Revealed: what the world will look like when we've gone

Welcome to Planet Earth: Population 0.

This is what our world would look like without people.

The images were created to illustrate what would happen if human life ceased tomorrow, if, for whatever reason, mankind was obliterated.

The question it raises is: how long would the remnants of our civilisation remain?

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Washed away: Harrods, London's premier department store, rots among derelict double-decker buses in flood waters caused by the bursting of the Thames barrier

Crown and out: Buckingham Palace sinks into decay

How much would we leave behind? What would an alien visitor learn about us upon landing on our planet a century or more after we had disappeared from it?

The answer, astonishingly, is: almost nothing.

Within a hundred years most traces of our modern-day lives would be so destroyed by weather, corrosion, earth tremors, surviving animals, insects and bacteria that the monuments and hieroglyphics of ancient civilisations would be better preserved than our buildings and our billions of books and electronic records.

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Tower Bridge is falling down: A London landmark crumbles

An alien visiting Earth might well believe that the last civilisation on the planet were ancient Egyptians.

The prophetic forecast for the longevity of our 21st-century civilisation is contained in research for a TV documentary, Life After People.

And it's not guesswork. The two-hour special uses scientific expertise and understanding of history in order to predict the future.

Principal advisor on the TV programme is a 53-year-old Scot, Gordon Masterton, former president of the Royal Institution of Civil Engineers.

He says: "The lights will start going out around the world almost immediately. The last power will be produced by wind turbines but, after a few weeks, the planet will be plunged into a deep darkness it has not experienced since primitive Man huddled around camp fires."

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Rust in peace: Made of steel, the Eiffel Tower, France's monument to the industrial age, teeters

After only six months, urban areas will begin to be repopulated - by animals, including former domestic pets.

Bear on the subway: Wild animals would roam the streets of New York

Within 20 years wolves and bears will be the master species, roaming the streets. Any buildings made of wood will start to crumble, especially where termites flourish. But concrete and steel structures will also begin to be affected.

Looking 40 and 50 years into the future, the corrosion of steel, incursion of vegetation roots and effects of the weather mean that modern buildings will start collapsing.

Within a century nearly all automobiles will have rusted away.

Eventually glass buildings will topple, stone buildings crumble; successive freezing and thawing would turn streets to rubble, ground water will rise, underground railways flood, sewers crack and lightning will ignite overgrown grasses, engulfing cities in flames.

Central London, of course, will be largely under water. Without power, the Thames Barrier will leave the city defenceless.

Some myths are exposed. For instance, with no heating in buildings, the "invincible" cockroach would succumb to the cold; and rats would starve or become lunch for hawks and falcons.

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New York: Once magnificent skyscrapers would rot away

Ultimately, the larger animals would take over again: within 100 years, the half-a-million surviving African elephants would have multiplied to their pre-colonial population of ten million or so.

Livestock such as cows and sheep will be killed off by more aggressive predators.

Meanwhile, the most precious records of our history and culture which are stored in archives that are temperature and humidity controlled, will also vanish.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, remained intact for 2,000 years in desert caves.

"Rescued" and placed in a modern environment - but without the power to protect them - they wouldn't last 100.

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Last civilisation: The ancient Sphinx and Great Pyramid of Gaza would remain, while modern buildings would crumble

Almost all of the records of our human experience - books, photographs, electronic data - will fade away, leaving little evidence that we ever existed.

This apocalyptic forecast is justified in Life After People by astrophysicist and author David Brin, who says: "Every civilisation has its tales of Armageddon or apocalypse, but we are the first generation that could, by deliberate action, cause its own doom."

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Fall of Rome: The Colosseum is destroyed as Italy's capital is engulfed in flames

Moss-grow: The Russian capital's famous St Basil's Cathedral lies in ruins, overgrown with vegetation

Amazing moment the world's biggest Christ was struck by lightning

This was the dramatic scene as the world's largest statue of Jesus was hit by lightning.

The bolt parted the thunderclouds over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to strike Christ the Redeemer.

The statue is 130ft tall, is made of 700 tons of reinforced concrete and stands atop the 2,296ft Corcovado mountain overlooking the city.

Heavens above: The statue is struck during Sunday's storms

It was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.

Sunday's storm caused havoc in Rio, felling trees in several neighbourhoods - but did not damage the statue.

This amazing photograph gives whole new meaning to the phrase "May God strike me with lightning if..."

Gallery branded 'grossly insensitive' for showing Nazi leader portrait

A portrait of the notorious Nazi chief Heinrich Himmler on show in an art gallery has been blasted by furious Jewish community leaders.

