Bad sleep 'dramatically' alters body

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News  

A run of poor sleep can have a potentially profound effect on the internal workings of the human body, say UK researchers.

The activity of hundreds of genes was altered when people's sleep was cut to less than six hours a day for a week.
Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers said the results helped explain how poor sleep damaged health.
Heart disease, diabetes, obesity and poor brain function have all been linked to substandard sleep.
What missing hours in bed actually does to alter health, however, is unknown.
So researchers at the University of Surrey analysed the blood of 26 people after they had had plenty of sleep, up to 10 hours each night for a week, and compared the results with samples after a week of fewer than six hours a night.
More than 700 genes were altered by the shift. Each contains the instructions for building a protein, so those that became more active produced more proteins - changing the chemistry of the body.

Egypt suspends Luxor balloon flights after deadly crash

Governor of Luxor, Ezzat Saad: "I would like to offer my condolences"

The Egyptian authorities have suspended all hot air balloon flights near Luxor and launched an investigation following the deaths of 19 tourists in a crash.

Hong Kong, Japanese, British, French and Hungarian nationals were among those killed on Tuesday morning.
A landing rope is reported to have got caught around a helium gas tube and severed it, after which a fire erupted and the balloon shot up into the air.
It then plunged some 300m (1,000ft) to the ground in a field west of the city.
The pilot and one passenger survived by jumping out of the basket.

UN report Torture in Afghan prisons is widespread

BBC's Quentin Somerville said the report details use of electric shock to extract confessions.

The United Nations says torture in Afghan prisons continues to be widespread despite its recommendations in a similar report in 2011.

More than half of the 635 detainees interviewed by UN investigators said they had been ill-treated or tortured.
The Afghan government says the claims are exaggerated, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says.
Nato's force in Afghanistan, Isaf, has suspended the transfer of detainees to facilities named in the report.
The report, by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama), focused on detainees in facilities run by both national and local police forces and the intelligence services, the NDS, between October 2011 and October 2012.
Impunity charge It identified 14 methods of torture and ill-treatment practices, including beatings, a threat of execution and sexual abuse. Some were given electric shocks to extract confessions or obtain information.

Mali conflict French troops enter Diabaly

 

France says it will not leave until the whole of northern Mali is recaptured

A column of French and Malian troops has entered the key central Malian town of Diabaly, without resistance from militant Islamists, officials say.

About 30 armoured vehicles carrying some 200 French and Malian soldiers moved into the town, said an AFP reporter with the soldiers.
The Islamists fled the town on Friday after it was hit by French airstrikes.
France launched its military action in Mali more than a week ago to end the Islamist control of northern Mali.
France has sent some 2,000 troops to help Malian forces fight the militants, some of whom are linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
It has called on West African countries to speed up the deployment of a regional force of more than 3,000.

An Islamist group in Nigeria, says it carried out an attack last week which killed two Nigerian troops as they prepared to deploy to Mali.

Ansaru said it targeted the troops because the Nigerian military was joining efforts to "demolish the Islamic empire of Mali".

China's landslide death toll rises to 46 - state media

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 A number of people remain missing after the landslide struck on Friday

At least 46 people, including children, are now known to have been killed by a landslide in China's southern Yunnan province, state media report.

The bodies of the last two missing residents of the Gaopo village, Yunnan province, were found in the morning, Xinhua news agency says.
The landslide hit the village at about 08:20 local time on Friday (23:00 GMT Thursday), burying 16 houses.

Greek parliament passes new tax increases

 

Austerity measures have triggered mass protests in recent months

The Greek parliament has approved a series of unpopular tax rises aimed at boosting revenue in line with Athens' commitments to international creditors.

The measures, approved overnight, introduce a new top tax rate of 42% for Greeks earning more than 42,000 euros (£34,700; $56,000) a year.
Corporate rates also go up and the tax base now includes low-earning farmers.
Greece has been kept solvent by huge rescue loans from its EU partners and the IMF since May 2010.
The Conservative-led government insists the new measures, designed to raise up to 2.3bn euros this year, are fair.

China's one-child policy impact analysed

 

Researchers have analysed the long-term effect of growing up alone

People growing up under China's one-child policy are less trusting, more risk averse and more pessimistic, a study concludes.

An Australian team of researchers compared people who were born just before the policy was introduced with those born after.
They used economic games and surveys to assess the participants' behavioural and personality traits.
The findings are published in the journal Science.
The lead author of the study Professor Lisa Cameron, from Monash University in Victoria, told the BBC's Science in Action programme: "We found that people born under the one-child policy were significantly less trusting and less trustworthy, significantly less likely to take risks and less competitive than those who were born before.
"We also conducted personality surveys and we found that those born under the one-child policy were less conscientious, slightly more neurotic and significantly more pessimistic than those born before."
However, another scientist from the University of Oxford said that the team was making a very strong claim and the differences between the two groups might not be solely down to the policy.
Money games
China's population-control policy was introduced in 1979, and it restricts couples in urban areas to have only one child.