Ministers are meeting at a time of increased stock market volatility, and they were expected to debate the underlying reasons for this. The meeting is laying the groundwork for the summit of G8 leaders which will take place in July in St Petersburg.

The BBC's Damian Grammaticas in the city says the ministers will aim to tackle the issues that could undermine global growth, such as concerns that rising inflation will prompt central banks to increase interest rates. Economists also worry that the huge US trade deficit - and corresponding surpluses in China, Japan and some oil producing countries - might cause sharp falls in the US dollar and wider economic problems as a result.

'Oil blackmail'

But one of the most serious concerns is energy, our correspondent adds. Questions are being asked whether sources of oil and gas are secure and whether the high price of oil - about $70 (£38) a barrel - is a threat.

Russia now rivals Saudi Arabia as the world's largest energy exporter, but there have been concerns about relying on it as an energy supplier since it turned off gas supplies to Ukraine last winter. Western nations say Russia should open up its own energy resources and pipelines because more transparency and more competition will ensure cheaper, stable supplies.

Russia says it is a reliable partner and wants to buy energy distribution networks in Europe. The ministers are also meeting counterparts and officials from Australia, Brazil, China, India, Nigeria and South Korea for discussions on global trade.

They are expected to issue a communique later on Saturday.

The baby girl was conceived through artificial insemination, and was selected in a Brussels laboratory to become a compatible donor of bone marrow for her 6-year-old brother.

"Although it is not prudent to criticize the subjective intention of the parents who have suffered and rejoiced with the cure of their son, it must be recognized that the technique of 'medicine babies' constitutes a worrying form of eugenics," stated the document.

"For this 'medicine baby' girl to be born, Mrs. Hilde van de Velde's Brussels laboratory deliberately produced 20 to 30 human embryos for the purpose of selecting them," the bishops said. "One of them had the good fortune to survive. But the rest were eliminated and destroyed as vulgar merchandise."

The document explained that the practice is inadmissible for two reasons.

First, because we are faced with "human embryos voluntarily produced and eliminated."

The message of the bishops continued: "A noble end does not justify killing embryos, which are individuals of the human species. Here the embryo is not treated as an end: It is used as an instrument and considered as merchandise.

"This practice is a regression of humanism, which is particularly insidious as it camouflages with the emotion aroused by the sick child and the parents' suffering."

Second, the letter stated, the selection of human beings is an act of eugenics.

"Eugenics is an odious practice, which consists in selecting the children that will be born according to utilitarian criteria that does not respect their intrinsic dignity," the bishops wrote.

"In this case, an exterior demand, medical and technical, decides who deserves to live and who deserves to die," the message said.

The note added: "This embryo deserved to live because it is genetically compatible with the recipient of the bone marrow, while the other numerous embryos were killed for the sole reason of not having the required characteristics."

A £600m drop in overall exports was one of the main factors behind the fall. But despite the overall drop, exports to Europe rose 2.5% to £2.37bn. Meanwhile, analysts blamed the strength of sterling for the fall in exports.

A higher pound makes UK exports more expensive in overseas markets, and the pound has been strengthening recently, especially against the US dollar.

'Encouraging'

Despite the widening deficit analysts said signs from Europe proved to be "encouraging" "The figures show that the UK is beginning to feel the effect of stronger eurozone growth," said Dominic Bryant of BNP Paribas.
"Export growth to the eurozone countries has surged to about 30% year on year from only 12.4% percent at the end of 2005."

But analysts warned that rising demand from UK consumers could continue to drive imports higher, while competition in the export market from other countries would also have an effect.

"A further widening in the goods deficit might be expected going forward to the extent that world trade continues to expand rapidly, particularly with UK export share losing out to the likes of emerging Asia," said George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank.

After Friday morning prayers, Sheikh Jarrah Kada, 42, sporting a thick salt-and-pepper beard, gathers with his companions at a friend's house to drink tea.
Sitting on plastic garden chairs under the shade of a giant hazelnut tree, they discuss the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, who was killed in a US air strike on Wednesday.