They have branded the painting of the infamous SS boss grossly insensitive and offensive to victims of the Holocaust in the Second World War.

The V22 Gallery in Dalston, east London, is displaying the portrait by Jasper Joffe of Himmler - who set up and commanded concentration camps and death squads.

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Artist Jasper Joffe with his controversial portrait of Heinrich Himmler

The study, which has been sold to advertising mogul Charles Saatchi for £3,000, is part of an exhibition contrasting the beauty of women in lingerie ads from the 1970s and 80s and the ugliness of Nazism. But community leaders fear the gallery's proximity to the Orthodox Jewish communities in Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill will trigger terrible memories for survivors and their relatives.

Councillor Simon Tessler, whose mother survived the Auschwitz concentration camp, said older members of the Jewish community would be outraged.

He said: "It is definitely going to dig up people's memories of victims of the Holocaust.

"Those scars never heal. It won't go down very well. It will not be accepted or sanctioned by the orthodox Jewish community. I don't think they have set out to deliberately offend, but they have done it without due consideration.

"It's not the most appropriate place to stage this exhibition."

Rabbi Abraham Pinter, principal of Yesodey Hatorah school in Stamford Hill, said: "We have to respect freedom of expression, but in this area where there are many Holocaust survivors it could be seen as a bit insensitive.

"We expect public bodies to appreciate the sensitivities of others. It does have its place, but I'm not quite sure if the Chamber of Horrors would be a better place for it."

Mr Joffe retorted: "I have my own Jewish roots and it is something I take very seriously.

"Just because you paint him does not mean you agree with him. I am sensitive to those people who think we should not discuss these ideas in painting. I thought a lot about the Holocaust. I don't think about it carelessly."

A gallery spokesman said: "The concept is beauty versus ugliness. His interest is in how people relate to that.

"It was nothing really offensive. It wasn't meant to be offensive. People should make up their own minds."

Himmler rose rapidly under Adolf Hitler to become Reichsfuhrer-SS when he bossed the hated SS and Gestapo secret police. The tyrant who became one of the most powerful and evil men in Nazi Germany was arrested by British forces at the end of the war in 1945.

He committed suicide with cyanide aged 44 before facing trial for horrific war crimes.

Shameful picture of England squad giving Nazi salute still haunts British sport. Why, 70 years later, do we still suck up to dictators?

By DAVID MELLOR

The British Olympic Association's squalid attempt to suppress legitimate criticism of the Chinese regime by British athletes - revealed in today's Mail on Sunday - is a timely wake-up call for all of us who thought sucking up to dictators was something we had left behind in the Thirties.

Perhaps Simon Clegg, the BOA chief executive who has been so vociferous in support of his wretched piece of paper, which could have been drafted by Neville Chamberlain, should pause and consider what effect kow-towing to totalitarian governments had in the run-up to the Second World War: none on the dictators, lasting shame on the appeasers.

On May 14, 1938, in Berlin's Olympic Stadium, the English football team were blackguarded by the Foreign Office and the Football Association into giving the "Heil Hitler" Nazi salute before a friendly game with Germany. It was a piece of contemptible cringing rendered even more pathetic and futile because Hitler, who hated sport, didn't bother to turn up.

But that picture of impressionable footballers obeying orders from mutton-headed apparatchiks went round the world and became a lasting source of shame to this country. This was, after all, just weeks after Hitler had annexed Austria and came at a time when plans for the Final Solution were well advanced.

National disgrace: In a picture from a German archive never before published in Britain, the England football team give Nazi salutes in Berlin in 1938

Was Hitler made more reasonable by that salute, or by the willingness of the world to offer him a massive propaganda boost two years earlier at the Berlin Olympics by turning up without a squeak of protest? Of course not, which leads to some interesting parallels with today.

In 1936, persecution of the Jews was stopped briefly, dissidents were rounded up and kept out of the way and Nazi Germany put on its best face for the Games.

And that is exactly what the Chinese are doing today. They are desperately trying to clean up Beijing and banishing dissidents - men such as 34-year-old Hi Jia, a brave campaigner for human rights who is under house arrest to ensure he doesn't rock the boat.

And the Chinese government, rattled by the possibility of public criticism from Olympians, has been applying crude pressure to the international community to keep quiet.

"If at each Olympics people stood up and used politics to attack the host nation, where does that leave the Olympic spirit?" argued the official newspaper, The People's Daily, last month.

This idea that to criticise totalitarianism is a breach of the Olympic spirit is as wretched a perversion of logic as even the Nazis ever attempted. But, pathetic or not, Simon Clegg seems to see it as something we shouldn't do.

