London, Oct 31 : A shop dedicated to Enid Blyton, the famous children writer, has come under fire, after it started selling golliwogs.

Viv Endecott, who owns the ‘Ginger Pop’ shop in Dorset village, has received complaints urging her to stop selling the rag dolls.

However, Endecott defends herself, insisting that the dolls are nothing but mere soft toys synonymous with Enid Blyton’s characters like Noddy.

Endecott, who is of Indian origin revealed that she has faced racism, and she does not have ay such motive behind the dolls.

The owner also revealed that there is a great demand for dolls in the village, as she has already sold 500 odd dolls, and inspite of complaints she would not remove the dolls.

A new study has disclosed that vigorous exercise lowers the chances of developing breast cancer by almost a third.

The defensive effect of strenuous exercise such as scrubbing floors, cleaning windows and dancing was only obvious in women with normal weight, the researchers said.

The other vigorous activities include running, fast jogging, competitive tennis, aerobics, hill cycling, digging, and chopping wood.

The research made by doctors followed the lifestyles and health of 32,269 postmenopausal women for 11 years.

Berlin - Germany's new agriculture and consumer affairs minister, Ilse Aigner, 43, was formally appointed Friday as part of a shake-up in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative camp.

She received her commission from German President Horst Koehler.

Aigner was nominated by her predecessor, Horst Seehofer, who has moved to Bavaria state to become its premier and leader of the Bavaria-only party Christian Social Union (CSU).

Aigner has been a CSU member of federal parliament in Berlin since 1998.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan on Friday cut its key short-term interest rate to 0.3 per cent from 0.5 per cent to help the world's second-largest economy weather the global financial crisis.

The bank's policy board voted 5-4 to lower the rate for the first time in seven and a half years at the end of a one-day meeting.

Governor Masaaki Shirakawa cast a vote to support the rate cut, saying the nation's economy would need more time to recover amid weak exports and high raw material prices.

Vienna - The price for

Washington, October 31: Exposure to famine prior to birth may lead to epigenetic changes that may affect a person''s health into midlife, according to a new study.

Researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands say that their findings show trickle-down effect from pregnant women to the DNA of their unborn children, and the timeframe over which such early damage can operate.

Reporting their findings online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the researchers claim that theirs is the first study to show that early-life environmental conditions can cause epigenetic changes in humans that persist throughout life.