One of the men leafs through the al-Dustur newspaper, a Jordanian daily, which carries a picture of Zarqawi's bloated face on the front page.

For Sheikh Kada, wearing a pale blue prayer cap, Zarqawi's death is a reason to celebrate. But not because the Sheikh sees him as a terrorist - indeed, quite the opposite.

He regards Zarqawi as a hero, a martyr who died in the name of Islam. "He was a great leader - he fought for Islam," says Sheikh Kada, drawing nods of approval from the 10 men sitting in the circle. "I'm happy that he is dead because he is now going to heaven."

City of jihad

Sheikh Kada is the local leader of the Salafi branch of Islam - an austere form of Islam that advocates Sharia Islamic law and preaches the duty of jihad.
Set in rolling hills just outside the Jordanian capital, this historic city has gained a reputation as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism with a tendency to send its sons to take part in the Iraqi insurgency.

An agricultural engineer, the sheikh says he knows of "tens" of young men from the city who have followed Zarqawi's path and gone to Iraq to fight as insurgents.

The last jihadist he knew from Salt was killed during an attempt to try to free women from Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.

For Sheikh Kada and his friends, many wearing white flowing robes, jihad is an honourable cause - warranted both in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. It is a fight against what they see as injustices committed against Muslims.

"America must leave all the places it occupies in the Middle East because it is killing our women and children," the sheikh says. "The Jews must also leave Israel and give back the land to the Palestinians."

Destination Iraq

The men bristle at the idea that they are in any way extremist. "We are true believers in Islam," says Abu Roman, 55, an accountant. "Islam is not terrorism. I don't kill Americans in America, I don't kill the British in Britain, and I don't kill the Chinese in China. I just want the Arab lands to be free and Islamic."

The flow of jihadists from Salt into Iraq has been staunched by the Jordanian authorities in the last two years.
But the men say that there are many volunteers ready to go and perform jihad across the border. Sheikh Kada insists he has never persuaded anyone to go and fight Jihad in Iraq. "Jihad is here," he says poking his chest with his index finger.

Throughout the hour-long conversation, Abdel Rahman Abdullah, 16, wearing a white Versace T-shirt, listens attentively. Asked if he would to go to Iraq and be a jihadist like Zarqawi, he barely pauses for thought.

"I'd be ready tomorrow," he says.

Viktor Khristenko, Russian's energy minister and guardian of 5pc of the world's oil reserves, declared that motorists and business would have to learn to live with expensive fuel because "the era of cheap hydrocarbons is over". He also made it clear that any intervention by EU states if Russian firms sought to buy their European rivals would be regarded as unfriendly.

He was speaking shortly after the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, indicated that any bid by Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, for Centrica, the British Gas parent, would be treated as a political rather than commercial move.

Russia with its huge oil and gas reserves has been one of the main beneficiaries of soaring oil price and shares the industry consensus that there is little prospect of relief. Mr Khristenko said: "Forecasting is a thankless task in hydrocarbons, but one can say with certainty that the era of cheap hydrocarbons is over."

Mr Khristenko, appointed energy minister by President Putin in 2004, said EU governments should stand back from the merger and acquisition activity in the energy sector which is sweeping Europe.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph yesterday, he said: "The less political issues there are in this area, the easier and calmer it will be for suppliers and consumers and businesses." In today's global market, a firm's nationality was increasingly irrelevant, he said.

"We have global companies - it can be hard to pinpoint where a company comes from. BP is considered a British company and in America it is an American company. There is nothing contradictory in that because its assets are spread all over the world." Russia was intent on "the expansion of our own participation in others' assets".

He understood the nervousness about Russia's increasing influence - by 2030 nearly two thirds of the EU's gas needs will come from Russia. "If dependency on Russia is not good then one needs to move out of this dependency," he said. "So it is legitimate to encourage Russian participation in other markets like China, Japan and the USA."

Last winter he turned off the taps to Ukraine. Such a situation was unlikely to befall the UK. "Nobody should worry about gas supplies from Russia. None of our contracts have ever been broken. This did not happen, this does not happen and this will not happen."

