Western powers accuse Iran of seeking the atom bomb under the cover of a civilian nuclear program but Tehran denies the charge, insisting it only wants to master atomic technology in order to generate electricity. THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL HAVE NOT RULED OUT MILITARY ACTION IF THE DISPUTE CANNOT BE SETTLED THROUGH DIPLOMACY. "Iran is taking a major risk in continuing the process to obtain a military nuclear capacity," Sarkozy told a meeting in Damascus with the leaders of Syria, Turkey and Qatar.

"One day, whatever the Israeli government, we could find one morning that Israel has struck," Sarkozy added. "The question is not whether it would be legitimate, whether it would be intelligent. What will we do at that moment? It would be a catastrophe. We must avoid that catastrophe," Sarkozy told the meeting in comments broadcast on television.

Speculation about a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has risen since Israel staged an air force exercise in June which was reported to be a simulation of a strike against Iran.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its report on vaccination rates for ages 1-1/2 through 3, a day after another study came out showing no link between autism and the vaccine given to guard against measles, mumps and rubella. A record 77.4 percent of children in this age group received the full recommended series of vaccinations, the CDC said. Ninety percent of children got all but one of the six individual vaccines in the series, the CDC said.

The one exception was the four doses of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis or whooping cough vaccine, received by 84.5 percent of toddlers, the CDC said. The CDC report, based on data on 17,017 children, found that fewer than 1 percent got no vaccines. "THE IMMUNIZATION PROGRAM'S SUCCESS HINGES ON PARENTS' TRUST IN VACCINE SAFETY," CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said.

But public health officials have expressed concern in recent years that some parents fearful about vaccine safety were declining to get their children vaccinated, making them more apt to catch and spread preventable diseases. "We really recognize that ultimately our program is dependent on trust - trust of moms and dads, trust of caretakers and trust of the clinicians, pediatricians (and) family practice professionals who take care of our children," Gerberding told reporters in a conference call.

In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 123 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period. In the same time period, an estimated 245 people were shot and wounded in the city.

Schwarzenegger in June declared the most populous U.S. state to officially be in drought and declared nine counties in its farm-rich Central Valley to be in a state of emergency because water supplies were so low after two years of below-average rainfall. California's water shortages have been compounded by a federal court order to limit pumping water from the state's San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to protect a species of fish.

The delta area east of San Francisco is the state's fresh water hub. Its water is conveyed across the state, including as far away as Southern California. California's 2009 Drought Water Bank will buy water primarily from local water agencies and farmers upstream of the delta and make it available for sale to public and private water systems expecting to run short of water next year.

The last time California's Department of Water Resources set up a water bank was in the early 1990s and the agency plans much more strict guidelines for its new effort, said Wendy Martin, the statewide drought coordinator for the agency. "CALIFORNIA'S DROUGHT IS IMPACTING OUR ECONOMY, OUR AGRICULTURE AND OUR FAMILIES, AND AN END TO THESE DRY CONDITIONS IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT."

Meat and fish registered the biggest price increases in the survey, compiled on behalf of the BBC by leading retail analysts Verdict Research. The figures come amid growing concern about the high cost of food, which is exceeding the official inflation rate. The figures show price rises of nearly 50% for some food items. The index, which Verdict has been compiling since January this year, is designed to track the cost of a typical trolley of UK food items.

It divides household supermarket purchases into 13 categories, including frozen foods, fresh fruit and vegetables, ready meals and dairy goods. The index showed that during the eight months from January to August, meat and fish prices went up by 22.9%, making them the fastest-rising category. General store-cupboard items, such as tinned foods, were the next most inflation-busting sector, registering a 15% increase, while fresh fruit and vegetables went up by 14.7%. Seven items in the survey were found to have gone up in price by more than 40%.

The figures produced for the BBC are in line with other recently-published research showing the impact of food price rises on UK household budgets. On Wednesday, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said that food price inflation over the past year amounted to 10% - more than twice the official Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation rate of 4.4%.

The bulk of activity was in the United States, where sovereign funds pumped in $15.8 billion in eight transactions, 62 percent of their global total and almost five times more than 2007's figure of $3.45 billion. Sovereign funds, which are estimated to hold assets worth as much as $3 trillion, have ballooned in recent years as large Asian exporting countries such as China, and oil-rich nations such as Abu Dhabi and Russia, started putting part of their currency reserves into investment vehicles.

