According to research, IVF babies born from frozen embryos are healthier than those who develop from fresh embryos. Three studies that were presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in San Francisco, said that babies from frozen embryos were less likely to be premature or under weight.

A study from Finland said that babies born from fresh embryos had a 35 % higher chance of being premature and were 64 % more likely to have a lower birth weight than those born from frozen embryos.

According to a Pakistan newspaper reports Monday, two Taliban leaders being held in Afghanistan on terrorism charges were let go in return for the safe release of Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) reporter Mellissa Fung, who was freed on Saturday.

Though the CBC says Fung’s kidnappers were likely criminals rather than members of the Taliban. Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper quoted Taliban sources on Monday as saying a violent tug-of-war for Fung erupted between insurgents and the criminals after she was taken hostage.

Zhu Weiqun, vice-minister of the Communist party’s United Front Work Department, has clearly stated that China had no interest in engaging with the Dalai Lama’s call for “genuine autonomy” for Tibetans, terming it as an attempt to promote “ethnic splitting.”

Branding the Dalai Lama a would-be ethnic cleanser, the senior Communist party official denounced the Himalayan region’s exiled spiritual leader as a scheming “splittist.” Zhu said the Dalai Lama’s representatives were to blame for the failure last week of the latest talks between the two sides.

The fact that Europe and Russia need each other economically, especially as the global financial crisis reorders priorities, is obvious as the European Union (EU) said Monday that it would resume negotiations with Russia that it had halted during Russia’s war with Georgia.

On September 1, EU leaders decided to postpone the talks indefinitely after Russia, responding to a Georgian attack on the pro-Moscow enclave of South Ossetia, invaded Georgia, and then recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Security officers in Baghdad recounted the deadliest bomb blast which rocked the Iraqi capital Monday, killing 28 people, including women and schoolgirls, and leaving dozens wounded.

According to witnesses, Monday’s attack took place on Kassra Street, a road lined with restaurants and tea shops popular for breakfast with Iraqi security forces, as a bus carrying young school girls drove past.  

In a strikingly symbolic moment in the historic transition of power in Washington, the outgoing President Bush and first lady, Laura, greeted President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, with smiles and handshakes, as they stepped from their limousine to begin a tour of their home for the next four years, after Obama is sworn in on January 20.