Saudi women get voting right

Saudi King Abdullah announced on 25 Sep 2011 that the nation's women would gain the right to vote and run as candidates in local elections to be held in 2015 in a major advancement for the rights of women in the deeply conservative Muslim Kingdom. In an annual speech before his advisory assembly, or Shura Council, the Saudi monarch said he ordered the step after consulting the nation's top religious clerics, whose advice carries great weight in the Kingdom.

Non-disease Causing Virus Kills Breast Cancer Cells

Virus that does not cause disease kills human breast cancer cells in the laboratory, finds study. This finding would create opportunities for potential new cancer therapies.

Penn State College of Medicine researchers, who tested the virus on three different breast cancer types that represent the multiple stages of breast cancer development, made the findings. Adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) is a virus that regularly infects humans but causes no disease. Past studies by the same researchers show that it promotes tumour cell death in cervical cancer cells infected with human papillomavirus. Researchers used an unaltered, naturally occurring version of AAV2 on human breast cancer cells.

'Tiger' Pataudi, 70, is no more

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, one of India's greatest cricket captains ever and whose flair and acumen inspired a generation of cricket players, passed away here on 22 Sep 11 after battling a lung infection for the last few months. The 70 years old cricketer, one of India's early superstars and who was known as "Tiger" n the cricket fraternity, was suffering from interstitial lung disease, a condition in which the passage of oxygen to the two lungs is less than normal.

Somali Children win guns as recital prizes

An Islamist-backed radio station in Somalia has awarded assault rifles and hand grenades to the winners of a children's Koran recital competition. Andalus radio, which is run by the al-Shabaab militia, said on 19 Sep 2011 that the first prize was an AK-47 and 450 pounds. The runner-u received an AK-47 and 320 pounds, while the child who came third received two F1 hand grenades and 250 pounds. The three children also received religious books.

Former Afghan President Rabbani Killed in suicide bomb attack

Burhanuddin Rabbani, former resident of Afghanistan and Chairman of the High Peace Council leading the year old Afghan effort to negotiate with the Taliban was killed in a bomb blast at his residence in the centre of Kabul's high security diplomatic district.