The call came this week during a meeting of a special commission on China created by Pope Benedict XVI. Among the participants at the meeting was the Hong Kong Cardinal, Joseph Zen, an outspoken champion of religious freedom who at times has drawn the ire of Beijing authorities. The Vatican said in a statement that participants focused on issues concerning the life of the Catholic Church in China. The pope, who has made improving relations with China a priority, is keen to restore diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Beijing broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 after the communists took power in China. Millions of Chinese belong to unofficial congregations that are loyal to the pope and risk harassment. The pope sent a letter to Catholics in China last year, praising the underground church but also urging reconciliation with the official church.

"In line with the indications expressed by the pope in his letter, the will for a respectful and constructive dialogue with the authorities was reiterated," during the meeting, the Vatican statement said. Catholic clergy in China have at times been jailed and worship is allowed only in state-backed churches, which appoint their own bishops in defiance of the Vatican.

They are allowed to claim a total of £22,000 for a range of items ranging from a £200 food processor and a £750 high-definition TV to £10,000 for a new kitchen and £6,000 for a bathroom. The secret list of 38 items MPs can claim back from the taxpayer for their second homes was revealed last night under the Freedom of Information Act after the authorities fought to keep it under wraps.

The "John Lewis" list is so called because it is based on prices at the upmarket department store, which specialises in top-of-the-range goods. It will heap further pressure on MPs who are already under attack for the long list of perks they have awarded themselves, including help with mortgage costs and travel expenses.

The revelation that MPs can claim for luxury entertainment systems caused fury last night. Former anti-sleaze MP Martin Bell said the payments were "abuses" and that public trust in politics would plunge to "below rock bottom". They can claim up to a maximum of £22,000 - and many do. Limits include £1,000 for a bed, £250 for a coffee table, £600 for a dining table, £500 for a dressing table and £550 for a fridge-freezer.

Carpets and wood flooring can be bought at £35 per square metre. Not all the items are essential. Comparing the list with the John Lewis website shows MPs may claim a free high-definition TV set, costing £749, a £249 home cinema system and a Kenwood classic food mixer at £199. Rugs can be bought for £300, which could include a luxury hand-knotted Pakistan Bokhara rug from John Lewis, described on the website as "soft and velvety". The list also reveals that dry cleaning for clothes and household items is permitted "within reasonable limits".

Mr Walker told the Information Tribunal last month that most costs associated with their second residence can be claimed back even if they are not exclusively work-related. They can also claim up to £400 a month for shopping without receipts.

Gold climbed as high as $1,000.45 an ounce yesterday as mounting credit-market losses spurred demand for bullion as a haven from the sagging dollar and equities. This is up 37 percent since the Federal Reserve began cutting borrowing costs in September, sending the dollar tumbling.

"Gold strength has been mainly driven by the weak dollar, strong crude and increasing fear of recession," Stephan Schlatter, executive director for metals markets in Asia at UBS AG, said from Singapore today by e-mail. "Assuming that the situation will not change over the next few weeks there is still a high probability that it will show continuing strength."

The dollar again hit record lows Friday and, after coming off 12-year lows, slipped below 100 yen for the second day in a row. The euro bought a record high of $1.5651 before settling back to $1.5558 in early trading. The euro was$1.5625 on Thursday.

The British pound slipped to $2.0273 from the $2.0292 it bought in New York late on Thursday. The dollar, which on Thursday fell below 100 yen for the first time since late 1995, fell as low as 99.85 yen Friday before recovering somewhat to 100.55 yen. Economic woes in the U.S. have fed expectations that the Federal Reserve will continue to lower interest rates. Lower interest rates can jump-start a nation's economy, but can also weigh on its currency as traders transfer funds to countries where they can earn higher returns.

The European Central Bank has taken a tough anti-inflation stance and has shown no inclination so far to cut rates for the 15-nation euro zone. On Friday, the EU reported a new inflation high of 3.3 percent in February, dousing almost any hope that central banks would budge.

The dollar dropped below 100 yen earlier today for the first time since 1995 and declined to a record low against the euro. Investors looking for higher returns have flocked to commodities. Oil surged 90 percent over the past year as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 4.4 percent.

"Energy trading continues to be dollar dominated," said John Kilduff, senior vice president of energy at MF Global Ltd. In New York. "The reverberations from the credit markets and U.S. economic policies are creating an inflation wave in hard assets and traditional inflation havens."

Gold traded above $1,000 an ounce for the first time in New York today on the sliding dollar. Silver, platinum and palladium also advanced. The U.S. currency fell against a basket of six major trading partners to the lowest since the index began in 1973. The Dollar Index traded on ICE Futures in New York declined as low as 71.795.

He's complained that churches can't be built in many Muslim countries. He warned of a mass exodus of his ancient Catholic flock from places like Beirut and Bethlehem. Now, the Pope has a martyred Iraqi bishop to lament. Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped on Feb. 29. On Thursday, his body was recovered. Almost immediately, the Pontiff released a blunt statement, declaring: "the most resolute condemnation of an act of inhuman violence that offends the dignity of the human being."

