Headlines:

• New Spectre of Cloned Babies: Scientists Create Embryos in Lab that Could Grow to Full Term
• France Struggles to Fight Radical Islam in its Jails
• Jewish State Hints at New Strikes, Warning Syria Not to Hit Back
• Karzai Asks Taliban to Support Kabul on Border Spat
• US Sees China Missile Launch as Test of Muscle

Details:

New Spectre of Cloned Babies: Scientists Create Embryos in Lab that Could Grow to Full Term:

The breakthrough could lead to customised cells to help treat and even cure a range of diseases, from Alzheimer's to multiple sclerosis. However, it also raises the spectre of babies being cloned in laboratories. This could allow couples who lose a child to pay for the creation of a ‘duplicate'. While human embryos have been cloned before, none have had healthy stem cells extracted from them. The latest advance means scientists are now even closer to being able to clone children. The US team behind the work stress that they want to find treatments for incurable diseases - but critics fear there is little to stop a rogue scientist from copying their work to try to clone humans. Dr David King, founder of the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, called for an international ban on human cloning and said it was ‘irresponsible in the extreme' to have published details of the stem-cell technique. The world first was achieved at Oregon Health and Science University, with a technique similar to the one used to clone Dolly the sheep.

France Struggles to Fight Radical Islam in its Jails:

In France, the path to radical Islam often begins with a minor offence that throws a young man into an overcrowded, violent jail and produces a hardened convert ready for jihad. With the country on heightened security alert since January when French troops began fighting al Qaeda-linked Islamists in Mali, authorities are increasingly worried about home-grown militants emerging from France's own jails. But despite government efforts to tackle the problem, conditions behind bars are still turning young Muslims into easy prey for jihadist recruiters, according to guards, prison directors, ex-inmates, chaplains and crime experts interviewed over the last few months by Reuters. "I have parents who come to me and say: ‘My son went in a dealer and came out a fundamentalist'," said Hassen Chalghoumi, Imam of the mosque in Drancy, a gritty suburb north of Paris. Malian Islamists have warned France it is a target for attacks, most recently in a video that came to light on Tuesday. This has added to concern in a country which, according to the Europol police agency, arrested 91 people in 2012 on suspicion of what it categorized as religiously-inspired terrorism. These numbers are by far the highest for any European Union country, although tiny when compared with France's estimated 5 to 6 million Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. France, which has Europe's biggest Muslim population, is not alone. International studies show that prison radicalization is a problem in countries ranging from Britain and the United States to Afghanistan. However, France stands out because over half its inmates are estimated to be Muslim, many from communities blighted by poverty and unemployment.

Jewish State Hints at New Strikes, Warning Syria Not to Hit Back:

In a clear warning to Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants in the region, a senior Israeli official signalled on Wednesday that Israel was considering additional military strikes to prevent that from happening and that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, would face crippling consequences if he retaliated. "Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah," the Israeli official said. "The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region." "If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies," the official said, "he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate."

Karzai Asks Taliban to Support Kabul on Border Spat:

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has called on Taliban insurgents to drop their weapons against the Afghan people and turn them against enemies of the war-ravaged country. The statement is widely seen as directed at neighbouring Pakistan and it comes just days after one of the worst border clashes between the two uneasy neighbours. Construction of a controversial border post along the Durand Line - the two countries' porous, 2,600-kilometer border - is at the centre of the latest bilateral tensions. Kabul alleges that Islamabad is building the installation on Afghan territory in violation of bilateral and international agreements. Pakistan has repeatedly denied those charges. President Karzai ordered his top officials last month to take all necessary steps to get the border post removed. He did not elaborate, but his directive was soon followed by one of the worst recent border skirmishes between Afghan and Pakistani forces. One Afghan died and two Pakistani soldiers were wounded.

US Sees China Missile Launch as Test of Muscle:

The U.S. government believes a Chinese missile launch this week was the first test of a new interceptor that could be used to destroy a satellite in orbit, a U.S. defence official told Reuters on Wednesday. China launched a rocket into space on Monday, but no objects were placed into orbit, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. The object re-entered Earth's atmosphere above the Indian Ocean. "We tracked several objects during the flight but did not observe the insertion of any objects into orbit and no objects associated with this launch remain in space," said Lieutenant Colonel Monica Matoush, a Pentagon spokeswoman. The rocket reached 10,000 km (6,250 miles) above Earth, the highest suborbital launch seen worldwide since 1976, according to Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. China has said the rocket, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in western China, carried a science payload to study the earth's magnetosphere. "I want to emphasize that China has consistently advocated for the peaceful use of outer space and opposes the weaponization of outer space as well as an arms race in outer space," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing.

Abu Hashim