Spanish priest to receive experimental Ebola drug

A Spanish priest infected with Ebola will be treated with an experimental drug that has been used on two Americans infected with the deadly virus, the government said.

The drug called ZMapp arrived at Madrid's La Paz-Carlos III hospital where the 75-year-old missionary was being treated in isolation, the health ministry said in a statement late on Saturday.

Spain's drug safety agency allowed the "exceptional importation" of ZMapp under a law that allows "the use of non-authorised medications in cases where a patent's life is in danger and they can't be treated satisfactorily with an authorised medication," it said.

The Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Pajares, was one of three people who tested positive for Ebola at the Saint Joseph Hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia where he worked.

Crisis-hit Spaniards seek seaweed riches

Three young Spaniards in wetsuits plunge into the sea to harvest a culinary delicacy that promises them a way out of troubled financial waters: seaweed.

Armed with stainless steel scythes, they swim in low tide from rock to rock cutting down codium seaweed and kombu kelp, which they gather up in bags.

The trio -- 35-year-old marine scientist Alberto Sanchez, his sister Maria and his friend, 33-year-old biologist Sergio Baamonde -- carry the sea greens by foot to their car, parked at the top of nearby cliffs.

Then they transport the algae to a processing factory set up by the two friends in the Galician sea port of Ortigueira, northern Spain.

"It is tough but we are very motivated," said Baamonde, who joined up with Sanchez in April 2012 to launch into the seaweed business, with other prospects scarce in a country hit by an economic crisis that has left one in four people out of work.

At least 39 killed in plane crash at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport

  A member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards stands next to the remains of a plane that crashed near Tehran's Mehrabad airport.

TEHRAN // A regional passenger plane assembled in Iran crashed on Sunday while taking off from the capital, killing 39 and injuring another nine on-board.

The IrAn-140 operated by domestic carrier Sepahan Air crashed in a residential area near Tehran’s Mehrabad airport. The plane’s tail struck the cables of an electricity tower before it hit the ground and burst into flames. The IRNA news agency said the plane suffered an engine failure before it went down.

The crash happened shortly after the plane took off at 9.20am (8.50 UAE), bound for the town of Tabas in eastern Iran. Hassan Molla said he heard a roaring sound as the plane came in low, one wing tilting. “There was no smoke or anything. It was absolutely sound and in good condition” before the crash, he said.

Elected president, Erdogan to rule Turkey as 21st century sultan

Men play cards at Yashar Hoca’s Place, in Recep Tayyip Erdogan's old Istanbul neighborhood, Kasimpasha, surrounded by photos of Mr Erdogan and other Justice and Development Party

On the fringes of Kasimpasha, a working-class Istanbul district, and just opposite an old graveyard sits Yashar Hoca’s Place, a cafe and living shrine to the neighbourhood’s most famous son, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“He used to come around all the time,” says Hassan Camurluayak, enjoying an evening tea with his friends beneath rows of pictures, some framed, some glued to the cafe’s white tiles, of Ataturk, Turkey’s founder, of Mr Erdogan, its present-day leader, and of the Ottoman sultans.

“He was both serious and courteous, all prayer and mosque,” Mr Camurluayak, a pensioner, says of the young Mr Erdogan. “Me and the guys, we were religious too, but we sometimes played cards. He’d never join. We drank coffee. He’d never drink with us.”

U.S. emergency labs ready to work on Ebola drugs if asked

All three U.S. facilities established to quickly make vaccines and therapeutics in the event of a major public health threat say they are standing by to support any U.S. government effort to scale up a treatment for Ebola.

The facilities, called Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (ADM), were set up by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in partnership with private industry, to respond to pandemics or chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats.

They have the expertise to quickly switch production lines to manufacture, for example, a smallpox vaccine if that scourge were to re-emerge, or an anthrax vaccine, and other life-saving compounds against both natural outbreaks and bioterrorism.