"There were strong and divergent views on the nature as well as the causes of the recent tragic events in Tibet," the envoy, Lodi Gyari, said in a statement issued in Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. "These views were expressed in a frank and candid manner." Each side exchanged "concrete proposals which can be part of a future agenda", Lodi Gyari said.

"Despite major differences on important issues, both sides demonstrated a willingness to seek common approaches in addressing the issues at hand," he said. A date for another round of formal talks would be finalized soon, Lodi Gyari said.

Israelis thronged Jerusalem's streets as fireworks opened the celebrations on Wednesday, while an aerial display is planned over Tel Aviv on Thursday. Israel declared itself an independent state on 14 May 1948, a day PALESTINIANS REMEMBER AS AL-NAKBA, OR "THE CATASTROPHE". The anniversary is calculated according to the Jewish lunar calendar.

The BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem says Israel has changed dramatically since it was founded, with a population nearly ten times larger, and a stronger economy and military than its founders could have dreamt of. However he says it is also a place riven by uncertainty - over its unresolved conflicts with neighbouring Arab countries and the Palestinians, and over the question of whether its own religious, political and ethnic mosaic still fits together.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke of his hopes for future peace, in a speech marking Remembrance Day, when Israelis honour soldiers killed since the state was founded. "Our conflict has been long indeed," he said. "HOWEVER, IT IS PEACE, NOT WAR THAT WE ASPIRE TO AND CRAVE."

Chinese television showed the team of climbers, carrying special high-altitude torches, reaching the summit at 0920 local time (0120 GMT). Huddled in the snow they unfurled flags and cheered for the cameras. Correspondents say China is hoping the dramatic feat will counter some of the damaging publicity from the protests during the torch's international relay.

The climbers, dressed in red padded anoraks bearing the Beijing Olympic logo, passed the flame between several torches as they traversed the icy slopes on the final steps to the summit. Holding up Chinese and Olympic flags, they cheered "Beijing welcomes you!" and "One World, One Dream", the official slogan of the Beijing Olympics. The first and last of the torch-bearers were Tibetan women. Security was very tight for the event, with other climbers being banned from the top of Mount Everest, which lies on the border between Nepal and Tibet, in China.

Both China and Nepal sealed off their sides of the mountain and the ascent organisers kept the exact plans a secret because of fears it might draw protests from pro-Tibet activists.

HE WOULD LIKE BRUSSELS TO HAVE GREATER CONTROL OVER ECONOMIC POLICY IN EURO ZONE COUNTRIES -- AND EVEN WANTS ITS MEMBERS TO SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE. Opponents of the European Union claim that Brussels already has too much influence over the internal affairs of the EU's 27 member states. They are unlikely to be thrilled by the news that a leading EU official is calling for far-reaching new powers for the EU's executive branch when it comes to member states' economic affairs -- and even foreign policy.

In the report, which has been seen by SPIEGEL, Almunia says the Commission should also have a hand in determining "adequate wage developments, flexibility and security on labor markets." He also recommends setting up an early warning system for economic crises within the euro zone, so that counter-measures can be taken in time.

According to the new proposals, THE COMMISSION WOULD ALSO REPRESENT THE COUNTRIES OF THE EURO ZONE IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS THE G-7 GROUP of the leading industrialized countries and the International Monetary Fund, instead of individual countries representing themselves.

Trials of the system, which analyses speech patterns, have made savings of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Seven councils have tested the technology, which is already used by the insurance industry to combat fraud. Critics say genuine claimants may be put off applying for help for fear of being wrongly labelled a fraudster.

Harrow Council was one of the seven areas given cash to introduce the technology. A year on, it says it has saved £420,000, partly because a third of people who received a phone call admitted their personal circumstances had changed and they may not be eligible to receive benefit anymore.

James Plaskitt, anti-fraud minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, said: "The important thing to understand is it flags up a risk, it doesn't prove the fraud in itself. It's an important additional bit of tooling." The lie detectors are expected to be rolled out nationally, with the government claiming they will save taxpayers tens of millions of pounds a year.

Some 5,499,000 of the population (75.5 percent) are Jews, 1,461,000 (20.1%) are Arabs and the remaining 322,000 (4.4%) are immigrants and their offspring who are not registered as Jews by the Interior Ministry.

According to the CBS statistics, since last Independence Day, the country's population has risen by some 130,000, with most of this increase being attributed to natural growth. 156,400 new babies have been born and some 18,000 new immigrants have arrived.

When the state was established, there were only 806,000 residents, with this number reaching its first and second million in 1949 and 1958 respectively. In 1990, Israel's population hit five million and in 1998, after the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union, it numbered six million.

According to diplomats, United Nations officials and a variety of non-government organizations, NORTH KOREA STANDS YET AGAIN ON THE BRINK OF A MAJOR FOOD SHORTAGE. "The prospect of hunger related deaths in the next few months is approaching certainty," says Marcus Noland, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute and co-author of a just released study raising alarms about the prospect of renewed famine. In fact, one Seoul-based NGO, the Research Institute for North Korean Society, asserts that there have already been a handful of people in small, agricultural villages who have died from starvation.

