Stem cells can become any other part of the body - from nerve to bone to skin - and are touted as the future of medicine.

Researchers in Japan will use the cells to attempt to treat a form of blindness - age-related macular degeneration.

The announcement was described as "a major step forward" for research in the field.

There are already trials taking place using stem cells taken from embryos. But this is ethically controversial and the cells will not match a patient's own tissues, so there is a risk of rejection.

Induced pluripotent stem cells, however, are made by coaxing a sample of the patient's skin to become stem cells, so there should be no risk of rejection.

Japan's health minister, Norihisa Tamura, has ruled that the cells can now be tested in patients.

The trial will by run by the Riken Center for Developmental Biology and the Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation Hospital in Kobe.

Initially, six patients will receive transplants of cells to see if the procedure can restore their damaged vision.

Prof Chris Mason, an expert on regenerative medicine at University College London said: "This was expected, but it's obviously a major step forward.

"They are beneficial for two main reasons. One, they are from the patients themselves so the chance of rejection is greatly reduced and there are the ethical considerations - they do not have the baggage which comes with embryonic stem cells.

"On the down side we are a decade behind on the science. Induced pluripotent stem cells were discovered much later, so we're behind on the safety."

In 2012, Prof Shinya Yamanaka shared the Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for his discovery that adult human tissue could be coaxed back into a stem cell state.

Police allege the politician, Arsal Khan Khichi, hired a cook to poison food at his cousin's home last month.

Mr Khichi had lost to his cousin in a recently-held local election in Punjab.

However, police say his rival was not at home when the poisoning took place. Mr Khichi is thought to be in Dubai and has not commented on the allegations.

The BBC was unable to reach his family for comment.

Police believe the poisoning plot was the result of a political feud between two branches of the family.

They are questioning a cook, Mohammad Rafiq, who says he was paid to poison the food by Arsal Khichi.

"Cook Rafiq has confessed that he poisoned the food after getting 100,000 rupees [about $1,000] from Arsal Khichi," district police officer Vehari Sadiq Ali Dogar told BBC Urdu.

Police were seeking a warrant for the arrest of Arsal Khichi who had "escaped to Dubai on 15 July", he added.

"Arsal had gone to Dubai before the confession of the cook. He runs a business there, so we need to investigate if he was expecting this confession or he went overseas on a routine trip."

The poisoning in the town of Mailsi, about 70km (45 miles) south-east of Multan, took place on 9 June, police say.

It followed followed recent provincial elections in which Arsal Khan Khichi had lost to his cousin Jehanzaeb Khan Khichi, they add.

About 50 people fell ill after the meal, with 22 people dying.

Police say they waited until medical reports confirmed poisoning before they arrested the cook.

"If Arsal Khichi claims he is not involved in this case, he must come back, face the court and prove himself innocent," Jehanzaeb Khan Khichi told BBC Urdu.

Football's governing body Fifa announced that the cheapest ticket for overseas fans for the final on 13 July was $440 (£288) and the most expensive $990 (£650).

The tournament starts on 12 June next year, with the first game being played in Sao Paulo.

Tickets will go on sale from 20 August.

Fans have until 10 October to apply and a ballot will be held to decide which of these applications are successful.

Only later will tickets be sold on a first come, first served basis.

In total about three million tickets will be available for fans.

For Brazilian nationals the cheapest tickets start at $15. These are only available for students, those aged over 60 and people on social welfare programmes. For other Brazilians tickets start at $30.

The lowest price paid for a ticket in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was $20, also for group stage matches in the special category set aside exclusively for residents.

The governing body had previously said that tickets in Brazil would be the "cheapest ever".

The Fifa ticket website will include a map of the ground that shows the location of different categories of tickets.

This meant there would be "no surprises" over where fans would end up sitting, said Fifa marketing director Thierry Weil, who is in charge of ticketing strategy.

Supporters can request a maximum of four seats per match, and for a maximum of seven matches.

He said there would be a reselling system run by Fifa, if people were unable to attend games for which they had bought tickets.

At least 400,000 tickets will be reserved exclusively for residents of Brazil, with about 50,000 for construction workers who were involved in building and upgrading the grounds for the tournament.

The news came as Mr Rudd set out an overhaul of asylum policy ahead of a general election expected shortly.

Australia has seen a sharp rise in the number of asylum-seekers arriving by boat in recent months.

Following the news, rioting reportedly broke out at an asylum centre in Nauru. It was unclear if there was a link.

"Police have been called in to help with a major disturbance at the asylum seeker detention centre on Nauru," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.

The cause of the disturbance, involving 150 detainees, had not been established, ABC added.

Mr Rudd had said the "hard-line decision" was taken to ensure border security. It was also aimed at dissuading people from making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat.

"Our country has had enough of people-smugglers exploiting asylum-seekers and seeing them drown on the high seas," he said.

