The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are biologically their own. Gay men could follow suit by using the technique to make eggs from male bone marrow. Researchers at Newcastle upon Tyne University say their technique will help lead to new treatments for infertility. But critics warn that it sidelines men and raises the prospect of babies being born through entirely artificial means.

The race to find a cure for infertility is global. Greg Aharonian, a U.S. analyst who is trying to patent the technologies behind female sperm and male eggs, said he wants to undermine the argument that heterosexual marriage is superior because it is aimed at procreation. "I'm a troublemaker," he said.

There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, and India suffered up to 60% disruption. UK firms such as British Airways have told the BBC that call centres have been affected by the outage. Industry experts said it could take up to one week to repair the damaged cables and resume full service. International telephone calls, which have also been affected, are being rerouted to work around the problem.

Disruption also occurred in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, reported the Associated Press. In Dubai, at least two internet service providers (ISPs) were affected. An official at the provider, DU, told AP that a fault in a cable between Alexandria, Egypt, and Palermo, Italy, was to blame. The company said it was due to "cuts in two international submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea this morning (Wednesday). We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators (FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4) to ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut," it said.

FLAG Telecoms operate the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable. SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 project, as it is known, is a submarine cable system linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain stranded at stations, with key rail links and highways blocked by the snow. The weather has affected nearly 80 million people across 14 provinces in the centre and south of the country.

A top agriculture official has also warned of a serious impact on crop production in the south. "The impact on fresh vegetables and on fruit in some places has been catastrophic," Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Communist Party's financial affairs team, told journalists. In some areas, people are already experiencing shortages of food as the weather delays deliveries of key commodities.

More than a dozen provinces have also been hit by blackouts due to missed coal deliveries for power stations and rising demand amid the cold.

But as European stock markets started to fall the bank lost 500m euros for every 1% drop in share prices. This means that his bet was big enough to bankrupt France's second largest bank on the basis of any sustained fall in stock markets. Jerome Kerviel's actions cost Societe Generale 4.9bn-euros ($7bn; £3.7bn)

The BBC's business editor Robert Peston has also learned that Societe Generale's back office, or administrative operation, queried Mr Kerviel's transactions as long ago as March or April last year. "Bankers have confirmed that at the end of last year, Jerome Kerviel had generated a colossal hidden profit for the bank of 1.4bn euros," Mr Peston said. "AMONG THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE KERVIEL AFFAIR IS HOW THE FRENCH BANK COULD HAVE FAILED TO NOTICE A PROFIT OF THAT SIZE."

Mr Kerviel said he "did not believe" the bank's senior management would have been unaware of the risky bets he was taking, according to testimony published in the French daily Le Monde. "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GENERATE SUCH LARGE PROFITS WITH SMALL POSITIONS, WHICH LEADS ME TO SAY THAT WHEN I'M IN THE BLACK, MY SUPERIORS CLOSED THEIR EYES ABOUT THE METHODS AND VOLUMES COMMITTED," he was reported as saying.

Speaking to a crowd on a visit to the southern port of Bushehr, where Iran's first light-water nuclear power plant is being built by Russia, Ahmadinejad further incited his listeners to "stop supporting the Zionists, as [their] regime reached its final stage. Zionists will sooner or later come to an end," the Iranian president said in a televised speech. He added, "What we have right now is the last chapter [of Israeli atrocities] which the Palestinians and regional nations will confront and eventually turn in Palestine's favor."

Iran does not acknowledge Israel and Ahmadinejad has in the past sparked international outcry by referring to the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War II as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Iran is currently also mediating in the crisis over the Gaza Strip, where Israel has imposed a blockade on border crossings into the coastal territory, barring the entry of supplies into the already impoverished area. Last week, Palestinian militants blew holes in the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, prompting hundreds of thousands of Gazans to pour into Egypt in search of supplies.

Ahmadinejad also urged the Western powers to help build nuclear power plants in his country saying it will be too late if they do not decide to do so immediately. "I am addressing leaders of two or three powers; do you remember I sent you a message and told you to stop being stubborn? If you think that you can block the movement of the Iranian nation, you are wrong," the Iranian president continued.

