Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways - in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life - made from the basic chemicals in DNA - may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it. "Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role." And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

-A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

-A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

-A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step - creating a cell membrane - is "not a big problem." Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.

A series of fellow members of Nato and the European Union have repeatedly rejected UK pleas for reinforcements for the multinational force trying to reconstruct Afghanistan following six years of turmoil since the American-led operation to drive out the Taliban.

British ministers and defence chiefs have complained that a number of European nations have refused to take an active role in the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). Even those who have sent troops have refused to allow them to engage in combat situations.

Britain has some 7,700 troops in Afghanistan - more than double the complement of any other European nation - training Afghan security forces, helping with reconstruction, and providing security. The death toll has accelerated in recent months, with the number of British military dead now standing at 70.

The Ministry of Defence is said to be considering a major reinforcement of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, possibly sending up to 2,000 extra troops. Any reinforcement could coincide with an anticipated withdrawal of the 5,500-strong British forces from southern Iraq.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, will make a statement on the British presence in Iraq in October. MPs and officers alike expect him to begin Britain's final withdrawal from the country. Yet even as Britain extricates itself from Iraq, the government may have to send yet more forces to Afghanistan, amid signs that European NATO members may ignore calls to order in more of their own troops.

There are already 7,000 UK troops there, facing a bloody struggle to suppress the Taleban militia opposing the democratic government. Since 2001, 70 British troops have died in Afghanistan amid the fiercest fighting the British Army has faced for 50 years. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, was in Afghanistan yesterday to underline Britain's long-term commitment. "In a tough fight we are bound to have fatalities and, of course, that's tragic," he said.

"But I think it is even more tragic - doubly tragic - if people back home don't really understand what the army is doing - and what the army is doing here is absolutely critical for the future of Afghanistan."

Half of employers said some teenagers were "unable to function in the workplace" claiming they cannot make simple calculations in their heads, speak in an articulate manner or understand written instructions. In a critical report published today, the Confederation of British Industry says that an obsession with iPods, mobile phones and the internet has boosted the computing skills of the "Generation Text".

But the improvements have come at the expense of the three Rs as many struggle to read and write properly, it claims. We simply cannot match the labour costs of India, China, and other emerging economies, and only a higher-skilled workforce will keep the UK competitive.

The under-qualified will be left to choose from an ever dwindling pool of unskilled jobs. "Basic literacy and numeracy problems are a nightmare for business and for individuals, so we have to get these essentials right.
Progress has been made but it is nowhere near enough, especially considering the massive investment made in education."

According to the CBI, three quarters of employers said the lack of language skills among school-leavers was also a concern.

The Agriculture Ministry has said 232 camels died in the space of four days in the Dawasir Valley, 400 km (250 miles) south of Riyadh. King Abdullah has promised compensation for owners, who say the real number of deaths is far higher. Agriculture ministry officials have denied an infectious disease caused the deaths and blamed them on animal feed supplied by food storage authorities.

"The disease has to be limited to one place to prevent it spreading and then they have to find a serum," said camel breeder Hamad al-Harthy, who talked of hundreds of deaths. "They need to bring in help from abroad to find a solution," said trader Turki Abdelaziz.

Camels are big business in the desert kingdom and are traded by Bedouin tribes for thousands of dollars each. The animals are used for racing and their meat is also prized.

WASHINGTON - A U.S. military drill designed to enhance homeland security in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack has some officials and media outlets funded by billionaire George Soros warning it may be a "false flag" operation leading to the detonation of a real nuclear device to set the stage for martial law.

The exercise, part of the "Noble Resolve" program of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, is set for tomorrow through Friday in Portland, Ore. Like other previous drills, it involves coordination with local officials in a model nuclear attack.

During the experiments, which are largely based on computer modeling, the "bomb" explodes inside the simulation. "Noble Resolve," according to planners, strives to create processes for interactions among local, state, national and international officials.

Last April, a similar "Noble Resolve" exercise took place in Virginia. However, despite the precedent, some officials and the IndyMedia organization supported by Soros are raising red flags - EVEN CLAIMING THAT IN A SIMILAR EXERCISE, PRESIDENT BUSH ORDERED THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ON SEPT. 11, 2001, AND BLAMED IT ON RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISTS.

Writing in NewOrleans.IndyMedia.org, Capt. Eric H. May, the military correspondent for the agency, asked the following question about the Portland drill: "But what if they decide to use a real bomb rather than simulate it?"

"A FALSE FLAG ATTACK IS ONE IN WHICH YOU ATTACK YOUR OWN PEOPLE, THEN BLAME IT ON A GROUP OF PEOPLE YOU WANT TO ATTACK," WROTE MAY. "IT'S A RADICAL STRATAGEM FOR INSTANTLY CREATING HATRED, AND IT'S COMMON, HISTORICALLY SPEAKING, ALL THE WAY FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN TIMES."

