IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • Pope names Group to Help him Run Catholic Church

    {{Pope Francis marked his first month as pope on Saturday by naming nine high-ranking prelates from around the globe to a permanent advisory group to help him run the Catholic Church and study a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy — a bombshell announcement that indicates he intends a major shift in how the papacy should function.}}

    The panel includes only one current Vatican official; the rest are cardinals and a monsignor from Europe, Africa, North and South America, Asia and Australia — a clear indication that Francis wants to reflect the universal nature of the church in its governance and core decision-making, particularly given the church is growing and counts most of the world’s Catholics in the southern hemisphere.

    In the run-up to the conclave that elected Francis pope one month ago, a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy was a constant drumbeat, as were calls to make the Vatican itself more responsive to the needs of bishops around the world.

    Including representatives from each continent in a permanent advisory panel to the pope would seem to go a long way toward answering those calls.

    In its announcement Saturday, the Vatican said that Francis got the idea to form the advisory body from the pre-conclave meetings.

    “He has formed a group of cardinals to advise him in the governing of the universal church and to study a revision of the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus on the Roman Curia,” the statement said.

    Pope John Paul II issued Pastor Bonus in 1988, and it functions effectively as the blueprint for the administration of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, meting out the work and jurisdictions of the congregations, pontifical councils and other offices that make up the governance of the Catholic Church, known as the Roman Curia.

    Pastor Bonus itself was a revision of the 1967 document that marked the last major reform of the Vatican bureaucracy undertaken by Pope Paul VI.

    A reform of the Vatican bureaucracy has been demanded for decades, given both John Paul and Benedict XVI essentially neglected in-house administration of the Holy See in favor of other priorities.

    But the calls for change grew deafening last year after the leaks of papal documents exposed petty turf battles within the Vatican bureaucracy, allegations of corruption in the running of the Vatican city state and even a purported plot by senior Vatican officials to out a prominent Catholic as gay.

    Francis’ advisory group will meet in its inaugural session Oct. 1-3, the Vatican said in a statement.

    The members of the panel include Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Vatican city state administration — a key position that runs the actual functioning of the Vatican, including its profit-making museums.

    The non-Vatican officials include Cardinals Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, the retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai, India; Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo; Sean Patrick O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston; George Pell, archbishop of Sydney, Australia; and Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

    Monsignor Marcello Semeraro, bishop of Albano, will be secretary while Maradiaga will serve as the group coordinator.

  • 18 Russians Listed for Human Rights Abuses

    {{U.S. administration has released a list of 18 people who will be banned from the United States under a new law penalizing Russia for alleged human rights abuses.}}

    The U.S. law, named after a Russian whistleblower called Sergei Magnitsky who died in prison in 2009, has become an irritant in relations between the former Cold War superpowers. Obama signed it in December.

    Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer who worked for the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund, found himself facing accusations of a $230 million tax fraud from the officials he had accused of being responsible.

    Friends and family say Magnitsky was denied medical treatment in jail and died after a beating. Nobody has been found responsible. Instead, Magnitsky has been put on posthumous trial, in the first case of its kind in Russia, his lawyers say.

    Sixteen people were put on the U.S. list “because of their association with the persecution and ultimate death of Sergei Magnitsky,” a senior State department official said on Friday. The other two people on the list are linked to two other deaths.

    They are all subject to U.S. visa bans and asset freezes in the United States.

    Those on the list include:

    {{ARTYOM KUZNETSOV, MOSCOW INTERIOR MINISTRY TAX INVESTIGATOR}}

    An officer in the tax crimes unit of the Moscow division of Russia’s Interior Ministry, Kuznetsov allegedly took part in the police raids on the offices of Hermitage and its law firm in 2007, according to Magnitsky’s supporters.

    Hermitage said the documents seized in the raids were later used to re-register ownership of its subsidiaries and claim an illegal $230 million tax refund paid to bogus new owners.

    Kuznetsov, 38, also allegedly oversaw the arrest of Magnitsky on unrelated tax evasion charges, after Magnitsky had testified to the Interior Ministry about the suspect $230 million rebate.

