The Minister for Environment (Michael Russell): I find myself in some difficulty, because the opening sentences of my speaking notes say:

"This has been a very valuable and useful debate. I welcome the contributions and views that have been expressed".

I publicly dissociate myself from that opinion. This has not been a "valuable and useful debate." It is of some significance that not one member has declared an interest - because there has been no interest in the debate. Outside the chamber, there will be no interest in the debate. By insisting on holding this debate, Robert Brown has succeeded in wasting everybody's time. Labour members have been very cute - they knew that first of all.

Robert Brown rose—

Michael Russell: No, Mr Brown, do not waste any more of my time. My keynote for this summing-up speech is just to get through it.

At the start of the debate, only three out of 16 Lib Dem members were present. They were not going to have Mr Brown wasting their time. Mr Chisholm did worse - only six out of 41 Labour members were in the chamber for the start of the debate. Even Mr Fraser managed just three out of 16. Those absent members knew that this afternoon's debate was pointless. It was a pointless occasion, and it was one of those occasions that do the Parliament no good whatever. Let us be ruthlessly honest about it: this was political theatre for those who are paid to be here. The debate had no other meaning.

David Whitton: Will the minister give way?

Michael Russell: No, I will not give way. My intention is just to get through this. I just want to get through it and go home. Just understand that, all right? [Interruption.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Order.

Mr McAveety: On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Is it appropriate for a minister, in responding to a debate, to say that he is here only "to get through it"?

Michael Russell: Yup.

The Deputy Presiding Officer: That is for the chamber to judge.

Michael Russell: It is appropriate for ministers to tell the truth, which is what I intend to do...

"Approaching [Christopher] Hitchens' prose is like walking into a closet where he has been farting for a week."

The one good thing about global warming is that as the waters rise, Hazel Blears will drown first.

Muslim extremist women are challenging al Qaeda's refusal to include -- or at least acknowledge -- women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam.

In response to a female questioner, al Qaeda No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman's role, he said on the Internet audio recording, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al Qaeda fighters.

His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists.

The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe members brandishing bows and arrows.

The photos were taken during several flights over one of the most remote parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil's Acre region. They show tribe members outside thatched huts, surrounded by the dense jungle, pointing bows and arrows up at the camera.

The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land.

Each speech is introduced a minimum of twice, sometimes more. First by a celebrity - like Kofi Annan, J. K. Rowling and someone calling herself Al Gore - and then by the book's editor, Wilf Stevenson, who does a sterling job of both shamelessly Brownnosing and (working on the assumption that nobody but a desperate reviewer is ever actually going to read the darn speeches) telling you precisely what's in the chapter you are about to use as a sleep aid.

Before admitting how

in transforming what were live events into print, some of the colour and texture of the original have been lost,

Stevenson suggests that it is

hard not to be inspired by the passion of [Brown's] convictions, the coherence of his vision and the rigour of his arguments.

Hard, but possible.

A driver has "shocked and appalled" police after he stared them "blankly" when they caught him with a seatbelt around his slab of beer - but not on the five-year-old boy sitting next to it.

Constable Wayne Burnett said he was "shocked and appalled" when he pulled over the Holden Commodore on the Ross Highway south of Alice Springs on the weekend. [...] "He didn't get it," Const Burnett said. "I asked him about the fact the child was unrestrained and the beer was, and he said he didn't know anything about it."

Const Burnett said there were five people in the car, including the child, along with the 30 pack of beer.

"There were four adults in the car, two in the front seat and two in the back seats and in between those adults there was the carton of beer strapped in with the belt," he said. "The child was sitting in the lump in the centre, unrestrained."

Madame Tussauds has decided against having a Gordon Brown waxwork amongst its world leaders - he dithered over whether to sit for its sculptors and they got fed up waiting for a reply.

"Since then we have had no response and, reflecting the climate after the Government's performance in the recent local elections, our guests have become decidedly split about whether we should feature Mr Brown at all," general manager Edward Fuller said.