May gave the following examples:
-The Roman emperor Nero burned Rome, then blamed it on emerging Christianity.
-The German fuhrer Hitler burned the Reichstag, then blamed it on communist Jewry.
-The American president Bush demolished the World Trade Center, then blamed it on radical Islam.

The jitters in Portland, according to May, caused Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., to grill the Bush administration about National Security Presidential Directive 51, first reported in WND, which authorizes the executive branch to assume extraordinary powers in the event of a national emergency. "Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," DeFazio told the Portland Oregonian.

DeFazio, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was denied an opportunity to examine classified documents related to Directive 51. "At this stage of the Bush regime and its terror-driven global war, there's no shame in conspiracy theory, since it's the only theory that offers consistent, coherent answers to our growing secret government and its terror policies," wrote May.

Meanwhile, Portland's version of IndyMedia, raises even more concerns about the impending exercises.

"There has been a growing concern over the mock or simulation events (nuclear attack and martial law) proposed to take place in Portland, Oregon, by Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other governmental agencies now called Operation Noble Resolve," reports the agency in an article titled 'Don't Nuke Portland.' "This mock event has been feared by some in the past to set up martial law in Portland during the months of August and September, but newer information has raised concern of graver fears."

The article goes on to speculate that an actual nuclear attack by the U.S. government might take place during the drill. It goes on to assert that the 9/11 attacks were a false flag operation and urges those who have been hired or volunteered to be a part of the exercise to refuse to participate.

"Why participate in a simulation that supposes an external attack on the USA when THERE SEEMS TO BE MORE INTERNAL THREAT BY ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY WITHIN?" POSES THE ARTICLE.

The agency quoted Ahmadinejad as he spoke at a religious conference and did not elaborate on what he meant by Satan. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, however, Iran has regularly referred to the United States as "the Great Satan."

"The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and Satan," he said, predicting Israel's eventual demise. "When the philosophy behind the establishment of a regime is in question, it is not unlikely that it will find itself on a course of decline and dissolution."

Israel condemned Ahmadinejad's statements as harmful to international peace and stability. "The Iranian president's comments are typical of his vociferous animosity towards Israel," said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman. "He threatens not only Israel but poses a clear and present danger to the international community as well."

Ahmadinejad has made anti-Israel comments in the past. In October he caused outrage in the West when he said in a speech that Israel's "Zionist regime should be wiped off the map." His supporters have argued that Ahmadinejad's words were mistranslated and should have been better translated as "vanish from the pages of time" - implying Israel would vanish on its own rather be destroyed.

In the days after an earthquake killed at least 510 people and injured 1,500, clouds of dust surrounded gravediggers who were frantically making way for more bodies in the Peruvian city of Pisco. Meanwhile, military transport planes bringing aid roared overhead.

Mobs of residents looted cars and trucks bringing food and medical supplies to the city. Outnumbered police squads shot into the air in attempts to disperse the crowd.

Hospitals were overwhelmed as the number of injured rose while frantic survivors dug away at the rubble. Residents wandered the dirt streets in a daze, looking for missing relatives. Others went to the public health clinic to peek under the black plastic tarpaulins covering bodies.

But that's make-believe. In real life, US civilian agencies have used limited spy-satellite images of their country only to track hurricane damage, monitor climate change and create topographical maps.

But a plan to allow emergency response, border control and, eventually, law enforcement agencies greater access to the sophisticated satellites and other sensors that monitor American territory has drawn sharp criticism from civil liberties advocates, who say the government is overstepping the use of military technology for domestic surveillance.

"It potentially marks a transformation of American political culture toward a surveillance state, in which the entire public domain is subject to official monitoring," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "There's the possibility of a recurrence of past abuses: surveillance used against political opponents, as in the Civil Rights and McCarthy eras.

"There's also an incidental erosion of personal privacy, in which one now has to assume that anywhere you are, you are subject to overhead surveillance by the government. And that is a change in what it means to be an American."

Spy satellites, which provide higher resolution photographs than commercial satellite imagery, and in real time, have traditionally been used overseas to monitor terrorist movements, such as at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and nuclear tests in places such as North Korea. Their expanded use in domestic surveillance marks a new era in intelligence gathering, conjuring up images of 'Big Brother' and raising civil liberties fears.

"This touches so many Americans. It can't be allowed to be discussed behind closed doors," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

With all flights from the Caribbean island suspended and a curfew imposed they have little choice but to hunker down in make-shift shelters - converted schools, churches and the indoor national sports arena - as the destructive storm marches across the eastern Caribbean. Fear gripped the island as authorities warned of a devastating direct hit from winds up to 150mph and up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain.

The first deadly hurricane of the season has already claimed six lives in the Caribbean. Meteorologists said the storm could reach the maximum Category Five strength, with "potentially catastrophic" results by the time it makes landfall. Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said the country faced a "national emergency" and urged residents to take shelter and not leave evacuation until the last minute.

