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U.N. Abandoning Work On International Cloning Ban SOURCE: The Indianapolis Star, IN WWWeb: http://tinyurl.com/62shh November 19, 2004 United Nations -- In a victory for advocates of stem cell research, U.N. diplomats on Thursday gave up trying to craft a treaty to outlaw human cloning, and will probably settle for a less powerful document that won't seek a worldwide ban, officials said. Member nations had been split between two treaty proposals for a year. One group, led by the United States, sought to ban all human cloning, while the other, led by European countries, wanted to ban reproductive cloning but allow cloning for research. In the end, both sides realized they wouldn't get enough support for a treaty to achieve worldwide ratification, said Marc Pecsteen, a Belgian diplomat in the thick of the talks. Instead, they were leaning toward a nonbinding declaration that would include language ambiguous enough to please both sides. Gift box tradition revived for British troops overseas London -- Pipes and pencils will be replaced by cameras and games when a 90-year-old royal tradition of sending gifts to British troops abroad is revived this Christmas, a defense spokesman said Thursday. British troops spending the Christmas of 1914 huddled in trenches in France or on battleships received a Christmas gift box filled with pipes, lighters, cigarettes and telescoping "bullet pencils" made from rifle cartridges. The gifts were the initiative of Princess Mary, the 17-year-old daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, who wanted everyone wearing the British uniform overseas to receive a gift from the nation on Christmas Day. Ninety years later their modern day contemporaries in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, the Balkans, and the Falkland and Ascension Islands will get a bundle containing cameras, games and other treats. The idea has been resurrected by British companies who will sponsor the gift boxes to be distributed by the Defense Logistics Organization. Former neo-fascist named Italy's foreign minister Rome -- Italy on Thursday appointed a new foreign minister, Gianfranco Fini, who once called Mussolini "the greatest statesman of the century" but who in recent years has worked to redefine himself as a centrist leader and plausible candidate, someday, for prime minister. His selection marked the high point in that public transformation from his roots as the leader of a neo-fascist party, the National Alliance. Leaders in the center-left opposition did not actively oppose his selection and he has received praise from Jewish leaders who once shunned him because of doubts about whether his party had genuinely shed its anti-Semitic past. In recent years, and especially after he was named deputy prime minister in 2001, Fini, 52, has worked to erase his neo-fascist label. Woman first to file under Chile's new divorce law Santiago, Chile -- A 48-year-old woman became the first person in Chilean history to file for divorce Thursday, ushering in a new era for this heavily Roman Catholic country that had been the last in South America with no divorce law. The justice minister called the new law a historic step, but Maria Victoria Torres said it was far more personal -- "a window that opens to look at a new life with dignity, without fear." Torres, a beauty parlor assistant who has been married for 25 years, based her request for divorce on what she called "years of continued violence" by her husband, from whom she has been separated for months. The couple have two grown children. SOURCE: The Indianapolis Star, IN WWWeb: http://tinyurl.com/62shh * * *Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]> Please place this address in your address book Please purge all others Web site: Parkinsons Resources on the WWWeb http://www.geocities.com/murraycharters ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn