As Nicolas Sarkozy gloated over impending curbs on the City, the Chancellor said that such moves would drive financial services out of Europe.

The French President’s glee at the appointment of Michel Barnier as Commissioner for the Single Market took on an edge of menace yesterday when he said that unfettered City practices must end.

“Do you know what it means for me to see for the first time in 50 years a French European commissioner in charge of the internal market, including financial services, including the City [of London]?” he said yesterday.

Ignoring criticism from his political opposition and from Venezuela’s small Jewish community over the visit, Mr. Chávez also called Mr. Ahmadinejad a “gladiator of anti-imperialist struggles.” It was the Iranian president’s fourth visit to Caracas and the last stop of a South American tour that included visits to Brazil and Bolivia.

The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: “Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions.”

“As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the Earth’s capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic,” the report said.

The world’s population will likely rise from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050, with most of the growth in less developed regions, according to a 2006 report by the United Nations.

The British government — spurred on by European regulators — is forcing the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock to sell off parts of their operations. The Europeans are calling for more and smaller banks to increase competition and eliminate the threat posed by banks so large that they must be rescued by taxpayers, no matter how they conducted their business, in order to avoid damaging the global financial system.

Mr Joel was stabbed 17 times and suffered machete cuts to his head. Mrs Joel had been stabbed 11 times.

The army said Monday that 78 militants and nine soldiers had been killed since the long-awaited offensive began Saturday, a battle that’s likely to shape Pakistan’s struggle against Islamic extremism and also could have a far-reaching impact on global terrorism.

Some have suggested that the 30,000 troops in the offensive are insufficient, but the chief army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that, “We’re very confident that with these resources, we’ll be able to complete the operation.”

The Pakistanis, however, aren’t attacking Taliban and other militants who’re attacking U.S., Afghan and NATO forces in Afghanistan . Abbas confirmed that Pakistani authorities have an “understanding” with two Taliban factions based in Waziristan, led by warlords Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur, who’re fighting in Afghanistan , not in Pakistan .

NHS Coventry said it stopped the program for two days to give staff administering the vaccine training in how to answer questions from anyone concerned about its safety. “We fully expect to resume the program in the coming days,” the health authority said in a statement.

Display of bow ties and neckties, and the sale of women’s underwear by men are also banned, the police said.

The move is part of a crackdown on Western influences and enforcement of dress codes in recent years.

“Un-Islamic behaviour” has been targeted since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first election in 2005.

“Using unusual mannequins exposing body curves and with heads without hijabs [Muslim veils] are prohibited to be used in the shops,” police said in a statement carried by Irna.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan could offer the West crucial help in ending the war in Afghanistan but stressed that, to achieve a lasting settlement in the region, Britain in particular, had to demonstrate “more sensitivity” to the political difficulties Pakistan faces in maintaining domestic support for its fight against Islamist extremism.

In an interview in London to The Independent, Mr Qureshi claimed recent military victories against the Taliban in the Swat Valley were a sign Pakistan was managing to “turn the tide” against the insurgency.

When he was a young boy at a Catholic-run institute for the deaf, Alessandro Vantini said, priests sodomized him so relentlessly he came to feel “as if I were dead.” This year, he and dozens of other former students did something highly unusual for Italy: They went public with claims they were forced to perform sex acts with priests.

For decades, a culture of silence has surrounded priest abuse in Italy, where surveys show the church is considered one of the country’s most respected institutions. Now, in the Vatican’s backyard, a movement to air and root out abusive priests is slowly and fitfully taking hold.

A yearlong Associated Press tally has documented 73 cases with allegations of sexual abuse by priests against minors over the past decade in Italy, with more than 235 victims. The tally was compiled from local media reports, linked to by Web sites of victims groups and blogs. Almost all the cases have come out in the seven years since the scandal about Roman Catholic priest abuse broke in the United States.