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Swine flu can be caught through contact with infected animals, but it is unclear if contact with flies or excrement has the same effect.

The outbreak of respiratory illness in the area of the Granjas Carroll plant was first detected at the beginning of this month by Veratect, a company based in Washington state which monitors the spread of disease and pandemics around the world for corporate clients.

Votes are being bought with cash or in-kind services. Candidates pay their competitors huge sums to withdraw. The price of favorable TV news coverage is rising, and thousands of expatriate Lebanese are being flown home, free, to vote in contested districts. The payments, according to voters, election monitors and various past and current candidates interviewed for this article, nurture a deep popular cynicism about politics in Lebanon, which is nominally perhaps the most democratic Arab state but in practice is largely governed through patronage and sectarian and clan loyalty.

Despite the vast amounts being spent, many Lebanese see the race — which pits Hezbollah and its allies against a fractious coalition of more West-friendly political groups — as almost irrelevant. Lebanon’s sectarian political structure virtually guarantees a continuation of the current “national unity” government, in which the winning coalition in the 128-seat Parliament grants the loser veto powers to preserve civil peace.

Still, even a narrow win by Hezbollah and its allies, now in the parliamentary opposition, would be seen as a victory for Iran — which has financed Hezbollah for decades — and a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the money flows.

“We are putting a lot into this,” said one adviser to the Saudi government, who added that the Saudi contribution was likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a country of only four million people. “We’re supporting candidates running against Hezbollah, and we’re going to make Iran feel the pressure.”

As it happens, Lebanon has campaign spending limits this year for the first time, and the Arab world’s first system to monitor that spending, by the Lebanese chapter of Transparency International. But the limits — which are very loose to begin with — apply only in the last two months of the campaign. And they are laughably easy to circumvent, according to election monitors and Lebanese officials.

Reformers have tried and failed to introduce a uniform national ballot, which could reduce the influence of money and make the system less vulnerable to fraud. Currently, political parties or coalitions usually print up their own distinctive ballots and hand them to voters before they walk into the booth, making it easier to be sure they are getting the votes they have paid for.

Some voters, especially in competitive districts, receive cold calls offering cash for their vote. But mostly the political machines work through local patriarchs known as “electoral keys,” who can deliver the votes of an entire clan in exchange for money or services — scholarships, a hospital, repaved roads and so on.

In fact, many poorer Lebanese look to the elections as a kind of Christmas, when cash, health-care vouchers, meals and other handouts are abundant.

The largess extends across the globe. From Brazil to Australia, thousands of expatriates are being offered free plane trips back home to vote. Saad Hariri, the billionaire leader of the current parliamentary majority and a Saudi ally, is reputed to be the biggest election spender. It may not have helped that he kicked off his campaign with a gaudy televised event that resembled the set of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” But members of his movement say that the accusation is unfair, and that their own money is outmatched by the hundreds of millions of dollars Iran has given to Hezbollah over the years.

The turmoil in Buner, a district of about 1 million people, does not pose an immediate threat to Islamabad, which lies across a mountain range and the river Indus. But the speed and aggression of the militant advance has stoked a sense of alarm across the country, even among normally conservative forces.

"If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema e Islam party, told the national assembly yesterday.The Taliban could soon seize control of Tarbela Dam, a strategic reservoir, Rehman warned.

Blame for the turmoil has focused on a controversial peace deal the provincial government signed with militants in February. Hoping to defuse the insurgency, the Awami National party-led government acceded to demands for sharia law in Swat and seven surrounding districts, known collectively as Malakand Division.The changes were ratified by the national parliament last week with cross-party consensus. Since then, the Taliban have moved to establish much more than judicial control.

In Mingora, the commercial hub of Swat, the police retain a low-key presence, reduced to directing traffic. Most politicians have fled, many under death threats. Many residents said it was not clear who was in control of the town.

In Imam Dheri, the Taliban headquarters near Mingora, a Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, told the Guardian their goal was the establishment of an Islamic caliphate first in Pakistan and then across the Muslim world."Democracy is a system for European countries. It is not for Muslims," he said. "This is not just about justice. It should be in education, health, economics. Everything should be under sharia."

The threat comes after AQIM last week released two of the hostages, Marianne Petzold, from Germany, Gabriella Greitner, from Switzerland. Greitner's husband would be held "until we have achieved our legitimate demands", the group said yesterday. Two Canadian diplomats - Robert Fowler, the UN special envoy for Niger, and his aide, Louis Guay - who were kidnapped in a separate incident near Niger's capital, Niamey, in December, were also freed on Wednesday.

AQIM had demanded the release of 20 of its members detained in Mali and other countries. Details of the deal reached over the four victims freed so far remain murky, but there has been speculation that a ransom was paid. Canada has denied making any payment to the kidnappers, but said it could not speak for other governments.

