Bird-flu labs taking “pause”
WASHINGTON — Scientists who created easier-to-spread versions of the deadly bird flu said Friday they’re temporarily halting more research, as international specialists debate what should happen next.
Researchers from leading flu laboratories around the world signed onto the voluntary moratorium, published Friday in the journals Science and Nature.
What the scientists called a “pause” comes amid fierce controversy over how to handle research that’s high-risk but potentially could bring a big payoff. Two labs — at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison — created the new viruses while studying how bird flu might mutate to become a more serious threat to people.
Judge to rule on “Baby Doc” trial•PORT-AU-PRINCE, haiti — Haitian authorities will rule before month’s end on whether the prosecution of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier moves to trial or gets dropped, the investigating judge told The Associated Press on Friday.
The announcement by Judge Carves Jean followed a closed hearing during which he admonished the former dictator known as “Baby Doc” for violating the terms of his conditional release by leaving the capital at least twice in recent weeks.
Undercover cops reportedly fathered activists’ kids•LONDON — Britain’s Guardian newspaper said Friday that two undercover police officers have fathered children with the activists they were spying on.
Key details were hazy, but the revelations were the latest in a series of reports that has cast doubt on whether undercover police in the U.K. go too far in seeking to infiltrate environmental, animal-rights and extremist groups.
British authorities are already preparing a report into the use of undercover officers after one of them caused a trial to collapse when his cover was blown. The Guardian said that two other police operatives had children while on the job, although the timing of the officers’ alleged relationships was unclear.
2 aid workers feared to be kidnapped•ISLAMABAD — Police officials said Friday that they were searching for two European aid workers who were kidnapped the day before in central Pakistan.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abductions in Multan, a city in Punjab province. It was not clear if the aid workers had been taken by criminals or by Taliban insurgents.
The two aid workers, identified as an Italian man and a German man, worked for Welthungerhilfe, an international aid group based in Bonn, Germany.
Stage collapses during thunderstorm•OTTAWA — The main stage at Ottawa Bluesfest collapsed Sunday night during a Cheap Trick concert as a severe thunderstorm sent the band members and thousands of fans running for cover.
Bluesfest official Joe Reilly said one person suffered a broken leg, the Vancouver Sun reported. The members of Cheap Trick were performing at the time, but they got off the stage safely. Witnesses said the band members were thrown off their feet.
More relief needed in South Sudan, U.N. says•JUBA, south sudan — More than 120,000 people need humanitarian aid because of a wave of ethnic clashes in a remote and volatile region of South Sudan, the United Nations said Friday, underscoring the challenges the world’s newest nation faces six months after independence.
The government of Sudan also reported clashes in a state bordering the new nation.
The battles in Jonglei state are straining international relief efforts, said Lise Grande, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan. The U.N. mission originally projected that the same number of people displaced in South Sudan in 2011 — 350,000 — would be displaced in 2012.
Cuba assailed for hunger-strike death•MEXICO CITY — Human-rights advocates and U.S. officials condemned the Cuban government Friday for continuing to limit political freedom, reacting to the death of an imprisoned Cuban dissident who had carried out a hunger strike to protest his sentence.
The dissident, Wilman Villar Mendoza, 31, died Thursday after 50 days without food, according to relatives. He was at least the second political prisoner known to die of a hunger strike since President Raul Castro took over from his brother Fidel in 2006.
2 Sunni politicians arrested in Iraq •BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces raided the homes of two Sunni politicians north of Baghdad on Friday, according to security officials, heightening fears among Sunni leaders that Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is targeting them along sectarian lines.
The raids, which followed the arrest two days earlier of a Sunni official in Baghdad, came against the backdrop of a broader investigation of the country’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi. All the cases involve allegations of terrorism, officials said.
Egyptians to mark first anniversary of uprising•CAIRO — Several thousand Egyptians marched to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday ahead of the first anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, demanding justice and retribution for those killed in clashes with security forces.
Activists have organized the demonstrations as part of a week of “mourning and anger” around the Jan. 25 anniversary to rally support for their call to end military rule. They say the generals who took power after Mubarak’s fall have continued policies just as authoritarian and abusive as those of the toppled regime. Denver Post wire services
