Scientists have raised the spectre of a Jurassic Park resurrection of dinosaurs after extracting what looks like blood vessels and intact cells from a Tyrannosaurus rex. Tests on the 70-million-year-old samples continue, but the United States scientists have not ruled out the possibility of extracting DNA.

The guardians of the ancient Japanese sport of sumo on Thursday rebuffed attempts to allow shy pubescent boys to wear pants instead of the traditional loincloths. The behemoths who grace the ring wear nothing but a belt that makes no attempt to hide the buttocks and, during a strenuous bout, can reveal much more.

A prominent Aids dissident has attempted to use President Thabo Mbeki’s perceived ambivalence around HIV/Aids treatment to further the aims of the Rath Foundation, which promotes vitamins as an alternative to anti-retroviral drugs. But the presidency dismisses the out-of-hand claims that Mbeki instigated the creation of organisations which attack anti-retroviral drugs.

Naturally occurring hallucinogenic and narcotic plants have played an important role in religious and cultural practices throughout history — and many young South Africans are experimenting with these ”organic highs”. Unlike marijuana and most laboratory-synthesised narcotics, these mind-altering plants are not ”proscribed” in terms of the Drugs and Drugs Trafficking Act of 1992.

HIV has completely changed the face of South Africa’s tuberculosis epidemic, with tuberculosis (TB) patients today being young, sicker and often with unusual presentations of TB, according to health experts. In downtown Durban, health experts are pioneering treating TB and HIV together.

The United States Supreme Court on Thursday refused to issue an emergency order to restore a feeding tube to Terri Schiavo, effectively exhausting all legal remedies in a right-to-life case that has transfixed the US. The White House made it clear again on Thursday that it believes it has done all it can to prolong Schiavo’s life.

”Who is it?” asked a woman at Copenhagen airport, pressing her face against the window of terminal C along with several hundred other passengers, perplexed by the sight of a large, shambling, bear-like figure walking gingerly down the steps of the plane from Tokyo. ”Is he being arrested?” asked one young man.

The reputation of United Nations peacekeeping missions suffered a humiliating blow on Thursday as an internal report identified repeated patterns of sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by soldiers supposed to be restoring the international rule of law. The misconduct of UN forces around the world has become an increasingly high-profile political problem.

Rabbi Arik Ascherman has spent years planting himself atop doomed Palestinian homes, reading extracts of international law to Israeli forces as they demolish the buildings beneath his feet. More recently, the American-born rabbi has been at the forefront of resistance to the construction of what Israel calls its ”security barrier”.