BRITAIN TO ALLOW HUMAN CLONING; AUSTRALIANS TO CLONE EXTINCT TIGER 

The British government, in a major decision,  proposed to permit the cloning of human embryo cells for research and healing. In autumn, the British parliament will debate the bill and members will be allowed to vote according to conscience rather than by party line. If everything goes well, Britain would be the first country to spend government money on human cloning research. The proposal does not cover human reproduction by cloning. It intends research for therapeutic purposes only.

In United States the use of federal funds for human cloning is banned.  US President Bill Clinton issued an executive order to this effect following the cloning of Dolly the sheep in Scotland. In Germany there is a ban on human cloning research mainly due to the sensibilities about the eugenicist theories of the Nazis before and during the Second World War. Neither France nor Spain allows the creation of embryos for research purposes. The proposed British legislation is being closely watched in several other countries. In Australia, a parliamentary committee is studying the issue of allowing human cloning for therapeutic purposes.

The most exciting cloning news comes from Australia. The Tasmanian tiger, already extinct in the 1930s,  may get "rebirth" from a pup that died 134 years back.  In the murky depths of a museum specimen jar, in the Australian museum, a six month old Tasmanian tiger  pup was kept preserved in alcohol since 1866. In last April, small samples of heart, liver, muscle and bone marrow tissue were extracted from the preserved pup, and a small team of evolutionary biologists in Sydney began working to unravel the tiger's  genetic code. Once DNA damage is assessed and repaired, the tiger's genetic blueprint would be inserted into the egg of a close relative for incubation. Professor Mike Archer, director of the Australian museum said there is much work to be done and it could take another 15 to 20 years to clone the tiger. "It became a matter of not if, but when," Archer said.

But not without opposition from ethical apologists and religious groups. Professor Archer faced more than once angry picket lines at his museum and his work has been denounced by religious groups who accuse the scientists of playing God.  "My response is that people played God when we exterminated the animal in the first place," Professor Archer said.

Tasmania is an island state beneath Australia's southeast coast. The early British settlers in Tasmania found a bitter enemy in the tiger, a striped marsupial wolf, known also as thylacine. It was blamed for killing sheep and other farm animals. A bounty was put on its head in 1888. Tiger trapping soon became a paying occupation. The last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936.

CONTROVERSIAL SHROUD OF TURIN ON EXHIBITION

The controversial Shroud of Turin, which many scientists believe is a fantastic medieval fake, is on display in the Turin Cathedral until 22 October. Though the Catholic Church does not claim the  Shroud is authentic, many Catholics believe it to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

The linen, measuring 4.4 by 1.2 meters, shows the back and front of a bearded man with long hair,  a reverse image close to the popular European paintings of Jesus Christ. The shroud is usually kept rolled up in an ornate silver casket and is taken out for display rarely only. Carbon dating tests carried out by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988  indicated that the Shroud dated from between 1260 and 1390 --implying it was a fake.

THE LAST CZAR NOW A 'SAINT'

The last Czar of the Russian empire, Nicholas, an autocrat who repressed his nation, has been declared martyr and saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in a recent ceremony. His family including Empress  Alexandra, Tsarevitch Alexei and Princesses Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia were also declared martyrs and saints. The church council decided  a week back to canonize the family and hundreds of others  who it said had died  for their belief in the church. Independent historians  criticize the Czar for overseeing the 1905 "Bloody Sunday" massacre by Imperial Guards, who opened fire on peaceful strikers carrying his portrait, an event contributing to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Nicholas and his family were shot by Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918.

How does the average Russian view the last Czar now? A recent poll showed that many Russians continue to view the Czar with hostility for his autocratic rule. A survey showed 46 per cent disapproved of his canonization while 31 per cent backed it and 23 per cent were uncertain.

SAUDI ARABIA TO JOIN UN CONVENTION ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS "WITHIN ISLAMIC LAW"

Saudi Arabia, with stringent and highly discriminate laws for its women citizens, has decided to join a United Nations convention on women's rights. The Saudi cabinet, however, asserted that it was not committed to any clause that contradicted Islamic Sharia law. Saudi Arabia is a conservative Islamic kingdom and women are legally denied equal rights.

The cabinet meeting of the kingdom chaired by King Fahd  agreed to join the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women clarified that it would not abide by "any clause in the agreement that contradicts Islamic Sharia".

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