Former US vice-president Al Gore, who is at the Cannes Film Festival, has warned the world is facing a "planetary emergency" due to global warming. A documentary based on the politician's environmental campaigning is being screened at the festival. Mr Gore said the world faced a stark choice between the end of civilisation and a future for its children. He also said he was not considering running again for presidential office in 2008. Mr Gore said global warming was a "challenge to our moral imagination to understand it and then to respond to it urgently". The documentary An Inconvenient Truth is based on lectures Al Gore has been delivering about environmental crisis for many years. The film shows photographs of changes to glaciers around the world, with snow disappearing from the Alps, Antarctica and the South Pole. "People have been moved by it," Mr Gore said. "People coming out feeling a sense of urgency." He stressed the problem was moral, not political, and said he hoped the current US government would re-think its environmental strategy and sign up to the successor to the Kyoto treaty. "I even believe that there is a chance that within the next two years even Bush and Cheney will be forced to change their position on this crisis," he said. "One can only attempt to create one's own reality for so long. Reality proper has a way of insisting itself upon you. Mother nature has joined this debate with a very powerful and persistent voice." But he said he was not thinking of running for president in two years. I don't plan to be a candidate again for national office," he said. "There are other ways to serve." He would not be drawn on his opinions of any potential presidential candidates, saying it was too early for such a discussion. Mr Gore, who is donating his proceeds from the film towards a new environmental charity, said there were "some powerful polluting interests that have way too much influence in the American political system". He said President George W Bush had missed an opportunity after 11 September terrorist attacks to declare that the US should be independent of oil and coal. "Leadership can make a difference," he said. "What I can most valuably do is try to change the minds of the American people and elsewhere in the world about this planetary emergency." -Daren Walters

REVIEWS

Maximillien de Lafayette's "United States and the World Face Face to Face": Fun and authoritative.

Martin Scorsese is to receive an award for his documentary work.

The Taxi Driver director, who has famously never won an Oscar, will be honoured at the Silverdocs festival for his non-fiction films. They include his London's TV series on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, and the seven-part musical history Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues. Festival organisers said Scorsese's work shows "a deep appreciation for American cultural history". "It's about telling America's story, but it's also about telling a story with artistry," said festival director Patricia Finneran. "I think his stories about great musical artists really help us understand our American musical culture and national consensus." Scorsese will discuss his work with director Jim Jarmusch at the festival, to be held in the Washington suburb of Maryland this June. Silverdocs has been running for four years, benefiting from an explosion in documentary film-making. This year it will feature 100 films, including 25 world or US premieres. Former US Vice President Al Gore, whose global warming film An Inconvenient truth, is released in America next week, will deliver the festival's keynote speech.

The North London home Tessa Jowell used to share with husband David Mills has gone on the market for £950,000. The culture secretary split up with Mr Mills amid allegations he took a £344,000 bribe from Silvio Berlusconi. The City lawyer denies the claims. It is claimed there is a link between a loan application Ms Jowell signed on the house and the alleged bribe. But she has denied any wrongdoing and was cleared of breaching the ministers' code of conduct. Italian prosecutors have been examining claims the £344,000 was paid to Mr Mills, an international lawyer, in return for helpful testimony in a corruption probe concerning the Italian prime minister in 1997. Ms Jowell co-signed a mortgage on what was then described as a £700,000 home in Kentish Town. "I agreed that we would take out a loan on our house. That is not unusual, it's not improper, and it's certainly not illegal," she said. John Morris, of estate agents Day Morris, told the BBC News website that Mrs Jowell's home had been seen by a number of people and was of particular interest to three possible purchasers who were "considering it".

He said: "It is very elegantly decorated and modernised with very good quality fittings. It is very tastefully done." According to Land Registry figures another house on the street sold in September last year for £695,000. The culture secretary's split with Mr Mills, at the beginning of March, was described as temporary, sparking speculation it had been contrived for political reasons. But Mr Mills told the Times: "The idea that people could decide on a separation for contrived reasons - it's just not how human beings behave." He said they had a "long and happy" marriage behind them and he hoped there would eventually be a reconciliation. Mr Mills has been apparently living at the family's country home in Warwickshire since he moved from Kentish Town. In April he told the magazine Legal Business his family had been through the "most ghastly trauma". He added that he hoped that "with peace and privacy, and time, things will return to normal". In a statement responding to speculation about her family's financial affairs, Ms Jowell said: "I signed a charge over our jointly-owned home to support a loan made to my husband alone by his bank. "I am satisfied that no conflict of interest arose out of this transaction in relation to my ministerial duties.

