Washington/Khartoum - US President George W Bush ordered new sanctions Tuesday on Sudan to help stop “genocide” in Darfur and said he would ask the United Nations to ban government military flights over the region. Sudan’s government dismissed the move.
The US said it slapped economic sanctions on 30 companies, including five in Sudan’s booming oil industry, and froze the assets of two senior Sudanese government officials and a rebel leader whose group refused to sign last year’s Darfur peace agreement.
Also included is a company that has been transporting weapons to the Sudanese government and militia forces in Darfur, Bush said at the White House.
US diplomats will begin talks with Britain and other allies on a new UN Security Council resolution to tighten sanctions on the government of President Omar al-Bashir, including a ban on “offensive military flights over Darfur.”
“For too long, the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder, and rape of innocent civilians,” Bush said.
“I call on President Bashir to stop his obstruction, and to allow the peacekeepers in, and to end the campaign of violence that continues to target innocent men, women and children,” he said.
The US move came ahead of next week’s Group of Eight summit in Germany, where Bush and seven other world leaders are expected to have Darfur on their agenda.
A Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the sanctions were unjustified, would heighten tensions between the two countries and “are not going to solve the problem of Darfur.”
“The government of Sudan is working with the UN and the African Union to reach a solution,” spokesman Ali Al-Sadig told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The United States accuses Sudan of obstructing the entry of UN peacekeepers into Darfur, where violence between rebels and government-backed militias has left an estimated 300,000 people dead and more than 2 million displaced.
Bush threatened Sudan with sanctions in April, but agreed to hold off to give the UN more time to negotiate with Sudanese officials on the proposed deployment of a combined AU-UN force.
In April, Sudan agreed to allow the first two phases of a UN deployment, which includes some 3,000 UN peacekeepers and logistical staff.
But Bashir’s government has resisted the call for a 23,000-strong UN-AU force of peacekeeping troops and police to Darfur, an area the size of France currently patrolled by 7,000 poorly equipped AU soldiers.
It is unclear what effect the sanctions will have on Sudan’s economy, which is booming thanks to Chinese investment in the oil industry. But officials on Tuesday said the sanctions will not disrupt the economy as the US hopes.
Toronto - Scientists from New Zealand are now breeding a herd of cows that can produce lower-fat milk, according to media reports Monday.
Researchers only discovered they had a special cow after a the chance discovery of a natural gene mutation in one animal.
Not only is the milk low fat, but is also high in health-boosting omega-3 fatty acids and makes butter that spreads as easily as margarine even when chilled, biotechnology company Vialactia said Monday.
Scientists discovered a cow, which they named Marge, carrying the mutant gene in 2001, Vialactia chief scientist Russell Snell said.
After buying the cow for only $218 (USD), testing revealed that Marge’s milk contained approximately 1 percent fat.
Offspring of Marge also produced low-fat milk.
“Every now and then nature throws up these sorts of things and it was simply a case of us being in the right place at the right time,” he said.
The company said it hopes to have a line of low-fat dairy products on the market by 2011.
San Francisco - Two humpback whales started heading out to sea Monday, with about 55 kilometres left to return to the Pacific Ocean, reports said.
The mother and baby, Delta and Dawn, have been stranded on California’s inland waterways for more than two weeks, despite repeated attempts and methods to get them to return to safety.
Bernadette Fees, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said in broadcast remarks that she would be administering antibiotics - one dose for the calf and three doses for the mother - to help them deal with skin infections that apparently resulted from cuts delivered by passing boats.
She also said she would work to take a biopsy from the calf.
The whales left the ocean more than two weeks ago as they participated in the annual humpback migration from the coasts of Baja Mexico to their summer feeding grounds in Alaska.
The pair last week circled the Rio Vista bridge, 120 kilometres from the ocean, but finally got up the speed to cross under the bridge on their way back to sea.
Toronto - Toronto police have formally charged two 17-year-old teens in connection with last week’s shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners.
Though many details will not be made public to protect the suspects, Staff Sargeant Brian Raybould did confirm the two teens had been charged.
“Obviously I can not give you details about who they are and circumstances in this case because they are young offenders,” said Raybould.
Raybould did say that the teens probably did know Manners.
“Certainly they were known to each other and probably were friends,” Raybould told reporters Monday.
A service at the Christian Centre Church in Toronto will; be held Thursday at 11 am.
Vancouver - Independent researchers have released new scientific findings on the impact of Vancouver’s safe-injection site that they expect will answer the federal government’s appreciation that more study is needed before a decision is made on its future.
The Conservative government has been extremely skeptical of the project, which opened its doors to addicts in Vancouver’s troubled Downtown Eastside in 2003.
Dr. Evan Wood, chief author of the report, says that the impact of the safe injection site is ‘remarkable.’