Parviz Khan then planned to broadcast footage of "the ghastly death" in an attempt to spread panic among the armed forces and the public. Leicester Crown Court heard how the 37-year-old unemployed charity worker was at the centre of a Birmingham terrorist cell, sending equipment to fighters operating on the Afghan border. Allegedly, the equipment was disguised as medicine and clothes for earthquake victims.

Nigel Rumfitt QC, for the prosecution, told the court that Khan had pleaded guilty a fortnight ago. He had hoped, Mr Rumfitt said, to kidnap a soldier by ambushing him in Birmingham's Broad Street entertainment quarter, and was planning to enlist the help of drug dealers to capture the soldier. "He would be taken to a lock-up garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig. This atrocity would be filmed ? and the film released to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and the wider public," said Mr Rumfitt.

Meanwhile, Khan actively gathered equipment such as computer hard drives, walkie-talkies, range-finders and night vision equipment, to be sent to Pakistan for terrorists operating near the Afghan border. He would return from the country with "shopping lists. The prosecution say that Parviz Khan is a fanatic. He is a man who has the most violent and extreme views. He was enraged by the idea that there were Muslim soldiers in the British Army," explained Mr Rumfitt.

Teachers should not assume that their pupils have a "mum and dad" under guidance aimed at tackling anti-gay bullying in schools. It says primary pupils as young as four should be familiarised with the idea of same-sex couples to help combat homophobic attitudes. Teachers should attempt to avoid assumptions that pupils will have a conventional family background, it urges.

The guidance is being published five years after the repeal of Section 28 - the law which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Ministers promised the move would make no difference to the teaching of homosexual matters but some critics have claimed the gay lobby is having a growing influence on pupils.

Next month is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month, where pupils learn about apparently gay figures from history including Leonardo da Vinci, Oscar Wilde and James Dean. Mr Balls, who will launch the antibullying guidance at a Stonewall conference today, said: "I am proud the Government and the department are being robust about this. It is our view that every school should have a clear policy on tackling all forms of bullying, including homophobic bullying."

According to statistics provided WND by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, or AAM. "In the Super Tuesday states, 'It's the economy, stupid,' is what voting is going to be all about," Kerri Houston, senior analyst at AAM, told WND. "It's also about 'It's the defense, stupid'," Houston said, "given how many U.S. defense suppliers have now been outsourced overseas."

"The Department of Defense now has graveyards full of broken-down equipment, including tanks, airplanes and missile launchers that are out of action for lack of a part," she continued. "Republicans who have opposed unions for decades don't want to talk about outsourcing as a problem, because they are afraid the unions would come back if the jobs came back, and the Republicans are happy to see Democrats denied campaign contributions that would be coming out of union dues," Houston emphasized.

"But when the military can't find steel, tires or metal parts, and military procurement demands the Department of Defense look for a U.S. manufacturer, we're out of luck," she said. "The part the military needs may today only be made in China."

"The whole idea of the Bush tax refund being an economic stimulus is going to be received with skepticism in the Super Tuesday states," Houston cautioned. "The U.S. Treasury has to borrow from China the money to use in paying out the tax refund," she noted.

During a heated Knesset debate Sunday, MK Zeev claimed that the proposed legislation was aimed at assisting homosexuals and lesbians who want to start a family. He said that if it was up to him he would put gays in rehabilitation centers "along with drug addicts and alcoholics". Zeev went as far as comparing the gay movement to a "plague that may destroy Jewish Israel", adding that this "plague" should be dealt with "just as the Health Ministry is dealing with bird flu."

Zeev added that gay people must be made aware of "how their lifestyle is destroying our existence. We propose numerous bills to help barren women become more fertile, but on the other hand we allow this immorality," he said.

Sa'ar Netanel, a member of Jerusalem's Council and the Open House organization, responded to Zeev's comments by saying that, "What we need is institutions to detoxify him and his ilk from their bigotry and ignorance."

As expected, the Jerusalem municipality decided to cancel school in the capital for the day due to the slippery streets. Major thoroughfares in the city were opened for traffic, but the city still requested that drivers not risk the slippery streets with private vehicles. 100 snow ploughs were deployed around the city and were clearing the roads, especially those leading to hospitals and emergency facilities.

Higher elevations throughout the country are likely to be covered with snow over the next two days, according to Israel Meteorological Service forecaster Uri Batz. About 10cm is expected to accumulate in Jerusalem by the end of Wednesday and another 10 by late Thursday. Friday's forecast calls for very cold and windy weather, but no additional snow.

