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.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong stocks fell back 2.52 per cent Friday at the end of one of the most turbulent weeks in the history of the Hang Seng Index.

The blue-chip index lost 361.18 points, slipping back below the 14,000 point barrier to 13,968.67 points. Turnover was 58.47 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.54 billion US dollars).

Analysts blamed the fall on profit-taking after three consecutive days of gains which has seen the index bounce back by 23 per cent after recording one of its biggest day losses Monday.

Hamburg - Germany captain Michael Ballack and coach Joachim Loew have met to resolve a row amid media speculation on Friday on its outcome.

The German football federation (DFB) announced statements on the meeting, which took place on Thursday at the DFB headquarters in Frankfurt, for later Friday.

Chelsea's Ballack, 32, had criticised Loew last week in a newspaper interview, mainly for benching fellow-midfielder Torsten Frings at two World Cup qualifiers. Ballack said that Loew did not show enough respect for long-time Germany players.

Advocacy group Public Citizen said GlaxoSmithKline PLC's diabetes drug Avandia should be banned in the United States as it can cause death from liver failure and has other life threatening risks which are more than the benefits itoffers.

The American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes issued guidelines which said that members of a joint medical panel "unanimously advised against using" Avandia.

The drug already carries a “black box” warning of its increasing the risk of heart attacks and now the Public Citizen group asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the drug citing the drug induced liver failure in 14 cases. 12 of these have resulted in liver related death.