New technology allows asphalt to be recycled into a durable gravel-like surface that is cheaper to maintain and adequately prevents potholes and mud, said David Creamer, a field operations specialist at the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Thirty-eight counties in Michigan replaced a total of 100 miles of asphalt roads with gravel because of decreasing funds in 2008-09, said Monica Ware, a spokeswoman for the County Road Association of Michigan. In Montcalm County, Michigan, 10 miles were converted to cut patching costs in 2009, said Randy Stearns, managing director of the county's road commission. He cited one road that cost a combined $39,244 in 2008 and early 2009 for patching, but only $7,300 to crush into gravel. More roads may be converted this summer, he said.

A 2006 study by the University of Minnesota's Center for Transportation Studies found gravel is cost-effective when daily traffic averages 200 vehicles or less.

"We have already made sacrifices and will accept no more cuts," the chairman of the customs officers' union Argyris Sakellaropoulos told Flash Radio. The unions are on the warpath over a government austerity programme that they say has progressively become harsher under pressure from the European Union and market speculation that has hurt Greek finances and rattled the euro.

"I deeply regret that the government has bowed to the wishes of the markets," the head of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), Yiannis Panagopoulos, said on Wednesday. Greece's largest union with around 600,000 members, GSEE is expected to approve Panagopoulos' call for a February 24 general strike later Thursday.

GSEE has also walked out of the official debate on how to reform the country's cash-strapped pensions system that is a key part of the government's economy rescue agenda. The country's recession-hit economy has already been disrupted by a protest by farmers, who have blocked key highways and shut down border crossings on a near-daily basis for three straight weeks. Greece's debt stands at more than 294 billion euros ($412 billion), its 12.7-percent deficit is well beyond EU limits of three percent of output for eurozone members and it suffered a triple downgrade of its sovereign debt in December.

In a televised address, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said opposition proposals to allow the Portuguese islands of Madeira and the Azores to increase their debt would have "grave consequences for Portugal's public accounts" and send "the worst possible message" to financial markets.

His warning came as Portuguese bonds and shares came under fire for the second day running as concerns over sovereign debt spread from Greece to other high-deficit countries in the eurozone. The Lisbon stock market fell almost 5 per cent on Thursday, the biggest daily fall since November 2008, and bond yields rose to new highs amid doubts over the ability of Portugal to consolidate its public accounts. The cost of insuring Portuguese debt against default also rose to a record high.

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Teixeira dos Santos said "strong and credible" measures to be presented the European Commission this month would be "no less ambitious" than the Greek plan to consolidate public finances endorsed by Brussels on Tuesday. He said Portugal had taken over from Greece as the main victim of the "animal spirits" of financial markets that were often "irrational". The concern in the case of Portugal, he said, was not justified.

Since the world's oceans are so massive, few people seem to have a problem with dumping waste into them. But plastics degrade at very a slow rate, and huge amounts of them are sloshing around in our oceans. Wildlife consumes small pieces causing many of them to die, since the plastics are full of poisons. And, as experts warn, we've reached a point where it's even getting dangerous for humans to consume seafood.

Given these conditions, the international community has been pushing for four decades for massive bureaucratic efforts aimed at clearing the oceans of waste. In 1973, the United Nations sponsored a pact for protecting the oceans from dumping. Additional provisions have been added to the so-called Marpol Convention-- short for "marine pollution" - on six different occasions. And nine years ago, the European Union put directives on the books that forbid any dumping of maritime waste into the ocean while in ports.

Still, according to a classified German government strategy paper obtained by Spiegel Online if you add up all the good such measures have done, you still end up with zero. In fact, according to the confidential paper, international efforts aimed at protecting the oceans have failed across the board. Our oceans have devolved into vast garbage dumps.

Even strict laws have yet to do anything to help the oceans, the paper states. Take the case of the North and Baltic seas. Although dumping into them has been illegal since 1988, the amount of waste found in these seas has still "not improved." The government also estimates that, each year, 20,000 tons of waste finds its way into the North Sea alone, primarily from ships and the fishing industry. The paper concludes that all related international agreements have been "unsuccessful."

The Portuguese government's defeat over a regional finance bill, a climbdown by the Spanish government over pension reform, and protests by tax officials in Greece added to the woes of states struggling to cut budget shortfalls bloated by recession. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said his organization was ready to help Greece, which is under more pressure over its finances than any other bloc member, but expressed confidence the government would take the "very difficult measures" needed to deal with its fiscal crisis.

The Greek government reiterated on Thursday that it had no plan to seek assistance from the IMF. The euro plunged to a seven-month low against the dollar as traders took the view that dismal public finances in the single currency area may hamper the region's economic growth prospects.

Spain's Ibex 35 stock market index fell 5.9 percent, while Portuguese shares fell 5 percent, led by a 7.5 percent slump in Millennium bcp, its biggest bank. The Athens stock market shed 3.3 percent, with the Greek banks index down 5.4 percent.

