{{US health officials have published details of a rare case of suspected female-to-female HIV infection.}}
A 46-year-old woman “likely acquired” the virus during a six-month monogamous relationship with a HIV-positive woman in Texas, said the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
She was infected with a strain that had a 98% genetic match to her partner’s.
The virus can be transmitted when bodily fluids come into contact with cuts, abrasions and mucus membranes.
“In this case, the discordant couple [one HIV-infected partner and one uninfected partner] routinely had direct sexual contact – without using barrier methods for protection – that involved the exchange of blood through abrasions received during sexual activity,” the CDC said in summary of ta weekly report.
The originally uninfected partner is said to have had a history of heterosexual relationships but none during the past 10 years.
She also had none of the other HIV exposure risks, including intravenous drug use.
Her partner, a 43-year-old woman, had stopped taking antiretroviral drugs in 2010.
{{Popular Jamaican dancehall and reggae star Vybz Kartel has been found guilty of murder in a high-profile trial.}}
He and three co-defendants were convicted under tight security of killing an associate, Clive Lizard Williams, in a row over a missing gun.
Parts of the capital Kingston were cordoned off in advance of the verdict and police patrols were stepped up.
Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, is one of the biggest names in Jamaican dancehall reggae.
The reporters in Kingston say that Kartel’s bleached skin – covered by tattoos – made him stand out from the crowd – and the “World Boss” as he called himself also often glorified violence in his music.
The 65-day trial was the longest running criminal hearing in the history of Jamaica’s circuit court system, local media reported.
Police cordoned off streets around the Supreme Court before Thursday’s session started, seeking to prevent any disruption by fans supporting the entertainer.
{{Illegal guns}}
Shortly before the jury started to deliberate in the afternoon, about 200 people briefly broke through barricades at one intersection shouting “Free Kartel!”
he sentencing date is scheduled for 27 March and Kartel’s lawyers have indicated they will appeal against the verdict.
When Kartel was arrested in 2011, it was alleged he had been involved in two killings, but one of those cases was thrown out last year after key evidence went missing.
Prosecutors said that Williams was beaten to death at Kartel’s home in August 2011 after being lured there to account for two missing illegal guns.
A body has never been found but police testified that they had unearthed a text message from Kartel’s phone saying Williams had been chopped up to “mincemeat” so fine that his remains would never be found.
Defence lawyer Tom Tavares-Finson told jurors the prosecution’s case against Kartel was “dishonest” and “incompetent”, noting that witness statements and a compact disc with evidence saved on it had gone missing.
The AP news agency says that in a bizarre twist to the case, a male juror was arrested on Thursday evening on charges of attempting to bribe the jury foreman to free Kartel, who was convicted by a 10-1 majority verdict.
{{Saudi health authorities said on Saturday a young man had died from the MERS coronavirus, bringing the death toll from the respiratory disease in the worst-hit country to 63.}}
The 19-year-old national, who died in Riyadh, had been suffering from chronic illnesses, the health ministry said.
Four other people began suffering from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome after coming into contact with infected people, the ministry said. Among them were two women, aged 18 and 22.
That brought the total number of cases in Saudi Arabia to 156 people since the virus first appeared in September 2012.
Experts are struggling to understand the disease, for which there is no vaccine.
A study last month said the virus has been “extraordinarily common” in camels for at least 20 years, and may have been passed directly from the animals to humans.
MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8 273 people, 9% of whom died.
The World Health Organisation said at the end of February that it has been told of 184 cases of MERS infection worldwide, including 80 deaths.
{{Moscow has blocked access to four websites run by opponents and critics of President Vladimir Putin.}}
The blog of opponent Alexei Navalny, two news sites and one run by Garry Kasparov were blocked on the orders of Russia’s prosecutor general’s office.
In a statement, it said the blocks were imposed because of the sites’ role in helping stage recent illegal protests.
Critics said the blocks were just the latest in a series of moves by Russia’s government to stifle dissent.
The blocks come as Russia’s central bank reported that hackers had targeted its main website. The site, and that of the Kremlin, were briefly unavailable with authorities saying “technical reasons” were making them hard to reach.
{{Control order}}
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is currently under house arrest for two months – a punishment imposed for violating the terms of a five-year suspended sentence given after he was tried on charges of embezzlement. The terms of his house arrest demand that he does not receive visitors or use the net.
Anna Veduta, a spokeswoman for Alexei Navalny, said in a tweet that the block was a “political decision taken as part of the cleansing of the media space”.
