Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained. "We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it. "It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said. Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time." The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively. "That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.

"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates." Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned. "The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?

"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

Tony Blair, who supported the new constitution, nevertheless said: "What you cannot do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and bring it back with a few amendments AND SAY, 'HAVE ANOTHER GO.' YOU CANNOT DO THAT."

I'M AFRAID YOU CAN, AND THEY ARE, AND MR BLAIR DOESN'T MIND. In April, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, sent a questionnaire to all the EU heads of government. How could they best get the constitution back on the road, she wanted to know. HOW ABOUT SOME "PRESENTATIONAL CHANGES" AND SCHEMES "TO USE DIFFERENT TERMINOLOGY WITHOUT CHANGING THE LEGAL SUBSTANCE"?

The first thing that Nicolas Sarkozy did after becoming President of France this month was to fly to Mrs Merkel to push forward his variations on this theme. On June 22, there will be a European Council in Berlin. It will try to get a new treaty by Christmas, bringing most of the rejected constitution into effect, though shying away from that painful word. Like my rubbish, the constitution cannot be thrown away, only recycled.

The new treaty will almost certainly provide for a permanent President of the EU, instead of the present system of circulation between member states, so a new central power structure will emerge. There will also be an EU foreign minister with the right to speak "automatically" on behalf of member states. The way in which majority voting is calculated will also change, producing a 30 per cent cut in Britain's blocking power.

A recent poll conducted for Open Europe showed that an average of 75 per cent of voters in EU member states want a referendum on any new treaty. But the EU leaders have learnt their lesson. THE TROUBLE WITH THE FULL-ON PRESENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION WAS THAT IT ENABLED VOTERS TO SEE WHAT IT WAS. The architects of ever-closer Union will try mightily not to make that mistake again.

Already THE ARGUMENT FROM MR BLAIR AND OUR FOREIGN OFFICE IS THAT THE NEW TREATY WILL NOT AMOUNT TO A SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, AND THEREFORE THERE IS NO NEED FOR THE VOTERS TO BOTHER THEIR LITTLE HEADS ABOUT THE MATTER. If that is the position of "Euro-sceptic" Britain, the Europhiles hardly need to trouble to open their mouths. AS FOR THE NEGOTIATIONS THEMSELVES, THEY HAVE BEEN CONDUCTED IN PRIVATE. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons has tried without success to get a relevant minister to appear before them.

A PROCESS THAT INVOLVES THE VERY BASIS OF LAW - THE INCLUSION OF THE CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS IN THE TREATY WOULD ENABLE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE TO FORCE PARLIAMENT TO COMPLY ABSOLUTELY WITH ITS RULINGS - IS BEING CONDUCTED LIKE A PAPAL CONCLAVE. THE BODY ELECTED TO MAKE OUR LAWS KNOWS ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT IT.

WHAT HE WON'T DARE DO, THOUGH, IS LET US VOTE. For the accumulated frustrations of more than 30 years mean that any plan for increasing Europe's powers now wins the full-hearted dissent of the British people.

Clashes between the two neighbours two of the West's biggest allies in the War on Terror began here last Sunday morning when Paki-stani forces fired on an Afghan post at Toorgawe, a strategic point on the border. The fighting is the most serious of its kind for years.

Since Sunday evening there has been a build-up of forces in the contested zone as hundreds of regular Afghan soldiers from the 203rd Thunder Corps, who had been fighting the Taleban, have deployed to the area to reinforce the beleaguered border police, bringing with them heavy artillery sent up from Kabul. "We can't wait any more", Brigadier Sanaoull Haq, a staff officer in the corps, said." Now if anything further happens we will reply in kind."

Each side accuses the other of initiating the bombardments, which so far have left 13 Afghans dead and 51 wounded. Foreign diplomats in Kabul fear that the situation, which has united Afghan nationalist sentiment across every ethnic divide, may escalate. It threatens to wreck any semblance of security cooperation between the countries, to the detriment of Nato's struggle with the Taleban.

