Countries in the Middle East and Africa have long dealt with water shortages but now the likes of China, India and the United States are grappling with the problem.And the United Nations says five billion people will be living in areas with limited water availability by 2025, which will only exacerbate tensions and demand for the limited supply.

Water management has been pushed to the top of the political agenda in some countries and military leaders are now being drawn into long-term planning to help strategize how governments will face their dry futures.
While it's not yet expected that water will be the sole cause of a war, the report suggests a fight over natural resources could be the final straw that pushes countries into conflict.

Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians said she doesn't doubt the Americans would try to pressure Canada into sharing its water in a time of crisis."I am absolutely convinced that the United States has already targeted Canada's water, I'm absolutely convinced there are high-level conversations going on between some people in government and business in our country and the United States," she said.

"The situation is critical for those already living on the edge, struggling to cope with the combined impact of successive crop failures, poverty and HIV/AIDS," UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said in a statement late on Wednesday. UNAIDS says about 270,000 people -- making up 14 percent of Lesotho's population -- are infected with HIV, giving it one of the worst AIDS crises in the world.The food crunch was triggered by the country's worst drought in over 30 years, which OCHA said had cut the staple maize crop harvest by more than 40 percent.

Close to 328,000 tonnes of cereals are now needed to feed hungry people in the country, which only harvested a meagre 72,000 tonnes of cereals during its last harvest, down from 126,000 tonnes last year.Sparse supplies, and reduced harvests in neighbouring South Africa, the regional supplier, have helped to push prices beyond the reach of many in Lesotho, which is one of the poorest countries in the region.

Lesotho's crisis has spurred wider calls for food aid to other parts of southern Africa. More than 5 million people in the region, including up to four million in Zimbabwe alone, are expected to need food assistance due to drought this year, the U.N. said.

Many families fled to beaches as the fire came down to the water's edge, fanned by strong winds. The three resorts affected were Aghia Paraskevi, Troulos and Kolios, on the southern part of the island.British tourists on the heavily-wooded island of Skiathos described the progress of the fire as absolutely terrifying.
Greece has been afflicted by a seemingly never-ending series of fires this summer, our correspondent says.

On Wednesday, three firefighters on the island of Crete were killed when they were trapped by swirling flames suddenly changing direction in powerful winds.

Searching for Babylonian financial accounts among the tablets, Prof Jursa suddenly came across a name he half remembered - Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

Prof Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he found, spelled differently, the same name - Nebo-Sarsekim. Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II's "chief officer" and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city.

The small tablet, the size of "a packet of 10 cigarettes" according to Irving Finkel, a British Museum expert, is a bill of receipt acknowledging Nabu-sharrussu-ukin's payment of 0.75 kg of gold to a temple in Babylon.
The tablet is dated to the 10th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 595BC, 12 years before the siege of Jerusalem.

Evidence from non-Biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure. "This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find," Dr Finkel said yesterday. "If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A THROWAWAY DETAIL IN THE OLD TESTAMENT TURNS OUT TO BE ACCURATE AND TRUE. I THINK THAT IT MEANS THAT THE WHOLE OF THE NARRATIVE [OF JEREMIAH] TAKES ON A NEW KIND OF POWER."

The full translation of the tablet reads: (Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

Tintin In The Congo was the second comic book, written and drawn by the Belgian author Hergé, to feature the boy reporter. It was first published in 1931 but was redrawn in 1946, when Hergé removed several references to Congo being a Belgian colony.

Spokesman for the CRE said: "This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles. "It beggars belief that in this day and age Borders would think it acceptable to sell and display Tintin In The Congo. High street shops, and indeed any shops, ought to think very carefully about whether they ought to be selling and displaying it."

Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP, said it was "ludicrous" for the CRE to try to ban a 75-year-old book and claimed its outburst would damage the watchdog's reputation. "I understand the view that it shouldn't be on sale to children but the publishers have taken care of that. "It brings the CRE into disrepute - there are many more serious things for them to worry about."

The National Bureau of Statistics raised its estimate of China's 2006 growth rate from 10.7 percent to 11.1 percent. It nudged up its estimate of total output by 146.4 billion yuan ($18.8 billion) to 21.1 trillion yuan ($2.705 trillion).

The revision brought China closer to Germany, the world's third-largest economy after the United States and Japan. Germany's 2006 output was $3 trillion but its 2.5 percent growth rate was well below China's.
China's trade surplus soared to a new monthly high of $26.9 billion in June, the government reported Tuesday.

The statistics bureau's brief announcement on Wednesday said the biggest increase in China's estimated output was in secondary industries, which includes manufacturing, construction and utilities.

The exact size of China's economy is a matter of debate, with foreign analysts saying the small statistics agency lacks the resources to provide more than a general estimate. In December 2005, Beijing raised the official size of the economy by nearly 17 percent and retroactively boosted annual growth figures for the previous decade following the first nationwide census of China's booming service industries such as restaurants.

Back in the days when motor vehicles were invented, such biofuels seemed to be the way to drive them. HENRY FORD ORIGINALLY DESIGNED HIS MODEL T FORD TO RUN ON FUEL MADE FROM CORN AND HEMP, AND THE FIRST DIESEL ENGINE BURNED PURE PEANUT OIL. But these sources could not compete against the rapidly increasing supplies of cheap crude.