"However, the government's cash flows are volatile, making it difficult to forecast a precise date," the Treasury said in a statement. The US debt exceeded 12.349 trillion dollars on Monday, according to Treasury data. The US House of Representatives will vote Thursday on whether to raise the US debt limit to a historic 14.3 trillion dollars, allowing the United States to borrow another 1.9 trillion dollars.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said representatives would take up the measure a week after the Senate approved the higher debt ceiling in a 60-39 vote. In December, both houses agreed to increase the debt limit by an interim amount of 290 billion dollars to ensure the US government would continue to function.

Greece is in financial turmoil after losing credibility with investors because of its unsustainable public spending. With Britain one of the last of the major economies to emerge from recession, are we once again the sick man of Europe? Is our situation comparable with that of Greece? What will it take to restore our standing? How should our 178 billion pounds deficit be tackled?

The release, filed with MarketWire and republished at CNNMoney.com, claims "Supriem David Rockefeller" is director of a company, Kinti Holdings group, which is working with a Jewish Temple organization to rebuild the Third Temple. States the release: "Kinti Holdings will be raising funds to go towards building the Third Temple in Jerusalem in strict coordinance with The Temple Institute, Rabbi Hiam Richman and The Palestinian National Interest Committee (PNIC) and supporting Husam Bajis for President of Palestine."

Richman, international director of the Temple Institute, a Jewish Temple activist group, told WND the release is a 'scam.' "The Temple Institute strongly protests the use of its name and that of Rabbi Chaim Richman in a series of fraudulent press releases and advertising claims that are now circulating on the Internet," read the Temple Institute's official response to the release. Continued the Institute's response: "The claims made by these men ... are false and malicious, and their apparent intentions are to take advantage of the Temple Institute's sincere supporters and rob them of funds. The Temple Institute advises its friends and supporters to avoid being taken in by this scam." The original "Rockefeller" press release about rebuilding the Third Temple, however, has been spreading like wildfire on Christian websites and blogs.

While the Third Temple press release may be a hoax, the Temple Institute is anything but. The group is involved in restoring a Jewish presence to the Temple Mount, where current Israeli laws bar Jews from ascending the Mount during most hours of the day while Muslims are granted nearly 24-hour access. The Temple Institute also focuses on preparation for the rebuilding of the Third Temple. The group has been preparing ritual objects suitable for Temple use. Many of the more than 90 ritual items to be used in the Temple have been re-made to the highest standards the Temple Institute.

A guide to the Temple Mount by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem published in 1925 listed the Mount as Jewish and as the site of Solomon's Temple. The Temple Institute acquired a copy of the official 1925 "Guide book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif," which states on page 4, "Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the Lord.'"

Attempts to denigrate church schools and ban the mention of Christmas in favour of bland 'Winterval' celebrations were also part of a drive to censor Christianity, he said. The Archbishop's comments followed the Pope's unprecedented attack on Harriet Harman's Equality Bill earlier this week. Benedict XVI called the proposed legislation 'unjust', saying it restricted religious freedom and violated 'the natural law' - in other words, Christian teaching.

Dr Sentamu said in a speech in Newcastle: 'For all our judicial tolerance, Britain has become in many ways a less tolerant society today. One of the main areas in which we see this is in the Government's treatment of religion, which they now prefer to call " faith communities". The Equality Bill which is going through the House of Lords had contained a clause which would have made it very difficult for a religious group to employ someone of the religion for a position within their organisation.'

The Archbishop declared: 'This is symptomatic of a trend which has intensified in Britain over the past 50 years in the name of tolerance. That is, an attempt to remove religion from public life.' Dr Sentamu said some people wanted to relegate the church to a place only in the private lives of its members. The clarity of his views have made him increasingly command more attention than the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Most Internet users are familiar with the email scam known in the jargon as "phishing." A plausible-looking email arrives in your in-box, supposedly from your bank or a website like Ebay, informing you that your account has been "compromised" and that you urgently need to log in to the company's website to rectify matters. The catch is that the website the email directs you to is a spoof created by the hackers, meaning that anyone who falls for the trick is unwittingly handing over their all-important user names and passwords to the criminals.

Savvy email users know to delete such emails straight away. But canny thieves have now used the technique to make money in a very 21st century fashion - by fraudulently gaining access to companies' greenhouse gas emissions allowances and selling them on.

According to a report in the Wednesday edition of the Financial Times Deutschland, hackers sent emails last Thursday to several companies in Europe, Japan and New Zealand which appeared to originate from the Potsdam-based German Emissions Trading Authority (DEHSt), part of the EU's Emission Trading System (EU ETS). Ironically, the email said that the recipient needed to re-register on the agency's website to counter the threat of hacker attacks.

