Globe trotting — Siberian crash cause

Genome project

Beijing: China has announced that it has launched a human genome project aimed to improve the country’s human gene study and has made progress in cloning a group of genes related to such ailments as leukemia. Xinhua News Agency, quoting officials from the national natural science fund committee said that the project, `Studies on several gene loci structure of the Chinese human genome’ involving researchers from 16 Chinese institutes has produced an enormous amount of significant data.

Census drive

Jerusalem: Census takers will begin collecting completed questionnaires for the first Palestinian authority census in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Wednesday, but will stay out of disputed east Jerusalem to avoid a confrontation with Israel. Israeli police have said they would not permit the census-takers to operate in east Jerusalem, the sector the Palestinians claim as a future capital. Israel has said it considered the census in the city a challenge to its claim of sovereignty.

Typhoid deaths

Denpasar: The World Health Organisation has announced that at least 600,000 people die of typhoid every year, 70 to 80 per cent of them in Asian countries. WHO bacteriologist Bernard Ivanoff said at the opening of the 13th typhoid symposium, here on Monday, that typhoid also infects 16 to 33 million people a year and most of them live in developing countries.

Babri demand

London: British Indian Muslims have demanded immediate reconstruction OF the demolished Babri masjid on its original site and release of TADA detenues, held since 1992. After a day-long convention here on the anniversary of demolition held under the banner of Indian Muslim Federation (UK), a resolution was sent to President K R Narayanan calling for removal of building materials stocked at the demolished masjid site for a proposed Lord Rama temple.