The Independent pre empts this mornings main business news,under the headline Boiling Point,the paper reports

British Gas, the country's biggest energy supplier, announced a 500 per cent rise in profits today, fuelling outrage among consumer groups which claim the public is being ripped off by the industry.
Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, will tell the Stock Exchange that the BG retail arm, which receives up to five times as many complaints as its rivals, made £571m profit in 2007.
Most of the money was made between January and March, when the wholesale price of gas plunged as a result of unusually mild weather and a new gas pipeline from Norway.

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that

Northern Rock nationalisation in turmoil over offshore trust

Plans to nationalise Northern Rock were thrown into confusion last night when it emerged that ministers are leaving £40bn of the bank's best mortgages in a private offshore trust. As the government moved to push emergency legislation through parliament, it was revealed that the offshore firm Granite, which holds half of the bank's best secured mortgages, is not being nationalised as part of the rescue package.
The Granite issue is likely to be at the centre of an inquiry to be announced by the National Audit Office into the government's handling of the much-criticised rescue plan.

Rock's 'best mortgages' sold offshore says the Telegraph

Gordon Brown was last night accused of losing control of Northern Rock after it emerged that the bank's best mortgages have been sold on to a little-known offshore company based in the Channel Islands adding

To compound the problem, Northern Rock is alleged to also have an agreement to continue supplying top-quality mortgages to Granite once existing loans expire. If it fails to meet its obligations, Northern Rock may lose up to £5 billion, according to the Conservatives.

There is much coverage about yesterday's immigration proposals,the Times reports

Foreign brides who plan to live in Britain ‘must speak English’

Thousands of foreigners who want to marry a British person and move to Britain will have to take an English language test, the Prime Minister announced yesterday.
Gordon Brown said that the test would help to prevent foreign brides being exploited. He made his surprise announcement only five hours after a Home Office Green Paper on overhauling citizenship rules said that consultations on English tests for foreigners were continuing


Earn the right to be British says the Sun

In a radical shake-up, they will be made to speak English, do voluntary work and pay tax.
They will NOT be able to claim benefits unless they do so.
Those who fail the tests in a new Probationary Citizen scheme will have to leave.

The Mail's take on the proposals?

The great passport giveaway: Up to 250,000 foreigners to get UK citizenship every year

More than 250,000 UK passports could be handed out to foreigners every year under new proposals.
The Government wants all migrants settling here to become full British citizens.
All except the worst criminals would be eligible, including minor offenders and those who cannot be bothered to play an "active" role in community life.
They will merely be expected to spend longer as "probationary" citizens under a Home Office consultation paper published yesterday. Even murderers and rapists could be entitled to a passport if their homeland is considered too dangerous under human rights law for them to be deported.

The Independent reports

Brown's plans for 'earned citizenship' come under fire

Gordon Brown was accused yesterday of treating immigrants as "second-class people" as he announced stricter rules for foreigners who want to become British citizens.
The Home Office set out moves to introduce an "earned citizenship" system for migrants from outside the European Union who want to become British.

The lead story in the Telegraph meanwhile is concerned about

Biggest brain drain from UK in 50 years

Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years.There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers.
More than three quarters of these professionals have settled abroad for more than 10 years, according to the study by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Times reports

Coroner urged to end Diana ‘circus’

The coroner hearing the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, faced demands last night that he bring it to a close after it emerged that ten members of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, have been summoned to give evidence.
Senior peers and MPs called on Lord Justice Scott Baker to reconsider his decision. Whitehall officials said that they were astonished that ten MI6 officers had been requested to appear.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said: “I think it’s a total waste of time and money. The extraordinary performance of [Mohamed Al] Fayed has turned the whole thing into a circus

Ex-MI6 chief admits agents do have a licence to kill but denies executing Diana says the Mail

The most senior member of the security services ever to give evidence to a public hearing admitted yesterday he did have a 'licence to kill'.
Sir Richard Billing Dearlove, known as "C" when he headed MI6, told the Diana inquest the Secret Intelligence Service had the power to use "lethal force" - but he had never exercised it in his 38-year career as a spook.
Asked by Ian Burnett QC, counsel to the coroner, whether an operation had been mounted against the princess or Dodi Al Fayed, he replied with conviction: "Absolutely not."

WE HAVE NOT KILLED ANYONE IN 40 YEARS says the Mirror

Sir Richard Dearlove, 63, told her inquest that during the 40 years he had served in MI6 it had not assassinated anyone.
He added: "Assassination is no part of the policy of Her Majesty's Government." Ian Burnett QC asked: "Are you able to confirm that no authorisation was sought in respect of any activities concerning Princess Diana?" He said: "I can absolutely confirm that."

The Guardian leads with an exclusive

How Labour used the law to keep criticism of Israel secret

The full extent of government anxiety about the state of British-Israel relations can be exposed for the first time today in a secret document seen by the Guardian.
The document reveals how the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN's authority on weapons of mass destruction.

