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South Korea will cull more than 20,000 ducks after reporting its first possible outbreak of bird flu since 2011, the agriculture ministry said on Friday. _0"> The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said a duck farm in Gochang, North Jeolla Province, about 300 km (186 miles) southwest of Seoul, was likely to have been contaminated by the H5N1 virus. Final tests are due out later on Friday. The suspected case of the virus was reported on Thursday and the provincial government has taken pre-emptive measures to control the spread of any disease and ordered a cull of more than 20,000 poultry at the farm. Poultry movement controls have also been ordered and 24 poultry farms in four provinces, that recently bought ducks from the Gochang farm, have been quarantined. Asia's fourth-largest economy has had four outbreaks of the virus in the past 10 years, the last one in 2011 which led to the slaughter over 3 million poultry, but no human cases of the bird flu stra

Pharmaceuticals company Shire has agreed to sell its Dermagraft treatment to U.S. group Organogenesis, taking a $650 million hit on the loss-making bio-engineered skin substitute it bought less than three years ago. Shire had hoped that Dermagraft would be the foundation of a regenerative medicine franchise when its acquired owner Advanced BioHealing for $750 million, but it received a setback when the treatment for diabetic foot ulcers failed to be approved for leg ulcers months after the deal in June 2011. The company said on Friday that Dermagraft's prospects had also reduced significantly after changes in U.S. federal reimbursement payments for wound-care products. Shire said it will receive no upfront payment from Organogenesis but it would be entitled to up to $300 million cash in milestone payments if it meet sales targets up to 2018. It said the loss on the disposal - about $650 million - will be treated as an exceptional item in its 2013 fourth-quarter results. The

Pakistan's volatile northwestern city of Peshawar is the largest reservoir of endemic polio viruses in the world, the World Health Organization said on Friday, amid concerns over continuing violence against polio vaccination teams. Pakistan is also the only polio-endemic country in the world where polio cases rose from 2012 to 2013, the statement said. There were 91 cases last year but only 58 the year before. Polio can permanently paralyze or kill victims within hours of infection. Intensive vaccination campaigns have almost eradicated the disease worldwide, but it remains endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. In Pakistan, Taliban commanders have forbidden vaccination teams access in some areas. A handful of religious leaders have also denounced the campaign as a plot to sterilize Muslim children. The rhetoric has fueled violence against the vaccination teams. Many teams travel only with police protection. Last year there were more than 30 attacks on polio teams.

South Africa on Friday slammed global drug firms over a covert campaign against its planned overhaul of intellectual property laws to favor cheaper generic drugs, accusing pharmaceutical companies of a "satanic" plot to commit "genocide". It is not the first time drugmakers have clashed with Pretoria. A decade ago the industry was forced to climb down in a bruising battle with South Africa over AIDS drugs patents and access to generics. The latest fight reflects tension between an industry that wants to protect its intellectual property, even as it pushes further into emerging markets, and governments from India to Brazil that are determined to increase patients' access to life-saving treatments. South Africa is in the final stages of implementing a new law that would allow generic drugmakers to produce cut-price copies of patented medicines and make it harder for firms to register and roll over patents. Global drugmakers have drawn up a $600,000 publicit

Medtronic Inc's non-invasive systems for replacing diseased heart valves won U.S. approval for use in patients deemed too frail to endure traditional open heart surgery, the U.S. medical device maker said on Friday. _0"> The Food and Drug Administration approved Medtronic's CoreValve system based on U.S. clinical trials in which it was shown to be safe and effective while demonstrating low rates of stroke and valve leakage, the company said. CoreValve, in which the replacement valve is threaded into place through an artery using a catheter, spares patients chest-cracking surgery. The system has been available since 2007 in Europe, where it is not uncommon for medical devices to win approval several years ahead of the United States. (Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Regardless of the culture a child lives in, corporal punishment may do lasting psychological harm, German researchers say. In a new study conducted in Tanzania, where physical punishment is considered normal, primary school students who were beaten by teachers or family members in the name of discipline tended to show more behavior problems, not fewer, the researchers found. "Parents aim to educate children through corporal punishment, but instead of learning good social behaviors, the beatings often have the opposite effect," said Tobias Hecker, a psychologist at the University of Konstanz, who led the study. "Some people still believe, despite an overwhelming body of evidence, that corporal punishment in some cultures won't result in as many negative effects," George Holden told Reuters Health. "But, as this study shows, it's difficult to find support for that argument," said Holden, a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist Universit

