Scientists Invent New Method To Treat Cancer Without Drugs

 

A medical personnel doing a test. (File Photo)

A research team in Singapore has devised an experimental treatment approach that causes cancer cells to self-destruct without the use of drugs, according to a paper published in the scientific, peer-reviewed journal ‘Small’.

The treatment, which is still only in the experimental stage and has not been approved for human use in any known territory, has been tested on mice where it killed about 80 per cent of breast, skin, and gastric cancer cells, which is comparable to conventional chemotherapeutic drugs like Cisplatin.

The treatment makes use of a ‘trojan-horse’ nanoparticle coated with a specific amino-acid – L-phenylalanine – that cancer cells rely on to replicate.

The nanoparticle, which is approximately 30,000 times smaller than a strand of human hair has been codenamed Nano-pPAAM by the research team domiciled at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Once it finds its way into the cancer cells, Nano-pPAAM stimulates excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) production – a type of reactive molecule in the body – causing cancer cells to self-destruct while remaining harmless to the healthy cells, a press statement from the Singapore University, announcing the results of the study, said.

 

By removing the use of pharmaceuticals, the treatment solves the common issue of drug-resistant cancer cells and has the potential to revolutionise the effectiveness of cancer treatment, experts say.

“Against conventional wisdom, our approach involved using the nanomaterial as a drug instead of as a drug-carrier,” lead author of the study, Dalton Tay, said.

“Here, the cancer-selective and killing properties of Nano-pPAAM are intrinsic and do not need to be ‘activated’ by any external stimuli. The amino acid L-phenylalanine acts as a ‘trojan horse’ – a cloak to mask the nanotherapeutic on the inside.”

“By removing the drug component, we have effectively simplified the nanomedicine formulation and may overcome the numerous technological hurdles that are hindering the bench-to-bedside translation of drug-based nanomedicine.”

The scientists are now working to “further refine the design and chemistry of the Nano-pPAAM to make it more precise in targeting specific cancer types and achieve higher therapeutic efficacy,” the University statement said.

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US election: Biden releases tax returns hours before Trump debate

 

Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden released his tax returns for the last four years Tuesday just hours before he debates President Donald Trump, who faces criticism for paying almost no federal tax.

 

The former vice president and his wife Jill Biden, an educator, paid $299,346 in federal income taxes for 2019, according to forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service and released by Biden's campaign.

 

The amount stands in sharp contrast to Trump, who claims to be a billionaire businessman but paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, according to a bombshell report by The New York Times.

 

AFP

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A Black Man Family Killed By Police In US To Get $20 Million Settlement

 

 

A file photo of a court gavel.

 

The family of an African American man killed by a US police officer is to receive $20 million in a civil settlement, their lawyer announced Monday.

In one of the largest such settlements ever in the US, Prince George’s County in the state of Maryland will make the payment to the family of William Green, who was shot dead while handcuffed earlier this year.

“This is a historic settlement (which) reflects the heinous nature, the brutal nature the senseless nature of what happened to Mr. Green,” said attorney William Murphy said.

Green was arrested on January 27 in Prince George’s County, which borders the US capital Washington, after allegedly hitting several other cars with his own.

While 43-year-old Green was handcuffed and sitting in the police car, he was allegedly shot six times by the officer, Michael Owen.

Owen, who is also black, had said the two struggled and that Green attempted to take his gun.

Investigators have dismissed his claim and he was fired and charged with murder.

According to the Washington Post, Owen had a recent record of questionable use of force, but that nothing had been done.

“There is a terrible pattern of senseless violence, some things in his background that were terrifying,” said Murphy.

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks said authorities would take responsibility.

“There is no appropriate price tag to accompany a loss like this,” she said.

The award came almost two weeks after the city of Louisville, Kentucky settled a civil suit by the family of Breonna Taylor, a black woman shot dead by police there earlier this year, for $12 million.

Because US police enjoy extensive protections for their actions while they are on duty, known as qualified immunity, the families of victims increasingly turn to civil suits against municipalities and counties to seek justice.

AFP

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China Teacher Handed Death Sentence For Poisoning Children

 

A file photo of a court gavel.

A kindergarten teacher in China has been sentenced to death for poisoning dozens of children in an act of revenge against a colleague that left one toddler dead.

A court in the central Chinese province of Henan said Wang Yun put sodium nitrite into porridge being prepared for her colleague’s students, sickening 25.

The attack took place in March 2019 and left one boy severely ill for months before he died in January this year, according to news reports.

