BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Monday he will press the United States and other nations to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius at this week's Group of Eight summit.

The United States, Japan, Russia and Canada have yet to be convinced that a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit -- favored by European G8 nations Germany, Britain, France and Italy -- is the necessary threshold beyond which climate change will reach danger levels.

But Barroso said he would "stress the importance of the science and remaining within a 2 degrees temperature rise" when he meets his G8 counterparts and leaders of developed and emerging economies at the three-day summit from Wednesday.

"We go to L'Aquila with a number of key objectives. We will insist on the need to respect the 2 degrees Celsius target," Barroso told a news conference ahead of the summit in the Italian city devastated by an earthquake in April.

PARIS, Jul 6 (IPS) - There was not a burqa in sight. On the bustling streets around Boulevard de Belleville, in one of the most diverse neighbourhoods here, women wore a variety of clothing, including summer dresses, jeans, chadors, headscarves and traditional African dress, but no burqas.

A trader laughed when asked if he had any burqas - the Islamic garment that covers the whole body leaving just slits for the eyes.

"Yes, I have some in stock but I've never sold one," he told IPS. "I swear I have yet to sell a burqa in four years. So where is the burqa that they want to ban? "

French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared last month that the burqa has no place in France, and that its spread must be curtailed.

"The burqa is not a religious symbol, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory," Sarkozy told a group of lawmakers in a speech in Versailles Jun. 22.

Some legislators had expressed concern that an increasing number of women were wearing the garment, perhaps not from choice but because of pressure from religious fundamentalists, and they urged parliament to act.

BUDAPEST, Jul 6 (IPS) - The rise of the anti-gypsy Hungarian far right has revealed deep failures in the country's political system and its civil society.

Hungary is still recovering from the shock of seeing a new extreme-right formation called 'Jobbik - Movement for a Better Hungary' gather 15 percent of the vote in last month's European parliamentary elections won by the rightist opposition party Fidesz.

Many have pointed the finger at the left's inability to deal with the Roma issue, instead brushing it under the carpet or putting the focus on the "fascist threat" in Hungary. Others blame the rightist opposition for minimising the same threat. There is strong opposition to the right against Roma, a 'gypsy' people who migrated to Europe from India since the 14th century.

However analysts have noted that many may have voted for Jobbik as a protest vote in a country deeply distrustful of politicians and politics. The low turnout, at 36 percent, also inflated Jobbik's impressive results.

Jobbik began as a movement of right-wing university youths, and evolved into a party in 2003, betting on the Roma issue while avoiding the anti- Semitic clichés of other extreme-right parties.

Unlike its far-right predecessors that had their base in Hungary's larger cities, Jobbik's anti-Roma rhetoric scored points in the countryside as well, especially in poor areas populated by the Roma.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, has said he will not seek another term in office.

"I had a 10-year mandate which I have fulfilled. I do not mean to go any further," he told a Spanish newspaper.

A spokeswoman said it was normal that Mr Solana would step down when his term ended in October, and that he would be "very busy doing other activities".

He had been considered a main contender for the new EU foreign policy role set to be created by the Lisbon Treaty.

Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy have been discussing economic recovery and tension with Iran in talks ahead of this week's G8 summit.

The two leaders said relations between their countries were strong, following talks in the French town Evian.

President Sarkozy said France stood "shoulder to shoulder" over attacks on Britain by the Iranian authorities.

It is understood the UK will give £15m to France for border protection in return for help deporting immigrants.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Oleg Mityayev) - European gas consumers are frantically looking for an alternative to Russian natural gas. At the same time, Russian energy giant Gazprom is doing its best to control all gas supplies from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Towards this end, Gazprom signed an agreement with Azerbaijan on June 29 to purchase all of its export gas in order to prevent the U.S. and Europe-advocated Nabucco project from succeeding.

The same day, Poland signed a contract on gas supplies with a rival of Gazprom, Qatargas.

At present, Poland consumes 13.7 billion cubic meters of gas annually, out of which 7 bcm is supplied by Gazprom, according to the International Energy Agency. Therefore, the deal with Qatar, which may reduce Russian gas supplies by 20%, is Poland's first step toward lowering its dependence on Russian gas.

However, Gazprom is itself to blame for the appearance of a rival company, Qatargas, in Europe. It was because of its efforts to maintain its monopoly position in the European market and to purchase all gas produced in the CIS that Europeans started searching for ways to diversify gas routes.

