A MUSLIM, DISPLAYED ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS WHILE IN CHARGE OF COMMISSIONING AT CHANNEL 4. "The regular BBC Television coverage of religion consists of just two programmes." the Church paper says.

The ambulance staff are being encouraged to walk along Brighton's seafront in their uniform at this year's Pride festival. A South East Coast Ambulance Service paramedic said the local NHS Trust had said it would pay £40 each, the equivalent of two hours' overtime, for workers to take part in their own free time. DESPITE THE OFFER, PARAMEDICS SAY THE TRUST HAS RECENTLY STOPPED PAYING OVERTIME WHILE THEY ARE ACTUALLY ON DUTY.

The trust, which covers parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, has displayed posters around its headquarters advertising the march with an ambulance covered in rainbow-coloured balloons, offering staff free transport and refreshments. One paramedic told The Daily Mail: "THEY'VE HAD TO BRIBE PEOPLE WITH THE OVERTIME CASH BECAUSE THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF STAFF ARE STRAIGHT AND NOT TOTALLY COMFORTABLE ABOUT GIVING UP THEIR FREE TIME TO GO ON A GAY MARCH."

Ann Widdecombe, the Tory MP, said: "IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO USE TAXPAYERS' MONEY IN THIS WAY, ESPECIALLY AS IT'S A POLITICAL MOVEMENT. The fact that the ambulance service is having to bribe paramedics to go is even worse. It would be much better to let them take a day off so they can get refreshed before they have to start their vital work saving lives." Mark Wallace, from the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "If ambulance staff want to go to the march on their own behalf in their own time then that's fine, but there's no way we should pay for them to go on this march. The ambulance service is there to answer 999 calls and not for attending political events."

French officials launched the commando operation after insect experts warned that as many as six billion mosquito larvae had started hatching in swampland near the France-Belgium border – less than 100 miles from the south coast of England. Unusually warm, damp weather has brought on the mass hatching.

Experts are particularly concerned about the potential arrival of the ASIAN TIGER MOSQUITO – a striped monster almost twice the size of the average mosquito, and which can carry the chikungunya fever, which has already infected people in northern Italy.

Corn coated with bacteria that is harmless to man but lethal to mosquitoes was sprinkled over the area this week. A local authority spokesman said the operation had been successful but had not eradicated the insects. "We need to remain vigilant to avoid an new outbreak," he said.

It is part of the ritual of European Union summits for the leaders of the 27 member states to pat themselves firmly on the back. Each one then explains how proud he or she is of what they were able to achieve for their country. Friday proved to be no exception, with Chancellor Angela Merkel stating that the planned European financial regulations watch dog had been designed in a way that pleased Germany. She said that there had been "considerable movement" on the part of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has been perceived as a sort of defense attorney for London's bankers.

But Merkel's assessment of the agreement with Ireland over a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was noticeably reserved. In such events, Merkel is usually known for using terms like "historic," but on Friday she spoke of a "further hurdle" being cleared, "no more and no less."

Nevertheless, the compromise is the most important decision taken this year in European policy because it means that, after years of painstaking negotiations, A BREAKTHROUGH FOR A NEW EU MAY BE JUST AROUND THE CORNER. IT IS NOW LIKELY THAT THE LISBON TREATY WILL GO INTO EFFECT BY THE END OF THE YEAR. Then the EU would get a president, a foreign minister and the role of the European Parliament would be strengthened considerably.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that the US is concerned that PYONGYANG MIGHT SOON FIRE A MISSILE TOWARD HAWAII. Some senior US officials expect a North Korean test by midsummer, even though most don't believe the missile would be capable of crossing the Pacific and reaching Hawaii.

Mr. Gates told reporters that the US is positioning a sophisticated floating radar array in the ocean around Hawaii to track an incoming missile. The US is also deploying missile-defense weapons to Hawaii that would theoretically be capable of shooting down a North Korean missile, should such an order be given, he said. "We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile... in the direction of Hawaii," Mr. Gates said. "We are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory."

The US moves come as strains intensify between the US and North Korea. Earlier this year, Pyongyang test-fired a missile that flew over Japan before crashing into the Pacific Ocean. On May 25, Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device at a test site near its border with China, drawing rare rebukes from Moscow and Beijing.

Persistently HIGH FOOD PRICES HAVE ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO THE HUNGER CRISIS. The director general of the FAO said the level of hunger, one-sixth of the world's population, POSED A "SERIOUS RISK" TO WORLD PEACE AND SECURITY. The UN said almost all of the world's undernourished live in developing countries, with the most, some 642 million people, living in the Asia-Pacific region.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the next worst-hit region, the figure stands at 265 million. Just 15 million people are left hungry in the developed world. "The silent hunger crisis - affecting one-sixth of all of humanity - poses a serious risk for world peace and security," said Jacques Diouf. "We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

The increase in the number of hungry people was blamed on lower incomes and increased unemployment, which in turn reduced access to food by the poor, the UN agency said. But it contrasted sharply with evidence that much of the developed world is richer than ever before. "IT'S THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY THAT WE HAVE SO MANY HUNGRY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD," said FAO spokesman Kostas Stamoulis, director of the organisation's development department. "And that's a contradiction, because a lot of the world is very rich despite the economic crisis."