The schoolgirl was found about five miles from the small southern Welsh town and she is thought to have been close to at least one other victim of the apparent suicide epidemic. This weekend friends of Kelly Stephenson, 20, paid tribute to the keen footballer who took her own life hours after hearing that her cousin Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, had hanged himself. The two lived a few doors from each other in Bridgend.

Police have played down links between the young people who have recently died in the area, and politicians have dismissed rumours of an internet suicide cult in the county. The suicides, by 17 young people aged between 15 and 27 since January 2007, has prompted national media interest but also great anguish in South Wales. At least eight of the previous victims are thought to have known each other.

In recent weeks one part of the debt market after another has buckled. High-risk loans used to finance corporate buyouts have plummeted in value. Securities backed by commercial real estate mortgages and student loans have fallen sharply. Even auction-rate securities, arcane investments usually considered as safe as cash, have stumbled. The breadth and scale of the declines mean more pain for major banks, which have already written off more than $120 billion of losses stemming from bad mortgage-related investments.

THE DEEPENING LOSSES MIGHT MAKE BANKS EVEN MORE RELUCTANT TO MAKE THE LOANS NEEDED TO PROD THE SLOWING AMERICAN ECONOMY. They also could force some banks to raise more capital to bolster their weakened finances.

Such dire predictions underscore how the turmoil in the credit markets is hurting Wall Street even as the Federal Reserve reduces interest rates. Already, once-proud institutions like Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and UBS have gone hat in hand to Middle Eastern and Asian investors to raise capital. "You don't have a recovery until you have the financial system stabilized," Ms. Whitney said. "AS THE BANKS ARE TRYING TO RECOVER THEY WILL NOT LEND. THEY ARE ALL ABOUT SELF-PRESERVATION AT THIS TIME."

And last week, some hedge funds began to wade into the troubled loan market. But prices do not yet reflect any widespread rallies, and Wall Street still has to absorb losses reflected in these markets. "The fourth quarter was terrible, but you had strong investment banking revenues," Mr. Hintz said. "Now you've had a bad December, a worse January and an even worse February."

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf overthrew in a coup and only allowed back from exile three months ago, urged Musharraf to accept he was no longer wanted. "He would say when people would want, I will go. Today the people have said what they want," Sharif said after his party ran a close second in Monday's polls.

A wave of sympathy helped the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto emerge as the largest party in the 342 seat National Assembly. But it does not have a majority and will need to seek coalition partners.

While Pakistanis hoped for a new era, many remained unconvinced by the reappearance of politicians associated with corrupt, inefficient governments from the 1990s. As of 6 p.m., unofficial results for 252 seats showed Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had won 86 and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had 65. The pro-Musharraf PML trailed with 37. Small parties and independents shared the others.

In fact, companies such as H.J. Heinz and Hormel Foods Corp proved again with earnings forecasts and announcements on Friday that this was still the case early this year, fueling a rally in food stocks. But that relief could prove short-lived, as 2008 could be the year consumers say "enough!" and start shunning branded products for less expensive private-label alternatives, industry experts warn.

"The next round of increases will actually start to impact consumer behavior in a profound way," Ken Harris, a principal at consulting firm Cannondale Associates, said. That could hit profits at the companies that already have exhausted most measures to cut costs and become more efficient over the past several years in the wake of soaring prices for wheat, cocoa, milk and energy, just to name a few.

"When you say input costs are going up 6 percent and you are only getting 4 percent net pricing, where do you make up the rest?" asked Gregg Warren, an analyst at Morningstar. Food price increases are adding to the pile on consumers who are also facing higher costs for gas, rising mortgage payments and falling home values.

While major European states are to recognise Kosovo as independent, DEEP SPLITS WITHIN THE EU have forced foreign ministers to adopt a common text in reaction to Kosovo's proclamation of independence, but leaving it to up to member states whether to recognise the newly proclaimed state.

EU MINISTERS FAIL TO APPROVE 5 GM CROPS, COMMISSION LIKELY TO DO SO
EU agriculture ministers failed to give the green light to imports of five new strains of genetically modified maize and potato. SPLITS AMONGST THE FARM MINISTERS mean that it is now the responsibility of the European Commission to take a decision on the biotech products.

EU REMAINS SPLIT ON KOSOVO
The question of whether the 27-nation European Union will be able to come up with a unified reaction to the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo currently rests with Spain, as the country is refusing to sign up to a common position drafted by the Slovenian EU presidency.

KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE EMBOLDENS SOUTH CAUCASUS BREAKAWAY REPUBLICS
Georgia's breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are to ask Russia and the United Nations to recognise their independence in the wake of Sunday's unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. But the EU's external relations commissioner immediately ruled out any linkage.

What is likely to happen? The US and the European members of the UN Security Council will back Kosovo's independence. But Russia and China will not. Russia will block Kosovo's membership of the United Nations. Serbia will use all diplomatic means at its disposal to block Kosovo's recognition - and will probably block Kosovo's access to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe.

The real questions are less glamorous and more profound. Unemployment in Kosovo is over 40 per cent, corruption and organised crime is bad, and wealth per person is just 5 per cent of the EU average. The troubles are far from over yet. Is independence for Kosovo a good thing?

Yes...

* 90 per cent of its people are non-Serbs and should be allowed to determine their own fate

* Serbia effectively lost Kosovo through its own actions in the atrocities and ethnic cleansing of the 1990s

* Kosovan independence is the logical working out of the collapse of Communist Yugoslavia after the Berlin Wall came down

No...

* Kosovo has formed the heart of the state of Serbia since medieval times

* All the people of Serbia should have been allowed to vote on the issue of Kosovan independence

* It sets a dangerous precedent for other parts of the world where rebels want to break away

The use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility, which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wider range of their assets than previously permitted, saw borrowing of nearly $50bn of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.

US officials say the trend shows that financial authorities have become far more adept at channelling liquidity into the banking system to alleviate financial stress, after failing to calm money markets last year. However, the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the US banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.

"The TAF allows the banks to borrow money against all sort of dodgy collateral," says Christopher Wood, analyst at CLSA. "The banks are increasingly giving the Fed the garbage collateral nobody else wants to take, this suggests a perilous condition for America's banking system."

Serbia's southern province of Kosovo declared independence on Sunday after almost nine years under U.N. administration. Foreign ministers and diplomats in Brussels said they expected Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria and Hungary to recognise Kosovo soon.

UPDATE - telegraph.co.uk - At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spain's foreign minister, said Kosovo's independence "does not respect international law" and could inflame ethnic disputes across the Balkans. Spain emerged as one of Kosovo's strongest critics, clearly fearing that its own separatist movements in the Basque country and Catalonia could be emboldened by the new country's independence. The president of Romania, which along with Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Slovakia, made up the group of EU dissenters, also criticised the move as "illegal".

Serbia announced a series of retaliatory moves. While it has ruled out military reprisals, it could cut trade and energy links to Kosovo.

"I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the Council of state and commander in chief," he wrote in the letter. Mr Castro handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raul, in July 2006 when he underwent intestinal surgery. The 81-year-old has ruled Cuba since leading a communist revolution in 1959.

In December, Mr Castro indicated that he could possibly step down in favour of a younger generation. The National Assembly is scheduled to meet on 24 February to elect his successor.

And in all that vastness - 139 million square miles (360 million square kilometers) - less than 4 percent remains unaffected, and more than a third has suffered serious human impacts, according to a new map published in Science magazine. Marine ecologist Ben Halpern of the University of California, Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and an international team of colleagues first listed 17 ways humans affect the oceans and then mapped each of them. By overlaying each impact on top of one another, the ecologists created a "current state of affairs for the oceans," Halpern says. "I was really surprised that there is no single spot on the planet that isn't being affected by at least one of these factors."

The tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati - just 313 square miles (810 square kilometers) of atolls - has decided to protect more than 10 percent of its territorial waters - 158,000 square miles (410,500 square kilometers), an area roughly the size of California - as the largest marine reserve in the world.

These kinds of efforts are exactly what the mapmakers hope to inspire. By revealing areas where mankind does its worst, the map also divulges where mankind can do best in limiting its impact. "It's definitely serving as a wake-up call to really start paying more attention to what we're doing to the oceans," Halpern says. "I hope people step up to the plate, knowing they have the opportunity to make a difference."

Polling stations, which opened at 8 a.m., closed at 5 p.m., and counting of votes is under way. Reports from across the country indicated voter turnout was low. Several religious and political parties boycotted the polls, while some people feared violence, including suicide bombings which have been increasing in frequency.

Pakistan's chief election commissioner, retired Justice Qazi Mohammad Farooq, said the low turnout would have no effect on the validity of the vote. Farooq told reporters after visiting polling stations in Islamabad that some incidents of violence had been reported during the day, but he was satisfied with the overall situation.

