Rome: Faced with an immediate hunger crisis and the need to double food production in the next 30 years, world leaders meeting on Tuesday to discuss soaring food prices were mostly in agreement on how the problem could be resolved. The questions were how to get there and who was going to pay for it. The steps needed? Immediately deliver more food aid to the world's hungry. Provide small farmers with seeds and fertilizer. Scrap export bans and restrictions. And vastly increase agriculture research and outreach programs to improve crop production.

US warships laden with supplies for Myanmar's cyclone victims will sail away after the junta refused their help, even as aid workers on Wednesday pleaded for more help to reach about a million survivors. The US navy said they would withdraw the four ships

Cape Canaveral (Florida): With astronauts hustling inside and out, the international space station got its biggest live-in addition yet, a Japanese lab stretching 37 feet that opens for business on Wednesday. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide had the honor of installing the billion-dollar lab, named Kibo, which means "hope', just as two crewmates were winding up a spacewalk on Tuesday. He used the space station's robot arm to nudge the bus-size lab into place.

Danish and US researchers said on Tuesday they have found a way to way to attack malaria by knocking out a gene that helps malaria parasites reproduce inside mosquitoes. The gene

Will Veto Legislation That Leaves Out India, China Washington: President George Bush would veto climate change legislation to be considered by the US Senate this week because it does not seek action in concert with all major economies, including India and China, even if the Senate passes the bill. As the president said last April "there is a right way and a wrong way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,' White House spokesperson Dana Perino said on Monday, suggesting "the bill being debated on the floor this week in the Senate is the wrong way'.

Geneva: Brazil, India and other developing countries said on Tuesday that the new US farm bill will be an obstacle to global trade talks aimed at lifting millions worldwide out of poverty. A group of 20 developing nations also including China, Mexico and Argentina echoed criticism by WTO chief Pascal Lamy, who last week said the new US farm bill sent a bad signal to the world while talks on a new global trade deal were continuing.

Rome: World food production must rise by 50% by 2030 to meet increasing demand, UN chief Ban Ki-moon told world leaders on Tuesday at a summit grappling with hunger and civil unrest caused by food price hikes. The secretary-general told the Rome summit that nations must minimize export restrictions and import tariffs during the food price crisis and quickly resolve world trade talks. "The world needs to produce more food,' Ban said.

Chicago: Scientists are learning more about how zoo animals feel and how a toy or a little training can sometimes help cut the endless pacing and other repetitive behaviors that are often assumed to be signs of distress. Some big cats want a high perch from which to view visitors, polar bears want to scratch for hidden caches of food, and male barn swallows could use a tail extension to appeal to potential mates, according to experts from zoos and universities meeting on Friday at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo.

Eight of Shell's wind projects are in the US. Royal Dutch Shell believes the future of wind power is in North America, where it is redoubling its efforts after pulling out of the large-scale London Array wind farm project in the UK. "The European theatre has been built out,'' Dick Williams, president of Shell Wind Energy, told the Financial Times.

WHAT'S the world's greatest moral challenge, as judged by its capacity to inflict human tragedy? It is not, I think, global warming, whose effects