The emerging shortages demonstrate, again, how vexing it is for the outside world to deal with Kim Jong Il and his regime. Less than two weeks after U.S. intelligence officials in Washington presented evidence that Pyongyang had helped Syria build a nuclear reactor - a site destroyed by the Israeli air force last September - sources tell TIME that a team of U.S. diplomats and officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development is now in Pyongyang, as part of the overall nuclear talks, trying to negotiate an expedited package of food aid. THE U.S. HAS PROPOSED GIVING THE NORTH 500,000 METRIC TONS OF GRAIN, but only if the North agrees to some monitoring of its distribution to ensure that the food is not diverted to the military or to the North Korean political elite.

The carefully choreographed summit between Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao - the first visit by a Chinese president to Tokyo in a decade - was aimed at bolstering ties between the Asian giants. The two also discussed China's contentious handling of protests in Tibet. Fukuda praised Beijing for agreeing to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader. "We see the talks as a first step. We take them seriously," said Hu, adding that it was important for both sides to avoid "separatism, violence and obstructions to the success of the Olympics."

Fukuda also said he hoped for a successful Beijing Olympics, recalling THE 1964 SUMMER GAMES IN TOKYO THAT MARKED JAPAN'S EMERGENCE ON THE WORLD STAGE AFTER ITS DEFEAT IN WORLD WAR II. Fukuda, however, said he had not decided whether to attend the opening ceremony. "The world is watching. We hope the Chinese government and people realize this and that people will be able to watch the games with pleasure," he said.

Fukuda also said the countries were on the verge of a resolution of a thorny dispute over THE EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL GAS FIELDS IN THE EAST CHINA SEA. China is tapping the fields, but Japan says they should be jointly developed. They announced the holding of annual summits, and repeatedly called for a new period of warm, future-oriented relations. "WE AGREE THAT COOPERATING TOWARD LONG-TERM PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE," they said in a joint statement released after the summit.

The Pope will text daily messages of inspiration and hope during the six-day Sydney event while digital prayer walls will be erected at event sites and the church will set up a Catholic social networking Web site akin to a Catholic Facebook. The Catholic Church said it decided to use technology to connect to the estimated 225,000 young Catholics expected to attend the World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations that start on July 15.

"We wanted to make WYD08 a unique experience by using new ways to connect with today's tech-savvy youth," Bishop Anthony Fisher said in a statement on Wednesday. Australian telecoms firm Telstra will provide voice, data, mobile, broadband and broadcast services for the event, as well as erect digital prayer walls at event sites. Telstra said it plans to connect 8,000 volunteers, 2,000 clergy, 3,000 media and an anticipated 225,000 pilgrims to more than 700 locations around Sydney.

Australia's Catholic nuns are already praying for good weather for the Pope's visit. The Catholic church is the biggest in Australia with about 5 million members, compared to about 4 million Anglicans among the nation's 21 million people.

THE UNITED STATES IS THE WORLD'S TOP PRODUCER AND EXPORTER OF CORN, which is largely used for animal feed. But with nearly A QUARTER OF THE U.S. CORN CROP GOING TO ETHANOL PRODUCTION, any decline in yields could tighten supplies at a time when the weak dollar has boosted exports, pushing prices even higher and adding to food inflation.

"There is so much going on you can't afford to lose any corn acres, and if you look at the last three years we haven't been above 151 bushels per acre and there is nothing this year to indicate anything different," said analyst Randy Mittelstaedt of Chicago trade house R.J. O'Brien. PRICES ARE UP ROUGHLY 60 PERCENT FOR THE YEAR AND A HUGE 170 PERCENT OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS. The effects are being felt by consumers through higher prices for food items like cooking oil and corn flakes.

Meat companies are also feeling the pain. The largest U.S. chicken producer, Pilgrim's Pride Corp, said on Monday its FEED COSTS WILL RISE BY MORE THAN $800 MILLION IN FISCAL 2008 ending in September. The rise in food prices has triggered criticism over the use of corn to produce ethanol.

Chaiten erupted last Friday, sending a towering plume of ash, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) into the sky, that has since coated the surrounding area of southern Chile and reached into neighboring Argentina. No lava flow has yet been detected down Chaiten's sides, but Chile's National Emergency Office said the volcano was spitting bits of molten rock and that remaining civilians and troops were being evacuated across a fjord. "The situation has changed suddenly," national emergency official Rodrigo Rojas said in an interview. "Today the volcano is erupting with pyroclastic material on a different scale."

The government ordered the evacuation of a 30-mile (50 km) radius around the volcano - which lies some 760 miles (1,220 km) south of the capital, Santiago - including two dozen people who had refused to leave their homes and animals. It appealed to anyone still on remote farms in the area to leave.