    Magnitsky’s supporters have published information which they said showed Kuznetsov had acquired millions of dollars worth of property soon after the fraud. The Interior Ministry has found no evidence of wrongdoing by Kuznetsov.

    {{PAVEL KARPOV, MOSCOW INTERIOR MINISTRY INVESTIGATOR}}

    Karpov, who held the rank of major, was a senior investigator in the Moscow division of the Interior Ministry at the time of the 2007 police raids on Hermitage and its law firm.

    Karpov, 35, was named along with Kuznetsov in testimonies by Magnitsky that described the tax rebate scheme. Magnitsky’s supporters say that at the time of the alleged fraud, key documents were in Karpov’s possession.

    They subsequently published information which they said showed Karpov had bought more than a million dollars worth of property around the time the fraud was committed.

    The Interior Ministry has found no evidence of wrongdoing by Karpov. Karpov, who has since resigned from the ministry, has initiated a libel case in London’s High Court against Hermitage chief William Browder. Karpov’s lawyer, Geraldine Proudler, has said that “there is not a shred of evidence against Karpov,” and on Friday, Karpov denied the allegations.

    “I am expecting soon the decision from the high court of London which will confirm the falsehood of the accusation” Karpov told Interfax.

    {{OLEG SILCHENKO, FEDERAL INTERIOR MINISTRY INVESTIGATOR}}

    Silchenko, a senior investigator at the federal Interior Ministry, was in charge of the investigation into Magnitsky and ordered his detention.

    He also headed the investigation into the alleged $230 million tax rebate fraud reported by Magnitsky. The probe exonerated all Russian officials accused by Magnitsky and his supporters.

    Magnitsky’s supporters also accuse Silchenko, 35, of inhumane treatment of Magnitsky in custody, denying him medical treatment, family visits and phone calls.

    Silchenko has denied mistreating Magnitsky, saying there was sufficient proof of Magnitsky’s guilt, and calling the fraud accusations against law enforcement officials “absurd.”

    {{OLGA STEPANOVA, TAX OFFICER}}

    Olga Stepanova headed Moscow Tax Office No. 28, which authorized 3.7 billion roubles ($155 million) in tax rebates that were part of the $230 million tax refund.

    The Russian investigation into the alleged fraud cleared her and other tax officials of wrongdoing, saying that they had been misled into making the refunds.

    Magnitsky’s supporters have alleged that Stepanova and her ex-husband Vladlen Stepanov acquired millions of dollars of property shortly after the alleged fraud was committed. They published evidence which they said showed Vladlen Stepanov deposited money from the alleged fraud into offshore companies and a Swiss bank account.

    Stepanov, a construction company manager, has responded to the allegations by saying that he bought all the property with his own money.

    {{YELENA STASHINA, JUDGE}}

    Yelena Stashina, a judge of the Tverskoi regional court of Moscow, prolonged Magnitsky’s detention, according to allegations by U.S. lawmakers and rights activists.

    Stashina “refused his (Magnitsky’s) complaint about the deprivation of medical treatment at a hearing on November 12, 2009, four days before his death,” said a paragraph about her in a summary of allegations against 60 Russian officials sent to the State Department back in 2010 by Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin, who was proposing visa bans on all of them. Cardin was the main Senate sponsor of the Magnitsky Act.

    ANDREY PECHEGIN, DEPUTY DIVISION HEAD IN PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

    Andrey Pechegin worked in the Russian general prosecutor’s office as deputy head of the division of supervision of investigations. He allegedly denied more than 20 complaints from Magnitsky and his lawyers about Magnitsky’s treatment, according to information from Cardin’s 2010 list of allegations against the 60 officials.

    {{KAZBEK DUKUZOV, AQUITTED IN KLEBNIKOV KILLING}}

    Dukuzov is one of two natives of the Chechnya region who were tried for the 2004 killing in Moscow of American journalist Paul Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, and were acquitted by a jury in 2006.

