GTC Biotherapeutics said regulators cleared its drug Atryn, which is manufactured using milk from goats that have been scientifically altered to produce extra antithrombin, a protein that acts as a natural blood thinner. The drug's approval may be the first step toward new kinds of medications made not from chemicals, but FROM ANIMALS ALTERED BY SCIENTISTS. Similar drugs could be available in the next few years for a range of human ailments, including hemophilia.

The FDA cleared the drug to treat patients with a rare hereditary disorder that causes a deficiency of the protein, putting them at higher risk of deadly blood clots. The injectable treatment will be marketed in the U.S. by Deerfield, Ill.-based Ovation Pharmaceuticals. To make the drug, scientists from GTC put modified DNA, or rDNA, for the human antithrombin protein into single-cell embryos of goats. Goat embryos with the gene were then inserted into the wombs of surrogate mothers who gave birth to baby goats that produce the protein-charged milk.

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED, OR GE, ANIMALS ARE NOT CLONES BUT RATHER ANIMALS THAT HAVE HAD THEIR DNA CHANGED to produce a desirable characteristic. But consumer groups said the FDA's long-awaited policy will NOT REQUIRE ALL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS TO BE LABELED AS SUCH. And they said the government has not done enough to examine the potential impact of genetically engineered animals on the environment, particularly if some escape and begin to mate with animals in nature.

While politicians in Washington have liked to portray the scientist as some kind of dark mastermind of nuclear proliferation - former CIA Director George Tenet reportedly referred to him as "AT LEAST AS DANGEROUS AS OSAMA BIN LADEN" - Dr AQ Khan has always been a hero for many Pakistani people.

The reason for his popularity is simple - he is widely seen as having made Pakistan a nuclear state and delivered it a form of status and security that the country otherwise would profoundly lack. The reason for his notoriety is the belief that he also secretly helped other countries to develop their nuclear programmes. Many questions remain unanswered about his activities though, including what exactly he gave to whom.

Even last year there were reports that his network may have had copies of far more advanced nuclear weapons design than previously understood. So, whilst AQ Khan will be celebrating his release, Washington will be watching very closely.

The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need "exceptional" assistance in the future. The limits aren't retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won't be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more.

The new guidelines are the first salvo in a broader financial-rescue plan Obama plans to announce next week. The president and Congress have had to defend billions in aid to banks that continue to provide generous bonuses and luxury perks while posting record losses. Pay caps may provide the political cover the administration needs to deliver additional infusions of capital into the financial sector that may be necessary. SOME ANALYSTS SAID THE NEW RULES WOULDN'T HAVE MUCH EFFECT.

Obama, 47, "is not proposing to go back and get that $18.4 billion in bonuses back," Laura Thatcher, head of law firm Alston & Bird's executive compensation practice in Atlanta, said of the cash bonuses New York banks paid last year, the sixth-biggest haul in history. "RIGHT NOW, WE HAVE NOT CLAMPED DOWN" ON PAY AT BANKS.

"This economy needs support from the government, A CHECK FROM THE GOVERNMENT IN THE TRILLIONS," Gross said today in a Bloomberg Television interview from Pimco's headquarters in Newport Beach, California. "THERE IS A POTENTIAL CATASTROPHE IF THE US GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO FOCUS ON BILLIONS OF DOLLARS."

President Barack Obama has proposed a stimulus package intended to spur growth estimated at as much as $900 billion. The US economy shrank by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the most since 1982 as consumer spending recorded the worst slide in the postwar era, the Commerce Department said last week.

GOVERNMENT BORROWING WILL PROBABLY REACH $2.5 TRILLION DURING THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Speculation has risen that China, which holds $681.9 billion of Treasuries as the single largest investor in US debt, may stop or slow the purchases of US debt as its own economic growth slows.

Those subject to unlawful surveillance should be compensated while the policy of DNA retention should be rethought. The government said CCTV and DNA were "essential crime fighting tools". But surveillance and data collection must be proportionate, it added.

Civil liberties campaigners have warned about the risks of a "surveillance society" in which the state acquires ever-greater powers to track people's movements and retain personal data. Controversial government plans for a database to store details of people's phone calls and e-mails were put on hold late last year after they were branded "Orwellian".

