The power crisis, the worst in China for many years, has been caused by an acute shortage of the supply of coal, the country's staple fuel. Brownouts have affected about half of China's 31 provinces and regions. The snow has caused MORE THAN 100,000 HOUSES TO COLLAPSE -- killing ten people -- and DAMAGED 400,000 OTHER HOMES, Xinhua reported. The worst weather in 50 years pummelled swaths of central, southern and eastern China as migrant workers and students, business travellers and officials assigned to provincial postings battled for tickets to join their families for the lunar new year holiday.

Officials struggled to control an estimated 200,000 travellers at the station - A NUMBER EXPECTED TO SWELL TO 600,000 OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. Temporary shelter was being arranged for the migrant workers in schools and conventions centres. Soldiers were deployed to stand guard around the station and police barked orders through bullhorns to try to maintain order.

What is even more extraordinary is that the legions of commuters have now been told it will be over a week before tickets go back on sale on February 7. The date is the start of Chinese New Year - the nation's biggest annual holiday. There was A THREAT PROTESTS OR WORSE COULD BE SPARKED BY THE WORKERS, who already have a long list of grievances, such as rising living costs, poor working conditions and low salaries that often go unpaid. But so far, the scene in Guangzhou, which rarely sees snow, was relatively calm.

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) early Monday issued A RED ALERT FOR SEVERE SNOWSTORMS FORECAST FOR CENTRAL AND EASTERN CHINA. The snow, the worst in a decade in many places, is putting more pressure on already strained transport, communications and power grids. There has also been an economic cost -- 22 billion yuan (3 billion dollars), said the official Xinhua news agency.

So they resort to metaphors. Optimist Jacob Frenkel, a former IMF official and head of the Israeli central bank who is now vice chairman of insurer AIG, said repeatedly THAT THE WORLD ECONOMY IS A GIANT OIL TANKER THAT IS NOT EASILY TURNED.

Kenneth Rogoff, another former IMF official who now teaches economics at Harvard, retorted that it was MORE LIKE THE TITANIC.

We won't know the answer to that for at least a few months, and the world's stock market investors seem mighty dubious. What struck me at Davos, though, is HOW MANY BUSINESSPEOPLE AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S. WANT THE DECOUPLING THESIS TO BE TRUE.

It's not just that they want to avoid a recession; it's that they'd really like TO SEE SOMEBODY ELSE LEAD THE WAY.

Officials said the dead included nomads who live in tents and villagers cut off from food and medical aid because heavy snow had blocked roads. Faryab province in northwest Afghanistan is covered in a 20-inch-deep blanket of snow, said Gov. Mohammad Omar. "This is a grave crisis," he said. "Sixty percent of the roads to the remote villages are cut off by the snow."

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Afghans in remote villages are typically able to heat their mud-brick homes only by burning animal dung or wood, if the family can afford it. The Afghan government and NATO's International Security Assistance Force have been providing emergency supplies to areas hard-hit by the weather, but provincial officials said the aid has not been reaching some areas fast enough.

So it is no coincidence, historians and academics say, that Rift Valley towns like Nakuru and Naivasha have exploded in the wake of Kenya's disputed elections. A Nairobi-based academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Rift Valley was dominated, before the advent of large scale commercial farming in Africa, by ethnic Masaai herders and Kalenjin people.

"The Masaai were displaced from the late 19th Century onwards, at least from the more desirable land, by British settlers," the academic said. The cooler and more fertile parts of the Rift were part of what became known as the "White Highlands" of Kenya. "When independence came," the academic said, "the departing white farmers were replaced not by Masaai, but to a large extent by politically well-connected Kikuyus."

This displacement - or more accurately the historic resentment that politicians can extract from it - is part of the root of today's violence. The Kikuyu are the largest and most economically-dominant ethnic group in Kenya. They organised most successfully against the British (in the Mau Mau rebellion and later through elections) so they won the first fruits of independence. They have been at the heart of the violence in Rift Valley towns like Naivasha and Nakuru - as both perpetrators and victims.

The incumbent government in Kenya is perceived by the opposition as being Kikuyu-dominated, so the current political dispute is fuel for the smouldering embers of a land dispute which has existed for decades. But the Nairobi-based academic said it was far from being a simple matter of ethnicity. "Focussing on the Kikuyu is easy," he said "but it's really about deep, long-running income inequalities in Kenya - and a rapidly growing population which sees land ownership as a means of survival. Rich and politically well-connected members of the Masaai community, he stressed, had benefited from land ownership in the Rift Valley as well as Kikuyus."

Ethnic groups in Kenya - Population 37m
Kikuyu - 20%
Luhya14%
Lou - 13%
Kalenjin - 11%
Kamba - 11%
Kisii - 6%
Mijikenda - 5%
Somali - 2%
Turkana - 2%
Masaai - 1%
Others - 14%

Mugabe Were, a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of the defeated candidate, Raila Odinga, was attacked outside his home, police said. He is the first leading politician to have died amid violence that has gripped Kenya since December's poll. It comes as nearly 100 people died in fresh bloodshed in the Rift Valley.