    A retrial in 2007 was suspended because Dukuzov could not be tracked down. Nobody has been brought to justice over Klebnikov’s killing.

    {{LECHA BOGATYROV, IMPLICATED IN KILLING IN VIENNA}}

    Lecha Bogatyrov was implicated by Austrian police as the killer of Umar Israilov, a former bodyguard of Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Israilov became a critic of Kadyrov and was shot dead in Vienna in 2009. Bogatyrov reportedly escaped arrest and returned to Russia.

    {reuters}

  • U.S. to Deport Illegal Immigrants Entering U.S. After 2011

    {{U.S. Senators crafting an immigration bill have agreed that foreigners who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be deported if they entered the United States after December 31, 2011, a congressional aide said on Friday.}}

    The legislation by a bipartisan group of senators would give the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally a way to obtain legal status and eventually become U.S. citizens, provided certain measures are met.

    But of the unauthorized immigrants, those who entered after the December 2011 cut-off date would be forced to go back to their country of origin, said the aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly because the bill is still being negotiated.

    “People need to have been in the country long enough to have put down some roots. If you just got here and are illegal, then you can’t stay,” the congressional aide said.

    The lawmakers – four Democrats and four Republicans – are aiming to unveil their bill on Tuesday, one day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to hold a hearing to examine the legislation.

    Senators and congressional aides have said that most major policy issues have been resolved. But some details still need to be worked out, said sources familiar with the negotiations.

    Support has been growing among lawmakers and the public for immigration reform since President Barack Obama was re-elected in November with help from the Hispanic community.

    The last time U.S. immigration laws were extensively rewritten was in 1986 and those policies have been blamed for allowing millions of people to enter and live in the country illegally, while also resulting in shortages of high-skilled workers from abroad, as well as some low-skilled wage-earners.

    Under the bill being crafted, security would first be improved along the southwestern border with Mexico.

    At the same time, the threat of deportation would be lifted for many who are living in the U.S. illegally. Within 13 years of enactment, those immigrants could begin securing U.S. citizenship.

    The bill would increase the number of visas issued for high-skilled workers and create a new program to control the flow of unskilled workers.

    It would also make it harder for U.S. citizens to petition for visas for their extended families.

    {reuters}

  • John Kerry & China Leadership Discuss North Korea

    {{U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets China’s top leaders on Saturday in an effort to persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea to scale back its belligerent rhetoric and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.}}

    Travelling to Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry made no secret of his desire to see China take a more activist stance toward North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States.

    As the North’s main trading partner, financial backer and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China has a unique ability to use its leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in the South Korean capital Seoul late on Friday.

    “There is no group of leaders on the face of the planet who have more capacity to make a difference in this than the Chinese, and everybody knows it, including, I believe, them,” Kerry told U.S. executives.

    “They want to see us try to reach an amicable resolution to this,” he said.

    “But you have to begin with a reality, and the reality is that if your policy is denuclearization – and it is theirs as it is ours as it is everybody’s except the North’s at this moment – if that’s your policy, you’ve got to put some teeth into it,” he said.

    Kerry is scheduled to see the top echelon of China’s leadership on Saturday, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat who outranks Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

    In remarks before reporters at the first meeting, neither Kerry nor Wang directly referred to North Korea, though the trip had “come at a critical moment”, Wang said.

    “Obviously there are enormously challenging issues in front of us and I look forward to having that conversation with you today to do exactly what you said – lift this conversation up, broaden it, set a roadmap, define for both of us what the model relationship (would) be and how two great powers, China and the United States, can work effectively to solve problems,” Kerry told Wang.

    Kerry’s visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.

    North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it said on Friday were its “treasured” guarantor of security.

    {Reuters}

  • North Korea Can Put A Nuke on Missile–U.S. Intelligence

    {{The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded with “moderate confidence” that North Korea might have a nuclear weapon that’s small enough to be placed on a ballistic missile. }}

    But the DIA also says that if that is the case, the reliability of the missile would be low.