In its report, the Lords constitution committee said growth in surveillance by both the state and the private sector risked threatening people's right to privacy, which it said was "an essential pre-requisite to the exercise of individual freedom". THE PUBLIC WERE OFTEN UNAWARE OF THE SCALE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION HELD AND EXCHANGED BY PUBLIC BODIES, it said. "There can be no justification for this gradual but incessant creep towards every detail about us being recorded and pored over by the state," committee chairman and Tory peer Lord Goodlad said.

However, there are concerns that savers will be hurt by lower interest rates. And business groups argue that this rate reduction will not be enough to ease the economic crisis, and will not encourage banks to lend. The decision comes after official data showed the UK had entered a recession in December, after two successive quarters of economic contraction. The Bank Rate has now been reduced from 5% in October last year.

In a statement, the Bank of England said that the rate cuts, along with government measures to boost the economy, "would provide a considerable stimulus to activity as the year progressed." The Ernst & Young Item Club supported the Bank's decision, but added that the economy was in "deep recession" and believed that interest rates should drop further - "possibly to zero". Hetal Mehta, senior economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club, highlighted the "difficult task" the Bank faced.

In contrast to the Bank of England the European Central Bank kept eurozone rates on hold at 2% on Thursday.

Speaking in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday (4 February), Mr Abbas said the time had come for the international community to step in, detailing the suffering of Gazan civilians during the January offensive by the Israeli military.

"I would like to stress again our request for the sending of international forces in order to protect our people," he said. "Until when will Israel retain a free hand to destroy the assets and infrastructure of our people?" Mr Abbas asked. He also pointed out that some of the infrastructure destroyed during the three weeks of fighting was paid for by the European Union. "We must not deal with Israel as if it is a state above accountability, above international law," Mr Abbas said.

He also criticised Hamas for bringing destruction to Gaza and said that the movement's leader, Khaled Mashaal, could be taken to court in another country for "drawing his people to this destruction." Rights activists say Gaza's Hamas rulers and other Palestinian groups committed war crimes by targeting Israeli civilians with rockets. They also say Hamas' use of human shields, as alleged by Israel, would constitute war crimes.

Now, in "Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World," author and filmmaker Gregory M. Davis reveals why. Setting out the shocking teachings of the Qur'an and other Islamic holy books, Davis shows that the MUSLIMS WHO COMMIT VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF ISLAM ARE NOT DISTORTING THE TEACHINGS OF A GREAT RELIGION - IN FACT, THEY'RE CARRYING THEM OUT FAITHFULLY. Davis proves beyond any shadow of doubt that the jihadists the Leftist media has assured us are "extremists" are actually in the mainstream.

In traditional, mainstream Islam, he explains, religion and politics have from the beginning been intertwined and inseparable - and no higher law exists beyond Muhammad's bloody teachings and example. Davis details how Islamic theology divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat: the "House of Islam" and the "House of War."

He shows why Islam is not a religion in the way Westerners usually understand the term, but rather a form of totalitarianism, a cruel and ferocious belief system that orders its adherents to conquer and subdue all those outside the fold. He demonstrates that Muhammad's words and deeds, and the ISLAMIC LAW that has been formulated from them, have FAR MORE IN COMMON WITH NAZISM THAN WITH THE TENETS OF CHRISTIANITY OR JUDAISM.

It comes after Carol Thatcher was axed from her role on a BBC show for referring to a tennis player as a golliwog in a private conversation. A spokesman for the estate said: "The management of the shop have said they did not intend to offend anyone by selling this product and have apologised if any offence has been caused. The shop will immediately review its purchasing policy." The male and female dolls cost £9.99 and were available at the shop for more than a year.

The Queen is not personally involved in deciding what is sold in the shop. Sandringham has been the private home of four generations of British monarchs since 1862. Its visitor centre, which includes the gift shop as well as a restaurant and plant centre, has more than 250,000 visitors a year.

Turning the sea into drinking water is at the heart of Western Australia's multi-faceted approach to satisfying the thirst of a booming population that lives on the edge of a desert. The corporation opened the southern hemisphere's first desalination plant, south of Perth, in November 2006. Powered by a wind farm, the move was prompted by the driest winter ever recorded in Western Australia (WA) - a region that was among the first to see the effects of a shifting climate.

"2001 was the winter from hell, and we only get our rainfall in winter," Dr Gill told BBC News. "It was unbelievably dry, and we postulated the scenario of another two or three years like that and frankly we were going to have to shut Perth down."

