One of the original clone rangers is back in the saddle. Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori claims that he has cloned three children who are now living in Eastern Europe. "It involved two boys and a girl who are nine years old today,” he told Oggi weekly. “They were born healthy and they are in excellent health now."

This is not the first time that Antinori has mentioned these children, but as usual he provided no proof this time either. If he has succeeded, he has bested some of the brightest scientists in the world. They have tried for years just to clone human embryos for their stem cells without success. However, he claims that his improved method created at least three cloned embryos and brought them to term.

Antinori became famous in 1994 when he helped a 63-year-old woman to become pregnant. A couple of weeks ago, he announced that he planned to artificially inseminate a woman whose husband is in an irreversible coma because of a brain tumour. ~ AFP, Mar 4