It was not until I saw the black sedan tailing me that I knew, for certain, I was on the right track. I had come to China to film a report about the crisis in its development model: the overheating economy, the water crisis, the growing spate of environmental protests. But, because this year is the 50th anniversary of the Great Leap Forward, I had decided to look at today's success story through the prism of the failure of 50 years ago.

In 1958, Chairman Mao decided that Chinese industry and agriculture should be modernised both at once. In the orthodox Marxist playbook, this is near impossible to do, and so it proved. Mao told people to forge steel in backyard furnaces: forests were stripped, whole villages saw their tools melted down. Mao ordered the eradication of sparrows as pests: a plague of locusts followed. Mao ordered the theories of Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko to guide Chinese agriculture: crops failed. It was not a total disaster: steel production leapt by 45%. It was only years later that Chinese demographers noticed 30 MILLION PEOPLE MISSING from the population. THE GREAT EXPERIMENT HAD CAUSED ONE OF THE 20TH CENTURY'S MOST DEVASTATING FAMINES.

China's real leap forward is happening right now, as people's living standards rise, as the country bursts out into the global marketplace. But it is still a hybrid of the market and the plan: for all the rhetoric of privatisation and marketisation, THESE PROCESSES ARE THEMSELVES A FORM OF GIANT STATE INTERVENTION.

BUT THE CRACKS ARE BEGINNING TO SHOW. The economy is overheating: 8.7% annualised inflation; a 23% rise in food prices. In a wholesale market in Shanghai, I met stallholders furious at being squeezed between rising farm prices and the low disposable incomes of their clients. In the glitzy cocktail bars of that city, I met others able to ride the wave of the overhead. SOME 150 MILLION PEOPLE ARE NOW GAMBLING THEIR SAVINGS ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE. The typical investor is young, female and wears Burberry. They are confident their government will not allow the current stock market bubble - 400% up in four years - to turn into a crash.

But when you get out of the eastern seaboard and see the industrial heartland of China, it is clear the economy may not be the biggest problem. THERE IS A WATER CRISIS: major rivers like the Yangtze are being polluted beyond repair. MEANWHILE, THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS PLANNING TO DIVERT WHOLE RIVER SYSTEMS TO FEED AND WATER BEIJING DURING THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

For me, the question is this: CAN CHINA'S GOVERNANCE SYSTEM COPE WITH THE INCREASINGLY COMPLEX AND CRITICAL DECISIONS THAT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IS POSING? In other words, is its development model sustainable - or will too rapid and one-sided progress hit the buffers, economic, environmental and social? When I spoke to Dr Fang Xing Hai, one of a new breed of communist leaders educated in the West, he was confident it can. HE REVEALED, SOMEWHAT TO MY SURPRISE, THAT THERE ARE "FACTIONS" WITHIN THE COMMUNIST PARTY LEADERSHIP AND THAT THE KEY DEBATE BETWEEN THEM IS AN ECHO OF THE DEBATE IN 1958: MORE STATE INTERVENTION OR MORE MARKET FORCES? The Chinese system, he assured me, is mature and resilient, capable of reading inputs and taking timely decisions. It could never get caught up in the hubris that propelled Mao along the path of the original Great Leap.

Those accused of opposing the Great Leap Forward were labelled rightists and purged: half a million fell victim to the anti-rightists movement in 1958. Professor Wan Yao Qiu was teaching biology at Beijing University. Denounced as a rightist, mainly he says because his boss was an outspoken critic of the party, he was expelled, sacked and exiled to the countryside where he was forced to work in a factory for 21 years. In those 21 years, he says he was treated like "an untouchable in the Indian caste system: everybody had the right to kick us, like rats crossing the street".

Released in 1979, he and his generation have not been fully cleared. I WAS DUE TO MEET FOUR OF THEM - BUT THREE WERE PLACED UNDER HOUSE ARREST FOR THE DURATION OF THE NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS. Prof Wan told me that the real lesson of the Great Leap Forward was the need for democracy, for the people to be able to supervise the government. I had found few others prepared to speak so openly about the cracks within China's governance system.

Here is the paradox: the government would repudiate everything Mao advocated in 1958. You would imagine that Prof Wan and his colleagues would be seen as visionaries: market socialists before their time. BUT NO: SO TIGHT DOES THE COMMUNIST PARTY GUARD ITS HOLD ON POWER THAT TO ADMIT THE ANTI-RIGHTIST CAMPAIGN WAS UNJUST MIGHT QUESTION ITS LEGITIMACY. Few in China will want to commemorate the events of 1958 - but to move on from the past you have to try to understand it.

