Pope Francis to visit Cuba in September

Pope Francis will travel to Cuba in September ahead of his visit to the US, the Vatican has announced.

In a statement, it said the Pope would be in Cuba on "the invitation from the civil authorities and bishops of Cuba".

The pontiff is credited with helping bring about last December's diplomatic thaw after the decades-old enmity between communist Cuba and the US.

The US imposed had imposed a trade embargo soon after Cuba's 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.

'Warmest hospitality'

In the statement, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi did not provide details how long the Pope's visit would last.

Cuban President Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama shook hands at a summit in Panama this month

The 78-year-old Argentine pontiff will be the third pope to travel to Cuba, following visits there by John Paul II in 1998 and Benedict XVI four years later.

"The presence of His Holiness in Cuba will be memorable," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said.

"He will receive the warmest hospitality of the Cuban people."

The Roman Catholic Church has maintained relations with Havana since the revolution.

It also organised a series of secret diplomatic meetings to broker the US-Cuban rapprochement. The talks directly involved Pope Francis.

The pontiff himself is no stranger to Cuba - he was there during Pope Benedict XVI's visit, the BBC's David Willey in Rome reports. He is also the author of a book on Cuba.

After Cuba, he will continue his journey to Washington, New York and Philadelphia.

He is expected to address a joint session of US Congress and will also speak at the UN.

Antibiotic resistance genes found in bacteria of remote South American tribe

Scientists have discovered antibiotic resistance genes in the bacteria of remote tribespeople who have had no contact with the industrialized world or exposure to antibiotic drugs. This discovery suggests that the ability to resist antibiotics was already in the human body long before today's antibiotic drugs were developed.

The researchers found bacteria in samples from a remote tribe of Amerindians contained resistance genes that were activated by exposure to modern antibiotics.

The mountains of southern Venezuela are home to an isolated tribe of Yanomami Amerindians that has lived there since their ancestors first settled in South America over 10,000 years ago.

Before their discovery by Westerners in 2009, the tribespeople had had no contact with the modern world or exposure to modern antibiotics.

In the journal Science Advances, researchers from the US and Venezuela describe how they analyzed bacteria from the skin, mouth and intestines of the Yanomami tribe members and found they contained antibiotic resistance genes.

Inappropriate and overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture is fueling a growing global health problem of drug resistance where once powerful drugs are losing their ability to kill emerging "superbug" strains of disease-causing bacteria.

One explanation for the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is that random mutations in the microbes coupled with their ability to swap genes is spurring the evolution of resistant strains.

But the new study suggests that resistance genes have been around in the human microbiome (the trillions of bacteria that live in and on the body) for thousands of years - long before antibiotic drugs were invented.

Speculating on the findings, the team says antibiotics are not just a human invention. Bacteria evolved strategies to kill each other long before we were around - they were the first inventors of antibiotics. And to defend against this, they developed resistance mechanisms.

Tribespeople's bacteria had resistance genes that deactivate range of antibiotics

The discovery of the Yanomami village gave the team - including Erica C. Pehrsson of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO - the opportunity to study their bacterial flora and compare it to what we already know from Western human populations.

Pehrsson says the tribespeople's only exposure to antibiotics would have been through ingestion of soil bacteria that make naturally occurring versions of today's modern antibiotics, and notes:

"Yet we were able to identify several genes in bacteria from their fecal and oral samples that deactivate natural, semi-synthetic and synthetic drugs."

The researchers also found that the tribespeople's microbiome was much more diverse than that of the typical Western person.

They do not know if the diversity of specific bacteria they found in the tribe improves or harms human health, but note that the microbiome of the typical Westerner is about 40% less diverse than that of the Yanomami.

Decreased bacterial diversity, modern diet and antibiotics linked to disease

Senior author Maria Dominguez-Bello, associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, says:

"Our results bolster a growing body of data suggesting a link between, on one hand, decreased bacterial diversity, industrialized diets and modern antibiotics, and on the other, immunological and metabolic diseases - such as obesity, asthma, allergies and diabetes, which have dramatically increased since the 1970s.

We believe there is something occurring in the environment during the past 30 years that has been driving these diseases, and we think the microbiome could be involved."

Prof. Dominguez-Bello and colleagues exposed bacteria from the tribe to 23 different antibiotics and found the drugs were able to kill all of them.

But when they ran further tests, they found the bacteria contained "silent" resistance genes that were activated by exposure to the antibiotics.

The results showed cultured bacteria from the tribe members contained many resistance genes that can fight off many modern antibiotics.

And when they tested bacteria that are hard to culture, the scientists found even more resistance genes.