Teenagers living in single-parent households may have more difficulty getting a good night's sleep than their peers growing up with both parents, a new study suggests. "We know that sleep problems in general are very prevalent among teenagers," said Wendy Troxel, a behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who led the research. "These findings show that teenagers from single-parent homes may be particularly vulnerable," she told Reuters Health. Troxel cautions, however, that the study results merely indicate some connection between single-parent family structures and increased sleep problems among adolescents, not cause-and-effect. "Do not over-interpret these findings," said Troxel, who is also an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh. "All we're doing is showing associations. The implication is not: tell parents to get married," she wrote in an email. The idea that

Medtronic Inc's minimally invasive system for replacing diseased heart valves won U.S. approval for use in patients deemed too frail to endure traditional open heart surgery, the U.S. medical device maker said on Friday. The Food and Drug Administration approved Medtronic's CoreValve system based on U.S. clinical trials in which it was shown to be safe and effective while demonstrating low rates of stroke and valve leakage, the company said. Medtronic and Wall Street analysts had not expected the approval decision until April, giving the company a head start on efforts to seize market share from a similar rival product sold by Edwards Lifesciences Corp. News of the early CoreValve approval sent Edwards shares down nearly 5 percent. More than 100,000 people in the U.S. have severe aortic stenosis with about one-third too ill or frail for open-heart valve replacement surgery, making them candidates for CoreValve or the rival Edwards Sapien system. The systems, in which the

Swiss drugmaker Novartis said on Friday it was looking into a report that employees of is Japanese unit may have violated clinical trial protocol by handling data from a small independent study of one of its cancer drugs. _0"> Employees of Novartis Pharma K.K. (NPKK) transferred some data from research centers to a Tokyo hospital when that data should have been sent directly without first passing through Novartis hands, according to a report by Japanese broadcaster NHK that was picked up by the Wall Street Journal. "NPKK is currently investigating the allegations," Novartis said in a statement. The data was from a not yet fully enrolled 55-patient trial testing the Novartis cancer drug Tasigna, the company said. "Novartis Pharma K.K. is aware of the media report regarding a small investigator-initiated clinical study ... conducted to assess side effects in patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia," Novartis said in a statement. "NPKK has conduct

Another 5.6 million American children may die prematurely unless smoking rates fall in the United States, according to a report by the U.S. surgeon general which links a range of new illnesses to the habit. Fifty years after the first surgeon general's report declared smoking a hazard to human health, the new study adds conditions ranging from colon cancer to diabetes and arthritis to the tally of tobacco-related diseases. The report, the first in more than a decade, found that smoking has killed more than 20 million Americans prematurely in the last half century. Although adult smoking rates have fallen to the current 18 percent from 43 percent of Americans in 1965, each day, more than 3,200 youths under the age 18 try their first cigarette, according to the report published on Friday. "Enough is enough," acting Surgeon General Dr Boris Lushniak said in a telephone interview. "We need to eliminate the use of cigarettes and create a tobacco-free generation.&quo

