The Roman Catholic Church in South Korea said yesterday it will donate millions of dollars for research into adult stem cells, supported by critics of embryonic stem cell projects as a more humane alternative.
The Archdiocese of Seoul will provide 10 billion won (US$9.6 million) to a committee that will support adult stem-cell research.
Most of the funds will come from church coffers, with the rest raised through donations, said Bishop Yeom Su-jeong, head of the committee.
"We plan to devote ourselves to saving human dignity above everything else ... and raise awareness of respecting lives," Yeom said.
South Korea has been embroiled in debates over stem-cell research. It is home to one of the leading scientists in the field, Hwang Woo-suk, who has received international renown for cloning human embryos and extracting stem cells.
Stem cells are master cells that can develop into any body tissue, and scientists hope to someday use them to replace and repair diseased and damaged parts of the body.
The cells can also be extracted from adults -- but researchers say adult stem cells are less versatile and are sometimes damaged by the health problems of the person from whom they're extracted.
The government provides massive support for Hwang and his team, which created the world's first cloned human embryos last year. Earlier this year, Hwang's team created the first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients.
But the Catholic community has been a fierce opponent of his research, saying it seriously violates human dignity, likening manipulation of cloned embryos to "murder."
"Keeping and saving lives ... is the mission of the times that our church must accomplish in the face of whatever difficulties," Yeom said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS