Officials in Nigeria have brought charges – including counts of criminal conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm – against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. for the company’s alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. They also filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company. Nigerian officials say Pfizer’s actions resulted in the deaths of an unspecified number of children and left others deaf, paralyzed, blind or brain-damaged.
Iran: Iranian-Americans charged
Three Iranian-Americans, including U.S. academic Haleh Esfandiari, have been charged with endangering national security and espionage, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday. Esfandiari is the director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. She has been held at Tehran’s Evin Prison since early May. Esfandiari had been trapped in Iran since visiting her 93-year-old mother in December.
Israel: Olmert, Abbas to meet
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet to try to halt two weeks of violence that has seen southern Israel battered by rockets and Gaza Strip pummeled by airstrikes. The Islamic militant group Hamas, which has partnered with Abbas’ Fatah movement in the Palestinians’ ruling coalition government, has been the main force behind the more than 250 rockets fired the past two weeks. Hamas says there can be no truce if Israel keeps up its attacks.
Australia: Bar can refuse straights
A gay bar in Melbourne has won the right to turn away heterosexuals and even lesbians to provide a nonthreatening atmosphere for the men partying inside. A tribunal granted Peel Hotel an exemption to equal-rights laws, saying it was needed to prevent “sexually based insults and violence” aimed at the pub’s patrons.
From Herald news services
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