Nato goes ahead with Europe-based missile plans despite Russia's fears
Nato leaders yesterday downplayed Russian fears that a new Europe-based missile defence system represents a threat to Moscow, while vowing to move ahead with it.
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance expects to have the first elements of the defence system up and running by May. The comments came at the ongoing Munich Security Conference, where Russians said the US-led plan "rings alarm bells".
Research doubles malaria death rate
Malaria kills more than 1.2 million people worldwide a year -- twice as many as previously thought, according to new research published last week that questions years of assumptions about the mosquito-borne disease.
Past studies had overlooked hundreds of thousands of deaths because they had wrongly assumed malaria overwhelmingly killed babies and focused their findings on under-fives, said the study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in the US.
Addiction can be genetic but avoidable
Drug addicts and their non-addicted siblings share certain features in the brain, suggesting a susceptibility to addiction is inherited but can be overcome.
Researchers at University of Cambridge who scanned the brains of 50 pairs of brothers and sisters, of whom one was a cocaine addict, found that both siblings had brain abnormalities that make it more difficult for them to exercise self-control.
Multiple Tony-nominee Gazzara dies
Actor Ben Gazzara (right), known for his brooding tough-guy presence in dozens of films, television shows and stage productions over his long career, died of pancreatic cancer on Friday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 81.
A three-time Tony nominee, Gazzara made his big break into films as an accused killer in Otto Preminger's 1959 courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Murder.
Kenyan minibus crash leaves 25 dead
AT least 25 people died in western Kenya after a truck crashed into a minibus, a Kenyan official said yesterday.
The accident in Kisumu city happened after a truck hit a 14-seater minibus carrying excess passengers. Minibuses are the most common mode of public transport in Kenya.
Armstrong doping allegations dropped
prosecutors in the US have dropped an investigation into allegations of doping at a cycle racing team partly owned by Lance Armstrong.
A grand jury in LA had been hearing evidence from former teammates and associates of the cycling legend. Armstrong has always denied taking drugs. He won the Tour de France in seven consecutive years, 1999 to 2005.
The cancer survivor retired from competitive cycling for the second time in 2011.
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