"The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women," Huckabee said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we're paying so that the Saudis get rich ? filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas - schools that train the terrorists," said Huckabee. "America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It's absurd. It's embarrassing."

Huckabee said "I would make the United States energy independent within 10 years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil just like they can keep their sand, that we won't need either one of them."

As participants gather for tomorrow's Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland, the spotlight is on the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Saudis-? but the most important consideration lies closer to home: how will President Bush fare in a belated attempt to play peacemaker.

The reasons propelling the various parties to attend the conference are well known. They include the common domestic weaknesses of Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Mr Bush himself. For all three, a genuine and concerted push for peace would improve their standing at home.

But if the moment is unusually propitious for negotiation, never have the obstacles to a peace deal been higher. It was not clear yesterday whether even a joint document would be agreed. The Saudi foreign minister is refusing to shake hands with the Israelis.

With Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians are divided. Mr Abbas speaks for only part of his people; without Hamas' backing, any deal he does strike could be meaningless. Weakened at home, Mr Olmert will have to show real courage to make concessions that will be bitterly opposed by the settler movement and his religious coalition partners.

At best, what will emerge is a declaration that both sides want a settlement, based on resolution of the familiar "final status" issues: Israeli settlements and the borders between the states, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and Jerusalem.

The best-selling author and former presidential candidate is on the eve of launching his new epic book: DAY OF RECKONING: HOW HUBRIS, IDEOLOGY AND GREED ARE TEARING AMERICA APART. This time, Buchanan goes all the way: "America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive."

- The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America's global commitments.

- The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments.

- U.S. manufacturing is being hollowed out.

- The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico.

- The culture is collapsing and the nation is being deconstructed along the lines of race and class.

- A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed.

- All these crises are hitting America at once -- a perfect storm of crises.

Specifically, Buchanan contends:

- Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam.

- Bush's invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of "democratism" to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11.

- Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.

- The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America's borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.

- Free trade is shipping jobs, factories and technology to China and plunging America into permanent dependency and unpayable debt. One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush.

- "Sovereign Wealth Funds," controlled by foreign regimes and stuffed with trillions of dollars from U.S. trade deficits, are buying up strategic corporate assets vital to America's security.

- As U.S. wages are stagnant, corporate CEOs are raking in rising pay and benefits 400 to 500 times that of their workers.

- The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to our survival as one nation than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq. European-Americans, 89% of the nation when JFK took the oath, are now 66% and sinking. Before 2050, America is a Third World nation.

- By 2060, America will add 167 million people and 105 million immigrants will be here, triple the 37 million today.

- Hispanics will be over 100 million in 2050 and concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans believe belongs to them.

SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 242, 1967 - This was passed on 22 November 1967 and embodies the principle that has guided most of the subsequent peace plans - the exchange of land for peace. The resolution is famous for the imprecision, in English, of its central phase concerning an Israeli withdrawal - it says simply "from territories".

CAMP DAVID ACCORDS, 1978 - There were several peace plans following the 1967 war, including one by Yigal Allon, an Israeli general who proposed that Israel give back to Jordan the highlands of the West Bank while retaining a defensive line along the Jordan valley. However, nothing happened until after the war in October 1973, during which Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal. There followed a new mood for peace, at least between Israel and Egypt, as was shown by a historic visit to Jerusalem by the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in November 1977. The treaty has lasted, and it substantially strengthened Israel's position. However the peace between Egypt and Israel has not been warm. President Sadat was himself later assassinated.

THE MADRID CONFERENCE, 1991 - The symbolism of Arab countries other than Egypt openly negotiating with Israel was probably the main achievement of the Madrid conference. The Palestinian track soon gave way to secret talks that led to the Oslo agreement.

ISRAELI-SYRIAN TALKS - After the Madrid conference in 1991, direct talks began between Israel and Syria. Syria's main demand was for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee that Israel had captured in 1967. Syria claims that in talks in 1995, the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed to a total pullback. However, the Israelis say this was only a theoretical acceptance and that it depended on the full normalisation of relations, a condition that Syria, it claims, did not accept.

OSLO AGREEMENT, 1993 - The Oslo negotiations tried to tackle the missing element of all previous talks - a direct agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, represented by the PLO. Its importance was that there was finally mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. The PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands. There was opposition within Israel from settler-led groups. Oslo was only partially implemented.

