The first steps in a move to charge for every e mail sent have already been taken. Under the pretext of eliminating spam, Bill Gates and other industry chieftains have proposed Internet users buy credit stamps which denote how many e mails they will be able to send. This of course is the death knell f or political newsletters and mailing lists.

The New York Times reports that "America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely."

The end game is a system similar to China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized.

The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Court cases are pending after the Bush administration demanded the Google search terms of American citizens.

The first wave will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported last week, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency.

According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."

We see a move to demonize the Internet and tar its reputation. AOL is running ads equating Internet users with terrorists. In the next few years we may see a staged Internet shutdown which is blamed on cyber terrorists.

For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short-term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison.

Mr Blair told Michael Parkinson, in an interview being screened on Saturday, how he had struggled with his conscience when making decisions about a potential war in Iraq.

"When you're faced with a decision like that, some of those decisions have been very, very difficult, most of all because you know these are people's lives and, in some case, their deaths," he said.

"The only way you can take a decision like that is to do the right thing according to your conscience."

He added: "In the end, there is a judgement that, I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people."

Asked to explain what he meant, Mr Blair replied: "If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."

Red Caps killed

Mr Keys, who stood in the 2005 General Election as an anti-war candidate in Mr Blair's constituency of Sedgefield, said going to war had been a "catastrophic political blunder".

Mr Keys' son, Lance Corporal Tom Keys, was one of six Red Caps killed by an Iraqi mob in Majar Al-Kabir in June 2003.

"War should be the final option that a prime minister takes when all avenues have failed. In my view those other avenues hadn't failed," said Mr Keys, the founder of campaign group Military Families Against The War.

"God doesn't come into this at all. We want to believe that our... loved ones... died for a justified cause, not some delusional religious cause."

He accused Mr Blair of "jumping on the same bandwagon" as US President George W Bush.

"Are we really seeing over 100 coffins coming back [to the UK] because God told him [Mr Blair] to go to war?"

Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed in Basra in 2004, said: "A good Christian wouldn't be for this war.

"I'm actually quite disgusted by the comments. It's a joke."

Dr Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP and honorary associate of the National Secular Society, said Mr Blair's comments were "bizarre" and warned against politicians making "references to deity" in public life.

However, Mr Pound told BBC Two's Newsnight that Mr Blair was being "painfully honest" and, as he would not be seeking re-election as prime minister, his comments should be taken as apolitical.

"If this was anything to do with trying to appeal to the electorate, he wouldn't be so excruciatingly honest," he said.

"If he was trying to go that awful American route of guns, gods and gays and try to link politics to religion, then he wouldn't be doing it this way."

Few political parties more fully deserved to lose a democratic election than Fatah, the corrupt, ramshackle Palestinian faction that has held a virtual monopoly on power since the Palestinian territories won a measure of self-government. Fatah's comprehensive defeat at the hands of Hamas, in elections that all international monitors agreed were fair, reflect the anger and frustration of 1.3 million Palestinian voters at the feuding, mismanagement and corruption of the late Yassir Arafat's cronies who have dominated the Fatah-led governments in the West Bank and Gaza. The electors have seen the ministerial villas amid the Gaza slums. They have suffered from the lawlessness. And they have seen huge sums donated from abroad squandered while the Palestinian economy stagnated. This is Arafat's true legacy.

Little wonder, therefore, that voters turned instead to Hamas, the Islamic militant group committed to the destruction of Israel. Swiftly learning the populist tricks of electioneering, Hamas ran an effective campaign. It played down its militant philosophy and played up its role in providing schools, clinics and welfare support for Gaza's slum-dwellers. Despite clashes with rival factions, it exercised restraint on polling day to win more than half the seats in the 132-member parliament in a turnout of 78 per cent. Ahmad Qureia, the Prime Minister, and his Cabinet promptly resigned.