Batz said the Carmel hills, near Haifa, would probably get a light layer of snow, something that hasn't happened since 2000. Even Eilat residents will likely be able to enjoy the sight of snow on the tops of the Edom Mountains across the Jordanian border. The snow could take as long as a week to disappear, he said. The forecaster said that with strong winds, the temperature in the capital could plummet to as low as -9ºC, causing any water on the roads and sidewalks to freeze.

More than 1 million people have fled their homes in Somalia, which is convulsed by fighting between Ethiopian-backed government forces, Islamist insurgents and an assortment of warlords. "I've never seen anything like Somalia before," Guillermo Bettocchi, representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said during a visit to London. "The situation is very severe. It is the most pressing humanitarian emergency in the world today -- even worse than Darfur," he told reporters, referring to the war in western Sudan, which has driven 2.5 million from their homes.

A bomb attack which killed three aid workers in Somalia on Monday underlined the difficulty in delivering aid in the anarchic country that has been wracked by clan violence for 17 years, he said. Fifteen percent of the population suffer acute malnutrition while health services are very limited and sanitation, water and shelters are extremely poor, Bettocchi said.

Fourteen out of 15 U.N. "flash appeals" for help last year were a response to devastation caused by droughts, floods and hurricanes, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said. "That is five more than in any other year," Holmes said during a visit to European Union headquarters in Brussels. "We are seeing them (disasters) increase in intensity and number," he told a news conference, saying weather events could not always be directly linked with climate change.

Holmes cited growing demand for food in China and India, a shift towards more meat-oriented diets and the use of foodstuffs in biofuels as driving what he called a structural change in food prices that put some staples beyond the reach of the poor. A recent rise in wheatflour prices in Afghanistan had hit poor people hard, and similar humanitarian consequences of food price inflation were feared in Pakistan and Bangladesh, he said.

"This poses a double challenge for the World Food Programme. Not only is the price increasing but the need is going up because of the hunger," he said.

The plan will be unveiled today as part of sweeping regulatory reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the Northern Rock debacle, the BBC has learned. He will also make the Bank of England's loans to a troubled bank rank first in the queue of creditors. There will be a 12 week consultation period on the new legislation.

"It's unclear whether the devastating run on the Rock could have been prevented by the kind of clandestine help which the Bank may in future be able to provide," said the BBC's business editor Robert Peston. "Such secrecy would only apply where such emergency lending is temporary and limited in nature. The Treasury believes that the Rock probably needed too much money for too long for the Bank of England to be able to keep the rescue operation out of the public domain."

The Fed action Wednesday pushed the funds rate to 3 percent. It followed a three-fourths of a percentage point cut on Jan. 22, a day after financial markets around the world had plummeted on fears that the U.S. economy was heading into a recession. That decrease had been the biggest one-day move in more than two decades. The House, worried about the possibility of a downturn, overwhelmingly approved a $146 billion economic stimulus bill on Tuesday. Passage in the Senate could be slowed by an effort to expand the measure.

Whatever the Fed does Thursday, analysts said that further rate cuts are likely until the central bank is sure that the economy is back on a sound footing. Bernanke pledged in a speech on Jan. 10 to take decisive action to combat a slowdown. Many economists believe the funds rate could fall to 2.5 percent before the Fed stops easing. "It is clear that the Fed has moved into a crisis-fighting posture," said David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors.

However, the country has been battling with the national energy crisis, forcing the state power company Eskom to stop exporting power to the neighbouring countries. This development has taken a great toll on the economy and business in general. The companies - AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields and Harmony together with the world's biggest platinum miner, Anglo Platinum - took the painful decision after Eskom said it could not guarantee power supplies. Their fear evolves around miners being trapped underground.

It also follows Eskom's communication to their Key Industrial Consumers (KIC), including Gold Fields to "reduce their energy consumption to the minimum load possible." A decision was taken to put no shifts down last night and no shifts were put down this morning. Eskom said "KIC loads will be reduced to 'survival levels' or switched out totally for the next two to four weeks."

Gold Fields said this will have a "serious effect" on its South African operations, which produce approximately 7000 ounces per day.