    The alarming assessment came as North Korea has been issuing threats that range from testing a new missile to nuclear war against the U.S. and South Korea.

    It was made public near the end of a House Armed Services Committee in which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey were testifying about the proposed Pentagon budget.

    Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., asked Dempsey if he agreed with a recent classified DIA report that contained an unclassified section that said, “DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles.

    However, the reliability will be low.” Dempsey eventually admitted he had not seen this report so he couldn’t answer the congressman’s question.

    “Moderate confidence” is an intelligence term that signals plausibility. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear capabilities defined it as “generally [meaning] credibly sourced and plausible information, but not of sufficient quality or corroboration to warrant a higher level of confidence.”

    Tonight Director of National Intelligence James Clapper downplayed the DIA assessment, saying that “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.”

    He also emphasized that the assessment was not the intelligence community’s assessment.

    “I concur with the earlier Department of Defense statement that ‘it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully developed and tested the kinds of nuclear weapons referenced in the passage.’”

    The earlier statement that Clapper referenced was by Pentagon press secretary George Little, who also said, “The United States continues to closely monitor the North Korean nuclear program and calls upon North Korea to honor its international obligations.”

    The DIA is one of 17 intelligence agencies in the federal government that independently do their own assessments on specific topics of interest.

    The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is tasked with developing a consensus intelligence assessment that helps policy makers make national security decisions.

    That can prove difficult when different agencies arrive at different conclusions on the same topic.

    The assessment may have never been intended to be made public, said a U.S. official, adding that it may have been erroneously labeled as unclassified in what remains a mostly classified report.

    According to intelligence officials, such a key assessment is almost always listed as classified.

  • Museum to tell Palestinians Story

    {{Palestinians on Thursday began construction of the West Bank’s largest museum devoted to their history, planning to tell diverse stories of Palestinians in their land and of millions who live abroad.}}

    The museum represents a step in the Palestinian quest for statehood by creating a repository for 200 years of history, alongside galleries and space for debates about the Palestinian cause, said director Jack Persekian.

    “I am hoping that this museum would be able to give the opportunity for many Palestinians to tell their stories. We are looking at a museum that doesn’t have one particular narrative line that it wants to consecrate through its exhibits,” he said.

    The privately funded museum, which has government support, is the biggest such project the Palestinians have undertaken in terms of scale, space and budgets.

    Persekian hoped the museum would tell stories not just of Palestinian Muslims and Christians, but also of Jews who lived in what was Britain-administered Palestine before Israel was founded in 1948.

    “We would like to think about (the museum) in an inclusive way,” he said.
    The museum draws attention to the conflicting narratives at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    For Jews, the establishment of Israel reinforced the homecoming of an exiled people with ties to the Holy Land going back thousands of years.

    Palestinians refer to the establishment of Israel, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven from their homes, as their “nakba,” or catastrophe.

    Israel has dozens of museums with vast collections of biblical texts and artifacts connecting the Jewish people to the Holy Land.

    Palestinians have about 30 museums in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the areas where they hope to establish a state, but nothing on the scale of the new project.

    The $15 million first phase is scheduled to take two years to build and cover 3,000 square meters, or 32,000 square feet, of space.

    The planned glass and stone building was designed by the Dublin-based architectural firm Heneghan Peng, which is also building the new Egyptian national museum.

    Dozens of Palestinian officials attended the laying of the museum’s foundation stone on Thursday on a grassy hill near the Palestinian university town of Birzeit, with views of rocky hills, pines and olive groves.

    The site can be reached only over a bumpy road, and few residents appeared aware of the project.

    Phase one will include a gallery, cafeteria, classrooms, a gift shop and staff offices.

    The museum’s board plans to have the second phase built within a decade, expanding it to 9,000 square meters, or nearly 100,000 square feet.

    It is being overseen by the Welfare Association, a Palestinian aid and development group supported by philanthropists that has close ties to the governing Palestinian Authority.

