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The Pentagon has granted $US240,000 to a Swedish team for embryonic stem-cell research linked to Parkinson's disease, despite US Government limits on stem-cell research. In a statement, Lund University in southern Sweden says the US Department of Defence is supporting the Swedish Parkinson's study because the findings could be used to treat similar neurological illnesses caused by battlefield toxins. The Swedish research, using human embryonic stem cells, will focus on ways to prompt the cells to develop into the type of nerve cells deficient in the brains of patients with Parkinson's. The disease causes tremors, muscle rigidity and slow movement...

Addressing the Commons in 1932, Baldwin made an astonishingly frank admission. "I think it is as well for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed," he said. "Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through." That observation, as yesterday's attacks in Madrid demonstrate, is equally valid today. Even with every nerve and sinew of the state strained to counter the threat, the bombers still got through. At this stage, it is not certain who the perpetrators were, though ETA or al-Qa'eda are the...

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - An appeals court in Sweden has ordered an overweight five-year-old girl removed from her parents' care because they have been unable to curb her weight gain and have put her health at risk. The Gothenburg administrative court of appeal ruled that the girl, who weighs 43 kilos (95 pounds) or almost twice that of a normal five-year-old, risked lasting health problems if she were to remain in her parents home, court documents showed Thursday. Doctors found that the girl's legs had been deformed because of her obesity and her ability to walk properly was impeded, court documents...

STOCKHOLM More than 50 years after its creation as a pan-Scandinavian airline, SAS said Wednesday it would split into three independent national units in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and a fourth entity that will handle intercontinental flights. "We have decided to split the company into three separate legal units, giving the branches in each country far more independence to make decisions without involving the other two," said Hans Ollongren, an SAS spokesman. Asked whether the split was a first step toward selling off parts of SAS, Ollongren admitted that such a move would be easier with more independent units, but...

Throwing down the nuclear gauntlet (excerpt) Iran is presenting a fundamental challenge to the Bush administration's diplomacy. Its foreign minister has said that once relations with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, are "normalised", Iran will resume its uranium enrichment activities. The United States firmly believes that Iran has no real need for a nuclear power programme and is intent on gathering the building-blocks for a nuclear weapon. America's European allies share many of its concerns, but not Washington's certainty. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3498432.stm Iran chides US nuclear 'bullying' (excerpt) Iran has accused the US of "bullying" the UN's nuclear watchdog into drafting...

HOUSEKEEPING is hard work, so for companies that sell cleaning products, the mantra is ease of use. Just witness the recent popularity of the Swiffer, a mop with disposable wipes. Now a different kind of convenience has come to the ultimate cleaning tool, the vacuum cleaner. Two robotic models, the Roomba and the Karcher Robo Vacuum Cleaner, are available in the United States, and in May they will be joined by the Trilobite, an automatic vacuum that is already sold in Europe. While the idea of a vacuum that cleans while its owner does almost anything else may sound appealing,...

Defence says prosecution has weak case The trial surrounding last year's leaks of confidential Foreign Ministry papers on Iraq began in Helsinki on Wednesday morning. Former Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki (Centre) and former Presidential aide Martti Manninen face charges related to the leaking of information from the documents by Manninen to Jäätteenmäki during last spring's Parliamentary election campaign. Jäätteenmäki, who was then the chairwoman of the opposition Centre Party, used the information to attack the government of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (SDP). According to the indictment, Jäätteenmäki incited Manninen to violate official secrets when she deliberately and repeatedly asked him...

This week, among all the macho swagger and the muscle-car posturing of the Geneva Motor Show, an altogether more alluring project will be unveiled. Volvo, a company not normally noted for being adventurous, will present to the world the first car designed, engineered and built by women. The Your Concept Car (YCC) has been built on a modest budget of £2m by a team of nine women, none of whom had worked on a concept car before. They include an engineer who is also a mother of three, an interior designer whose background is in home wares and a team...

In the Swedish newspaper DN (Dagens Nyheter eng. Daily News - centre/liberal newspaper) the controversy regarding the proposed ban on gay marriages in the US is reported on. The journalist describes a site I have never heard of called www.dearmary.com, a pro-gay site using vp Cheney´s supposedly gay daughter to rally support for the gay agenda. To ward of any unecessary critism I´d like to stress that I find using politicians relatives to make political points are disgusting no matter what and usually/hopefully backfires on those responsible. The part I´d like FReepers opinion on is: (please have some understanding for...

EU förbjuder fjäderfäimport från USA EU-kommissionen har beslutat förbjuda import av fjäderfä från USA till följd av ett utbrott av fågelvirus i delstaten Texas. Beslutet, som meddelades vid lunchtid på tisdagen, gäller med omedelbar verkan och omfattar import av levande fåglar och ägg. Translation: EU bans import of poultry from the US The European Commission has decided to ban imports of poultry from the US as a result of an outbreak of the avian influensa (bird flu) in Texas. The decision, which was published at noon (CET), Tuesday, is effective immediately and the ban covers both imports of living poultry...