The demonstration of the Paschal sacrifice is part of a study day scheduled to take place on Sunday, the First of Nissan (April 6), at the Kotel Yeshiva in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. THE STUDY DAY IS A JOINT PROJECT OF THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE, THE SANHEDRIN AND THE KING DAVID MUSEUM. It was originally planned to take place one week later, but the organizers decided to dedicate it to the memory of the eight yeshiva boys murdered in Jerusalem recently, and to hold it on the 30th day after their death.

The study day is to include a public sacrifice which is being termed A "GENERAL REHEARSAL" FOR THE ACTUAL PESACH SACRIFICE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT, a ritual prescribed by the Torah but currently forbidden by the Israel government and courts.

Lick told Ynet Monday that ACCORDING TO JEWISH LAW, ABSTAINING FROM PERFORMING THE SACRIFICE IS AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS OFFENCE, comparable in its severity to avoiding a brit (circumcision ceremony) for one's newborn boy. He explained that although Jewish law forbids Jews in an impure state (which all Jews are in as long as the Temple rites are not renewed) from entering the Temple area, an exception is made for public sacrifices like the Pesach sacrifice.

The Temple movement recently sent a formal request to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Minister of Public Security Avi Dichter, to allow them to conduct the sacrifice on the Temple Mount. "MAKING THE PASCHAL SACRIFICE IS PART OF THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WHICH IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT AND A CORNERSTONE OF DEMOCRACY," THEY WROTE.

AN ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST SAID THE SACRIFICE HAS NO PLACE IN AN "ENLIGHTENED COUNTRY" LIKE ISRAEL.

The Temple movement has conducted several Paschal sacrifices in recent years. The ceremonies took place in front of the Temple Mount, on a hill which is called the Hill of Hananyah, and on the Mount of Olives. These sacrifices, however, bore a symbolic nature and were seen as memorials to the real Pesach sacrifice, because Biblical law stipulates that the Pesach sacrifice can only be performed on the Temple Mount.

In 2007, the Temple Mount Faithful and the Sanhedrin rabbis purchased a herd of sheep and petitioned the Supreme Court to allow a Pesach sacrifice to be offered on the Temple Mount. However, the government and legal advisors to the police asked the Supreme Court to reject the plea. The act of bringing a sacrifice could threaten the general public's safety, they said, CITING THE MUSLIM PUBLIC'S "SPECIAL FEELINGS" FOR THE TEMPLE MOUNT AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A VIOLENT OUTBREAK.

Besides the planned Pesach sacrifice demonstration, next week's study day will include discussions regarding the possibility of using an electrical oven or a ceramic skewer for roasting the Pesach sacrifice.

The response from The Temple Institute can be read here

EUROZONE UNDER STRAIN AS MANUFACTURING SECTOR DIVERGENCE REACHES EIGHT YEAR HIGH - The WSJ reports that there is a growing divergence between healthy northern Eurozone economies and their southern counterparts. March figures from the Purchasing Managers Index show the manufacturing sector expanded in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, but contracted in Italy, Spain and Ireland and showed weakness in France. The results mark the most pronounced divergence among the 15 countries sharing the euro than at any time since the third quarter of 2000.

ONLY 14 PERCENT OF MEPS HAVE BUSINESS EXPERIENCE - According to FT research carried out by the Industry and Parliament Trust, MEPs have much lower levels of business experience than members of the House of Commons. The report finds that only 14 per cent of MEPs have any business experience at all, only 9 percent have at least five years experience and just 5 percent have at least ten years experience. This compares to 28 percent, 21 percent and 13 percent respectively for Westminster MPs.

NEW COMMISSIONER PLEDGES TO RE-TABLE CONTROVERSIAL HEALTH DIRECTIVE IN JUNE - Euobserver reports that new Cypriot Commissioner Androula Vassiliou - who still needs the approval of the European Parliament - has pledged to move forward with the proposed EU Health Directive, which would govern patients' rights to receive medical treatment in another EU member state and the rules on who is responsible for covering the costs. "I am already working on the proposal, and I am determined to submit it for adoption by the Commission in June," Vassiliou said, adding that it will be presented along with the Commission's pending social package, "promoting access, opportunities and solidarity for all EU citizens." The original proposal sparked plenty of controversy. "It would create two classes of citizens; those who can access the health services and those who can't and that is unacceptable," UK Labour MEP Linda McAvan is quoted as saying.

