Long gone are the days of simple wiretapping, when the worst your phone could do was let someone listen in to your conversations.  The new generation of cell phone spying tools provides a lot more power.

Eavesdropping is easy.  All it takes is a two-minute software install and someone can record your calls and monitor your text messages.  They can even set up systems to be automatically alerted when you dial a certain number, then instantly patched into your conversation.  Anyone who can perform a basic internet search can find the tools and figure out how to do it in no time.

But the scarier stuff is what your phone can do when you aren’t even using it.

The UN's new top adviser on food has urged a freeze on biofuel investment, saying the blind pursuit of the policy is "irresponsible".

Olivier de Schutter also wants curbs on investors whose speculation is, he says, driving food prices higher.

UN officials liken the rise in food prices to a silent tsunami, threatening 100 million of the world's poorest.

The use of food crops for alternative sources of energy like ethanol is one factor behind the price hike.

Mr de Schutter did not go quite as far as his predecessor in the job, Jean Ziegler, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan reports from New York.

Mr Ziegler had condemned biofuels as a "crime against humanity" and called for an immediate ban on their use.

Al-Qaeda's deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri yesterday claimed global warming was helping militant Islamic extremism.

Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden's deputy also launched an astonishing attack on Iran in a two-hour audiotape posted on an Islamic militant website.

He said global warming reflected "how criminal, brutal and greedy the Western Crusader world is, with America at the top".

The Egyptian surgeon accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaeda terror network by spreading a conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the September 11 attacks.

Al-Zawahiri said: "Iran's aim is clear - to cover up its involvement with the US in invading Muslim homes in Afghanistan and Iraq."

The European commission is backing away from its insistence on imposing a compulsory 10% quota of biofuels in all petrol and diesel by 2020, a central plank of its programme to lead the world in combating climate change.

Amid a worsening global food crisis exacerbated, say experts and critics, by the race to divert food or feed crops into biomass for the manufacture of vehicle fuel, and inundated by a flood of expert advice criticising the shift to renewable fuel, the commission appears to be getting cold feet about its biofuels target.

Britain has set its own biofuels targets, which saw 2.5% mixed into all petrol and diesel fuel sold on forecourts in the UK this week. The government wants to increase that to 5% within two years, but has admitted that the environmental concerns could force them to rethink. Ruth Kelly, transport secretary, has ordered a review, which is due to report next month.

A commission source indicated that the EU executive would not object if European governments ordered a U-turn.

"This is all very sensitiv