Home-schooling has been illegal in Germany since Adolf Hitler outlawed it in 1938 and ordered all children to be sent to state schools. The home-schooling community in Germany is tiny. As Hitler knew, Germans tend to obey orders unquestioningly. Only some 500 children are being home-schooled in a country of 80 million. Home-schooling families are prosecuted without mercy.

All German political parties, including the Christian Democrats of Chancellor Angela Merkel, are opposed to home-schooling. They say that "the obligation to attend school is a civil obligation, that cannot be tampered with." The home-schoolers receive no support from the official (state funded) churches, either. These maintain that home-schoolers "isolate themselves from the world" and that "freedom of religion does not justify opposition against the obligation to attend school."

Six decades after Hitler, German politicians and church leaders still do not understand true freedom: that raising children is a prerogative of their fathers and mothers and not of the state, which is never a benevolent parent and often an enemy.

While it is disquieting that Europeans have not learned the lessons from their dictatorial past upholding Nazi laws and sending dissidents, including children, to psychiatric wards, as the Soviets used to do there is reason for Americans to worry, too.

The United Nations is also restricting the rights of parents. Article 29 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that it is the goal of the state to direct the education of children. In Belgium, the U.N. Convention is currently being used to limit the constitutional right to home-school. In 1995 Britain was told that it violated the U.N. Convention by allowing parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes.

Last year, the American Home School Legal Defense Association warned that the U.N. Convention could make home-schooling illegal in America, even though the Senate has never ratified it. Some lawyers and liberal politicians in the states claim that U.N. conventions are "customary international law" and should be considered part of American jurisprudence.

At present, young Melissa Busekros' ordeal is a German horror story. Could it soon be an American one?

"The growth in factory farms in the developing world is being driven by the fact that there are more people in cities and they have more money to buy meat," she told IPS in an interview. Rising incomes, populations and demand for meat has resulted in the global poultry population quadrupling since the 1960s to about 18 billion birds today. Once mostly raised under free-range conditions or in backyards by very small producers, most poultry are now kept in large flocks numbering several hundred thousand.

Cramming 100,000 chickens into a single facility to produce low-cost meat also creates the perfect atmosphere for the spread of disease. For that very reason intensive livestock production systems in Europe and North America feed large volumes of antibiotics to chickens, pigs and cows to control diseases. This widespread use of antibiotics has created bacteria that are now resistant to antibiotics and pose yet another human health threat.

There is mounting evidence that there are other vectors of the disease. No wild birds have been detected with the virus in Europe or Africa this winter, yet there have been outbreaks in Nigeria, Egypt and Europe. Illegal and improper trade in poultry is thought to be the reason for these outbreaks. "Many of us at the outset underestimated the role of trade," Samuel Jutzi, director of Animal Production and Health at the FAO, told the International Herald Tribune last week.

"The poultry sector is the most globalised in agriculture," Jutzi said. "There is incredible movement of chicks and other products." The pathogenic H5N1 form of avian flu does not usually develop in wild birds or backyard poultry because their populations are too spread out and diverse, said Cathy Holtslander, project organiser for the Beyond Factory Farming Coalition, a Canadian NGO. Concentrating huge numbers of animals in small spaces, feeding them the cheapest food possible, centralising and speeding up processing, and distributing the product widely around the world is the perfect recipe for spreading disease, Holtslander told IPS.

The growing numbers of livestock around the world are responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent), according to the FAO. It's not just methane and manure -- the FAO shows that land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilisers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.
Already surpassing emissions from the world's transportation sector, livestock numbers are rising fast.

"The world's poor probably need more meat, but we in North America and Europe should eat a lot less meat," said Nierenberg. And it would be better and healthier to get meat from small-scale, localised production systems. Factory farms provide cheap meat only because the real costs in terms of air and water pollution, terrible conditions for workers and animals and so on are not factored in, she said.

"The U.S. infrastructure can barely handle the problems caused by factory farms," Nierenberg said. "I don't know how they can address these in the developing world."

