The principle for the National Health Service is easy. The practice is a great deal more difficult. Around the world, health systems have reacted in sharply differing ways to the arrival of Viagra,

The use and import of asbestos is to be banned from next year, the UK government will announce this week. A consultative document setting out a timetable for the regulations will be published by the

Researchers have cracked the three-dimensional structure of a key protein involved in stroke and epilepsy, paving the way for new drugs to treat those diseases. Scientists from Vertex Pharmaceuticals

The Zimbabwe government may be forced to rethink its policy on land redistribution after donors attending a three day conference made clear they were not prepared to fund the programme. When the

Should we care that there are now fewer than 1,000 Arvana-Kazakh dromedary camels in Kazakhstan, or only 900 Yakut cattle left in Siberia? The Food and Agriculture Organisation, based in Rome, thinks

A US federals appeals court delivered a resounding victory to US cigarette makers by ruling that the Clinton Administration had acted outside its powers in giving the Food and Drug Adminstration

Nepal is to reinforce its attempt to clean up the national park around Mount Everest-dubbed the world's highest garbage dump by critics-with a ban on the sale of bottled

A series of nuclear reactor problems has forced Electricite de France (EdF), Europe's largest electricity company to step up its power imports. Five of the company's network of more than 50 nuclear

Eight US environmental organisations have warned the Republican leadership of Congress against trying to pass the "old, failed, fast-track" trade negotiating legislation, rejected last year but now

Japan's ministry of agriculture declined to comment on a World Trade Organisation interim ruling that its tests on imported apples, cherries, walnuts and nectarines act as an illegal trade barrier.