CAMP DAVID, 2000 - Various attempts were made (including at Taba in 1995, the Wye River in 1998 and Sharm el-Sheikh in 1999) to speed up the withdrawal and self-government provisions of Oslo. Then in 2000, President Bill Clinton sought to address the final status issues - including borders, Jerusalem and refugees - that Oslo had left on one side for later negotiation. The failure at Camp David was followed by a renewal of the Palestinian uprising or intifada.

TABA, 2001 - Although he was about to leave office, Bill Clinton refused to give up and he presented a "bridging proposal" which set up further talks in Washington and Cairo and then Taba in Egypt. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, fighting an election campaign, said that "nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon " and said that he could not commit a subsequent government to what he called the "ideas" coming out of the talks. With the election of Ariel Sharon in February 2001, time ran out.

SAUDI PEACE PLAN, 2002 - After the failure of bilateral talks and the resumption of conflict, the Saudi peace plan presented at an Arab summit in Beirut in March 2002 went back to a multilateral approach and in particular signalled a desire by the Arab world as a whole to put an end to this dispute. Its strength is the support given by Arab countries to a two-state solution. Its weakness is that the parties have to negotiate the same issues on which they have failed so far.

ROAD MAP, 2003 - The road map is a plan drawn up by the "Quartet" - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. It does not lay down the details of a final settlement, but suggests how a settlement might be approached. The road map has not been implemented. Its timetable called for the final agreement to be reached in 2005. It has been overtaken by events.

GENEVA ACCORD, 2003 - While official efforts foundered, an informal agreement was announced in December 2003 by Israeli and Palestinian figures - Yossi Beilin, one of the architects of Oslo, on the Israeli side, and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo on the other. It reverses the concept of the Road Map, in which the growth of security and confidence precede a political agreement and puts the agreement first, which is then designed to produce security and peace. This envisaged a return to the 1967 lines, an open city of Jerusalem and an end to the Palestinian claim to a right of return to former homes.

Condoleezza Rice, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian ex-PM Ahmed Qurei want to agree a joint document for the Annapolis meeting. President Bush, who will host the meeting, said he remained personally committed to Middle East peace. Syria said it would be joining more than 40 countries expected to attend.

The meeting, at a US naval academy in Annapolis, Maryland, will be the first fully-fledged talks on Middle East peace since 2000. The White House has been downplaying the possibility of a breakthrough in the Middle East peace process, however, indicating instead that it will be the start of negotiations.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the verdict on the meeting has been written before the gathering has even taken place, with most experts pessimistic about real progress. But it might just serve to reopen serious negotiations, our correspondent says.

Police sources said the two were riding a stolen mini-motorcycle, and that neither was wearing a helmet. The teenagers were not being chased by police at the time of the accident, a police source told the Reuters news agency.

Dozens of youths clashed with police and set fire to buildings, injuring a number of police officers and firefighters. The unrest is taking place in the suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, and neighbouring Arnouville. In 2005, the deaths of two youths in nearby Clichy-sous-Bois led to France's worst civil unrest in over 40 years.

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the dead teenagers said that the rioting "was not violence but an expression of rage".

The former prime minister's comments came as he admitted for the first time that his faith was "hugely important" in influencing his decisions during his decade in power at Number 10, including going to war with Iraq in 2003. Mr Blair complained that he had been unable to follow the example of US politicians, such as President George W. Bush, in being open about his faith because PEOPLE IN BRITAIN REGARDED RELIGION WITH SUSPICION.

"It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," Mr Blair said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally.

"YOU TALK ABOUT IT IN OUR SYSTEM AND, FRANKLY, PEOPLE DO THINK YOU'RE A NUTTER. I mean - you may go off and sit in the corner and - commune with the man upstairs and then come back and say 'right, I've been told the answer and that's it'."

Even Alastair Campbell - his former communications director who once said, "WE DON'T DO GOD" - has conceded that Mr Blair's Christian faith played a central role in shaping "what he felt was important".

The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev John Sentamu, said: "Mr Blair's comments highlight the need for greater recognition to be given to the role faith has played in shaping our country. Those secularists who would dismiss faith as nothing more than a private affair are profoundly mistaken in their understanding of faith."

However, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, has been attacked by commentators WHO SAY THAT RELIGION SHOULD BE SEPARATED FROM POLITICS AND BY THOSE WHO FEEL THAT MANY OF HIS DECISIONS BETRAYED THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.

Mr Rudd said he would overturn a number of his predecessor's policies and sign the Kyoto Protocol and pull Australian troops out of Iraq. He also promised to attend next month's UN climate change summit in Bali.

