UK swine flu vaccine 'approved'

The European drugs regulator has given the go-ahead for one of the UK's swine flu vaccines.
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An expert committee agreed that Pandemrix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, can be used in adults and children over six months old and pregnant women.
The decision removes one of the last obstacles to getting the immunisation programme under way although licensing still needs to be formalised.
The UK has bought 60 million doses of the vaccine.
In addition, there are contracts for an as yet unapproved vaccine, Celvapan, produced by Baxter.
It means the UK has provision for up to 132 million doses - enough for every person in the country.
A vaccine made by Novartis, Focetria, has also been recommended for licensing by the European Medicines Agency - but this is not planned to be used in the UK.
Final marketing authorisation for the vaccines still needs to be signed off by the European Commission and is expected "as soon as possible".
The EMEA said they were working with Baxter on some ongoing issues about their vaccine but hoped to be able to resolve those next week.
The vaccines have undergone an accelerated approval process as "mock-ups" of the vaccine had already been developed in preparation for a pandemic and tested in 6,000 people.
Manufacturers have worked quickly to add the swine flu H1N1 strain to the mock versions.
Early trial data had suggested good immune responses with just one dose of the vaccines.
However, the EMEA is recommending two doses are given three weeks apart for both vaccines, but may revisit that decision as more clinical trials are carried out.

Second swine flue patient confirmed in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: The second swine flue patient was confirmed in the capital city here.
PIMS Hospital spokesman, Dr. Wasim Khawaja told Geo News that Imram Khan hailing from the Frontier province suffering from fever and flue was brought to the hospital. He said that the patient 28 had arrived here through Amman flight. He further said that the National Institute of Health has confirmed Imran Khan suffering from swine flue.
Last Wednesday, a passenger arriving from Sharja was also admitted in the PIMS Hospital on being diagnosed struck by swine flue.

Gaddafi blasts big powers in long UN speech

Lybian leader praises US President Obama
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UNITED NATIONS: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in a rambling address to the United Nations on Wednesday, accused the veto-wielding powers of the Security Council of betraying the principles of the U.N. charter while offering profuse praise for United States President Barack Obama.
The speech, that lasted amost an hour and a half, was the Lybian leader's first ever address to the U.N.
"The preamble (of the charter) says all nations are equal whether they are small or big," Gaddafi said through an interpreter. He received a smattering of applause.
Reading from a copy of the U.N. charter, Gaddafi said: "The veto is against the charter, we do not accept it and we do not acknowledge it."
Clad in a copper-colored robe with an emblem of Africa pinned over his chest, the Libyan leader dropped his paperback copy of the charter on the podium several times before tossing it over his shoulder.
The United States, Britain, France, Russia and China are permanent veto wielding members of the Security Council, the most powerful body within the United Nations. Libya has a temporary council seat and will be on the 15-nation panel until the end of 2010.
"Veto power should be annulled," Gaddafi said.
"The Security Council did not provide us with security but with terror and sanctions," he told leaders gathered for the opening day of the 192-nation General Assembly.
Gaddafi, who spoke just after Obama, said the fact that "65 wars" have broken out since the U.N. was established more than 60 years ago proved its founding principles had been betrayed.
Praise for Obama
Gaddafi, who himself has spent 40 years in power, also welcomed Obama's speech, immediately before his, in which the new U.S. president pledged fresh engagement with the international community, after former leader George W. Bush's often rocky ties with the world.
"It was completely different for an American president," Gaddafi said of Obama's speech. "You are the beginning of a change."
But he added: "Can you guarantee that after Obama that America will be different?"
"We would be happy if Obama could stay forever as the president of America," he said in a rambling speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
Gaddafi, who styles himself as a pan-African leader, expressed pride in Obama's election as the first black U.S. president.
"This is a great thing," Gaddafi said, referring back to the U.S. past when "blacks couldn't go where whites went and couldn't be on the same bus."
Gaddafi also called for the U.N. to launch an investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination and complained about jet lag.
Gaddafi currently chairs the African Union.

Saudi looks to the future, opens coed university

Academic focus is solar energy, desalination
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RIYADH/DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s new $10 billion, state-of-the-art science and technology university welcomes the country’s first coed student body Wednesday in one of the king’s keystone attempts to power his country into the 21st century with renewable energy and social reform.
The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology on the Red Sea coast boasts one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, state-of-the-art “green” technologies and a team of top scientists timed its launch for Saudi Arabia's National Day.
“This international research university is a contribution from Saudi Arabia to promote knowledge,” King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud told a meeting of the Council of Ministers at al-Safa Palace last week.
The energy-efficient university, equipped with the latest technology and some of the world's top scientists, is set to break both scientific as well as social barriers. And with one of the world’s largest educational endowments it hopes to attract students and faculty from around the world with funding for 2,000 graduate students.
The 20,000 faculty, staff, students and their families are expected to live on campus, the first where men and women can mingle freely.
The university accepted 817 students from 61 countries from more than 7,000 applications, and about 15 percent of the incoming student body is women.
“The idea behind this university, if it succeeds, is to be very pioneering because the Saudi society by nature is a closed one, and if we look at universities in other countries like the United States we find them to be diverse and international,” Abdulrahman al-Rabesh, a consultant and engineer with the company, told Al Arabiya.
“I believe in mixed-gender education because it puts women on equal footing with men,” he said, adding that the idea of mixed-gender education is not completely new to Saudi universities since some medical schools offer coed classes.

Obama's star power faces new test at UN summit

UNITED NATIONS: More than 120 world leaders meet Wednesday on the heels of a climate change summit to tackle other crucial issues on the international agenda from terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to growing poverty resulting from the global financial crisis.
American President Barack Obama makes his debut during the meeting, hoping his international star power can throw new muscle behind a policy agenda that is already struggling to deliver.
Besides Obama, a host of new faces will also step to the podium at this last General Assembly ministerial session in the U.N.'s landmark headquarters before it closes for renovation later this fall -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, China's President Hu Jintao and Japan's newly elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will also urge leaders to take steps to free the world of nuclear weapons, to address the "red flags of warning" about a global economic recovery and make a fresh push to achieve U.N. anti-poverty goals especially reducing maternal and child mortality rates which remain very high, according to his prepared text.
Ban will call for a revival of negotiations to achieve a comprehensive settlement in the Mideast and a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side in peace. And he will pledge to see the Afghans "through their long night" and stand as well with the people of Pakistan.