Fresh from their victory in Bulgaria's parliamentary elections Sunday (July 5th), Boyko Borissov and his centre-right Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) are vowing to step up reforms. Borissov warned, however, that there will be no quick fix to the various problems the country is facing.

"We cannot be expected to work miracles in the next six months, and we haven't promised any such thing," the Sofia mayor told a news conference, stressing that his party's programme is a four-year one. He voiced hope that Bulgaria would soon be able to regain access to EU assistance funding, frozen because of sluggish efforts in fighting crime and corruption.

Borissov, 50, also pledged that his government would prosecute any cases of corruption that took place during the outgoing government's four-year rule.

"Those who have stolen should be very afraid ... The thieves will go to jail," he said.

Jerzy Buzek gets clear run to become the first president of the European Parliament from a new member state. Italian MEP Mario Mauro has withdrawn his bid to stand for election as president of the European Parliament. He had been campaigning to be the candidate of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP). Polish MEP Jerzy Buzek is now assured of the EPP nomination, which in turn means that he is almost certain to become the first president of the Parliament from a new member state.  

In a statement issued on Sunday evening, Mauro said he had decided to withdraw his candidacy because he wanted to avoid forcing the EPP to vote. The election of a new president to succeed Hans-Gert Pöttering is to take place next week (14 July) during the first plenary session of the Parliament.   The EPP would have called a vote tomorrow if it had been unable to agree beforehand on a single candidate.  

Mauro had far less support than Buzek as the EPP's candidate and was expected to be defeated if there had been a vote within the group.

Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command fears the extreme right will stage a deadly terrorist attack in Britain to try to stoke racial tensions, the Guardian has learned.

Senior officers fear the attack will be a "spectacular" that is designed to kill people. The counter-terrorism unit has moved officers to beef up its monitoring of the extreme right's potential to stage attacks.

Commander Shaun Sawyer told a meeting of British Muslims concerned about the danger posed to their communities that police were responding to the growing threat.

Sawyer said of the far right: "I fear that they will have a spectacular ... They will carry out an attack that will lead to a loss of life or injury to a community somewhere. They're not choosy about which community."

Full marks to Scotland Yard for using the T word.

France's Stimulus Projects, Unlike in U.S., Were `Shovel Ready'  | New York Times:

... All told, Paris has set aside 100 million euros in stimulus funds earmarked for what the French like to call their cultural patrimony. It is a French twist on how to overcome the global downturn, spending borrowed money avidly to beautify the nation even as it also races ahead of the United States in more classic Keynesian ways: fixing potholes, upgrading railroads and pursuing other "shovel ready" projects.

"America is six months behind; it has wasted a lot of time," said Patrick Devedjian, the minister in charge of the French relance, or stimulus. By the time Washington gets around to doling out most of its money, Mr. Devedjian sniffed, "the crisis could be over."

Gallic pride aside, Mr. Devedjian has a point. While he plans to spend 75 percent of France's stimulus money this year, the White House is giving itself until fall 2010 to lay out that big a share of the American expenditure. And many experts predict that Washington will fall short of that goal.

As it turns out, France's more centralized, state-directed economy -- so often criticized in good times for smothering entrepreneurship and holding back growth -- is proving remarkably effective at deploying funds quickly and efficiently in bad times.

"All projects must start in 2009," Mr. Devedjian said. "We want rapid results." ...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tumbled Monday morning, as weakness in overseas markets and tumbling oil prices added to concerns about the length of the recession.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) fell 70 points, or 0.9%, over an hour into the session. The S&P 500 (SPX) index lost 10 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq (COMP) fell 26 points, or 1.4%.

Stocks slipped Thursday in the last session of a holiday-shortened trading week after a weaker-than-expected jobs report fueled worries about the economy. All financial markets were closed Friday for the Independence Day weekend.

Stocks rallied for three months, with the S&P 500 gaining 40%, on bets that the economy is closer to stabilizing. But stocks have drifted lower in the last three weeks on concerns that the run up was too much, too soon.

The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country's ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US's own central bank

n a 2003 paper, Thomas Laubach, the US Federal Reserve's senior economist, calculated the impact on long-term interest rates of rising fiscal deficits and soaring national debt. Applying his assumptions to the recent spike in the US fiscal deficit and national debt, long-term interests rates will double from their current 3.5pc.