Now, oil's phenomenal 150-year growth is coming to an end. Experts believe we are rapidly approaching the point when its production will start to decline. And as supplies shrink, production will become ever more concentrated in potentially unfriendly areas such as Russia and the Middle East. And burning oil releases carbon dioxide. Biofuels address all these problems, while providing farmers with a new source of income. It is little wonder that governments have seized on them.

Earlier this year, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would cut its use of petrol by a fifth over the next decade, and make up for it by stepping up biofuel production to 35 billion gallons a year.
But a growing number of authoritative critics say it is DRIVING UP FOOD PRICES, EXACERBATING POVERTY AND HUNGER, CAUSING THE DESTRUCTION OF VITAL FORESTS AND WETLANDS, AND EVEN MAKING CLIMATE CHANGE WORSE.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the U.S. which has so far produced the greatest biofuels conundrum - with the worst worldwide consequences. The United States makes ethanol from its corn crop, but these fields also help to feed 100 - mostly poor - countries. AND JUST ONE TANKFUL OF ETHANOL FOR A FOURWHEEL DRIVE USES UP ENOUGH GRAIN TO FEED SOMEONE FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR.

By next year, nearly a third of the U.S. harvest will go to fuel American cars, rather than be exported to feed people. Inevitably, food prices will rise sharply. The cost of buying tortillas in Mexico has already shot up 60 per cent (due to rising flour prices), causing riots. Italian pasta makers are warning that prices will soar because farmers have switched from growing wheat for food to biofuels.

And, incredible as it may seem, so much traditional fossil fuel is used to grow, harvest and transport U.S. corn and turn it into ethanol that there may be little or no net benefit. ONE AUTHORITATIVE STUDY EVEN SUGGESTS THAT THE PROCESS CONSUMES NEARLY A THIRD MORE ENERGY THAN IS PRODUCED - THUS INCREASING, RATHER THAN REDUCING, CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS. And though the right use of biofuels can do much to ease the oil crisis, simple steps to conserve energy can do much more. Increasing the mpg of U.S. cars by just 20 per cent, for example, would save as much oil as using the country's entire harvest for fuel.

Palm oil, widely used to make European biodiesel, is a particularly good source of energy. But the downside is that rain-forests are being felled and peatlands drained in countries such as Indonesia to make way for palm plantations - driving the endangered orang-utan and Sumatran tiger towards extinction, and small farmers and indigenous peoples off their lands.

What's more, as the forests and peatlands are destroyed, vast amounts of carbon dioxide are released, far offsetting any benefit to the climate gained by substituting the biofuel for oil. Regardless, Malaysia alone plans to increase production a staggering 43-fold over the next 20 years. And similar problems face Brazil, which has led the world in the use of ethanol. Its sugar cane crops now provide 40 per cent of the country's motor fuel.

BUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS WARNED THAT A RAPID INCREASE IN PRODUCTION COULD HAVE 'A DEVASTATING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT' AS POOR PEOPLE ARE EVICTED FROM THEIR LAND, AND FOREST AND OTHER ECOSYSTEMS DENUDED.

Cattle soak up a phenomenal amount of water: it takes a staggering 990 pints of it to produce just one pint of milk. And their wastes often pollute rivers and the sea. A giant 'dead zone', stretching over 21,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, is partly caused by pollution from U.S. beef production, carried down the Mississippi.

But perhaps the greatest surprise is that cattle are responsible for more of the pollution that causes global warming than are cars. Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow their food, to produce meat and to transport it accounts for about 9 per cent of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.

Worse, their manure and wind produces at least a quarter of the pollution by methane, a 20 times more powerful gas. Wind from both ends of a single British cow - but mainly from belching - produces the equivalent of 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide a day, compared to 3,419 grams from the exhaust pipe of a Land Rover Freelander on an average 33-mile day's drive.

In all, the world's 1.5 billion head of cattle produce more greenhouse gases than all its cars, planes and other forms of transport put together.

The permission was granted in spite of longstanding fears from leading Israeli archeologists the Waqf might hide or dispose of Jewish Temple artifacts discovered during any Muslim digs.
The last time the Waqf conducted a large dig on the Temple Mount, during construction 10 years ago of a massive mosque at an area referred to as Solomon's Stables, the Wafq reportedly disposed truckloads of dirt containing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods.

After the media reported on the disposals, Israeli authorities froze the construction permit given to the Wafq, and the dirt was transferred to Israeli archeologists for analysis. The Israeli authorities found scores of Jewish Temple relics in the nearly disposed dirt, including coins with Hebrew writing referencing the Temple, part of a Hasmonean lamp, several other Second Temple lamps, Temple period pottery with Jewish markings, a marble pillar shaft and other Temple period artifacts. The Waqf was widely accused of attempting to hide evidence of the existence of the Jewish Temples.

Speaking to WND in a recent interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed." "About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

Asked about the Western Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad's horse and that it is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the Wall predates the mosque by more than 1,000 years. "The Western wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's where Prophet Muhammad tied his animal which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah." The Palestinian media also regularly state the Jewish Temples never existed.

