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| Power outage plunges most of Venezuela into darkness Monday, Dec 02, 2013 08:06 PM PST  By Diego Ore and Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's second massive power outage of the year plunged much of the nation into darkness on Monday night, prompting renewed talk of sabotage from President Nicolas Maduro's government and cries of incompetence from its foes. Power went off in Caracas and other cities around the country soon after 8 p.m. local time (0030 GMT), to the intense annoyance of residents and commuters. Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver who narrowly won a presidential election this year after the death of his mentor and former leader Hugo Chavez, accused the opposition then of deliberately sabotaging the power grid to discredit him. His powerful ally and National Assembly president, Diosdado Cabello, repeated the same accusation after Monday's blackout that affected more than half of Venezuela. Full Story | Top |
| Genetic test maker 23andMe stops marketing after FDA warning Monday, Dec 02, 2013 05:35 PM PST  (Reuters) - Home genetic test maker 23andMe, which is backed by Google Inc, stopped marketing its products last week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that it did not have regulatory approval to do so, a company spokeswoman said. The FDA said last week it had sent a warning letter to the company on November 22 stating that products designed to diagnose, mitigate or prevent disease were medical devices that required regulatory clearance. Company founder Anne Wojcicki said in a November 26 blog post that the company had been talking to the FDA since 2008 and had submitted its first application for clearance in July last year, followed by another submission in September. "We stand behind the data that we return to customers - but we recognize that the FDA needs to be convinced of the quality of our data as well," Wojcicki wrote in the post. Full Story | Top |
| Mexican Congress committees give green light to electoral reform Monday, Dec 02, 2013 04:06 PM PST  By Adriana Barrera MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican congressional committees on Monday gave the green light to an electoral reform demanded by the opposition, paving the way for lawmakers to push ahead with the energy sector overhaul at the center of President Enrique Pena Nieto's reform agenda. The reform will allow federal lawmakers to serve consecutive terms, sets out rules for coalition governments and should strengthen Congress at the expense of the president. It is the last major hurdle to approval of the energy reform. The progress on the electoral bill comes after Mexico's main leftist party pulled out of a political pact that Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) forged a year ago with opposition leaders to push through economic reforms. Full Story | Top |
| Health disparities 'could be eliminated in a generation': study Monday, Dec 02, 2013 04:02 PM PST By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Health disparities between rich and poor nations could be banished in a generation by investment in research, vaccines and drugs to combat diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, global health experts said on Tuesday. In a report setting out a plan for a "grand convergence" in health, the experts said world leaders needed to press for a concerted increase in research and development (R&D) investment to develop new medicines, vaccines and health technologies. "For the first time in human history, we are on the verge of being able to achieve a milestone for humanity: eliminating major health inequalities...so that every person on earth has an equal chance at a healthy and productive life," said Larry Summers, a former U.S. Treasury Secretary who co-chaired a commission on global health. The report, called "Global Health 2035: A World Converging within a Generation" was written by 25 leading international health experts and economists, chaired by Summers, of Harvard University, and published in The Lancet health journal. Full Story | Top |
| No return from the dead for Comet ISON Monday, Dec 02, 2013 03:28 PM PST  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The last vestiges of Comet ISON are fading from view after a sizzlingly close encounter with the sun, scientists said on Monday. "Comet ISON is now just a cloud of dust," astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on SpaceWeather.com, a NASA-backed website. "Experienced astrophotographers might be able to capture the comet's fading 'ghost' in the pre-dawn sky of early December, but a naked-eye spectacle is out of the question," he wrote. Scientists believe the comet broke apart as it passed through the sun's corona on Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine protests increase risks of currency crisis Monday, Dec 02, 2013 03:13 PM PST By Douglas Busvine MOSCOW (Reuters) - Massive protests against Viktor Yanukovich hammered Ukraine's financial markets on Monday, increasing the risk of a currency crisis as the president tries to hold on until an election in early 2015. Ukraine's debt insurance costs jumped and currency traders increased bets on a devaluation after 350,000 people protested on Sunday against Yanukovich's decision to ditch a trade pact with the European Union. Yet even though the protest was the largest since the Orange revolution that overturned Yanukovich's election victory in 2004, analysts stopped short of predicting wholesale upheaval. "I'm trying to work out when a country has ever provoked a revolution over a trade deal," said Charles Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital in London. Full Story | Top |
| Outages in Tripoli as minorities block power output: government Monday, Dec 02, 2013 02:30 PM PST Libya's government blamed protests by two minority groups demanding more political rights for outages in the capital, Tripoli, and other parts of the North African country, state media said on Monday. Both groups are demanding that their languages and cultural identities be guaranteed in a new constitution two years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. The strikes come on top of widespread protests at oilfields and ports over higher pay and political rights that halted most exports and dried up state revenues. Full Story | Top |
