Around the world

BALTIMORE — The cardinal elected Tuesday to lead the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops’ conference was already one of the most influential men in the American church.

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago for a decade, earned two doctorates in philosophy and theology, knows six languages and has deep ties within the Vatican.

As the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he will host Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Washington and New York in April and guide church leaders through a presidential election season in which religion will once again figure prominently.

AIDS virus to transplant patients signals need for more information on donors

CHICAGO — A troubling case in which a high-risk organ donor infected four patients with the AIDS virus and hepatitis has led medical ethicists to warn that patients need to know more about whose organs they’re getting. Public health officials said Tuesday the Chicago case is the first known instance of HIV transmission through organ transplants since 1986. It’s also the first ever known instance in which one organ donor has spread hepatitis C and HIV at the same time, said Dr. Matt Kuehnert of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC and other public health officials are investigating the Chicago cases.

Scientists claim to clone monkey embryos

NEW YORK — Scientists in Oregon say they’ve reached the long-sought goal of cloning monkey embryos and extracting stem cells from them, a potentially major step toward doing the same thing in people. The research has not been published yet or confirmed by other scientists. But if true, it offers fresh hope in field that has been marked by frustration and even fraud. The claim of a similar breakthrough with human embryos by a South Korean scientist in 2004 turned out to be false.

The hope is that one day, such a procedure could be used to create transplant tissue that’s genetically matched to an ailing patient. Because stem cells can form all types of tissue, the approach might one day help treat conditions like diabetes and spinal cord injury without fear of rejection by the patient’s body.

Scientists have tried for years to clone monkey embryos and extract stem cells because monkeys are more closely related to humans than other lab animals are.

So monkey work has been expected to give hints about how to do this in people.

The success was reported earlier this year at a scientific meeting in Australia by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Portland. It received limited media attention at the time, but the results were given new attention Tuesday by a London newspaper, The Independent.

Mitalipov did not immediately respond Tuesday to an interview request from The Associated Press. But another scientist, Jose Cibelli of Michigan State University, told The AP on Tuesday that he’d heard Mitalipov’s presentation at the Australia meeting.

"To me, it’s a breakthrough,” said Cibelli, who studies cloning and stem cells. The work shows "it is possible.”

In cloning to obtain stem cells, DNA from an adult animal is inserted into an unfertilized egg. The egg is grown into an early embryo, from which stem cells are extracted. These stem cells, and the tissue that develops from them, will be a genetic match to the source of the DNA.

The idea of doing this in people is controversial because the embryos have to be destroyed to obtain the stem cells.

Despite the monkey success, "we’re still far off to start dreaming about translating this technique to humans,” Cibelli said. That’s because the reported results were very inefficient, requiring many eggs to produce stem cells, he said.

Still, the work shows monkeys can be used to study the potential of embryonic stem cells produced through cloning, Cibelli said. "That’s a terrific tool.”

Cloning is most famous for producing not stem cells but baby animals, such as Dolly the sheep. But while some people may view the new development as a move by scientists on the "slippery slope” toward producing cloned human babies, "we’re all opposed to that,” Cibelli said.

Jim Newman, a spokesman for the Oregon Health & Science University, which operates the primate center where Mitalipov works, declined to confirm whether the scientist had cloned monkey embryos. But he said a study in that area of research will be released soon by the scientific journal Nature.

Katie McGoldrick, a Nature spokeswoman in Washington, said she could not discuss papers that may or may not have been submitted for publication.

The primate center was in the news for another reason Tuesday. An activist group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said it had documented violations of animal protection laws there. University officials said the primate center has an excellent record for animal care.

Argentine nationals summoned to court over 1994 Jewish center bombing

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran accused five Argentines with falsely implicating a group of Iranians in the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, state IRNA news agency said Tuesday.

Tehran ordered the five who live in Argentina to appear in an Iranian court. The action came a week after Interpol put four Iranians and one Lebanese man on its most-wanted list for the 1994 blast that killed 85 people and wounded 200. The move was in response to a request from Argentina.