Obama left open the possibility of criminal prosecution Tuesday for former Bush administration officials who drew up the legal basis for aggressive interrogation techniques many view as torture. Obama said it will be up to Attorney General Eric Holder to decide whether or not to prosecute the former officials. "With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said during a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the White House.

"High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said in a memo to personnel.

The author of one of the memos that authorized those techniques, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, is now a federal appeals court judge in California. U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, has called for Bybee's impeachment, while Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, called for his resignation. "If the White House and Mr. Bybee told the truth at the time of his nomination, he never would have been confirmed," Leahy said. "So actually, the honorable and decent thing for him to do now would be to resign. If he's an honorable and decent man, he will."

Obama reiterated his belief that he did not think it is appropriate to prosecute those CIA officials and others who carried out the interrogations in question. "This has been a difficult chapter in our history and one of [my] tougher decisions," he added. The techniques listed in memos "reflected ... us losing our moral bearings."

The president's apparent willingness to leave the door open to a prosecution of Bush officials seemed to contradict White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who indicated Sunday that the administration was opposed to such an action. Obama believes "that's not the place that we [should] go," Emanuel said on ABC's "This Week."

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has been pencilled in for a visit to the White House in the middle of next month. Netanyahu, since becoming prime minister, has refused to acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own, as his predecessor had. But Obama yesterday stated firmly his commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is to make a separate visit, as is the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. Egypt has been acting as a go-between between Abbas, who controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Obama appears to have come round to the view of advisers that the US will ­effectively have to impose much of any deal on Israel and the Palestinians rather than wait for one to emerge from the two sides. He said yesterday: "I agree that we can't talk forever, that at some point steps have to be taken so that people can see progress on the ground. And that will be something that we will expect to take place in the coming months."My hope would be that over the next several months, that you start seeing ­gestures of good faith on all sides. I don't want to get into the details of what those gestures might be, but I think that the ­parties in the region probably have a pretty good recognition of what intermediate steps could be taken as confidence-building measures."

One member of the European Parliament's budget committee said it was "a huge scandal" given that "normal people" weren't compensated for losses sustained by their pension funds in the financial crisis.

Public money already makes up two thirds of the pension fund. At the moment, each MEP is required to make monthly contributions of €1,194.59 ($1550) into their retirement funds, while the parliament itself makes a matching contribution of double that amount.

Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza also found 49 Palestinians were shot in the legs in punishment attacks and around 73 were severely beaten, suffering broken arms and legs, from the start of the war in late December until the end of January. Some of the attackers were not identified, but many appeared to be from Hamas.

During the Gaza war 18 Palestinians, many suspected of collaborating with Israel, were killed. Most had escaped from Gaza's main prison after it was bombed by Israeli aircraft at the start of the war. A further 14, at least four of whom were in jail at the time, have been killed since the end of the war.

The accounts corroborate witness testimony reported by the Guardian at the time and appear to show Hamas took advantage of the chaos of the war to exert control over its political and security rivals in Gaza. Other Palestinians have also spoken of a campaign of intimidation against secular and moderate groups in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch said Fatah, the rival, western-supported Palestinian faction that controls the West Bank, had also used "repressive measures" against its Hamas opponents. It said Palestinian human rights groups recorded 31 complaints of torture by the Fatah-led security forces, as well as one death in custody and the arbitrary arrest of two Palestinian television journalists.

"Western governments that support and finance the Fatah authorities in the West Bank have remained publicly silent about the arbitrary arrests and torture against Hamas members and others," said Stork.

Human Rights Watch has also accused Israel of violating international law during the Gaza war, including by what it said was indiscriminate use of weapons such as white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, was even blunter, describing Iran's leader as "somebody who traditionally makes obnoxious statements" and who had done so once again.The speech almost certainly set back any rapprochement between the US and Iran, at least until the Iranian presidential elections in June, if not beyond.

As soon as the Iranian president had finished speaking, the Europeans walked back into the hall, to make the point that their quarrel was with him and not the aims of the conference.

Ahmadinejad traced the history of racism in the modern world to the control of a few powerful states and string-pulling Zionists behind them. "Following world war two, [powerful states] resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish suffering and the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust .... and they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racists in Palestine," he said.

It was at that point that the EU delegates in the chamber rose in unison and filed out, to the competing jeers and applause of the crowd on the assembly floor and in the galleries. They did not stop to hear Ahmadinejad describe Israelis as "those racist perpetrators of genocide".

Diplomats said Ahmadinejad's speech may have been made with the elections in mind, but added it was unlikely that he would have delivered it without the approval of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad later told a press conference his sole aim was to promote "international love and tolerance". As expected, he gave no hint of compromise over Iran's nuclear programme, declaring the question "closed".

