World Vignettes

quot;This baby is my namesake,quot; Clinton said, cradling the swaddled baby in his arms as it awoke. quot;Look at all this hair. I was completely bald until I was two.quot;

Clinton made a point about using small loans to give women in the developing world a chance at economic freedom.

quot;People should not be written off because they were born or grew up in a poor area,quot; Clinton said. quot;It8217;s a fabulous thing. I got a little boy out of it,quot; he said.

Breastfed babies

SYDNEY: Breastfed babies see better than those weaned on infant formula, an Australian medical researcher has said. Maria Markides compared the responses of the two groups to changing televised chequerboard patterns and found that thebreastfed babies were better able to spot pattern changes than their bottlefed counterparts. Markides, from Adelaide8217;s women8217;s and children8217;s hospital, said the long-chain fatty acids in breast milk might account for the difference. Long-chain fatty acids are important for neural development while the baby is in the womb and in its first few months of life. Adults get long-chain fatty acids from eggs, meat and fish but vegetable oils, the principal ingredient in most infant formulas, do not contain them.

Rushdie award

OSLO: British writer Salman Rushdie is expected in the Arctic city of Tromsoe this weekend to accept an honorary doctorate supporting his struggle for free speech.

quot;It is in honour of what he8217;s been through because the freedom of speech is not respected everywhere,quot; Tove Bull, from the University of Tromsoe, said on Tuesday.

The British author has spent about eight years in hiding since February 1989, when Iran8217;s religious leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, declared afatwa against him.