Six In The Morning

Gingrich wins South Carolina primary  

Former US house speaker raises the possibility of a lengthy campaign by beating the Republicans’ favourite, Romney.

Last Modified: 22 Jan 2012 07:30

Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, took roughly 40 per cent of the vote. His victory means that three different candidates have won the first three contests in the state-by-state Republican primary, reflecting a party electorate that has yet to make up its mind.

Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, won the Iowa caucuses on January 3, and Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, won the New Hampshire primary on January 10.

Speaking at a late-night victory rally in Greenville on Saturday, Gingrich complimented his rivals before laying into Obama, whom he called a “radical” who would transform the United States into a European-style socialist state.

Beijing releases pollution data after public pressure

But figures on dangerous smog particles rated as PM2.5 conflict with higher measurements by others, observers say

Associated Press

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 January 2012 04.44 GMT

Environmental authorities in Beijing, China’s notoriously smoggy capital, have started releasing more detailed pollution data in response to public pressure.

But one expert said measurements from the first day were low compared with data US officials have been collecting for years.

The initial measurements were low on a day where blue sky was visible. After a week of smog the skies over the city were being cleared by a north wind.

Thousands of women could be at risk from ‘silent Thalidomide’

A drug intended to prevent miscarriage is blamed for causing cancer in the daughters – and possibly even granddaughters – of women who took it decades ago.

By Sarah Morrison and Jaymi McCann  Sunday 22 January 2012

Tens of thousands of British families are to be asked if they are victims of a drug given to pregnant women which can cause fatal illness in the second, and possibly even third, generations. Some women given the drug in this country have already obtained compensation in America.

Diethylstilboestrol (DES), a drug given to women for 30 years up to 1973, has been found to cause a rare form of vaginal and cervical cancer in some of the daughters of the women who took it, as well as fertility problems. Compensation of an estimated $1.5bn has been paid out in the US. There is even a suspicion that DES – known as the “silent Thalidomide” – can affect the grandchildren of those who took it.

Writers’ protest runs foul of Indian law  

 

Jason Burke

January 22, 2012

JAIPUR: Organisers of India’s biggest literary festival have said they fear for the future of the event after several high-profile writers read excerpts from Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in support of the author. The novel is banned in India.

Rushdie was scheduled to appear at the festival in Jaipur in north-west India but said on Friday he was pulling out after a warning that hitmen had been sent to ”eliminate” him by a Mumbai crime boss.

For activists, Egypt revolution still on a year later

Activists behind the uprising which ousted Hosni Mubarak are up in arms over grandiose plans by Egypt’s military rulers to celebrate the first anniversary of the revolution, insisting it is still a work in progress.

Sapa-AFP | 22 January, 2012 11:45

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has fireworks displays and other celebrations lined up for January 25 to mark one year since the launch of the revolt that forced president Mubarak to step down after three decades in power.

But activists say the journey to democratic rule is far from over and have called for nationwide street protests on Wednesday to keep pushing for change.

 A Point of View: The tyranny of unwelcome noise

Honking horns. Household appliances that beep. Other people’s music. Should we turn down the volume, or get better at concentrating in a noisy world, asks historian Lisa Jardine.

The BBC  

I had an MRI scan this week, which set me thinking about unwelcome noise.

There was plenty of opportunity to do so, as anyone who has had such a scan will know. Lying prone in a claustrophobic opaque tunnel, with instructions not to move a muscle, everything is driven out of one’s mind by the insistent, repetitive, loud banging and cyclical shrill throbbing sounds produced by the machine’s electromagnetic coil.

“The scanner is noisy,” the instructions the NHS sends you with your appointment notification warn.