A doubling in the price of wholesale milk over the past year is creating havoc among food manufacturers, prompting warnings about food price inflation in the UK. Aid organisations have also raised concerns about the depletion of government stockpiles of milk powder. In the UK, the price of cream has risen 23 per cent over the past year and dairy organisations say that cheese prices will have to rise this summer.

The continuing drought in Australia, which has crippled the country's dairy output, has raised the wholesale price of skimmed milk powder by 60 per cent in six months. Over the past year, the cost of skimmed milk powder, used widely by the food processing industry, has soared from $2,000 per tonne to $4,800 per tonne.

Butter is also becoming much dearer, rising from $1,800 per tonne to $2,550 per tonne, according to figures from the Milk Development Council. So rapid has been the escalation in demand that the EU's milk surplus has dried up and the butter mountain has been flattened. Historically, the European Commission has given European producers subsidies to sell dairy products into the world market.

"The markets have been so strong there is no amount [of milk and butter] in intervention," Ms Suarez said. "For skimmed milk powder the EU has been able to export without subsidies for a year."

While the disappearance of EU food mountains may be welcomed, aid agencies have given warning of the impact on the world's poor. Much of the world's stock of milk powder is sold to poorer countries.

In the very last days of his term as Prime Minister, Mr Blair will try to sign Britain up to a stripped-down form of the European Constitution that was emphatically rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2004.

The British government has promised that any constitution would be put to UK voters in a referendum. But Mr Blair will argue that the new treaty will not have constitutional implications, merely consolidating and amending existing European rules and not fundamentally altering Britain's relationship with the EU. Mr Blair is due to discuss the new treaty in Brussels on 21 and 22 June. Mr Brown will be formally declared Labour's new leader on 24 June, and sworn in as prime minister on 27 June.

The Conservatives have now served notice that they will demand a referendum from Mr Brown once he is in No 10. "Any treaty that is about the transfer of powers to the EU must be put to the country in a referendum," David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said yesterday.

While the original constitution would have established the EU as a legal entity in its own right, the new draft treaty, being prepared by the German presidency of the union, focuses tightly on reforming the Brussels-based machinery of the EU.

The key changes are:

- To reflect the EU's expansion to 27 members, more decisions would be taken by "qualified majority voting" instead of unanimous agreement.

- The jobs of the existing two EU foreign-policy figures - the external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and representative Javier Solana - would be merged to create a new "union minister of foreign affairs".

- Instead of the presidency of the EU being passed on to a new country every six months, a permanent president would be created, to chair summits of EU leaders.
Some Labour MPs agree with Mr Cameron that those changes justify a referendum.

John McDonnell, the only Labour MP who challenged Mr Brown as leader, has tabled a Commons motion saying ministers must "not sign any treaty or agreement that affects the constitutional relationship between Great Britain and the EU... without consulting the British people by means of a referendum".

"Electing Peres will be upholding the policies he has been promoting, like withdrawals from Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Peres is a major existential danger to the state of Israel," read a statement by the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, a coalition of more than 350 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis.

"We witnessed the destruction and terror brought to our doorsteps from the evacuations Peres previously urged, including Israel's disastrous retreat from Gaza and Lebanon and Peres' brainchild, the Oslo accords, which offered PLO leader Yasser Arafat territory bordering Jewish cities," said the statement.

The Peres Peace Center, headed by the former prime minister, advocates the division of Jerusalem and Israeli withdrawals from the strategic West Bank and Golan Heights. The West Bank borders Jerusalem while the Heights looks down on Israeli population centers and twice was used by Syria to mount ground invasions into the Jewish state.

Peres repeatedly has come under fire by critics for policies and plans many say would greatly undermine Israel's security. Peres has multiple times been accused of making anti-religious statements. A list of purported anti-Jewish quotes made by Peres to the media were recently plastered around religious communities by a group calling itself the Committee for Jewish Holiness.

