He also said countries bordering the Caspian Sea must jointly back any oil pipeline projects in the region. At a summit of the five nations that border the inland Caspian Sea, Putin said none of the nations' territory should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region. It was a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

"We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state," Putin said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also underlined the need for solidarity. "The Caspian Sea is an inland sea and it only belongs to the Caspian states, therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here," he said.

A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said the United States is not planning military action against Iran.

"We are pursuing a diplomatic course with respect to Iran that includes with respect to its nuclear program as well as with respect to its support for terrorism and other issues that are out there," he said.

Putin refused to set a date for the start-up of Iran's first nuclear power plant, to be built by Russia. At the same time, he said, "We are not going to renounce our obligations."

Putin emphasized Monday that he would negotiate in Tehran on behalf of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members - United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - and Germany, a group that has led efforts to resolve the stalemate with Tehran.

The number of volcanic earthquakes at Mount Kelud, 90 km (55 miles) southwest of Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya, had soared to more than 300 in a six-hour period from late morning, the country's top volcano expert said by telephone. "An area 10 km from the crater should be evacuated," said Surono, head of the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation in Bandung.

The alert level was raised to maximum "based on the seismic activity, deformation, visual observation and the temperature of the crater lake going up", according to the centre's Web site (www.vsi.esdm.go.id). An estimated 350,000 people live within 10 km of the volcano on Java island, growing coffee, sugar cane, pineapples and papayas on the rich volcanic soil or feeding their cattle on the volcano's slopes.

"People are panicking as they are heading towards the evacuation areas," a Reuters witness said by telephone from the area. "They are facing water and sanitation problems as the evacuation sites have not been properly equipped."

The crater lake on Kelud makes it harder to monitor than many of the other volcanoes scattered across Indonesia's archipelago, as some of the warning signs are concealed below the water's surface. Saut Simatupang, another official at the centre, said the crater lake had started to change color indicating increasing sulphur levels. "On the east and the north of the lake, it has started to turn white with sulphur."

When Kelud last erupted in 1990, at least 30 people were killed, while an eruption in 1919 killed about 5,000 as it ejected scalding water from its crater lake.

"The Anglican Church is unraveling," Longley concluded as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams struggled to keep his global flock of 77 million Anglicans together in a bitter war of words over homosexuality.
The latest challenge to Williams, spiritual head of the Anglican Church, came from Ottawa.

The local branch of the Anglican church in the Canadian capital asked Ottawa Bishop John Chapman to authorize the blessing of homosexual marriages. Chapman is an advocate of such blessings and if he approves the request it is likely to enrage the "Global South" -- conservative churches in Africa, Latin America and Asia -- and increase the chances of a worldwide split.

American liberals sparked the row by ordaining openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since staging a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, is to receive the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday after being hosted at the White House by President George W. Bush.

"We are furious," Tibet's Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, told reporters. "If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world." China has also cancelled an annual human rights dialogue with Germany to show its displeasure over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's September meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said China had expressed its "resolute opposition" to the award. "China has solemnly demanded the United States cancel the above-mentioned and extremely wrongful arrangement," Yang told reporters on the sidelines of the 17th Communist Party Congress.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that if the decision to honor the Dalai Lama was not reversed it would have an "extremely serious impact" on bilateral relations.

In European trading, US light, sweet crude rose as high as $87.97 a barrel before easing slightly to $87.55 while Brent crude surged again to $83.99. The continued upward curve followed reports that Turkish forces had shelled an Iraqi border village in recent days.

With global supplies tight, any threat to oil output is likely to hit prices. "Whenever there is any escalation in political tensions in the Middle East, oil markets become concerned," said a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Oil prices have quadrupled since 2002 due to demand from fast-growing economies such as China and India, allied to instability in oil-producing nations in the Middle East and Africa. The cost of oil is still below the inflation-adjusted level of about $90 a barrel seen in 1980 when spiralling prices helped contribute to a recession in the US.

Analysts are divided over where prices will head next, although most believe the upward pressure on prices - driven by concern about the availability of supplies - is set to continue.

One has to do with the Turkish inclination to enter northern Iraq in order to deal with Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) fighters operating there. The other is connected with an upcoming US House of Representatives vote on a resolution to recognize as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The Turks have threatened to intervene in northern Iraq on several occasions since the fall of Saddam Hussein, but they now appear more determined than ever to do so. In addition to the massive build up near the border, the government has now decided to ask for parliamentary approval to send forces into Iraq. This decision follows the killing of 30 soldiers and civilians by the PKK in the last two weeks, in what are considered unusually severe actions by the PKK. According to the Turks, the US has consistently failed to act against PKK fighters hiding in the Kandil area of northern Iraq and does nothing to prevent attacks on Turkey from that region.

Turkey is also unwilling to compromise on the Armenian genocide issue and the administration cannot impose its will on Congress. It is therefore difficult to see how the damage to bilateral relations of the likely forthcoming Congressional resolution can be limited.

It is true that close ties with the United States are also a traditionally important component of Turkish foreign policy, but it is increasingly difficult today for Turks to reconcile the contradiction between their interests and those of the US. Since the American invasion of Iraq, Turkish public opinion has also become more anti-American, and that influences decision makers to adopt uncompromising positions regarding the Kurdish issue and ignore American attitudes.

Although Turkish-American relations appear to be headed toward a crisis, both sides remain aware of the importance of those ties and therefore try to deal with the challenges they face. But despite the common desire not to harm bilateral strategic relations, there is a clash between Turkish and American interests that may very well further convulse the already complicated reality in Iraq.

"I don't know if it's true or not true, but it makes him look like a hero, if he goes there. It makes him look like Jean-Claude Van Damme, or Steven Seagal - it's a drama," veteran Russian broadcaster Sergey Dorenko told Reuters.

Putin, who was photographed earlier this summer showing off his muscular torso while on a hunting trip to Siberia, confirmed he would travel to Tehran after a summit in Germany, although Kremlin officials had said plans for his visit were in doubt.

The flurry of speculation followed a Russian news agency report published on Sunday, quoting a single unnamed security source, that plotters were planning to assassinate Putin in Tehran this week. The dramatic tale, since confirmed by Kremlin officials, has dominated the country's media.

Tehran dismissed the report as baseless, calling it "psychological warfare" by Tehran's enemies -- an apparent reference to Western countries pushing Russia to back stronger sanctions against Iran over a nuclear programme they believe could spawn atomic weapons.

Russian television channels said previous plots to kill Putin had been foiled in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2001 and in St Petersburg in 2000.

The image, said by believers to show the [Pontiff] with his right hand raised in blessing, was spotted during a ceremony in Poland to mark the second anniversary of his death. Details appeared on the Vatican News Service, a TV station in Rome which specialises in religious news broadcasts.

Service director Jarek Cielecki, a Polish priest and close friend of John Paul II, travelled to Poland after hearing an onlooker had photographed the image. Father Cielecki said he was convinced the picture showed the former pontiff. "You can see the image of a person in the flames and I think it is the servant of God, Pope John Paul II," he said.

The pictures were being broadcast continuously on Italian TV and also posted on religious websites, some of which crashed as thousands logged on to see for themselves the eerie figure formed by the flames. The bonfire was lit during a service at Beskid Zywiecki, close to John Paul's birthplace at Katowice, southern Poland, on April 2 - the second anniversary of his death.

Hundreds had attended the ceremony. Gregorz Lukasik, the Polish man who took the photographs, said: "It was only afterwards when I got home and looked at the pictures that I realised I had something. I showed them to my brother and sister and they, like me, were convinced the flames had formed the image of Pope John Paul II."

"I was so happy with the picture that I showed it to our local bishop who said that Pope John Paul had made many pilgrimages during his life and he was still making them in death."