Some countries where the funds invest, such as THE UNITED STATES, ARE WORRIED THAT ACQUISITIONS BY THE HIGHLY-SECRETIVE FUNDS COULD OPEN KEY DOMESTIC COMPANIES TO FOREIGN CONTROL, and that they could destabilize international markets with their large-scale investments.

Mr Sarkozy is on a two-day trip to Damascus, also aimed at CEMENTING REVIVED TIES BETWEEN FRANCE AND SYRIA. France, which currently holds the EU presidency, hopes to help mediation efforts in the Middle East. Syria's president said the "Summit for Stability" would lay the basis for possible direct talks with Israel. "The summit seeks to draft a declaration of principles that would form a basis for direct peace talks between Syria and Israel," Bashar al-Assad said.

At the session was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country has mediated four rounds of indirect Israeli-Syrian talks since May. The fourth corner of the table was taken by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and his prime minister, Hamad bin Jasim al-Thani, who helped broker an internal peace deal in Lebanon, also in May.

Mr Assad said Syria had been waiting for "a fifth crucial round of talks… to determine the evolution of these negotiations", but the process had been put on hold because of political changes in Israel. Scandal-hit Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced his resignation and his Kadima party is holding elections on 17 September for a new leader, who could become prime minister.

Syria acknowledges the importance of the US in supporting Middle East peace initiatives, but says direct talks with Israel can only take place after John McCain or Barack Obama is installed in the White House next year.

"Due to the unprecedented demand for American Eagle gold one-ounce bullion coins, our inventories have been depleted. We are therefore temporarily suspending all sales of these coins," the US Mint told authorized coin dealers in a memorandum dated on Friday.

It didn't stop here with the gold eagle coins: Rand Refinery Ltd, the world's largest gold refinery, ran out of South African Krugerrands after an "unusually large" order from a buyer in Switzerland. The order was for 5,000 ounces and it will take until Mid-September for inventories to be replenished, said Johan Botha, a spokesman for Rand Refinery in Germiston, east of Johannesburg. He declined to identify the buyer.

Current annual growth in M3 is running at levels exceeding 15%. The unfolding banking crisis will only accelerate the surging money growth (bail out failing banks that are too big too fail) which in turn will fuel higher inflation. So the banking crisis caused federal spending to spike while at the same time tax revenues are on the wane due to the economic slow-down. This is of course all very dollar negative.

A GOVERNMENT DESTROYING ITS OWN CURRENCY PAVES THE WAY FOR INFLATION TAKING OFF. Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe knows exactly what I'm trying to say here since he tried to do the very same thing: printing money to prop up the economy. The result? Well, sure enough inflation took off (11 million percent) despite a complete economic halt.

Current reading of FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DEBT STANDS AT $9.6 TRILLION which is an increase of more than $4 trillion over the last 6 years. Now if the $9.6T federal debt wasn't already bad enough, the picture only worsens when looking at TOTAL US DEBT WHICH CLOCKED AN ALARMING $53 TRILLION LAST YEAR.

AS YOU CAN SEE HERE TOTAL US DEBT IS GROWING FASTER THAN ITS NATIONAL INCOME. Ever tried to run a business in which its debt grows faster than its income? Well, needless to say you would be heading straight into bankruptcy. And that's exactly what's happening with the US, they're heading straight into bankruptcy.

These plans include:-
- Control over the UK's assets
- More control over the military
- More control over Britain's borders
- Control over emergency law enforcement units
- Control over civil protection operations
- Foreign criminal friendly policies
- Expanded propaganda activities
- Using climate change to expand its foreign policy powers
- More green stealth taxes
- More control over energy policy
- Control over beauty products

Each time the anti-democratic EU legislative process passes a law, a new cost is added onto British businesses. And the legal ratchet of EU membership becomes even tighter as another area of law making becomes occupied by the EU, meaning that our own Parliament loses the right to legislate in that area. AND AS MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION THERE IS NOTHING THAT OUR OWN DEMOCRATIC PROCESS CAN DO TO OVERTURN THOSE DECISIONS.

It was a close shave, but NEW ORLEANS just managed to escape Hurricane Gustav's onslaught on Monday. But the stark truth is that the city's days are numbered. Its fate was sealed in 1717, when French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville chose a sharp bend in the Mississippi River to found "Nouvelle-Orleans", in the teeth of opposition from his chief engineer, who warned him of flooding ahead. But at least New Orleans has a network of flood defences.