US President George W Bush - a close ally of Mr Howard - was among world leaders to congratulate Mr Rudd on his election victory. In a statement Mr Bush said he looked "forward to working with this new government to continue our historic relationship". Mr Rudd, a former diplomat, is of the same mind, says the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney, but his plans for a phased withdrawal of 500 Australian combat troops from Iraq may put those close ties to the test.

In his first news conference since his election, Mr Rudd promised "action and action now" on climate change. He said he looked forward to meeting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after receiving his invitation to the Bali conference.

Population increases mean more people are affected when catastrophic weather events take place, it says in a report. Global warming is to blame for the growing number of weather disasters, Oxfam adds. An average of 500 such disasters are now taking place each year, compared to 120 in the 1980s, the report says. The number of floods has increased six-fold over the same period.

The agency expresses particular concern about the increase in small and medium-sized weather events, which it says affect great numbers of people, but do not attract as much international aid as large, well-publicised natural disasters. The report argues that climate change is responsible for the growing number of weather-related disasters - more intense rain, combined with frequent droughts, make damaging floods much more likely.

Unless the global aid community begins preparing for the future growth in weather-events, Oxfam warns, its ability to respond to natural disasters will be overwhelmed.

About 2,200 acres have been scorched. About 35 homes have been destroyed so far and hundreds more are threatened. Firefighters are still battling flames and two have suffered minor injuries. A total of 1,700 firefighters have been deployed to tackle the blaze, said Inspector Rick Dominguez of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

He said that the fire was directly threatening some 200 homes around Malibu but, since it was not yet under control, many more houses were being evacuated. Last month wildfires in California killed at least 14 people and forced 640,000 from their homes.

A new generation of politicians is aiming to Islamise the state by stealth. The AKP - Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or Justice and Development Party - has a stranglehold on Turkey for the foreseeable future.

Since coming to power, the AKP has done nothing revolutionary, but it does have a revolutionary agenda. For all their suavity, its leaders seek to transform the country into a Sunni Muslim republic. This collides with institutions and laws strictly limiting Islam's role in public life, and with a long-standing security alliance with Israel.

It also collides with democracy itself, for no Koranic state can have a sovereign parliament free to legalise such abominations as equal rights for women and homosexuals or the drinking of alcohol. A sinister slogan attributed to the AKP is that democracy is 'a bus we can ride until we reach our station'.

Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his foreign secretary Abdullah Gul, the party has been cautious until now. But abroad the AKP has been more strident. Turkey has stepped up relations with Muslim countries and cooled them with Israel. Moreover, the party shares the Islamist belief that Europe will inevitably be conquered by the high birth rates of its Muslim inhabitants - and Turkey's entry would immediately add some 70 million.

The party has also done its best to Islamise the bureaucracy. Even in Istanbul, post-office employees now stop work for Friday prayers, and civil servants are no longer expected to work a full day during Ramadan. And just to make sure, the AKP has literally bought public opinion in poor urban areas by distributing food packages, paid for by contributions from big business.

The losers are clear. They are the United States and all nations which hang on with their tight US$ peg for political reasons. As the battle rages, central banks will flood the global system with an avalanche of money.

The OPEC nations gathered, met, left some microphones 'accidentally' open, discussed oil issues, but also currency matters. As a group, they are nervous about both the decline in their reserve holdings from the US Dollar, and price inflation within their local economies.

The open mike revealed Saudi concern over a collapsing US Dollar. The group of Gulf nations will inevitably dump their US$ tight peg in favour of a basket. Such a basket already exists within the Arab world, but my forecast is that the Chinese yuan basket will be formally adopted as a compromise measure. CHINA CARRIES CLOUT, and their basket will be too convenient for transactions. The effect on the US Dollar exchange rates will be a quantum drop down, likely to take the US DX index toward the 70 level.

WE ARE WITNESSING THE FRACTURE OF THE PETRO-DOLLAR DEFACTO STANDARD. Earthquakes to the global banking are assured. In response, foreign currency managers (central banks) will attempt to lower interest rates, so as to weaken their currencies, even as high currency exchange rates damage their economies. Rigging the system goes hand in hand with war. In war the first victim is truth.

POWER WILL SOON RETURN TO SWITZERLAND FOR GLOBAL BANKING. An alternative to the US Dollar as an investment currency is being utilized effectively. This is a tectonic shift not reported much in the financial media. Wall Street banks are insolvent, an ugly truth slowly being revealed. The phrase "insufficient capital" means insolvent!!!

