Other teams have shown that cloning can work on pigs, cattle and goats. But equally, no one has been successful with rabbits, rats, dogs, cats and, more significantly, monkeys.Even if scientists show they can clone a chimpanzee, man’s closest relative, we won’t really be sure whether we can clone humans or not until we try. And trying will mean taking risks, which for some people will always be too high to be ethically acceptable. Alan Colman, who worked alongside Wilmut, believes the technical difficulties will only be resolved by experiments on human eggs, which will not be acceptable.

“These issues will not be addressable since the use of human eggs to check for safety and technical progress is, and will remain, an unethical application,” he says.Nevertheless, as any historian of science can testify, no matter how great the technical problems, they have a habit of being resolved. If so, the ethical issue is not whether the likes of Severino Antinori should be banned from going ahead with cloning on the grounds that it is unsafe, but whether they should be prohibited because it is, in Clinton’s words, morally repugnant.There should be nothing repugnant in the existence of two or three genetically identical people, otherwise we’d find some way of banning twins and triplets. So what are we afraid of? Clones will be identical in genes, yes, but in personality, temperament and outlook, they will be as unique as any natural twin.So what are we left with as the morally repugnant objection to cloning? Is it that it involves bypassing sexual reproduction? What should be so abhorrent in that, given that many children are now conceived artificially by in vitro fertilisation. Many of the critics of IVF said, after Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in 1978, that such babies are likely to suffer physical or psychological problems. The evidence of long-term studies of thousands of IVF children shows that such fears are without foundation.Antinori believes that whatever the risks of human cloning, they are manageable. His attitude to reproductive medicine has not endeared him to colleagues, but it would be wrong to dismiss him out of hand. Unlike Richard Seed, the American who was the first scientist to go public on supporting human cloning when the news of Dolly broke, Antinori is not totally out of his depth.

However, although he has a proven track record in IVF, his expertise does not extend to cloning. He may have a point when he says there are instances where cloning might be justified on medical grounds; for example, men who cannot produce any sperm. But critics are right to say he is not the man to pioneer a technology in its infancy.Antinori may find it difficult to carry out his experiment in most countries, but presumably there will be parts of the world where anti-cloning laws do not exist yet. It is clear, however, that banning Antinori’s work will not put the cloning genie back in the bottle. Many scientists believe the ethical boundaries will be stretched to allow it Some think it is inevitable.

As one cloning pioneer has said: “It just won’t be called cloning.”. Emmanuel Milingo, the archbishop, who scandalised the Catholic world by defecting to the sect of Rev Sun Myung Moon and marrying a Korean woman, has turned up in Rome in an apparent attempt to make peace with Pope John Paul II. Emmanuel Milingo, the archbishop, who scandalised the Catholic world by defecting to the sect of Rev Sun Myung Moon and marrying a Korean woman, has turned up in Rome in an apparent attempt to make peace with Pope John Paul II.
Church sources said the archbishop, who was born in Zambia, showed up unexpectedly on Monday night at the papal summer residence of Castelgandolfo, south-east of Rome, and spent about half an hour inside.It was not clear if the 71-year-old archbishop, a charismatic faith healer and exorcist, actually met the Pope or whether he spoke to a papal aide.The visit took place just two weeks before a Vatican deadline of 20 August for the archbishop publicly to renounce Mr Moon’s sect, leave the wife chosen for him by Mr Moon (in defiance of Roman Catholic celibacy rules) and return to the fold – or face excommunication.The visit, the latest surprise by the colourful maverick prelate, could lead to a last-minute personal reconciliation with the Vatican. But most church observers believe the archbishop’s career in the Roman Catholic Church ended when he joined Mr Moon’s controversial Unification Church in New York in May last year.Vatican sources said at the time the Pope felt hurt by the archbishop’s action because the pontiff had often been lenient with him when others in the church felt he should have been disciplined.The archbishop’s marriage and defection was the latest in a string of embarrassments he caused the Vatican over what some church authorities consider his unorthodox methods. Last month, the Vatican ordered him to comply with conditions set by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or face being cut off from the church. Excommunication has been rare in recent times, particularly for high-ranking prelates.After his wedding in New York last May, the archbishop told reporters he was unconcerned by the threat of excommunication.”God is still with me,” he said.