'No chance'

The deal - called the Regional Settlement Arrangement - was signed by the Australian and PNG leaders on Friday.

Mr Rudd, who ousted Julia Gillard as Labor Party leader amid dismal polling figures last month, made the announcement in Brisbane flanked by PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as a refugee," Mr Rudd said.

Under the agreement, new arrivals will be sent to PNG - which is a signatory to the United Nations Refugees Convention - for assessment and settled there if found to be a refugee.

To accommodate the new arrivals, an offshore processing centre in PNG's Manus island will be significantly expanded to hold up to 3,000 people. No cap has been placed on the number of people Australia can send to PNG, Mr Rudd said.

"The new arrangements will allow Australia to help more people who are genuinely in need and help prevent people smugglers from abusing our system."

The rules would apply to all those arriving in Australia by boat from today, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said.

In return, Australia is to channel aid to PNG, including to a major regional hospital and the university sector, The Australian reported. No costs were disclosed in connection with the deal.

Boat arrivals have soared in the past 18 months, with most asylum seekers coming from Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. They make their way to Indonesia and from there head to Christmas Island, the closest part of Australian territory to Java.

They travel in boats that are often over-crowded and poorly-maintained. Several have sunk in recent months, killing passengers.

Last year, the Australian government reintroduced a controversial policy under which people arriving by boat in Australia are sent to camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea for processing.

But the policy has so far failed to deter boat people, who are arriving in increasing numbers. It has also been strongly criticised - most recently by the UNHCR - for the conditions which asylum-seekers face at the camps.

Late on Thursday, Indonesia said it had agreed to stop giving Iranians visas on arrival as part of the measures to ease the problem.

'Turned its back'

Asylum has become a key election issue in Australia and polls must be called before the end of November.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott - whose party looked on course to trounce Labor at the polls before the leadership change - has said he will turn boats back to Indonesia when safe to do so.

Responding to this agreement he said: "While this certainly is a very promising development in offshore processing, it is about processing boat people, it's not about stopping the boats and that in the end is what we have to have."

Human rights advocate David Manne, meanwhile, said Australia had signed up to international conventions to protect "people who come to its shores, not exposing them to further risks elsewhere".

"The fact remains that Australia hosts only 0.3% of refugees worldwide and yet what we see here is a policy designed not only to deter asylum seekers from coming and seeking refuge in Australia, but one that also proposes to shift our responsibilities on to others," ABC quoted him as saying.

Rights group Amnesty International's regional refugee co-ordinator Graeme McGregor said the move would be marked "as the day Australia decided to turn its back on the world's most vulnerable people, closed the door and threw away the key".

As airports go, Kazakhstan's Almaty International has not much going for it. It's small, and there's not much to keep travellers entertained.

For Mohammed Al Bahish being stuck there for 120 days has been an excruciating ordeal.

He does not even have access to the duty free or the overpriced cafes.

The 26-year-old Palestinian refugee, born in Iraq, is confined to what officials call "the sterile zone" for travellers and airport staff - he's the only one who belongs in neither category.

He cannot enter Kazakhstan because he has no visa, but nor does he have a visa to enter any other country. Israel won't allow him to travel to the Palestinian territories, and the UN accepts that with no living relatives in Iraq, it would be unsafe for him to return to the country of his birth.

Every day he wakes up to the same monotonous female voice announcing flight details, gate closures and a lengthy monologue - regularly repeated - on Kazakh customs regulations.

"I feel like I am going slightly crazy," he says.

Already pale and puffy-faced, he is confined to a windowless 2m by 3m room inside the arrivals hall.

It reeks of cigarette smoke. There is a bunk bed, a shabby sofa, and a Koran on a table by the wall.

Through the door, which is slightly ajar, new arrivals stream past on their way from the landing gates to passport control.

Intensifying Mohammed's sensation of limbo, he is fed on meals prepared for passengers on Kazakhstan's national air carrier, Air Astana.

"They bring aeroplane food three times a day - tiny boxes of salad and cakes," he says. "For the entire month of June I ate beef and mushroom stroganoff. I don't think I will ever eat beef again."

Airport security controls his every movement outside the room. Occasional coffee runs to a drinks dispenser are permitted, as are visits to the showers used by staff in the luggage department.

Wherever he goes, police or security guards accompany him.

His only opportunities for fresh air are walks to a porch area overlooking the runway.

His only contact with the outside world comes when the airport's irregular free wi-fi signal flickers into life. Then he uses Skype.

"I talk to my cousin Yaser, he lives in Norway. I don't have any other close family, my parents died in Iraq when I was 16, and I don't have any brothers or sisters," he says.

It was the desire to make his own family that brought him to Kazakhstan to live with his girlfriend, Olesya Grishenko, now pregnant with their first child.

The Kazakh national met Mohammed on holiday in Dubai when he was working there as an interior designer.