Scientists 'alarmed' to find genes resistant to synthetic antibiotics

The team was surprised to find that many of the resistance genes they found in the bacteria from the tribespeople deactivated not only natural antibiotics but also synthetic and semi-synthetic antibiotics, including third- and fourth-generation cephalosporins, which are normally reserved for fighting off the worse infections.

Co-author Gautam Dantas, associate professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University, says:

"It was alarming to find genes from the tribespeople that would deactivate these modern, synthetic drugs."

One explanation for this finding is the idea of cross-resistance, where genes that help bacteria resist natural antibiotics can also help them resist related synthetic drugs, as Prof. Dantas explains:

"We've seen resistance emerge in the clinic to every new class of antibiotics, and this appears to be because resistance mechanisms are a natural feature of most bacteria and are just waiting to be activated or acquired with exposure to antibiotics."

In December 2014, Medical News Today learned how the microbiome may be shaping the human age structure. In the journal mBio, researchers at NYU's Langone Medical Center and Vanderbilt University describe how they created a model of an early hunter-gatherer population to see what role the microbiome might have played. They concluded evolution may have acted on the human microbiome to favor bacteria that help their hosts live longer.

Thousands evacuate after Chile volcano erupts

Southern Chile's Calbuco volcano has erupted for the first time in more than four decades, sending a thick plume of ash and smoke several kilometres into the sky, local television images showed.

Chile's Onemi emergency office declared a red alert following Wednesday's eruption, which occurred about 1,000km south of the capital Santiago near the tourist town of Puerto Varas. The area is sparsely populated, with only a few small communities.

Video footage of the eruption, which occurred at around 6pm local time (21:00 GMT), showed a spectacular mushroom-shaped cloud of ash and smoke, that turned red as the sun went down.

About 4,000 people had evacuated from the area and an evacuation radius of 20km has been established, authorities said. 

Chile's Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo gave a televised address after the volcano erupted, calling for calm. Penailillo said the military was being sent into Llanquihue province to help evacuate people and keep order.

He added that water was being sent to the area, as it was unclear how much ash may have fallen and contaminated water supplies in the area.

Later, Penailillo said there had been no reports of deaths, missing persons or injuries. He urged residents to evacuate and warned of possible lahars, a mix of water and rock fragments that flow down a volcano's slopes and river valleys.

Residents in rush for supplies

"The eruption happened about half an hour ago. There are a lot of people out in the streets, many heading to the gas stations to fill up on gas," Derek Way, a resident of Puerto Varas, told the Reuters news agency.

Trevor Moffat, who lives in Ensenada, some 10km from the volcano, said he and his family fled when it erupted. 

"It sounded like a big tractor trailer passing by the road, rattling and shaking, guttural rumbling. ... We left everything there, grabbed my kid, my dog, got in the car with my wife," Moffat told Reuters.

Calbuco last erupted in 1972 and is considered one of the top three most potentially dangerous among Chile's 90 active volcanos, the AP news agency reported.

Chile, on the Pacific 'Rim of Fire', has the second largest chain of volcanoes in the world after Indonesia, including around 500 that are potentially active.

In March, volcano Villarrica, also in southern Chile, erupted in spectacular fashion, sending a plume of ash and lava high into the sky, but quickly subsided.

Mexico ambush leaves 15 police dead

At least 15 police officers were killed in an ambush by a gang in western Mexico, an official said on Tuesday, one day after another attack against authorities in Jalisco state.

Five other officers were wounded in the assault, which took place on Monday afternoon on a highway near the village of Soyatan as a convoy carrying an elite police unit headed to Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city.

"They died in a cowardly attack, which means that we can't let our guard down," said Francisco Alejandro Solorio Arechiga, Jalisco's state security commissioner.

"Fifteen of our colleagues lost their lives. Five officers were also wounded in this regrettable event, they're all in stable condition," he said.

The Jalisco state prosecutor's office had reported the attack late on Monday but had not confirmed the fatalities, saying only that several officers had been "hit by bullets".

• Mexico 'gang members' confess to killing missing 43 students

Authorities say the assault appeared to be in revenge over the arrest of gang suspects in an investigation into a failed assassination attempt against Solorio on March 30.

"These attacks are a reaction of organised crime after the attack against me," Mr Solorio said after a meeting of federal police, military and state security officials in Guadalajara.

Authorities did not identify the gang but a security source told AFP that they suspect the powerful Jalisco New General Drug Cartel carried out the assault.

In a previous deadly ambush, gunmen opened fire on federal police in the town of Ocotlan on March 19, leaving 11 people dead, including five officers, three suspects and three bystanders.

Rio braces itself for potential chikungunya epidemic

A fast-spreading mosquito-borne virus could affect seven in 10 people in Rio de Janeiro, health authorities have warned.

