London

Test could help reduce unneeded prescriptions

A blood test could help doctors determine whether antibiotics are needed for common respiratory infections and may reduce the overprescribing that creates drug-resistant germs, new research suggests.

About 75 percent of all antibiotics are given for lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Most of these infections are caused by a virus, not bacteria. Experts say antibiotics are not only useless against viral infections, but also help bacteria evolve defenses against drugs.

The new test, described this week in The Lancet medical journal, measures blood levels of a chemical marker, procalcitonin, that is elevated in bacterial infections but not so high when the cause is a virus. It yields results within an hour.

The study involved 243 patients treated at the University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland.

Moscow

Putin still hopeful after missile test failures

Undaunted by successive ballistic missile failures during Russia’s biggest military exercises in 20 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed Wednesday to build a new generation of strategic weapons “to ensure Russia is invulnerable militarily.”

Putin did not explain what form the new weaponry would take or when Russians could expect to see it deployed.

Putin is up for re-election in March, and his cryptic comments may have been motivated by the political need to play to a burgeoning wave of nationalism sweeping the country.

For a second consecutive day, Russian military exercises in the Arctic were marred by a missile failure. A ballistic missile launched Wednesday from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea veered from its trajectory and self-destructed.

Haiti

Police deserting posts as uprising continues

Police barricaded themselves inside their station Wednesday and said they could not repel a threatened rebel attack on Haiti’s second-largest city, the last major government bastion in the north. Officers in other towns deserted their posts with no guerrillas in sight.

Even as police made clear they were too scared to patrol the streets of Cap-Haitien, militant defenders of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide vowed to take a stand against the 2-week-old rebellion, which has killed some 60 people.

“We have machetes and guns, and we will resist,” carpenter Pierre Frandley said.

The rebels have chased police from more than a dozen towns and cut supply lines to northern Haiti from Port-au-Prince, the capital to the south, and from the western Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

Kenya

Reports reach Amnesty of attacks on civilians

Amnesty International said Wednesday it had received reports of “horrifying attacks” against civilians in western Sudan by government forces fighting a yearlong rebellion.

The London-based human rights group said it had information that government-backed militias attacked five villages in southern Darfur region on Feb. 11, killing between 68 and 80 civilians.

On Feb. 10-12, government aircraft also bombed 11 towns and villages in west Darfur, and government soldiers also allegedly abducted 30 girls in an attack in west Darfur last week, Amnesty said.

Aid agencies say more than 600,000 people have fled their homes and hundreds have been killed by the fighting in Darfur, a poor region that borders Chad.

The government had no immediate response to the allegations.