"We're calling upon every California parent to pull their child out of California's public school system," Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, told WND.

"The so-called 'public schools' are no longer a safe emotional environment for children. UNDER THE NEW LAW, SCHOOLCHILDREN AS YOUNG AS KINDERGARTEN WILL BE SEXUALLY INDOCTRINATED AND INTRODUCED TO HOMOSEXUALITY, BISEXUALITY, AND TRANSSEXUALITY, over the protests of parents, teachers and even school districts," he said.

THERE ARE NO SIMILAR PROTECTIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH TRADITIONAL OR CONSERVATIVE LIFESTYLES AND BELIEFS, HOWEVER. Offenders will face the wrath of the state Department of Education, up to and including lawsuits.

Ray Moore, a spokesman for Exodus Mandate, which advocates Christians give up on public schools and either school their children at home or send them to Christian schools, agreed with Thomasson, and went further.
"THE PAGANS ARE SIMPLY OBEYING THEIR GOD," HE SAID.

As WND reported, a board member for the homosexual advocacy group Equality California verbally attacked and threatened CRI for its opposition to the bill earlier. The board member sent an e-mail and video to CRI threatening the group would be buried if it continued efforts opposing the homosexual advocacy.

"The shocking hate mail we received shows that those behind this legislation do not promote true tolerance," said England. "Only politically correct speech will be tolerated. THOSE WITH RELIGIOUS OR TRADITIONAL MORAL BELIEFS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS."

Traders reported a sudden burst of activity on the TOCOM gold futures markets in Tokyo as the price broke through the psychological barrier of 3,000 yen (£12.49) per gramme, the measure used by the Japanese to trade gold. John Reade, head of precious metals at UBS, said the Japanese can be a major driver of the gold price once they step in.

"What you can see on gold is that it closed last Friday above technical uber-resistance, telling anybody still hesitating that it was time to jump in. Even so, we like the platinum group metals best. Platinum has reached an all-time high of $1428 an ounce, and palladium looks even better. If it closes above $380 an ounce, it is going to fly," she said.

Citigroup said a global "reflation rally" caused by cuts in US interest rates could push prices above $1000 an ounce.

Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have put forward a proposal to switch 90 per cent of consumers onto UHT milk by 2020, to cut down on refrigeration in stores. Officials have calculated that carbon emmissions can be cut by switching to UHT or Ultra-High Temperature milk, because it does not need to be kept cool until it is opened.

The plan is set out in a government paper that was sent out to farmers' leaders and the dairy industry, according to The Times. The paper states: "Retail and domestic refrigeration is an area with the potential for significant impact reduction. The milk chain should enhance the development, marketing and placement of UHT milk products."

However, the proposals have outraged farmers who believe that consumers will simply drink less milk rather than buy long-life milk. Gwyn Jones, Chairman of the NFU's dairy board who keeps 750 dairy cattles told The Times: "It makes no sense whatsoever. We have a long tradition of drinking fresh milk in this country and to suggest that consumers should be forced to change their drinking habits to UHT is preposterous and arrogant."

The stock climbed 13 percent, valuing Beijing-based PetroChina at HK$3.36 trillion ($434 billion), compared with General Electric's $420 billion. Asia's biggest company is closing in on Exxon Mobil Corp.'s $518 billion value.

The rally, part of a record year for Chinese stocks, underscores PetroChina's key role in supplying oil to the world's fastest-growing major economy. U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett sold more than half of his stake in PetroChina this year. The stock has soared 14-fold since its 2000 public share sale.

During her stay in Pretoria last weekend, the German Chancellor acknowledged that not only German firms are hoping to profit from the billions in investments for this major event. German police have already begun instructing South African security forces for this huge sports spectacle. The Air Force is also involved, sharing with South African officers their "experience" from the 2006 soccer world championships in Germany.