Mr Were, who represented Nairobi's Embakasai district, won a seat in the 27 December legislative election, which was held at the same time as the presidential vote. ODM spokesman Tony Gachoka said: "The current situation makes one suspicious. ALL FINGERS WILL POINT AT THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE TO SHOW IT IS NOT INVOLVED."

"First they started killing the ordinary people like us, now they are killing our leaders, we won't accept it," demonstrator Justus Othieno told AFP. The protest comes on the heels of earlier bloodshed in KISUMU and also in ELDORET. Riots have also been ongoing in the towns of Naivasha and NAKURU in the Rift Valley, where dozens of people have been killed in five days of ethnic violence.

Members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe have been fighting with Luos and Kalenjins who backed his rival, Mr Odinga, in the election a month ago. Analysts warn a cycle of violence is emerging amid the political impasse, where the pattern of attacks is followed by reprisals.

On Monday, European Union foreign ministers urged Kenya's politicians to work to find a solution or risk a cut in EU aid. "What is alarming about the last few days is that there are evidently HIDDEN HANDS ORGANISING IT NOW. MILITIAS ARE APPEARING... THE TARGETING IS VERY SPECIFIC," said the UK's visiting minister for Africa, Mark Malloch-Brown. While President Kibaki says he is open to talks, he has refused to countenance Mr Odinga's demand for fresh elections.

The former prime minister will assist Swiss company Zurich on "developments and trends in the international political environment". The appointment comes less than three weeks after the ex-premier took on a similar role with JPMorgan, one of Wall Street's biggest investment banks, worth a reported £2.5million a year.

It is likely Mr Blair will advise both financial institutions on the political and economic changes brought about by globalisation. Since leaving No.10, Mr Blair has been an unpaid envoy to the Middle East and an after-dinner speaker. JPMorgan is heading a consortium set to make billions as Iraq's economy recovers from the war spearheaded by Mr Blair and US President George Bush. It was chosen to run the new Trade Bank of Iraq, which has raised billions in trade guarantees by mortgaging future oil production and will make huge profits from the deals.

Other sources of income include a £5million deal to write his memoirs and a prime ministerial pension of £64,000 a year. French president Nicolas Sarkozy is spearheading a campaign to have him installed as the first president of the EU - a post expected to be worth at least £200,000 a year.

THE CASE FOR MR KERVIEL AS A HERO, as well as a suspected fraudster, is complicated - but not that complicated. Société Générale's chairman, Daniel Bouton, yesterday dismissed as "absurd" suggestions that his decision to dump more than €50bn in unauthorised trades by Mr Kerviel early last week had plunged European stock exchanges into a tailspin. Market experts pointed out, however, that heavy selling by SocGen on Monday - especially of German shares futures - REINFORCED A MOOD OF PANIC and helped push all markets down.

This in turn jolted the US FEDERAL RESERVE INTO CUTTING ITS INTEREST RATES SHARPLY on Tuesday, PREVENTING A COPYCAT CRASH ON WALL STREET AND POSSIBLY ALSO STEERING THE WORLD OUT OF RECESSION. As a result, some respected US economists are now feting Mr Kerviel as an unwitting saviour. "Merci, Jérôme," said the influential economic analyst, Ed Yardeni, former head economist of Deutsche Bank Securities. "THE RECESSION IS ALMOST OVER, thanks to Jérôme Kerviel in Paris and the panic reaction [of the Fed] in Washington - I CANNOT REMEMBER ANY PRECEDENT FOR SUCH STRONG SUPPORT FOR THE ECONOMY BEFORE THE EVIDENCE OF A RECESSION BECAME MANIFEST."

There are, however, many questions!

Quite apart from its failure to police the actions of its junior employee, SocGen faces a raft of awkward questions - French politicians, and even markets experts, have accused the bank of using the Kerviel case TO "HIDE" MUCH LARGER LOSSES ON THE US SUB-PRIME MARKET than the €2bn it admitted last week. SHARE TRADERS ARE FURIOUS that the bank allowed normal trading in its shares to proceed for three days without warning the market.

Questions are also likely to be asked about THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE FRENCH CENTRAL BANK. SocGen has said that it warned the Banque de France last Sunday. The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve in Washington were apparently not warned of the coming storm until Wednesday.

But THE GREATEST SINGLE OUTSTANDING QUESTION IS how Mr Kerviel - a young man armed only with a computer screen - could bet €50bn, 30 per cent more than the value of his bank, on the future direction of European stock markets. HOW COULD HIS SUPERIORS NOT NOTICE?

Questions are also being asked about whether Ben Bernanke, the US Federal Reserve chairman, was told by SocGen or Europe's central bankers that the bank was going to unwind its trading positions last Monday. THE FRENCH BANK INFORMED THE BANK OF FRANCE governor, Christian Noyer, on Sunday about the losses and it is understood that he informed Jean-Claude Trichet, chairman of the European Central Bank. But THE FED DENIES BEING TOLD OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN EUROPE.

