Grown in their millions in nothing but water inside greenhouses large enough to house ten football pitches each, they are as far as you can get from 'natural' homegrown food. The £80million development – called Thanet Earth – will allow Britain for the first time to produce its own salad crops throughout the winter. Cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers will be grown for 52 weeks – come rain, snow or shine – under the complex's seven greenhouses, which cover 220 acres of the Isle of Thanet off the Kent coast.

Most plants are grown in a hydroponic system, which relies on them being drip-fed water enriched with nutrients rather than being planted in the soil. The greenhouses are so divorced from nature that a colony of WORKER BEES has been introduced into the complex to pollinate the plants, while WASPS have been added to keep down any pests or mites which find their way in. And tens of thousands of RED SPIDERS have been released so the wasps do not go hungry.

Steve McVickers, chief executive of Thanet Earth, said: "Vegetables have been grown without soil in water before. What's new here is the scale. The advantage is it gives you a clean growing medium. You get no soil-borne diseases and you can control the nutrients, light and temperatures the plants get. We produce so little of what we actually eat and this is the first real project with the opportunity to reverse that trend."

But Ben Raskin, from the Soil Association, said: "Soil contains billions of organisms, many of which we don't even know about, which create complex sets of relationships. I suspect if you tried to survive purely on hydroponically grown food, YOU'D QUICKLY FIND YOUR BODY WASN'T GETTING EVERYTHING IT NEEDS."

The development will rely on seven small gas-fired power stations, called combined heat and power plants. Any by-products produced – namely heat and carbon dioxide – will be taken into the greenhouses to support the growing process. Together, they will also generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes, which will be sold to the National Grid.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Pakistani officials said that it bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistani militant group blamed for the attack on Mumbai in November. That has raised fears among Western security officials that LeT and its allies may be SHIFTING THEIR TACTICS FROM SUICIDE BOMBINGS TO COMMANDO-STYLE ATTACKS BY TRAINED, HEAVILY ARMED GUNMEN IN CROWDED URBAN AREAS. Large events such as the 2011 cricket World Cup and 2012 London Olympics could be prime targets.

Barack Obama expressed his deep concern over the attack as he met Gordon Brown and said that he would announce a new US strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan before next month's Nato summit. "The safe havens for al-Qaeda remain in the frontier regions of Pakistan," he said. "What we have to do is to make sure that action against terrorism in Pakistan is effective. We know that the vast majority of al Qaeda fighters are in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.

Last night New Zealand cancelled a tour to Pakistan at the end of the year. "We are not going," said Justin Vaughan, the chief executive of the country's cricket body. "I don't think any international team will be going to Pakistan in the foreseeable future."

After intense negotiations with the new administration, Mr Brown got some warm words on the historic links between the US and UK. But there was no family get-together, nor did the President offer Mr Brown and his wife Sarah a star-studded White House dinner. And instead of the traditional joint press conference, the Prime Minister was instead given an impromptu media briefing in the Oval Office.

Within minutes of landing in a snowbound Washington on Monday night, Mr Brown's aides had been made aware that their high expectations for the trip were in danger of exceeding the low-key welcome the Obama administration was prepared to offer. Suggestions that the new President's crowded diary made it impossible to give more time to Mr Brown rang hollow after it emerged that his other engagements included a routine speech to the Department for Interior and a meeting with the Boy Scouts of America.

British officials tried to counter the rumours by pointing out that Mr Brown was the first European leader to be invited to Washington. To underscore the change from the informality of the Bush years, Mr Obama pointedly referred to Mr Brown throughout as 'Prime Minister', with just one reference to him as 'Gordon' at the end of the press talks.

However, Mr Obama struck a conciliatory tone at the joint media briefing, saying: "Great Britain is one of our closest and strongest allies and there's a link and a bond there that will not break. The special relationship between the US and Great Britain is one that is not just important to me - it's important to the American people. Rest assured the relationship is not only special and strong but will only get stronger as time goes on."

On Saturday, a leader in the Times argued that the single market, the Euro, and the EU's policy of enlargement "are all in danger at the same time." It argued that, "THE BIGGEST MISSING FEATURE OF EUROPEAN POLITICS IS NOT INSTITUTIONAL REFORM. IT IS STRONG LEADERSHIP."

Mark Mardell of the BBC writes "make no mistake, the world's economic crisis is putting this unique institution, the European Union, under very serious strain." He notes that the summit was preceded by a gathering of nine eastern European countries and that, "some regarded it as a worrying trend if the EU is breaking into semi-formal groupings based on both politics and geography... THE FRACTURE COULD BECOME PERMANENT."

