Problem
 

Thanks again to all who have replied to my problem

Here's another photo which I took after the one I started this thread with, there does not seem to be a problem on this photo. Does that mean the lens does not need cleaning. The camera is new I bought it a couple of weeks ago.
Regards Alan.

Even if the lens has a smear on it, say from a finger, it will not show up unless it is a bad smear if the light is from behind or to one side (as in this shot) and not catching the front lens element at an oblique angle. The best way to see if the lens needs cleaning is to look carefully at the surface from different angles. The fact that the camera is nearly new makes no difference as it only takes one careless moment to touch the lens with a finger! If you need to clean the lens first blow any particles off with a blower (not your breath as spittle could land on the lens and make matters worse) and then carefully wipe the lens with a micro fibre cloth starting at the centre of the lens moving with a circular motion to wards the outer part of the lens. i.e. a outward spiral. Don't overdo cleaning as you do not want to unnecessarily risk any scratches from dust not removed by the blower (I use the ''Rocket'' blower). I keep an eye on my lenses and clean only when necessary. A clean lens reduces the incidents of flare but does not stop it. Hope this helps.

As Mike has said looking at the front of the lens from different angles under a good light will clearly show up any dust cloud or finger prints on the front element. These will only show up on prints if a light source happens to be at the right angle to cause the flare.

Assuming that the lens is clean I've had a quick look at your gallery for any clues to the problem. I would say all except the church shot suffer from flare to some degree. The only difference would seem to be that the church was taken with the light from behind you and the others are against the light. I suspect this camera just does not fair well with against the light shots and I very much doubt that a lens hood will do much to solve the problem.

If you bought this camera from a local camera shop I would be inclined go back to them to discuss the problem and maybe they will let you exchange it.

I note that you seem to prefer to take shots of buildings. It is worth talking to the camera shop about the best camera lens for this style of photography.
Zoom lens on compacts are notorious for barrel and pincushion distortion at either end of the range which will be noticed more on building shots than the typical family group shot. A simple test is to take shots of a door frame at different zoom settings and see how they fair.

Reading Rob's comments I have to agree again that most of your shots in your gallery exhibit flare to a greater or larger extent so that camera or rather it's lens does seem prone. As for compacts giving barrel and pincushion distortion this is true (worse on some zoom lenses than others) but how much you notice it is a personal thing. Me, I do not notice it unless it is really bad and I do like a zoom lens on my compact! If you look at my gallery many of the pictures are taken on a zoom compact (each shot does tell you what the shot was taken with) and all the China ones are.