Several Catholic priests and seminarians have been killed in previous attacks and kidnappings over the past three years in Iraq, but Rahho is the first bishop to perish after being caught up in that country's cycle of violence. The body of the bearded 65-year-old, who was known to be in poor health, was found after his abductors called Rahho's church to say that he'd died and been buried. His corpse was found in a shallow grave just outside Mosul. The cause of death was not immediately clear.

Still, there is little doubt about the religious motivation of last month's brazen abduction, in which Rahho's driver and two bodyguards were slain. Even if criminal elements were involved in the kidnapping - and ransoms were reportedly sought - the victim was clearly targeted for his prominent role in the Church.

Apart from furnishing concrete evidence of the changing of the guard in the global economy, it also demonstrates the economic value created by the commodity boom. The common thread running between these unrelated trends - the decline in the U.S. dollar.

The United States continues to dominate the ranks of the world's biggest companies, but to a much lesser degree than it did even a decade ago. It now accounts for nine of the Top 25, followed closely by Europe with eight. In 1998, the United States accounted for as many as 18 of the Top 25 companies, followed by Europe with five.

What does come as a surprise, however, is the number of corporate juggernauts spawned in recent years by the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) powerhouses. China has four companies in the global Top 25, while Brazil and Russia have one company apiece. So the BRIC group (excluding India, which has no representation on the list) collectively accounts for about a quarter of the world's Top 25, a remarkable feat considering that most of these titans are relatively new entrants to the global equity marketplace.

Ten years from now, the Top 25 ranking may look very different, and one of the factors driving this transformation will undoubtedly be the direction of the U.S. dollar. Currency moves can play a huge part in determining the global corporate hierarchy. Witness the case of Japan. In 1996, a year after the yen peaked at about 80 to the U.S. dollar, Japan had eight companies in the Top 25; by 1998, with the yen having tumbled 40 percent from its peak, only two Japanese companies remained. Ten years later, Toyota Motor is the sole representative from Japan, despite the yen having gained more than 20 percent over the past decade. In the battle to become the biggest, lost ground is exceedingly difficult to make up.

The firm's co-founder David Rubenstein told the newspaper that he was working on ways to address clients' losses. His comments came after Carlyle Capital Corporation (CCC), a unit of Carlyle Group, said it was unable to pay back its debts and may be liquidated. Some $600m (£295m) of clients' money will be lost if the fund fails.

The fund is the latest casualty of the widening credit market crisis. CCC's problems emerged last week when it became apparent that the fund was not going to be able to service its debts. Some of the banks that had lent CCC money started liquidating assets, and the fund's shares, which are listed in Amsterdam, were suspended. On Wednesday, CCC said that it had not been able to refinance its business and it had so far defaulted on about $16.6bn (£8.1bn) of its debt.

CCC said that it would collapse if, as expected, its lenders seized the remaining assets. Other investment funds may now face similar problems, analysts fear.

Xinhua news agency said witnesses described shops being set on fire. Rallies by monks have continued through the week, in what campaign groups say are the largest protests against Beijing's rule in 20 years. An eyewitness told the BBC how security forces and monks clashed on Wednesday, with several monks being beaten. John, a US national who left Lhasa on Thursday, said that about 300 monks had tried to leave the Sera monastery to protest.

But security forces brandishing clubs stopped them and at least one monk was beaten to the ground, he said. The protests began earlier this week, when a number of monks were reportedly arrested after a march marking the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. Hundreds of monks took to the streets to demand their release - and reports say tear gas was used to disperse them.

Correspondents say there is growing evidence that protests against Chinese rule are intensifying, despite assurances by Beijing on Thursday that the situation was under control. Beijing claims sovereignty over Tibet, but many Tibetans remain loyal to their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled in 1959 and currently lives in exile in India.

Many students are ignoring career aspirations to pursue the chance of fame instead, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) survey found. Almost two-thirds of teachers said sports stars were the type of celebrity most pupils wanted to emulate while more than half of students wanted to be pop stars. The celebrities students aspired to be most like, the survey said, were Los Angeles-based David and Victoria Beckham, arguably Britain's most famous couple.

Soccer player "Becks" topped the poll, with more than half the teachers saying their students modelled themselves on the 32 year-old. In second place, with almost a third of the poll's vote, was his 33 year-old wife and pop star "Posh". In an era of reality television "stars" and a media fixation with celebrities, a majority of teachers said celebrity culture negatively impacted the aspirations of their pupils. Many bemoaned students who "wanted to be famous for being famous".

Almost half of the 300 teachers polled said pupils tried to look like and/or behave like celebrities they most admired, fuelling fears that girls particularly dressed in "unsuitable", or provocative styles.

Blair has been working with climate change experts on a report which he will present to the G8 group of industrial countries, he told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published on Friday. "This is extremely urgent. A 50 percent cut by 2050 has to be a central component of this," Blair said. "We have to try this year to get that agreed, because the moment you do agree that then you have something for everyone to focus upon. We need a true and proper global deal and that needs to include America and China."