He denied Russia was using energy dominance as a "weapon". British firms had nothing to fear about expanding in Russia, despite the politically motivated break-up of the Yukos oil group. Times had changed with 50pc of Gazprom now owned by outside shareholders, and the flotation of Rosneft in London later this year.

He pointed to the Putin administration's relaxed view of the steel merger between France's Arcelor and Russia's Severstal.

Reservoir levels are at a 10-year low for June, and the country is entering a summer season in which little rainfall is expected, according to figures from the state news agency EFE.

The drought is spread unevenly across the country, with the Atlantic-facing north still well watered while areas in the south-east have extreme shortages.

The worst-hit areas are the basins of the Segura and Júcar rivers in the south-east. Reservoir levels are down to 16% and 21% respectively, according to Spain's environment ministry.
That means that growth areas for tourism, such as the provinces of Murcia, Almeria, Alicante and Valencia, will be hit hardest. But the Costa del Sol, on the Mediterranean coast, has reported it will not experience serious water problems this year after the region's major reservoir was filled to overflowing by recent rains.

Last month, the environment ministry ordered €45m (£31m) be spent on anti-drought measures, including improved pumping from underground wells.

This is the second year of drought in Spain. Experts have predicted it may last between four and six years.

In April, the national meteorological institute warned that the country was heading for its worst drought since 1947.

More than 90% of Spain's eastern seaboard, from Tarragona in the north to Almeria in the south, is at risk from desertification, according to environment ministry figures published by El País newspaper yesterday.

For the moment, China remains the most populous nation, with 1.3 billion inhabitants, followed by India, which is home to 1.1 billion.

But India's higher fertility rate means the gap is narrowing and the UN expects it to overtake China before 2030.

Both countries are also experiencing rapid growth in their urban populations.

In China, the number of people in towns and cities is likely to exceed the number in the countryside by 2015.

India and China have to face the challenge of providing for their ageing populations, just as many Western nations do.

As people live longer and fertility decreases, there will be millions more people in retirement and fewer workers to support them.

It has been suggested that China will have to ease its strict one child policy to overcome the problem.

In India, where only 10% of the workforce is covered by formal pension schemes, there are questions over how the elderly will be supported.

Some experts say such problems could hamper the nations' economic growth

China's emergence as a world economic power follows years of expansion, with growth of 9% or more the norm.

It is a major exporter and may now be the world's fourth largest economy, having overtaken Italy and possibly the UK and France.

India has also seen dramatic growth - of more than 7% a year - and is the recipient of much foreign investment.

Figures from the Economist Intelligence Unit suggest the US will remain the largest economy in real terms.

But on a measure based on purchasing power, China could overtake the US by 2020.

Economic, social and environmental problems are a concern in India and China.

Vast wealth gaps exist, with the majority of people left on the margins of the nations' rapid economic growth. Social discontent has affected both.

Air and water quality is a concern in both countries. Many of the world's most polluted cities are in China.

Despite such problems, however, it is suggested that continued growth will drive up living standards for the populations as a whole.

Life expectancy is continuing to rise and infant mortality is falling. Access to education has improved, as has literacy.

India has bought $400 million worth of crude so far this year and wants "to buy more," India's Ambassador to Venezuela Deepak Bhojwani said yesterday after a meeting with the country's Vice-President.

India is seeking energy security and Venezuela is a willing supplier, Bhojwani was quoted as saying in a statement from the Vice-President's office.

Bhojwani said bilateral trade hit $138 million in 2005, up from $60 million in 2004.

Venezuela plans to sign a deal that allow India to extract heavy crude here and would also include an agreement to supply oil to Indian refineries, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said earlier this month.

Among the products that Venezuela is buying from India are medicines and cars.

President Hugo Chavez has sought to boost commercial ties with other nations to reduce Venezuela's dependence on the United States as its primary market for oil.

NATHU-LA, India (Reuters) - As the rain sweeps across the high Himalayan pass, a Chinese soldier arrives at the three strands of barbed wire which separate his country's territory from that of long-time rival India.
But this soldier is no longer brandishing a gun, on this once most sensitive of borders between the world's two most populous countries. Instead he takes some video for his family back home and pauses to shake hands across the rusty fence.

