Professor John Banzhaf, the so-called "FATHER OF POTTY PARITY" sent a letter to the Presidential Inaugural Committee warning of potential lawsuits. He says women, who take longer in the restroom, could be forced to wait in longer lines than men, and that amounts to discrimination.

Banzhaf says waiting in long lines is not just an inconvenience. It can trigger medical problems. He's asking the Presidential Inaugural Committee to make the toilets gender-neutral so that women do not have to wait longer than men.

Four hundred years on, the United Nations has decided to declare this year, 2009, an international year of astronomy. Events are being held around the world. The BBC has been given rare access to the Pope's observatory at his home outside Rome. THE OBSERVATORY AT CASTEL GANDOLFO AND ITS STAFF WILL PLAY A KEY ROLE IN THE EVENTS OF THIS YEAR OF ASTRONOMY. The catholic priests who run the centre have strong views on everything from life on other planets, to whether the Star of Bethlehem actually existed.

Meanwhile, in London, a 400-year-old set of "moon maps" created by a little-known Englishman are to go on display to mark the launch of the International Year of Astronomy. Experts say they prove their creator - Thomas Harriot - beat Galileo to become the first man to view the moon through a telescope. The Italian philosopher has long been credited with achieving the feat, in December 1609. But papers at West Sussex Record Office show Harriot managed it months earlier. Dr Allan Chapman, a science historian at Oxford University, said Harriot's composite drawing of the moon marked "the birth of modern cartography".

"Thomas Harriot was not only the first person ever to draw an astronomical body with a telescope on 26 July 1609, he rapidly developed to become an absolutely superb lunar cartographer," he said. "There weren't equivalent lunar drawings to be done for another 30 years. Tragically no-one knew of it until relatively recent times, so Galileo gets all the credit. Harriot was a wealthy gentleman with no desire for fame and fortune, unlike Galileo."

Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore said: "I'm sorry Harriot isn't better known over here... after all we all know Galileo. But Harriot was first... and his map of the moon is better than Galileo's."

According to Olmert, Bush's acquiescence, and his insistence that Rice back down from the resolution, made Rice sizzle. "She was left pretty embarrassed," Olmert told the Associated Press. After Olmert explained the resolution, and Israel's position on it, to Bush, the President called Rice to change the vote.

"He gave an order to the Secretary of State, and she did not vote in favour of it - a resolution she prepared, phrased, organized and manoeuvred for. She was left pretty embarrassed and abstained on a resolution she arranged," Olmert said.

At this week's cabinet meeting, Olmert slammed international calls for IDF restraint in Gaza. "For many years we've demonstrated restraint. We reined our reactions. We bit our lips and took barrage after barrage," said Olmert in remarks at the opening of the weekly meeting of government ministers. "No country in the world – not even those who preach morality to us – would have shown similar patience and self-control."

Last Friday, both IRELAND AND GREECE also received warnings from the ratings agency, a development that threatens to make government borrowing for the three states more expensive at a time when governments are increasingly turning to money markets to bolster diminishing tax returns.

The Financial Times reports that other countries could also see themselves subject to similar warnings in the coming days or weeks as countries take on record debt levels, in part caused by new spending programmes intended to counteract the ongoing economic crisis. ITALY, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 104 per cent is seen as particularly vulnerable. So too PORTUGAL, which is currently running a current account deficit of 12 per cent.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe unveiled new $20 billion and $50 billion notes in an advertisement in Monday's Herald newspaper. It said the notes were being introduced "for your convenience". In December, the bank printed new $10 billion notes.

But each time a larger denomination note comes, prices shoot up in the shops even though local currency is so scarce that most demand that customers pay in US dollars or South African rand. Zimbabweans are reeling from the inflation.

The largest note ever in the country was $100 billion in August, (2008) when the before the bank struck 10 zeros from the currency.
Then The Herald newspaper cost 10 new Zimbabwe dollars.
Today the paper costs $15 billion.

Elsewhere, a separate report suggested it had been the worst December for UK retail sales in at least 14 years. On 23 January, official figures are set to confirm the UK is in recession with six months of negative growth. The British Retail Consortium figures on sales from the High Street and online said that like-for-like sales in December were down 3.3% on a year ago while total sales shrank 1.4%. This made for the worst December since the survey began in 1995.