Matilda Gifford, 24, said she recorded the meetings in an attempt to expose how police seek to disrupt the legitimate activities of climate change activists. She met the officers twice; they said they were a detective constable and his assistant. During the taped discussions, the officers:• Indicate that she could receive tens of thousands of pounds to pay off her student loans in return for information about individuals within Plane Stupid.• Say they will not pay money direct into her bank account because that would leave an audit trail that would leave her compromised. They said the money would be tax-free, and added: "UK plc can afford more than 20 quid."• Accept that she is a legitimate protester, but warn her that her activity could mean she will struggle to find employment in the future and result in a criminal record.• Claim they have hundreds of informants feeding them information from protest organisations and "big groupings" from across the political spectrum.• Explain that spying could assist her if she was arrested. "People would sell their soul to the devil," an officer said.• Warn her that she could be jailed alongside "hard, evil" people if she received a custodial sentence.

In a statement last night, assistant chief constable George Hamilton said the force had "a responsibility to gather intelligence", and such operations were conducted according to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The force would not comment on the identity of the officers.

"Officers from Strathclyde police have been in contact with a number of protesters who were involved with the Plane Stupid protests including Aberdeen airport," he said. "The purpose of this contact has been to ensure that any future protest activity is carried out within the law and in a manner which respects the rights of all concerned."

The issue is not less growth, but the right kind of growth. Either our children will pay a very high price, because they will have run out of fish and the rainforests will be gone, or we are prepared not to ignore the costs today and accept somewhat higher prices. This is really the issue at the climate protection talks. Although the heading is climate protection, there is an unofficial agenda that reflects the economic interests of those living today and the economic interests of those want to live better lives tomorrow. We have to begin talking about this openly instead of covering it up.

SPIEGEL: Have you thought about how your ministry could be restructured in the future? Gabriel: I think a Ministry of Climate, Energy and the Environment would be the right thing. Energy and environmental policy belong together, under one roof.

Yet Pakistani authorities deployed just several hundred poorly paid and equipped constabulary forces to Buner, who were repelled in a clash with the insurgents, leaving one police officer dead

The limited response set off fresh scrutiny of Pakistan’s military, a force with 500,000 soldiers and a similar number of reservists. The army receives $1 billion in American military aid each year but has repeatedly declined to confront the Taliban-led insurgency, even as it has bled out of Pakistan’s self-governed tribal areas into Pakistan proper in recent months.

The military remains fixated on training and deploying its soldiers to fight the country’s archenemy, India. It remains ill equipped for counterinsurgency, analysts say, and top officers are deeply reluctant to be pressed into action against insurgents who enjoy family, ethnic and religious ties with many Pakistanis.

In the limited engagements in which regular army troops have fought the Taliban in the tribal areas and sections of the Swat Valley, they not only failed to dislodge the Taliban, but also convinced many Pakistanis that their own military was as much of a menace as the Islamic radicals it sought to repel, residents and analysts say.

In Washington, a Defense Department official who is monitoring Pakistan closely said that the poorly trained constabulary force was sent Thursday because Pakistani Army troops were not available, and Pakistani generals were reluctant to pull reinforcements off the border with India — something American officials have encouraged them to do.

Instead, the military, which is stretched thin in the areas along the Afghan border, has favored negotiations, and the civilian government has acquiesced. “The government is too worried about its own political survival to take on the militants,” the Defense Department official said.

Where it has engaged the insurgents, the Pakistani Army, untrained in counterinsurgency, has become reviled by the civilian population for its heavy-handed tactics, which have cost many lives while failing to stop the Taliban. At the same time, the police and paramilitary forces have proved too weak to stand up to the militants. In Buner, desperate residents had resorted to forming their own militias, as much to keep out the military as the Taliban. That effort, too, has now failed.

On Capitol Hill, legislators preparing to introduce a bill to provide Pakistan with $7.5 billion in nonmilitary aid over five years may face a steep challenge.

In a sign of the urgency of the crisis, the special envoy for the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, is sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton memos several times a day with his latest reading of the situation in Pakistan, an American official said. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefly visited Pakistan on Wednesday night and Thursday from Afghanistan, to meet with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief of staff. An American official briefed on discussions said the Pakistani leadership was “very concerned.”

Buner (pronounced boo-NAIR), home to about one million people, lies in the heart of North-West Frontier Province, bordering seven other districts. Its capture not only advances the Taliban closer to the capital, but also gives the Taliban a vital hub to extend their reach.

More than 30 armed militants entered the Shangla district, east of the main Swat Valley and north of Buner, and were seen patrolling an area around Loch Bazaar, the independent channel Geo TV reported Thursday, quoting witnesses.Government officials also confirmed that militants have been seen in Totali, far south in Buner and close to the boundary with the Swabi district, which lies close to the main highways into the capital.

