CALL FOR CLONING BAN
Cloning babies should be banned worldwide by the UN, say more than 60 scientific academies. But their international panel says therapeutic cloning of cells, to create new tissue for transplant into sick patients, should not be covered by the ban, leaving nations free to choose whether to allow it. A draft convention to ban all human cloning will be discussed by the UN next week.
CONSERVATION WATERSHED
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The World Parks Congress, which ended in Durban, South Africa, last week, celebrated the fact that protected areas now occupy 12 per cent of the planet鈥檚 land. Achim Steiner, director-general of the World Conservation Union called the meeting a 鈥渨atershed鈥� and said conservation cannot be achieved by excluding humans. 鈥淵ou cannot manage such a large area of land against the interests of the people.鈥�
HIV FUNDS FALL SHORT
Global plans launched in 2001 to tackle HIV and AIDS are failing to meet targets, the UN general secretary Kofi Annan warned this week. 鈥淲e are not on track to begin reducing the scale of the epidemic by 2005,鈥� he told the UN. Countries vowed to halve infections in infants and cut infections in young people by a quarter. Funds must double to reach the $10 billion needed annually by 2005.