The Jiaozuo City Intermediate People’s Court on Monday said Wang knew sodium nitrite was harmful but went ahead “with no regard for the consequences”, leaving many innocent children in hospital.

News reports last year said the children began vomiting and fainting after eating their breakfast.

Kindergarten students in China are aged between three and six.

The death sentence was handed to Wang this week for the offence of using dangerous substances.

Sodium nitrite is used for curing meats but can be toxic when ingested in high amounts.

Wang concealed her reasons for the poisoning after carrying out the crime and her “motives were despicable”, the court said.

Her “criminal methods and circumstances were exceedingly bad, with especially severe circumstances, and she should be severely punished in accordance with the law,” the sentencing statement said.

The court added that Wang and the manager of the kindergarten must compensate the children’s families.

It was not the first time Wang used sodium nitrite to poison someone, authorities said. In 2017 she put it in her husband’s mug, causing him minor injuries.

In March last year, 36 primary school students in southwest China’s Sichuan province were hospitalised after eating “mouldy food”.

-AFP

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Trump Advises Biden Take Drug Test Before Or After Tuesday Debate

 

 

US President Donald Trump whispers to a White House staffer as he makes his way to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on September 26, 2020.
Olivier DOULIERY / AFP.

US President Donald Trump demanded Sunday that his Democratic rival Joe Biden take a drug test either before or after the pair’s first debate on Tuesday, in his latest salvo against his opponent’s mental acuity.

“I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night,” Trump tweeted.

“Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record-setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???” he continued, without offering any evidence for the claim.

Senate will ‘easily’ confirm Barrett 

Meanwhile, the US President said Sunday the Senate will “easily” confirm his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the election, despite furious Democratic opposition to his bid to steer the court rightward for years to come.

Trump has nominated Barrett, a darling of conservatives for her religious views, to replace the late liberal justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a lifetime seat on the top court, potentially impacting some of the most partisan issues in America, from abortion to gun rights to health care.

His decision to push her nomination through just weeks before the tense and potentially disputed November 3 election, in which polls show he is the underdog, has galvanized Democrats, who are calling for the decision to be made by the winner of the vote.

His election rival, Democrat Joe Biden, has led the charge.

“The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress,” Biden said Saturday, just moments after Trump announced Barrett’s nomination.

But Trump expressed confidence Sunday in an interview with “Fox & Friends.”

“I think we’re going to have it done easily before the election,” he said.

“I think it would be nice to do. Get it out of the way,” he continued, adding: “We have plenty of time.”

Barring a huge surprise, Republican senators, who have 53 out of 100 votes in the upper house of Congress, are expected to confirm Barrett.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has already announced that a vote will be held “this year.”

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Chadian troops kill 20 Boko Haram insurgents, rescue 12 hostages

 

Chadian soldiers killed 20 Boko Haram jihadists and freed 12 civilians, including nine children, kidnapped in the Lake Chad area where several countries' borders meet, the government said on Friday.

 

The jihadist group, which originated in Nigeria in 2009, has established bases on islets dotting Lake Chad, a vast swampy expanse on the border between Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

 

It has stepped up attacks in the area in recent months.

 

On September 17, Boko Haram fighters raided a village in the restive zone and kidnapped the civilians, Communications Minister and government spokesman Cherif Mahamat Zene told AFP.

 

The army pursued the raiders and attacked them on Thursday in Barkalam, near the Nigerian border, he said, "killing 15 terrorists" and "freeing 12 civilians."

 

A little later, there was another encounter at Bilabrim in which five Boko Haram fighters were killed and two Chadian soldiers were wounded.

 

The Chadian army launched an offensive against Boko Haram in April after the deaths of some 100 soldiers in an attack by the group on one of its bases.

 

President Idriss Deby then claimed to have pushed the jihadists out.

 

But attacks have continued despite the military operation.

 

In Chad's Lake Province, more than 360,000 people have fled their homes to avoid attacks and also flooding, according to the International Organization for  Migration (IOM).

 

The president admitted in early August that "Boko Haram would still do a lot of damage" in Chad.

 

Boko Haram's insurgency has killed more than 36,000 people and displaced more than two million from their homes.

 

The violence has since spread to Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

 

AFP

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Kim Jong Un Apologize Over Killing Of South Korean

 

This undated picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 29, 2020 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. STR / KCNA VIA KNS / AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a rare apology Friday over what he described as the “unexpected and disgraceful” killing of a South Korean at sea, Seoul’s presidential office said.

