Next Link Help!!

Basicly, I planned on doing a "next/previous" button on my website, but they wont work, I think the problem lies in the server being in safe mode, I was hoping someone could show me how to get around it (keeping safe mode on) cheers heres my code

if(!isset($_GET['start'])) $start = 0;

// connect to the server
   @mysql_connect($host, $username, $password) or die ("SERVER CONNECTION ERROR");
   @mysql_select_db($database) or die ("DATABASE CONNECTION ERROR");

   
   // retrieve all the rows from the database//
   
$results = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT " . $start . ", 2") or die ("TROUBLE GETTING INFORMATION FROM THE DATABASE");
   $num     = mysql_num_rows($results);

$query = "SELECT count(*) as count FROM news";
$result= mysql_query($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$numrows= $row['count'];

   // print out the results
?>

<div align="center">
all messages are displayed in Decending order (newest first)<br>
<table>

<?
    if ($num == 0) {
    echo "no contacts to display";
    }
    else {

      while ($contact = mysql_fetch_row($results))
      {
         // print out the info
         $id = $contact[0];   
         $title = $contact[1];
         $message = $contact[2];

      
echo"<tr><td></td><td><b>";
echo" $title</b></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>";
echo"$message<hr></td></tr>";


      }
    }

echo "<br>";
if($start > 0) 
   echo "<a href=\"" . $PHP_SELF . "?start=" . ($start - 4) . 
        "\">Previous </a>\n";
echo "||";
if($numrows > ($start + 4)) 
   echo "<a href=\"" . $PHP_SELF . "?start=" . ($start + 4) . 
        "\">Next</a>\n";

?>