Britain's decision to join other EU countries by imposing restrictions on migrants from the ten states joining the Union in May draws criticism in Austrian and Czech papers, while Swedish and Swiss dailies look at the immigration issue from the viewpoint of Europe's purported demographic crisis. German-language papers welcome Brussels' warning to Russia over its refusal to extend its existing trade and political agreement with EU members to the accession states, a French daily sees Chirac on a reconciliation mission in Hungary, while the German media sounds a warning note over Turkey's EU accession. 'Humiliating' Austria's Der Standard says EU...

They just announced on the radio that there will be no more Miss Sweden contests as its demeaning to women and sets a bad example to little girls. According to the current organisers TV3 the competition will take a indefinite "time out" due to the claims that the competition furthers sterotyping of women and sets a superficious and false example for girls growing up. Opponents to the competition say´s the ideals the competition is judged by is obsolete, and that the competition should have been cancelled many decades ago. Guess they will have to cope without Swedes at Ms. Universe...

STOCKHOLM: King Carl XVI Gustaf's praise of the Sultan of Brunei has touched off such an outcry in Sweden that the king may see some of his few remaining powers clipped, officials said. A number of Swedish parliamentarians have called for more curbs on the monarch after he told Swedish public radio during a visit to the sultanate on Monday that Brunei was "a country which is much more open than one may imagine". "Every Sunday, (Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah) holds an open audience where anyone who wants to can come and present his wishes, and presumably his complaints also," he...

update The legal battle with Microsoft that has seen Linux reseller Lindows running a gantlet of courts over trademark infringement seems, for the moment, to be going in the open-source company's favor. The naming spat has been running since 2001 and has seen Lindows lose out in similar wranglings in the Netherlands and Sweden. The U.S. District Court in Seattle ruled Wednesday that the jury in the case should "consider whether the Windows mark was generic" before Windows 1.0 entered the marketplace in 1985. It also said that even if the "primary significance" of the term is not generic today--that...

<p>STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Concerns about the environmental impact of cremating the dead in Sweden has led one company to seek a solution that's more ice than fire.</p> <p>Instead of normal cremation, where a body is incinerated at high temperature, Swedish company Promessa Organic AB, says bodies are flash-frozen to minus 18 degrees Celsius (minus 64 Fahrenheit) and then dipped in liquid nitrogen with a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius (minus 385 Fahrenheit).</p>

A US-based Norwegian weapons inspector accuses the USA and Secretary of State Colin Powell with providing the United Nations Security Council with incorrect and misleading information about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), newspaper Dagbladet reports. Joern Siljeholm, Ph.D. in environmental chemistry, risk analysis and toxicology, said that the USA's basis for going to war is thin indeed, and called it a slap in the face to the United Nations weapons inspectors. Siljeholm told Dagbladet that Colin Powell's report to the Security Council on how Iraq camouflaged their WMD program was full of holes. "Much of what he...

A court has found former French prime minister Alain Juppe guilty of involvement in a party funding scam in Paris in the 1980s and early 1990s. Juppe, one of President Jacques Chirac's closest allies, immediately appealed against the conviction. The court gave him an 18-month suspended sentence and barred him from political office for up to 10 years. However, he will be able to continue as mayor of Bordeaux, and as head of the governing UMP party during the appeal. It's a hammer blow for Jacques Chirac, who thus loses his closest advisor and his designated successor, for whom he...

WASHINGTON - Parting company with many of his fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain said Thursday he wants an independent commission to take a sweeping look at recent intelligence failures. The White House has dismissed the proposal, saying the CIA (news - web sites) is committed to reviewing the intelligence behind claims that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration also argues that the weapons search is not yet complete. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has expressed frustration with those who suggest an outside investigation is needed before his committee has a chance...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro vowed on Friday to die fighting "with a gun in my hand" if the United States invaded Cuba to overthrow his communist government. "I don't care how I die, but for sure, if they invade us, I will die fighting," the 77-year-old leader said at a meeting of anti-free trade activists from across the hemisphere. Castro, who was the target of countless CIA assassination plots in the 1960s, called on the Bush administration to clarify to the world what its policy was on assassinating foreign leaders. Earlier this month, Bush Administration officials accused...

STOCKHOLM: Contrary to recent US claims that its war on Iraq forced Libya to give up its nuclear weapons program, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Thursday that diplomacy should be given most of the credit. "I think the dialogue in Libya started before (the war)," Blix said, speaking in Stockholm at the first meeting of a new international commission on weapons of mass destruction, of which he is chairman. "If the Iraqi affair injected a concern in Libya and Iran and North Korea... I really don’t know," he added. "One could (instead) say that the Libyan...