For many Iraqi citizens, however, trying to stay cool or find sufficient drinking water was a more urgent problem. The Baghdad water supply already has been severely affected by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.

And now water mains have gone dry in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where the whole province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days. Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that.

"We no longer need television documentaries about the stoneage. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having", said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.

Aziz al-Shimari, the Electricity Ministry spokesman in Baghdad, said power generation nationally was only half of demand and that there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The conflict over electricity is a perennial problem in Iraq, which ironically sits atop one of the world's largest crude oil reserves. The system became decrepit under Saddam Hussein whose regime was under a U.N. sanctions regime after the Gulf War and had trouble buying spare parts or the equipment to upgrade the system.

The lack of electricity is particularly acute at this time of year when average daily temperatures reach between 110 and 120 Fahrenheit (43 and 49 Celsius). "We wait for the sunset to enjoy some coolness", said Qassim Hussein, a 31-year-old day laborer in Karbala. "The people are fed-up. There is no water, no electricity, there is nothing but death."

CHILDLESS OR CHILDFREE? Not so long ago, all women without children were known as childless, with its implication of a state of loss. Nowadays, a growing number of women are insisting on the term childfree - with its emphasis on liberation. An increasing number of women in their 30s are rejecting the job description that they believe comes with parenting - loss of freedom, reduced career prospects and financial burdens.

FERTILITY RATES
In Europe 2.1 children per woman is considered to be the population replacement level. These are national averages

Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29
Source: Eurostat - 2004 figures

In the UK, the most commonly cited statistic is that by 2010, one in four will be either childfree or childless.

"I made the choice early on not to have children. I don't dislike them - I simply decided that I could not devote 100% of my time to someone else," one woman said. "I HAVE ALSO BEEN CALLED SELFISH BUT I THINK THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE THREE CHILDREN ARE ENCROACHING ON THE PLANET'S RESOURCES - I CAN'T BELIEVE THE AMOUNT OF WASTE THAT CHILDREN PRODUCE.

"The world's population is still growing - it's only people in the West who are perceived to be not having enough children. People will always have children and the world will continue," she says.

Jonathan McCalmont is the founder of Kidding Aside (The British Childfree Association), which was first set up on the internet to lobby for equality for people without children. "WE BELIEVE IT IS UP TO THE INDIVIDUAL TO DECIDE WHAT CONSTITUTES A FAMILY," he says. "It's not up to the state."

The vote in Metn to replace former minister Pierre Gemayel is being seen as a key test of support among the deeply divided Christian community. Mr Gemayel's father, ex-President Amin Gemayel, 65, is running for the seat.

His supporters have clashed with the backers of the candidate of pro-Syrian opposition leader Michel Aoun.

Both men are potential candidates in this year's divisive presidential election and the race in the Metn mountains is expected to be close. Under Lebanon's sectarian political system, the president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker a Shia Muslim. Parliament elects the president.

The by-elections threaten to deepen Lebanon's political divisions, correspondents say. They do not have the required approval of President Emile Lahoud, who is allied with the Hezbollah-led opposition, as is parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri. Mr Berri has said he will not recognise the results. Mr Gemayel and his allies accuse Syria of orchestrating the shooting of Pierre Gemayel last November and other anti-Syrian figures including Mr Eido, who was killed by a car bomb in June.

Mr Aoun's FPM won a vast majority of the Christian vote in 2005 parliamentary polls, but his support slipped when he allied himself to the pro-Syria Shia Muslim movement Hezbollah. Hezbollah and other opposition groups quit a unity cabinet last year and have been boycotting parliament in a campaign to demand a cabinet veto, after anti-Syrian factions won power in 2005 following years of political and military control by powerful neighbour Syria.

Defra could not say the laboratory was the source but has increased the size of the protection and surveillance zones covering farms in the area. An urgent assessment of biosecurity has begun at the institute. THE STRAIN IS NOT ONE NORMALLY FOUND IN ANIMALS BUT IS USED IN VACCINE PRODUCTION AND IN DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORIES.

In a statement Defra said: "The present indications are that this strain is a 01 BFS67-like virus, isolated in the 1967 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain." THE STRAIN WAS USED IN A VACCINE BATCH MANUFACTURED LAST MONTH BY A PRIVATE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY MERIAL ANIMAL HEALTH.

