Singapore - Singapore shares came under another round of selling pressure Thursday, mostly in line with the downward trend among other Asian bourses.

The Straits Times Index (STI) fell by 75.46 points, or 4.14 per cent to close at 1745.67, with 341 counters reporting losses and 149 gains.

The STI was down by over 68 points at mid-day, with early morning trade nose-diving. However, trading was more somber from late morning through to the rest of the day.

Thursday's selling was in line with what has been happening at the regional bourses and the continuing reaction of the global financial and economic crisis, said Nancy Wei, head of research at brokerage UOB Kay Hian Pte Ltd.

Baghdad - Iraq's Babel province Thursday took over its own, Iraqi-led security duties from the Multi-National Forces (MNF).

"Taking responsibility for Babel province shows that the Iraqi forces are capable of taking control of their own security and fighting terrorism," National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said during the handover ceremony.

US soldiers were present at the ceremony along with high-ranking Iraqi officials and clan chiefs. No other nationalities were present. The mostly Shiite province is the 12th to receive its security file.

Washington, Oct 23: A new research has uncovered how some people are good at generalizing from past experience, while others are not.

The study has revealed how the brain can connect discrete but overlapping experiences to provide a rich integrated history that extends far beyond individually experienced events and may help to direct future choices.

Usually, decisions are guided by drawing on past experiences, perhaps by generalizing across discrete events that overlap in content.

But, how such experiences are integrated into a unified representation was unclear, until now.

Washington, Oct 23: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has reportedly described (her party) Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a “fantastic person”, but fell short to fully endorse her candidature for the second most powerful post in the country.

She also said that Hillary Clinton too was a terrific personality.

Hong Kong - The benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped below 14,000 to close 3.55 per cent down at 13,760.49 Thursday after a roller-coaster trading session which saw the index fall more than 6 per cent in morning trade.

The index recovered to punch above 14,000 in early afternoon trade before the gains were lost and the index ended the day 506 points down.

Turnover was 56.46 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.23 billion US dollars).

Analysts said Hong Kong stocks were adversely affected by weak corporate earnings, with Chinese companies especially affected.

A new technique for cervical cancer has developed which can locate the cancer at early stage. Nandita de Souza and her team has developed this technique at the Institute of Cancer Research and London’s Royal Marsden Hospital. The new technique called as 'Diffusion weighted imaging'.

This technique allows the doctors to carry out precise surgery to remove the tumours. The team observed 59 women with cervical cancer aged between 24 and 83 over a period of 22 months and they found that 88% of cancer cases were detected by using the new technique as compare to 77% who were detected by using external scans.