Health - AFP

LUSAKA (AFP) - The Red Cross Society in Zambia has warned that half the country's youth risk dying of AIDS as it launched a 50 million dollar appeal to finance a scale-up of its fight against HIV.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pfizer's shock scrapping of its most promising drug has highlighted the profitable but risky drive to treat cholesterol and other acute malaises of rich societies.

NEW YORK (AFP) - New York health authorities said they would ban restaurants from using artificial cooking oils known as trans fats, in an attempt to improve residents' health and help tackle heart disease.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Arkansas and Louisiana have it, and now California is considering a ban on smoking inside cars when children are present.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia aims to cut its HIV infection rate by 20 percent in the next year with the implementation of several "high-impact" programs, Health Minister Chua Soi Lek has said.

CAPE TOWN (AFP) - Stem cell science may yield a cure for diabetes currently afflicting nearly 250 million people and counting, an expert told an international conference in Cape Town.

SYDNEY (AFP) - An innovative "scratch and smell" test promises to become a powerful new tool for sniffing out mental illness before the onset of symptoms, Australian researchers said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Websites are glamorizing anorexia and bulimia and teaching new techniques to youths with the potentially deadly eating disorders, according to a US study published.

BERLIN (AFP) - Doctors and pharmacists mounted protests across Germany against government health care reform plans they argue will threaten their livelihoods and compromise patients' health.

PRAGUE (AFP) - A Czech nurse charged with murdering seven patients and attempting to kill 10 others could spend the rest of his life behind bars, justice officials said.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton has been made an honorary chief of Papua New Guinea during a visit aimed at promoting the fight against AIDS in the stricken Pacific nation.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia suspended all rice imports after discovering that some imports were genetically modified, spoilt or contaminated with pesticides, an agriculture ministry official said.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Residents in the Indian capital are receiving phone calls from city health workers asking them to quit smoking under a new public health campaign, a report said.

CAPE TOWN (AFP) - The world faces a diabetes epidemic affecting nearly 400 million people as poor diet and inactive lifestyles result in cases developing at an ever younger age, a conference on the disease has heard.

TOKYO (AFP) - Two middle-aged Japanese bureaucrats showed their bulging bellies to the nation as they kicked off a diet blog as part of a national campaign to fight growing obesity.

BAMAKO (AFP) - International health experts gather in Mali this week for a bird flu conference amid warnings that Africa risks becoming a permanent host to the virus that has triggered concerns of a global pandemic.

BANGKOK (AFP) - The world's leading cancer experts have begun laying the groundwork in Bangkok for the development of a regional training network to fight the growing cancer crisis in Asia.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Citing the "interests of patient safety," US drug manufacturer Pfizer said it was stopping all clinical trials of the cholesterol-controlling drug Torcetrapib.

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea has culled some 771,000 chickens since it reported two new bird flu outbreaks in its southwest late last month.

RIYADH (AFP) - Two Iraqi conjoined twins have been successfully separated in a lengthy operation in a Riyadh hospital.

LONDON (AFP) - Dance classes are to be provided on Britain's public health service to counter declining fitness levels and prevent a national obesity epidemic, a newspaper said.

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Singaporean kidney patients are going to China for transplants despite fears of infection and reports that replacement organs may have come from executed convicts, a local newspaper has reported.

BEIJING (AFP) - Officials in China's worst hit AIDS province plan compulsory pre-marital HIV tests as part of a series of tough measures to stem the spread of the fatal virus, state media has said.

LAGOS (AFP) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, 69, has taken a voluntary HIV-AIDS test in Abuja in a move to encourage Nigerians to emulate the practice.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Two ethical controversies flared into life on World AIDS Day as the United States and South Africa backed sexual abstinence in their mix of programs to fight AIDS and British leader Tony Blair lashed at religious bans on condoms.

NAIROBI (AFP) - Three-year-old Ibraham Akinyi pushes a toy car made of scrap metal across a makeshift wooden table, oblivious to the horrors that befell his mother, Beatrice, after his father's death from AIDS in 2003.

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged religious leaders to drop bans on condoms, vital in curbing the spread of AIDS, according to a pre-recorded television interview on World AIDS day.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pfizer's shock scrapping of its most promising drug has highlighted the profitable but risky drive to treat cholesterol and other acute malaises of rich societies.