Just a few yards away bulldozers on both sides of the frontline are building not fortifications but a road, to connect India and China and reopen a historic trade route. New Delhi and Beijing plan to reopen the Nathu-la pass in June after more than 40 years, a potent symbol of rapprochement between Asian giants who fought a Himalayan war in 1962.

For an initial five-year period the pass, at an altitude of 4,310 metres (14,200 feet), will handle limited border trade between the tiny northeast Indian state of Sikkim and southern Tibet. It will be a modest start, but it promises much more.

"We are very much looking forward to the opening of the pass," said B.B. Gooroong, adviser to Sikkim's chief minister. "It is symbolic... but we have to break the ice."

The Sikkim government's enthusiasm is not entirely matched in New Delhi, where the establishment still remembers being caught off guard by China's sudden advance across the Himalayas in 1962.

Much of the 3,500-km (2,200-mile) common border remains disputed, and Indian officials say they are not yet ready to throw open the doors.

Nevertheless a gradual process is under way which could eventually lead to a significant trade route opening up from the Indian port of Kolkata to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

"They will go slowly, and there is still some distance before we get full-fledged transit trade," said foreign policy analyst C. Raja Mohan. "But there is potential."

SMALL BEGINNINGS

A study commissioned by the Sikkim government suggested trade across Nathu-la could reach $2.8 billion (1.5 billion pounds) a year by 2015.

Today that figure appears a little fanciful. It is hard to imagine anything larger than a minibus negotiating the narrow road that snakes for 56 km (35 miles) through the steep forested hills from Sikkim's capital, Gangtok.

A few corrugated iron warehouses have been built to handle customs and immigration formalities, and a small trade mart erected to exchange goods at Sherathang, a chilly hamlet eight km (five miles) below the pass.

Nor has the Sikkim government yet won's Delhi's approval for its plan to build a new, two-lane 22-billion-rupee (268 million pound) highway from Nathu-la to western India, bypassing Gangtok's already congested streets.

But pressure is building from China, as it tries to bring economic prosperity and extend political control over its vast, remote and sometimes neglected west. Lhasa lies just 520 km (320 miles) by road from Nathu-la; Kolkata is a stone's throw away compared to Beijing.

The passes between Sikkim and Tibet were once part of the Silk Road, a network of trails which connected ancient China with India, Western Asia and Europe.

Revived during British rule in India, trade across Nathu-la took off after independence in 1947 and China's invasion of Tibet in 1950. A decade later, more than 1,000 mules and horses and 700 people took the narrow trail every day.

India imported raw wool, animal hide, and yak tails for use in shrines. It sent clothes, petrol, tobacco, soap, Rolex watches and even disassembled cars, including one for the Dalai Lama, the other way. Payment came in sacks of Chinese silver dollars.

Trade came to an abrupt halt in 1962. Five years later skirmishes at Nathu-la left scores dead on both sides.

BEER AND PERHAPS TOURISTS

As India and China rebuilt relations, two minor trade points were opened at the western end of the border in the 1990s, but agreement to open the more significant Nathu-la pass came during then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's trip to China in 2003.

At the same time China indicated it was ready to drop its claim to Sikkim, a former Buddhist kingdom which had merged with India in 1975.

"That was a very major landmark agreement from the political perspective," said one Indian official. "Now it is the economic side which will come into play."

Sikkim has few industries, but officials hope the local Dansberg and Yeti beers, produced at a factory in the south of the state, will prove popular across the border.

Even more exciting could be the prospect of tourist traffic one day crossing Nathu-la. Officials hope that Sikkim could eventually be the centre of an international Buddhist pilgrimage circuit, from Tibet to Thailand and India to Nepal.

But even in Sikkim, there are concerns. Representatives of the mainly Buddhist Bhutia and Lepcha minorities are worried that unregulated development will bring in tens of thousands of outsiders and swamp their fragile cultures.

The volcano, on Indonesia's main island of Java and about 450 km (280 miles) east of the capital Jakarta, has spewed heat clouds and burning lava sporadically for weeks and is considered close to a major eruption.