    {Associated Press}

  • Russia Moves Up in Networked Readiness Index

    {{Russia has moved up two positions in the Networked Readiness Index, according to the Global Information Technology Report, published annually by the World Economic Forum and the INSEAD business school.}}

    The index measures countries’ ability to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology and the impact of ICT on the competitiveness of nations.

    This year, Russia is in the 54th place, ahead of Azerbaijan (56), Georgia (65) and Ukraine (73) but behind Estonia (22), Lithuania (32), Latvia (41) and Kazakhstan (43). At the top of the list are Finland, Singapore and Sweden.

    Russia’s position has improved since 2010, when the country was in the 80th place. The movement is driven by 3G mobile broadband usage (20th place) and a growing number of Internet users (56th place).

    With the rollout of 4G technology, mobile broadband use in Russia is set to grow even more.

    “2013 is a year of infrastructure rollout,” Michael Hecker, MTS’ vice president for strategy and corporate development, said on Thursday. Next year will see a wave of 4G-enabled smartphones and users will be billed for how much data they use rather than for how many phone calls they make, he added.

    The report highlights the importance of Internet connectivity for the economy. Experts from Deloitte suggested that mobile broadband availability and high 3G data usage in Russia added 1.4% to gross domestic product per capita growth annually.

    While more people are using the Internet, the country ranks low on online businesses transactions (107th place), intellectual property protection (125th place) and political and regulatory indicators (108th place).

    Igor Kaloshin, CEO of Intel’s Russian subsidiary, said on Thursday that Russia needed to build a more favorable climate to encourage innovation and to allow start-ups to introduce new technology.

    Yekaterina Osadchaya, a spokeswoman for the Communications and Press Ministry, called for removing excessive regulatory and administrative barriers to stimulate the development of network operators, Vedomosti reported Thursday.

    The authors of the report suggest that developed IT infrastructure, together with a favorable environment, would drive innovation in business, as well as in healthcare and education.

    “Despite initial concerns that ICT would hasten the deployment of resources towards developing countries, the benefits of ICT are now widely recognized as an important way for companies and economies to optimize productivity, free up resources and boost innovation and job creation,” said Benat Bilbao-Osorio, a co-editor of the report.

    This year, the Networked Readiness Index includes 144 countries, measuring their ability to utilize the opportunities offered by information and communications technology.

    The BRI is compiled with the help of publicly available data and an annual opinion survey conducted by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with 167 research institutes and business organizations.

    {The Moscow Times}

  • Ancient Creature Mixed Human, Apelike Traits

    {{Scientists have gained new insights into an extinct South African creature with an intriguing mix of human and apelike traits, and apparently an unusual way of walking.}}

    But they still haven’t pinned down where it fits on our evolutionary family tree.

    It will take more fossil discoveries to sort that out.

    The human branch of the evolutionary tree, called Homo, is thought to have arisen from a group of ancient species called australopithecines.

    The newly studied species is a member of this group, and so its similarities to humans are enticing for tackling the riddle of how Homo appeared.

    It’s called Australopithecus sediba (aw-STRAL-oh-PITH-uh-kus se-DEE-bah), which means “southern ape, wellspring.” It lived some 2 million years ago, and it both climbed in trees and walked upright.

    Its remains were discovered in 2008 when the 9-year-old son of a paleoanthropologist accidently came across a bone in South Africa.

    A 2011 analysis of some of A. sediba’s bones showed a combination of human and more apelike traits, like a snapshot of evolution in action.

    That theme continues in six papers published online Thursday by the journal Science, which complete the initial examination of two partial skeletons and an isolated shinbone.

    Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University, lead author of one of the papers, said the fossils reveal an unexpected “mosaic of anatomies.”

    “I didn’t think you could have this combination, that hand with that pelvis with that foot… And yet, there it is,” he said.

    DeSilva said he has no idea how A. sediba is related to humans, noting that the different traits argue for different conclusions.

    Among the new analyses, the ribs show the creature’s upper trunk resembled an ape’s, while the lower part looked more like a human’s.

