It put a man on the moon and gave the world the non-stick saucepan, but faced with an impending budget crisis, Nasa has been forced to cancel a more down-to-earth project: gardening. Staff at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama have been warned that no new flowers will be planted until further notice, to save money.

The Vatican indicated for the first time on Wednesday that Pope John Paul II is no longer actively running the Catholic Church. In a statement announcing that the ailing pontiff is now being fed through a tube in his nose, his spokesperson said merely that the pontiff is ”following” the church’s activities.

Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq war, on Wednesday wooed and won over sceptical and hostile European ministers with a pledge to fight global poverty, ensuring his selection on Thursday as the next World Bank president. Charities and aid organisations accused European leaders of rolling over under Wolfowitz’s charm offensive.

When Qiu Chengwei reported the theft of his ”dragon sabre”, he was laughed out of the police station. So the 41-year-old online games player decided to take matters into his own hands. Swapping virtual weapons for a real knife, he tracked down the man who had robbed him of his prized fantasy possession and stabbed him to death.

A final analysis of the intelligence fiasco over Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will on Thursday focus blame on the CIA and other spy agencies, largely clearing the White House and the Pentagon of allegations that they shaped the intelligence to justify the invasion, according to early accounts of the report.

The once-thriving Indonesian town of Gunungsitoli was eerily quiet and forlorn early on Thursday as supply ships brought much-needed aid to survivors from this week’s earthquake, believed to have killed at least 1 000 people. One major problem for the relief workers is finding fresh water and food for the survivors.

President Robert Mugabe defiantly predicted ”a mountainous victory” for his party on Wednesday night as Zimbabweans prepared to cast their votes in an election that most observers believe will be rigged. ”We have never been losers, because we have always been a party of the people,” Mugabe said.

It was carnage on a scale the ice floes of Newfoundland have not seen for more than half a century. The cull started in the morning, with more than 70 boats disgorging hundreds of seal hunters on to the ice. By the end of the day, more than 15 000 harp-seal cubs, most less than six weeks old, lay dead, clubbed to death and skinned.