A New Zealand biotech firm will implant insulin-producing pig cells on into eight diabetics as part of its continuing test of the new treatment for Type 1 diabetes.

Volunteer patients at the Middlemore Hospital in Auckland will be implanted with Living Cell Technologies' branded Diabecell in their abdomens, where it will secrete pig insulin to control their blood sugar levels. With the implants, the patient need not get insulin by injection.

Federal health officials say most Americans consume more than double the recommended daily intake of salt.

Diets high in sodium are linked to increased incidences of high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, which respectively are the first and third leading causes of death in the United States, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From centers of conflict from the 1970s to the early 1990s, four communities in Sitio Alimodian in Barangay (village) Banayal in Tulunan town, Cotabato in southern Philippines on Monday celebrate 17 years as "sanctuary of peace."

The town of Tulunan used to be the frequent site of fighting between government security forces and communist rebels, the New People's Army until the 1990s. The town gained international notoriety in the 1980s when a leader of a civilian paramilitary cult cannibalized Italian missionary Tulio Favali.

Microsoft Corporation got its 10,00th U.S. patent this month for a technology used in computers that connects real-world objects with a set of data or images stored on a computer. >p>Curtis Wong, one of the inventors, was also listed a having received Microsoft's 5,000th patent, together with a colleague.

Microsoft employees who apply for a patent are given $1,500 and a cube with the details of their invention. After the patent is approved, the worker is given a plaque with a copy of the application's first page.

British police on Monday arrested and charged a man who threw a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao while he was speaking at the Cambridge University auditorium in southeastern England.

Wen, who was speaking about China's role in the global economy, was not hit by the shoe, which was thrown from the back of the auditorium and landed about a yard before him.