Armed militants have also been seen visiting mosques and patrolling in Rustam, a town on the boundary between Buner and the adjoining district of Mardan, said Riaz Khan, a lawyer living in Mardan, the second largest town in North-West Frontier Province. “People are anxious and in a state of fear,” he said.

The Taliban were making a concerted push into areas that overlook the capital, lawmakers and government officials in North-West Frontier Province said.

A powerful religious party leader, Fazlur Rehman, who is allied with the government, warned that militants had reached into the Mansehra district, close to the Tarbela Dam, a vital source of electricity to the center of the country.

“If the Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the door of Islamabad,” he told Parliament on Wednesday, adding that Margalla Hills, north of the capital, seem to be the only hurdle to the Taliban advance.

The Pakistani Taliban, who number in the thousands across the tribal areas and the Swat region, have declared their aim of establishing Shariah rule throughout Pakistan. But for now, their expansion may be opportunistic and their strength sufficient only to establish local fiefdoms, or “micro-emirates of Shariah,” said Christine Fair, a senior research associate at the RAND Corporation.“I don’t know what the Taliban’s game plan is, but what seems apparent is the state has no game plan,” she said. “The Pakistani state is not able to stop them and they expand where they can.”

The UN said that of the 70.5 sq km of east Jerusalem and the West Bank annexed by Israel, only 13% was zoned for Palestinian construction and this was mostly already built up. At the same time 35% had been expropriated for Israeli settlements, even though all settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law.

"Throughout its occupation, Israel has significantly restricted Palestinian development in east Jerusalem," the UN report said. It said 673 Palestinian structures had been demolished in the east between 2000 and 2008. Last year alone 90 structures were demolished, leaving 400 Palestinians displaced, the highest number of demolitions for four years. Similar demolitions are carried out regularly by the Israeli military across the West Bank.

"Recent events indicate that the Jerusalem municipality will maintain, and possibly accelerate, its policy on house demolition," the UN report said. "Israel should immediately freeze all pending demolition orders and undertake planning that will address the Palestinian housing crisis in east Jerusalem."

Last week, Barkat, who won election five months ago, rejected international criticism of demolitions and planning policy as "misinformation" and "Palestinian spin. There is no politics. It's just maintaining law and order in the city," he said. "The world is basing its evidence on the wrong facts.The world has to learn and I am sure people will change their minds."

The civil nuclear agreement was signed in January between the United Arab Emirates and the Bush administration, but after the new administration took office, the deal had to be recertified

"It's being temporarily held up because of that tape," one senior official said.

The State Department had little to say publicly on the torture tape incident, but its 2008 human rights report about the United Arab Emirates refers to "reports that a royal family member tortured a foreign national who had allegedly overcharged him in a grain deal."

U.S. Rep. James McGovern -- the Massachusetts Democrat who co-chairs the congressional Human Rights Commission

McGovern asked Clinton to "place a temporary hold on further U.S. expenditures of funds, training, sales or transfers of equipment or technology, including nuclear until a full review of this matter and its policy implications can be completed." He also asked that the United States deny any visa for travel to the United States by Sheikh Issa or his immediate family, including his 18 brothers, several of whom are ruling members of the UAE government.

UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a half-brother of Sheikh Issa, is expected to visit Washington sometime next month.

Under the "1-2-3 deal," similar to one the United States signed last year with India, Washington would share nuclear technology, expertise and fuel. In exchange, the UAE commits to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The small oil-rich Gulf nation promises not to enrich uranium or to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs.

The deal is part of a major UAE investment in nuclear, and it has already signed deals to build several nuclear power plants. The United States already has similar nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Morocco, and U.S. officials said Washington is working on similar pacts with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.

When the Bush administration signed the deal in January, it stressed the UAE's role in global nonproliferation initiatives, including a donation of $10 million to establish an International Atomic Energy Agency international fuel bank.

Congressional critics fear the deal could spark an arms race and proliferation in the region, and the UAE's ties to Iran also have caused concern.

Iran is among the UAE's largest trading partners. In the past, the port city of Dubai, one of the UAE's seven emirates, has been used as a transit point for sensitive technology bound for Iran.

Dubai was also one of the major hubs for the nuclear trafficking network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted to spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya up until the year 2000.

Such ties contributed to stiff opposition in Congress to the failed deal for Dubai Ports World to manage U.S. ports.

Officials said they expect the deal to be sent up to the Hill for ratification within the next few weeks, given that there has been little blowback from the publication of the tape, except for McGovern's letter to Clinton. "It will be sent very soon," one official said.

UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba told CNN his government always expected the deal to be sent to the Senate in early May, regardless of the controversy surrounding the tape. "As far as we are concerned, the deal is on track and this has not affected the timing," he said.