POLISH DEPUTIES APPROVE EU TREATY - The BBC reports that the Polish parliament has voted in favour of the Lisbon Treaty after weeks of argument. The opposition Law and Justice Party had threatened to vote against the treaty, fearing it could place limits on Polish sovereignty. President Lech Kaczynski also objected, putting forward an alternative bill before a compromise was reached.

MCCREEVY CALLS FOR "EARLY WARNING SYSTEM" IN EU'S BANKING SECTOR - According to the FT, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy yesterday told MEPs that "an early warning system" for the banking sector in the EU is urgently needed. He proposed changes to the so-called Basel II rules on capital requirements. There is also a proposal for a "supervisory college", bringing together supervisors from different countries, to monitor the largest financial institutions within the EU.

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has launched a formal investigation into the British government's bail-out plan for Newcastle-based Northern Rock, according to the BBC.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES MOVE TO HOARD FOOD SUPPLIES - The front page of the FT reports that an increasing number of countries are seeking to lift tariffs and restrict exports - such as India and Vietnam with rice, and Ukraine with wheat - in response to the growing food shortage. Economists have warned that such moves could force up food prices - already high from the growing demand in emerging markets and increased production of bio fuels.

However, Le Monde notes, "If, during the French EU Presidency which begins on 1 July, Washington does not support a real military planning and operations centre in Brussels, that will mean that Paris has no interest in retaking its full place within NATO as Sarkozy wants."

The Times notes that there are signs that earlier reports of 1,000 extra French troops in Afghanistan could already be unravelling, with Prime Minister François Fillon yesterday pledging "several hundred" extra troops to the mission. The article reports on an acrimonious debate in the French Parliament yesterday, and notes that only 15 per cent of the public back the deployment.

The IHT reports that senior officials in the French Socialist opposition party have dubbed Afghanistan a "new Vietnam" and criticised what they called Sarkozy's "Atlantic obsession." According to the paper, Jouyet said the uproar illustrated that for Europe to reinforce its defense capacity, it was imperative to do so under a European banner. "If we want Europeans to back this, it needs a European identity," he said.

Lord McNally, Lib Dem leader in the Lords said, "We will not abstain on a referendum amendment in the Lords. The arithmetic in the Commons is different from the Lords." He told reporters outside the Lords chamber that he would not even be moving an amendment on continued membership of the EU. He added: "WE WILL VOTE WITH THE GOVERNMENT AGAINST A REFERENDUM ON THE TREATY."

Director of the 'I Want a Referendum' campaign Neil O'Brien is quoted on PA: "The Liberal Democrats promised a referendum at the election, abstained in the Commons, and are now against a referendum in the Lords. THE LIB DEMS HAVE BEHAVED IN A DEEPLY HYPOCRITICAL AND DISHONEST WAY, SAYING ONE THING AND DOING ANOTHER."

"This is a humiliation for Nick Clegg. He has been unable to make his own peers follow his policy. This is very damaging for the Liberal Democrats' credibility. Baroness Shirley Williams, who is rumoured to have threatened defection to Labour if the Lib Dems backed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty said of the promise of a referendum: "That commitment was embarrassing. I believe it was not in the interests of this country or in the interests of a good relationship with the rest of the EU."

Labour former leader Lord Kinnock, an ex-EU Commissioner, who also spoke in the debate, said the Treaty "DOES NOT CREATE A SINGLE NEW COMPETENCE FOR THE EU".

The work is part of investigations into a number of illnesses and the university has said it may lead to the development of new therapies for debilitating human conditions such as Parkinson's disease and strokes. Embryos were created by implanting DNA derived from human skin cells into eggs taken from cows' ovaries with virtually all their genetic material removed. These lasted for up to three days in the laboratory. By law, hybrid embryos have to be destroyed after 14 days.

Professor John Burn, head of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University, said the research was licensed by the UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The leader of Scottish Roman Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, used his Easter Sunday sermon to warn that the bill was a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life". Last week, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, bowed to demands that MPs be given a free vote on the bill before parliament next month.

The comments came against a backdrop of increasing Chinese accusations that Tibetans were planning violent attacks in their quest for increased autonomy, which the Tibetans deny. "Security must take priority," Hu was quoted as saying in the People's Armed Police News, published by China's paramilitary police force. "Without security guarantees there cannot be a successful Olympic Games, AND WITHOUT SECURITY GUARANTEES THE NATIONAL IMAGE WILL BE LOST."