The impact would be devastating by making it punitively expensive to finance national borrowings and leading to what Tim Congdon, founder of Lombard Street Research, called a "debt explosion". Mr Laubach's study has implications for the UK, too, as public debt is soaring. A US crisis would have implications for the rest of the world, in any case.

[Torygraph Alert]

Nigeria's main militant group said on Monday it had sabotaged a Chevron oil facility and seized a chemical tanker and six crew members, the latest in a string of attacks in Africa's biggest energy producer.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it attacked Chevron's Okan manifold late on Sunday in the southern Delta state, hours after it sabotaged an oil well head operated by Royal Dutch Shell.

It was not immediately possible to independently verify the statement. U.S. oil firm Chevron, which halted swamp operations in Delta state following attacks on its pipelines in May, said it was investigating the report.

Chevron, Shell and Italian energy firm Agip have cut output by around 273,000 barrels per day in the last six weeks following the latest campaign of militant violence....

MEND also said on Monday it seized a chemical tanker and six crew members off the coast of Escravos in the Niger Delta. It said three of the hostages were from Russia, two from the Philippines and one from India.

"Six crew members from the chemical tanker Siehem Peace was seized about 20 nautical miles from Escravos on Sunday ... and will be held until further notice," said MEND, who threatened further offshore attacks.

The worst of the recession may be yet to come and world leaders are in danger of hampering the recovery, Gordon Brown will say today.

As he begins a week of meetings with world leaders, the Prime Minister will strike an unexpectedly gloomy note about the prospects of an upturn and will demand that fellow heads of government "sound a second-wake up call for the world economy".

Soaring oil prices, rising 75 per cent this year, protectionist measures contributing to a 10 per cent drop in trade and the failure of banks to start lending again could all put the recovery at risk, according to Downing Street.

The remarks are a departure from Mr Brown's usual rhetoric. His forecast that the British economy will emerge from recession by the end of the year is expected to form the basis of Labour's general election campaign. Downing Street sources denied that the remarks were a change, saying that he had not spoken about the international economy for a while.

While Edward Harrison still believes that a technical recovery will occur Q4-Q1 he remains concerned about the downside risks, cites Brown's message today in France, (cited above), and faults the Obama Administration for spending their political capital bailing out big banks, for putting together a weak stimulus and for now having no bullets left.  He believes that, in order to keep deflation at bay, additional stimulus will be required.  Therein lies the rub.

The problem is the U.S. government budget deficit. In April, in a post called "The Cult of Zero Imbalances," Marshall Auerback made the case for stimulus, aware of the downside risks for the dollar and bond prices because of that deficit. Yes, there are risks for America associated with deficit-inducing stimulus in the short-term, but they can be mitigated if the Obama Administration actually showed a plan to reduce the longer-term deficit.  But, as David Leonhardt has argued, Obama's team has no deficit reduction plan whatsoever.

So now we must contemplate America's fiscal train wreck; and that is exactly what Richard Berner at Morgan Stanley is doing.  Here is an excerpt of his research note published today.

America's long-awaited fiscal train wreck is now underway.  Depending on policy actions taken now and over the next few years, federal deficits will likely average as much as 6% of GDP through 2019, contributing to a jump in debt held by the public to as high as 82% of GDP by then - a doubling over the next decade.  Worse, barring aggressive policy actions, deficits and debt will rise even more sharply thereafter as entitlement spending accelerates relative to GDP.  Keeping entitlement promises would require unsustainable borrowing, taxes or both, severely testing the credibility of our policies and hurting our long-term ability to finance investment and sustain growth.  And soaring debt will force up real interest rates, reducing capital and productivity and boosting debt service.  Not only will those factors steadily lower our standard of living, but they will imperil economic and financial stability.

Though doomsayers have been predicting disaster from deficits without those disasters materializing, Harrison begs to differ.

Well, they do matter.  Eventually, the day of reckoning will come.  Berner puts it this way.