The Hamas win is, nevertheless, a huge blow to the peace process, arguably far more serious than the incapacitating stroke of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister. Israel, the US and Europe have said that they will have nothing to do with Hamas unless it renounces violence and recognises Israel's right to exist. But effective government by the Palestinian Authority (PA) is impossible without a myriad of daily interactions with the Israelis. It is not only water supplies, fiscal stability, trade and movement that are intertwined with Israel; but Palestinians' chances of working inside Israel, getting through security barriers or leaving the country are wholly dependent on the overall security relationship.

Hamas may hope to concentrate at first on cleaner, more transparent government. It will soon find that without Israeli co-operation it can deliver almost nothing. Even if it no longer sponsors suicide bombings ­ it has carried out nearly 60 such attacks since 2000 ­ Hamas risks Israeli military retaliation and international isolation if it makes no effort to halt terrorist operations by its supporters or, crucially, by Islamic Jihad, the rival organisation that boycotted the elections. Much depends on its security policy and on whom it appoints to office.

How should the world react? Arab governments forecast, lamely, that Hamas will become more moderate and should be treated as any election winner. The West, which has long urged greater democracy in the region, accepts that an election verdict, however uncomfortable, must be accepted ­ but not, as Condoleezza Rice said yesterday, if Hamas has one foot in politics and one in terror. Europe must not settle for a messy verbal compromise on relations with Israel.

As the largest provider of funds for the PA, the European Union has, for too long, turned a blind eye to embezzlement. If Hamas can provide cleaner government while abjuring violence, Europe can continue support. If it does neither, both funding and acceptance should be promptly withdrawn. The EU funded Arafat's corruption. It must not finance Hamas terrorism.

"We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets" by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability, White said.

"I'm much more worried about the consequences of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear infrastructure," which would prompt vigorous Iranian retaliation, he said, than civil war in Iraq, which could be confined to that country.President George W. Bush has stressed he is seeking a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

But he has not taken the military option off the table and his recent rhetoric, plus tougher financial sanctions and actions against Iranian involvement in Iraq, has revived talk in Washington about a possible U.S. attack on Iran.
The Bush administration and many of its Gulf allies have expressed growing concern about Iran's rising influence in the region and the prospect of it acquiring a nuclear weapon.

There were fresh calls for a European Union tax as MEPs rejected the budget deal painstakingly won by Tony Blair. The Prime Minister faced fierce criticism when he surrendered 7 billion pounds of Britain's annual rebate to get agreement last month. But the package signed up to by EU leaders was embarrassingly rejected by MEPs who said it did not meet Europe's needs.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, who succeeded Mr Blair as EU President, suggested the EU should now become self-financing to avoid such wrangling. Speaking to Euro MEPs through an interpreter, the Chancellor conceded the idea was not popular everywhere. But Mr Schuessel said it was his job as EU President to make necessary proposals even if they were unpopular.

That will infuriate the UK Government, particularly Chancellor Gordon Brown. Gary Titley, leader of the British Labour MEPs, rejected the idea but suggested a "levy" system could be adopted across the EU. "There is an argument for saying instead of having this rather unsavoury argument every year where member states say 'we will give that, but want that back etc' there is a more rational system of financing," he said. "A European tax is not acceptable. It would have to be agreed unanimously and I can't see that would be agreed unanimously."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is visiting South America, said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that Israel and its allies would not dare attack his country.

The remarks were made after Ahmadinejad was asked to refer to a British report that Israel plans to strike sites related to Iran 's nuclear program.
"They are aware of Iran's strength. I believe they will not do such a stupid thing, and its masters won't as well? Everyone knows that the Zionist regime has nuclear weapons while Iran abides by the international laws," the Iranian president said.

"This regime wants to hurt the Iranian people," Ahmadinejad added. "They have many dreams but they are not so strong." Ahmadinejad was asked in the interview whether he wants to see Israel destroyed, but failed to provide a direct answer. He referred in his answer to things he said in the past about Israel being wiped off the map "like the Soviet Union was wiped off the map." Where is the Soviet Union? It vanished," the president said. "We are not interested in war, we are only trying to solve the problem called the Zionist regime, which is the source of hatred."