The government centre observing the country's most active volcano said a lava dome formed more than a decade ago has collapsed.

"(A lava dome) collapsed on June 4, broadening the routes of the hot gas cloud. While the height of the smoke is higher, the frequency of the hot gas clouds has gone down and its stretch is shorter," said Triyani from the Centre of Volcanological Research and Technology Development.

Some vulcanologists fear more lava domes could collapse, triggering a massive outpouring of lava and gas.

The recent volcanic activity has led officials to evacuate around 2,000 villagers living down Merapi's southwestern slope and they expect to move thousands more to safe shelters.

"They have heard ceaseless rumbling. They clearly know the impact of the earthquake in Yogyakarta," said official Edi Purwanto who manages evacuation efforts in Central Java's Magelang regency.

Most villages in Merapi's danger zone are located just north of the ancient royal city of Yogyakarta while areas that suffered most in a deadly earthquake in the area on May 27 are only a short drive south from that cultural hub.

Experts differ over whether the quake significantly affected Merapi's activity.

Mount Merapi, which killed more than 60 people in 1994 and 1,300 in a 1930 eruption, was placed on top alert status on May 13, prompting an evacuation wave from the danger zone.

However, when days passed without the feared eruption, thousands of residents returned to their homes.

Twenty years ago, tourists stepped right onto the shore.

The Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth's surface, is shrinking as its salty waters rapidly dry up.

With no clear solution to the problem, environmentalists and tourist businesses are worried.

"Every time I come here the beach is further and further away. One day there will only be a puddle left," says Gidon Bromberg, of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, Middle East.

Too salty to sustain life, the Dead Sea is a draw for tourists who come to float in its greasy-feeling buoyant brine. Devotees also believe its waters and the mud at the margins are good for the skin.

The Dead Sea has been shrinking for decades as the inflow dwindles from its main source, the Jordan River.

Israel, Jordan and Syria rely on the river and its tributaries to meet the needs of increasing populations and agriculture in the arid region, and diversions have slowed the biblical river to a muddy trickle.

Mineral extraction industries have also played a part by helping to accelerate evaporation.

SINKHOLES

The Dead Sea has fallen over 20 metres (66 ft) in the past 100 years and is now losing about one metre each year.

As the water level has fallen, it has caused thousands of sinkholes to open up on land. The Ein Gedi resort closed some campsites after a 3-metre (10 ft) hole opened up under someone's feet. Some holes are even deeper.

"The ground is falling out from underneath us, literally," said Ein Gedi resident Gedi Hampe.

The Dead Sea is not expected to disappear entirely because it is fed by underground water sources and winter rainfall. As it shrinks, it also gets more salty, which in turn makes it harder for the remaining water to evaporate.

Scientists believe that if nothing is done, the water level will drop by as much as 100 metres (328 ft) more -- almost a third of its current depth.

CANAL PLAN

With that in mind, a World Bank-backed feasibility study is to be carried out on a plan to build a 200 km (125 mile) canal to replenish the Dead Sea with water from the Red Sea to the south.

The idea is that the water would be pumped to a height of 220 metres (720 ft) in the border area between Israel and Jordan and then flow down to the Dead Sea, some 420 metres (1,378 ft) below sea level, generating electricity on the way.

But the "Two Seas Canal" plan would cost an estimated $5 billion (3 billion pounds) and the economics of the project are in question.

Scientists also wonder whether it would really be beneficial for the environment.

The Dead Sea's unique make-up would be changed forever by introducing sea water into a body that has only ever been fed by fresh water. While sea water contains mostly sodium salts, the Dead Sea has much more magnesium and potassium.

"The cost of the damage that would be caused to the environment may be greater than any possible benefits," said local geologist Eli Raz. "The best plan for the Dead Sea is to let the Jordan river flow again, this is its natural state."

But the chances of that happening are next to nothing given the reliance of the region's countries on the Jordan's water.

Environmentalists are pushing for the Dead Sea to be declared a World Heritage Site by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, hoping this will force surrounding countries to come up with a plan.