Pakistan has recently started building a security fence in selected areas of the border, ostensibly to halt the flow of insurgents. This, in turn, has provoked more Afghan wrath. There was no security fence being built by Pakistan at Toorgawe. Instead, the Afghans say that their police in the post were attacked without warning simply because of its desirable strategic location.

There was no security fence being built by Pakistan at Toorgawe. Instead, the Afghans say that their police in the post were attacked without warning simply because of its desirable strategic location. "Now we have a central government and an army of our own and the Pakistanis are angry. They can't tolerate us or our border." In the initial absence of regular troops hundreds of Pashtun tribesmen from local villages rushed to support the Afghan border police during the attacks on Sunday.

The Prime Minister's trip to Washington this week has coincided with the resignation of Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the World Bank, which manages international development aid for rich countries. Mr Blair, who has been a passionate campaigner for African development, will leave No 10 at the same time, and there was speculation yesterday that he could be a contender for the Washington-based job.

The post traditionally goes to a US citizen, but Joseph Stiglitz, the bank's former chief economist, yesterday said Mr Blair could be a contender. "It wouldn't rule him out, but I would say that if I were going through a first priority list it would probably begin with somebody with real experience in development," he said. "Blair has clearly been a political leader that has the kinds of connections that would be useful as head of the institution."

Political allies say that, despite yesterday's speculation, Mr Blair is more likely to spend his retirement setting up a "BLAIR FOUNDATION" AND ACTING AS A SELF-APPOINTED AMBASSADOR ON DEVELOPMENT ISSUES AND WORKING FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN DIFFERENT RELIGIONS.
In interviews yesterday, Mr Blair said he wanted to continue working in the Middle East, and said that FAITH RELATIONS ARE "SOMETHING I'VE THOUGHT A LOT ABOUT AND I'D LIKE TO WORK ON".

Asked by Arabic-language television station Al Arabiyah whether he could have done more to push for peace in the Middle East during his decade in power, Mr Blair said: "I've spent a long time working on this myself, and I want to carry on working on it even after I leave office. There are still ways that I can achieve things and do things."

The Prime Minister also told America's National Public Radio: "THIS QUESTION TO DO WITH RELIGIOUS FAITH AND HOW THE FAITHS COME TOGETHER IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF IT. IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE TRY TO GET A BETTER UNDERSTANDING AND DIALOGUE BETWEEN DIFFERENT FAITHS."

A mother beheaded by her son. A baby who suffocated after being stuffed by his parents in the baggage compartment of a motorbike while they went gambling. A murderous shooting spree during a hostage standoff.

The "appalling destruction" of traditional values, as one lawmaker put it, climaxed Friday, when a former gangster killed a policeman and wounded his son and daughter during a shooting rampage at his home, where he had held his ex-wife hostage for 24 hours. It was the first time an on-duty policeman was shot to death since 2001.

On Tuesday, a teenager strolled into a police station with his mother's severed head in a bag. On Thursday, a couple was arrested after their 1-year-old son's body was found wrapped in a plastic bag and dumped in a gutter. The baby died after his parents allegedly left him in the baggage hold of a motorbike while they gambled at a pachinko pinball parlor. The same day, a 3-year-old child was abandoned by his father at an anonymous drop box meant for unwanted infants.

"We are witnessing the deterioration of Japanese society," ruling party politician Tsuneo Suzuki told parliament Thursday. "We must stem this appalling destruction of family and community morals." While Japan is still a relatively safe country by international standards, crime is on the rise as the country grapples with a widening gap between rich and poor and other social ills.

A tide of corporate layoffs amid widespread restructuring, the fragmentation of extended families and a creeping sense of urban alienation all contribute to the erosion of mores, experts say.

Japan, a country of 127 million people, had just 1,391 homicides in compared with 16,692 in the United States. But overall crime jumped to 2.27 million cases that year, from 1.81 million in 1996, and violent offenses nearly doubled to 73,772 cases, according to the National Police Agency.

Nearly 100 MPs, including at least 20 Labour ministers, backed the "shameful" plans to torpedo right-to-know rules, with only 25 opposing them. Despite promises by Gordon Brown to make government "more open and accountable" once he enters Downing Street, several of the Chancellor's key allies trooped into the Commons to support the exclusion.