Experts have said it is only a matter of time before chikungunya, which is similar to dengue fever and for which there is no treatment, arrives in the Brazilian city and could fast become an epidemic.

So far this year in Rio there have been three cases of the disease, which is carried by two types of mosquito and causes fever, joint and muscle pain, and headache.

Most patients suffer symptoms for a few days and recover fully - though joint pain can last for months or even years, according to WHO advice. There is no cure for the disease and it can contribute to the death of older people. The WHO said that there have been 176 deaths, as of January 2015.

It has already been identified in the Amazon and surrounding countries including Peru and Colombia. The Foreign Office warned Britons travelling to the Caribbean to be aware of the disease. There have also been 55 cases confirmed in the US after it became a notifiable disease this year.

"We don't know why it hasn't yet arrived in Rio. It could be today or a bit further away," Alexandre Chieppe, of the health secretary in Rio de Janeiro state, told newspaper O Dia. "We have the insects and favourable climatic conditions."

Two weeks ago, state and municipal health secretaries met to discuss prevention and awareness campaigns.

Across the country, there have been 1,409 confirmed cases of the virus, all of which were people who had travelled to countries of transmission such as the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Venezuela.

Hellen Myiamoto, subsecretary for health surveillance in Rio, said: "Dengue is an old issue and a current issue at the same time.

"The appearance of cases of chikungunya fever reinforces further the care we have to take with control actions."

Chikungunya was first reported in Tanzania in 1952, according to the World Health Organisation.

In December 2013, two local cases were reported in the French part of St Martin, an island in the Caribbean, which was the first case of transmission in the Americas.

From there, the disease was reported in 43 countries across the continent.

In November the Brazilian government launched an awareness campaign encouraging the public to take care to prevent standing water from stagnating and keep rubbish bins closed to avoid attracting mosquitoes.

"Chikunguna fever is a new illness for the majority of health professionals in the country," said Giovanni Evelim Coelho, coordinator of the Ministry of Health's dengue control programme.

"It's essential to have detailed information about the approach to be taken with medication that needs to be administered to patients."

Boston Marathon bomber Tsarnaev found guilty of all charges

(Reuters) - A jury on Wednesday found Dzokhar Tsarnaev guilty of killing three people and injuring 264 in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, as well as fatally shooting a police officer four days later.

Tsarnaev, 21, was found guilty of all 30 counts against him, with 17 of the charges carrying the death penalty. The same U.S. District Court jury will now decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without possibility of parole.

Tsarnaev silently looked down, occasionally fidgeting, as the lengthy verdict was read. The courtroom was packed with survivors of the attack, the parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest fatality, and law enforcement officials, including former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

Jurors spent just over 11 hours evaluating Tsarnaev’s guilt in two days of deliberations, following 16 days of testimony.

Defense lawyers began the trial by admitting that Tsarnaev carried out the April 15, 2013, bombing but said he did so at the bidding of his older brother Tamerlan, 26, who died following a gunfight with police in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Prosecutors laid out evidence that the defendant, an ethnic Chechen who immigrated fromRussia a decade before the attack, had read and listened to jihadist materials, and wrote a note in the boat where he was found hiding suggesting the bombing was an act of retribution for U.S. military campaigns in Muslim-dominated countries.

The blasts killed restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu, 23, and Richard. Tsarnaev also was found guilty of the fatal shooting of Massachusetts of Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, 26.

Federal prosecutors detailed jihadi writings, including a copy of al Qaeda's "Inspire" magazine with an article on bomb-making found on of Tsarnaev's computers, describing that as evidence that he was an extremist who wanted to "punish America."

The trial, which began in early March after a two-month jury selection process, dredged up some of worst memories in living memory in Boston. The twin pressure-cooker bombs ripped through the crowd of spectators at the race's finish line, setting off a mad rush to save the hundreds of people wounded, many of whom lost legs.

Three days later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released images of the Tsarnaev brothers, saying they were the suspected bombers and seeking information on their identities. That set the stage for 24 hours of chaos as the duo fatally shot Collier in an unsuccessful attempt to steal his gun and went on to carjack a Chinese entrepreneur before police found them in the suburb of Watertown.

The pair fought a desperate gunfight with police, throwing a smaller pressure-cooker bomb similar to the ones they used at the race, as well as smaller pipe bombs. When Tamerlan Tsarnaev ran out of bullets in the rusty Ruger handgun his brother had borrowed from a drug-dealing friend, he charged Watertown police officers who were trying to wrestle him to the ground. Dzhokhar then hopped into the carjacked Mercedes SUV and sped toward the group, running over his brother and dragging him.