In one of the latest accusations, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau, Wu Heping, said Tuesday: "TO OUR KNOWLEDGE, THE NEXT PLAN OF THE TIBETAN INDEPENDENCE FORCES IS TO ORGANIZE SUICIDE SQUADS TO LAUNCH VIOLENT ATTACKS. They claimed that they fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice." A senior official in the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, immediately denied the Chinese accusations.

"TIBETAN EXILES ARE 100 PERCENT COMMITTED TO NON-VIOLENCE," said the official, Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche. "But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans." The People's Armed Police News said that a "political mobilization order" had gone out to security forces telling them to prepare for an arduous time ensuring order and control before and during the Games.

"The drums of war are sounding, a decisive battle is at hand," the newspaper said. "For the sake of the Chinese nation's image and for the honor of the People's Armed Police, let us never forget our duty."

Recent indications suggest China's war of words against the Dalai Lama, denouncing him in increasingly shrill terms as a separatist and a terrorist, has increased international support for him. On Tuesday, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that THE DALAI LAMA COULD BE INVITED "SHORTLY" TO BRUSSELS TO MEET WITH EUROPEAN UNION FOREIGN MINISTERS.

Appearing before a House committee, the executives were pressed to explain why they should continue to get billions of dollars in tax breaks when they made $123 billion last year and motorists are paying record gasoline prices at the pump. "On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said, aiming his remarks at the five executives sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a congressional hearing room.

Markey was not impressed. "These companies are defending billions of federal subsidies - while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone," he said. The companies are reaping "a windfall of revenue" while poor people have to choose between heating and eating because of high energy prices.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, many independent truckers parked their rigs and others slowed to a crawl on highways to protest high fuel prices.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), foreign leaders and overseas companies engaging with China could appear complicit if they failed to speak out about the rights violations, the London-based watchdog said on Wednesday as the volume of criticism of China grows around the world. Beijing signed up for the Games hoping they would showcase the country's progress and national unity, but the Olympics year so far has seen pressure mount, chiefly over China's policy towards Sudan and Myanmar and its human rights record, most recently in Tibet.

In and around Beijing, Chinese authorities have silenced and imprisoned human rights activists in a pre-Olympics "clean up", Amnesty said. "These actions cast doubt on whether the Chinese authorities are really serious about their commitment to improve human rights in the run up to the Olympics," Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said in a statement. "The Olympic Games have so far failed to act as a catalyst for reform. Unless urgent steps are taken to redress the situation, a positive human rights legacy for the Beijing Olympics looks increasingly beyond reach."

Days of monk-led marches in Tibet's capital Lhasa devolved into a citywide riot on March 14 that saw Chinese shops trashed and burned and cars overturned. The government says the violence killed 18 civilians and at least one police officer. The Tibet government-in-exile says around 140 people died.

Britain's biggest opposition party, the Conservatives, were hoping the Liberal Democrats would abstain from the vote on the proposal to hold a popular poll on the EU treaty, just as they did in the House of Commons. But the abstention would have a different implication in the upper house, as the ruling Labour Party does not hold a majority there. In abstaining, the Liberal Democrats would boost the chances of the referendum.

Both the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party have criticised the move. Leading Conservative MP William Hague said that the Lib Dem position on Europe was "now in total chaos. They now have a three-way split between rebel MPs who want a referendum, Lords officially voting against a referendum and a leadership lamely abstaining," he said, according to the BBC.

But when setting out the Lib Dem position, Lord McNally said: "Our general election commitment to a referendum was on a constitutional treaty. That commitment died with the constitution which was rejected by the French and the Dutch." The EU's Lisbon treaty was adopted in December 2007. It includes parts of the European Constitution, which was agreed in 2004 but failed to achieve the popular support in France and the Netherlands needed for its ratification. The new treaty is due to be adopted in national parliaments, apart from Ireland where a referendum - required by a national constitution - is scheduled for June.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice, announced on Tuesday, comes in response to a case triggered by a German citizen, Tadao Maruko, in 2005. After Mr Maruko's partner died, a German pension fund refused to pay him any survivor's benefits, claiming that only married couples have a right to a widower's pension.

