According to a report in German daily Die Welt, politicians from the Left Party as well as Peter Gauweiler, a centre-right politician from one of the governing parties - the CSU - are examining the text of the EU treaty to see if they can bring a case before the country's constitutional court. Their move could mean that the final formal step of ratification is delayed.

Mr Gauweiler had complained that the EU constitution took too much power away from the country's national parliament, arguing that the document overstepped the boundaries that the German constitution provides for the integration of state institutions in the EU.

So far Hungary, France, Slovenia, Malta and Romania have ratified the text, which needs to be approved by all EU member states for it to come into force. A delay in ratification by Germany would be embarrassing for chancellor Angela Merkel, who was largely responsible for getting a new treaty into shape again following the rejected constitution.

In a strategy some Western diplomats admit could badly backfire, the Bush administration has made clear it wishes to continue to support Mr Musharraf even after Monday's election in which the Pakistani public delivered a resounding rejection of his policies. "[The US] does not want some people pushed out because it would lead to instability. In this case that means Musharraf," said one Western diplomat.

Officials say the policy is driven by concern about possible instability in the aftermath of the election in which the president's parliamentary allies were soundly beaten. In such circumstances US and its Western allies are urging the election's winners - the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N)- to quickly move forward and form a coalition that includes all "moderate" elements.

But along with Mr Musharraf's future, the reinstatement of sacked Chief Justice Minister Iftikar Chaudhry and other Supreme Court justices - sacked by the president when they refused to ratify his imposition of a State of Emergency last November - has rapidly emerged as one of the most contentious issued in the aftermath of Monday's vote, as the PPP and PML-N negotiate to form a coalition government. Mr Sharif, whose party secured the second most number of seats, built his campaign around the reinstatement of Mr Chaudhry and has repeatedly insisted Mr Musharraf should stand down.

The West's approach has already drawn criticism. Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, said: "How is it that the US believes Musharraf can be the guarantor of any sort of stability when he is the source of instability?"

The embassy was closed and unprotected at the time. Reports say the Croatian and UK embassies were also attacked. The violence follows a peaceful protest by at least 150,000 people outside the main parliament building against Kosovo's declaration of independence. The US, the UK, Germany and Italy are among those to have recognised Kosovo.

The attacks overshadowed the earlier peaceful demonstration, when Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica addressed protesters in the main square, saying Kosovo would always be Serbian. Most Serbs consider Kosovo their religious and cultural heartland. In the coming weeks, an almost 2,000-strong EU mission will be deployed to help the country develop its police force and judiciary.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he had agreed "a common agenda" with the party of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. He had been in talks with Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Zardari, the new leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Such a government could put renewed pressure on President Pervez Musharraf.

He said the two parties had agreed that the country's chief justice minister, sacked by President Musharraf in November, should be immediately reinstated. Mr Zardari said there was "a lot of ground to cover" between the two parties, but "in principle, we have agreed to stay together". Doubts remain about who will emerge as a possible prime minister.

Mr Sharif has been deeply critical of the president and says he wants "to rid Pakistan of dictatorship forever". Mr Musharraf has said he will not resign or retire, but instead wishes to work towards stable democratic government in Pakistan. Mr Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 and was re-elected to the presidency in October in a parliamentary vote boycotted by the opposition as unconstitutional.

The economic and social cost associated with the "trauma and physical injury" suffered by victims is £7 billion a year and employers lose £2.1 billion through time taken off work, say the estimates. Violent crimes fell from 20,400 to 19,200 last year - a drop of 5.9 per cent. Overall crime levels were down 8.5 per cent. The NAO figures show nearly half of the perpetrators of violent crimes were thought to be drunk and 17 per cent under the influence of drugs at the time.

Firearms offences almost doubled between 1998 and 2006, from just over 5,000 to about 11,000, although there was a fall of more than 1,000 last year. Last year, guns were involved in 413 serious injuries and 58 homicides. Knife crime also fell last year, after doubling among 15- to 17-year-olds in the previous decade.