The Chinese have no right to a free ride this summer. And it isn't just because China isn't a democracy or that basic human rights and fundamental freedoms are denied to its citizens.

China is a menace to the civilised world for many other reasons, ranging from its support for renegade regimes such as the government of Sudan, who used Chinese weaponry to commit the Darfur massacres, to its shameless emergence as the number one polluter.

The Chinese deserve as much criticism over their contributions to global warming as over their suppression of human rights.

At the rate of more than one a week, dirty coal and lignite-fired power stations are coming on stream. Over the next 20 years, they will create as much pollution as the rest of the world has since the birth of the industrial revolution.

This is a shocking statistic worthy of condemnation anywhere and everywhere. If British athletes feel strongly about that, why shouldn't they speak out?

Let's take the interesting case of Zara Phillips. The Prince of Wales has made it clear in a letter to the Free Tibet campaign that he will not allow himself to be used as a propaganda pawn by the Chinese, and will not attend the Games.

If Ms Phillips were to indicate her support for her uncle's principled stand, will Clegg really carry out his threat and send her home? If so, he might even snatch the Berk of the Year award from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Clegg claims that all he is doing is imposing the principles contained in the Olympic Charter on individual athletes. Well he would, wouldn't he?

But he's wrong, not least because no other major country seeks to do the same. They are content to allow their athletes as free people to make up their own minds about what they say or do. Why isn't that good enough for the motherland of free speech?

It begs a very interesting question. Is Clegg on a frolic of his own or has he been put up to it by the Government? Is appeasement alive and well and answering to the name of Gordon Brown?

Brown, after all, has recently been in China, making ludicrous remarks about the importance of our relationship with the Chinese - and earning the opprobrium of organisations dedicated to freedom for failing to hold the Chinese to account for their appalling human-rights record.

Is this notoriously intolerant man the real reason why Clegg is ready to make a fool of himself? Brown, after all, holds the purse strings for the 2012 Olympics.

Has he told Clegg and the BOA that unless their people toe the line in China, there will be trouble over the cash? I wouldn't put it past him, would you?

The Brown line on China - that only the trading relationship matters - is patent nonsense. Our exports to China are barely one-fifth of theirs to us, a gap that will widen as industrialisation in China gathers pace.

During his visit Brown claimed: "Tens of thousands of jobs in Britain for British workers can be created by closer co-operation between our two countries."

Oh really? Will that many forklift-truck drivers be needed to unload Chinese goods at our ports and airports?

Far worse is the assumption that the Chinese can be allowed to dominate world trade without any attention being paid to the development of democracy or the improvement of civil rights.

No thought is being given to the negative impact an unreformed Chinese superpower will have on world stability unless economic improvements are matched by equally profound advances in democratic institutions.

And that problem goes far wider than Brown. The Americans are the worst culprits in encouraging Chinese manufacturing without insisting on anything in return. And that foolhardy desire to reward China for its many bad habits extends to the International Olympic Committee.

They gave the Games to Beijing despite that city being among the most badly polluted in the world. Will a British competitor be sent home for daring to complain about the smog?

Any intelligent athlete will have a lot to think about on that plane to Beijing. And if they choose to voice those thoughts, why shouldn't they?

If Simon Clegg and the BOA don't want to end up as despised as those who told our footballers to make Nazi salutes, he and his cronies should put those contracts where they belong. Down the nearest lavatory.

Briton jailed for four years in Dubai after customs find cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar under his shoe

A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison.

Jailed: Keith Brown had a speck of cannabis on his shoe

Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back to England when he was stopped as he walked through Dubai's main airport.

A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.

Dubai International Airport is a major hub for the Middle East and thousands of Britons pass through it every year to holiday in the glamorous beach and shopping haven.

But many of those tourists and business travellers are likely to be unaware of the strict zero-tolerance drugs policy in the UAE.

One man has even been jailed for possession of three poppy seeds left over from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow Airport. Painkiller codeine is also banned.

If suspicious of a traveller, customs officials can use high-tech equipment to uncover even the slightest trace of drugs.

Mr Brown was detained and arrested in September last year and has been held in a cell with three other men in the city prison ever since.

This week the youth worker, who has two young children and a partner at home in Smethwick, West Midlands, was sentenced to four years in prison.

A 25-year-old Briton who was found with a similar speck in one pocket as he arrived on holiday has been awaiting sentence since November.

Meanwhile a Big Brother TV executive has so far been held without charge for five days after being arrested for possessing the health supplement melatonin.

The authorities claim to have discovered 0.01g of hashish in his luggage.

Last night Mr Brown's brother Lee said his case "defied belief".