In the interview, Ahmadinejad once again expressed his doubts over the Holocaust's existence. "If the Holocaust indeed took place, where did it take place? Why are the Palestinians to blame?" He said, reiterating his stance that what Europe's Jews went through during World War II did not justify the theft of Palestinian lands by Israel.

Despite the large number of casualties at the time, doctors had no way to preserve tissue samples taken from infected patients, so researchers used an ingenious method to overcome this. The preserved body of a flu victim buried in Alaskan permafrost was exhumed, and they painstakingly extracted the genetic material needed to work out the structure of the H1N1 virus. Then, in a maximum "biosafety" facility at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory they reconstructed a fully functioning virus, and infected macaque monkeys to see what would happen.

Writing in the journal Nature, they reported that the results were startling. Symptoms appeared within 24 hours of exposure to the virus, and the subsequent destruction of lung tissue was so widespread that, had the monkeys not been put to sleep a few days later, they would literally have drowned in their own blood. The results match those seen when mice were infected in an earlier study and are very similar to those described in human patients at the time the virus was at its height.

Darwyn Kobasa, a research scientist with the Public Health Agency of Canada, and lead author of the research, defended the decision to recreate one of the most dangerous viruses in history. He said: "This research provides an important piece in the puzzle of the 1918 virus, helping us to better understand influenza viruses and their potential to cause pandemics." However, it is not the virus that is directly causing the damage to the lungs - it is the body's own response to infection.

Immune system proteins that can damage infected tissue were found at much higher levels following H1N1 infection compared with other viral infections. Analysis at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW) revealed that a key component of the immune system, a gene called RIG-1 appeared to be involved. Levels of the protein produced by the gene were lower in tissue infected with the 1918 virus, suggesting it had a method of switching it off, causing immune defences to run wild.

This ability to alter the body's immune response is shared with the most recent candidate for mutation into a pandemic strain, the H5N1 avian flu. Experts are worried that if the virus changes so that it can infect humans easily, it could again be far more lethal than normal seasonal flu. "What we see with the 1918 virus in infected monkeys is also what we see with H5N1 viruses," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led the analysis at UW. "Things may be happening at an early time point (in infection), but we may be able to step in and stop that reaction."

Dr Ronald Cutler, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of East London, said: "Knowing how that over stimulation takes place could lead to the development of new methods to treat these diseases so we are better prepared for any future pandemic." Dr Jim Robertson from the UK's National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, said the decision to recreate the virus was justified. "Many influenza virologists remain nervous about creating and experimenting with a reconstructed 1918 Spanish flu virus, an extremely dangerous virus which disappeared from the world long ago.

The emir was the 13th ruler of a 245-year-old dynasty that has ruled Kuwait since the Anaiza tribe, to which the al-Sabahs belonged, migrated from the Arabian hinterland. Since the fall of Saddam in 2003 and US calls for change in the Middle East, the ruling family had come under intense pressure from both Islamists and pro-Western liberals to loosen its grip on the government and share power.

The ruling family had also been under pressure from parliament and elders within its ranks to break with tradition and replace the ailing crown prince. The succession process alternates between the two branches of the ruling family - al-Jabers and al-Salems.

Kuwait, a founder OPEC member, enjoys one of the world's highest standards of living, despite its reliance on oil exports, unpredictable oil income and huge losses from the 1990-1991 Iraq occupation. It hosts up to 30,000 US troops and some 13,000 US citizens live in the country. Kuwait has cracked down on Islamists opposing the US military presence in the country. Diplomats say radical Islam is taking hold among Kuwaiti youth.

