The figures highlight how marriage has substantially fallen out of favour. From a peak in 1940, when 426,1000 young couples - spurred on by the urgency of World War II - married for the first time, just 147,130 marriages in 2008 were where both partners were getting wed for the first time. In total, just 228,204 marriages took place during 2008 in England and Wales.

The escalating cost of weddings, and the failure of the Government to support the institution of marriage were among the factors blamed. Though, long-term changes in society, especially the increase in the number of women working and their desire to get married later in life, are also key factors. The average age of women marrying for the first time has nearly hit the symbolic 30-year-old barrier, at 29.9, up from 29.8 during 2007. For men, the average age of getting married for the first time was 32.1 years, up from 32 the previous year.

Many expressed sadness at the statistics. Dave Percival, a campaigner for marriage, said: "Living together and marriage are increasingly seen as the same by the public, yet the outcomes are radically different. Two thirds of all the first marriages in 2008 can be expected to last a lifetime. Less than 10 per cent of cohabiting relationships last even to their tenth anniversary."

Mr Miliband argued the evidence should remain secret as it was based on intelligence passed on by America. But three judges rejected his case after a US court published details of the ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee's treatment during CIA questioning in Pakistan in 2002. It said the Ethiopian refugee, 31 - who lives in Britain - faced "sleep deprivation and threats" and was "shackled" when questioned.

It said his treatment was "cruel, inhuman and degrading". Mr Miliband told MPs the case had been followed "with a great deal of concern" by the US. He discussed the matter with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. He said: "Intelligence belonging to another country should not be released without its agreement." He added Britain "firmly opposes" torture.

The 8 billion pound pension fund is likely to come under close scrutiny over its commitment to promote a low-carbon economy while struggling to reverse an estimated 2 billion pound deficit. Concerns are growing that BBC journalists and their bosses regard disputed scientific theory that climate change is caused by mankind as "mainstream" while huge sums of employees' money is invested in companies whose success depends on the theory being widely accepted. The fund, which has 58,744 members, accounts for about 8 pound of the 142.50 pound licence fee and the proportion looks likely to rise while programme budgets may have to be cut to help reduce the deficit.

The BBC is the only media organisation in Britain whose pension fund is a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which has more than 50 members across Europe. Its chairman is Peter Dunscombe, also the BBC's Head of Pensions Investment. Prominent among its recent campaigns was a call for a "strong and binding" global agreement on climate change - one that fell on deaf ears after the UN climate summit in Copenhagen failed to reach agreement on emissions targets and a cut in greenhouse gases.

Stephanie Harris, Head of Accountability at BBC News, said: "BBC News takes the view that our reporting needs to be calibrated to take into account the scientific consensus that global warming is man-made." She went on to quote from a BBC-commissioned report published in June 2007, which said: "There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening and that it is at least predominantly man-made. The weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to opponents of the consensus."

A number of companies tired of constantly changing tax regimes and onerous regulations introduced under Labour have already moved abroad. And many business leaders have become increasingly infuriated with the Government for hitting hardest those British firms that make large slices of their profit overseas. Unilever chief executive Paul Polman is the latest to fire a warning shot.

In an interview with the Daily Mail he said: 'We already have a tougher economic environment because consumers have less money to spend. If on top of that we would get an additional regulatory or tax environment that would make us non-competitive that would be unfortunate for the UK.' The UK has one of the highest corporation tax rates in Europe, while the return to 17.5 per cent VAT will also deal a blow to firms.

High-earners from April will be hit with Gordon Brown's 50p tax rate, a move which some critics have said will trigger an exodus of workers.

Mr Polman said: 'We do have choices where we put research laboratories, choices for manufacturing facilities and choices where we put our senior management. Any responsible businessman needs to continue to assess that within an everchanging global environment.' Unilever has now expanded into 100 countries, employs 174,000 workers around the world - 9,000 in the UK - and is worth 25 billion pounds. It is the 19th largest company in the the UK and profit last year was 3.5 billion pounds. Mr Polman is concerned about rising corporate tax, which currently stands at 28 per cent and is levied on profit.