Currently Berlin is pursuing the logistics business in Middle Eastern countries as well as in Russia. Whereas the Persian Gulf has become the turntable for exports to the Arab world, the Russian Federation is considered the "corridor" for overland transport to China - including weapons supplies to the Afghan theatre of operations. With additional billions, the German government is financing the expansion of German maritime trade as well. The objective is for Germany to obtain the predominating global position in the transport of merchandise - "the world champion in transport"

The German maritime transport sees itself well on its way to reach this goal. At the end of last year, the German merchant fleet was comprised of 2,998 ships - ten percent more than one year earlier. Thus this fleet has tripled in size since 1999. German shipowners, in the meantime, have the third largest merchant fleet in the world, after Greece and Japan. As far as the container freighters are concerned, economically the most important ships, Germany, with 1,280 ships, is the world leader.

Further growth is programmed. In 2006, 727 ships, valued at approximately seven billion Euros, were ordered at the dockyards. Altogether German shipowners have made construction contracts valued at 26.4 billion Euros. Therefore the Federation of German Shipowners is optimistic. "Germany, as a location, is using its potentials in the area of maritime travel and is expanding. That is positive."

Not only the shipping companies, but the entire German sea and port economy is booming. Shipyards and port operators are likewise making record profits and can, once again, count on billions in state subsidies and tax benefits - because of the "very hard international competition". Chancellor Angela Merkel felt it necessary to warn the fifth national maritime conference, that the People's Republic of China is making substantial effort toward becoming the number one shipbuilding nation. This threatens Germany with the loss of market shares.

Navigation is a "national task", explained the Chancellor and promised business enterprises the appropriate state support. Alongside financial support - the government intends to make 5.1 billion Euros available for the elaboration of the ports - the chancellor gave also assurances of political influence. "Especially during the German EU presidency" the government will have an "open ear for the maritime economy".

On the Eastern European axis, German enterprises will be preparing further expansion steps in Moscow from February 7 - 9, 2007. The venue will be a German/Russian logistics conference, jointly organized by the German BVL and the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. German railway workers were welcomed in Moscow and considered ingenious engineers.

The intensive cooperation in logistics on the Eastern European axis is accompanied by a German-Russian military commerce. Thus Moscow makes its railway network available for the transport of German weapons and NATO equipment to Afghanistan. The current development of an alliance between Germany and Russia is directly aimed at the movements of resistance in the Middle East and Asia Minor, and indirectly, it facilitates the logistical encirclement of the People's Republic of China.

The charts designate parts of France, Denmark, the whole of Luxemburg, Switzerland and upper Italy to the political fiction of a German-dominated centre. Naturally, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary are taken into the project. Various areas are claimed as part of "Middle Europe" because they were originally part of the German Reich, "quite separately" from their later conquest by the Nazis. These charts bear a worrying similarity to projections made by the predecessor states of the German Federal Republic.

The plan was discussed in the "Standing Committee for Geographical Names" (StAGN), a body little known outside specialist circles, of which the Director of the Leibniz-Institute for Territorial Science is a member. This institution enjoys state funding and publishes authoritative guidance for geopolitical purposes. The German specialists in re-ordering are supposedly geographers but have repeatedly produced work affecting the sovereign rights of foreign states. In the institute, "Lebensraum" is a matter occasionally discussed.

Germans dominate the "Middle Europe" fiction in the West, as in "North Schleswig" (Denmark) and in Luxemburg. Belgium is relieved of its "German districts" and France of Alsace and Lorraine. The "Region" (Alsace-Lorraine) is stated "to carry a strong French character today" - and this concerning a part of French territory. According to the report this character should belong to "an autonomous native people". This is associated with the supposed issue of a semi-German local language.

"At any rate" the report proudly states the "Region" (Alsace-Lorraine) "Belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and was part of Reich territory from 1871 to 1918 - a matter completely unconnected with the situation arising in the Second World War." The air-brushing out of the Nazi European dictatorship under the title of "Middle Europe" saves the originators from drawing attention to the economic and military background of the up-and-coming "Middle Europe" fiction in Germany.

According to these reports, votes were to be bought, so that Germany could attain world power status with a seat on the UN Security Council. The emergence of the German/Japanese alliance is accompanied by Tokyo's politico-military offensive. Powerful forces in Japan strive for a revision of the postwar constitution, which currently only permits self-defense forces.

The intention is to unharness Japanese military potential on a global scale. The rearmament of Japan is coordinated with Washington and is to lead to an institutionalized cooperation with NATO. Discussions to this effect were the focus of Shinzo Abe's recent visit to the German capital. The German government announced its wish to further intensify the very close cooperation with its ex-World War II ally. The alliance is directed against China, a repeated victim of Japanese crimes of aggression.