The firm shares Pirbright with the government's Institute for Animal Health (IAH), which conducts research into foot-and-mouth and where the strain is also present. Merial voluntarily halted vaccine production as a precaution.

Defra said: "This incident remains at an early stage. It is too soon to reach any firm conclusions." CHIEF VETERINARY OFFICER DEBBY REYNOLDS SAID IT WAS TOO SOON TO SAY ANYTHING CONCLUSIVE ABOUT THE SOURCE OF THE VIRUS BUT IT WAS CLEAR WHICH STRAIN WAS INVOLVED.

"That is carried at the Pirbright facility, at Meriel for vaccine production, and indeed at the Institute for Animal Health, on the same premises on the same location for diagnostic purposes," she said.

Merial said in a statement: "The decision to suspend production has been taken in full consultation with Defra and will enable Defra to carry out a thorough investigation into all possible sources of this outbreak."

Meanwhile, Britain imposed a voluntary ban on exports of livestock and livestock products, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said. The ministry said the ban applied to animals with cloven hooves such as cows, sheep and pigs. It covers live animals, carcasses, meat and milk and is effective immediately.

Speaking at his 10 Downing St. office, Brown said experts would work "night and day" to discover the origin of the outbreak on a farm in southern England as fast as possible. "Our first priority has been to act quickly and decisively," said Brown, who cut short a summer holiday to deal with the crisis, which prompted a European Union ban on livestock imports from Britain.

Japan said earlier that it had banned British pork imports. Beef imports from Britain have been banned in Japan since the outbreak of mad cow disease in the 1990s. The European Union also banned livestock imports from Britain in reaction to the outbreak.

"This year, right now, it feels very bleak," said Ben Darvill, a conservation researcher at the University of Stirling and co-founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE SERIOUS DECLINE IN BEES OVER RECENT YEARS, WHICH IS NOW COMING TO A HEAD, WHAT WITH LARGE AND UNPRECEDENTED LOSSES OF BEES IN EUROPE, THE US AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD.

"It's urgent and we need to do something about it now," he continued. "But all too often people notice the importance of something when it's not there - when it's too late."

IT'S EASY TO FORGET THAT BEES DON'T JUST MAKE HONEY; they pollinate more than 90 of the flowering crops we rely on for food. Among them: apples, nuts, pears, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash, tomatoes, sunflowers and cucumbers. Along with citrus fruit, peaches, kiwis, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries and melons.

Crops like oilseed rape (increasingly used in biofuels), alfalfa, peas, runner beans and broadbeans also rely on visits by bees and other pollinating insects to improve the quality and quantity of fruits and seeds produced.

IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT ONE SMALL CREATURE CAN BE SO IMPORTANT TO OUR FOOD SUPPLY.

But as Brian Latham, chair of the Leeds Beekeepers Association, points out: we've become almost terminally disconnected from the natural world we live in and how it feeds us.

"WE GET OUR FOOD FROM SUPERMARKETS AND THINK LITTLE MORE ABOUT IT," HE SAYS. "VERY FEW OF US ARE AS AWARE AS OUR GRANDPARENTS WERE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WHAT'S ON OUR DINNER PLATES AND THE INTRICATE WORKINGS OF NATURE."

ALBERT EINSTEIN was well aware of this connection. When it came to bees, he put it in no uncertain terms: "IF THE BEE DISAPPEARED OFF THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE, THEN MAN WOULD ONLY HAVE FOUR YEARS OF LIFE LEFT. NO MORE BEES, NO MORE POLLINATION, NO MORE PLANTS, NO MORE ANIMALS, NO MORE MAN."

In June, the British Beekeepers Association set up an emergency meeting slamming Defra over the "paltry" £180,000 currently being allocated to bee research. John Howat, secretary of the Bee Farmers' Association, was quoted as saying: "Less than one percent of the hives' value to the economy is being spent on research and development. The government seems totally oblivious to the consequences of honeybees being wiped out."

Even more worryingly, this summer's floods and torrential rains could have made the bees' plight far worse. "A year like this will have a big effect - particularly on bumblebee populations," said Darvill. "Bumblebees largely nest underground, so you can imagine the terrible effect the flooding and rains have had on their colonies. The fact is, a series of bad summers like this one could easily lead to further national extinctions."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average had been trading just a shade lower when chief financial offer Sam Molinaro compared the current crisis on Wall Street to the 1987 stock market collapse, the Asian debt crisis of the 1990s, the collapse of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management and the recent dotcom bubble.