Google Inc said on Thursday that it is testing a new method for diabetics to monitor their blood-sugar levels by wearing a contact lens equipped with tiny chips and an antenna. Google said a prototype of its "smart contact lens" can generate a reading of a tear's glucose level every second, potentially replacing the need for people with diabetes to prick their fingers and test drops of blood throughout the day. "We're in discussions with the FDA, but there's still a lot more work to do to turn this technology into a system that people can use," Google said in a post on its official blog. Google said it planned to find partners, "who are experts in bringing products like this to market." The world's largest Internet search engine, Google is developing a variety of new technologies outside its core business, including self-driving cars and balloons that beam wireless Internet to remote regions of the world. Google has also become more

Fewer kids are being sent to the emergency room as a result of violence at school than were a decade ago, according to a new study, but those rates are still high. And the injuries sustained from bullying might be more serious than accidental injuries. Based on national survey data, researchers estimated there were more than 7 million ER visits due to in-school injuries in the U.S. between 2001 and 2008. One in 10 resulted from physical altercations with classmates. "It appears to be concerningly high, especially when you realize that such a substantial number of injuries are occurring in the school setting where safety measures are already in place," said Dr. Siraj Amanullah. He led the study at Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Kids who were injured in physical fights at school and sent to the ER were twice as likely to be hospitalized as those who had accidental injuries. For injuries that happened outside of school, the odds of ho

A federal judge on Friday struck down a 2011 North Carolina law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and explain it to a woman before having an abortion, arguing it violated the constitutional right to free speech of doctors. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles found that a state does not have "the power to compel a health care provider to speak, in his or her own voice, the state's ideological message in favor of carrying a pregnancy to term." The law "compels a health care provider to act as the state's courier and to disseminate the state's message discouraging abortion, in the provider's own voice, in the middle of a medical procedure, and under circumstances where it would seem the message is the provider's and not the state's," she added in her 42-page ruling. "This is not allowed under the First Amendment," Eagles ruled. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, but lawmakers in mor

Biocon Ltd said its generic version of Roche's Herceptin breast cancer treatment would be available to patients in India from the first week of February. _0"> Bangalore-based Biocon jointly developed biosimilar trastuzumab, which received the Indian drug regulator's marketing approval in November, with U.S.-based Mylan Inc. About 150,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in India, of which 25 percent are eligible for treatment with trastuzumab, Biocon said. Roche decided not to pursue a patent application for its breast cancer drug Herceptin in India, paving the way for generic drugmakers to produce cheaper copies, known as biosimilars because they are not identical to the original drug. Global sales for Herceptin were valued at about $6.4 billion in 2012, including about $21 million in India, Biocon said. (Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

A former democratic senator and governor from Florida, Bob Graham, visited Cuba this week to discuss oil spill prevention and preparedness during a trip that has caused a stir among exiles and Cuba watchers due to his traditional support for tough sanctions against the Communist-ruled Caribbean island. Cuba and its partners drilled three exploratory wells off Cuba's northern coast in recent years that came up dry, but more such wells are expected in the future in search of billions of barrels of oil thought to be below its Gulf of Mexico waters. Graham's first ever visit to Cuba follows President Barack Obama's recent call, while visiting Miami, for "modernizing" relations with Cuba, as well as his famous handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro while attending Nelson Mandela's memorial service in South Africa last month. The strained relationship between the long-time foes has eased since Obama began his second term in office. Recently, State Departme

Kentucky is offering a $7,200 reward to anyone who can lead authorities to the person or people responsible for shooting two endangered whooping cranes that arrived in the state this winter. The two 5-foot (1.5-meter) tall, pure white birds, who were mates, were killed around Thanksgiving in central Kentucky, according to U.S. officials. The shooters could face up to a $100,000 fine and a year in jail. Fewer than 500 whooping cranes live in the wild in the United States, making them the world's most endangered crane species, said Tom MacKenzie a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday. Only seven spend their winters in Kentucky. Joe Duff, the co-founder of Operation Migration, an organization that helps young whooping cranes on their first migration from Wisconsin to Florida, called the shooters "vandals that want to kill something, putting their own moods, feelings and aggressions on a creature that doesn't deserve it." Whooping cranes are