Apologies from the North — let alone attributed to Kim personally — are extremely unusual, and the message comes with inter-Korean ties in deep freeze as well as a stand-off in nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.

Analysts said the North was looking to placate its neighbour after the shooting — the first time its forces killed a Southern citizen for a decade — provoked outrage in the South.

The fisheries official was shot dead on Tuesday by North Korean soldiers, and Seoul says his body was set on fire while still in the water, apparently as a precaution against coronavirus infection.

Kim was “very sorry” for the “unexpected and disgraceful event” that had “disappointed President Moon and South Koreans”, rather than helping them in the face of the “malicious coronavirus”, said Suh Hoon, the South’s National Security Adviser.

Suh was reading out a letter from the department of the North’s ruling party responsible for relations with the South.

In it, Pyongyang acknowledged firing around 10 shots at the man, who had “illegally entered our waters” and refused to properly identify himself.

Border guards fired at him in accordance with standing instructions, it said.

There was no immediate confirmation of the contents from the North, whose state media did not mention the incident on Friday.

North Korean defector turned Seoul-based researcher Ahn Chan-il said it was “extremely rare for the North’s supreme commander to offer an apology, especially to South Koreans and their President”.

“I think this is the first since the 1976 Korean axe murder incident,” he said, referring to the killing of two US officers in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, added: “Kim Jong Un’s supposed apology reduces the risk of escalation between the two Koreas and keeps the Moon government’s hopes for engagement alive.”

It was a “diplomatic move” which “avoids a potential fight in the short-term and preserves the option of reaping longer-term benefits from Seoul”, he said.

– ‘Abominable act’ –

The killing provoked fury in the South, with President Moon Jae-in — a consistent advocate of better relations with Pyongyang — saying it was “shocking” and could not be tolerated for any reason.

In an editorial Friday, the Korea JoongAng Daily said it was “enraged at the North’s abominable act”.

“The act of murdering an unarmed man and burning his body cannot be excused in any way,” it said.

The man — who was wearing a life jacket — disappeared from a patrol vessel near the western border island of Yeonpyeong on Monday, and North Korean forces located him in their waters more than 24 hours later.

South Korean media reports said he was in his forties with two children, but had recently divorced and had financial problems.

Seoul military officials say the man was interrogated while in the water over several hours and expressed a desire to defect, but was killed after an “order from superior authority”.

The North’s letter said his body was no longer visible after the shooting and troops set his flotation device — which was covered in blood — on fire in accordance with national emergency prevention regulations.

North Korea’s crumbling health system would struggle to cope with a major virus outbreak but it has not confirmed a single case of the disease that has swept the world after taking drastic steps to prevent local coronavirus infections.

Pyongyang closed its border with China in January and state media said authorities had raised a state of emergency to the maximum level in July.

Pyongyang put the border city of Kaesong under lockdown in the same month after a defector who had fled South three years ago sneaked back over the heavily fortified border, with he could have carried the disease into the country.

US Forces Korea commander Robert Abrams said earlier this month that North Korean authorities had issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the coronavirus entering from China, creating a “buffer zone” at the border.

AFP

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Cameroon Soldiers Jailed 10 Years For Murder Of Four Civilians

Four Cameroonian soldiers were sentenced on Monday to 10 years in prison for the execution-style killings of two women and their children in a region where the army is fighting jihadists.

A fifth soldier received a two-year sentence.

A video was broadcast on social media in July 2018 showing soldiers shooting two kneeling, blindfolded women as well as a baby on one of their backs and a girl.

The government initially denied the army’s involvement, dismissing the video as “fake news”.

But after Amnesty International provided credible evidence, the authorities announced that the seven soldiers seen in the video had been arrested and would be prosecuted.

Two were later acquitted.

The military court in the capital Yaounde handed down the murder verdict and sentences after the trial was adjourned several times.

The seven soldiers had pleaded not guilty nearly a year ago.

The killings took place in Zeleved, in Cameroon’s Far North region where troops have been deployed to fight Boko Haram jihadists carrying out cross-border attacks from Nigeria.

International human rights organisations regularly denounce abuses and crimes committed against civilians by security forces in Cameroon.

Three soldiers were charged with murder in June over a massacre earlier this year in western Cameroon, where security forces are fighting anglophone separatists.