The Prime Minister will this morning arrive in Brussels for a crucial European leaders' summit amid fears that the UK could get dragged into a full European Union bail out plan. Downing Street, however, insisted that the focus of responsibility should fall on the eurozone countries and, failing that, a G20 group of leading nations solution.

Last night European officials were involved in furious efforts to try and complete a 20 billion euros rescue package, designed to halt the looming crisis in Greece before it spreads to other countries. France and Germany were at the forefront of the eurozone negotiations. However, Mr Brown - when challenged in the Commons over Britain's position - was unable to rule out Britain's involvement in a Greek rescue package.

The package would involve credit assurances being given to Greece to enable it to start borrowing money again at affordable rates - something that has been impossible because of its credit rating. But the issue of other countries needing urgent help, as well as Greece, is also pressing. The economies of both Spain and Portugal are in serious trouble as their deficits spiral. It means a total rescue package for the so-called PIGS - Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain - could be as high as 60 billion euros.

EU rules prevent eurozone members from jointly bailing out Greece. But bilateral help might be forthcoming. It is the first big test for European Council President Herman Van Rompuy. He wants the summit to focus on a new strategy for jobs and growth - a blueprint for the next 10 years. The other main agenda items are climate change and help for earthquake-devastated Haiti.

Other eurozone countries with big deficits, such as Portugal and Spain, are seen as vulnerable if Greece's budget crisis is not tackled resolutely. The talks are all the more urgent coming just hours after a public sector strike brought many services to a standstill in Greece. The government's decision to freeze public sector salaries and raise the retirement age are among the austerity measures that have angered Greek trade unions.

The European Commission is working on the blueprint for the EU's new economic strategy, called Europe 2020, which is expected by early March. It will replace the Lisbon Strategy, launched in 2000, which became a victim of the global financial crisis and of fiscal rule-breaking by EU governments. Mr Van Rompuy is reported to favour tighter EU co-ordination of economic policy and enhanced EU surveillance of member states' budgets.

The jury's ruling in a St Louis court against Bayer's CropScience division follows a related case in December, in which Bayer was ordered to pay $2 million, the chemicals and drugmaker said on Friday after the close of trading in Germany. "The company will assess this ruling thoroughly and consider its options," a Bayer spokesman in Germany said. "Bayer CropScience is standing by its view that the company has handled its biotech rice responsibly and appropriately at all times," he added.

A rice variety whose genetic code had been modified by a Bayer subsidiary for research purposes and which was not approved for commercial cultivation was found in the food supply chain in August 2006 after it had been tested by a US university. As a result, Japan and the European Union restricted US rice from crossing their borders, leading to a plunge in rice prices, a drop in exports and extensive losses incurred by US rice farmers.

"Since the amounts claimed differ considerably from case to case, the rulings so far do not allow for conclusions regarding the outcome of the remaining cases pending," Bayer said. The long-grain rice in question had a protein known as Liberty Link, which allows the crop to withstand applications of a certain weed killer.

The reserve bubble is actually an Asia-wide phenomenon. And we should stop viewing this monetary arms race as a source of strength. Here are three reasons why it's fast becoming a bigger liability than policy makers say publicly.

One, it's a massive and growing pyramid scheme. The issue has reached new levels of absurdity with traders buzzing about crisis-plagued Greece seeking a Chinese bailout. After all, if economies were for sale, China could use the $453 billion of reserves it amassed last year to buy Greece and Vietnam and have enough left over for Mongolia.

Two, reserves are dead money. The wisdom of currency stockpiling came from the chaos of 1997. Speculators sensed authorities in Thailand were sitting on few reserves, and they were right. Their attack on the Thai baht set the stage for an Asian meltdown. Governments spent the 2000s determined not to repeat the mistake.

Three, reserves add to overheating risks. When policymakers buy dollars, they need to sell local currency, increasing its availability and boosting the money supply. Next they sell bonds to mop up excess money in economies. It's an imprecise science that often leads to accelerating inflation. The strategy works out to be an expensive one.