The ash is more than 6 inches (15 cm) thick in some places near Chaiten, contaminating water supplies and coating houses, vehicles and trees. Thousands of head of cattle are being moved out of the area. Chile has the world's second most active string of volcanoes behind Indonesia. It is home to 2,000 volcanoes, 500 of which experts say are potentially active. Around 60 have erupted over the past 450 years.

Hand, foot and mouth is a common childhood illness, but the current outbreak has led to 28 fatalities in China, mostly when linked with enterovirus 71 (EV71), which can cause a severe form of the disease, characterized by high fever, paralysis and meningitis. China's official Xinhua news agency put the number of cases of hand, foot and mouth disease at 15,799, up from about 12,000 cases reported on Tuesday, though it was not clear whether the jump was due to the disease's spread or more thorough reporting.

"The situation is completely different from SARS," Zhong Nanshan, a Chinese expert on respiratory diseases, said in an article posted on the government Web site of southern Guangdong province, where SARS was discovered in 2002. "At present, the disease has already been diagnosed and there is proper prevention, so it will not evolve into a SARS-like epidemic."

Hand, foot and mouth disease is also making the rounds of other parts of Asia, with Singapore reporting a 75 percent surge in hand, food and mouth cases to 10,490 this year compared with last year, while Vietnam's health ministry said the country had about 3,000 cases in the first four months of the year, more than the total number of reported cases for 2007.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said COASTAL DEVELOPMENTS HAD RESULTED IN MANGROVES, WHICH ACT AS A NATURAL DEFENCE AGAINST STORMS, being lost. A study of the 2004 Asian tsunami found that areas near healthy mangroves suffered less damage and fewer deaths. Mr Surin, speaking at a high-level meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore, said the combination of more people living in coastal areas and the loss of mangroves had exacerbated the tragedy. "Encroachment into MANGROVE FORESTS, WHICH USED TO SERVE AS A BUFFER BETWEEN THE RISING TIDE, BETWEEN BIG WAVES AND STORMS AND RESIDENTIAL AREAS; all those lands have been destroyed," the AFP news agency reported him as saying. "HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOW DIRECT VICTIMS OF SUCH NATURAL FORCES."

His comments follow a news conference by Burma's minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, who said more deaths were caused by the cyclone's storm surge rather than the winds which reached 190km/h (120mph). "The wave was up to 12ft (3.5m) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," the minister said. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

Mangroves have been long considered as "bio-guards" for coastal settlements. A study published in December 2005 said healthy mangrove forests helped save Sri Lankan villagers during the Asian tsunami disaster, which claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people. While TWO PEOPLE DIED IN THE SETTLEMENT WITH DENSE MANGROVE and scrub forest, UP TO 6,000 PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES IN A NEARBY VILLAGE WITHOUT SIMILAR VEGETATION.

Archbishop Rowan Williams told Vatican Radio before his encounter with the Pope today that he was expecting "a fairly informal and low-key meeting." Williams added: "I hope to bring him up to date on our plans about the Lambeth conference, perhaps to discuss with him a little what's going to be happening at the [Christian-Muslim] conference this week at Palazzola and just touch base with him about China, the initiatives we're involved in with regard to the churches in China."

The Anglican leader is in Rome this week for the 7th Building Bridges seminar with Christian and Muslim scholars, scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday. Vatican Radio noted that some people consider the current relationship between the Holy See and the Anglican Communion to be in its most difficult moment since the Second Vatican Council.

"It depends where you're looking from," Williams responded. "I think that in terms of the conflicts within the Anglican Communion then yes, it's an unprecedentedly difficult time, no two ways about that." The Anglican Communion is facing a fracture because parts of the group, notably the Episcopal Church in the United States, have approved the ordination of women and homosexuals as bishops.

However, Williams noted that partially through the work of the Anglican Center in Rome, "tremendously deep foundations have been laid" in the Anglican-Catholic relationship. The Anglican Center was founded in 1966 on the wave of ecumenical enthusiasm engendered by Vatican II and the birth of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission.

Retail gas prices edged lower, but appear poised to rise to new records of their own in coming weeks. A new Goldman Sachs prediction that oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years seemed to motivate much of Tuesday's buying, although a falling dollar and increasing concerns about declining crude production in Mexico and Russia contributed, analysts say.

The Energy Department raised its oil and gasoline price forecasts, but also predicted that high prices will cut demand more than previously thought. Oil prices have nearly doubled from about $62 a barrel a year ago, which Goldman sees as a sign that the world is in the midst of a "super spike" in oil prices. Analyst Arjun Murti said in a research note released Monday that prices would ultimately force demand to fall sharply.

Not everyone shares Goldman's view. Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., countered Goldman's analysis with a note predicting that crude prices could as easily fall to $40 a barrel as rise to $200 over the next two years because supplies are, as Evans put it, comfortable.