The block also extends to the Russian news sites Ej.ru and grani.ru as well as the kasparov.ru website.
Alexander Ryklin, editor of the Ej.ru website, said the imposition of the block was “monstrous” and a “direct violation of all the principles of freedom of speech”.
“These sites contain incitement to illegal activity and participation in public events held in violation of the established order,” said a statement from Russia’s state communications monitoring agency Roskomnadzor.
The imposition of the blocks became possible on 1 February after a law drawn up in late 2013 to police sites involved in illegal protests took effect.
It is not clear how successful the blocks will be as followers of Mr Navalny have widely published details of how to reach the sites and avoid official censorship.
{{The communications systems of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were deliberately disabled, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak has said.}}
According to satellite and radar evidence, he said, the plane then changed course and could have continued flying for a further seven hours.
He said the “movements are consistent with the deliberate action of someone on the plane”.
The plane disappeared a week ago with 239 people on board.
Mr Razak stopped short of saying it was a hijacking, saying only that they were investigating “all possibilities”.
He said the plane could be anywhere from Kazakhstan to the Indian Ocean.
The developments have added further uncertainty to the relatives of the 239 people on board the Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight.
Some in the Chinese capital said the news had made them more hopeful that their loved ones are alive, but one woman said they were on an emotional rollercoaster and she felt “helpless and frustrated”.
{{‘New phase’}}
The flight left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 00:40 local time (16:40 GMT) on 8 March and disappeared off air traffic controllers’ screens at about 01:20.
Mr Razak told a news conference that new satellite evidence shows “with a high degree of certainty” that the one of the aircraft’s communications systems – the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System – was disabled just before it had reached the east coast of Malaysia.
ACARS is a service that allows computers aboard the plane to “talk” to computers on the ground, relaying in-flight information about the health of its systems.
Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the plane’s transponder – which emits an identifying signal – was switched off, he said.
According to a military radar, the aircraft then turned and flew back over Malaysia before heading in a north-west direction.
A satellite was able to pick up a signal from the plane until 08:11 local time – more than seven hours after it lost radar contact – although it was unable to give a precise location, Mr Razak said.
He went on to say that based on this new data, investigators “have determined the plane’s last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible corridors”:
The UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are among Middle Eastern countries banning Hollywood epic Noah as it breaks Islam’s taboo of depicting a prophet.
“There are scenes that contradict Islam and the Bible, so we decided not to show it,” Juma Al-Leem from UAE’s National Media Centre said.
Director Darren Aronofsky’s film stars Russell Crowe as the ark-building Biblical figure.
Paramount Pictures recently admitted the movie takes “artistic licence”.
“It is important to respect these religions and not show the film,” Mr Al-Leem told the Associated Press.
A separate statement from Al-Azhar in Egypt, one of Islam’s most revered religious institutions, said it objects to the film because it violates Islamic law and could “provoke the feelings of believers.”
The film, which is thought to have cost more than its $125m (£78m) to make, received negative reactions following test screenings across the US.
The movie also prompted controversy among conservative Christians, leading Paramount to add a disclaimer to marketing material that artistic licence had been taken with the retelling of the story.
There are differences between Biblical and Qu’ranic interpretation of Noah, referred to in Arabic as Nuh, but both mention the flood and his vessel saving a pair of each animal species.
Many children’s films and cartoons have told the story in Islam without showing his face.
Other Muslim countries have said it is unlikely censors will approve the Hollywood blockbuster.
Mohammad Zareef from Pakistan’s Central Board of Film Censors said they tended to steer clear of films with a religious theme, adding: “We haven’t seen it yet, but I don’t think it can go to cinemas in Pakistan.”
In Tunisia, Culture Ministry spokesman Faisal Rokh said there had not been any requests from local distributors to show the movie, but they did not usually screen films featuring a prophet.
There were riots and demonstrations in the country in October 2011, after a private television station screened the animated film Persepolis, which includes a portrayal of God.
The head of the TV station was later fined 1,200 euros after being convicted of an “attack on the sacred”.
Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip do not have any cinemas, but one theatre manager in the West Bank said it has ordered Noah.
“The fact that some countries in the region prohibit it makes it the more fun to watch,” said Clack Cinema manager Quds Manasra.
He added: “The production is magnificent, the story is beautiful.”
Hollywood’s depiction of religion have provoked controversy before, including Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ, which shows the crucifixion of Jesus.
It was screened across much of the region, but it was not shown in most cinemas in Israel and parts of the Gulf.