Some High Street retailers, including Sainsbury's and Greggs, have been reporting strong Christmas trading - suggesting that the economic picture is not yet entirely bleak. But food retailers were almost the only sector to show growth, the BRC said, amid what it described as "truly awful numbers". "Non-food retailers had a torrid December despite a blizzard of promotions and deals, which would have hit margins," the BRC's director general Stephen Robertson said. "Many hard-pressed customers couldn't be seduced into spending."

"It is clear that the UK economy is facing a very serious recession, and THE DOWNTURN IS DEEPENING AT AN ALARMING PACE," said the BCC report based on a survey of almost 6,000 firms which employ 680,000 people. "The results highlight a frightening deterioration in the UK economic situation."

In October, the Vatican joined Interpol, the world's largest police co-operation organisation. The city-state's gendarmes have been attending meetings of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe since 2006, he added. Joining Eurojust would be another "important step" in the fight against terrorism, both at home and abroad, Mr Picardi argued.

The Hague-based Eurojust was established in 2002 and includes senior investigators and prosecutors from each EU member state. In 2007, the European Commission proposed legislation for increasing the powers of Eurojust and granting member states automatic access TO NATIONAL DATABASES, TERRORIST CASES, CRIMINAL, DNA AND PRISON RECORDS. Eurojust is seen as A PRELIMINARY FORM OF ANY FUTURE EUROPEAN PUBLIC PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE, the creation of which is provided for under the Lisbon Treaty.

ONLY 492 PEOPLE LIVE IN VATICAN CITY, but each year, 18 million pilgrims and tourists visit the famous St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel, with the most common crime being petty theft. The assassination attempt in 1981 against Pope John Paul II and the attacks of 11 September 2001 prompted an increase in security measures, with visitors now required to pass through metal detectors to enter the basilica and attend audiences with the pope.

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Olsen and his son Matthew also revealed that the U.S. State Department is so deeply involved in the Palestinian Authority that it financed Fatah in its election campaign against Hamas. "HAMAS NEVER CALLED FOR THE ELECTIONS THAT PUT THEM IN POWER. That was the brainstorm of Secretary Rice and her staff," he and his son, who runs peace programs, wrote in the Monitor Monday morning.

"Rice was reportedly blindsided when she heard the news of Hamas's victory," the Olsens recalled. From that point, everything went downhill, according to their analysis. "She immediately insisted that the Quartet [the U.S., European Union, United Nations, and Russia] ban all contact with Hamas and support Israel's economic blockade of Gaza… The isolation was supposed to turn angry Palestinians against an ineffective Hamas."

"Finally, in mid-2007, faced with increasing chaos and the widely-known implementation of a U.S.-backed militia, Hamas – THE LAWFULLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT – struck first. They routed the Fatah gangs, securing control of the entire Gaza Strip, and established civil order."

He said he and his friend responded by placing two large Israeli flags in the windows of their third floor apartment. "During the demonstration, which went through our street, the police broke into our flat and removed the flag of Israel," he wrote. "The statement of the police was that it was done to de-escalate the situation because many youth demonstrators were on the brink of breaking into our apartment house."

"Before this they threw snowballs, knives and stones against our windows and the complete building. We both were standing on the other side of the street and were shocked by seeing a police officer standing in our bedroom and opening the window to get the flag… THE POLICE ACQUIESCED IN THE DEMANDS OF THE MOB." The mob cheered and applauded when the Israeli flag was whisked away.

The Arabic-language satellite network Al Jazeera reported that MANY OF THE DEMONSTRATORS WERE FROM THE TURKISH COMMUNITY. Hundreds of thousands of others protested throughout the world against Israel's counterterrorist campaign and burned dozens of Israeli and American flags. A crowd in London was estimated at 100,000, and tens of thousands in Paris chanted, "We are all Palestinians."

A Toronto pro-Hamas demonstrator screamed at pro-Israel supporters, "I want the war to continue because I want Hizbullah to wipe the state of terrorism off the planet....You're being wiped off the planet! That's a promise." Muslims in Denmark chanted, "Down, down Israel, down, down USA, down, down democracy, down, down Denmark." One Muslim executed the Nazi salute and shouted, "We want to kill all the Jews, all the Jews should be slain, they have no right to exist!"

