Finland

Teen gender gap closing for smoking, report says

Government anti-tobacco campaigns should target girls and women because surveys show teenage girls are now smoking almost as much as boys in many nations, officials told an international conference Thursday.

A report released at the 12th World Conference on Tobacco found that the gender gap in tobacco consumption among youths is closing.

The report said there were no significant differences between smoking rates of 13- to 15-year-olds in more than half the 150 countries surveyed. The results of the survey, the first of its kind, were similar for other tobacco products.

JERUSALEM

Suspected informant killed; cease-fire holds

Palestinian militants executed a suspected collaborator with Israeli intelligence Thursday in the central square of the West Bank town of Ramallah, while a halt to attacks against Israelis continued to hold.

In the Old City of Jerusalem, meanwhile, hundreds of Israeli police prevented Israeli extremists from entering a hotly disputed holy site, heading off a potential confrontation with Muslims.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, carried out the summary execution in Ramallah, not far from Arafat’s office.

BEIJING

Toddler to have surgery to remove third leg

A 1-year-old girl who was born with three legs and abandoned by her parents on a Beijing street is to undergo surgery to remove the extra limb, her doctor said Thursday.

Doctors at Dongzhimen Hospital in the Chinese capital plan to study the limb for 20 days before operating, a doctor in the orthopedics department told The Associated Press.

The hospital is treating her for free.

The third leg is growing out of the girl’s back and had started to deform her lower body, said the doctor, who would only give his surname, Qu.

“The leg has a nerve in it connecting it to the spine,” he said. “This makes separating the leg very difficult.”