Senior banking sources in London are saying that it is "astonishing" if the ECB did not inform the Fed of what was going on. Further, they say that IF MR BERNANKE DID NOT KNOW, THEN HIS ACTION IN CUTTING RATES CAN BE SEEN AS A PANIC REACTION.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. It was not clear how long ago the satellite lost power, or under what circumstances.

"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. "Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."

The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was Skylab, the 78-ton (79.25-metric ton) abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979. Its debris dropped harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of western Australia. In 2000, NASA engineers successfully directed a safe de-orbit of the 17-ton (17.27-metric ton) Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, using rockets aboard the satellite to bring it down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. In 2002, officials believe debris from a 7,000-pound (3175.18-kilogram) science satellite smacked into the Earth's atmosphere and rained down over the Persian Gulf, a few thousand miles from where they first predicted it would plummet.

Chávez made the suggestion Saturday as he hosted a summit aimed at increasing Latin American integration and countering U.S. influence. "We should start to bring our reserves here," Chávez said. "Why does that money have to be in the north? You can't put all your eggs in one basket."

To help pool resources within the region, Chávez and other leaders launched a new development bank at the summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA. The left-leaning regional trade alliance supported by Chávez is intended to offer an alternative, socialist path to integration while snubbing U.S.-backed free-trade deals.

Executives at Societe Generale had originally insisted that 31-year-old Jerome Kerviel acted alone. But yesterday they conceded that he was unlikely to have carried out his deception without accomplices. In interviews with detectives, Kerviel was said to be "naming names" and refusing to be a scapegoat.

Detectives are working on information that he made a series of phone calls to traders at other investment banks before news of the scandal broke - allowing them to make highly lucrative deals based on his tips. But Societe Generale has made it clear that Kerviel did not personally benefit from the fraud.

Jean Pierre Mustier, one of its chief executives, said: "I cannot guarantee to you 100 per cent that there was no complicity."

He didn't steal anything, take anything, he didn't take any profit for himself," the lawyer, Christian Charriere-Bournazel, told The Associated Press by telephone. "The suspicion on Kerviel allows the considerable losses that the bank made on subprimes to be hidden."

Societe Generale said Sunday that a trader who evaded all its controls to bet $73.5 billion - more than the French bank's market worth - on European markets hacked computers and "combined several fraudulent methods" to cover his tracks, causing billions in losses.

The bank says the trader, Jerome Kerviel, did not appear to have profited personally from the transactions and seemingly worked alone - a version reiterated Sunday by Jean-Pierre Mustier, chief executive of the bank's corporate and investment banking arm. But, in a conference call with reporters, Mustier added: "I cannot guarantee to you 100 percent that there was no complicity."

The UK's main FTSE 100 index was down 81 points or 1.3% to 5,788 in early trade, while Germany's Dax had lost 2%, and France's Cac had fallen 1.9%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 had earlier finished the day's trading down 4%. Analysts said dealers were cautious ahead of an expected interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closed Monday down 4.3%, while Mumbai's Sensex was down 3.5% in afternoon exchanges. Monday's falls come after Friday's declines on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index losing 171 points or 1.4%.

The Fed, America's central bank, is widely expected to cut US interest rates to 3.25% when it makes its next scheduled decision on Wednesday. Last week it reduced rates to 3.5% from 4.25% in an emergency move.

If tests prove positive, it will mean new restrictions for thousands of livestock farmers in large parts of the UK previously free of the disease. Bluetongue is a non-contagious virus spread by a midge species, affecting ruminants including sheep and cattle.

The first case in the UK was detected last September. The disease spread to other parts of south-east England and protection and surveillance zones remain in place. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair's website, as of noon on 11 January there were 66 confirmed premises affected by bluetongue.

The victims are said to have been beaten, hacked or burned to death by mobs in Naivasha. The town is about 60km (37 miles) south of Nakuru, also the scene of recent inter-ethnic fighting. The fighting in Naivasha is thought to have broken out late on Saturday, descending quickly into sickening brutality, says the BBC's Adam Mynott in Nairobi. Reports are unclear but at least nine people are said to have been hacked or clubbed to death as they tried to flee mobs with machetes.

The mobs appeared to be from the Kikuyu tribe of President Kibaki, which bore the brunt of the violence that erupted after the election. "We have moved out to revenge the deaths of our brothers and sisters who have been killed, and nothing will stop us," said Anthony Mwangi, hefting a club in Naivasha. "For every one Kikuyu killed, we shall avenge their killing with three," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Further north, Kenya's fourth biggest city Nakuru has also been the scene of deadly violence between rival Luo and Kikuyu communities. Dozens of people are feared to have died since Thursday and scores of people were injured in clashes between fighters armed with machetes, spears and bows and arrows. There were no reports of further fighting from Nakuru on Sunday. But the ruins of torched buildings smouldered, and a reporter for news agency AFP said bodies lay in the city's deserted slums.