Iran GC signal green light to disqualified reformists

Iran’s election and legislation supervisory body, the Guardian Council, has given the green light to disqualified reformist candidates applying to participate in the upcoming presidential elections.

On Sunday, the Guardians Council released a list of six mostly conservative presidential candidates, which excluded Moin and Mehralizadeh.

The disqualification drew sharp criticism both at home and abroad. Terming the move as a coup d’etat, the country’s reformist camp threatened to boycott the elections.

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Mrs. Bush besieged by Protesters at Jerusalem’s most sacred sites

JERUSALEM - Mrs. Bush, who is on a tour intended partly to help defuse anti-American sentiment in the region, was besieged by Protesters to two of Jerusalem’s most sacred sites, with Israeli police locking arms to restrain the crowd and Secret Service agents packed tightly around America’s first lady.

As she was touring Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, and the neighbouring Dome of the Rock, two members of the radical Islamic Liberation Party shouted: “You are not welcome here. How dare you come here? Why your husband kill Muslims?”

The first lady was mobbed by protesters and local reporters, and Secret Service agents and Israeli police had to physically hold back the crowd as she approached the wall.

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Avian influenza in Vietnam calls for preparations of a pandemic

Since the third wave of human cases of H5N1 avian influenza began in Vietnam in mid-December 2004, 49 cases have been reported. Of these cases, 17 were fatal.
A Vietnamese study has shown that there are signs of greater human to human transmission of bird flu. This has prompted the UN health agency to call on countries around the world to continue with their preparations for a threatened flu pandemic.

Since January 2004, when human cases of H5N1 avian influenza were first reported in the current outbreak, 97 cases and 53 deaths have been reported in Viet Nam, Thailand and Cambodia. Viet Nam, with 76 cases and 37 deaths, has been the most severely affected country, followed by Thailand, with 17 cases and 12 deaths, and Cambodia, with 4 cases and 4 deaths.

WHO said it had asked Vietnam’s ministry of health for more information on individual cases. Rapid field investigation of new cases, especially when these occur in clusters, remains essential to assess possible changes in transmission patterns that could indicate improved pandemic potential of the virus.

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1st stem cells from cloned humans that can end rejection problem

Scientists in South Korea have produced stem cells from cloned human embryos and patients’ skin cells.

This could mean the end of the rejection problem - when the body rejects a foreign body after transplantation.

The possible benefits for human health are enormous, offering perhaps cures for such illnesses as Type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and a host of other conditions.

Exciting thing in this breakthrough is getting over the human body’s rejection of a foreign body. To date, all transplant patients have had to take immunosuppressant drugs (most of which have several undesirable side effects) for the rest of their lives.

These cell lines will enable the study of human disease in cells in the laboratory. The work also moves scientists’ one step closer to the goal of transplanting healthy cells into humans to replace cells damaged by diseases.

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