Think about how Dubai shook the global economy, or how the mere hint that Chinese growth may dip below 8 percent inspires panic. These disappointments pale in comparison with the turbulence that may come from Asia's biggest bubble popping.

This already has been communicated to American securities dealers, according to market participants with direct knowledge of the events. It is not clear whether China's motive is simple risk aversion in the wake of a sharp widening of corporate and mortgage spreads during the past two weeks, or whether there also is a political dimension. With the expected termination of the Federal Reserve's special facility to purchase mortgage-backed securities next month, some asset-backed spreads already have blown out, and the Chinese institutions may simply be trying to get out of the way of a widening.

There is some speculation that China's action has to do with the recent deterioration of US-Chinese relations over arm sales to Taiwan and other issues. That would be an unusual action for the Chinese to take - Beijing does not mix investment and strategic policy - and would be hard to substantiate in any event.

Hariri also complained in an interview published early Wednesday by the British Broadcasting System (BBC) that the Israel Air Force enters Lebanon's air space daily, which he claimed was a "threat" to the country. The statements are a turnabout for Hariri, in the past a moderate, and son of the assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who was anti-Syrian and who was backed by Western nations as well. The current prime minister also leads a coalition of political groups known as the March 14 Alliance, which in 2005 led mass demonstrations and with Western assistance pressured Syria to withdraw from Lebanon after a 29-year occupation.

Earlier this week, Syrian President Bashar Assad assured Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri that Damascus would "stand alongside the government and the people of Lebanon against any possible Israeli aggression." The two men met Sunday in the Syrian capital to discuss "repeated Israeli threats on countries in the region and Israeli extremism which can... bring war to the region", according to the official SANA news agency.

Hizbullah terrorists have been "importing" weapons from Iran through the Syrian border since the end of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The United Nations Resolution 1701 ceasefire agreement was to prevent such activity through deployment of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Men like Wilhelm Nolling, former member of the German Central Bank Council, and Wilhelm Hankel, an economics professor critical of the euro, have been out of the spotlight for years. In the 1990s, they fought against the introduction of the common currency, even calling on Germany's high court to prevent the creation of the euro zone. But none of it worked.

Now both men are in demand again, and the old euro critics' beliefs are more relevant than ever. Were the skeptics right back then, when they said Europe wasn't ready for the euro zone? Were the differences too great and the politicians too weak to ensure a strict and stable course? Is the euro's high flight over now too? The news these days is alarming. It's causing a commotion on financial markets and intense discussion in capitals across Europe, as well as in Frankfurt, seat of the European Central Bank (ECB).

Accruing debt is becoming increasingly expensive for other countries in the euro zone as well, among them Portugal and Spain. The southern members of the euro zone are especially being eyed with mistrust. Speculators are betting that bonds will continue to fall and that, eventually, the countries won't be able to borrow any more money at all. State bankruptcies are seen as a possibility. "We've reached a point where it's possible to deal individual countries a lethal blow by downgrading their credit and boycotting their government bonds," Nolling warns.

Doing nothing is not an option. In light of the national debt in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, the euro zone is in danger of transforming from a "common destiny to a common liability," Nolling says. And so it won't be any ordinary meeting when finance ministers from the 16-euro zone countries meet for a regularly scheduled get-together in Brussels next Monday. The European Commission plans to assign each country homework to be completed in the coming years.

Downtown Washington resembled a ghost town with its 230,000 federal workers at home for a second day on Tuesday and many shops shut or closing early as more snow was predicted to pound the US East Coast, bringing another 9 more inches of snow. Offices were remaining closed at least through Wednesday.

Airports in Washington were closing early Tuesday, roughly a day after they reopened for service following the weekend storm. Most airlines canceled flights through Wednesday so their planes don't get stuck in the snow. Before snow began falling Tuesday night, lawmakers had already had trouble getting to the capital due to reduced flights and the House of Representatives had decided to scrap its entire work week.

