Month: June 2013

By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was responding better to treatment in hospital on Wednesday morning after a "difficult last few days", South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said. Mandela, South Africa's first black president, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on Saturday in a "serious but stable" condition suffering from a recurring lung infection. He was spending a fifth day under the care of its doctors. "We are very happy with the progress that he is now making," Zuma said in a speech to parliament. …

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl whose efforts to qualify for a transplant drew public debate over how organ donation should be done is getting a new lung.

UK to start regulating all nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, as medicines        

By Sylvia Westall and Ahmed Hagagy KUWAIT (Reuters) – The narrow, cracked streets of the district of Jleeb al-Shuyoukh, down the road from Kuwait's main airport, would normally be bustling with Indian and Bangladeshi workers by late morning, just before the summer sun becomes unbearable. But since Kuwaiti police launched a series of raids about two months ago, saying they were tracking down illegal laborers, the streets are almost empty and many small businesses have closed their doors, residents say. …

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is to regulate electronic cigarettes as non-prescription medicines from 2016 in an attempt to improve quality, though the country’s drugs watchdog said they would still be sold in convenience stores. Healthcare authorities around the world are grappling with how to deal with the battery-driven devices, which allow users to inhale nicotine-laced vapour and are increasingly popular as an apparently less harmful alternative to smoking. …

(Reuters) – Amgen Inc said on Wednesday that its trebananib treatment for ovarian cancer had reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 34 percent in a clinical trial. The company said the drug had met its primary goal in the trial, which is the first of three for the new treatment. Amgen said that while it was working on the primary analysis of overall survival for 2014, it saw a favorable survival trend in an interim analysis. Shares in Amgen were up slightly $98.25 in Nasdaq morning trading. (Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

By Padraic Halpin DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland's prime minister said he has been sent letters written in blood and branded a murderer by opponents of his government's plans to allow limited access to abortion, an issue that has polarized the country for decades. Enda Kenny's government agreed draft legislation in April to allow for limited access to abortion where a woman's life is in danger, including the threat of suicide, following months of protests from both sides of the debate. …

You Say Potato, I Say Double-Stranded RNA