For 20 years, Ernie Bridge, a former state minister for water resources, has championed the idea of channelling supplies through a 2,200km pipe from the Kimberley region. "It would shore up Perth for the next 100 years and would be a pretty easy project to construct," he asserted. "I can never understand a country like Australia seriously turning to desalination when you've got that abundance of surface water available to us in the north."

The Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters posted a notice on its Web site calling it A DROUGHT "RARELY SEEN IN HISTORY." President Hu Jintao had called on provincial officials to fight the drought and ensure that there is a summer grain harvest, the notice said.

China suffers from an uneven distribution of its water resources. Weather patterns in the arid north and flood-prone south cost the government tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity each year. The latest drought began in November and has affected 24 million acres (9.73 million hectares) of crops, one-third of them seriously, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Most of the hardest-hit provinces were in northern China, with several in the east. In recent days, news broadcasts have shown dry, cracked farm fields and crops withering in the ground.

Almost half of the wheat-growing areas in the eight provinces — Hebei, Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu — were threatened, Xinhua said, WHILE NEARLY 4 MILLION PEOPLE LACKED PROPER DRINKING WATER.

The oceanside enclave in Marin County has enacted some of the state's toughest water restrictions. Each customer - with the exception of schools and some businesses - may use no more than 150 gallons a day, about 4,500 gallons each month. A third violation of the order would allow the Bolinas Community Public Utility District to cut off water.

Without drastic cutbacks, officials say, the community of 1,200 could run out of water by the end of April. The town on the southern end of the Point Reyes Peninsula already is drawing from two emergency reservoirs, one of which is effectively empty. "People are worried," said Jennifer Blackman, general manager of the utility district, which authorized the measures last week. "IT'S UNSETTLING TO BE INFORMED THAT A RESOURCE WHICH IS NECESSARY TO LIFE IS LIMITED IN THIS WAY."

"It's August out here," said Bill Pierce, chief water and wastewater operator for the utility district. "The hills are brown - they should be green. The stream flows are a trickle, people don't understand how bad this is going to get."

Obama announced the dramatic new government intervention into corporate America at the White House, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side. The president said the executive-pay limits are a first step, to be followed by the unveiling next week of a sweeping new framework for spending what remains of the $700 billion financial industry bailout that Congress created last year.

The executive-pay move comes amid a national outcry over huge bonuses to executives heading companies seeking taxpayer dollars to remain afloat. The demand for limits was reinforced by revelations that Wall Street firms paid more than $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 even amid the economic downturn and the massive infusion of taxpayer dollars.

"This is America. We don't disparage wealth. We don't begrudge anybody for achieving success," Obama said. "But what gets people upset - and rightfully so - are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers."

By 1993, then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari stripped three zeros from the currency and renamed it the Nuevo (or New) Peso. The transition from worthless to one Nuevo Peso to one U.S. dollar was done in three years from January 1, 1993 to January 1, 1996. The word "nuevo" was removed from the currency and it returned to be called "peso".

NOW IT IS 2009 AND WHAT APPEARS TO BE LOOMING, according to one authoritative press report this weekend, IS A MASSIVE PRE-EMPTIVE DEVALUATION OF THE U.S. DOLLAR as Team Obama readies itself to announce the "Big Bang" – a gigantic bailout of the frozen U.S. economy involving trillions of dollars. So far, Washington has allocated US$750 billion for banking rescues and another US$825 billion for job creation projects.

It's ironic that the "Big Bang" was used to describe this comprehensive re-regulation and restructuring of a broken financial system worldwide. The first "Big Bang" in the late 1980s started in the UK and led to a massive deregulation and restructuring of financial markets that probably led to the bad practices that are now being dealt with.

The vote could see the first European Union government - and the second in Europe after Iceland - felled by the financial and economic turmoil that has hit Latvia harder than most other states in the 27-member bloc. On Tuesday, the country's agriculture minister resigned in the wake of farmer protests that blocked the main road around the capital, Riga, and saw the agriculture ministry building surrounded by tractors. The farmers lit bonfires outside the ministry building and demanded the minister resign.

In imitation of similar actions by Greek farmers in recent days, thousands of tractor-driving farmers headed to Riga, bringing traffic to a halt on a number of motorways - the second such action in a week. The government convened an emergency meeting out of which emerged €34 million (22m lats) in fresh aid for the farmers. Shortly after Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis announced the decision, the agriculture minister, Martyns Roze, fell on his sword.