Britain on Friday announced it had postponed plans to introduce plain packaging on cigarettes, saying it was waiting to see the results of a similar move in Australia.

Prime Minister David Cameron faced criticism over the move, with opposition lawmakers asking whether the decision had been influenced by links between his chief party strategist and tobacco companies.

Irish lawmakers on Friday overwhelmingly approved abortion for the first time in limited cases where the mother's life is at risk, in a vote that revealed deep divisions in the predominantly Catholic nation.

The change was prompted by the death last year of an Indian woman who had been refused an abortion in an Irish hospital, but more broadly ends years of uncertainty over the legal status of terminations in the country.

With its pounding construction sites and constant roar of traffic, Hong Kong is a cacophony of noise with experts and residents calling on authorities to keep a lid on the din for the sake of public health.

In a densely-packed city with a shortage of housing, older buildings are frequently torn down and replaced as developers snap up prime real estate. On the roads the battle between buses, trams and cars is won by the piercing drone of continuous car horns.

Health authorities in the UAE have announced that an 82-year-old man has been diagnosed with the MERS coronavirus infection, the first case to be recorded in the Gulf state.

The Emirati citizen who contracted the SARS-like virus suffers from cancer and is being treated in hospital in the capital, Abu Dhabi health authority said in a statement carried by WAM state news agency late Thursday.

Omega-3 fatty acids, often taken to boost health, appear to increase the risk of childhood allergies and prostate cancer, according to two studies unveiled on Thursday.

Newborns with high levels of unsaturated fats in their blood were more prone to develop an allergy than those with lower blood concentrations, according to a probe by three Swedish universities.

A new type of gene therapy has shown promise in wiping out two rare childhood diseases, apparently without the risks of causing cancer, international researchers said Thursday.

The method used an HIV virus vector and the patients' own blood stem cells to deliver a corrected version of a faulty gene, said the report in the U.S. journal Science.

Irish lawmakers were voting Thursday on historic legislation to introduce abortion in limited cases where the mother's life is at risk.

Weary lawmakers voted through the night with results expected at 5.00am local time (0400GMT).

Despite public health campaigns, smoking remains the leading avoidable cause of death worldwide, killing almost six million people a year, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

If current trends hold, the number of deaths blamed on tobacco use will rise to eight million a year in 2030, the WHO said in a briefing unveiled at a conference in Panama.

If you're lucky enough to live into your 90s, how well will your brain hold up? You may have an edge over people who got there ahead of you, a new study hints.

Researchers found that on tests of mental abilities, a group of 95-year-old Danes scored better than a group of Danes born 10 years earlier, who had been tested when they were about the same age.

The death toll from the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China has risen to 43, national health authorities said in their latest monthly update on the disease.

A total of 132 human infections of the virus had been confirmed on the Chinese mainland by the end of June, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said late Wednesday.