Health Minister Tony Clement is set to announce major changes to Canada’s national drug strategy next week and there are fears they could spell the demise of North America’s only safe-injection site.
Tokyo - The suicide of Japan’s farm minister Monday harkens back to the country’s feudal past, political observers said.
They compared the death of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka to the samurai practice of hara-kiri, or ritualized suicide. They speculated he hanged himself to protect his boss, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as Matsuoka was embroiled in corruption scandals and an election approached.
Abe had long defended his farm minister and insisted he stay in office in the wake of allegations that contractors had made political donations in bid-rigging for public construction projects as well as questions over bookkeeping practices in his office.
Matsuoka, 62, was found by his secretary and a security officer hanging by a rope in his residence at a Tokyo apartment building for members of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, Japanese media reports said, citing police. He was taken unconscious to a hospital where he was pronounced dead a few hours later, the government added.
“It was regrettable,” Abe told reporters when he visited the hospital where Matsuoka died. “I cannot help being really embarrassed. I heartily hope his soul will rest in peace.”
Matsuoka’s suicide, however, saved Abe from an uncomfortable political situation.
Matsuoka had avoided providing explanations of the charges against him but was to have appeared Monday afternoon at a parliamentary committee meeting at which he was expected to be confronted with questions about the bid-rigging scandal.
Now, however, Matsuoka has saved Abe from potential embarrassment related to the panel appearance and the increasing pressure on the prime minister to sack Matsuoka as the July elections for the upper house of parliament approached.
For Abe, it wasn’t the first scandal.
In December, three months after Abe took office, two members of his administration resigned within a week of one another: The minister of administrative reform stepped down after admitting that some of his political supporters had falsified financial records in a scandal over tax money misappropriated for party financing, and the head of a government tax panel also resigned after the married politician rented an upscale, government-subsidized apartment for him and his mistress.
The scandals hurt the public approval ratings of Abe’s government, and on Monday, ahead of news of Matsuoka’s suicide, a new poll showed support for the government had fallen to a new low this month, 32 per cent, down 11 points from last month.
Matsuoka, like the two ministers who resigned in December, was hand-picked by Abe, who has been accused of being more concerned with putting friends into government posts who helped him become prime minister rather than those who would be the most qualified. The opposition accused Abe of incompetence and a lack of leadership.
The criticism hit a politician who is seeking to portray himself as a strong leader concerned with strengthening patriotism and traditional values in Japan.
The scandals surrounding Matsuoka, however, were providing fuel to the opposition’s criticism. Now, Matsuoka himself has swept the allegations aside.
Abe, who plans to travel next week to Germany for a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial countries, was expected to return to Japan to find the tumult over Matsuoka settled, but his government is facing fire from other quarters.
Political observers said the reason for the drop in the administration’s approval ratings was due to the admission by the Social Insurance Agency that it turned up 50 million unidentified payment records. Retirees now fear that its failure to keep proper records could affect their pensions.
In the meantime, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, New Komeito, face a hard fight to keep their majority in the upper house in July 22 voting.
Toronto - Researchers at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute describe in this week’s issue of Science a new candidate breast-cancer susceptibility gene. The Rap80 gene is required for the normal DNA-repair function of the well-known breast cancer gene BRCA1.
Cancer-causing mutations in the BRCA1 protein cause it to fail to bind to the Rap80 protein. Consequently, BRCA1 is unable to identify DNA damage sites in the genome. When BRCA1 fails to fix DNA damage, cancer-causing mutations accumulate, spawning the development of breast and ovarian malignancies.
“With this current discovery, we have made significant new insights into the molecular mechanism by which BRCA1 recognizes sites of DNA damage that breast-cancer-causing mutated forms of BRCA1 cannot recognize,” says co-senior author Roger Greenberg MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at Penn. “Now we have gained a partial understanding of the molecular basis between cancer-causing BRCA1 failures to fix DNA damage versus normal BRCA1’s ability to fix DNA damage.”
In this study, the researchers found Rap80 binds to the region of the BRCA1 protein that is necessary for recognizing sites of DNA damage. In the 1990s, investigators discovered that BRCA1 was involved in DNA repair by maintaining the normal number and structure of chromosomes. DNA breaks that aren’t repaired can lead to cancer by increasing the rate of mutations, cancer-causing changes in the gene sequence.
More specifically, modification of proteins in the cell nucleus - by another protein called ubiquitin - that are tightly bound to DNA are responsible for signaling BRCA1 via Rap80 to action. Rap80 binds to specific types of ubiquitin that concentrate at DNA damage sites, enabling BRCA1 to be recruited to sites of damage.
BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations account for less than 50 percent of inherited breast cancer. “The genetic basis of breast cancers in other families has been largely unknown,” explains Greenberg. “These families aren’t able to make informed choices about screening and treatment, prophylactic or otherwise, the way the BRCA families can.”