The Guardian said the United States and EU backed Blair's efforts, but did not make clear whether that meant they supported a 50 percent cut by 2050. He will unveil the initiative this weekend at a meeting in Japan of the G20, a group which includes the G8 and other big economies, the Guardian said. He will travel to China and India to discuss it. Blair said the world needed an agreement on curbing greenhouse gases that cause global warming within two years.

"The fact of the matter is that if we do not take substantial action over the next two years, then by 2020 we will be thinking about adaptation rather than prevention," he said.

In such circumstances, stricken whales are often humanely killed to end further suffering. But then up bobbed Moko the dolphin - a playful creature familiar to bathers off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. In an astonishing display of communication between species, she and the whales were heard to call to one another before she led the 12ft pygmy sperm whale and her 4ft male calf out to open sea. "I never cease to be amazed by some wondrous events in the animal world, but this beats them all," said Malcolm Smith from the New Zealand Conservation Department.

"Moko is a real heroine because there is absolutely no doubt she learned of the whales' plight through some kind of telepathy and then got them out of trouble." Mr Smith and his team had raced to the beach at Mahia, near Gisborne, after receiving reports about the stranded whales. The group managed to get a sling under the distressed animals and haul them off the sand bar but they became disorientated and kept returning.

"It seems they were reluctant to move off shore, fearing they would become trapped on the sand bar, but they were in just as much danger being so close to the beach," said Mr Smith. "I was starting to get cold and wet and they were becoming tired. I was at the stage where I was thinking it was about time to give up - I'd done as much as I could."

To the disbelief of Mr Smith and his team, they then heard different sounds from beneath the water and suddenly realised it was the whales returning Moko's contact call. "There's no other explanation for it. Within no time, we could see Moko turning and then we watched open-mouthed as the whales began following her away from the beach.

"She escorted them for about 200 metres parallel with the beach to the edge of the sand bar. Then she did a right-angle turn through quite a narrow channel, which the whales would not have found on their own, and led them out to sea. We haven't seen the whales since. Just what that communication was between them I don't know. In fact I was not even aware that dolphins could communicate with pygmy sperm whales, but that is obviously what happened today."

"Today more than ever," the [Pope] told the participants, "reciprocal openness between cultures is an important field for dialogue between men and women committed to seeking authentic humanism, over and above the differences that separate them. Secularization," he said, "invades all aspects of daily life and causes the development of a mentality in which God is effectively absent, entirely or in part, from human life and conscience."

This "is not just an external threat to believers," added the Pontiff, "but has for some time been evident in the bosom of the Church herself." Benedict XVI said believers are being conditioned by a "culture of images that imposes contradictory models and impulses, with the effective negation of God."

Hence people come to believe "there is no longer any need for God, to think of him or to return to him," said the Pope. "Furthermore, the predominant hedonistic and consumer mentality favors, in the faithful as in pastors, a drift toward superficiality and selfishness, which damages ecclesiastical life. The phrase 'etsi Deus non daretur' [as if there were no God] is becoming a way of life which has its roots in a kind of 'arrogance' of reason," said Benedict XVI.

The FBI is investigating the grisly development, and the families of the five kidnapped contractors have been notified, American officials said on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Authorities confirmed that the fingers belonged to hostages Jonathan Cote, of Gainesville, Fla.; Joshua Munns, of Redding, Calif.; Paul Johnson Reuben, of Buffalo, Minn.; Bert Nussbaumer of Vienna, Austria ; and Ronald J. Withrow, an American who was kidnapped separately from the others. No information was available on when or how the fingers were delivered to US authorities. Some relatives of the missing men said that they'd heard weeks ago that the DNA of the hostages had been obtained, but they'd been given no details.

No financial demand has been made public, and it's unclear what group is holding the men. All of the hostages were seized in southern Iraq, where powerful Shiite Muslim militias operate with relative freedom.

A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, 'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars' is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros (4,125 pounds) price tag. "This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives.

The epic comes in a soft leather case that includes a large-format book including scholarly commentary, reproductions of original parchments in Latin, and -- to tantalise Templar buffs -- replicas of the wax seals used by 14th-century inquisitors. Reuters was given an advance preview of the work, of which only 799 numbered copies have been made.

The Templars, whose full name was "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon", were founded in 1119 by knights sworn to protecting Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. They amassed enormous wealth and helped finance wars of some European monarchs. The Templars went into decline after Muslims re-conquered the Holy Land at the end of the 13th century and were accused of heresy by King Philip IV of France, their foremost persecutor. Their alleged offences included denying Christ and secretly worshipping idols.

The most titillating part of the documents is the so-called Chinon Parchment, which contains phrases in which Pope Clement V absolves the Templars of charges of heresy, which had been the backbone of King Philip's attempts to eliminate them. Their initiation ceremony is believed to have included spitting on the cross, but Frale said they justified this as a ritual of obedience in preparation for possible capture by Muslims. They were also said to have practised sodomy.

"Simply put, the pope recognised that they were not heretics but guilty of many other minor crimes -- such as abuses, violence and sinful acts within the order," she said. "But that is not the same as heresy."