"Finally, people have begun to realise the urgency of the situation. It is so dramatic that it can no longer be ignored," said resident Hampe.

"I learned months ago," she wrote, "that a friend of my 12-year-old daughter had turned her on to ingesting Crystal Lite® (with aspartame) without water to get "hyper." I consulted with our doctors, called Poison Control, and met with school administrators to see if they were aware of this.

"The message I received," she continued, "was 'Crystal Lite is perfectly safe and the problem was most likely in their heads.'"

As a concerned parent, this mother has been researching aspartame ever since. "With the listed symptoms/side affects of aspartame on your website," she continued, "it is apparent to me that the children are getting some type of 'altered' sensation. I know my daughter experiences a rapid heart beat, dizziness, headaches and nausea, to name a few reactions she has described to me."

A typical response from the marketers and manufacturers of aspartame is "there is no scientific evidence or research showing this type of reaction to aspartame is possible." Here's another common corporate reply: "the FDA approved aspartame, so it is safe." And how many times have you heard this one: "our research shows aspartame to be perfectly safe for children and during pregnancy. It is the most researched food additive in American FDA history."

Well, now consumers can add: children are taking Crystal Lite straight out of the can and eating it in powdered form to get "high."

Record numbers of disease syndromes, obesity, depression, and anxiety currently plague our youth - a problem turned epidemic AFTER aspartame and the diet sweetener craze flooded the market and dominated modern foods over 25 years ago. Many research scientists and nutritionists predicted such problems would result.

So Go Ahead and Snoop Around... After I received this very disturbing email, I decided to snoop around to find out if children in my area had heard of using Crystal Lite to get high. Well, I wouldn't be writing this article if the answer was "no - never." Children, indeed, have discovered eating the raw, powdered forms of aspartame gives them a rush they compare to taking too much Aderol®, an ADHD medication abused by non-ADHD kids to get high. I even spoke to a 13 year old who "knew someone who knew someone" who snorted Crystal Lite.

"The first couple of times he did it," the child disclosed, "his nose burned and he got a nosebleed. But once he got used to it, he said it was a good high, mostly because it was free. He just goes in his mom's pantry and grabs a scoop of her Crystal Lite, puts it in a baggie, and brings it to school. Someone always has some, and after school, we get a buzz."

"Ha," he sniggered, "if we're in class and one of our bros gets a nosebleed, we know he snorted some in the bathroom before class. Been a lot of nosebleeds lately; the teachers don't know a thing. Hey, we get to miss class and go to the nurse's office."

Americans have been more concerned about children using illegal drugs, alcohol, and smoking, while addictive and harmful chemicals in the food supply have gone unnoticed. We campaign against underage drug abuse using school awareness programs and implementing stricter laws for drug possession, but we allow children to have access to pharmaceutical drugs and dangerous food chemicals proven to be harmful to human health. Actually, diet sweeteners can be more dangerous to a child in multiple ways because these chemicals can be when used daily with no limits and easy access.

And, these dangerous chemicals are in the public schools. A child today can abuse ADHD drugs while swallowing them down with a diet cola. And we wonder why children have shorter attention spans, dangerous mood swings, and debilitating apathy!

Okay. Prove It! Over the years of working with aspartame victims, I have documented many case histories of adverse reactions to the powdered form of aspartame found in Equal® and Crystal Lite. These reactions are more intensified compared to diluted forms of aspartame found in colas, liquid medicines, yogurts, etc. In my book Sweet Poison, I include case histories of seizures and blindness from regularly consuming powdered forms of aspartame.

The Department of Experimental Physiology, Medical School at the University of Athens, Greece, Institute of Child Health, Research Center, concluded in 2005 that high levels and cumulative toxic concentrations of aspartame metabolites decreased the membrane AChE activity, resulting in memory loss. Additionally, neurological symptoms, including learning and memory processes, appeared in the study to be related to the high or toxic concentrations of the sweetener metabolites.

At present, the only known treatments for increasing lack of memory, such as Alzheimer's Disease, are either NMDA receptor antagonists or acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, such as the pharmaceutical Aricept®. The Greek study shows that overuse of aspartame, as well as the long-term effects of aspartame, impair memory.