In Kazakhstan, while registering their intention to marry, Mohammed's refugee travel documents went missing, and his Kazakh and UAE visas expired.

He later flew to Turkey in the hope of renewing his Kazakh visa, but was turned back at the border.

"I was deported from Istanbul for lack of a valid visa, and they sent me back to Almaty. But here I also did not have a valid visa so they sent me straight back to Istanbul. Four times I flew back and forth between the two cities," Mohammed says.

Kazakh immigration is keeping Mohammed in the airport's transit area, which legally is not considered Kazakh territory.

Last month, the Kazakh authorities turned down his application for asylum.

Mohammed says he has been preoccupied with a single thought since becoming trapped - how to escape.

"I miss the sunshine, I miss being outside," he says.

"I see all these people leaving the building, and I am just stuck here, I can't go anywhere," he says.

We walk through the sliding door on to the steps where passengers board and disembark from shuttle buses. But Mohammed can go no further.

The sound of plane engines fills the air. Behind Almaty, mountains glisten.

"I get too angry when I come out here," he says. "Because I truly feel that I am in jail."

Emilio Fede, Lele Mora and Nicole Minetti were given jail sentences of between five and seven years.

Last month Mr Berlusconi was given seven years in jail for paying for sex with 17-year-old Karima El Mahroug.

Both Mr Berlusconi and Ms Mahroug deny having had sex, and she says she has never been a prostitute.

Ms Mahroug is one of the women that the three associates in the current trial are alleged to have procured.

Mr Berlusconi is appealing against the earlier ruling, which also banned him from public office. He remains a free man and a member of parliament while he does so.

Mr Berlusconi insists the alleged sex parties were actually dinners where female guests performed "burlesque" dancing.

The three convicted in the current trial deny the charges and are likely to appeal.

The prosecution said they used to vet the young women and then introduce them to Mr Berlusconi's soirees at his mansion near Milan, the BBC's Alan Johnston reports from Rome.

The prosecution told the court the evenings would begin with dinner, but become increasingly sexually charged, our correspondent adds.

The court heard of an occasion when Ms Minetti, formerly a showgirl, performed a raunchy dance for the then prime minister.

She appeared dressed as a nun and then stripped down to her underwear.

She told her lawyer by telephone that she was "stunned by the excessive punishment", AFP reports.

Mr Fede, a former talent agent, and Mr Mora, a television host, were also banned from holding public office.

Mr Berlusconi has blamed the multiple legal cases against him on left-wing elements in the judiciary. He says they are determined to smear him and drive him out of politics.

Neither he nor Ms Mahroug was a defendant in the current trial.

However, judges have asked prosecutors to investigate whether he lied when testifying in the three aides' defence and should face further charges.

The Republican said the city - once the birthplace of the US car industry, now groaning under $18bn (£12bn) of debt - deserves a fresh start.

Detroit has faced decades of problems linked to declining industry.

Public services are nearing collapse and about 70,000 properties lie abandoned.

Gov Snyder said the city had filed for bankruptcy on Thursday because it was "basically broke".

"Many people may step back and say this is the lowest point in Detroit's history," he told Friday's news conference. "The history books may say that.

"But what would happen if we didn't do this act?

"Detroit would continue to go downhill and it wouldn't be the lowest day in Detroit's history. They would continue day after day and that's not right, again for the citizens."

He added: "We will come out with a stronger, better Detroit and a format to grow this city. The citizens of not just this city but the state deserve it."

Gov Snyder was flanked by state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr, who suggested last month that the city's long-term debt could be as high as $20bn.

Mr Orr will be allowed to liquidate city assets to satisfy creditors and pensions, if the bankruptcy filing at a federal court is approved.

Detroit - known as Motor City for its once-thriving automobile industry - stopped unsecured-debt payments last month to keep the city running.

Mr Orr proposed a deal in June in which creditors would accept 10 cents for every dollar they were owed. The city is currently paying 38 cents on the dollar.

But two pension funds representing retired city workers resisted the plan.

Ed McNeil, the lead negotiator for a coalition of 33 unions, told Reuters news agency the move was about "busting the unions".

"This is not about fixing the city's finances," he said. "It's about the governor and his own agenda to take over the city of Detroit."

US car company General Motors said on Thursday it did not expect any impact on its operations.

Continue reading the main story

The White House said it was closely monitoring developments in the Michigan city.

The city has struggled with its finances for some time, driven by a number of factors, including a steep population loss.

Just between 2000-10, the number of residents declined by 250,000 as people moved away.

The murder rate is at a 40-year high and only one third of its ambulances were in service in early 2013.

Police response times to 911 calls average 58 minutes, compared with 11 minutes nationally.

And Detroit's government has been hit by a string of corruption scandals over the years.

Detroit is only the latest US city to file for bankruptcy in recent years.

In 2012, three smaller California cities - Stockton, Mammoth Lakes and San Bernardino - took the step.