{{The US has sent surveillance teams to the Indian Ocean to help search for the missing Malaysian plane, after claims emerged that it may have flown for longer than investigators had thought.}}
Unnamed officials said the plane sent signals to satellites for up to five hours after its apparent disappearance.
However, investigators said the data were not conclusive and Malaysia refused to comment on the claims.
Flight MH370 vanished last Saturday with 239 people on board.
The plane, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, last made contact with air-traffic control over the South China Sea to the east of Malaysia.
The US, which is one of a number of countries helping in the search for the plane, has sent a navy destroyer and a sophisticated surveillance aircraft to the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles west of Malaysia.
The Indian navy, air force and coast guard are also now assisting after a request for help from the Malaysian government.
The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Kuala Lumpur says there have already been a number of false leads in the search for the missing plane.
However, he says the latest claims are being taken seriously by the US.
The European Space Agency is asking people to choose a name for British astronaut Tim Peake’s next mission.
Citizens and residents of all the Agency’s member nations are eligible to enter the competition.
The winning entry needs to be short and snappy and will be the official mission name and incorporated into the logo.
Major Peake is due to go to the International Space Station towards the end of 2015 and spend six months there carrying out scientific experiments.
It is customary for the public to help choose mission names every time a European astronaut goes into orbit.
Names that reflect an astronaut’s nationality are encouraged, but they should also have a wider European flavour, and be easy to pronounce.
Previous mission names have included “Marco Polo” for the Italian Astronaut Roberto Vittori, “Odissia” for Belgian Frank de Winne, and “DELTA Mission” for Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers’ flight to the ISS. DELTA was an acronym for “Dutch Expedition for Life Science, Technology and Atmospheric Research”.
The aim of the competition, according to Rosita Suenson of the European Space Agency, is to engage the public.
{{Sierra Leone’s ex-president and war-time leader Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has died at the age of 82 after a long illness.}}
He died on Thursday afternoon at his home in the capital, Freetown, with his wife and close family members at his side, reports say.
In a statement, Sierra Leone’s government said Mr Kabbah’s death was an “irreparable loss”.
Mr Kabbah was praised for his leadership during and after Sierra’s Leone’s decade-long civil war.
Tens of thousands died in the conflict, with many more maimed and raped.
The rebel Revolutionary United Front’s trademark was to hack off the hands or feet of their victims.
The conflict officially ended in 2002 after foreign forces intervened to help defeat the rebels.
‘Peace and stability’
Mr Kabbah was first elected president in 1996, ending a decade of military rule. He was briefly ousted in a military coup the following year before being restored to power by a West African regional force.
He won a landslide victory in the 2002 elections and was praised for maintaining peace and establishing democratic institutions, although he was also criticised for failing to tackle poverty.
“If we are now enjoying peace and stability in Sierra Leone, there is no way President Kabbah could be dissociated from that,” government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay said on Thursday.
Born in 1932, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah began his career in public service in 1959, rising to become the youngest permanent secretary in the country in the late 1960s.
He then spent 21 years working for the UN Development Programme, based in New York, Lesotho and Tanzania.
In 2012 the UN-backed Sierra Leone war crimes court in The Hague convicted former Liberian leader Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting war crimes in the Sierra Leone civil war.
He was the first former head of state convicted by an international court since the Nuremburg military tribunal of Nazis after World War II.
{{US Secretary of State John Kerry is in London for key talks on Ukraine with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, as a disputed referendum in Crimea looms on Sunday.}}
Mr Kerry is expected to warn Mr Lavrov that the referendum and Russia’s military intervention in Crimea could trigger concerted US and EU sanctions.
He has warned of “very serious steps” if Russia annexes the region.
Russia insisted at the UN on Thursday it did “not want war” with Ukraine.
During an emergency meeting of the Security Council, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin defended the right of Crimea, which is predominantly ethnic Russian, to decide whether or not to join the Russian Federation.
Russia’s military intervention followed the fall of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February.
Mr Kerry had talks with UK Prime Minister David Cameron before his meeting with the Russian foreign minister at the US ambassador’s residence in central London.
Our correspondent says they will have very different accounts of events in Ukraine.
Mr Kerry will try to persuade Russia that it risks paying a heavy price in political and economic damage from American and European measures which could be triggered by Sunday’s referendum.
“If there is no sign of any capacity to be able to move forward and resolve this issue, there will be a very serious series of steps on Monday in Europe and here [in Washington] with respect to the options that are available to us,” Mr Kerry said before arriving in London on Friday.