The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was introduced by Conservative backbencher David Maclean in a bid to protect private letters between MPs and their constituents from FOI requests. Mr Maclean claims the move would prevent correspondance from falling into the hands of "criminals or the BNP".

But opponents claim the FOI Act, introduced in 2005, already prevents the disclosure of confidential letters containing personal data. THEY SAY THE REAL REASON BEHIND THE MOVE IS TO CONCEAL EMBARRASSING DETAILS ABOUT MPS EXPENSES AND ALLOWANCES. EARLIER THIS YEAR, MANY MPS, INCLUDING SPEAKER MICHAEL MARTIN, WERE FURIOUS WHEN THEY WERE FORCED TO REVEAL TRAVEL EXPENSES TOTALLING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF POUNDS.

Under the Bill, MPs will also be exempt from disclosing their correspondence to public bodies including councils, hospitals and police forces.

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who spearheaded the opposition, said: "This is a terrible day for parliamentary democracy. "I feel ashamed to be an MP. This makes us look smug, self-serving and out of touch and eager to cloak ourselves in secrecy. "It is effrontery for the House of Commons to make the deeply hypocritical move of exempting itself from a law that applies to every other public body in the country. "It is also deeply undemocratic that MPs on both the Government and Conservative benches have collaborated to ensure those with a contrary view, fighting for open government, were silenced after barely any debate on amendments to the Bill."

Former Labour minister Mark Fisher said: "It is a squalid and devastating piece of legislation that will bring MPs into derision, contempt and discredit. "PEOPLE WILL BE AGHAST, HORRIFIED AND TOTALLY CONTEMPTUOUS OF PARLIAMENT THAT WE ARE PLACING OURSELVES ABOVE THE LAW IN THIS COUNTRY."

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The MPs who voted in favour of this self-serving and hypocritical Bill should be hanging their heads in shame. "THEY CLEARLY DON'T THINK TAXPAYERS HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW HOW THEIR MONEY IS SPENT, AND IN SOME CASES WASTED BY POLITICIANS."

On Thursday the Bilderberg group marks its 50th anniversary with the start of its yearly meeting. FOR FOUR DAYS SOME OF THE WEST'S CHIEF POLITICAL MOVERS, BUSINESS LEADERS, BANKERS, INDUSTRIALISTS AND STRATEGIC THINKERS WILL HUNKER DOWN IN A FIVE-STAR HOTEL IN NORTHERN ITALY TO TALK ABOUT GLOBAL ISSUES.

What sets Bilderberg apart from other high-powered get-togethers, such as the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), is its mystique. Not a word of what is said at Bilderberg meetings can be breathed outside. No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted. This year Bilderberg has announced a list of attendees They include BP chief John Browne, US Senator John Edwards, World Bank president James Wolfensohn and Mrs Bill Gates

In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg. In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the theory that Bilderberg pulls the strings with which national governments dance.

And while hardline right-wingers and libertarians accuse Bilderberg of being a liberal Zionist plot, leftists such as activist Tony Gosling are equally critical. A former journalist, Mr Gosling runs a campaign against the group from his home in Bristol, UK. "MY MAIN PROBLEM IS THE SECRECY. WHEN SO MANY PEOPLE WITH SO MUCH POWER GET TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE I THINK WE ARE OWED AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS GOING ON. Mr Gosling seizes on a quote from Will Hutton, the British economist and a former Bilderberg delegate, who likened it to the annual WEF gathering where "the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is made worldwide".

"One of the first places I heard about the determination of US forces to attack Iraq was from leaks that came out of the 2002 Bilderberg meeting," says Mr Gosling.

But "privacy, rather than secrecy", is key to such a meeting says Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf, who has been invited several times in a non-reporting role. "The idea that such meetings cannot be held in private is fundamentally totalitarian," he says. "It's not an executive body; no decisions are taken there."

That activists have seized on Bilderberg is no surprise to Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories.
"The idea that a shadowy clique is running the world is nothing new. For hundreds of years people have believed the world is governed by a cabal of Jews. "SHOULDN'T WE EXPECT THAT THE RICH AND POWERFUL ORGANISE THINGS IN THEIR OWN INTERESTS. IT'S CALLED CAPITALISM."

