China has developed a vaccine for swine flu and is set to become the first country in the world to begin mass inoculations, but there are concerns over possible side effects, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told CNN, "We have to be ready for the fact that there might be adverse effects." "No matter what vaccine you're looking at, sometimes there are extremely rare side effects. We don't even know what those ...

Despite strenuous entreaties by top U.S. officials, Pakistan has abandoned plans to mount a military offensive against the terrorist group responsible for a two-year campaign of suicide bombings across the country. Although the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan , has been in disarray since an Aug. 5 missile strike from a CIA-operated drone killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani military has concluded that a ground attack on its strongholds in South Waziristan would be too difficult. The Pakistani military have ...

Arsenal striker Eduardo could face a two-match Champions League ban if European football's governing body UEFA decide to charge him with diving. UEFA disciplinary officials are reviewing the incident when the Croatia striker won a penalty against Celtic on Wednesday before deciding whether he will be charged. A UEFA spokesman told Press Association Sport: "We are reviewing the match to see whether a disciplinary investigation should be launched." Under UEFA rules, if charged and found guilty Eduardo ...

Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho is under fire from a Muslim leader in Italy after his criticism of Sulley Muntari for fasting during Ramadan. Ghana midfielder Muntari was taken off after just half an hour of Inter's disappointing 1-1 home draw against Bari as they began their defense of the Serie A title on Sunday. Mourinho pulled no punches in the post match press conference when he implied that the former Portsmouth star had played poorly because he ...

A Red Cross worker was among the 43 people killed in a massive car bombing in southern Afghanistan, the aid organization said Wednesday. A tanker truck full of explosives went off Tuesday in front of a Japanese construction company in Kandahar, officials said. The blast was so intense that windows shattered in homes a kilometer (0.62 miles) away. An Afghan water engineer working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed when the blast collapsed the ceiling of ...

Amid turmoil over the treatment of post-election detainees and controversy over the mass trials of political figures, Iran's supreme leader on Saturday appointed a new judiciary chief, Iranian media reported. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tapped Sadeq Larijani -- brother of Iran's powerful parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani -- to replace Hashemi Shahroudi, a vocal hardliner against the opposition movement, who finished his 10-year term, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. Another brother, Mohammad Javad Larijani, is the secretary-general of the judiciary's human ...

Tour de France champion Alberto Contador will stay with Astana for the 2010 season, the Kazakh-funded team announced on Saturday night. The Spaniard's future with the team had been uncertain after clinching his second victory in three years in cycling's most prestigious event, with the 26-year-old unhappy with the recruitment of Lance Armstrong this year. However, seven-time Tour winner Armstrong announced before the end of the race, in which he finished third, that he was forming a new U.S.-based team ...

Three independent United Nations human rights experts have accused Iran of torturing confessions from detainees charged with fomenting political unrest, the international organization said Thursday. "No judicial system can consider as valid a confession obtained as a result of harsh interrogations or under torture," said Manfred Nowak, who is the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. The treatment of detainees at Iran's prisons has increasingly become a divisive issue within Iran's Islamic leadership, as reformists continue to accuse the hardline government ...

Iran's influential parliament speaker dismissed allegations that post-election detainees were raped while in custody, calling the claims by an opposition leader "sheer lies," state-run media reported Wednesday. Ali Larijani said that a special panel of Iran's parliament, or Majlis, conducted a "precise and comprehensive inquiry" into the treatment at Tehran's Evin and Kahrizak prisons, and found "no cases of rape or sexual abuse," Press TV reported. Larijani's fiery response was to accusations made by opposition candidate Mehdi Karrubi who, along ...

President Obama complained Tuesday about opposition scare tactics against a proposed health care overhaul but said that failing to fix problems in the current system would be the scariest outcome of all. Obama addressed a supportive town hall meeting that contrasted with combative events held by Democratic Congress members, which have generated heated and sometimes disruptive responses. Also Tuesday, hostile crowds shouted questions and made angry statements against proposed health-care legislation at meetings in Pennsylvania and Missouri led by ...