But the Luxembourg-based court found that this violated EU law, outlining a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation. In practice, a person should after the death of their life partner receive a survivor's benefit equivalent to that granted to a surviving spouse, but only if national law treats same-sex partnerships in a comparable way to marriages as far as the survivor's benefit is concerned.

Some conservative politicians in Europe have criticised the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the citizens' rights document, is to become legally binding under the EU's new treaty. They claim it could serve as a back door to allowing gay marriages as well as abortions and euthanasia, depending on how the European Court of Justice interprets its articles. Only Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands recognise full same-sex marriages, while Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the UK allow for legal partnerships. France and Luxembourg have established civil contracts.

He remains "in principle opposed to referendums, as they are incompatible with representative parliamentary government, the true hallmark of the British constitutional system. It is simply not true to say that referendums have become an unavoidable part of our constitution."

She warned: "If the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified and implemented, and devolution to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland continues apace, in fifteen to twenty years time, THIS HOUSE OF COMMONS WILL HAVE ONLY TWO FUNCTIONS - ONE WILL BE TO RAISE TAXES, AND THE OTHER WILL BE TO AUTHORISE WAR."

She also warned that "If the EU Health Directive as it stands goes through in ten years time we won't be able to run the NHS." She criticised the fact that "THINGS HAPPEN BY STEALTH" so often in the European Union, saying: "MY FUNDAMENTAL MISGIVING OF THE LISBON TREATY IS THAT IN TERMS OF CHECKS AND BALANCES, it has completed the tool box, with the exception of defence and taxation, so that if the EU wishes to do something in any member state, it can use one tool or another, whether it's legislation, or whether it's court cases, you name it - it can now do it. Because it is either shared competence, or it is by co-decision, it can always do it now." SHE SAID: "WE ARE MAKING FEWER AND FEWER DECISIONS THAT MATTER... I CAN'T TELL MY CONSTITUENTS WHERE THE BUCK STOPS."

We have three objectives: TO DEVELOP A BIGGER EUROPEAN CAPACITY FOR DEPLOYMENT AND PLANNING; SECONDLY, TO ACCELERATE EFFORTS TOWARDS STANDARDISATION OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT; THIRDLY, TO STRENGTHEN THE INTERNAL MARKET IN ARMS AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS. At the end, we will have to take on the budget problem. There cannot be solidarity in security policy without an examination of budgetary solidarity."

On the role of EU President, he says, "We need a character who has an awareness of European solidarity, who has sufficient authority to shed light on the work of the European Council but who knows when to take a back seat if necessary so that consensus can be found in the Council. Jacques Delors was very good at doing that. We need to find someone who fits this profile by December. The majority of our partners do not want a representative of a country which has the most exemptions. Tony Blair has a lot of charisma, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus emerging in his favour."

Asked whether he is in favour of Javier Solana for EU Foreign Minister, he says: "It has not been ruled out. But on all these appointments, we mustn't underestimate the expectations of our citizens. With the Lisbon Treaty, they figure we are entering a new era and that it must be embodied by new personalities. IT WOULD BE DANGEROUS IF IN EUROPE WE UNDERESTIMATE THIS ASPIRATION FOR RENEWAL."

The program, in the form of a puppet show, was circulated by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). THE SHOW FEATURES A CHILD WHO HAS BROKEN INTO THE WHITE HOUSE AND THREATENS TO KILL THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT. When the latter calls for his guards, the child tells him, "There are no guards, and your people have surrendered." The boy, weeping sadly, tells the Bush puppet that he has come to kill him to avenge the death of his parents and siblings: "You killed daddy in the Iraq war... As for my mom ? you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!... You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword!"

The child also tells Bush that he has not come alone: "I have brought thousands of thousands of children from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. You have denied all these children their fathers and mothers. That's why I have come to take revenge on you and on all the criminal traitors who collaborated with you." Bush himself then begins crying, begging for mercy and offering the child toys, food and a visit to the White House. The boy then says, "You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House... because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam."

The boy also explains his desire to kill Bush "just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab" - a reference to the death of an opponent of Mohammed that is recounted at length in the Koran. The child then stabs the Bush puppet repeatedly, and the show ends with the boy saying with satisfaction, "Ahhh, I killed him." THE SHOW PROVIDES FURTHER CONFIRMATION OF THE PREMISE OF THE MOVIE FITNA, WHICH ATTEMPTS TO SHOW HOW THE KORAN ENCOURAGES MOSLEMS TO KILL INFIDELS AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD.