World Scene

AFGHANISTAN

Senior adviser to Karzai is killed near parliament

KABUL — A senior adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai was killed at his home near the parliament in Kabul, a senior government official said Sunday.

Jan Mohammad Khan was a former governor of southern Uruzgan province and a key ally of the embattled president.

He was killed less than a week after the president’s half brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was assassinated at his home in the southern province of Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban.

CHINA

Foreign ministry denounces Obama

BEIJING — China on Sunday slammed President Obama for meeting with the Dalai Lama, calling the talks an act that has “grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs” and damaged Chinese-American relations.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry made the statement hours after Mr. Obama met with the Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was in Washington for a 10-day Buddhist ritual.

“Such an act has grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and damaged Sino-American relations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.

EGYPT

Doctor denies Mubarak suffered a stroke

CAIRO — Hosni Mubarak’s lead doctor denied Sunday that the ousted Egyptian president had suffered a stroke or was in a coma, as Mr. Mubarak’s attorney claimed.

Dr. Assem Azzam said Mr. Mubarak, 83, had suffered a bout of low blood pressure and was in stable condition.

Mr. Mubarak’s attorney Farid el-Deeb said earlier that he had a stroke and was in a coma.

“I checked on him. He is in stable condition. What happened is he got a little dizzy because his blood pressure was low. The doctors are dealing with that,” Dr. Azzam said.

EGYPT

Senior diplomat Amr named foreign minister

CAIRO — Mohammed Kamel Amr, a former senior diplomat who has worked at the World Bank, was appointed Egypt’s foreign minister Sunday, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf announced on his Facebook page.

The appointment to replace Mohammed al-Orabi is part of a sweeping Cabinet shuffle aimed at appeasing protesters angry at the slow pace of reform since the February ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

The top diplomat was Egypt’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia and has worked at its embassy in Washington.

FRANCE

Eye test may detect Alzheimer’s disease

PARIS — Scientists in Australia are reporting encouraging early results from a simple eye test that they hope will give a noninvasive way to detect signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

Although it has been tried on just a small number of people and more research is needed, the experimental test has a solid basis: Alzheimer’s is known to cause changes in the eyes, not just the brain. Other scientists in the United States also are working on an eye test for detecting the disease.

A separate study found that falls might be early warning signs of Alzheimer’s. People who seemed to have healthy minds but who were discovered to have hidden plaques clogging their brains were five times more likely to fall during the study than those without these brain deposits, which are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s.

Both studies were discussed Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in France.

From wire dispatches and staff reports