Now Japan is also striving to take the step toward a global military presence, that Germany has accomplished over the last 15 years, and therefore plans to change its postwar constitution. World-wide deployments of Japanese military forces will then again be possible. Last Tuesday, Tokyo's former "Self-Defense Authority" was upgraded to a "Ministry of Defense".

The Japanese government seeks to carry out its military ascent along the lines of the German model and with the support of its closest ally, the United States - that encourages Japan to cooperate closely with NATO. Washington is hoping to be able to shift the burden of its Middle Eastern wars onto the shoulders of another state. In addition, Japan is an element of the western plans to encircle the People's Republic of China.

The legal basis for this was provided by the Prüm Treaty, signed two years ago by a group of EU pioneers. Using its EU Council Presidency, Berlin is planning to initiate the incorporation of the Prüm Treaty into the EU's legal framework. This Treaty has come under criticism in Germany because of deficits in the protection of data privacy and its lack of democratic control.

The intended application throughout the EU has also come under massive protest. It is expected that this international treaty, elaborated and signed by the executive, will, at best, be slipped though national parliaments, without debate, and have supervision renounced by the European Parliament. Great Britain, Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic have, until now, strictly refused to join this treaty.]

At the heart of the book is the fundamental question: why is it you can bake a cake at home with as few as six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why do many of them seem to bear so little resemblance to actual food? The answer: To stay fresh on a grocery-store shelf, Twinkies can't contain anything that might spoil, like milk, cream or butter. Once you remove such real ingredients, something has to take their place and cellulose gum, lecithin and sodium stearoyl lactylate are a good start. Add the fact that industrial quantities of batter have to pump easily through automated tubes into cake molds, and you begin to get the idea.

Even so, it can be unsettling to learn just how closely the basic ingredients in processed foods resemble industrial materials. Corn dextrin, a common thickener, is also the glue on postage stamps and envelopes. Ferrous sulfate, the iron supplement in enriched flour and vitamin pills, is used as a disinfectant and weedkiller.
Is this cause for concern? Ettlinger says no, though you wouldn't want a diet that consists solely of Twinkies. Ultimately, all food, natural and otherwise, is composed of chemical compounds and normal ingredients like salt have industrial applications, too. Still, it gives you pause when he describes calcium sulfate, a dough conditioner, as "food-grade plaster of Paris."

In the end, you may learn more than you really wanted to about the Twinkie-Industrial Complex, as Ettlinger calls it. But you will never read a label the same way again. Industrial-strength junk food, anyone?

The choice of Cardinal Biffi raised eyebrows in the Vatican, given his sometimes eccentric views. The cardinal gave a warning of the coming of the Antichrist during his two decades as the Archbishop of Bologna, and said that an invasion of Muslim immigrants was undermining Europe's Christian values.

Cardinal Biffi said that the Antichrist was not necessarily a person but the reduction of Christianity to an ideology . . . The teaching that the great Russian philosopher left us is that Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of values. At the heart of being a Christian is the personal encounter with Jesus Christ. But he quoted with approval from Solovyov's Three Dialogues on War, Progress and the End of History, which suggests that the Antichrist is a real figure.

Cardinal Biffi said that Christianity stood for absolute values, such as goodness, truth, beauty. If relative values such as solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature became absolute, they would encourage idolatry and put obstacles in the way of salvation.

When he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict sternly defended core Roman Catholic doctrines and opposed calls for an ecumenical Third Vatican Council advanced by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the liberal former Archbishop of Milan.

The choice of Lenten speaker has in the past given a clue to Vatican policy, although one source said that Cardinal Biffi had perhaps been chosen because his verbal fireworks would keep listeners awake.

The doctrine of the Antichrist appears in the New Testament, and could denote someone setting himself up as a Christlike saviour. The Book of Revelation refers to the Number of the Beast, 666

-Martin Luther and other reformers saw the Pope as the Antichrist
-In 1888 the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche denounced Christianity in The Antichrist
-When the Pope addressed the European Parliament in 1988 the Rev Ian Paisley interrupted him, shouting, I renounce you as the Antichrist!

The modern-day Sanhedrin, headed by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, has decided to purchase a herd of sheep to be used for the Passover sacrifice ritual to be held this year if possible at the Temple Mount. The Sanhedrin, which was formed several years ago, meets once a week, according to the Haaretz news service, in what it says is a renewal of the Jewish High Court that existed more than a thousand years ago.