| New York lawsuit seeks 'legal personhood' for chimpanzees Monday, Dec 02, 2013 12:49 PM PST  By Bernard Vaughan and Daniel Wiessner NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. animal rights group on Monday filed what it said is the first lawsuit seeking to establish the "legal personhood" of chimpanzees. The non-profit Nonhuman Rights Project asked a New York state court to declare a 26-year-old chimp named Tommy "a cognitively complex autonomous legal person with the fundamental legal right not to be imprisoned." The lawsuit seeks a declaration that Tommy's "detention" in a "small, dank, cement cage in a cavernous dark shed" in central New York is unlawful and demands his immediate release to a primate sanctuary. Chimpanzees "possess complex cognitive abilities that are so strictly protected when they're found in human beings," Steven Wise, the president of Nonhuman Rights Project, told Reuters. "There's no reason why they should not be protected when they're found in chimpanzees," he added. Full Story | Top |
| MERS virus infects family in UAE, kills two in Qatar: WHO Monday, Dec 02, 2013 12:26 PM PST By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - Another three people in the United Arab Emirates are sick with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus and two people infected with it in Qatar have died, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. MERS, which emerged last year and can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, has killed almost 40 percent of the people it has so far infected around the world, with cases in countries across the Middle East as well as in Europe and north Africa. Patients diagnosed and reported to date have had respiratory disease as their primary illness, the WHO said. Diarrhoea is also commonly reported among MERS patients and severe complications include renal failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with shock. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. environment chief to share air pollution lessons with China Monday, Dec 02, 2013 12:16 PM PST  By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China can learn from U.S. struggles to reduce pollution as it confronts recent high-profile incidents of poor air quality paralyzing major cities, the top U.S. environmental regulator said on Monday. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy spoke ahead of a visit to Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese locations next week. "While I am all too well aware of the severe air quality challenges that China now faces, I see these challenges as ones where the United States can truly speak from experience in support of China's efforts to reduce air pollution," McCarthy said at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress. China is the world's largest polluter as measured in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Full Story | Top |
| Oil spill coats river, sea near ENI Nigeria facility Monday, Dec 02, 2013 11:57 AM PST By Tife Owolabi YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A large oil spill near Nigeria's Brass facility, run by ENI, has spread through the sea and swamps of the oil producing Niger Delta region, local residents and the company said on Monday. There are hundreds of leaks every year from pipelines that pass through the delta's creeks, damaging the environment and the profits of oil companies including ENI and Royal Dutch Shell, especially when production has to be deferred. Vast stretches of the delta's unique mangrove swamps are blackened and dead from oil pollution. "During loading operations on a tanker on November 27, an oil spill in the sea was seen. Full Story | Top |
| SpaceX delays satellite launch attempt until Tuesday Monday, Dec 02, 2013 11:07 AM PST  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, plans to try again on Tuesday to launch its first commercial communications satellite after its Falcon 9 rocket was twice sidelined by technical issues, officials said. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket and a 3.5-ton (3,175 kg) communications satellite owned by Luxembourg-based SES S.A. is now targeted for Tuesday at 5:41 p.m. EST (2241 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Full Story | Top |
| The votes are in - Washington's panda cub named Bao Bao Monday, Dec 02, 2013 09:24 AM PST  In a ceremony fitting royalty, the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington said on Sunday it was naming a rare, female giant panda cub "Bao Bao," after a public online vote that drew more than 123,000 submissions. Bao Bao (rhyming with Pow Pow) translates as precious or treasure in English, the zoo said. It was one of five Mandarin Chinese names offered in the online vote that ran from November 5 to November 22. Music and dancing and Chinese treats were served in celebration, zoo officials said. Full Story | Top |
| Thames Water proposes hike in bills to pay for "super sewer" Monday, Dec 02, 2013 08:37 AM PST British utility Thames Water has submitted plans to increase water bills for its 14 million customers by 11 percent between 2015 and 2020 to pay for a "super sewer" in London, a move that could put it on a collision course with regulators. Thames Water, Britain's biggest water and sewage services provider, has proposed increasing average household bills from 358 pounds a year in 2013 to 398 pounds, plus inflation, by 2020 in a business plan announced on Monday. It said that bills would have declined in real terms in the period were it not for the 2.8 billion pound investment in the Thames Tideway Tunnel, needed to provide additional capacity to London's ageing sewer network. "Much of London's water and sewerage infrastructure dates from Victorian times," said Thames Water Chief Executive Martin Baggs. Full Story | Top |
| Journal withdraws controversial French Monsanto GM study Monday, Dec 02, 2013 07:45 AM PST  Reed Elsevier's Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT)journal, which published the study by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini in September 2012, said the retraction was because the study's small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached. "Ultimately, the results presented - while not incorrect - are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology." At the time of its original publication, hundreds of scientists across the world questioned Seralini's research, which said rats fed Monsanto's GM corn had suffered tumors and multiple organ failure. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued a statement in November 2012 saying the study by Seralini, who was based at France's University of Caen, had serious defects in design and methodology and did not meet acceptable scientific standards. In its retraction statement, the FCT said that, in light of these concerns, it too had asked to view the raw data. Full Story | Top |
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