Writing in the Times, David Charter argues that the "LACK OF EU LEADERSHIP AND DIRECTION... threatens to wrench apart both the euro and the EU itself."

Two forms of the disease, from the same family as the mould which caused the Irish potato famine, now affect more than 700 sites across Britain. Plant health experts consider it a serious danger to woodlands and heathlands, especially to heritage gardens of the sort maintained by the National Trust. So today the Government will announce a five-year, £25m programme to manage and contain the risks of both pathogens, Phytophthora ramorum, which in the US has been responsible for the phenomenon known as "sudden oak death", and Phytophthora kernoviae, which is regarded as a considerable danger to beeches as well as other trees.

Until recently, the main host of phytophthora in Britain has been the wild rhodendendron Rhodendendron ponticum, the purple-flowering shrub often found in woodlands and country estates. Once established, the phytophthora fungus sends out spores, which is how it spreads. On other trees and plants it forms lesions on the stems and trunks, which eventually can kill them. However, last year phythophthora was found to have developed a new host, infecting wild bilberry plants on heaths both in Cornwall and Scotland, where it has spread rapidly and killed off infected plants completely.

In December, the National Trust, which has seen 19 of its historic gardens affected by phytopthora, wrote to the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, warning that "the threat is now very real to native plant life in the wider countryside" and that the impact could be "devastating". Mr Benn's response, after a Government consultation exercise, is the campaign to be announced today, and the £25m funding – in the middle of a recession – is an indication of how seriously the Government takes the threat.

The driver of a second vehicle carrying the match umpires was killed in the attack, as were five Pakistani policemen escorting the convoy of sportsmen. The attack happened at about 8.40am local time (0440GMT) as the Sri Lankan team and their back-up staff and match umpires were being driven from their hotel to resume play on the third day of the second Test match at the Gaddafi stadium in the city of Lahore.

The gunmen converged on the convoy of tour vehicles and police escorts from four different directions in Liberty Square, a smart area lined with designer boutiques. Three arrived on rickshaws. Local television channels showed CCTV footage of the attackers, wearing backpacks over unobtrusive civilian dress, spraying the team bus and police with automatic fire from AK47 assault rifles. The assault lasted about 15 minutes.

The attack will come as A SEVERE BLOW FOR PAKISTAN'S FRAGILE DEMOCRACY WHICH FACES AN UPSURGE IN ISLAMIST EXTREMISM AND A COLLAPSING ECONOMY. In recent months extremists thought to have links with al-Qaeda have hit several times in Pakistan's urban centres, previously free from violence.

Mrs Clinton plans to talk about how to move to a final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. But with Israel still in the process of forming a new government, few are predicting significant progress. Mrs Clinton arrived in Israel from Egypt, where the US and other international donors pledged almost $4.5bn (£3.2bn) for rebuilding Gaza.

Her two days of talks started in Jerusalem. She will also be holding separate talks with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu and caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. On Wednesday, she is due to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas in the West Bank. After meeting Mr Peres, Mrs Clinton said it was important to underscore the "unshakeable, durable and fundamental" US support for the state of Israel and our "unrelenting commitment to Israel's security".

"The continuing rocket attacks against Israel must cease. There is no doubt that any nation, including Israel, cannot stand idly by while its territory and people are subjected to rocket attacks," she added.

One shaken military expert told the Sun that "the revealing snaps would make it easy for terrorists to launch accurate mortar or rocket attacks". He doomwatched: "A strike on our nuclear capability would cause untold devastation. Terrorists could have a field day, knowing exactly where to aim strikes to cause the maximum devastation."

The Sun notes that Google agreed to obscure British military facilities following the Shatt al Arab hotel incident back in 2007, where "print-outs from photographs taken from Google" of the British base in Basra were found in the hands of insurgents. However, an MoD spokesman admitted to the paper: "We do everything to protect bases but it's impossible to control all websites providing satellite imagery. If people are really determined to target these sites they can find these images and there is nothing we can do to stop them."

A Google spokeswoman said: "We do listen to requests from governments but we don't comment on the details of any of those discussions."

Orly Taitz, a California dentist and lawyer, who was herself born overseas, is representing soldiers challenging Mr Obama's right to be president, including retired Major General Carroll Childers, who compared the Democrat to "Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, and Kim Jong Il".

"He is an interloper, a usurper, a fake, a scam artist, a Chicago crook, a recipient of bribes and gratuitous income for which he paid no tax, a socialist, and a grave danger to the future of the America that I love and have protected since I was 17 years old," Major General Childers wrote in a statement on the website for Ms Taitz's Defend Our Freedoms Foundation. The rumour got closest to the mainstream when Richard Shelby, an Alabama senator, gave it credibility during a recent meeting with constituents.