A member of the Sanhedrin, Professor Hillel Weiss, said in an interview that the symbolic Passover sacrifice is intended to remind Jews that the Temple rituals will resume when the Messiah comes.

The Ba'athist diehards who dictate policy in Damascus would like to see the restoration of their former Sunni allies to power in Baghdad albeit cleansed of the intimidating presence of Saddam Hussein while Iran's theocrats are ideologically opposed to the establishment of a secular Shia state across the 900-mile-long border they share with Iraq.

Both countries have nothing but malign intent towards the fragile seeds of democratic governance that are painfully taking root in Iraq. And yet their presence at any conference on the future of Iraq is essential if that country's democratic institutions are to have any chance of surviving once the US-led military presence has ended.

Announcing the conference, Nouri al-Maliki, the head of Iraq's fractious national unity government, said he hoped it would help to provide long-term security and stability to the authorities in Baghdad. But the long-term stability and security of Iraq can only be safeguarded if countries such as Syria and Iran can be persuaded to drop their ambitions to claim large swathes of Iraqi territory for themselves the moment the coalition packs up and goes home.

Long before Saddam came on the scene, Iraq and Syria were negotiating a merger to create an Arab superstate, and the embattled Iraqi Sunnis might be tempted to jump at the opportunity if it presented itself again. Fears of creating a "Shia Crescent" from Teheran to Baghdad were a major factor in persuading the allies not to overthrow Saddam's regime following the Gulf war in 1991. The presence of 200,000-odd coalition troops in Iraq following Saddam's demise has not diminished Iran's long-term ambitions of linking up with their Shia co-religionists.

The Bush administration, then, finds itself between a rock and a hard place. It either sticks to its principles of not negotiating with states that sponsor terrorism, or it swallows it pride and sits down at the negotiating table with the Syrians and Iranians to reach an agreement on stabilising Iraq.

Whichever option President Bush goes for, the prospects for success are exceedingly remote.

Scott Atran: What are the conditions for Islam to be strong?

Abu Bakar Bashir: The infidel country must be visited and spied upon. If we don't come to them, they will persecute Islam. They will prevent non-Muslims converting.

SA: What can the West, especially the US, do to make the world more peaceful?

ABB: They have to stop fighting Islam. That's impossible because it is sunnatullah [destiny, a law of nature], as Allah has said in the Koran. If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.

SA: What if they persist?

ABB: We'll keep fighting them and they'll lose. The batil [falsehood] will lose sooner or later. I sent a letter to Bush. I said that you'll lose and there is no point for you [to fight us]. This [concept] is found in the Koran.

SA: So this fight will never end?

ABB: Never. This fight is compulsory. Muslims who don't hate America sin. What I mean by America is George Bush's regime. There is no iman [belief] if one doesn't hate America.

SA: How can the American regime and its policies change?

ABB: We'll see. As long as there is no intention to fight us and Islam continues to grow there can be peace. This is the doctrine of Islam. Islam can't be ruled by others. Allah's law must stand above human law. There is no [example] of Islam and infidels, the right and the wrong, living together in peace.

But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations. "They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," he said.

The main obstacles confronting Gen Petraeus's team are:- Insufficient troops on the ground, A "disintegrating" international coalition, An anticipated increase in violence in the south as the British leave, Morale problems as casualties rise, and a failure of political will in Washington and/or Baghdad.

"It's amazing how well morale has held up so far," the former official said. "But the guys know what's being said back home. There is no question morale is gradually being sapped by political debates." Possibly the biggest longer term concern of Gen Petraeus's team is that political will in Washington may collapse just as the military is on the point of making a counter-insurgency breakthrough. According to a senior administration official, speaking this week, this is precisely what happened in the final year of the Vietnam war.

Steven Simon, the national security council's senior director for transnational threats during the Clinton administration, said a final meltdown in political and public backing was likely if the new strategy was not seen to be working quickly. "The implosion of domestic support for the war will compel the disengagement of US forces. It is now just a matter of time," Mr Simon said in a paper written for the Council on Foreign Relations. "Better to withdraw as a coherent and at least somewhat volitional act than withdraw later in hectic response to public opposition or to a series of unexpectedly sharp reverses on the ground," he said.

"If it gets really tough in the next few months, it will throw fuel on the fire in Washington," the former official said. "Congress will be emboldened in direct proportion to the trouble in Iraq." If the policy was not judged to be working by Labor Day (the first Monday in September which marks the start of the new political year), Mr Bush could lose control of the policy to Congress and be forced to begin a phased pull-out, he suggested.

