World briefs
E-cigarettes to be regulated
Electronic cigarettes are to be classed as “medicines” under new proposals to tighten up the regulation of nicotine-containing products in Britain.
Manufacturers are to face tough new tests before they can sell their e-cigarettes as “licensed products”, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.
The move will also mean that licensed e-cigarettes can be prescribed by medics to help smokers cut down or quit.
It is estimated that 1.3 million people across the UK use battery-powered e-cigarettes, which can look like real cigarettes but users inhale a mist of nicotine instead of smoke. (AP)
‘Longest cloistered’ nun dies
A nun believed to hold the world record of 86 years cloistered in a monastery has died in Spain aged 105.
Sister Maria Romero, abbess of the Buenafuente del Sistal monastery outside Madrid said that Sister Teresita Barajuen had died overnight.
She entered the Cistercian monastery when she was 19, the abbess said. Sister Teresita acknowledged in interviews that like many young women at the time, she never intended being a nun but entered the monastery because of family pressure.
In 2011 she left the monastery for the first time in 40 years to meet now-retired Pope Benedict XVI during a papal visit to Madrid. She had entered the monastery on the same day he was born. (AP)
Software in Venezuela
Venezuelans who devote hours scouring supermarkets for increasingly scarce food basics and toilet paper have received some digital help thanks to a young software developer.
Jose Augusto Montiel’s free Abasteceme application for Android mobile devices allows people to notify one another where flour, sugar, milk, cooking oil and toilet paper are for sale. It has been downloaded more than 12,000 times.
Stocks of basic items such as wheat, flour and butter have been running low throughout Venezuela. Economists blame government-imposed price control, while President Nicolas Maduro said greedy merchants are hoarding goods. (PA)
Ikea’s furniture for dolls
Flatpack furniture giant Ikea is to sell exact miniatures of its best-known products to allow children to create replicas of their own homes.
The retailer, which has assured parents that no assembly is necessary, is launching 1:15 scale replicas of a sofa, storage unit, table, rug, chair and cushion.
It follows a poll for Ikea that found children want “a more modern style” for their doll’s houses.
Ikea’s children’s business leader Carol McSeveney said: “Our research has shown that lots of kids want to create doll’s houses for their toys that reflect their own homes – furnished in a more modern style, with plenty of space to store all the accessories, of course. (AP)