MIAMI is far more vulnerable and in 1926 was totally swamped by a hurricane storm surge, although it was then only a small town. And many other large cities around the world face other appalling natural disasters.

ISTANBUL (population c 12 million) - The question is not will a big earthquake strike Istanbul but when. Fifteen large earthquakes have hit the city since the 4th century, the last in 1894, and the next one is due.

PHOENIX (more than one million) -The Arizona city could become the first in the United States to run out of water. It is built in a desert, with a yearly rainfall of only around 20cm (8in), and much of its water supply is taken from the Colorado River, which is running out of water as seven states also tap its water.

BOMBAY (more than 18 million) - Rain is killing India's most populous city. On July 26, 2005, record-breaking monsoon rains devastated Bombay and killed more than 400 people. The city's decrepit drainage system, built in the 19th century, could not cope with the deluge, and Bombay has little open space to soak up heavy rains.

SHANGHAI (more than 18 million) - The first major world city to sink under its own weight could be Shanghai. Each year it sinks around 1 centimetre (half an inch) from subsidence after too much water extraction from the ground, and from the sheer weight of skyscrapers on the soft ground it is built on.

NAPLES (At least three million live in the shadow of Vesuvius) - The volcano last erupted in 1944 and vulcanologists report that Vesuvius is in a 50-year cycle between eruptions, so it is overdue another explosion.

The continued rise in food bills, including a surge in the cost of cooking fats and oils, has raised overall shop prices by up to 3.8 per cent in the year to August, up from 3.2 per cent in July. This is the highest figure recorded by the BRC, which began its series in 2006. The consortium said that rising grain prices were behind the jump in pork prices because farmers were forced to pass on their additional feed costs to retailers.

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will announce its decision on interest rates at midday today after what is likely to have been a tricky meeting. The committee is trying to balance the twin threats of rising inflation and a stagnant economy. Inflation reached a 16-year high of 4.4 per cent last month and is expected to peak at 5 per cent before the end of the year.

The latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center, issued at 11 p.m. ET, increased Ike's maximum sustained winds to 135 mph, with higher gusts. Hurricane-force winds extended 35 miles from the storm's center of circulation. The hurricane center's official forecast puts Ike on a path toward the south Florida coast sometime early next week, though the storm's path and strength can change without warning.

Other storms in the Atlantic, have become less of a threat. Hanna, once a hurricane, weakened into a tropical storm near the Bahamas, and is forecast to strike the south eastern U.S. as a Category 1 hurricane by the end of the week. Beyond Ike in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Josephine had winds of 50 mph at 11 p.m., but appeared headed northwest into open seas, where it would weaken in the coming days.

Asked in an interview with the Financial Times whether it was feasible that US combat forces could leave Baghdad by July, he said: "Conditions permitting, yeah." His comments come as the US and Iraq hammer out the final details of a long-term security agreement that reportedly outlines A POTENTIAL TIMELINE FOR US COMBAT TROOPS TO LEAVE IRAQI CITIES BY NEXT SUMMER, AND THE COUNTRY BY 2011.

While declining to comment on the details of the security agreement, Gen Petraeus said US combat forces had already pulled back from cities in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces. The sight of US soldiers exiting Baghdad would be highly symbolic given the scale of violence that gripped the city in 2006 and 2007.

Gen Petraeus leaves Iraq later this month to become head of Central Command, which oversees US operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Before his departure, the four-star general will give President George W. Bush his final recommendation for troop levels as commander in Iraq. He will continue to help shape policy on Iraq in his new role.

A US study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found higher rates of cancer among patients prescribed Inegy. The pill combines a widely-used statin called simvastatin, which blocks cholesterol in the liver, with another drug, ezetimibe. The study found higher rates of cancer among those using the drug compared to patients taking a placebo.

Around 300,000 prescriptions for Inegy have been dispensed in the last two years in Britain. But the British Heart Foundation sought to reassure those taking the drug, saying regulators would act quickly if hard evidence of risk emerged.

Dr Mike Knapton, director of prevention and care at the British Heart Foundation, said patients who were concerned about the risk should speak to their GPs. He pointed to research by Oxford University academics which combined three studies of the drug and found there was no increased risk of cancer. And he called for closer study of patients using the combination drug.