Dean was predicted to cause even more damage than Hurricane Gilbert which struck the island in 1988.

In Memphis, Tenn. alone, at least nine deaths have been related to high temperatures, including a woman overcome by the heat wave while waiting to visit late superstar Elvis' grave site at Graceland, according to the report.

A nuclear plant had to shut down one of its units in Alabama because the water being drawn from the Tennessee River was too hot. The brutal heat has claimed at least four victims in Georgia. In Alabama, the lesson for students is even the ride home can be dangerous.

Drivers say the temperatures inside their buses have climbed as high as 50 degrees Celsius during this heat wave. Weather forecasters expect the temperature to cool down a little bit over the weekend in those areas.

Satellite images of Pavlof Volcano taken Thursday showed strong thermal readings, consistent with what the Alaska Volcano Observatory is calling a "vigorous eruption of lava" at the volcano about 590 miles southwest of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula.

The volcano is below the path of hundreds of daily international flight paths, and an explosive eruption could interrupt those operations, said Steve McNutt, a volcano seismologist with the observatory. Volcanic ash can enter an engine and make it seize up, he said.

Its last eruption was in 1996; "that 11-year span is the longest Pavlof has gone without an event," McNutt said. A series of ash explosions and lava eruptions took place for several months after the last eruption. Ash clouds reached as high as 30,000 feet at the time. During a 1986 eruption, Pavlof spewed ash as high as 49,000 feet.

The revelation follows a weekend of knife violence which claimed the life of 16-year-old GCSE student Andrew Holland. The study, compiled from government figures, shows the number of street robberies involving blades has risen from 25,500 in 2005 to 64,000 in the year to April 2007.

The figures mean that each day last year there were, on average, 175 robberies at knife-point in England and Wales - up from 110 the year before and from 69 in 2004-5. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS), based at King's College London, said knives are now used in one in five muggings, twice the frequency reported two years ago.

Ministers are accused of being too slow to act. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "This explosion in knife crime is the most astounding symptom of Britain's broken society. The Government has been slow to recognise and even slower to act to deal with this plague on the streets of our towns and cities."

Victims of Crime Trust director Norman Brennan, who has campaigned for mandatory jail terms for thugs who carry a knife, said: "We are facing a national crisis with knife crime. Increasing numbers of people do not think twice about slipping a knife into their pocket before they leave the house.

"There should be a mass, nationwide stop and search. And police should take community leaders with them so they can see the feral youngsters who are roaming our streets."

Mr Putin said a halt in long-range bombers' flights after the Soviet collapse had affected Russia's security as other nations had continued such missions - a oblique reference to the US. "I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation," he said. "Starting today, such tours of duty will be conducted regularly and on a strategic scale. Our pilots have been grounded for too long; they are happy to start a new life."

Soviet bombers routinely flew such missions to areas from which nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. But that stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown. In Washington, a State Department Spokesman said the US was not troubled by the decision. "It's interesting. We certainly are not in the kind of posture we were with what used to be the Soviet Union. It's a different era. If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that's their decision."

Mr Putin's comments came as he and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, attended an unprecedented show of joint military force amid fears that the Russian leader is trying to turn an increasingly powerful central Asian alliance into a second Warsaw Pact. The United States will be anxiously watching the military manoeuvres - held under the auspices of the six-member Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) - from afar after its request to send observers was rejected.

Washington has plenty of reasons to be uneasy. Founded in 2001, the SCO, which includes the four central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as China and Russia, is rapidly gaining a reputation as an anti-Western organisation.

That image seems to be one that Mr Putin is happy to cultivate. Analysts say that the Russian president believes the organisation is emerging as a bloc that is rapidly becoming powerful enough to stand up to the West. Russia's most pro-government newspapers, often used by the Kremlin as propaganda vehicles, yesterday proclaimed the arrival of an "anti-Nato" alliance and a "Warsaw Pact 2". At the annual SCO summit in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek yesterday, Mr Putin praised the alliance's growing strength. "Year after year the SCO becomes a more significant factor in strengthening security and stability in the central Asian region," he said.

In a thinly disguised swipe at Washington, which mirrored earlier attacks on American "unilateralism" and "diktat", he added: "We are convinced that any attempts to resolve global and regional problems alone are useless."

The suicides are occurring at a time when many soldiers are reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including repeated flashbacks of combat experiences and other severe reactions.

But, with President George Bush demanding results and insurgents striking with greater success, an overstretched US Army has been extending the combat tours of soldiers in Iraq. It is also sending units back into action on a far more regular basis than was the case in the past.

The report found that there were 99 confirmed suicides among active-duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since 102 suicides in 1991.The suicides included 28 soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. About twice as many women serving in the wars committed suicide as those not sent to war, the report said.

The Army said "occupational/operational issues" as well as failed relationships, and legal and financial issues had led to the suicides. Not surprisingly, it did not speculate about the falling morale of US combat troops in the face of ongoing military failure in Iraq and Afghanistan.