■CHINA
WHO discusses medicine
Health representatives from more than 70 countries gathered in Beijing on Friday to swap ideas on how to make traditional medicine, ranging from acupuncture to leech treatment, more widely available. The two-day WHO event, built around seminars on regulatory standards and folk medicine in cultures from South Africa to Japan, is expected to end with member countries agreeing to expand traditional medicine in their health care systems.
■MALAYSIA
Police bust drug ring
Police busted a major drug syndicate with the seizure of drugs worth about 410,000 ringgit (US$126,154) and the arrest of six suspects, news reports said yesterday. Acting on public information, police from Kelantan state raided an unnumbered house on Saturday night resulting in the seizure of unprocessed powdered heroin, methamphetamine and hallucinatory (Eramine) pills, the New Straits Times reported. The six suspects, four men and two women, aged 15 to 63, were believed to be related, state police chief Abdul Rahim Hanafi said, adding that one of them was a Thai national. Police also seized 57,105 ringgit, 12,210 Thai bath (US$360), a sports utility vehicle, three motorcycles, four auto-teller cards and 10 bank account books. The suspects have been held on remand and will be charged with drug distribution and trafficking, which carry mandatory death sentences by hanging.
■CHINA
Moon buggy planned
The space agency aims to put an unmanned buggy on the moon by 2012, local media reported on Friday, laying the ground for its greater ambitions of putting a man on the moon. In October 2003, Beijing became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket, after the former Soviet Union and the US. It sent two more astronauts on a five-day flight on its Shenzhou VI craft in October 2005.
■CHINA
Herbs linked to deaths
Authorities, battling to restore trust in its products amid a tainted milk scandal, has closed a local pharmaceutical company whose herbal injections have been linked to the deaths of three people. Beijing last month expanded a product recall for Wandashan Pharmaceutical, a company based in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, after the injections caused adverse reactions in six people, three of whom died.
■BANGLADESH
Border guards alerted
Border guards have been placed on alert after reports that Myanmar was amassing troops following a breakdown in talks on oil and gas exploration in disputed areas of the Bay of Bengal, officials said. The country has a 275km land border with Myanmar. On Monday, officials accused Myanmar of sending several ships — apparently for prospecting — into a contested deep-sea area believed to contain hydrocarbon reserves. The dispute surfaced after South Korea’s Daewoo International Corp, which has been hired by Myanmar, started formal explorations in September. Officials protested the move, saying it was intruding into its waters. Myanmar has called Bangladesh’s claims “unlawful and wrong.” Bangladesh said on Friday that Daewoo has started dismantling its equipment in the disputed areas in response to its protests.
■ UNITED KINGDO
Buy one car, get one free
A car dealer has found one way around the looming recession by offering a buy-one-get-one-free offer on new cars, a report said on Saturday. Online car broker Broadspeed.com, based in Colchester, offered customers two Dodge Avenger SXT saloon cars, complete with leather seats and air conditioning, for £20,000 (US$31,300). The dealership has just sold the last of the cars. Managing director Simon Empson told the Guardian newspaper: “It was amazing. We had been trying to sell those cars online at half price for nearly a month and they were selling, but it was nothing special,” he said. “But when we made the deal two-for-one, we got 22,000 customers. The very first call I had was from a father who was going to buy the two cars, have one himself and give the other to his son.” The number of new cars sold in Britain last month fell by nearly a quarter compared with the same period a year ago, the biggest decline since 1991.
■UNITED STATES
Rock found to soak up CO²
A rock found mostly in Oman can be harnessed to soak up the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide at a rate that could help slow global warming, scientists say. When carbon dioxide comes in contact with the rock, peridotite, the gas is converted into solid minerals such as calcite. Geologist Peter Kelemen and geochemist Juerg Matter said the naturally occurring process can be supercharged 1 million times to grow underground minerals that can permanently store 2 billion or more of the 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by human activity every year. The scientists, who are both at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, say they could kick-start peridotite’s carbon storage process by boring down and injecting it with heated water containing pressurized carbon dioxide.
■VATICAN
Pope condemns organ trade
Pope Benedict condemned the trade in human organs as an abomination on Friday and urged caution in removing organs for transplant from dying donors who might not actually yet be dead. The pontiff told scientists and bioethicists meeting at the Pontifical Academy for Life that the worldwide illegal organ trade often made victims of innocent people, including children.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Study links parks to health
Parks, playing fields and forests greatly narrow health gaps between the rich and poor, and governments should do more to promote and invest in green areas, researchers said on Friday. Earlier studies have linked living near green space to improved health but the findings in the medical journal The Lancet show some of the impacts are bigger than thought, said Richard Mitchell, an epidemiologist who led the study.
Early exposure to peanuts may prevent allergy
■GERMANY
Death camp plans found
Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported on Saturday. The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of the federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called “authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe.” Bild gave no indication of where, when or by whom the plans were found. It said they were dated between 1941 and 1943.
■MEXICO
Plane crash probe continues
Officials overseeing the investigation into a plane crash that killed the interior secretary say the jet was not on fire and did break up prior to the crash, and evidence indicates the pilot lost control. Officials said the plane was traveling at almost 500kph when it crashed into cars on a Mexico City street on Tuesday, killing 14. The plane was supposed to be turning east toward the city’s international airport, but was traveling almost northward when it crashed. Investigation head Gilberto Lopez said on Saturday that “this clearly proves what we had believed, that there was an abrupt loss of control.”
■MEXICO
Chef wins rights case
One man was taking the heat so that all men can compete in the kitchen for “Best Cook of Mexico City” honors. Benjamin Garcia is outraged that city officials barred him from entering the contest last year because he is a man. He has filed a complaint with the city’s Human Rights Commission, arguing the contest discriminated against men and stereotyped women. Contest organizers have fought back, insisting the government-run competition is meant to honor women who labor at home with little recognition. But the rights commission is siding with Garcia, announcing on Saturday that the city was relenting and that the contest would be open to men.
■UNITED STATES
Church fire no hate crime
Investigators say a fire that destroyed a church being constructed for a predominantly black congregation in Springfield, Massachusetts, was intentionally set. But they said there was no evidence the arson was a hate crime, except for the timing of the fire hours after Senator Barack Obama was elected as its first black president. The findings were announced on Saturday at a news conference by local, state and federal safety officials, including state Fire Marshal Stephen Coan. The fire early on Wednesday destroyed the building of Macedonia Church of God in Christ, which was scheduled to open in a few months.
■UNITED STATES
Bullies enjoy others’ pain
Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, researchers said on Friday. While this may come as little surprise to those who have been victimized by bullies, it is not what the researchers expected, Benjamin Lahey of the University of Chicago, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.
■UNITED STATES
Woman had dead roommates
Police in a Chicago suburb said a 90-year-old woman apparently has been living in a house with the bodies of three siblings — one of whom may have been dead since the early 1980s. Evanston police Commander Tom Guenther says the bodies were found on Friday after authorities were called by a senior advocate. Autopsies were planned but Guenther said police do not suspect foul play. The woman was taken to a hospital for observation. Her identity was not released.
■UNITED STATES
Brain cell repair possible
Scientists have found a way to get damaged nerve cells in the brains of mice to repair themselves, a finding that may lead to new treatments for spinal cord and brain injuries. By turning off proteins that keep nerve cell growth in check, the researchers were able to stimulate regrowth in mice with damaged optic nerves, they reported on Thursday.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of