In December, a Kuwaiti court sentenced to death six suspected militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda for bloody attacks in the country. The six were among 37 Islamists on trial as members of the "Peninsula Lions" group believed to be linked to al Qaeda in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Kuwaitis are mainly Sunni Muslims and about a third of them are Shi'ites, many of them of Iranian descent

China has resolved to shift some of its foreign exchange reserves - now in excess of $800 billion - away from the US dollar and into other world currencies in a move likely to push down the value of the greenback, a high-level state economist who advises the nation's economic policymakers said in an interview Monday.

As China's manufacturing industries flood the world with cheap goods, the Chinese central bank has invested roughly three-fourths of its growing foreign currency reserves in US Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated assets. The new policy reflects China's fears that too much of its savings is tied up in the dollar, a currency widely expected to drop in value as the US trade and fiscal deficits climb.

China now boasts the world's second-largest cache of foreign exchange - behind only Japan - and is on pace to see its reserves climb past $1 trillion later this year. Even a slight diminishing of the dollar as a percentage of those holdings could exert significant pressure on the US currency, many economists assert.

"The general trend for the US dollar is continuously weakening," Yu said, speaking to reporters at a conference in Beijing last month. "Countries with huge foreign-exchange reserves will have their assets shrunken."

Even if a Chinese shift away from the dollar weakened the currency, that would probably not soothe tensions with those in Washington calling for an increase in the value of the yuan to help US manufacturers. Unless China severs the link between the value of its currency and the dollar - a move Beijing says could destabilize its economy - then a weaker dollar would simply mean a weaker yuan as well, leaving in place the current debate over whether China's export earnings are being netted unfairly.

Dr Hwang's landmark claim to have cloned human embryonic stem cells was false, a university panel concluded. But the panel, which last month rejected other research by Dr Hwang, has accepted that he did create the world's first cloned dog.

Dr Hwang has admitted errors, but claims his work was sabotaged. State prosecutors are now expected to look into the case. The BBC correspondent in Seoul, Charles Scanlon, says the conclusion of the university's investigation completes the disgrace of Dr Hwang, who was South Korea's most celebrated scientist.

Dr Hwang claimed in a 2004 paper published in the US journal Science that his team had produced a line of stem cells from a cloned human embryo. The achievement was judged to be a major scientific breakthrough in the search for cures for a range of degenerative diseases including diabetes and Parkinson's.

But the nine-member Seoul University panel, which spent a month examining Dr Hwang's work, said in a statement on Tuesday: "The 2004 paper was written on fabricated data to show that the stem cells match the DNA of the provider although they didn't."

The South Korean team "did not have any proof to show that cloned embryonic stem cells were ever created," the panel concluded. The same panel revealed last month that a later paper which seemed to take Mr Hwang's cloning work even further was also faked.

The shaming of Dr Hwang has come as a profound shock to South Koreans, many of whom saw the cloning pioneer as a national hero. Some analysts are describing his fall from grace as one of the biggest cases of scientific fraud in recent history.

Dr Hwang has not made any public appearances since saying he would resign his faculty position last month, and his current whereabouts are unknown. But there was some positive news for the beleaguered scientist on Tuesday.

The university panel ruled that an experiment last year in which Dr Hwang's team claimed to have cloned a dog was genuine. A three-year-old Afghan hound called Snuppy - short for Seoul National University puppy - was genetically identical to his father according to DNA tests, the panel found.

Somalia has not had a proper government for 16 years. Instead, warlords have been fighting for control of territory. Local Islamic courts were set up by businessmen who wanted someone to catch and punish thieves and people who do not respect their contracts.

Some of these courts joined to form the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and their small groups of gunmen became Somalia's strongest fighting force.
The UIC is divided between moderates and hardliners.

They all say they want to restore stability and law and order to Somalia.
Hardliners also want to curb foreign influences, which they say are immoral. They have closed down cinemas showing foreign films and football matches.