The newest deceptions are with jobs and housing. Each is much worse than reported. The housing decline might be as much as 15% worse than reported, which leads to much bigger job loss than is reported. Most of the home construction job loss is under the table, to people not on state jobless insurance programs, and to immigrant workers paid in cash. Both fall through the statistical cracks in those home frames and plywood floors underlayments.

A quick preface on the two biggest corrupted statistics first, since of paramount importance. The US Federal Reserve will likely respond to more rapid job loss, and to more rapid home sector erosion decline. WHEN THEY DO, EXPECT AN OFFICIAL RATE CUT SEQUENCE TO RESEMBLE THAT OF 2001. AS IN, SHARP & SUDDEN.

The signals surround us, that the major powers are in the process of permitting the USDollar to fall.
Premeditated doctored and falsified economic statistics are the laughing stock of the USGovt reporting system. The are the tarnish on a once respected emblem. The two most important chronically corrupted pulse measures for the USEconomy are the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the economic growth, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on the price inflation. The GDP is lifted improperly by 4% to 5% in order to conceal the ongoing fight with a recession since the 2000 stock bust.

HOUSE SECTOR IS CRASHING - Every reason looms large that housing data is equally inaccurate as most other major economic statistics. Whether intentionally falsified or incompetently calculated by the National Assn of Realtors (NAR), it is irrelevant. Call it financial engineering. My guess is again a premeditated doctoring of the statistics, since their motive is so clear, to sell homes. In a worse declining market, sales would halt, pure and simple.

WE ARE IN AN AGE WHERE THOSE PARTIES WITH THE WORST, MOST EGREGIOUS, VESTED INTEREST ARE GIVEN CHARGE OF ASSEMBLING, CALCULATING, AND REPORTING THEIR OWN STATISTICS. This is laughable. Imagine the mafia in charge of reporting on crime levels, or children in school reporting on actual valid sickness and missed days in class.!

Both existing home sales and new home sales data are providing misleading national sales information. The new home curve ball involves cancellations, which are not properly recorded in current data. The housing market has declined much more sharply than is being reported, like 13% to 15% worse. Home sales have fallen 22% on a 12-month basis versus the prior 12 months, in reality. On a simple year-over-year monthly comparison, the decline is even worse. Contrast that to a mere 10% in the compromised NAR reports. It is hard to call theirs or USGovt's work analysis, when it is more like a fraudulent marketing promotional effort.

So the housing decline is much worse than reported, LIKE TWICE AS BAD.

One of America's top economists today revealed that the retiring prime minister is being considered as a replacement for disgraced Paul Wolfowitz.Nobel prize-winner Joe Stiglitz, a former senior vice president at the World Bank, said: "He is one of the people that is clearly being discussed."

Mr Blair is expected to cash in on his international contacts after quitting Downing Street on 27 June and his agent said he would quit as an MP if "a big international job" came up. Mr Stiglitz said the World Bank would probably prefer an economist with experience in development. "But Blair has clearly been a political leader that has the kinds of connections that one needs, that would be useful as head of the institution," he added.

Embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz agreed to quit last night over a favouritism row involving his girlfriend. The move ended weeks of intense pressure on the former U.S. deputy defence secretary, a close ally of President Bush and an architect of the Iraq war. He had faced furious criticism after details emerged of his role in securing a promotion and pay rise for his partner, Oxford-educated Shaha Riza, when he joined the bank in 2005.

A white paper published last year proposed banning the use of hybrid embryos amid fierce opposition to the research from pro-life groups. But yesterday, the draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill reopened the door for such research, which scientists claim is essential if they are to find treatments for serious diseases such as Alzheimer's.

The bill allows scientists to create "cytoplasmic" hybrid embryos, which are 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent animal, such as cow or rabbit. he legislation also goes further, in that it allows human embryos to be altered by the introduction of animal DNA. It is hoped that the hybrid embryos - also referred to as chimeras - could help tackle the shortage of human eggs available for research.

Caroline Flint, the public health minister in Westminster, denied the government had staged a climbdown on the hybrid issue. She said that the white paper had always left the door open for specific research on a case-by-case basis.