All the papers report on the

Yorkshire girl, 9, vanishes while walking home

A major search is underway for a nine-year-old girl after she disappeared during her walk home from school in sub-zero temperatures.More than 200 police officers are searching for Shannon Matthews, who went missing after she decided to walk home on her own on Tuesday afternoon.
Her home was less than a mile away from West Moor Junior School, in Dewsbury, West Yorks, and it usually only took her around 10 minutes to walk through the local housing estates. reports the Telegraph

Another missing girl returns to the front page of the Sun

Maddie seen in France says the paper

THE hunt for Madeleine McCann dramatically switched to France last night after a girl matching her description was seen in a cafe.
A mystery man fled with a girl thought to be missing Madeleine after a witness called out her name.

The Times reveals that

Villagers face noise blight as jets are diverted from towns

Thousands of homes in rural areas will be blighted by aircraft noise under the biggest reorganisation of flight paths, which is intended to cope with the rapid growth in air travel and will be announced today.
National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which manages Britain’s airspace, is planning to redirect aircraft over sparsely populated countryside to reduce the impact on urban areas.
The reorganisation affects much of Greater London and the northern Home Counties — an area with 12.5 million residents.
Four new holding stacks, in which aircraft circle while waiting for a landing slot, will be created to serve Stansted, Luton and London City airports.

CCTV evidence can lead to parking fine reports the Telegraph

Millions of motorists are likely to incur parking fines without realising it after being caught on CCTV.
From March 31, councils across England and Wales will have the power to use remote cameras to enforce parking laws, then send tickets by post.
The move comes alongside other changes that will allow parking attendants to issue tickets as soon as they say they have seen a car illegally parked, without having to put them on the motorist's windscreen.

The Guardian reveals that

White middle-class children not held back by poorer state schools

Children from white middle-class homes suffer no academic disadvantage from going to badly performing state schools, according to research which suggests that comprehensive education is not necessarily a second-class option.
Leftwing parents sometimes opt for local comprehensives because they want their children to experience a multicultural school life, but the study suggests this is not always achieved as pupils tend to make friends with those from similar backgrounds.

News from abroad and the Indy reports from Pakistan

Don't sack Musharraf, US and UK warn election victors

The US and Britain are pressing Pervez Musharraf’s victorious opponents to drop their demands that he resign as president and that the country’s independent judiciary be restored before forming a government.
In a strategy some Western diplomats admit could badly backfire, the Bush administration has made clear it wishes to continue to support Mr Musharraf even after Monday’s election in which the Pakistani public delivered a resounding rejection of his policies. “[The US] does not want some people pushed out because it would lead to instability. In this case that means Musharraf,” said one Western diplomat.


Zimbabwe's official inflation hits 100,000pc says the Telegraph

Robert Mugabe wakes up to his 84th birthday today with a damning present from Zimbabwe's government statisticians - official inflation figures of more than 100,000 per cent.With Harare's shop shelves bare of basic commodities and prices rising daily, it is a wonder that inflation can be calculated at all, but the Central Statistical Office's work is a marvel of precision.

Kosovo border secured as Serbs turn up heat reports the Guardian

Nato troops and UN police moved to secure Kosovo's northern borders yesterday as ethnic Serbs mounted more demonstrations to assert Serbian control of the northern portion of the country.
The moves came as Germany became the latest state to announce it would recognise the former south Serbian province of Kosovo, which declared independence on Sunday.
French troops sealing the frontier at Jarinje, where the border post was destroyed by masked Serbian hardliners on Tuesday, were stoned early yesterday as they put up coils of razor wire to prevent a further influx of hardliners crossing from southern Serbia into Kosovo in advance of huge anticipated demonstrations in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, today and in Kosovo itself.

The Times reports that

Petraeus reveals plans to scale back Iraq troops in an interview with the paper

General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is drawing up plans to pull more troops out of the country after July on the back of a sharp drop in attacks and long-awaited progress on the political front.
The suggestions, which will depend upon conditions on the ground, are due to be presented as part of a new report on Iraq to George Bush, the US President, towards the end of next month, which will be put before Congress by early April.

The Independent reports on

New IVF technique: greater success rate, fewer multiple births

Doctors have found a way to boost the success rate of IVF in a ground-breaking study that halved the incidence of multiple births, by far the biggest hazard of fertility treatment.
Fertility specialists at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital who tested the new technique say they hope it will be adopted as a standard approach by IVF clinics that are striving to reduce the burden of twin and triplet births

The Brits gets a fair amount of coverage,the Telegraph reporting

Sir Paul McCartney put aside his problems in his personal life to receive the coveted award for outstanding contribution to music at the Brit Awards.Less than a week after the former Beatle appeared in court to thrash out a divorce settlement with his ex-wife Heather Mills, he was greeted with rapturous applause as he accepted the award at London's Earls Court.

Finally many of the papers report

MEDICS have come to an amazing conclusion: millions of women DON’T have a G-spot. the Sun reporting

For years men have searched, often in vain, for the fabled spot that gives girls mind-blowing orgasms through ordinary sex.
Now the breakthrough discovery means some fellas can abandon their hunt and concentrate on finding other ways to pleasure their partner.