Researchers from multiple labs, including Penn and those led by co-senior author David M. Livingston at Dana-Farber, are finding that many of these non-BRCA families have mutations in genes that have a relationship with BRCA1. Many of the genes that encode these proteins are also altered in familial breast cancer.
“Thus Rap80, by interacting with a BRCA1 region that is essential for BRCA tumor suppression, now becomes a candidate to investigate as another breast cancer disease gene in families that do not have BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, but have a history of breast and/or ovarian cancer,” says Greenberg. “In collaboration with other researchers we are currently looking to see if families that have a history of breast cancer, but lack BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, have any gene sequence changes in Rap80.”
This research was funded by the National Cancer Institute and startup funds from the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute.
Co-authors are Bijan Sobhian, David M. Livingston, Aedín C. Culhane, Lisa Moreau, and Bing, Xia from Dana Farber, and Genze Shao and Dana R. Lilly from Penn.
This release and a related image can be viewed at www.pennhealth.com/news.
PENN Medicine is a $2.9 billion enterprise dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and high-quality patient care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
Penn’s School of Medicine is ranked #2 in the nation for receipt of NIH research funds; and ranked #3 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent ranking of top research-oriented medical schools. Supporting 1,400 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic medicine.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System includes three hospitals, all of which have received numerous national patient-care honors [Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation’s first hospital; and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center]; a faculty practice; a primary-care provider network; two multispecialty satellite facilities; and home care and hospice.
source: www.medicalnewstoday.com
Gaza/Ramallah Five people were killed and five others wounded on Saturday following Israeli airstrikes on security forces of the Islamic Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
Another two armed Palestinians were killed and when they opened fire on a police patrol on the West Bank border with East Jerusalem, injuring four officers, Israeli media reported.
Eyewitnesses and security sources said that firefighters and ambulances rushed to the targeted areas in Gaza after four huge explosions were heard in the densely-populated area of Zeitoon in southern Gaza City, as well as in the western part of the city.
Israeli planes then struck at the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza Strip. Israeli media reported fresh strikes against Hamas forces in Rafah and a building in Jabaliya refugee camp Friday evening.
Hamas responded Saturday by threatening to murder Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who has been held captive since June 2006, media reports said.
“Israel can forget about Shalit, if leading members of Hamas die,” a spokesperson for the armed wing of the Palestinian movement was quoted as saying.
The Hamas spokesman also said renewed suicide attacks in Israel were only a matter of time.
Pillars of smoke were seen rising from areas targeted by Israeli planes, while ambulances rushed to the scene to evacuate casualties, eyewitnesses said.
Palestinian paramedics said that of the five wounded from the first airstrike in the Zeitoon neighbourhood, two were still in critical condition in Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Israeli army soldiers seized Hamas state minister Wasfi Qubaha at his home in northern West Bank city of Jenin, his family confirmed.
Qubaha, 43, is the second Hamas minister in the national coalition that Israel has detained within the last three days after taking Nasser el-Dein el-Sha’er, minister of education, from his home in Ramallah.
Qubaha’s daughter told reporters that Israeli army troops surrounded their house before dawn on Saturday before storming the house and detaining her father.
She added that the soldiers searched into her father’s room and confiscated documents and her father’s laptop computer.
Israel says that the arrest of Hamas leaders in the West Bank is a message to the Hamas movement to stop immediately launching homemade rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns in southern Israel.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources reported Saturday that another Israeli army unit stormed the office of the al-Waqf (Islamic Properties) ministry in the city of Jenin, confiscating files and three laptops. The ministry is run by Hamas movement in the national unity government.
Detroit - A Lake Michigan fish has now tested positive for the deadly VHS fish virus, according to media reports Saturday.
This confirms recent suspicions that the disease had spread to another of the state’s Great Lakes.
Preliminary test results show the Brown Trout had viral hemorrhagic septicemia, a disease that’s already been found in fish in Lake Huron.
Early last week, two freshwater drum fish in the Lake Winnebago Chain of Lakes tested positive in preliminary analysis for VHS said a spokesperson for the DNR.
The DNS is calling it a “major fish health crisis.”
VHS makes fish bleed to death, but isn’t a threat to people, pets or wildlife.
Tel Aviv - The radical Islamist Hamas movement on Saturday threatened to murder the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, media reports said.
“Israel can forget about Shalit, if leading members of Hamas die,” a spokesperson for the armed wing of the Palestinian movement was quoted as saying.
The Hamas spokesman also said renewed suicide attacks in Israel were only a matter of time.
Corporal Shalit was kidnapped on June 25, 2006 and since then has presumably been held captive in the Gaza Strip.