In a series of WND exclusive interviews, Palestinian terror leaders denied the existence of the Jewish Temples. "We are fed up with this crap nonsense of the Temple Mount," said Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of Fata's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank.

"We do not know where this story came from. There is no historical or archeological proof that your legendary Temples existed. We are sick of this story. But Allah warned us that Jews will look for an excuse in order to corrupt life on earth, so we are not surprised from the fact that you keep raising this issue." "Go look for your stupid Temple elsewhere. And I am not saying this for political reasons. I say that the enemy invented this story in order to justify its occupation of Jerusalem."

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Mohammed took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" - believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia - to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with Jerusalem.

While environmentalists are usually vocal about perceived threats ranging from pesticides to global warming, there is a silence when it comes to one threat already harming the water supply - hormones from birth-control pills. According to the National Catholic Register, EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado studied fish in a mountain stream near Boulder, Colo., two years ago.

When they netted 123 trout and other fish downstream from the city's sewer plant, they found 101 were female, 12 were male, and 10 were strange "intersex" fish with male and female features. It's "the first thing that I've seen as a scientist that really scared me," university biologist John Woodling told the Denver Post.

The main culprits were found to be estrogens and other steroid hormones from birth-control pills and patches that ultimately ended up in the creek after being excreted in urine into the city's sewers.Two years after the Boulder findings, there has been no effort among environmentalists to stop the estrogen pollution of Boulder Creek. Dave Georgis, director of the Colorado Genetic Engineering Action Network which has been vocal against genetically modified crops, said, "It just has so much competition out there for stuff to work on."

He told the Boulder Weekly nobody needed to think about cutting back on birth control for the creek's sake.
"You can't have a zero impact, and this is one of the many, many impacts we have on the environment in everyday life," Georgis said. "Nobody is to blame for this, and I don't have a solution."

Errors in identifying patients led to at least 500 a week getting the wrong operation the wrong drugs or diagnostic tests, the National Patient Safety Agency said. Almost 3,000 of the incidents are estimated to have occurred because of confusion over wristbands used to identify patients. An investigation found that the colour red on a wristband had eight different meanings in different NHS trusts, ranging from "allergic to penicillin" to "does not have English as a first language".

The agency issued a warning notice to all NHS trusts urging them to take "immediate action" to produce a standard wristband. It set a deadline of July 2008 for its introduction. The wristband will be white and carry the last name of the patient followed by the first name, date of birth and NHS number. Only one other colour - red - will be permitted, to indicate patients at high risk.

Christine Ranger, head of safer practice at the agency, said there were 24,382 incidents between February 2006 and January 2007 in which patients were "mismatched with their care." Of these more than 2,900 related to wristbands and their use. "These are causing patients to have the wrong operation, the wrong [blood] transfusion, the wrong medication or the wrong diagnostic test," she said. "Some incidents will involve significant harm and some have led to deaths."

Last year, the NPSA reported 41,000 medication errors between July 2005 to July 2006, which caused 36 deaths. A further 2,000 patients suffered "moderate or severe harm." In 2005, the National Audit Office reported that nearly one million errors or safety lapses had occurred in the previous year, causing 2,000 deaths. Half of the incidents could have been avoided if staff had learnt from past mistakes.

More than 50 militants and 10 soldiers were killed and 33 wounded in the final, 35-hour assault by the elite Special Services Group which began early Tuesday, the army said. The dead including the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the mosque's militants to surrender to a weeklong siege mounted by the government following deadly street clashes July 3 with armed supporters at the complex in the heart of Pakistan's capital.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the compound.

An army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said troops moved from room to room in basements of the compound, blowing up foxholes where militants had been entrenched.

Already the country's deadliest hurricane with an estimated 8,000 deaths, the 1900 storm also would rank as the nation's third costliest, say hurricane scientists who sought to gauge the economic damage that historic storms would have caused if they had occurred in 2005.

Under the new analysis, which adjusted for inflation, population and coastal development, Hurricane Katrina and its $81 billion cost ranked second to the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, which caused damage estimated at almost $140 billion. Another Galveston hurricane, in 1915, ranked fourth with $57 billion in damage.

Put simply, the devastation wrought by Katrina in 2005 was not unprecedented.

That's significant in an era when some blame global warming for catastrophic hurricanes. The research concludes that economic damage from hurricanes, after being adjusted, has remained relatively constant during the last century.

Ayman al-Zawahri's 4-minute, 24-second address focused entirely on the clashes between Islamic students and Pakistan's army at the mosque.

The video was released by al-Qaida's multimedia branch, as-Sahab. Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, but two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups also reported it.

With investors fearful the US housing slump will hit the wider economy, the euro rose as high as $1.3784 before pulling back slightly to $1.3761. The dollar's latest fall came after the Standard & Poor's credit rating agency said it may downgrade $12.1bn of bonds backed by US sub-prime home loans.

Meanwhile, the pound hit $2.0336 as it extended its gains against the dollar. The pound is at a 26-year high against the US currency amid contrasting prospects for interest rates in the two countries.