"For that sort of amount common sense should prevail, from where it was found it was obviously something that had been crushed on the floor - it could have come from anywhere."

Rastafarian Mr Brown had been returning from a short trip to Ethiopia, where one of his children lives and where he owns property.

He was travelling with his partner Imani, who was also stopped and detained for more than a week.

Normally he flew direct to and from the UK, but decided to stop off in Dubai.

"He was incensed when he called me," said driving instructor Lee, 57. "It would be funny if the circumstances weren't so unpleasant.

"Bugs are crawling out of his mattress when he's sleeping. His family are frantic with worry and can't call him."

Last night campaign group Fair Trials International advised visitors to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to "take extreme caution".

Chief Executive Catherine Wolthuizen said: "We have seen a steep increase in such cases over the last 18 months.

"Customs authorities are using highly sensitive new equipment to conduct extremely thorough searches on travellers and if they find any amount - no matter how minute - it will be enough to attract a mandatory four-year prison sentence."

Mrs Wolthuizen added: "We even have reports of the imprisonment of a Swiss man for 'possession' of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow.

"What many travellers may not realise is that they can be deemed to be in possession of such banned substances if they can be detected in their urine or bloodstream, or even in tiny, trace amounts on their person."

Only two months after Mr Brown was stopped economics graduate Robert Dalton was detained in almost identical circumstances.

Mr Dalton, from Gravesend, on Kent was with two friends when he was stopped and asked to empty his pockets.

Officials found 0.03g of cannabis in a small amount of fluff. He is currently on trial and if convicted, is likely receive a four-year prison sentence.

Held: A campaign is underway to secure the release of Cat Le-Huy from a Dubai jail

Last night his brother Peter, 26, told how it took 24 hours to find out why he had been stopped.

"As we understand, the amount of cannabis was barely visible to the human eye and was at the bottom of the pocket of an old pair of jeans.

"He's not a drug user, but he goes clubbing and the speck was so small."

Last week Cat Le-Huy, a London-based German national, was arrested on arrival at the airport.

Mr Le-Huy, 31, head of technology with Big Brother production company Endemol, was arrested on suspicion of possessing illegal drugs after customs officers found melatonin, a health supplement used for jet lag available over the counter both in Dubai and in the US.

Authorities also claim they discovered fragments in one of his bags which they believe to be hashish. Fair Trials International said the amount was 0.01g.

Women 'take 46 per cent more sick days than men'

As any woman will tell you, men are experts in representing the sniffles as full-on flu.

Can't cope: But the study from Helsinki says illness is much more characteristically female than thought

However, when it comes to taking days off work, it seems that the female of the species is sicklier than the male.

A study of 7,000 council workers revealed that women took 46 per cent more short-term sick leave than their male counterparts.

The researchers said the findings were particularly significant because days taken off to care for sick children - which are thought to account for many of women's absences from work - were discounted from the figures.

The analysis by the University of Helsinki in Finland showed that women were 46 per cent more likely to be off work for between one to three days, which does not require a sick note.

They were also a third more likely to take slightly longer periods of sick leave, which required a medical certificate.

Researchers said that the reasons for the difference could include women finding their work more physically demanding.

Alternatively, they might simply be more organised about seeing a doctor and getting signed off work when ill.

The average UK worker takes six sick days a year - down from a peak of 9.1 in 1991.

Probe launched after air stewardess performs topless mid-air striptease for the captain

An investigation has been launched after a video of a topless French air stewardess performing a sexy striptease for the captain while the plane was flying was leaked on to the internet.

Despite the plane being in the air - and with several hundred passengers presumably blissfully unaware of what is going on - the sexy cabin attendant removes her bra and lets the captain and co-pilot get hands on.

The video was leaked onto the internet by members of the French crew and has sparked a major probe at several European airlines to discover the crew members responsible.

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Holding pattern: The grinning captain fondles the stewardess during the flight

In-flight entertainment: The sexy stewardess stripped off to enliven the flight for the captain and co-pilot

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• This is your pilot speaking... and crying and swearing. And demanding to talk to God!

In the video, which lasts a little over two minutes, the stewardess, who even appears to be wearing a wedding ring, first performs a sexy striptease for the captain.

She then removes her bra and the captain fondles and gropes the stewardess as he grins at the camera.

Get ready for takeoff: The mystery woman poses for the camera

Casting 'come-hither' looks at the camera, the pretty crew member at one stage even lifts her skirt to show her underwear to the crew.

The plane was allegedly on a short-haul trip to London.

Helping hand: A fellow air stewardess assists with the removal of the bra

• Actually, this isn't interesting, it's just plain titilation. Meh.