True hybrids - creatures created by the fusion of sperm and eggs - remain outlawed. In all cases, it remains illegal to allow hybrid embryos to grow for more than 14 days or for them to be implanted in a womb.

This period allows enough time for scientists to harvest stem cells for their work. However, Dr David King, the director of the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, which is strongly opposed to hybrid research, said: "Do not be fooled by the claim this is just research. "Once we start down the path to GM babies, it will become very hard to turn back."

The Serious Organised Crime Agency said 73 tonnes of cocaine with a street value of £3bn were uncovered.
In its annual report, Soca also reveals it has prevented 35 potential murders by working with police forces using high-tech surveillance techniques. It says it has arrested some of its list of 1,600 organised crime chiefs.

The agency began operation in April following the merger of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the National Crime Squad and other law enforcement agencies.

Up to three million are thought to have fled to South Africa, amid a worsening economic and political crisis. There is high unemployment, and fuel and food shortages across Zimbabwe. Addressing parliament, Mr Mbeki said it was not possible to put "a Great Wall of China" between the two countries and stop people walking across the border.

The annual rate of inflation in Zimbabwe has soared to 3,731.9% - by far the highest rate in the world, official figures show. Mr Mbeki has always preferred "quiet diplomacy" to public criticism of President Robert Mugabe's government. But recently, senior ANC official Toxyo Sexwale said he feared that the Zimbabwe government was not listening and the "volume may have to be turned up".

Speaking after an EU-Russian summit, Mr Barroso said the EU was based on principles of solidarity. The summit in the Volga city of Samara was overshadowed by Moscow's rows with countries including Estonia and Poland. Disputes between Moscow and Brussels have also arisen over the status of Kosovo, energy supplies and trade.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, expressed concern at the difficulties opposition activists were reporting in getting to the summit venue.
Initially the main summit issue was the security of Europe's energy supplies - much of which come from Russia.

But the BBC's Richard Galpin, who was at the summit, says there were now sharp differences over the future status of Kosovo, on how to resolve a trade dispute with Poland and over Estonia's treatment of ethnic Russians.

In a break with previous practice, no joint declaration was prepared. Nor would the two sides be able to begin delayed talks on a new strategic partnership agreement, because of a veto imposed by Poland, now supported by Lithuania. The veto follows Russia's decision last year to block meat imports from Poland over apparent food safety issues.

The EU has also said it could withhold final approval of Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization until trade tariff problems are resolved. A major factor in the deterioration of relations has been Estonia's removal last month of a World War II monument to Red Army soldiers in central Tallinn.

The event sparked unrest by ethnic Russians in Estonia, and a blockade of the Estonian embassy in Moscow.
More recently, EU leaders have expressed alarm about Russian threats to veto a UN Security Council resolution proposing Kosovo's independence from Serbia.

The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers found 25 of 41 countries surveyed showed evidence of content filtering. Websites and services such as Skype and Google Maps were blocked, it said. Such "state-mandated net filtering" was only being carried out in "a couple" of states in 2002, one researcher said.

"In five years we have gone from a couple of states doing state-mandated net filtering to 25," said John Palfrey, at Harvard Law School, "What's regrettable about net filtering is that almost always this is happening in the shadows. A number of states in Europe and the US were not tested because the private sector rather than the government tends to carry out filtering, it said.

The filtering had three primary rationales, according to the report: politics and power, security concerns and social norms. The survey found evidence of filtering in the following countries: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burma/Myanmar, China, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, UAE, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.

The move could stop 150 babies a year from developing conditions such as spina bifida, the Food Standards Agency said.It could also improve the general health of the 13million Britons who do not consume enough of the essential nutrient.

Critics claim, however, that the measure is the latest excess of the nanny state, as it will over-ride consumers' choice on what they eat. They also fear the fortification of the nation's diet with folic acid could be harmful to some. There are concerns it can mask a vitamin B12 deficiency in the elderly, which can seriously damage the nervous system.

Some reports even suggest particularly high levels of folic acid might speed up the development of a particular type of cancer. The FSA believes, however, that the benefits far outweigh these small risks.