Because low doses of aspartame are shown to inhibit acetylchoinesterase, just like pharmaceutical treatments for people with memory loss, when a healthy individual with normal cholinergic functioning, such as a young child for example, starts administering a cholinesterase inhibitor when no memory loss has occurred, aspartame ingestion (according to the study) will eventually lead to down-regulation of post synaptic ACH receptors, and ultimately disrupt memory and learning. In other words, a healthy child that snorts or eats concentrated powdered aspartame can impair their memory.

Yes, indeed, there is a new "high" sourced to the chemicals found in sugar-free foods with aspartame.

"Please help," writes this concerned mother. "What do you suggest I do to inform the doctors and schools, and what studies back up the facts?"

The concept of using aspartame for a high is a shocking and new reality check; a concept many people do not want to admit exists. It has taken decades for underage alcohol consumption and smoking to become a publicized issue, so snorting aspartame may fall in line behind years of very slow progress in this awareness arena. But, at least the cat is out of the bag, creating a new awareness that this type of aspartame abuse is, indeed, a reality. Hopefully through this new awareness, parents can help their children.

My best suggestion: remove ALL diet sweeteners and food chemicals from your home, and return to a natural diet with a history of little to no harm to your child's health and safety. Also, insist that ALL diet soft drinks and flavored waters be removed from the public schools K-12. Talk to your children, and teach them which foods are real and healthy for them, and which foods are manmade, phony replicas of nutrition, resulting in damage to their growth and maturity.

To your health!

"We are convinced that work with embryonic stem cells holds enormous promise," said Harvard provost Dr. Steven Hyman.

The privately funded work is aimed at devising treatments for such ailments as diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. Harvard is only the second American university to announce its venture into the challenging, politically charged research field.

The University of California, San Francisco, began efforts at embryo cloning a few years ago, only to lose a top scientist to England. It has since resumed its work but is not as far along as experiments already under way by the Harvard group.

A company, Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Alameda, Calif., is trying to restart its embryo cloning efforts. And British scientists said last year that they had cloned a human embryo, though without extracting stem cells.

Scientists have long held out the hope of "therapeutic cloning" against diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury. But such work has run into ethical objections, a ban on federal funding and the embarrassment of a spectacular scandal in South Korea.

Now, using private money to get around the federal financing ban, the Harvard researchers are joining the international effort to produce stem cells from cloned human embryos.

"We're in the forefront of this science and in some ways we're setting the bar for the rest of the world," said Dr. Leonard Zon of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Dr. George Daley of Children's Hospital Boston, a Harvard teaching hospital, said his lab has begun its experiments. He declined to describe the results so far, saying the work is in very early stages.

Two other members of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Douglas Melton and Kevin Eggan, have also received permission from a series of review boards to begin human embryo cloning, the institute announced.

Daley's work is aimed at eventually creating cells that can be used to treat people with such blood diseases as sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. Melton and Eggan plan to focus on diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders like Lou Gehrig's disease, striving to produce cells that can be studied in the lab to understand those disorders.

"We think that this research is very important, very promising, and we applaud Harvard for taking the initiative to move this work forward," said Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which supports cloning to produce stem cells.

Cloning an embryo means taking DNA from a person and inserting it into an egg, which is then grown for about five days until it is an early embryo, a hollow ball of cells smaller than a grain of sand. Stem cells can then be recovered from the interior, and spurred to give rise to specialized cells or tissues that carry the DNA of the donor.

So this material could be transplanted back into the donor without fear of rejection, perhaps after the disease-promoting defects in the DNA have been fixed. That strategy may someday be useful for treating diseases, though Daley said its use in blood diseases may be a decade or more away.

Daley's current research is using unfertilized eggs from an in-vitro fertilization clinic and DNA from embryos that were unable to produce a pregnancy. Both are byproducts of the IVF process and should provide a ready supply of material for research, Daley said in a statement. Later, his team hopes to use newly harvested eggs and DNA from patients.

Eggan said he and Melton will collaborate on work that uses DNA from skin cells of diabetes patients and eggs donated by women who will be reimbursed for expenses but not otherwise paid.