AFP

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Arrested ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero Duped Into Flying To Kigali Instead Of Burundi

 

“Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina (C) is escorted by police officers to leave after his pre-trial court session at the Kicukiro Primary court in Kigali, Rwanda, on September 14, 2020. / AFP / STRINGER

Paul Rusesabagina, the polarising hero of the “Hotel Rwanda” film who was arrested last month in Kigali, was duped into boarding a jet he thought was flying to Burundi, a New York Times report said.

“How I got here — now that is a surprise,” he told the US daily in a jailhouse interview with two Rwandan officials in the room. “I was actually not coming here.”

Rusesabagina, a Hutu, became famous after the Hollywood film in which he is credited with saving the lives of more than 1,200 people as they sheltered in the hotel he ran during the country’s 1994 genocide.

Some 800,000 mostly Tutsi but also moderate Hutu were killed in the genocide.

The 66-year-old has lived in exile since 1996 and holds both Belgian citizenship and a US “green card”.

 

“Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina (C), wearing a mask, appears at the Kicukiro Primary court in Kigali, Rwanda, on September 14, 2020. / AFP / STRINGER

Over the years, he has become a staunch critic of leader Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated government, accusing his ruling party of authoritarianism and anti-Hutu sentiment.

According to the NYT’s Friday report, Rusesabagina flew from the US to Dubai on August 26, before boarding a private jet he thought was heading to Bujumbura in Burundi which neighbours Rwanda.

The plane was operated by GainJet, a charter company based in Greece that is often used by Kagame, the report said.

But it landed in Kigali where Rusesabagina was arrested. The NYT quoted Rwanda’s spy chief as saying “he delivered himself here.”

He has since been charged with terrorism, financing and founding militant groups, murder, arson and conspiracy to involve children in armed groups.

Rusesabagina says he was heading to Burundi at the invitation of a pastor, to speak in his churches.

 

“Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina (C), wearing a mask, appears at the Kicukiro Primary court in Kigali, Rwanda, on September 14, 2020. AFP / STRINGER

But the NYT was not able to speak to the pastor and says Rwandan officials believe he was actually heading there to coordinate with armed groups based in Burundi and Congo.

In 2018, Rusesabagina co-founded an opposition group, the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), which is said to have an armed wing called the National Liberation Front (FLN).

In multiple speeches, Rusesabagina has expressed support for the FLN — which has carried out armed attacks and is described as a terrorist organisation by Rwanda — but the extent of his involvement in its actions is unclear.

He has denied forming the FLN.

AFP

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US security agents intercept poisonous package sent to Trump

The United States law enforcement agents during the week intercepted a poisonous package addressed to President Donald Trump, sources told CNN.

 

It was reported that two tests conducted on the package confirmed the presence of ricin, a highly toxic compound extracted from castor beans that has been used in terror plots.

 

Ricin can be used in powder, pellet, mist, or acid form and if ingested, can cause nausea, vomiting, and internal bleeding of the stomach and intestines, followed by failure of the liver, spleen and kidneys, and death by collapse of the circulatory system.

 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service were said to be investigating the matter.

 

“The FBI and our US Secret Service and US Postal Inspection Service partners are investigating a suspicious letter received at a US government mail facility. At this time, there is no known threat to public safety,” the FBI told CNN in a statement.

 

The report stated that all mails for the White House were usually sorted and screened at an offsite facility before reaching the White House.

 

Trump, who was inaugurated as the 45th US President in January 2017, is seeking re-election in November.

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No Middle East Peace Without Solving ‘Palestinian Problem,’ Says Russia

 

File photo: The State of Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the U.N. General Assembly at the United Nations on September 20, 2017 in New York, New York. Kevin Hagen / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP

Russia said on Thursday it would be a “mistake” to think lasting peace in the Middle East could be secured without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The foreign ministry statement came after Israel normalised relations with long-time foes Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates at the White House on Tuesday.

Russia said it noted “progress” in the normalisation of ties between Israel and several Arab countries but said that “the Palestinian problem remains acute.”

“It would be a mistake to think that without finding a solution to it that it will be possible to secure lasting stabilisation in the Middle East.”

 

 

File photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied meddling in US elections.

Moscow urged regional and global players to “ramp up coordinated efforts” to solve the issue.

“Russia is ready for such joint work,” including in the framework of the diplomatic Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators and in close coordination with the Arab League, the foreign ministry said.

US President Donald Trump has said similar US-brokered deals are close between the Jewish state and several other nations, including Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain and the UAE are the first Arab nations to establish relations with Israel since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas said Tuesday that only an Israeli withdrawal from its occupied territories could bring peace to the Middle East.

AFP

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