    Arm bones other than the hand and wrist look primitive, reflecting climbing ability, while earlier analysis of the hand had shown mixed traits.

    The teeth also show a mix of human and primitive features, and provide new evidence that A. sediba is closely related to early humans, said Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg of Ohio State University, a co-author of a dental analysis.

    It and an older South African species, A. africanus, appear more closely related to early humans than other australopithecines like the famous “Lucy” are, she said.

    But she said the analysis can’t determine which of the two species is the closer relative, nor whether A. sediba is a direct ancestor of humans.

    Another study found a mix of human and apelike traits in leg bones, and concluded that A. sediba walked like no other known animal.

    Its heel was narrow like an ape’s, which would seem to prevent walking upright, but the more humanlike knee, pelvis and hip show A. sediba did just that, DeSilva said.

    When people walk, they strike the ground with the heel first. But that would be disastrous from A. sediba’s narrow heel bone, so instead the creature struck the ground first with the outside of the foot, DeSilva and co-authors propose.

    The foot would react by rolling inward, which is called pronation. In people, chronic pronation can cause pain in the foot, knees, hip and back, said DeSilva, who tried out the ancient creature’s gait.

    “I’ve been walking around campus this way, and it hurts,” he said.

    But the bones of A. sediba show features that evidently prevented those pain problems, he said. The creature apparently adopted this gait as a kind of compromise for a body that had to climb trees proficiently as well as walk upright, he said.

    {(AP)}

  • Argentina’s President Not Invited for Thatcher funeral

    {{Britain will not invite Argentine President Cristina Fernandez to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral next week in a snub likely to deepen a long-running diplomatic dispute over the Falkland Islands.}}

    Thatcher, 87, who died on Monday, led Britain at the time of the 1982 Falklands war ordering her armed forces to repel an Argentine invasion of the contested South Atlantic archipelago which Argentina calls Las Malvinas.

    Just over 30 years later, memories of the conflict remain raw and Fernandez has mounted a campaign to renegotiate the islands’ sovereignty, lobbying Pope Francis on the issue and rejecting a referendum last month in which Falkland residents voted to remain a British Overseas Territory.

    A government source said, “It’s about adhering to her family’s wishes,” the source said. A government spokesman said Argentina’s ambassador to Britain would be invited, and that was in keeping with protocol.

    {wirestory}

  • Male Sex Hormones ‘Drive Breast Cancer’

    {{US scientists say they have found a new target to beat breast cancer – male sex hormones, or androgens.}}

    The University of Colorado team discovered that many breast cancers possess androgen receptors on their surface, and that male hormones like testosterone fuel the tumour’s growth.

    Drugs to block these receptors could offer another way to fight the disease, a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research heard.

    They plan clinical trials to test this.

    Dr Jennifer Richer and colleagues say more than three-quarters of all breast cancers possess androgen receptors and therefore might benefit from anti-androgen therapy.

    This type of treatment is already used for prostate cancer.

    {{Hormones}}

    Experts already know that some breast cancers grow under the influence of female hormones, like oestrogen and progesterone.

    The widely-used breast cancer drug Tamoxifen works by blocking oestrogen receptors to halt these cancers.

    Dr Richer’s research suggests male hormones are also important drivers.

    And adding anti-androgen drugs to our armoury against breast cancer could improve treatment success.

    They found many breast tumours possessed both oestrogen and androgen receptors.

    These responded to anti-androgen therapy in the laboratory.

    Patients who who relapse while on Tamoxifen but who also have androgen receptors might have the most to gain from this new type of treatment, according to Dr Richer.

    She said: “We are excited to move towards clinical trials of anti-androgen therapies in breast cancer.”

    Dr Emma Smith of Cancer Research UK said: “It’s still early days for this research but there’s growing interest in the androgen receptor’s role in breast cancer as a potential new route to tackle the disease.

    “Cancer Research UK scientists are among those working on whether targeting this receptor could help treat both those women who develop resistance to other treatments and those who have fewer treatment options.”

    {BBC}