At the time, the German defence minister initiated preparations for fighter planes of the German Air Force (Bundeswehr) to illegally shoot down hijacked passenger liners. THE EXERTION OF INFLUENCE ON THE POLICE AND MILITARY IS PART OF A LONG TERM EFFORT TO SET UP PRETORIA AS A STABILIZING FACTOR FOR WESTERN INTERESTS IN AFRICA - IF NECESSARY ALSO MILITARILY. This is why, Germany and the EU have been delivering military equipment to South Africa for years, causing the South African disarmament efforts of the 1990s to end in failure

As Chancellor Merkel announced in Johannesburg, Berlin will continue to support the South African government in its preparations for the soccer World Cup, "wherever possible". Berlin has declared it's willingness to share its "experience" in implementing such an major event with South Africa. BUT THIS SO-CALLED SUPPORT WILL MOSTLY BE BENEFITING GERMAN BUSINESSMEN AND POLITICAL STRATEGISTS, IN WHOSE PLANS SOUTH AFRICA IS ACCORDED A PROMINENT POSITION.

More than 500 German enterprises hold majority shares in joint ventures and have invested 4, 2 billion Euros in the country. The bilateral trade volume attained eleven billion Euros in 2006 and will reach twelve billion this year.

The German economic effort, relentlessly pursued since 2005, has been crowned with success. A German architectural firm is planning the construction of three new soccer stadiums in South Africa. An IT enterprise in Hamburg will supply the technology needed by the security forces, which not only will be equipped but also trained by Germans. German police are preparing the South African repressive forces for this sports event.

The two countries' military cooperation is part of the German design to make South Africa, the strongest economic and military power south of the Sahara, the stabilizing force of the African continent, at least of its Southern sector. The German government and the EU consider this to be the "criteria for a 'strategic partnership'".

Besides its military cooperation, Berlin is providing arms for the South African armed forces, to be able to take the leadership in African Union (AU) military deployments. "German arms exports to South Africa considerably grew between 2001 and 2004", reports an expert analysis: "According to the German government, South Africa was the second most important in 2003 and in 2004 and in 2005 the most important buyer of German military equipment" outside the Western industrial countries. In 1999, Pretoria concluded supply contracts with arms industries in the EU amounting to approximately seven billion Euros: 52 fighter planes - 24 Hawk aircraft and 28 Gripen fighters from British company BAE Systems, 30 helicopters (Agusta), as well as 4 frigates and 3 submarines (Blohm and Voss, HDW, Thyssen, Ferrostaal). After western military experts attested serious deficiencies in the South African Armed Forces airlifting capacities, necessary for continental interventions to restore order, South Africa ordered 8 A400M military airlifters from the German French Airbus corporation in 2005.

SOUTH AFRICA'S HIGH MILITARY EXPENDITURES ARE IN CERTAIN "CONTRADICTION TO THE PERSISTENT DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS INSIDE THE COUNTRY, PARTICULARLY SINCE THERE IS NO REAL EXTERNAL THREAT TO SOUTH AFRICA," as observers see the situation: "The trend toward disarmament in the 1990s has been transformed into a process of remilitarization in the past few years." The German hegemonic policy encompassing the African continent is taking effect.

Brent was up $1.25 at $81.80 by 8:06 a.m. EDT, off highs of $81.93, while U.S. crude was $1.17 up at $84.88, off highs of $85.19.

The Israeli Arab minister said the work should be coordinated with the Wakf Islamic Authority, and that the decision did not reflect a desire to promote the diplomatic process.

The excavation, which was part of a project to build a new footbridge near the Rambam (Mughrabi) Gate to the entrance of the Temple Mount, was halted in June after violent protests and riots by Muslims who claimed the work would damage the nearby Al Aksa mosque. International and Israeli engineers who inspected the site said there was no danger of damage to the structure, which is at least 60 meters away from the dig.

Under the law, Ministerial Committee decisions cannot be carried out for at least two weeks following an appeal by a government minister.