A senior Pentagon official said this week, "We have to be realistic. We're not going to stop the suicide bombers and the roadside explosive devices for some time. And the military alone are certainly not going to solve the problem. Maliki has to meet the benchmarks. A civilian surge is needed, too. The Iraqis have to do it themselves."

US officials say they also have rising hopes of a breakthrough in Sunni-dominated Anbar province where tribal chiefs are increasingly hostile to al-Qaida and foreign fighters - and are looking to build bridges with moderate Shias. But this week's US decision to join talks on Iraq with Iran and Syria, after previously refusing to do so, is nevertheless seen as an indication of the administration's growing alarm at the possibility of a historic strategic failure.

They said that the wrong policy of the military government to appease the United States was the main reason for growing terrorism acts in different parts of the country. They said that neighbours Afghanistan and Iran were not satisfied with actions taken by the government to address complaints of both countries.

The speakers criticised the federal government's military operation in Balochistan due to which innocent people were killed. The government had also put behind bars political activists without fulfilling legal procedures. They said that injustice and deprivation and denial of just rights to the people of Balochistan were the main grievances that caused unrest among the people against the federal government.

They demanded that the government should accept the ground realities by determining the policies that could restore the confidence of people to maintain peace in the country.

(Quetta is the capital of the province Balochistan in Pakistan, situated in a river valley near Afghanistan's border, with a road to Kandahar in the northwest.)

With an industry increasingly under consolidation, some fear the disorder could prove the breaking point for even large beekeepers. The bee losses range from 30 to 60% on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70%. Beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20% in the offseason to be normal. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

The investigators are exploring a range of possibilities to explain the losses, which they are calling "colony collapse disorder". These include viruses, a fungus and poor bee nutrition. They are also studying pesticides banned in some European countries to see if they are affecting the bees' innate ability to navigate their way back to their hives. In some cases, bees are being raised to survive a shorter offseason, to be ready to pollinate once the almond bloom begins in February. This could have lowered their immunity to viruses.
Mites have also damaged bee colonies, and the insecticides used to try to kill them are harming the ability of queen bees to spawn as many workers.

Once the domain of hobbyists, beekeeping has become increasingly commercial and consolidated in the US. During the last two decades, the number of beehives has dropped by a quarter, and is now estimated at 2.4 million. The number of beekeepers has fallen by half during the same period. Pressure has been building on the bee industry. The costs to maintain hives, or colonies, are rising.

In addition, urban growth means that the areas where the insects can forage for nectar to stay healthy and strong during the pollination season are being squeezed. "There are less beekeepers, less bees, yet more crops to pollinate," said Zac Browning, vice-president of the American Beekeeping Federation. "With so much added loss and expense due to disease, pests and higher equipment costs, profitability is actually falling."

Severe drought conditions have affected much of the region since the late 1990s, with 2002 and 2004 being among the 10 driest years on record in the upper basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, the report says. Water storage in the basin's reservoirs dropped sharply during this period due to low streamflows; for example, 2002 water year flows into Lake Powell were roughly 25 per cent of average.

Meanwhile the population is growing rapidly. Arizona saw a 40 per cent rise during the 1990s, while Colorado's population grew by 30 per cent. In spite of successful conservation efforts, urban water use in the region has increased significantly along with the growth in population. Consumption in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, doubled between 1985 and 2000.

There is limited scope for satisfying the cities' and suburbs' thirst by reducing agricultural irrigation, the NAS says. It urges federal, state and local governments to undertake a comprehensive,?action-orientated study of water practices in the Colorado basin and devise a strategy for coping with long-term drought.

Historic reconstructions of the river's flow over the past 500 years included evidence from ancient tree-ring data: trees grow more quickly when rainfall is abundant.Second, computer modelling of future climate shows man-made global warming will further reduce rainfall and river flows. As a result, the south-west is going to have to face increasingly costly, controversial and unavoidable trade-offs among water managers, policymakers and their constituents, said Ernest Smerdin of the University of Arizona, who chaired the NAS panel.

More extensive use of traditional water conservation and recycling practices may help, the report says, but they will not solve the problem on their own. Successful adjustments to these new conditions will entail strong and sustained co-operation among the many entities involved in Colorado River water management and science programmes, it warns.