Biologists scrambled on Thursday to unravel the mystery behind a massive fish kill in a popular manmade lake in Nevada that draws thousands of anglers each winter for prized game fish such as trout. More than 100,000 stocked fish such as bass and catfish are estimated to have perished in the lake in the northern city of Sparks in recent weeks in an unprecedented die-off that has destroyed the entire fishery, said Chris Healy, spokesman for the state Department of Wildlife. Testing of water at the Sparks Marina, a city recreation complex whose chief attraction is a 77-acre (31-hectare) reservoir, has revealed that it is nearly devoid of oxygen necessary to support aquatic creatures such as fish, he said. "We're seeing oxygen levels that are totally lethal to fish," Healy said. The depleted oxygen levels pose no threat to human or pet health, and sampling of the water shows no evidence of pollution or contaminants, said Adam Mayberry, spokesman for the city of Sparks.

Extreme heat and high winds fanned dozens of bushfires across Australia on Friday, prompting hundreds to flee their homes in some of the worst conditions seen since Black Saturday in 2009. _0"> One person died in the Grampians bushland in the southeastern state of Victoria, about 300 km (186 miles) west of Melbourne, where bushfires are burning out of control amid temperatures which have hit above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees F), destroying or damaging houses. Victoria was the hardest hit, with 70 bushfires burning out of control. Dozens of blazes are burning in South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales. Authorities have issued seven emergency warnings to severely affected areas, prompting hundreds of residents to flee their homes. Victoria Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said conditions were "up there" as the worst since the Black Saturday fires that killed 173 people in 2009. Lapsley said the 21,000-hectare (81-sq-mile) fire in the G

The first warning of the problems that eventually swept away Irina Vorochkova's house near Russia's Olympic city of Sochi came when the garden began shifting, then the ground slid away downhill towards a river. As builders worked feverishly to get the Black Sea resort ready for winter games so closely tied to President Vladimir Putin's legacy, they failed to notice the effects their work was having on the village below. Until the walls of Vorochkova's two-storey home fell. Tell-tale cracks snaked through neighboring houses. The 58-year-old housewife now lives in an aluminum shack and is fighting a legal battle for compensation over damage she blames on Olympic subcontractors. Other villages near Sochi offer similar complaints of ruined homes, illegal landfills and broken promises that their lives would not be poisoned by construction. "It started slowly with little things, like the poles for the clothesline were not quite in the same place, the borders of the

Cold weather overnight did not harm oranges and other fruit across Florida's citrus-growing regions, the state's leading growers association said on Friday. _0"> "Came through in good shape. No reports of damage currently. Had some high 20s, low 30s. Not cold enough, long enough," Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual, told Reuters. Typically, citrus can be damaged by four hours or more of temperatures below 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 Celsius) but Meadows said that had not happened, even in northern citrus-producing regions of Florida. Florida accounts for about 75 percent of the U.S. orange crop and as much as 40 percent of the world's orange juice supply. (Reporting By David Adams; editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)

French state-controlled nuclear group Areva and Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa are in advanced talks over a joint venture in offshore wind turbines, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday. Both firms would hold a 50 percent stake in the new entity, which would focus on expanding the promising but capital-intensive offshore windfarms business, one of the sources said. Areva and Gamesa declined to comment on the potential deal but both have been tipped in the past to be exploring partnerships in offshore wind. "In offshore you need a strategic partner. Without a deal, Gamesa would have fallen behind," said Intermoney analyst Alvaro Navarro. He added that in Europe, around a third of the new capacity that will be installed over the next years will be offshore. "If you're not positioned on this market, you're missing something," he said. A renewable energy expert who declined to be named said there was sound industrial logic be