Harvesting stem cells destroys the embryo, one reason that therapeutic cloning has sparked ethical concerns. The Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, said he found the Harvard developments troubling.

By cloning human embryos to extract stem cells, he said, "you are creating life precisely to destroy it. You are making young humans simply to strip-mine them for their desired cells and parts. And that is at root a fundamentally immoral project that cannot be made moral, no matter how desirable the cells might be that would be procured."

Apart from the controversy, human embryo cloning has also been the subject of a gigantic fraud.

Hwang Woo-suk of Seoul National University in South Korea caused a sensation in February 2004 he and colleagues claimed to be the first to clone a human embryo and recover stem cells from it. He hit the headlines again in May of last year when he said his lab had created 11 lines of embryonic stem cells genetically matched to human patients.

But the promise came crashing down last December and January when Hwang's university concluded that both announcements were bogus.

The meeting was announced by Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the External Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, during a recent interview with Hubert Colin de Verdière, secretary-general of France's foreign ministry.

It was reported by Europaica, the bulletin of the Orthodox Church's representation to the European Union.

Metropolitan Kirill hopes the July 4-5 summit will "play an important part in the prevention of extremism."

It is expected that the summit will bring together heads or representatives of the Orthodox, pre-Chalcedon and Roman Catholic Churches.

The summit's organizers are also counting on the presence of Chinese religious leaders, and heads of the German Lutheran Church, the U.S. National Council of Churches, and chief rabbis of Israel, the United States and European countries; Muslim leaders of the countries of the Community of Independent States, of the Middle East and of the Arabian Peninsula; and Buddhists, Hindus, and executives of the Ecumenical Council of Churches and other international religious organizations.

The volcano alert was put on red -- indicating a feared imminent eruption -- on May 13 but residents have been particularly nervous since a deadly earthquake rocked the region 10 days ago.

Indonesian authorities evacuated thousands of people living in villages close to the peak of the volcano and many more joined them voluntarily as the volcanic rumblings escalated, officials said.

Experts fear that the mountain's growing lava dome could collapse, sending lava and dangerous heat clouds down Merapi's slopes.

In Kepuharjo high school, where more than 300 people have been staying since Monday night, women and children piled out of a truck that had collected them from the village of Petung, 5km from Merapi's peak.

Pailah, a 27-year-old who carried a bundle of clothes and pillows wrapped in a sarong, said she had evacuated her two children, aged eight and six, because she was scared.

"It [Merapi] was making noises and raining ashes," she said, adding "there were also sulphurous clouds".

In the village itself several men milled about, saying they were not afraid.

"We're already used to this," said Suparno, a 40-year-old farmer with six cows to feed.

Higher up the road in Kopeng, four women said they were taking gifts to a friend, living even further up the mountain in Jambu, who had planned to marry on Thursday.

"We are considered to be young enough to run away quickly, so we don't want to be evacuated," said 44-year-old Mujirah.

At a look-out point high up the mountain, one family of four had travelled on two motorbikes from Mgaglik at the base of Merapi to see the volcano in action.

"We brought our kids to see it," said Yanto, standing beside his wife and two children, aged five and 12.

In the district of Magelang -- one of three in the danger zone-- authorities were preparing to evacuate about 11 000 people from 15 hamlets.

"The evacuation is proceeding and will continue until late tonight," said Agung, an official from the district's disaster-management centre.

"It is no longer a mere call for the people to evacuate, they now have to evacuate. We are not taking any chance," Agung said, adding that the elderly, women and children were a priority.

By 10am GMT close to 6 000 people had already been evacuated, Agung said.

In Slamen, nearly 4 000 were evacuated by Monday evening and figures would not be updated until Wednesday. Officials in Klaten, the other affected zone, could not be reached.

About 22 000 villagers were evacuated following the initial alert last month but most had returned home by the time the earthquake hit the region.

The situation deteriorated on Tuesday as a natural ridge known as the Geger Boyo, which had so far helped contain larger lava flows to the south-west and west of the mountain, collapsed overnight, volcanologists said.