The defence secretary, Des Browne, will admit today that Britain and its Nato allies seriously underestimated the strength of the Taliban and the violent resistance faced by western forces in Afghanistan. "The Taliban's tenacity in the face of massive losses has been a surprise, absorbing more of our effort than predicted and consequently slowing progress on reconstruction," he will say in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Was Benedict's most recent provocation accidental or deliberate? The Bavarian is a razor-sharp reactionary cleric. A man who organises his own succession to the Papacy with a ruthless purge of potential dissidents and supervises the selection of Cardinals with great care leaves little to chance. I think he knew what he was saying and why.

HOUNDED, ABUSED and then physically ATTACKED. Brothers and sisters this is the reaction I was faced with when, as a sister in Islam, I voiced my wish to pray in a masjid. Some sisters and I were giving out leaflets which quoted the hadith of the prophet (pbuh) allowing sisters to pray in the mosque - Ibn Umar reported: The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said: ‘DO NOT DEPRIVE WOMEN OF THEIR SHARE OF THE MOSQUES.’ [Sahih Muslim, book 4, number 891] At first some brothers quietly took the leaflets, but the atmosphere soon turned nasty when a large group of men emerged from the mosque...

My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels. Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world's great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive.

Israel's former military chief launched a devastating attack on the country's leadership yesterday, calling for the prime minister and the top general to quit over failings in the Lebanon war. The challenge from Moshe Ya'alon, who was Israel's chief of staff until June last year, comes as several senior figures, including the prime minister, the president and the justice minister, face accusations in a series of embarrassing scandals over corruption and impropriety.

For most people in the West, climate change threatens their lifestyles. For the people of Bangladesh, climate change threatens their very lives. Lives in Bangladesh will be devastated though no fault of the people concerned. We are not causing the climate change that is killing our people.

WEST BANK - Six months of a crippling international embargo on the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) has brought its economy to a virtual standstill. As a result, children are being driven increasingly to find work to help support their families. "After my father became jobless, I joined my friends to work at the checkpoint in order to support my 11-member family," said Subhi Abdullah 16, referring to his unofficial job at al-Hawawer Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron.

President George W Bush is coming under enormous pressure from Israel - and from Israel's neoconservative friends inside and outside the US administration - to harden still further his stance toward Iran. They want the American president to commit himself to bombing Iran if it does not give up its program of uranium enrichment - and to issue a clear ultimatum to Tehran that he is prepared to do so. They argue that mere rhetoric - such as Bush's recent diatribe, in which he compared Iran to al-Qaeda - is not enough, and might even be counter-productive, as it might encourage the Iranians to think that America's bark is worse than its bite.