The cyber-thieves then exploited the user data that was entered into their spoof website to transfer emissions allowances to other accounts, mainly in Denmark and Britain, from which they were quickly resold. The new owners of the allowances would have assumed that they had acquired them legally. "The attack was highly professional," a DEHSt employee told the newspaper. Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is now investigating the incident.

The company's 230 pea growers across Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Perthshire will not be affected. Birds Eye said the Italian contract had been cancelled at short notice. Some of the affected farms in Norfolk and Suffolk have been supplying the firm for 65 years since the UK's first frozen peas were produced in Great Yarmouth. Birds Eye is owned by private equity group Permira.

Last week, it revealed it had spent all 200 billion pounds of the QE funds so far. The Bank is also expected to announce that interest rates will remain at 0.5% for the 11th consecutive month. The expected decision to keep rates on hold at 0.5% comes despite official figures showing in January that UK inflation rose in December by 2.9%, its fastest annual pace for nine months, and above the 2% target.

Bank Governor Mervyn King warned last month inflation was "likely to rise to over 3% for a while", and could go even higher if energy prices and indirect taxes were to increase further, but added that it "should return to target in the medium term". Although the UK did officially come out of recession in the fourth quarter of 2009 - ending six consecutive quarters of economic decline - the growth was just 0.1%, much less than expected.

For that reason, most analysts expect rates to stay at 0.5% until at least the second half of 2010 for fear of the UK falling back into recession. "At present, we do not expect, or think it necessary, to increase QE above 200 billion pounds," said David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce. "But it is very important for the MPC to persevere with expansionary policies. The main priority must be to avoid a double-dip recession."

The complaint states Christians now can become the target of federal investigations, grand juries and even charges for no more than opposing the activism of homosexuals who want not only public endorsement of their life choices, but to halt any criticism of those decisions.

"On account of ... the Hate Crimes Act, plaintiffs are targets for government scrutiny, questioning, investigation, surveillance, and other adverse law enforcement actions and thus seek judicial reassurance that they can freely participate in their speech and related religious activities without being investigated or prosecuted by the government or becoming part of official records because of their Christian beliefs," the lawsuit explains.

It was filed today by the Thomas More Law Center in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of Pastors Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette, James Combs and Gary Glenn, the president of the American Family Association of Michigan. The plaintiffs include individuals who already have faced accusations by homosexual advocates that they bear responsibility for the actions of others for no other reason than their agreement with biblical condemnations of homosexuality.

"There is no legitimate law enforcement need for this federal law," said Richard Thompson, president of the Law Center. "Of the 1.38 million violent crimes reported in the US by the FBI in 2008, only 243 were considered as motivated by the victim's sexual orientation. Moreover, Eric Holder himself testified at a Senate hearing that the states are doing a fine job in this area," he said.

"This is part of the list of political payoffs to homosexual advocacy groups for support of Barack Obama in the last presidential election. The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin. It elevates those persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors, including pedophiles, to a special protected class of persons as a matter of federal law and policy," he said.

"If this law is used to silence me or any of these preachers for speaking the truth, then we will be forced to conscientiously defy it," Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America, declared. "That is my calling as a Christian and my right as an American citizen."

The beleaguered car-maker has now been ordered to investigate reports of a third technical problem linked to brake failures in its flagship Prius gas-electric hybrid cars. It has recalled 180,865 specific cars in Britain, leaving thousands of motorists too afraid to use their vehicles.

Tonight a US government official issued a stark warning to motorists to stop driving the recalled cars. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said: 'Stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it.' Mr LaHood later branded his outspoken words a 'mis-statement' but was too late to stop shockwaves spreading around the world.

Toyota's share price has plunged in the wake of the unprecedented recall, which is expected to cost the car-maker 1.25 billion pounds in lost sales and output, and could leave it facing a huge legal pay-out. Authorities in the US have linked the apparent defects to 19 deaths and thousands of accidents, and British lawyers have begun preparing legal action against the manufacturer.

Experts estimated the work could lead to the first animal-human transplants within five years. Dr Glenn Westall, who helped conduct the experiment, said: "The blood went into the lungs without oxygen and came out with oxygen, which is the exact function of the lungs. It showed that these lungs were working perfectly well and doing as we were expecting them to do. This is a significant advance compared to experiments that have been performed over the past 20 years."

The breakthrough came after scientists were able to remove a section of pig DNA, which had made the pig organs incompatible with human blood. Previous attempts to combine unmodified pig lungs and human blood ended abruptly two years ago when blood clots began forming almost immediately, causing the organs to become so blocked no blood could pass through. Human DNA is now added to the pigs as they are reared to reduce clotting and the number of lungs which are rejected.

The issue has prompted an ethical debate about the use of animals for human transplants. Medical ethicist Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said: "It is basically a human-pig, a hybrid, or whatever you want to call it. It is about whether the community is prepared to accept a part human, part animal."