Anderson said respondents who are practising members of a religion were more likely to oppose Canada allowing this type of scientific work than those who are not actively religious.

Anderson said the poll results illustrate that it is not just religious Canadians who are casting a wary eye at the notion of scientists tampering with what it means to be human.

"What we know is there really aren't hard lines that people draw here," he said.  But it's not grey and muddy because people don't have strong feelings; it's grey and muddy because they have strong beliefs on both sides of the question."

"I will work, I know that the president and (Israeli) Prime Minister Olmert will work, and their teams will work very aggressively, very urgently to lay the groundwork for a successful meeting," she said.

The two sides should draft a document before the conference that will "lay the foundations for serious negotiations," she said, before returning to Jerusalem for talks with the Israeli leader.

An Abbas aide, Nabil Amr, said the secretary of state told Abbas that hardest issues - borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of refugees, the status of Jerusalem - would be discussed.

"We believe the time is right for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, and for living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel," Abbas said.

The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005.

Speaking to BBC News on Monday this week, Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the NSIDC, said: "2005 was the previous record and what happened then had really astounded us; we had never seen anything like that, having so little sea ice at the end of summer. Then along comes 2007 and it has completely shattered that old record."

He added: "We're on strong spiral of decline; some would say a death spiral. I wouldn't go that far but we're certainly on a fast track.

On a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially accelerating climatic change across the world.

This is the fourth straight day of marches by monks in protest at recent government attempts to silence critics.

In a strongly-worded statement, seen by the BBC, the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks described the military government as "the enemy of the people".

It said the monks would keep up their protests until they had "wiped the military dictatorship from the land of Burma".

The group has asked people across the country to pray in their doorways at 2000 hours on Sunday for 15 minutes.

The Eucharist, he said, is needed to reinvigorate the faith life of Catholics in Canada and to overturn the culture of death which seems constantly to gain strength.

"Learn lessons from your past mistakes. Don't repeat your mistakes," he added.

"Those [countries] who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran's fast drive toward progress are mistaken," the president said.