 |
 |
UN Admits Iran's Offer On Cloning 2003/11/08 - 09:47:19 Þ.Ù United Nations, Nov 8 - A proposal set forth by the Islamic Republic of Iran to delay a decision for two years on whether to ban human cloning for medical research was accepted by the UN General Assembly's legal committee on Thursday. In a tight voting characterized with 80 in favor, 79 against and 15 abstained, the proposal won the approval of the UN legal committee. The decision to postpone the UN decision on human cloning came after Iran's representative in the sixth session of the UN legal committee Mostafa Dowlatyar proposed a two-year delay to ban a plan on the human cloning. Dowlatyar said all the envoys of the Islamic states have reached a consensus to ask for the decision on the human closing to be raised and discussed in the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The postponement was asked for by Islamic nations amid a sharp divide between supporters of a US-backed resolution to outlaw all cloning and other nations that favor limited cloning for scientific purposes. Belgium, the main sponsor of the pro-cloning resolution, also backed the delay because it said it wanted any measure approved to have broad support. If the delay had not been approved, the general assembly's legal committee would then have automatically voted on the competing resolutions. Therefore, the delay was approved 80-79 with 15 abstentions. UN member states have been unable to reach consensus on cloning, which has raised a host of thorny moral, political, scientific and economic questions surrounding the use of embryos for medical research. SOURCE: Irib, Iran http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=191947&n=32 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn