Betty Williams lashed out at Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren. “Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.” Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

“It’s clear that a large number of the signing statements that have been issued by this administration claim the authority to disregard the law.”

The Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into desert. Studies have concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.

President Bush personally blocked an internal Justice Department investigation of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program earlier this year, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday.

Robert Novak, the journalist at the centre of a criminal investigation into the naming of a CIA agent, has revealed that top presidential aide Karl Rove played a major role in the affair.