Asked for his views on the notion, the Cullman Times, an Alabama paper, quoted Mr Shelby as saying: "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president." The conservative website WorldNet Daily claims to have received 300,000 signatures for an online petition challenging Mr Obama's legitimacy.

The FTSE 100 index of top UK shares dropped after HSBC confirmed a £12.5 billion rights issue. It fell by 5.3 per cent and below THE 3,700 MARK for the first time since April 2003, losing investors £47.7 billion. The sharp decline took the FTSE 100 below the lows experienced last October as UK banks teetered on the edge of collapse and were bailed out by the Government.

It came as analysts expressed concerns about the state of the UK economy, saying the financial crisis could spill over into other industries. Investors were spooked by HSBC's rights issue after the UK's biggest bank asked for extra cash from shareholders to boost its balance sheet. The request was made despite HSBC being one of the British banks least affected by the credit crisis.

The European corn borer is a tiny, nocturnal moth. It likes to eat potatoes and sorghum, but - as can be gathered from its name - its food of choice is corn. There's only one kind of insecticide that is approved for fighting the flying scourge. Under these circumstances, the agricultural industry would like to be able to use a genetically modified corn that is at least resistant to the insect's larvae. But this kind of modified corn has been deeply controversial for years. Environmentalists believe that genetically modified corn presents a danger to both eco-friendly agribusiness and moths.

On Monday, agriculture ministers from EU member states voted to reject a European Commission proposal that would have required Austria and Hungary to lift their bans on genetically modified corn seeds. Although the decision in Brussels applies specifically to the two countries, it is also likely to have implications for other member states, including Germany.

According to a number of diplomats, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a member of the SPD party, voted against forcing the countries to lift their restrictions. "I don't see why we should pursue the interests of a single American corporation and, in the process, upset the citizens of EU member states," Gabriel told reporters before the vote.

A Los Angeles clinic says it will soon help couples select both gender and physical traits in a baby when they undergo a form of fertility treatment. The clinic, Fertility Institutes, says it has received "half a dozen" requests for the service, which is based on a procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.

While PGD has long been used for the medical purpose of averting life-threatening diseases in children, the science behind it has quietly progressed to the point that it could potentially be used to create designer babies. It isn't clear that Fertility Institutes can yet deliver on its claims of trait selection. But the growth of PGD, unfettered by any state or federal regulations in the US, has accelerated genetic knowledge swiftly enough that pre-selecting cosmetic traits in a baby is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

"It's technically feasible and it can be done," says Mark Hughes, a pioneer of the PGD process and director of Genesis Genetics Institute, a large fertility laboratory in Detroit. However, he adds that "no legitimate lab would get into it and, if they did, they'd be ostracized." But Fertility Institutes disagrees. "This is cosmetic medicine," says Jeff Steinberg, director of the clinic that is advertising gender and physical trait selection on its website. "Others are frightened by the criticism but we have no problems with it."

His clinic also offers sex selection. UK fertility experts are angered that the service will distract attention from how the same technology can protect against inherited disease. The science is based on a lab technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. This involves testing a cell taken from a very early embryo before it is put into the mother's womb.

Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes - or in this case an embryo with the desired physical traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes - to continue the pregnancy, and discard any others. Dr Steinberg said couples might seek to use the clinic's services for both medical and cosmetic reasons. For example, a couple might want to have a baby with a darker complexion to help guard against a skin cancer if they already had a child who had developed a melanoma. But others might just want a boy with blonde hair.

His clinic is offering this cosmetic selection to patients already having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions in their embryos.

The Dow hadn't traded below 7,000 since Oct. 28, 1997, and last closed below that mark on May 1 of that year. The credit crisis and recession have now slashed half the average's value SINCE IT HIT A RECORD HIGH OVER 14,000 IN OCTOBER 2007. Investors are again fleeing stocks in response to bad news about financial companies. The government said it would give American International Group Inc another $30 billion in loans, in addition to the $150 billion it has already given the insurer. AIG also said it lost a record $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter.

Investors are worried about European financial companies, too. HSBC PLC, Europe's largest bank by market value, reported a 70 percent drop in 2008 profit and said it needs to raise $17.7 billion and cut 6,100 jobs.

Meanwhile, billionaire Warren Buffett wrote in his annual letter to investors Saturday he is sure "the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 - and, for that matter, probably well beyond - but that conclusion does not tell us whether the stock market will rise or fall."