Chile's leading environmental lawyers, who have helped stall around $30 billion in mining and energy projects, say the battle is only just beginning - and copper investments are poised to come under increasing fire this year. In a significant shift for business-friendly Chile, empowered social groups are successfully suing massive projects over threats to glaciers, health, indigenous rights and biodiversity. Power projects have so far fared the worse, but Santiago-based lawyers Alvaro Toro and Lorenzo Soto say many communities are now turning up the heat on mining in the world's top copper producer. "This year is going to be very conflictive," Alvaro Toro, a lawyer with environmental NGO OLCA, told Reuters in his tiny office, just a block from the headquarters of world No.1 copper miner, Codelco. "Projects are increasingly being set up in fragile places. People's opposition is completely rational," he said on Friday. Toro's OLCA has successful

A coalition of environmental groups on Friday launched a legal challenge to the preliminary approval last month for Enbridge Inc's C$7.9 billion ($7.21 billion) Northern Gateway pipeline project, filing suit to prevent Canada's government from using the approval in its final decision on the line. _0"> The groups are objecting to the approval granted Northern Gateway last month by the Joint Review Panel. The panel, which held 18 months of hearings into Northern Gateway, concluded the project posed little risk to the environment provided Enbridge complied with 209 conditions attached to the approval. The final decision on whether the project can go ahead rests with the cabinet of Canada's Conservative government. The groups' suit, filed in Federal Court on Friday, says the panel did not adequately consider the effects of the project on humpback whales or caribou and that its conclusions were based on insufficient evidence. "The JRP did not have enough ev

Firefighters battling a blaze sweeping across acres of dry brush for a second day in the foothills near Los Angeles gained significant ground on Friday, helped by diminishing winds that allowed most of the evacuated residents to return home. The blaze, which officials said started in a campsite on Thursday morning, has blackened more than 1,700 acres of drought-parched chaparral, destroyed five homes and damaged 17 other structures. After suppressing flare-ups overnight and making progress in efforts to encircle the flames, crews had managed to contain about 30 percent of the fire's perimeter, said Marc Peebles, a spokesman for the fire command. He said the hot, dry Santa Ana winds fanning the flames on Thursday had subsided by early Friday in the immediate area, helping some 1,100 firefighters consolidate their gains against the blaze. "The winds are behaving today and crews are making good progress," he said. At its peak, the fire prompted some 3,500 residents in

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency on Friday, a move that will allow the parched state to seek federal aid as it grapples with what could turn out to be the driest year in recorded state history for many areas. The dry year California experienced in 2013 has left fresh water reservoirs with a fraction of their normal reserves and slowed the normally full American River so dramatically that brush and dry riverbed are showing through in areas normally teeming with fish. "We can't make it rain, but we can be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California's drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms and communities and increased fires in both urban and rural areas," Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. "I've declared this emergency and I'm calling all Californians to conserve water in every way possible," he said, in a move that will allow him to call for conservation measu

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency on Friday, a move that will allow the parched state to seek federal aid as it grapples with what could turn out to be the driest year in recorded state history for many areas. The dry year California experienced in 2013 has left fresh water reservoirs with a fraction of their normal reserves and slowed the normally full American River so dramatically that brush and dry riverbed are showing through in areas normally teeming with fish. "We can't make it rain, but we can be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California's drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms and communities and increased fires in both urban and rural areas," Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. "I've declared this emergency and I'm calling all Californians to conserve water in every way possible," he said, in a move that will allow him to call for conservation measu

South Korea confirmed the outbreak of highly pathogenic bird flu on Saturday and said it would expand the culling of birds to a radius of 3-km (1.9 mile) around a duck farm, but a nationwide suspension of poultry shipment was considered premature. _0"> The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said the case reported at a farm in the southwestern county of Gochang, about 300 km (186 miles) from Seoul, was of the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain. A cull of 21,000 birds at the farm has been completed and authorities are widening the cull to a 3-km radius of the site but there are no indications of a wider spread of the outbreak, a ministry official said on Saturday. The strain was previously identified in a 2010 case reported in China and is largely similar to the H5N1 type, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. Asia's fourth-largest economy has had four outbreaks of the virus in the past 10 years, the most recent in 2011, which led to the slaughter of more