Some radio stations have also been told not to play foreign music or local love songs but other radio stations and cinemas have been left alone. The UIC have also staged public executions and floggings of people they have found guilty of crimes such as murder and selling drugs.
After years of lawlessness, many Somalis are happy to have some kind of law and order.

The prices of many basic foods have fallen because gunmen no longer extort money from lorries taking goods to markets. Almost all Somalis are Muslim but some are wary of the hardline elements. They do not like the harsh punishments and do not want to be cut off from the rest of the world.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9, occurred off the coast of the small island of Kithira, about 125 miles south of Athens at 11:34pm (11:34 GMT) on Sunday. Its epicentre was at a depth of about 43 miles beneath the sea - which likely contributed to the lack of major damage or serious injuries, seismologists said. It shook the entire region, from Italy in the west to Egypt and Jordan in the east, and was felt throughout Greece.

Clarice Nassif Ransom, a Washington spokeswoman for the US Geological Survey, said scientists project that as many as six million people may have felt the earthquake.

"It was a very powerful quake which shook all of Greece," said Giorgos Stavrakakis, head of the Athens' Geodynamic Institute. "There have been dozens of aftershocks, 4 with a magnitude of 5... The quake occurred deep undersea and that's what saved us."

Since Mao's death in 1976, China has changed enormously, racing to catch up with the rest of Asia.

Mobile phones and cameras have become must-haves - everywhere you go, people are talking, texting, and surfing. An explosion of capitalism has given cities like Shanghai and Beijing futuristic skylines. Big business and consumer technology alike have found a new home here.

The country is already the world's largest producer of mobile phones, PCs and cameras, which it can churn out in their millions - and all because of China's biggest resource: people.

It is worth taking a minute to look at the statistics, because they are truly amazing. China is the world's most populous country, with 1.3 billion people.

On size alone, it is fast becoming a technology superpower and it almost has no choice in the matter. For example, even though only 8% of its people have access to the internet, this equates to 100 million people online, second only to the US.

The Chinese Government is very keen to make sure its internet infrastructure is up to the job. It is quite literally bringing its people up to speed.

Dorothy Yang, research director at IDC Analysts, told Click: "About 70 to 80% of internet users use broadband. One reason is that broadband access is quite cheap in China - it only costs about $10-15 a month for unlimited internet access."

No longer just a tech producer, China is becoming a gargantuan tech consumer.

China is dotted with rabbit warrens of small electronics boutiques, selling everything from known brands to home-made kit, multi-coloured CDs to 2GB memory cards. No-one can accuse the Chinese of being behind the times.

It will come as little surprise that China is now the world's largest cell phone market, with more than 380 million mobiles. And, just like internet penetration, the number is rising at an impressive rate. Just like the rest of the world, they are in love with their phones.

But perhaps here, more than in most countries, phones have an added value. In a place where public displays of affection and freedom to say what you want are still not to be taken for granted, mobile phones offer new privacy for conversation and romance.

Walk into a mobile phone store and you are offered only two choices of network, but a multitude of home-made brands of handset, some designed to satisfy even the most demanding user: I found one box that was a MP3 player, an MPEG4 video player, a PDA, a two megapixel camera with flash and a video camera.

Nonetheless, despite all the bells and whistles, the home-made jobs often lack the style and glamour of the established brands, which most Chinese still opt for.

China's reputation as a source of cheap labour and cheap goods is being challenged - there is also innovation here. In 2000, Click spoke to Jack Ma, a budding Chinese entrepreneur who had dreams of setting up a web service aimed at connecting traders across China, to help them find the best price for goods and services.

Five years on, he is one of the richest men in the country. He runs a range of online marketplaces, under the brand name Alibaba, including TaoBao, a rival to eBay, and an online payment system. In China, business is a very personal thing, but Jack seems to have persuaded people that they can do business on the web. He says: "The internet is a community; don't think it's just computers. Only if you build your website like a community can your company grow fast." As to whether China can become a technology superpower, Jack believes this will take time and luck.