Among the documented Peres statements listed were:

"What King David did was not Jewish."

"The rabbis are deceivers."

"There is nothing to be proud of in Jewish history."

Wei Chao'an, vice minister of Agriculture, said agriculture accounted for 64 percent of the country's total water consumption and is key to water conservation for the whole of society. "It is therefore a pressing task to promote the use of water saving techniques in agriculture and improve the water consumption efficiency," Wei said at a meeting on farmland water conservation held in Changzhi city, northern Shanxi Province.

He said that China is short of another 30 billion cubic meters of water to irrigate its 121.8 million hectares of farmland. The Chinese government has in recent years invested more than 700 million yuan (91.3 million U.S. dollars) to equip 666,700 hectares of land with water saving technologies, the vice minister said.

The initiative has helped to absorb 2.7 billion cubic meters of rain water per year and save 1,260 cubic meters of water per hectare, he said.

More than 130,000 homes remain without electricity around Newcastle and in Sydney. A severe weather warning remains in place, with winds gusting up to 90km/h (60mph), Australian weather officials said.

On Sunday, some 5,000 residents in the Hunter Valley were ordered to leave their homes amid fears that the Hunter River would breach its levee within hours. In the Newcastle suburb of Wallsend, where 200mm of rain fell in a few hours, state premier Morris Iemma warned that the risk was not yet over.

Relentless rainfall is now in its fourth successive day in central Hunan Province, affecting more than one million people in 11 cities and counties, sources with the provincial government said at a flood control meeting on Saturday.

The rain has left three people dead, one missing and 158,000 homeless, the Ministry of Civil Affairs reported on Friday. Jingzhou county in the city of Huaihua, one of the worst hit areas, received 146.4 millimeters of rainfall on Friday and Saturday, local authorities said.

The whole province is on alert as the upper reaches of the Xiangjiang River swelled to 106.6 meters on Friday, 4.6 meters above the warning level and the highest in 20 years.

In his last foreign engagement, just days before he leaves Downing Street for the final time, the Prime Minister will visit Pope Benedict XVI in what officials say will be a "highly significant" personal mission.
Cherie have often surfaced during Mr Blair's decade in office.

The claims were supported by revelations that he has already discussed not only converting to Rome, but also taking a formal lay position within the Church. Deacons are just below priests in the Catholic hierarchy and have the right to administer certain sacraments and wear a special white robe known as a dalmatic.

Mr Blair discussed the idea of his taking such a role with Canon Timothy Russ, priest at the Immaculate Heart of Mary near the Prime Minister's official country residence, Chequers. It is understood that Mr Blair will be accompanied by Cherie at the audience with the Pope in the papal apartments a week on Saturday. The couple are expected to spend the weekend in Rome before returning for their last 72 hours in Downing Street.

It will be Mr Blair's third visit to the Vatican in four years and a source said: "The fact that he will meet the [Pope] for his last official overseas engagement is highly significant and must raise speculation over his conversion to Catholicism." As a deacon, he could help priests administer Mass, preside over baptisms and read the gospel in Church services. Unlike priests, deacons are not required to take a vow of chastity.

Mr Blair, whose children have been brought up as Catholics, regularly attends Mass at Westminster Cathedral and has become close to the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.
The Prime Minister's first meeting with the present Pope took place last June, but he had an audience with Pope John Paul II in February 2003, shortly before the US and British-led invasion of Iraq.

It later emerged that the Prime Minister had received Holy Communion from the Polish-born pontiff at a private service for the Blair family in the Vatican.

The move comes as China itself faces international criticism, especially in the United States, over a series of scandals that have plagued Chinese food, drugs and other products from poisoned cough syrup to tainted toothpaste and pet food.

Inspectors in the ports of Ningbo and Shenzhen found bacteria and sulfur dioxide in products shipped by three American companies, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.

"The products failed to meet the sanitary standards of China," the agency said in a brief notice posted on its Web site. No details were given on when or how the inspections were conducted.