As is standard practice in relation to legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further." In a letter to The Independent newspaper on 11 April, Mr Mills wrote: "The truth, as the relevant documents plainly show ... is that all she did was sign a charge over our jointly owned house (which at that time had no mortgage on it) by way of guarantee for a personal loan made to me by my bank. "I used the loan to buy some shares, which themselves provided collateral for the loan. The charge on the house was to provide further security if needed, but it never was, so no actual liability [was] ever attached to the house. I decided to repay the loan after I had sold another investment, which is the one falsely alleged to have been transferred to me on Mr Berlusconi's orders. There was, accordingly, no "mortgage deal" required to bring the funds into the UK, they arrived in the ordinary way by credit to my account, and that would have been so with or without the charge on the house. "I hope that the persistent and inaccurate description of the transaction will no longer be repeated, because it is most unfair to Tessa Jowell."

TRUMP, MELANIA KNAUSS AND CHRISTIAN DIOR

Donald and Melania; happy couple.

LONDON- This week, the gossips mistresses are rehashing Knauss  notorious gown during the haute couture shows in Paris with help from Vogue editors Sally Singer and Andre Leon Talley. Knauss redisplayed again and again,  the voluminous strapless gown -- which took 550 hours of labour just to do the embroidery. "Melania definitely got what she was looking for: a dress that would be absolutely special and a dress that could only be worn to one's wedding," , said Vogue's editor. It is third marriage for Trump, host of the NBC reality show The Apprentice. Knauss, like many brides-to-be, thought she wanted something a little more modern, but eventually realized she wanted a more theatrical dress, Singer said. "The dress also had to hold its own against the massive ballroom they've built at Mar-a-Lago (the Trump estate in Palm Beach)," Singer said. The room is in the ornate Louis XIV style and the visual theme of the wedding is white, gold and jewelry -- meaning diamonds. Singer, who was a guest at the wedding, said she couldn't begin to estimate the gown's price tag. "Some of these couture gowns, they are showpieces. No one really expects someone to order them. ... I'm sure it cost a lot." The Vogue fashion and features director said she "believed" Trump had purchased the gown because she couldn't imagine Dior giving away something so expensive, but she didn't know the arrangements. Knauss, 34, wasn't intimidated by the hunt for her wedding dress or the ceremony of haute couture. "Most women when they encounter fashion -- whether it's in a magazine or in the mall or watching the Golden Globes -- they compare it to what they can wear. Melania isn't like that, probably because she was born beautiful," said Singer. Because of the sheer volume of the dress, the magazine reports, Knauss sat on a bench for dinner because a chair wouldn't work and changed into a new outfit following the traditional first dance with her new husband. That dress is a sexy and sleek tulle number by Vera Wang.  S. Critchel.

A RABBI FROM THE UNITED STATES MAKES HEADLINES. MOSHE WIENER REVERED AS HUMANITARIAN AND MAN OF THE YEAR

Coney Island's rabbi Moshe Wiener.

LONDON-This is not a Broadway's premiere. It is real life. A good one. It is about rabbi Moshe Wiener, a Jewish community leader  in Coney Island, New York. Recently, this rabbi has been written up in numerous publications and by news agencies, including the World Jewish News, The Globe Weekly News, Jewish Press, Jewish Week and the New York Monthly Herald. In short, he is making a big buzz. His good deeds were noticed by the public and the media. The New York Monthly Herald elected him man of the year. So did the Jewish Agency.

AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?

So you find yourself destitute. Things happen. Off shoring, merging, downsizing. Who cares about the reason, here you are at the bottom of the barrel, and not much ale left in there to cheer you up with, either. Let’s say you have contacted, whined to, applied to, and net-worked everyone from the big shots you had known so well in your glory days to your uncle Harry in New York. You blasted the Internet with your resume and harassed all the head hunters you could think of. And nothing happens. No one is helping. So you call a rabbi. An important rabbi who owes you a favor or two from those good old days. What did you want from the rabbi? Suppose he came to your place, looked at your less than spectacular mode of living, seemed rather shocked, and said “Let’s go tomorrow and pray together.” Do you really need an intermediary with the Almighty, or would you rather have him act like the father of his congregation, use his considerable resources, and give you some material help? I did not make up this rabbi story, it happened. But no further comment about it is needed. Some rabbis have simply forgotten that it is their job to be their brother’s and sister’s keepers. To be the helpers and the providers. To be our last chance.

They do their religious duties, and if they are powerful enough they associate with the high and mighty, but they are not closely associated with the material needs of their people. Their congregation is, to all intents and purposes, orphaned. A very different rabbi lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His name is Moshe Wiener and he is the Executive Director of SJCC and of JCCCGCI, the Community Council of Greater Coney Island. The mayor of NY also appointed him as a member of the Senior Advisory Council for the Department of the Aging. Plenty on the good rabbi’s plate, you would think. These organizations are not limited to Brooklyn – they work with the entire city – helping Jews and non-Jews alike.