A district judge on Friday denied a request from conservationists to block Idaho's efforts to trap and kill two wolf packs targeted for eradication in a federally protected wilderness area for preying on elk prized by hunters. The state Department of Fish and Game last month hired a trapper to eliminate the pair of wolf packs from the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, where wolves were imported from Canada in the mid-1990s in a bid to reintroduce the species to the Northern Rockies. The trapping program has become the latest flashpoint in a long-running controversy over wolf management in the region. State officials have not specified how many wolves are believed to make up the packs in question but said nine animals have been killed so far. Gray wolves were placed under safeguards of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1974, after being hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction decades earlier throughout the continental United States. But w

The nation's capital gained a new star on Saturday when the National Zoo's 4-month-old panda bear cub made her debut to long lines of visitors. _0"> The panda cub, Bao Bao, went on exhibit at the Giant Bear Habitat, accompanied by her mother, Mei Xiang, said zoo spokeswoman Annalisa Meyer. "She's doing great. She's sleeping right now, she's doing what pandas do," she said. Visitors began lining up well before the 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT) opening time, with 60 to 80 people being admitted at 10-minute intervals, Meyer said. Bao Bao, whose name means "precious" or "treasure," has been a star since her birth on August 23 was broadcast live on the zoo's panda cam. The cub will be on exhibit for a few hours every day. Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered species, in part because it is difficult for them to breed in the wild, let alone in captivity, scientists said on NationalGeographic.com. There are only ab

Firefighters sought to prevent a wildfire in the foothills near Los Angeles from flaring up on Saturday, as they put out embers from a blaze that has destroyed five homes, officials said. The so-called Colby Fire, which officials said started from a campfire early on Thursday, has blackened nearly 1,900 acres of drought-parched chaparral and is 30 percent contained, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Robert Brady. That was the same level of containment firefighters reported on Friday, but officials were optimistic they were gaining the upper hand on the blaze centered in the San Gabriel Mountains, on territory that is part of the Angeles National Forest. "It's not spreading anymore," Brady said. More than 1,100 firefighters, backed by four water-dropping airplanes and three helicopters, are battling the blaze, officials said. Hot, dry Santa Ana winds from interior deserts fanned the flames when it broke out on Thursday, but the next day, the winds subsided and the

West Virginia authorities on Saturday completely lifted a 10-day-old ban on the use of tap water that was imposed after a chemical spill contaminated drinking water, but they advised pregnant women to continue using alternative water sources. The final 2 percent of the 300,000 customers affected by the spill have now been cleared to drink and wash from their tap, said West Virginia American Water spokeswoman Laura Jordan. However, out of an "abundance of caution," the water utility advised pregnant women to consider an alternative drinking water source "until the chemical is non-detectable in the water distribution system." Crews have been flushing out the water system around the capital of Charleston since January 9, when a chemical used to process coal leaked from a massive storage container into the Elk River, the main water source in the region. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency and local officials issued a do-not-use advisory until t

Russell Johnson, the veteran character actor who appeared in science fiction films and Westerns before earning enduring fame as "The Professor" on the classic 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island," died on Thursday at the age of 89, his agent said. "He died at 5:21 a.m. of natural causes at home in Washington state," agent Michael Eisenstadt said, adding that Johnson's wife and his daughter were at his side. "Gilligan's Island," which was created by producer Sherwood Schwartz, ran for three seasons on the CBS network, from 1964 to 1967, and attracted even more popularity in syndication. "I worked with him for over 20 years. He was a gentleman, a great guy and a family man, an iconic figure," Eisenstadt said. "In the history of television ‘Gilligan's Island' was one of the most re-run shows. He'll be missed. He was old-time Hollywood." Actress Dawn Wells, who played the perky Mary Ann Summers in the sho