The public cast votes to elect 272 National Assembly members and a total of 557 members of four provincial assemblies in Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Province. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he was ready to work with whoever is elected prime minister. "The politics of confrontation must give way to the policy of reconciliation not in anyone's interest, but in Pakistan's interest," he told reporters after casting his vote at a polling station in Rawalpindi.

Using biofuels rather than oil would reduce the greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming, because plants absorb carbon dioxide when they grow, balancing out the carbon released when burned in cars or trucks. Using homegrown biofuels would help the U.S. reduce its utter dependence on foreign oil, and provide needed income for rural farmers around the world. And unlike cars powered purely by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells - two alternate technologies that have yet to pan out - biofuels could be used right now.

But according to a pair of studies published in the journal Science recently, biofuels may not fulfill that promise - and in fact, may be worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they're meant to supplement. According to researchers at Princeton University and the Nature Conservancy, almost all the biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, if the full environmental cost of producing them is factored in.

As virgin land is converted for growing biofuels, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere; at the same time, biofuel crops themselves are much less effective at absorbing carbon than the natural forests or grasslands they may be replacing. "When land is converted from natural ecosystems it releases carbon," says Joseph Fargione, a lead author of one of the papers and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. "Any climate change policy that doesn't take this fact into account doesn't work.

Worse, as demand for biofuels go up - the European Union alone targets 5.75% of all its transport fuel to come from biofuel by the end of the year - the price of crops rises. That in turn encourages farmers to clear virgin land and plant more crops, releasing even more carbon in a vicious cycle. If the U.S. managed to use 15 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015 - as is mandated in last year's energy bill - it would still only offset 7% of projected energy demand. That won't put Venezuela or Iran out of business.

"We want a genuine peace and not a virtual peace where the current government is convincing itself that it is bringing peace closer," Netanyahu said at the 34th annual Leadership Mission of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem. "Any program that fabricates a virtual peace will ultimately crash, but we are committed to a genuine peace."

Netanyahu added that the foundation of any future peace agreement should be the hope generated by economic growth. "In order to bring about a real peace, there are a number of steps that we must take. Creating an economic peace creates real hope - it gives people jobs and it gives people hope"

"We shouldn't build a basis for militant Islam at our doorstep. This is what successive Israeli governments have done by quickly withdrawing from Lebanon and from Gaza," the opposition leader said. "The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza has in no way advanced our security or brought us any closer to a real peace. If we withdraw from Jerusalem, a possibility that seems to be more of a reality each day, it will just put us one step closer to being forced out of the whole country," he concluded.

The inquiry, into allegations of bribery in a telecoms deal, has prompted renewed calls for Arroyo's resignation and sparked the biggest protests since 2005, when tens of thousands of people demonstrated against her amid accusations of election fraud. Rodolfo Lozada, the probe's star witness, told senators that Romulo Neri, Arroyo's former economic planning chief, had wanted to resign due to controversy over the state's $329 million deal with China's ZTE Corp, which was allegedly overpriced by $130 million to fund kickbacks.

Analysts say Arroyo's position remains secure because the powerful Catholic Church has not called for her to go and she has the support of the military and the lower house of Congress. She has already survived three impeachment bids and at least three coup plots and her final term runs out in mid-2010.

Last week, around 10,000 people demonstrated in Manila's financial district and opposition groups are planning further rallies, particularly on February 25, the anniversary of the overthrow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

It comes from a company in California, which officials said allowed meat from cattle unable to stand at the time of slaughter to enter the food chain. The USDA recalled frozen beef products from the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co in Chino, dating back to 1 February 2006. The move surpasses a 1999 recall of 35m lbs of ready-to-eat meats, officials said. Some of the beef was destined for federal welfare assistance programmes, as well as some major fast-food chains. But officials said most of the recalled meat has probably already been eaten.

The recall was ordered after department officials said the plant did not consistently order inspections of cattle which lost the ability to walk prior to slaughter. Such "downer" cattle are at greater risk of contamination by E. coli, salmonella or contracting mad cow disease, as they have weaker immune systems and greater contact with faeces than walking cattle.

Operations at the plant had already been suspended after an undercover video shot by the Humane Society of America came to light. The video appeared to show crippled and ill animals being prodded with the blades of a forklift truck, kicked, given electric shocks and sprayed with high-pressure water hoses by staff.