Weapons of some type were involved in a quarter of violent crimes, with knives the most common, followed by glass and bottles. There were 755 homicides last year, 636 attempted murders and 480 deaths involving a vehicle.

With Harare's shop shelves bare of basic commodities and prices rising daily, it is a wonder that inflation can be calculated at all, but the Central Statistical Office's work is a marvel of precision. "The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of January 2008, as measured by the All-items Consumer Price Index, stood at 100,580.2 per cent," it said in a statement yesterday. Independent observers believe the true figures are even higher. A single cigarette now costs Z$500,000.

Mr Mugabe blames hyperinflation on exploitative businessmen who are part of a Western plot to destabilise his country. His critics point instead to widespread economic mismanagement, corruption and the government's policy of printing ever more money to satisfy its needs. "It's going to get worse because they have to print even more money to pay the army and to pay for the elections," said Dr Daniel Ndlela, an economist based in Zimbabwe. "The economic instability will increase every day." At independence in 1980 the Zimbabwe dollar was one of the strongest currencies in Africa.

On Tuesday the rate stood at Z$8million to the US dollar. Yesterday morning it was Z$9million. By the afternoon it had reached Z$10.5million.

Military operatives had only a 10-second window to hit the satellite - USA 193 - which lost control shortly after it was launched in December 2006. Officials said they were worried fuel on board could pose a threat to humans.
But Russia suspects the operation was a cover to test anti-satellite technology under the US missile defence programme. The US denies the operation was a response to an anti-satellite test carried out by China last year, which prompted fears of a space arms race.

The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says this operation was hugely ambitious - like trying to fire a missile through the eye of a needle. The operation went ahead hours after the space shuttle Atlantis landed, removing it as a safety issue for the military. The satellite - believed by some commentators to be a radar imaging reconnaissance satellite - was passing about 130 miles (210km) over the Pacific.

On Tuesday, a US State Department spokesman stressed that the action was meant to protect people from the hazardous fuel and was not a weapons test. The US government has also denied claims that the main aim of the operation was to destroy secret components on USA 193. Officials say classified parts would be burned up in the atmosphere and, in any case, that would not be a reason for shooting down the satellite.

Colin Cook, who formerly taught English at the King Fahad Academy in Acton, West London, told a tribunal how pupils as young as five were taught from Arabic textbooks describing Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs". Under public pressure, the academy agreed to destroy the books - but not before photocopying them for future use, he told the Watford tribunal.

He also claimed that headteacher Dr Sumaya Alyusuf had given a false assurance that the school did not use objectionable parts of the book. Dr Alyusuf said on BBC's Newsnight: "There are chapters from these books that are used and that will serve our objectives. But we don't teach hatred towards Judaism or Christianity - on the contrary." But Mr Cook told the tribunal: "I discovered that race hate was being taught in textbooks at the academy. The race hate included test questions asking pupils to list the reprehensible qualities of Jews and described Christians as 'pigs'. It was appalling."

Father-of-three Mr Cook, 58, of Feltham, is claiming unfair dismissal, race discrimination and victimisation, which the school denies. He was earning £35,000-a-year and is seeking £135,000 for lost earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages. The tribunal heard that pupils at the private Muslim faith school included the five children of jailed, hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza and those of Abu Qatada, alleged to be Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, 'The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness'. "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by the two major candidates for the Democratic Party presidential nomination can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity - as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population - as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state - as liberals do."

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:
- creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
- satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
- augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
- rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

"The roots of liberalism - and its associated madness - can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."

Lunar eclipses have long been associated with superstitions and signs of ill omen, especially in battle. The defeat of the Persian king Darius III by Alexander the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC was foretold by soothsayers when the Moon turned blood-red a few days earlier.