"THESE TIMES ARE PRETTY SIGNIFICANT," HE SAID ON A CALL WITH INVESTORS. "I'VE BEEN OUT HERE FOR 22 YEARS, AND THIS IS AS BAD AS I'VE SEEN IT IN THE FIXED-INCOME MARKETS."

His comments were a response to Standard & Poor's, which downgraded the rating on Bear Stearns debt to "negative" from "stable", suggesting it may lose it's a+ rating. The investment bank is the manager of two hedge funds heavily invested in sub-prime loans that collapsed last month and S&P said its "profitability would be especially affected if there were an extended downturn in those markets." THE DOW IMMEDIATELY PLUMMETED, CLOSING 280 POINTS LOWER AT 13,182.

IT WAS THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE FRIDAY THAT THE DOW LOST MORE THAN 100 POINTS as investors were unwilling to hold their positions going into the weekend. Shares of Bear Stearns lost more than 6pc.

A further example of the crisis in the market came yesterday when American Home Mortgage, the 10th largest lender in the US, said it had been forced to close almost all its operations and lay off close to 7,000 workers immediately. The company is now expected to file for bankruptcy, perhaps as early as next week.

The volatility in the global credit markets has caused 46 leveraged financing deals around the world to be pulled since June 22, representing more than $60bn (£30bn) in funding that companies had planned for mergers and acquisitions, according to figures from Baring Asset Management.

After years of development, three "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system" (SWORDS) robots have deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns. The 'bots "haven't fired their weapons yet," Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, tells DANGER ROOM. "But that'll be happening soon."

The SWORDS -- modified versions of bomb-disposal robots used throughout Iraq -- were first declared ready for duty back in 2004. But concerns about safety kept the robots from being sent over the battlefield. The machines had a tendency to spin out of control from time to time. That was an annoyance during ordnance-handling missions; no one wanted to contemplate the consequences during a firefight.

So the radio-controlled robots were retooled, for greater safety. In the past, weak signals would keep the robots from getting orders for as much as eight seconds -- a significant lag during combat. Now, the SWORDS won't act on a command, unless it's received right away. A three-part arming process -- with both physical and electronic safeties -- is required before firing. Most importantly, the machines now come with kill switches, in case there's any odd behavior. "So now we can kill the unit if it goes crazy," Zecca says.

As initially reported in National Defense magazine, only three of the robots are currently in Iraq. Zecca says he's ready to send more, "but we don't have the money. It's not a priority for the Army, yet." He believes that'll change, once the robots begin getting into firefights.

The discovery of the disease near London prompted the government on Friday to ban livestock movements to prevent a repeat of a 2001 outbreak that blighted farming and rural tourism. All cattle on the farm were being culled. Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, was criticized for his government's handling of the last outbreak, particularly for failing to act swiftly to stop the movement of animals.

On Friday evening, Brown took part in an emergency meeting of officials by telephone from Dorset, where he was on holiday, and he returned to London to chair another meeting of the emergency committee, COBRA, on Saturday.

Leading microbiologist Hugh Pennington said Britain was better placed to deal with the latest outbreak. "We've got the administrative structures, we've got the infrastructure and we've got the scientific capability," he told the BBC. "All these things were tested and found to be wanting in 2001. Lessons have been learned and I'm confident we'll do much, much better this time."

Robert Biedron, head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said "huge numbers" of Polish gays had now fled the country following the rise to power of the right-wing conservative government. He said: "The gay community has just moved away because of the climate of fear and persecution. Most of the people I know are now in Britain because of the current political situation. Not for economic reasons, but because of the persecution of homosexuals here."

Poland's new government has members who are openly anti-gay and the health ministry has created a special committee responsible for "curing" gays, according to local media.

Engineers warned that more than 70,000 bridges across the country - about 12 per cent of the total - were in the same condition. Experts estimated repairing them all would take a generation and cost more than $188 billion (£92.7 billion). Authorities ordered 700 bridges of a similar design to the one that failed in Minneapolis to be inspected.

Five people have been confirmed dead and 79 injured when Interstate 35W bridge plummeted more than 60 feet into the Mississippi River during rush hour on Wednesday. It had been feared a further 30 people were missing, but yesterday this was lowered to eight as divers continued to search the wreckage. It is not thought likely that there will be any other survivors.