"Today I don't think people should have expectations of that. It is true that China is growing very fast on the internet, but the other challenge is encouraging innovation and creativity, which takes a very long time. People are surprised by China because it's been like a sleeping lion for years. Now it's starting to jump and people say: 'oh my God, it's growing so fast' but it's not that scary."

Jack also relishes challenging the dominance of the US in the technology world. "Otherwise I would not compete with eBay or Google", he says. "They could be very successful in the US, in the West, but in China? No, because we're more entrepreneurial than them, in China today. They were very entrepreneurial 25 years ago, but today they're not entrepreneurial at all. They're very corporate."

China is so ready to compete with US technology that, in one particular case, it bought the company. In December 2004, Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo did the unthinkable - it bought part of IBM. The part, that is, that makes PCs. Lenovo was already China's largest PC maker but, after the IBM deal, it has shot up from 9th largest to 3rd largest PC manufacturer in the world. Lenovo's Alice Li told Click: "It's a very important transaction for us. For Lenovo that acquisition makes us a truly international company. We've accumulated an international management team and reputable international brands - for example, Thinkpad - and all the patented technology related to that brand. And we also now have an immediate worldwide distribution network."

Lenovo seems determined to continue pushing the country's technology scene by thinking big and aiming high. It could very well become China's first truly international company. China has the size, and it is showing signs of determination to spread its influence beyond its borders.

At the dawn of a new century, there is a new kid on the block.

In case the US or Israel use conventional bombs against Iran's nuclear facilities, the Iranians are expected to retaliate with missiles against the occupying forces in Iraq and against Israel, as well as the occupation military bases in southern Iraq, that the 150,000 US troops in Iraq would not be able to withstand, the article further suggests, adding that the Iranian missiles could potentially contain chemical warheads, and it certainly would be impossible to rule out such possibility.

The US's use of low-yield nuclear bombs with better bunker-busting ability than conventional bombs targeting Iran's nuclear, chemical and missile installations, which would be consistent with the new US nuclear weapons doctrine, will be then justified using the claims of needing to protect the lives of 150,000 US soldiers in Iraq and of Israeli citizens.

New US policies that involve the use of nuclear weapons were formulated in the administration document "Nuclear Posture Review" of 2001 and became more defined in a Pentagon draft document "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California San Diego, wrote in an article published on a San Diego Union-Tribune website.

These policies, the drafters of which occupy the upper echelons of the Bush administration, allow the use of nuclear weapons against adversary underground installations, against adversaries using or intending to use weapons of mass destruction against US forces and for rapid and favourable war termination on US terms.

Hirsch suggests that those policies could be implemented in the near future against the Persian Gulf.

Americans are quite well advanced in their planning for the use of those weapons, which raises the fears that other countries will, out of fear, try to build their own. A new concept of warfare is being developed.

GAS CUT IMPACT:

Ukraine - loses 100% of Russian imports.

Hungary - Russian imports down 40%.

Poland - supply down 14% on Sunday. Seeking to increase supplies from alternative pipe.

Austria, Slovakia, Romania - supplies down by a third.

Germany - no problems yet, but later cuts to big firms "not ruled out".

France - heavy user of Russian gas, but no problems likely yet.

Countries as far west as France say supplies from a pipeline running via Ukraine have fallen by up to 40%.

Ukraine denied taking the gas, but said it would siphon off a share if temperatures fell much below freezing.

The row erupted after Russia raised the price of 1,000 cubic metres of gas from $50 to $230 and Ukraine refused to pay.

Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom is still charging the lower price to some former Soviet countries, though the average price in the EU is $240 (140 pounds).

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said his country had also been cut off, after refusing to pay $160 per 1,000 cubic metres, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.

Kiev says it is being punished for its attempts to become more independent from Moscow and develop stronger ties with the West.

In a statement on Sunday night, it accused Russia of resorting to "blackmail" in order to undermine the country's economy.