IRNA, in a report carried on its English-language Web site, said the five Argentines who must appear at the Tehran Justice Department are former Interior Minister Carlos Corach; president of the Jewish center Ruben Beraja; Judge Juan Jose Galeano; prosecutor Eamon Mullen and a fifth man, identified only as Jose Barbaccia. The report cited Iranian Deputy Prosecutor General, Yadollah Alizadeh, as saying Iran would demand Interpol issue arrest warrants for them if they do not appear.

Danes re-elect center-right coalition to third term

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danes re-elected the center-right governing coalition to a third consecutive term Tuesday, endorsing a bloc that campaigned on promises to boost the economy and make immigration harder.

But near-complete official results also suggested Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen might need the backing of a new party headed by a Syrian-born Muslim immigrant that is calling for more humane treatment of asylum-seekers.

That group, New Alliance, hopes to reduce the influence of the government’s traditional ally, the nationalist Danish People’s Party, known for its hardline stance against immigrants, especially Muslims.

"Everything indicates that the government can continue,” Fogh Rasmussen told jubilant supporters of his Liberal Party.

He called it "historic” that a Liberal-led government had been elected to a third term.

Left-wing opposition leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt of the Social Democrats conceded defeat in a tearful speech to her supporters.

"I promised I would beat Anders Fogh Rasmussen. That didn’t happen, unfortunately,” she said. "Danes need more time before they hand over responsibility to us.”

With 99 percent of votes counted, the governing bloc had won 94 of the 179 seats in Parliament, including five for Naser Khader’s New Alliance. The opposition got 81 seats.

It was not immediately clear who won the remaining four seats, held by delegates from the semiautonomous territories of Greenland and the Faeroe Islands.

While that result would not change the government’s victory, it could decide whether it needs need the support of Khader’s party to control a majority in Parliament.

Since 2001, Liberal-Conservative minority governments relied only on the support of the Danish People’s Party.

Fogh Rasmussen appeared to invite New Alliance to cooperate with the government. "We’ll incorporate the parties that have pointed at me to create the basis for the government,” he said.

The prime minister called the early election three weeks ago, taking advantage of favorable approval ratings buoyed by Denmark’s strong economy. The jobless rate is 3.1 percent, the lowest in three decades, and the economy grew 3.5 percent last year.

Immigration, welfare and taxes were the main issues in the campaign, although there was broad agreement on keeping Denmark’s cradle-to-grave welfare system.

A total of 808 candidates ran, representing nine parties with 12 independents. Nearly 72 percent of the country’s 4 million voters had cast ballots, up from 68.5 percent in 2005, the Danish Ritzau news agency said.

Khader, a karate black belt who once dreamed of becoming Palestinian foreign minister, has said he wants to pull the prime minister away from the influence of the Danish People’s Party hard-line leader, Pia Kjaersgaard.

Even though it holds no Cabinet seats, Kjaersgaard’s populist group has been instrumental in shaping Denmark’s tight immigration laws, which have cut the number of asylum-seekers by 84 percent since 2001.

New Alliance has not proposed easing immigration laws. Rather it is calling for more rights for asylum-seekers, saying they should be allowed to work or study in Denmark while awaiting a decision on sending them home.

Kjaersgaard opposes such a move, saying it would only attract more asylum-seekers with no hope of staying permanently in Denmark.

Khader and Kjaersgaard were key figures during Denmark’s most turbulent days since World War II: the wave of Muslim rioting last year that broke out after a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Kjaersgaard’s party said the crisis showed Islamic traditions clash with the foundations of Danish society, such as freedom of speech. Khader formed a party of moderate Muslims as a counterbalance to Islamic radicals.

Immigration is expected to remain a key issue for years.

Economists and Danish corporate leaders say the Nordic country needs to open its doors to more workers from abroad to keep the economy growing. Fogh Rasmussen has said he will push for a U.S.-style green card system to allow more skilled foreign workers to enter Denmark.

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Associated Press writer Jan M. Olsen contributed to this report.