US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Turkey on Tuesday and appeared to warn against any possible major Turkish move into Iraq.

"We want anything we do to contribute to stability in Iraq and not to threaten that stability or to make a difficult situation worse and that is why a co-operative approach to this problem, co-operation between Iraq, Turkey and the coalition is very important," she said.

Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have bases in northern Iraq but also have substantial forces in the mountains of south-eastern Turkey. They typically step up their attacks in the spring, when winter snow melts, clearing mountain passes in the region. Turkey often increases its military activities in response.

"The deployment is only aimed to prevent infiltrations of the terrorist organisation into Turkey," said Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. Turkey regards the PKK as a terrorist organisation.

This weekend, the commander of Turkey's land forces, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, said that "as long as the PKK exists our operations will continue in ever-increasing intensity".

But he also stressed there was nothing unusual in the troop deployment in the region.

Iran also reportedly has moved forces to the border, and last week shelled a mountainous region inside Iraq used by anti-Iranian Kurdish fighters believed to be linked to the PKK.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, has expressed concern over reported Iranian and Turkish troop concentrations on his country's borders.

Gul said that since Iraq doesn't "have the capability to fight terrorism, they should be pleased with the measures we have taken and they should help us".

Turkish soldiers have been pursuing Kurdish guerrillas across the border into Iraq, penetrating up to six miles.

Turkey already has an estimated 2,000 soldiers stationed inside Iraq and limited incursions inside Iraq in pursuit of rebels have not been uncommon in the past.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish government in 1984 and the fighting has so far claimed more than 37,000 lives.

In the beginning of April, the European Union welcomed the defeated opposition candidate to Strasbourg. Milinkevich asked the European Parliament for tougher sanctions against Belarus officials and stronger support for students and the independent media. He vowed to continue his campaign to unseat the man often described as Europe's last dictator, although he admitted it could take months or even years.

Swedish Defence Minister Leni Bjoerklund said the scenario for the exercise in May, involving 10 European countries, had initially been international peacekeeping missions.

Not mentioning Israel by name, she said the armed forces were told at a late stage "that a state not belonging to the Partnership for Peace, and with which Sweden did not previously have bilateral military co-operation and which does not take part in international peacekeeping missions", was to take part.

'Practical' reason

She said the government advised the armed forces that "Sweden's participation was no longer regarded as appropriate".

Foreign Minister Jan Eliasson said due to the high cost of taking part and limited resources, Sweden had to focus on exercises that involved its immediate partners.

"We don't see Israel as a country that we will in all probability co-operate with in peacekeeping operations for the time being," he said.

He said it was in no way a boycott and was "purely practical".

Mr Eliasson said his ministry would talk to the Israeli government to reassure them of their position.

MI6 has been shrouded in secrecy for most of its 97-year history.

The organisation was not even officially acknowledged to exist until just over a decade ago.

But MI6 is now keen to emphasise it is no longer a place where promising Oxford and Cambridge graduates get a tap on the shoulder to join, but instead somewhere where people with a broader diversity of skills and backgrounds can feel comfortable about applying.

The advert is also due to run in the Economist magazine.

It says the agency operates around the world to make Britain "safer and more prosperous" and hires "people we can depend on because everyone in the UK depends on them".

The MI6 website gives further details outlining the different types of jobs performed and providing profiles of people's work understood to be based on real individuals.

All applicants must be British, resourceful, in good health and able to keep a secret.

"Operational officers" also need a university degree, strong intellectual skills, an interest in foreign cultures and an "outstanding ability to persuade and to influence".

But there is also the need for people with IT skills to deal with the complex forms of data analysis involved in counter-terrorism, as well as expertise in areas like human resources, accountancy and management to support the organisation's work.

However, opening up recruitment does create some dangers for the secret services. Unscrupulous individuals, journalists, or even al-Qaeda sympathisers could try and sign up but there will continue to be tight security checks to spot any unwanted attention.

Bond films

Those applying are also warned that they should not tell anyone other than a spouse or closer partner that they are putting their name in.

In the frequently asked questions section, there is even an acknowledgement of the Service's most famous member of staff.

In answering the question of how close the depiction of the Bond films to real life might be, the website says that the gap between truth and fiction had widened even further from the books in which "glamour and excitement" had been injected.

It adds that "nevertheless, staff who join MI6 can look forward to a career that will have moments when the gap narrows just a little and the certainty of a stimulating and rewarding career which, like Bond's, will be in the service of their country".

Last year, Israel was furious when it emerged that Moscow was planning to sell the Iskander to Damascus. The Iskander is like the Scuds that Iraq used during the Gulf war but many times more accurate and better equipped to avoid defensive weapons such as the Patriot missile. Syria - part of George Bush's "axis of evil" - would love to be able to trundle some of these short-range ballistic missiles (range: 180 miles) down to its southern border to point at Israel in the event of a conflict.

No doubt the Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also itching to get its hands on some of these weapons - whose sale is not restricted by any treaty. Earlier this month Iran tested an underwater missile that looked suspiciously like a Russian Shkval.

President Vladimir Putin, under pressure from the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was forced to step in and reverse the Syrian missile deal. These days, one might surmise, he would not give a fig.

Everything about Russia's stance in the international arena suggests a new confidence that radiates "don't bully me". I is still possible the Iskanders will go to a less threatening client than the Middle Eastern bad boys - China, say, or India or Algeria. But the point is, they will go to whomever Moscow wants.

Russia has shown in recent months that western condemnation will not shake its resolve to play on the world stage as it likes.

Welcoming a Hamas delegation to Moscow last month - described by a minister in Jerusalem as "stabbing Israel in the back" - was one example. A second was the decision a few weeks later to give financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, against the wishes of the US and the EU.