Scientists are now calling for a national debate on the consequences of the screening process, called amniocentesis, which is already used to detect Down's syndrome in unborn babies. SUFFERERS OF THE DISORDER INCLUDE PEOPLE WITH EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES in mathematics and music, as well as children who are unable to communicate and require lifelong care.

Critics point out that a prenatal test would not be able to identify such differences in the effects the disorder can have on individuals. Director of the research team, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, told the Guardian: "If there was a prenatal test for autism, would this be desirable? What would we lose if children with autistic spectrum disorder were eliminated from the population?"

"We should start debating this. There is a test for Down's syndrome and that is legal and parents exercise their right to choose termination, BUT AUTISM IS OFTEN LINKED WITH TALENT. It is a different kind of condition."

The Pope has ordered thorough investigations to be carried out into people who claim they have seen visions of the Virgin Mary. He is hoping to cut down on AN EXPLOSION IN THE NUMBER OF BOGUS HEAVENLY APPARITIONS with new guidelines to help his bishops to root out frauds.

In some cases exorcists will be used to determine if a credible apparition is of divine origin or whether it is demonic. The guidelines will come in a "vademecum", or handbook, which is in its final stages and will be published soon by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It sets out step-by-step instructions on how Church authorities should deal with claims of such supernatural phenomena. The Pope is said to be deeply concerned by the explosion in the number of pseudo-mystics who, claiming a direct line to God, set themselves against the bishops AND LURE THE CATHOLIC FAITHFUL OUT OF THE CHURCH AND INTO DISOBEDIENT CULTS. The Pope decided to act because instances of private revelations continue to multiply, with new cases reported around the world every year.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, raised the spectre of Britain being forced to turn to international bodies for financial assistance. He pointed out that expected Government debt would soon be identical to the level in 1976 - when Britain infamously had to borrow emergency funds from the International Monetary Fund.

The comments are likely to be seized upon by Labour who have previously accused Mr Osborne of seeking to undermine the British economy. Labour ministers have also been angered by Conservative claims that BRITISH SOCIETY IS "BROKEN". However, the Conservatives believe that the language is appropriate and that the British public have the right to be warned. Mr Osborne points to the doubling in the national debt and the "junk" status of insuring British Government debt as evidence that the economy is "bankrupt".

The Daily Mail reports:- "Every child in Britain will owe £17,000 at birth due to Brown's 'repugnant' borrowing, says Cameron".

The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday. The spokesmen said Hamas voiced its strong opposition to the idea of deploying an international force inside the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah. "As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it," the Egyptian government official told the Post.

"THE IRANIANS THREATENED TO STOP WEAPONS SUPPLIES AND FUNDING TO THE PALESTINIAN FACTIONS if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon".

More than one-third of adults, or over 72 million people, were obese in 2005-2006, the NCHS said in its report. Although the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled since 1980, the prevalence of overweight has remained stable over the same time period, it said.

In May, the CDC reported that 32 percent of U.S. children fit the definition of being overweight, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese. Childhood and adult obesity has emerged as a growing problem not only in the United States but also in many countries around the world.

According to EU officials and diplomats, the impressive performance of Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, during his six-month spell in charge of the EU last year has strengthened the hand of those who say A BIG NAME SHOULD GUIDE THE 27-NATION BLOC.

In one sense, the discussions are premature. The full-time president will take office next year only if the EU's Lisbon institutional reform treaty, which creates the position, is ratified by all member-states – notably, Ireland, which is expected to hold a second referendum on the treaty between September and December. But the sheer scale of the challenges facing the EU – from last August's Russia-Georgia war and the global financial meltdown to the Gaza conflict and the shutdown of Russian gas deliveries to Europe – is redefining the debate.

Whereas last year Germany and other countries looked favourably on candidates such as Jean-Claude Juncker, the long-serving prime minister of Luxembourg, more policymakers now feel the EU presidency demands an occupant from a much bigger member-state. "Sarkozy concentrated minds," said an EU diplomat. "He made a lot of us think, 'When the going gets rough, YOU'VE JUST GOT TO HAVE A BIG PERSON IN THIS JOB.'"