Some are concerned that our reckless fiscal policy will trigger a downgrade of the US sovereign debt rating, making the financing of our burgeoning deficits more difficult.  While worries that the US will default on its debt are illogical, global investors and officials are concerned about the credibility and the sustainability of our fiscal policies.  So am I.  They fear that we will adopt policies that will undermine the dollar and the domestic value of dollar-denominated assets through a combination of risk premiums and inflation.  I worry about that too, although such policies probably would be accidental rather than deliberate.  As a result, interest rates may have to rise significantly to compensate investors, including reserve portfolio managers and sovereign wealth funds, for such dangers.  While the dollar will for now retain its reserve-currency status, such concerns put it at risk.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians queued up in Moscow at the weekend to press -- quite literally -- a reset button on U.S.-Russian relations, a publicity stunt meant to clear the air on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit.

The stunt centered on the symbolic red button U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in March, urging him to press it to reinvigorate relations between their two nations.

Lavrov was quick to point out that the Americans had mis-spelled the Russian word on the button's label, giving it the meaning of "overload" instead of "reset."

Lavrov lent the button to the state-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, which installed it on Moscow's Pushkin Square to serve as a kind of geopolitical genie.

Russians queued for the chance to press it and make a wish for better bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington.

Several hundred people were arrested after a protest, in the city of Urumqi on Sunday, turned violent.

Beijing says Uighurs went on the rampage but one exiled Uighur leader says police fired on students.

The protest was reportedly prompted by a deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China last month.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Shanghai says this is one of the most serious clashes between the authorities and demonstrators in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989.

ROME, Jul 6 (IPS) - Many civil society organisations are staying on in Sardinia island in support of a region severely affected by the economic crisis, after the G8 leaders summit was moved from there to the city of L'Aquila.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi decided to move the G8 meeting to L'Aquila, north-east of Rome, after a major earthquake almost destroyed the city and surroundings in April, killing 300 people. The government explained the decision as "an act of solidarity, and attention to the region's population."

But 17 national, international and regional NGOs that had begun work with the people of Sardinia decided they would not walk out on the region. "We had started to work with the local communities on our joint proposals to the G8 when the decision was taken," says Raffaella Bolini of the human rights organisation Arci. "And we decided to maintain our activities there, particularly in the mining areas of Sulcis Iglesiente and Maedio Campidano."

Iran's biggest group of clerics has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election to be illegitimate and condemned the subsequent crackdown.

"It's a clerical mutiny," said one Iranian analyst. "This is the first time ever you have all these big clerics openly challenging the leader's decision." Another, in Tehran, said: "We are seeing the birth of a new political front."

The head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran's nuclear sites.

Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad's director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

AMY GOODMAN: A week after a military coup in Honduras, soldiers and riot police blocked the airport runway Sunday evening preventing ousted President Manuel Zelaya from returning to the country. Heavily armed Honduran soldiers also used tear gas and machine guns to disperse an unarmed crowd of over tens of thousands of people who had come from all over the country, despite military blockades, to wait at the airport and welcome back their ousted President. At least two people were reportedly killed and more wounded. After several failed attempts to touch down at Tegucigalpa airport, Zelaya's plane eventually flew to Nicaragua, where he met President Daniel Ortega. He was accompanied by the President of the UN General Assembly Miguel D'Escoto Brockman on the plane. Zelaya then went on to El Salvador where he is due to meet the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay and the head of the Organization of American States....

ANDRES CONTERIS: The media overwhelmingly in this country is controlled by an oligarchy that is very supportive of this coup. And so they are only trying to get out the story about some of the demonstrations that have been in favor of Roberto Micheletti taking power a week ago yesterday. However, the press who is trying to give a balanced approach and to give voice to those who are in the streets yesterday and the recent days, in addition to yesterday. They are finding--they're facing incredible repression. There was a journalist on Friday murdered after leaving Radio America in San Juan Pueblo in the rural area in the north. Then there are two journalists who are in hiding. One is the head of channel 36 and the other is the director of Radio Global. Other journalists who have decided to continue their programming are facing death threats. And fear and intimidation tactics....

AMY GOODMAN: Also a bomb on July 4th, Saturday exploded at Channel 11 in Tegucigalpa?

ANDRES CONTERIS: That happened at 9:30 PM at night. It was the first bomb that had been placed in the institution that actually went off. The material damage was severe, there was no one else hurt. Channel 11 has not been known as a channel that would give the side that is countered to this regime that is in power now, but they were attempting to do some small efforts to give a balanced approach. Even in doing that, that is what caused them to be a target of this bombing. Other channels closed, I said channel 36, also channel 45. In terms of radio, Radio Global in Tegucigalpa is the station that is most been under attack. I mentioned a man who jumped three stories, the director is in hiding. Other journalists are under life threats. One of the radios stations in the countryside, Radio Progresso, this was shut down. ...