In the past couple of days the US capital and its surrounding areas have seen as much snow as they normally see in a year and if the 9 inches predicted fall on Tuesday night it could become the snowiest winter since records were first kept in 1884. Nearby states were also bracing for another dumping and several had called a state of emergency. Meanwhile, in New York the United Nations announced that it would be closed Wednesday.

In the capital, government workers jostled with other residents in supermarket check-out lines, often 30-people long, to stock up on whatever staples were still available. Delivery trucks had trouble reaching many area supermarkets, leaving customers seeking cheese, fresh fruits and vegetables and even Diet Coke staring at empty shelves. "It's embarrassing that the world's largest superpower closes from a few feet of snow," said Alex Krause, 23, of Los Angeles, who was stranded in Washington and visiting the National Mall. "The Kremlin must be laughing."

Toyota has already had to bring millions of other vehicles back to dealerships amid accelerator and floormat problems. Honda - Japan's second-biggest carmaker - said the defective airbags can overinflate and burst, spraying potentially deadly metal shards. The fault has already been linked to 11 injuries and one fatality. Its shares fell in Japan after the announcement.

Just last month, Honda had to recall 650,000 Fit hatchbacks worldwide to fix a switch defect that could cause a fire. It said the fault could allow water to enter the power window mechanism, making components overheat. For Toyota, the problems continued as a US Congressional committee cast doubts on its plans to fix accelerator problems. A memo to lawmakers cited "substantial evidence" of redesigned floormats failing to stop the pedals sticking.

On Tuesday, Toyota recalled 436,000 hybrid vehicles worldwide, including its latest Prius, to fix brake faults. That comes on top of more than 8 million Toyotas recalled since last October for problems with slipping floormats and sticking accelerator pedals, linked to crashes that have killed at least 19 people.

The last time the Sun reached a peak in activity, satellite navigation was barely a consumer product. But the Sun is on its way to another solar maximum, which could generate large and unpredictable sat-nav errors. Solar flares - vast exhalations of magnetic energy from the Sun's surface - spray out radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-energy radio waves through to high-energy gamma-rays, along with bursts of high-energy particles toward the Earth.

The radiation or waves that come from the Sun can make sat-nav receivers unable to pick out the weak signal from satellites from the solar flare's aftermath. There is little that current technology can do to mitigate this problem, with the exception of complex directional antennas used in military applications. Sat-nav receivers will be blinded for tens of minutes, probably a few times a year at the solar maximum.

The effects that sat-nav users will face, however, are difficult to predict. "We can look at the measurements from the last solar maximum," Professor Mitchell said. "If we project those forward, it varies quite a lot across the Earth; looking at the UK it will be about 10-metre errors in the positioning." The errors would be much more long-lasting than the "blindness" problem, lasting hours or even days.

So as the Sun builds up to its crescendo in a few years' time, be aware that your sat-nav may for a time give some strange results - or for a short while none at all.

European governments have been drawing up plans for a possible bail-out of Greece, amid fears it could be spiralling towards debt default. Worries about the health of public finances are also spreading to other countries. Speculators believe these states will be unable to meet their obligations to lenders and have taken up a short position on the currency. More than 40,000 deals have been made betting against the single currency, according to analysis of figures from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Some analysts claim the crisis is so deep the future of the euro could be put in peril, driving the value of the single currency lower.

Yesterday sterling traded at 1.14 euros.

The numbers underline the growing sense of panic about the euro zone's ability to cope with the government debt turmoil.

Economist Richard McGuire of RBC Capital Markets said: 'It is almost as if the banking crisis is now being replayed in the sovereign (government debt) space. The market concerns have this almost self-fulfilling quality to them.' Politicians are desperately trying to convince market players that they are serious about taking the debt-cutting measures needed to shore up their national finances.

But in Greece, the eye of the current storm, opposition to public spending cuts is growing. Some 600,000 state workers, from teachers to tax collectors, are planning to strike for 24 hours later this week as they protest the austerity measures planned by Prime Minister George Papandreou. Fiscal woes are hardly confined to the euro zone, however. British government bonds took a fresh hit amid claims the UK bears alarming similarities to those of Greece, Portugal and Spain.