In another robust move, the Russians have refused to back down on a recent $700m (£380m) deal to sell 29 Tor M1 mobile surface-to-air missile defence systems to Iran despite pressure from Washington.

"We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward because this is not the time for business as usual with the Iranian government," grumbled the US undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns last week, as the UN geared up for its crucial report tomorrow on Iran's nuclear enrichment programme. But the complaint fell on deaf ears at the Kremlin.

While Russia's arms industry is growing fast, its new brassiness relies mostly on the billions of dollars it is raking in from hydrocarbon exports, on the back of high oil prices.

As an emerging energy superpower, Moscow is increasingly seeking to play off potential buyers of its oil and gas.

Last week Alexei Miller, the head of the Russian state gas monopoly, Gazprom, warned that attempts to limit his company's expansion in Europe would "not lead to good results". The company caused alarm at the British gas supplier Centrica when it emerged that the Russian firm saw it as a potential takeover target - Gazprom had turned off the taps to its neighbour Ukraine in January, in a politically charged dispute. Miller also said: "It should not be forgotten we are actively seeking new markets, such as North America and China."

President Vladimir Putin weighed in on the theme yesterday. "Despite the great demand for energy resources, any excuses are being used to limit us in the north, in the south, in the west," he said.

"We must look for markets, fit into the processes of global development. I have in mind the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, which are developing at great speed and need to cooperate with us."

Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Centre, says Russia - fed up with pandering to the US and Europe - is undergoing a fundamental shift in foreign relations. Now it will focus on ties with countries, such as Brazil, India and China, that it sees as being on a similar path of development to itself.

"Russia has left the western orbit," Mr Trenin said. "It was circling it distantly for about a decade, Pluto-like. But now it's gone."

The Prime Minister was said to be exasperated by the incompetence of the Home Office, bewildered by the ingratitude of the nurses, and "quizzical" at the failure of his deputy to inform him of his affair. With only a week to go before local elections in England, the timing could not have been worse.

On what inevitably was described as "triple whammy Wednesday", Mr Prescott, 67, cancelled his engagements and was missing from his usual place in the House of Commons for Prime Minister's Questions as he tried to save his marriage. Mr Prescott said he regretted the relationship with one of his secretaries, Tracey Temple, 43, which had ended "some time ago". In a statement, he said: "I have discussed this fully with my wife, Pauline, who is devastated. I would be grateful if we can get on with our lives together."

The question of Mr Prescott's survival may depend on whether or not further damaging revelations appear in the newspapers.

It is thought that Mr Prescott sent Ms Temple several explicit text messages by mobile phone, but these have not so far been published. Many saw the hand of the publicist Max Clifford, a veteran placer of kiss-and-tell tales, in Wednesday's revelations but he denied involvement and offered a positive spin on the events.

"It is great PR for Prescott," he said. "Twenty years ago this would have ended a career, these days nobody minds. It is almost a relief these days when a male MP goes to bed with a woman."

No. 10 said the affair was a "private matter". But some Labour MPs said that Mr Prescott, who has often joked about Tory sex scandals, could become a laughing-stock and no longer able to act as broker between Mr Blair and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, over a leadership handover.

Downing Street sought to distance Mr Blair from the scandal and later gave lukewarm support for Mr Clarke after the Tory leader, David Cameron, said he should resign as he had misled the public and could no longer give proper leadership to the Home Office.

Mr Clarke had earlier admitted to the Commons that he still did not know the whereabouts of most of 1000 foreign prisoners released without being considered for deportation.

On a day that drew comparisons with the disarray of the dying days of John Major's government, Ms Hewitt was heckled for the second time in a week by health service workers over National Health Service reforms and hospital job cuts.

Mr Blair is reported to be preparing to relaunch his Government after the local elections next Thursday with a much-delayed cabinet reshuffle.

Neil Ferguson and colleagues at Imperial College in London, UK, used a detailed population model and a super-computer to predict the effects of different responses to a pandemic. Combined responses worked best, they found.

If most people are treated the day after symptoms appear with antiviral drugs, schools are closed as soon as a case appears, and households of cases are quarantined, the number of cases might fall by about one-fifth.

But when the household members, schoolmates and colleagues of each case are treated with preventative antiviral drugs as well, and one-fifth of the population has already received a pre-pandemic vaccine - starting with children - the number of cases fall by about 90%.
Beyond our means

What will not work well, relative to cost, is shutting borders and stopping travel, Ferguson told New Scientist. Even a border closure that is 99.9% effective slowed the pandemic by a few weeks at the most. "That doesn't buy you much time to make vaccine," says Ferguson.

And that is what matters. The model shows that if you could start giving people a vaccine based on the exact the pandemic strain 30 days after it emerges, hitting 1% of the population a day - the maximum vaccine production rate - you might cut the number of cases by 97%.

"But this is beyond what we can do," says Ferguson. It will take several months to start pandemic vaccine production, and the model shows that will be too late.
Better than nothing

More to the point might be a vaccine based on the H5N1 bird flu now circulating, rather than an actual pandemic H5N1. Governments have made little such vaccine, because it will not exactly match the pandemic strain, so will not prevent infection completely.

But even if it cut susceptibility to the pandemic virus by only one-third, says Ferguson, it could help enormously. "If we gave that to everyone, and stockpiled 40 to 50 million antiviral treatments in Britain, we might cut the number of cases as much as 80%."

But that is twice as much drug as the UK plans to stockpile. The planned stockpile will be enough to treat cases, but not to give every case's contacts preventative treatment - which, the model says, could make a big difference.

Journal reference: Nature (DOI: 10.1038/nature04795)