In the latest strike action, nearly 70,000 construction workers will down tools on Wednesday over wages, which could halt work on stadiums for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Unions at state broadcaster SABC will also strike this week, raising the possibility of a nationwide television blackout for the first time since television arrived in South Africa three decades ago.

Gold miners and the mineworkers' union NUM, which has vowed to strike if pay demands are not met, meet on Tuesday for a key meeting on wage talks while unions in the platinum, chemical, paper and petroleum sectors have also warned of strikes....

"The news is clearly worrying. There is some struggle within the ANC (alliance) to change policy direction, for payback of what the left sees as its dues for getting Zuma to power," said Peter Attard Montalto, emerging markets economist at Nomura in London.

COSATU nearly blocked the listing of mobile phone group Vodacom in May and has called for bigger interest rate cuts from the central bank -- all indications that the grouping plans to play a bigger role on the political stage.

Social Democrat Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel called on Merkel and Economics Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg to give up their nuclear course in order to preserve "the security of German citizens."

In an interview with Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily, Gabriel said "the recent incidents in Krümmel prove we cannot justify the protracted use of older power plants."

Indeed the Kruemmel reactor in the northern state of Schleswig Holstein only roared back to life at the end of June after a fire in 2007 forced its closure for two full years. And in the few days since its reopening, the plant has twice been removed from the national grid. 

Action not investigation

The plant's Swedish operators, Vattenfall, say the latest shutdown, which put out the majority of traffic lights across Hamburg and left thousands of homes in the region with a reduced electricity supply, was the result of a short-circuit. They say they are investigating the cause, and have not indicated when normal operations might resume.

France on Friday rejected a report by the European Union's food safety watchdog that said a controversial strain of genetically-modified corn was safe.

In a joint statement, the French ecology and agriculture ministries said the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had failed to take into account requests to change the way it evaluated the risk.

"The conclusions of the council of European environment ministers must be respected," the statement said, referring to a December 4, 2008 decision, approved unanimously, that had called on the agency to overhaul its assessment methods.

France and five other EU members -- Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg -- have suspended sowing of Monsanto's MON810 maize, invoking safeguard clauses on the grounds of potential environmental hazard.

On Tuesday, EFSA's GMO panel declared that the product was safe both for health and the environment.

A gene inserted into the maize that makes it pest-resistant "does not raise any safety concern, and ... sufficient evidence for the stability of the genetic modification was provided," the panel said.

The French statement noted that 12 EU states had written to EFSA less than two months earlier.

On May 6, the 12 had called on the agency to ensure that safety assessments also cover any impact on other forms of wildlife and whether pests could develop resistance, as well as other criteria.

Denmark's Minister for Climate Connie Hedegaard said here Friday there was no "Plan B" if negotiations broke down for an ambitious climate accord at a December world summit in Copenhagen.

"It's clear, we are not working for a Plan B," Hedegaard said after a ministerial meeting of 29 countries from all continents to boost the talks that she said were going too slowly.

"To seal a deal in Copenhagen is a political challenge, not a technical one," Hedegaard said at a press conference in this western Greenland town, adding that the Greenland Dialogue launched by Denmark in 2005 was providing "political guidance" to the negotiations.

"On emission reductions, participants agreed that developed countries should explore how they can strengthen the ambition of their contribition and that developing countries' action must be strengthened -- all in order to meet the demands of science," the minister said.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook will likely be posting billions of dollars in revenue in five years, up from about $500 million this year, according to Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mark Andreessen who sits on Facebook's board.

Andreessen told Reuters that the world's most popular online social network could pile up $1 billion in revenue this year if it pushed harder on selling advertising.

But he added that it was more important at this stage for social sites like Facebook and Twitter to retain and grow their user base and capture market share, rather than worry too much about making lots of money right away.

"This calendar year they'll do over $500 million," Andreessen said in an interview, noting that Facebook has more than 225 million users, so revenue per user is still small.

"If they pushed the throttle forward on monetization they would be doing more than a billion this year," said Andreessen, who made the cover of Time Magazine as founder of the world's first Web browser company, Netscape.

The fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, having stood empty since its completion in 1841, has, since 1999, been host to a succession of artworks.

The latest opened today: the sculptor Antony Gormley is choosing (by random selection from applicants) 2400 members of the public to stand on the plinth for one hour each.

The use of unmanned drones as weapons of war in conflicts around the world has been called into question by one of Britain's most senior judges. Lord Bingham, until last year the senior law lord, said that some weapons were so "cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance".

In an interview with the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Lord Bingham compared drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, with cluster bombs and landmines.

His comments are bound to intensify calls for new international rules to protect civilian populations from arbitrary attacks launched by the pilotless craft.

Drinking five cups of coffee a day could reverse memory problems seen in Alzheimer's disease, US scientists say.

The Florida research, carried out on mice, also suggested caffeine hampered the production of the protein plaques which are the hallmark of the disease.

Previous research has also suggested a protective effect from caffeine.

But British experts said the Journal of Alzheimer's disease study did not mean that dementia patients should start using caffeine supplements.

Nairobi -- Two studies on donor health funding for regions like East Africa recently reached the same controversial conclusion -- that aid money often does not go to the right countries and diseases, and in some cases serves to weaken public health systems.

The studies, whose findings were published recently in the medical journal Lancet, were among others designed to establish whether health funding was having a significant positive impact on health outcomes in recipient countries.

According to the WHO report there is significant evidence, for example, that donor-supported programmes for such diseases as HIV/Aids and malaria had drawn health workers from public health sectors with better pay and working conditions, thus weakening the very systems they were supposed to support.

They are superheroes battling injustice and fighting evil the Islamic way, and they are teaming up with some of the west's biggest comic book icons. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are among those joining forces with The 99, who personify the 99 attributes of Allah, according to Islamic tradition.

What will unfold on the pages of the collaboration between DC Comics in the US and Teshkeel Comics in Kuwait is yet to be seen, but the appearance of The 99 - who already appear in comics in the Muslim world - alongside archetypal American heroes would have been unlikely during the Bush years. DC Comics' president and publisher, Paul Levitz, believes the cross-cultural project is unprecedented.

He said: "It is a long-standing tradition for characters to meet others in the fictional world, and over the years a lot of the superheroes have been translated into Arabic, taking on ethnic elements. But this is a nice step forward. The most difficult creative test is when you are working with the least precedent and when you're trying to reach an audience that has a different cultural bias and different interests."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara died on Monday aged 93. He will be remembered most as the leading architect of America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

"His age just caught up with him," his wife Diana told Reuters. "He was not ill. He died peacefully in his sleep."

McNamara also forged brilliant careers in industry and international finance, but his painful legacy remains Vietnam.

More than anyone else except possibly President Lyndon Johnson, McNamara became to anti-war critics the symbol of a failed policy that left more than 58,000 U.S. troops dead and the nation bogged down in a seemingly endless disaster in Southeast Asia.

Pundits came to call the conflict "McNamara's War."

Snakes and the number 13 are not usually considered good luck charms, but Condi and her 12 serpent siblings have brought happiness to a couple in Lebanon.

Pierre Rizk and his Sri Lankan wife Sapna have no children but are living happily with their 13 snakes in a two-room apartment east of Beirut.

The Rizks form a multicultural family -- their pets hail from India, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Arizona -- and have named one of their snakes 'Condoleezza' in a tribute to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"I really admire her for her leadership," Rizk told AFP in his small home, a yellow python slithering around his neck and chest.

"She has so much intelligence, responsibility, and energy -- just like the energy of snakes," he added.

RIGA (Reuters) - Ready to give your soul for a loan in these difficult economic times? In Latvia, where the crisis has raged more than in the rest of the European Union, you can.

Such a deal is being offered by the Kontora loan company, whose public face is Viktor Mirosiichenko, 34.

Clients have to sign a contract, with the words "Agreement" in bold letters at the top. The client agrees to the collateral, "that is, my immortal soul."

Mirosiichenko said his company would not employ debt collectors to get its money back if people refused to repay, and promised no physical violence. Signatories only have to give their first name and do not show any documents.

"If they don't give it back, what can you do? They won't have a soul, that's all," he told Reuters in a basement office, with one desk, a computer and three chairs.