A great quote came from the financial markets recently when Wall Street banks were going through the charade of admitting their balance sheet losses. "Whatever they estimate losses to be, eventually they will end up being double."

It takes eighteen months or so for the full effects of currency changes to feed through, so the damage will snowball late next year and beyond into 2009. Although "damage" is a relative term. A NEW POLITICAL ORDER WILL SOON TAKE HOLD IN MUCH OF EUROPE, bringing in a new wave of prickly national populists.

So, how will they fight? Will Mr Sarkozy and his allies resort to 1970s-style exchange controls to stem the rise of the euro? Any decision would be taken by EU finance ministers under qualified majority voting. BRITAIN WOULD HAVE NO VETO, even though the effects of such a move on the City of London would be catastrophic - AND TRIGGER THE CERTAIN WITHDRAWAL OF BRITAIN FROM THE EU (and good riddance, some might say in Paris).

THIS "DISTURBING" CAPITAL MOVEMENT IS OCCURRING RIGHT NOW. Portfolio inflows into the eurozone reached a record EUR46.2bn in September. China, Asian wealth funds, Petrodollar sheikdoms, and now even Nigeria, have all joined a stampede into euros, utterly disregarding THE UNDERLYING REALITY THAT EUROPE IS IN NO BETTER SHAPE THAN THE UNITED STATES ITSELF. It is in worse shape, though this is disguised by the cycle. It is much worse in terms of economic dynamism and demographics.

Confidence has cratered in Germany, and the Netherlands, not to mention Belgium - which has not had a government for 165 days, and is now sliding towards disintegration. Since Belgium is a metaphor for THE EU - AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE OF SQUABBLING TRIBES, SPEAKING DIFFERENT LANGUAGES, WHO DO NOT LOVE EACH OTHER, AND NEVER DID - this in itself amounts to a tremor for the EU system.

France is in the grip of a national strike costing EUR2bn a day. The railways are paralyzed. The country's 5.2m public workers are staging walk-outs. IS THIS A CURRENCY BLOC THAT SHOULD BE NOW BE DEEMED THE ULTIMATE SAFE-HAVEN, the repository of trust in a dangerous economic world? This hodge-podge of disputatious clans, lacking a central Treasury, government, debt union, and guiding philosophy - let alone the sacred solidarity of a nation?

EUROPE'S RETORT - IF AND WHEN IT COMES - WILL BE FAR MORE POLITICAL, AND FAR MORE DRAMATIC. WE ARE AT ONE OF HISTORY'S "INFLEXION POINTS".

One recalls the months leading up to the collapse of the Gold Standard in 1931. That was triggered first by Credit Anstalt in Austria and then by a British naval mutiny in Scotland.

Any bets on what will trigger the collapse of Bretton Woods II? I wager that it will be a decision by THE GULF STATES TO BREAK THEIR DOLLAR PEGS, leading to a temporary surge of euro purchases. That will tip Mr Sarkozy over the edge.

Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card. While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal. "Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population." While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.

She claims she was far from alone. "Through my job I made many friends who, like me, were more interested in campaigning, trying to change society and save the planet rather than having families of our own.

When Sarah Irving, 31, was a teenager she sat down and wrote a wish-list for the future. Most young girls dream of marriage and babies. But Sarah dreamed of helping the environment - and as she agonised over the perils of climate change, the loss of animal species and destruction of wilderness, she came to the extraordinary decision never to have a child. "I realised then that a baby would pollute the planet - and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do."

Mark, her husband adds: "Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don't have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly. We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food. In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.
That's why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth".

"Sarah and I don't need children to feel complete. What makes us happy is knowing that we are doing our bit to save our precious planet."

Admiral Lord Boyce told the House of Lords that servicemen and women were being put in danger because of a shortage of investment and that funding for the main areas of defence was falling.

The comments were made as the true scale of the Army manpower crisis was laid bare with new figures showing that the shortfall in the number of troops has increased by 50 per cent in the last year. The MoD admitted it was short of 4,500 soldiers - the equivalent of almost an entire brigade.

He warned: "We are seriously endangering our people because of the lack of money being given to equip, train and properly support those in the second line preparing to rotate to the frontline. Is it not immoral to commit forces that are under-prepared and ill-equipped for their task?"

The shortage of troop numbers has been blamed on problems both recruiting and retaining personnel. With most of the Army on continuous operations for the last four years in Iraq and Afghanistan the strain on soldiers and their families has been immense.