France's president wants to allow doctors to keep terminally ill patients sedated until death comes, amid a national debate about whether to legalize euthanasia.

Francois Hollande stopped short of recommending lethal injections and avoided the terms euthanasia and assisted suicide, highly sensitive issues in this majority-Catholic country.

World cereal output is expected to hit record highs this year but food insecurity is worsening across the globe thanks to Ebola and civil conflicts, the UN's food agency said Thursday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said 2014 was heading to be a bumper year for cereals, with "an all-time record of more than 2.5 billion tonnes".

The suspension of trials in Switzerland of an experimental Ebola vaccine over unexpected side-effects is not a setback in the fight against the deadly virus, the World Health Organization insisted Thursday.

The Geneva University Hospital (HUG) announced Thursday it was suspending trials of one of two experimental vaccines being tested on humans in several countries, after several volunteers experienced unexpected joint pains.

Canada expanded its quarantine of poultry farms in westernmost British Columbia province Thursday after learning that an outbreak of avian influenza has spread.

Both farms are close to one of the original two that were first to be quarantined on December 2 after they tested positive for bird flu, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement.

The fate of a Chinese television presenter who died of cancer after refusing chemotherapy to save her unborn son sparked intense online debate Friday.

Qiu Yuanyuan died on Wednesday aged 26, 100 days after giving birth to her child -- a special occasion in Chinese culture.

A major vaccine alliance said Thursday it planned to purchase millions of Ebola vaccine doses as soon as a safe and effective one is found.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which helps make vaccines available to developing countries, said it would be ready to act as soon as the World Health Organization recommends a safe vaccine against the virus, that has so far killed nearly 6,400 people.

Pregnant women who were exposed to high levels of common household chemicals found in plastics, cosmetics and air fresheners had children whose intelligence suffered years later, a U.S. study said Wednesday.

Kids whose moms had elevated traces of di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP) and di-isobutyl phthalate (DiBP) had an average IQ that was around six points below their peers whose mothers had lower levels of chemical exposure.

The echoes of government air strikes and incoming rebel mortar fire rattle buildings in the distance, but inside a beauty exhibition in Damascus the shoppers try not to notice.

Surrounded by Syria's raging civil war, some women in the bubble of regime-held Damascus are determined to keep up appearances, intent on maintaining their beauty regimes despite the ugliness of the conflict.

China's government is likely to raise cigarette taxes in order to boost prices and deter smoking, an official said Wednesday, amid a push by the nation of 300 million smokers to crack down on the habit.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission is joining with other government agencies to lobby for an increase in tobacco taxes, commission spokesman Yao Hongwen was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. Reforms to China's tax and fiscal controls provide a "rare chance to take advantage to raise tobacco taxes and prices for tobacco control," Yao said.

The UN's Ebola czar on Tuesday hailed widespread progress in the fight against the deadly virus, but warned the outbreak was still surging in western Sierra Leone and northern Guinea.

"We know the outbreak is still flaming strongly in western Sierra Leone and some parts of the interior of Guinea," David Nabarro, the UN coordinator on Ebola, told reporters in Geneva.