DESPITE A PREVIOUS DENIAL, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS - WHICH REGARDS ITSELF AS THE LEADING U.S. MUSLIMS CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP - PARTICIPATED IN A THREE-DAY SUMMIT OF MEMBERS OF THE PALESTINIAN TERRORIST GROUP HAMAS.

The evidence surfaced at the trial of the Texas-based Islamic charity Holy Land Foundation and five of its former organizers, who are accused of supporting Hamas. Prosecutors named the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

According to Steve Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, FBI Special Agent Laura Burns testified Thursday that the "Nihad" listed in documents related to the 1993 meeting of Hamas members in Philadelphia was Nihad Awad. In 2003, Awad was confronted about the Philadelphia meeting - Initially Awad said he didn't think he attended, but when pushed, he replied, "I don't remember."

CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, or IAP, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Awad served as the IAP's public relations director.

Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and CAIR FOUNDER OMAR AHMAD ALLEGEDLY TOLD A GROUP OF MUSLIMS THEY ARE IN AMERICA NOT TO ASSIMILATE BUT TO HELP ASSERT ISLAM'S RULE OVER THE COUNTRY.

CAIR says its aim is "to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding."

The officials were taking advantage of a month-long leniency offer that began on 30 May, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said. Over the month, 1,790 people confessed to corruption totalling 77.89m yuan ($10.2m, £5m), a spokesman said.

China has been working hard to tackle official corruption, which has become a major trigger for public discontent. "Some of the officials have corrected their mistakes and some are still under investigation, since we need to check whether they have confessed all their wrongdoings," CCDI spokesman Gan Yisheng said.

No details were given of what penalties the officials who confessed might face, Xinhua news agency said.
But Mr Gan said corrupt officials who had not confessed would face severe punishment, the agency reported.

Corruption is one of the Communist Party's biggest problems and the thing that ordinary people criticise most bitterly, says the BBC's James Reynolds in Beijing. He says they complain about officials with gold watches, driving around in black Mercedes, getting fat on bribes and free lunches and handing out all the best jobs to their friends and family.

Now, our correspondent says, Chinese President Hu Jintao wants to show that he is taking action, particularly with the party's key five-yearly congress looming.

The outbreak saw about SEVEN MILLION ANIMALS SLAUGHTERED and devastation for many farms and rural businesses. The crisis is estimated to have COST THE COUNTRY UP TO £8BN. Ministers were criticised for failing to prepare properly for an outbreak on that scale and for not halting the spread of the disease quickly enough.

The burning of animals on mass pyres became the vivid image of the 2001 outbreak. Cumbria was the worst affected area with more than 800 cases. To prevent the spread of the disease, public rights of way across the UK were closed. THE DISEASE DESTROYED THE LIVELIHOODS OF THOUSANDS OF FARMERS, while the Countryside Agency estimated the COST TO TOURISM ALONE AT BETWEEN £2BN AND £3BN.

Since the last outbreak the government has suggested vaccination - which many farmers did not want in 2001 because of fears it would affect exports - would be considered as a method of fighting any future outbreak.

And while the scale of the outbreak this time is so far contained - THE EARLY MEASURES TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT MEAN THAT WHATEVER HAPPENS, THIS TIME AROUND THERE WILL BE A HEAVY ECONOMIC IMPACT. An immediate ban on the movement of animals at one stroke halts trade both at home and abroad. Country and market shows scheduled for the weekend will inevitably be cancelled, experts say.

THIS SUDDEN DISRUPTION TO TRADE COMES AS A PARTICULAR BLOW TO CATTLE FARMERS GIVEN THAT EXPORTS OF BRITISH BEEF ONLY RESUMED IN MAY LAST YEAR - HAVING BEEN BANNED IN 1996 AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF A LINK BETWEEN BSE IN CATTLE AND VARIANT CJD IN HUMANS

UK farming contributed £5.6 billion to Britain's economy in 2006, according to Defra figures.

The head of the National Farmers Union in Northumberland, Malcolm Corbett, said that many farmers were just recovering from the impact of the last foot-and-mouth outbreak. "By its nature farming is a long-term business. With the sheep flocks we are just coming out of the after-effects of 2001. This is a real body blow to the livestock industry which is already suffering a minor crisis with the farm gate prices (received for produce)."

THE NEWS COMES AFTER SOME FARMERS' LIVELIHOODS HAVE BEEN DEVASTATED BY JUNE AND JULY FLOODS WHICH HAVE WIPED OUT CROPS.