And an eclipse is credited with saving the life of Christopher Columbus and his crew in 1504. Stranded on the coast of Jamaica, the explorers were running out of food and faced with increasingly hostile local inhabitants who were refusing to provide them with any more supplies. Columbus, looking at an astronomical almanac compiled by a German mathematician, realised that a total eclipse of the Moon would occur on February 29, 1504. He called the native leaders and warned them if they did not cooperate, he would make the Moon disappear from the sky the following night. The warning, of course, came true, prompting the terrified people to beg Columbus to restore the Moon -- which he did, in return for as much food as his men needed. He and the crew were rescued on June 29, 1504.

The Moon will be in total eclipse from 0301 GMT to 0351 GMT. This will be visible east of the Rocky Mountains in North America, as well as in all of Central and South America, West Africa and Western Europe. The zenith of totality is close to French Guiana.

It will be in partial eclipse from 0143 GMT to 0301 GMT, visible west of the Rockies and from the eastern Pacific, and from 0351 GMT to 0509 GMT, visible across the rest of Africa and Europe and much of South and West Asia.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average shed 447.54 points, or 3.25 percent, from Tuesday to 13,310.37, declining for the first time in three trading sessions. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 42.57 points, or 3.16 percent, to 1,302.72. In line with equity tumbles across Asia, Tokyo stocks fell almost across the board with the heaviest falls seen in real estate, warehouse and harbor transport services, and banking issues.

Combined with a recent hike in iron ore prices, jitters hit the Tokyo and Asian markets after the price of oil ended above $100 per barrel in New York for the first time Tuesday. "It is hard to deny that rising prices of raw materials will squeeze earnings of Japanese companies," said Norihiro Fujito, a senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co.

That makes advocates happy: Cloning enables the livestock industry to do in a fraction of the time what breeders have been doing throughout history, narrowing the gene pool to its most desirable genes. Beyond that, say cloners, future benefits include production of genetically engineered animals that could offer a variety of benefits - more nutrient-rich milk, for example, for people without adequate access to food.

Cloned-animal products aren't on store shelves yet - the industry won't begin selling them for at least a few months, after a government-recommended "transition period" - but when they finally do appear in supermarkets you may not even notice, because they won't be labeled. "The FDA does not require labeling if there [are] no food safety issues," said Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, at a January press conference.

There are about 4,000 cloned cattle on the planet, and 600 of them in the U.S. They are used primarily for breeding purposes, and as yet, their products aren't officially sold anywhere - though there is anecdotal evidence that cloned food products have made their way into the market in the past. Currently the U.S., E.U., Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand all use cloned cattle and pigs. ViaGEN, a cloning and animal genetics company based in Austin, Tex., produces some 150 cloned cattle annually, which it sells to meat suppliers, primarily for breeding.

Most of the deaths have occurred due to drowning in Eastern Samar province since February 15, the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council and the Philippine Red Cross reported. At the time, a low pressure area dumped heavy rains that caused flash floods and cut off major roads and damaged bridges.

The government's national disaster council in Manila said the entire province was under a state of calamity to enable officials to draw emergency funds for relief operations, including delivery of food and shelter.

"Kosovo declared independence on February 17 and the Republic of China (Taiwan) has formally recognized Kosovo with immediate effect," Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, using the island's official name.
But the Foreign Ministry stopped short of saying whether it had forged formal diplomatic ties with Kosovo.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said it was pointless to even talk of Taiwanese recognition of Kosovo, because there is only one China, to which Taiwan belongs. Taiwan's number of diplomatic allies has been dwindling over the past few years as China tries to isolate the island diplomatically. China sees Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to be reunified eventually, by force if necessary. The island has been ruled separately since the defeated Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek fled there after losing a civil war in 1949.

Ahead of weekend talks in Canberra with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the planned withdrawal of 550 soldiers, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said Iraqi forces had not needed Australian backup for two years now. "The situation on the ground in Al Muthanna and Dhi Qar (provinces), the Iraqis are taking care of business," Houston told a hearing before Australia's upper house Senate.

"The conditions on the ground have been established whereby we can leave them to it and, because we have influenced their training, we are very confident in their ability to handle the circumstances in those two provinces. The job is done." Britain is also withdrawing some forces, but like Australia denies the draw-down represents a distancing from Washington over support for the war.