Researchers said yesterday they were a step closer to developing a vaccine against the type of meningitis that mostly affects Europe and North America and kills hundreds every year. A trial in adolescents in Australia, Poland and Spain showed them developing an immune response without serious side-effects, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal. After taking the drug, the test group generated antibodies that were active against 90 percent of strains in the meningitis B group affecting the US and Europe. Meningitis, an inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord, mostly targets teenagers — with a fatality rate of between 5 percent and 14 percent. Many survivors suffer permanent neurological damage and limb or hearing loss.
IRAN
Eleven ‘traffickers’ executed
Nine men were hung in a prison in Tehran after they were convicted of trafficking “glass,” or methamphetamine, a statement from the Tehran prosecution office said. Seven of the men had been sentenced to death after a consignment of 500kg of the drug was seized in a cargo ship bound for Southeast Asia, the statement carried by local media said. In a separate case, two brothers, Bahman and Behzad Nabavi, were executed after being convicted of trafficking more than 420kg of “glass,” the prosecutor’s office said.
LIBYA
Leader suffers from hernia
Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Sunday he had undergone a hernia operation and a doctor at the hospital where he was treated said he was recovering well. “The doctors here agreed on what the doctors in Tripoli said — for an operation for this hernia,” the chairman of the ruling National Transitional Council, looking tired and wearing a dressing gown, told reporters at the -Benghazi hospital. Abdel Jalil said he had the operation on Saturday night. Abdel Jalil was born in 1952. He served as justice minister under former leader Muammar Qaddafi, but resigned early last year and joined the revolt.
UAE
Arab news channel launched
A new pan-Arab news channel partly backed by Abu Dhabi has hit the airwaves. Sky News Arabia began broadcasting on Sunday evening from Abu Dhabi, which hopes to rival nearby Dubai as a media hub. The Arabic-language network will compete for viewers with established services such as Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and Saudi-backed Al--Arabiya, broadcasting from Dubai. Sky News Arabia is a partnership between the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp and British Sky Broadcasting, whose biggest shareholder is media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The channel has been in the works for more than two years. It says its news management is separate from Sky’s London headquarters.
GERMANY
Police overwhelm shooter
Police say a SWAT team overwhelmed an unidentified man who fired several shots inside a church. Police say officers stormed the church in Siegen on Sunday afternoon about six hours after the man had locked himself inside the building. A church employee was initially threatened by the man, but managed to escape, leaving the attacker by himself inside the building for hours. Reports said the man was injured during the raid and was hospitalized. Police said the man fired “several shots,” but his motive remained unclear.
UNITED STATES
Wife sees husband’s death
An army nurse showed no alarm or discomfort before suddenly collapsing during a Skype video chat with his wife, who saw a bullet hole in a closet behind him, his family said on Sunday. Captain Bruce Kevin Clark’s family released a statement describing what his wife saw in the video feed recording her husband’s death in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan. It was not clear how the bullet hole got in the closet. “Clark was suddenly knocked forward,” the statement from the family said. “The closet behind him had a bullet hole in it. The other individuals, including a member of the military, who rushed to the home of Clark’s wife also saw the hole and agreed it was a bullet hole.” The statement says the Skype link remained open for two hours on April 30 as family and friends in the US and Afghanistan tried to get Clark help. In the statement, Susan Orellana-Clark said she was providing details of what she saw “to honor my husband and dispel the inaccurate information and supposition promulgated by other parties.” The Pentagon said previously that Clark’s death remains under investigation.
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