Today's other stories in brief
Cancer drug may have toxic effect on heart
CHICAGO - Pfizer cancer drug Sutent may have toxic effects on the heart, US researchers said yesterday.
Almost half of 75 patients with rare gastro-intestinal tumours who took the drug in a clinical trial developed high blood pressure, 8 per cent developed heart failure and two patients had heart attacks, according to a new analysis of clinical trial research.
The analysis suggests patients taking the drug, especially those with heart risks, should be closely monitored. - (Reuters)
US frees 15 from Guantánamo
MIAMI - The US military released 15 captives from the Guantánamo detention camp, putting the prisoner population below 300 for the first time in more than five years.
Thirteen prisoners were sent home to Afghanistan and two were returned to Sudan, the military said in a statement. - ( Reuters)
Israeli air strike on Gaza kills three
GAZA - Israel launched an air strike against a car in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing three Palestinian militants and critically wounding a fourth, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The Islamic Jihad militant group said one of the dead was Sami Tafesh, a commander of its rocket crews.
The other three casualties were identified as members of an armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction. - (Reuters)
Hirst donates works to Tate
LONDON - After protracted talks, the artist Damien Hirst has made his first donation to a museum, the Tate Gallery in London.
Hirst has donated four important pieces from his personal collection and the hope is that more will follow.
Three years ago Hirst was one of 24 artists to pledge significant works as part of Tate's Building the Tate Collection campaign, and while artists such as Antony Gormley, Anthony Caro and Louise Bourgeois had already donated, Hirst had not.
The four works include a copy of Mother and Child, Divided (1993) - a cow and calf, each bisected, and displayed in tanks of formaldehyde - which he displayed at the Turner prize in 1995. - ( Reuters)
Guilty of killing official in Corsica
PARIS - A French court found shepherd Yvan Colonna guilty of killing France's top government representative in Corsica in 1998, and sentenced him to life in jail, according to a ruling read out yesterday following a month-long trial.
The murder of Claude Erignac was the most serious political assassination in France since the second World War and marked the peak of nationalist violence on the unruly Mediterranean island.
Colonna has denied the killing and accused erstwhile friends in the murky nationalist movement of hiding the identity of the real murderer.
His lawyers immediately announced they would lodge an appeal against the verdict. - (Reuters)
Minnelli collapses during concert
GOTHENBURG - Singer and actress Liza Minnelli collapsed on stage during a performance in Sweden and was rushed back to the United States for medical treatment, concert organisers said yesterday.
She was performing in a Christmas show yesterday in Gothenburg but collapsed as she walked off stage after finishing her fourth song.
"As she walked down the steps, she passed out. She was taken immediately to her hotel where a doctor was waiting," a spokesman for the show said.
He said Minnelli was flown to the United States today on the advice of her doctors there. - (Reuters)