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The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer's disease, research suggests. Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer's and thus help to prevent mental decline. They hope the cannabinoid may be used to developed new drug therapies. The research, by Madrid's Complutense University and the Cajal Institute, is published in the Journal of Neuroscience. We would warn the public against taking marijuana as a way of preventing Alzheimer's Dr Susanne Sorensen The scientists first compared the brain tissue of patients who died from Alzheimer's disease with that of healthy people who...

MADRID-A Spanish surgeon has come to the rescue of two Kenyan youngsters who had their penises cut off in their homeland during a bizarre ritual involving the creation of a potion reputedly able to cure AIDS. Dr Pedro Cavadas came to the aid of Oscar Kituy, 15, and 11-year-old Philippe Barasa both have a new organ thanks to complex reconstruction surgery carried out at the end of January in a Valencia hospital by surgeon Pedro Cavadas. "They can urinate normally, will recover their erogenous sensitivity and will be able to have sexual relation," according to Cavadas, who works for a...

PRIME Minister John Howard has leapt to defence of the US and President George W. Bush at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Mr Howard has also questioned the track record of the United Nations, pointing to the organisation's inability to respond quickly and decisively to humanitarian crises. The war and continuing strife in Iraq has dominated discussions at Davos this year. The picturesque ski village high in the Swiss Alps fills with world leaders, business heads, rock stars and movie stars every year, serving as a swank forum for lofty debate about the world's big economic, humanitarian and political...

JERUSALEM - The Hamas terrorist organization’s overwhelming success in last week’s Gaza municipal elections proves there is widespread public support for its efforts to mass murder Israeli Jews, Hamas officials said. "Our people have a consensus on the choice of jihad and resistance and the election has underscored that concept," said spokesman Muhir al-Masri following the announcement of the election results. “This means that the people believe in the armed resistance as the only option,” Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told The Jerusalem Post . Voter turnout topped 80 percent in Thursday’s poll, which gave Hamas 75 out of 118...

THE son of the United Nations secretary-general has admitted he was involved in negotiations to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi oil under the auspices of Saddam Hussein. Kojo Annan has told a close friend he became involved in negotiations to sell 2m barrels of Iraqi oil to a Moroccan company in 2001. He is understood to be co-operating with UN investigators probing the discredited oil for food programme. The alleged admission will increase pressure on Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, who is already facing calls for his resignation over the management of the humanitarian programme. The oil for...

AMSTERDAM — A court in The Hague ordered the release from jail on Thursday of a Dutchman suspected of exporting raw materials to Iraq to assist in Saddam Hussein's production of chemical weapons. The suspect, Franz van A., is accused of supplying the ousted Iraqi dictator with chemicals for the production of mustard gas that was used against the Kurds in northern Iraq. The appeals court in The Hague did not give a reason why it ordered his release. Court spokesman Roland Regout told news agency Novum that the decision was made during a hearing in chambers. Such hearings are...

OTTAWA (CP) - A sickly Marcel Tremblay consumed two beers, two shrimp and a crab cake at what he called "a living wake" on Friday, then went home and killed himself, sparking a countrywide debate on the right-to-die issue. The frail, 78-year-old man appeared remarkably non-chalant and upbeat as he prepared to die, saying he was fed up with suffering from a fatal lung disease and hoped that Canadians would debate the issue of assisted suicide. "I'm 110 per cent positive of what I want to do and I'm justified in my thinking of why I want to do it,"...

The international media-advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is criticizing seven governments, saying they have been unjustly harassing the Arabic-language satellite television Al-Jazeera. The Paris-based group said in an overnight statement that Saudi Arabia had refused to allow Al-Jazeera to cover the recent Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca for a third consecutive year. It said since the start of 2004, Al-Jazeera has been harshly criticized by Saudi Arabia and the United States, has been censored in Algeria, Iran, Tunisia, and Canada and had its Baghdad bureau shut down last August by Iraqi authorities. RSF said the actions of the seven governments...

“The government of President Chavez has demonstrated during the past few years a great lack of respect towards women. The worst repression against the marches centered on women; military officers used gestures and obscene language against the women who didn’t share their political ideas; and President Chavez himself, on Valentine’s day, sent his wife through television a vulgar sexual message. Today, during the event organized against “foreign intervention”, [President Chavez] sent several messages to Dr. Condoleeza Rice, insinuating that “Condolence’s” problem with him was sexual frustration. Furthermore, he consulted with the ‘his people’, to decide if by marrying her he...

TEHERAN - Excited Iraqi men and women gathered amid intense security Friday at a mosque in downtown Tehran to vote in Iraq’s first free elections, a poll many hoped would bring a Shiite party to power and restore security in their troubled nation. Iraqi expatriates are permitted to cast ballots in 14 countries across the world, but the voting in Iran holds special significance. Many of Iraq’s Arab neighbors are concerned that the country’s Shiite Muslim majority, long suppressed under the rule of Saddam Hussein, will vote in a government that will strengthen ties with the Shiite clerics ruling Iran....

A retired restaurateur has admitted raising a kitty with other pensioners to buy cannabis which she used in her recipes for "medicinal purposes". Patricia Tabram, a grey-haired grandmother, turned to the drug in an attempt to offset the effects of tinnitus, mild depression and pains after a car crash. She began using it in soups, cakes and hot pots in her country kitchen and introduced others to the secret ingredient. Police raided her stone-built cottage in the village of Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland, after a tip-off. Tabram, 66, was formally cautioned in May last year for possession and cultivation of...

Bangkok - Four Britons and three Americans are among 15 people confirmed dead from a speedboat accident off the tourist island of Samui after three more bodies were pulled from the Gulf of Thailand on Thursday, officials said. Thai police and tourism officials said they recovered three bodies including that of a foreign woman when they floated to the surface in calm seas in the area where the speedboat packed with revellers capsized on Tuesday. "Fifteen bodies have now been recovered. The latest victim is a woman, but we don't know her nationality," said Colonel Veerayuth Hiran, commander of Samui...

Followers of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have executed an Egyptian and two Iraqi drivers on a street in broad daylight, according to videos shown on a website. A first video showed a man identified as Ibrahim Mohammed Ismail, born 1966, on his knees, handcuffed and blindfolded on a street before a masked man shot him in the head. Ismail was shown earlier saying he worked for a Kuwaiti company identified as Al-Shallahi, which provides US forces with drinking water, and urging his compatriots not to come to Iraq or work for the Americans. "Despite all the warnings...

A CANADIAN Islamic group is vowing to prevent the adoption by Christian families of Muslim children orphaned in the tsunami disaster. "Canadian Muslims will not allow that the custody of Muslim orphan children to be given to Christian families or any non-Muslim families," reads a release issued yesterday by the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. The release goes on to say Christian missionaries are kidnapping Muslim children in Indonesia. "It is now proven that the Christian missionaries do not help people on humanitarian grounds," the release states. "They help people in order to exploit their needs and convert them to...

How many Liberals does it take to win a war? How many of you Liberals does it take to win a war? Well how the hell can we tell? You won’t fight one anymore. You say that you support the troops, but the truth’s plain as your face, You’d pull us from the battle, march us home in full disgrace. You’ve no stomach for the fighting, got no mettle, got no pluck; If you ran this war on terror, we’d be a very well plucked duck. The wolves of Jihad smell your dread, can smell your craven breath, And emboldened...

The physical distance between Kiev and Baghdad is less than that between Toronto and Vancouver. But the distance in time between Ukraine and Iraq is a chasm separating the modern world from the Dark Ages. The story of Ukraine's election last week -- a story that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and ended with this week's decisive vote against the remaining communist old guard -- is remarkable when set against the bleak reality of the Middle East, where Iraq's own historic election looms a month from today. In the lands between the Nile and the...

Russian authorities detained a South Korean businessman in the Far East region of Sakhalin on Wednesday for illegally importing radioactive instruments. Kim Jong-Hyun, of South Korea’s All Nations Co., was detained after a foreign ship carrying 13 radioactive instruments that included non-enriched Uranium-238 arrived in the port of Korsakov, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. The equipment, which was giving off radiation that was measured to be 200 times the normal amount and deadly within a three-meter range, were intended for a foreign company that was building a factory to liquefy natural gas. The documents accompanying the radioactive equipment were all...

When it comes to immigration, Tony Yapias and Matt Throckmorton often find themselves butting heads. They're polar opposites on issues such as drivers' licenses for undocumented immigrants and President Bush's proposed "guest worker" program. Yapias, director of the state Office of Hispanic Affairs, said in January that Bush's proposal to give illegal aliens the ability to achieve renewable, temporary legal status would allow them to "live and work without fear." Meanwhile, Throckmorton, founder of Utahns for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (UFIRE), said such a program would create a "complete open ticket to come to America." As the immigration debate appears...

Kofi Annan's year-end fiddling while the United Nations burns underscores a secretary-general who doesn't flinch, doesn't care, or simply doesn't get it. With regard to the United Nations' oversight of Iraq's scandal-ridden oil-for-food program, Mr. Annan smugness is insulting. He says the U.N.'s own investigation -- while stonewalling five separate congressional investigations -- will "help clear the air" in the new year. Translation: We're not going to get the full story of the biggest financial fraud in history as long as Annan is in charge. If Annan had any honor, he would have stepped down when allegations that his own,...

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has cut short his holiday and is returning to his New York headquarters to oversee the UN's relief exercise for Indian Ocean tsunami victims. Mr Annan will meet tonight with the UN official directly responsible for coordinating the relief, Jan Egeland. Mr Annan's spokesman says that over the past two days, the UN boss has spoken by phone with leaders of countries hard hit by the disaster, not just to offer condolences but to find out what they need most urgently. The Red Cross has put the overall death toll at almost 78,000 people, and...