New risks in second-hand smoke found: Second-hand smoke may be more dangerous than previously thought, amplifying blood clotting and damaging the walls of blood vessels within minutes of exposure, researchers have reported.
Scientists in California found that exposure to small doses of smoke, equivalent to the amount encountered when several people gather to puff in smokers' zones, delivers enough punch to change blood chemistry.
Dr Stanley Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who has produced one of the largest studies to date on the effects of second-hand smoke exposure, said that "by analysing the bad things that second-hand smoke can do, we found that exposure is about 80 per cent as bad as being a smoker". - LA Times Service
Australia steps up anti-whaling drive: Japan risks a worldwide backlash over plans to expand its annual whale hunt, Australia said as it stepped up a diplomatic campaign against whaling.
Prime Minister John Howard, in a letter to his Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi, urged Japan to reconsider its position following reports that two new species would be added to the Japanese hunt and its catch of minke whales nearly doubled.
There was no basis for killing whales for scientific research, Mr Howard said.
The letter risks a diplomatic row with Japan, Australia's biggest export destination, at a time when Australia is pushing for a free trade deal with Tokyo. - Reuters
Sex offenders given free Viagra: American health officials are scrambling to find a way to stop convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders receiving Viagra erectile-dysfunction drugs paid for by a government healthcare plan.
The issue was revealed on Sunday by the New York state comptroller's office, which found that 198 sex offenders in New York state received government-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions.
Their crimes included offences against children as young as two years old.
"Now that this issue has been brought to our attention, we are certainly going to see what we can do administratively, if anything," said Mary Kahn, spokeswoman for the US Department of Health and Human Services. - AP
China, Japan at odds on visits: China has criticised official Japanese comments about visits to a Tokyo war shrine, saying they undercut efforts to repair strained relations during the first visit by a senior Chinese official in over a year.
China's state-run media cited Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's comments that he didn't see why he should stop visiting the Yasakuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.
The visits anger China and other Asian nations that feel that Tokyo hasn't come to terms with its history of aggression. - AP