The agency said it was asking "all local departments to increase quarantine examinations of foods imported from the United States."

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory looking down on Israeli population centers twice used by Syria to launch wars against the Jewish state. Mainstream U.S. and Israeli military experts have long maintained Israel must retain the Golan to ensure against a ground invasion from Syria.

Israel's leading newspaper Yediot Aharonot today quoted top Jerusalem officials stating Olmert used German and Turkish mediators to tell Syrian President Bashar Assad Israel would relinquish the territory in exchange for a peace agreement and Damascus' severing of ties with Iran and Palestinian terror groups. The report said Olmert's offer was approved by the Bush administration.

Knesset members today bashed Olmert's willingness to relinquish the Golan, stating the prime minister was endangering his country's security to save his political career. "Ehud Olmert would sell the Golan Heights for his seat. He is trying to save his own skin, and his statement regarding a withdrawal from the Golan is a desperate attempt to survive," said National Union Party Chairman Zevulun Orlev.

"The Golan will not be sold like Gush Katif," said Orlev, referring to the slate of Gaza Strip Jewish communities the Jewish state evacuated in 2005. Gideon Saar, Likud opposition faction head, said Olmert "has no public legitimacy for a withdrawal from the Golan. Far from our eyes, processes are taking place that will be hard to stop in the future. The responsibility for this lies upon all the members of the government and coalition." Likud Knesset Member Yisrael Katz commented, "It would be better to replace Olmert than to give up the Golan Heights."

National Union Knesset Member Effie Eitam said Olmert was endangering Israeli security to cover up his "failures" during last summer's Lebanon war. The Syrian army has improved its fortifications, according to the Israeli security officials, and has received modern, Russian-made anti-tank missiles similar to the ones that devastated Israeli tanks during the last Lebanon war, causing the highest number of Israeli troop casualties during the 34 days of military confrontations. Syria also received from Russia advanced anti-aircraft missiles.

The officials noted Syria stepped up the pace of weapons, including rockets, being shipped from the Syrian border to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Just yesterday, a truckload of weaponry meant for Hezbollah was confiscated by the Lebanese army.

Assad on a number of occasions the past few months has told his state-run media Damascus is preparing for war. He warned Israel to evacuate the Golan Heights. Last weekend, Assad called for "better cooperation" between Damascus and Tehran in "the confrontation with the Zionist regime and the USA," according to a report published Sunday by Iran's official state news agency, IRNA.

Benedict XVI is expected to raise the war in Iraq and the plight of Christians there, as well as the issues of abortion and gay marriage. The Pope has criticised the US-led invasion. In his Easter address, he said: "Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civilian population flees."
The pontiff is expected to raise the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians who have been forced into exile during the conflict.

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that Mr Bush would give the Pope a detailed explanation of US policy on Iraq. "The president, over the course of the last four-and-a-half years, has made a number of efforts with the Vatican to explain America's position because of the importance he attaches to the moral force that any Pope has," Mr Bolton said. "But I do think it is a question of explaining the policy and not modifying it," he added.

The bacteria was found in a 43-year-old American woman who had traveled across Peru for three weeks and suffered from symptoms similar to typhoid fever or malaria. The woman has since recovered. Named Bartonella rochalimae, the new species is a close relative of a microbe that sickened thousands of soldiers during the First World War with what became known as trench fever, spread through body lice.

It is also related to a bacteria identified 10 years ago during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco as the cause of cat scratch disease, which infects 25,000 people a year in the United States. Two weeks after returning to the United States from her trip to Peru, the woman experienced potentially life-threatening anemia, a rash, an enlarged spleen, insomnia and a high fever that lasted for several weeks. Her traveling companion did not fall ill.

The Peruvian Andes is home to a related bacteria, spread by sand flies, and at first this was what experts thought was causing her illness. Further investigation indicated the culprit was a new species altogether. The new discovery is the sixth species identified that can infect humans, said Dr. Jane Koehler, professor of infectious diseases at UCSF and senior author of the paper.

In 1987, Koehler encountered her first patient infected with Bartonella at the AIDS Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. "The bacteria were eating away a bone in the arm of an AIDS patient - for months," Koehler said. "They can cause extremely painful lesions and tumors of blood vessels on the skin of immunocompromised patients."

Motorcycle spotters monitor large vehicles bound for the British capital and random checkpoints are set up to check any suspicious loads, the officials said.The checks, which began earlier this year, are part of an operation to guard against terrorists using trucks to carry huge bombs into London, Scotland Yard said.

Officers have stepped up security in London -- and claim to have foiled a string of terrorist plots -- since four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on three subway trains and a bus July 7, 2005. London was the site of a failed repeat transit attack two weeks later, and police and intelligence agents say they have prevented a number of other planned attacks -- including an alleged plan to down trans-Atlantic airliners last summer.

During the London trial of confessed al-Qaida operative Dhiren Barot, who was jailed last year for a minimum of 40 years, prosecutors said the British citizen plotted to ram prominent London landmarks with gasoline tankers packed with explosives.

Barot also was alleged to have studied targets in New Jersey, including the Prudential Building in Newark, writing in a memo that ramming trucks "straight through the glass front entrance into the lobby area" would be an effective bombing technique.

The mechanical warrior, called Bear, looks like an oversized toy with a teddy bear's face. However, it can squeeze through doorways while carrying a wounded serviceman.The 6ft-tall remote-controlled device can travel long distances over bumpy terrain and carry out the toughest assignments.

Bear, short for Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot, is part of the new generation of "steel soldiers" being developed for Afghanistan and Iraq, reports New Scientist. In tests, Bear - equipped with cameras and microphones through which a human operator sees and hears - has climbed up and down stairs carrying a human-size dummy.

The robot, which is expected to be ready for testing in the field in five years, can also carry heavy loads over long distances. Robots are becoming common in the US military. When the Americans encountered tough resistance from the Taliban in their Afghan cave networks, the troops sent in Packbot robots to explore the corridors. They are also used to defuse mines.

"It is inconceivable that it is anyone other than the Iranian government that's doing it," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stopped short earlier this week of blaming Iran, saying the U.S. did not have evidence "of the involvement of the Iranian government in support of the Taliban."

But an analysis by a senior coalition official, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, concludes there is clear evidence of Iran's involvement."This is part of a considered policy," says the analysis, "rather than the result of low-level corruption and weapons smuggling."

Iran and the Taliban had been fierce enemies when the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan, and their apparent collaboration came as a surprise to some in the intelligence community. "I think their goal is to make it very clear that Iran has the capability to make life worse for the United States on a variety of fronts," said Seth Jones of the Rand Institute, "even if they have to do some business with a group that has historically been their enemy."

"We believe these intercepted munitions are part of a much bigger flow of support from Iran to the Taliban," the message says. The Taliban receives larger supplies of weapons through profits from opium dealing, officials say, but the Iranian presence could be significant. "It means the insurgency in Afghanistan is likely to be prolonged," said Jones. "It would be a much more potent force."

With downtown Los Angeles seeing a record low of 4 inches of rain since July 2006 -- less than a quarter of normal -- and with a hot, dry summer ahead, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city needed "to change course and conserve water to steer clear of this perfect storm." It is the driest year since rainfall records began 130 years ago.

The Eastern Sierra mountains, where Los Angeles gets about half of its water supply, marked its second-lowest snowpack on record this year.That and the lack of rainfall could force the nation's second largest city into full drought mode in coming months, officials said.

Below average rainfall for the past few years has also turned the traditional summer southern California fire season into an all-round event. Firefighters battled two major brush fires in May alone, at the Los Angeles landmark Griffith Park and on the tourist island of Catalina.