Riyadh (AFP) - The US embassy in Saudi Arabia said it had suspended consular services in the kingdom for two days due to "heightened security concerns", after warning of threats against Western oil workers.

All services in Riyadh and at the consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran have been cancelled for Sunday and Monday, it said in a statement posted on its website Saturday.

The embassy warned US citizens to take extra precautions and keep a low profile if they were out in public.

"All US citizens are encouraged to be aware of their surroundings, and take extra precautions when travelling throughout the country," it said.

"The Department of State urges US citizens to carefully consider the risks of travelling to Saudi Arabia and limit non-essential travel within the country."

The embassy on Friday had warned that Western oil workers risked being attacked or kidnapped by "terrorist" groups.

It did not identify the source of the threats and said no details were available on the planned attacks.

Saudi Arabia is taking part in US-led air strikes that began in September against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, raising concerns about possible retaliation.

Westerners in Saudi Arabia have come under attack four times since October.

The latest was last month when US defence contractor Vinnell Arabia said two of its American employees were shot at in Eastern Province, where most of the kingdom's oil wealth is concentrated.

Saudi police said that one of them was wounded but results of the investigation that followed have not yet been revealed.

In October, another Vinnell employee was shot dead and another wounded at a petrol station in Riyadh, in what Saudi authorities have said was not a "terrorist-related" incident.

A Dane was wounded in November as he was driving away from his workplace when he was fired upon from another car.

Authorities said the three Saudis arrested on suspicion of involvement in that attack had acted "in support of" the Islamic State group.

A week after the Dane's shooting, a Canadian was stabbed and wounded while he shopped at a mall on Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast.

Shiite-populated Eastern province is also the scene of unrest sparked by members of the minority who occasionally clash with police.

Saudi Arabia has also blamed IS-linked suspects for the November killing of seven members of the Shiite community in Eastern Province, including children.

Several Westerners in Saudi Arabia were killed in a wave of deadly Al-Qaeda attacks between 2003 and 2006.

Protestors gather to protest the shooting death of Tony Robinson, Jr. outside the Wisconsin Department of Corrections in Madison, March 11, 2015. REUTERS/Ben Brewer

By Ben Brewer

MADISON, Wisc. (Reuters) - Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday for the funeral of a 19-year-old man killed by a police officer in Wisconsin's capital on March 6, a shooting that prompted protests over law enforcement's treatment of minorities.

Tony Robinson Jr., a biracial young man, was unarmed during a confrontation with a white police officer in Madison, and his death was the latest in a string of shootings of unarmed black and Latino men that has sparked a national debate over race and police tactics that has reached President Barack Obama.

About 1,600 people descended on a Madison-area high school field house to remember Tony Robinson, also known as Terrell, with overflow crowds directed to the school gymnasium where a screen was showing the funeral service.

Robinson's friends and family were joined by somber residents who traveled from around the state to pay their respects, as well as political leaders including Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representative Mark Pocan.

Rev. David Hart told mourners that Robinson was another young black male who lost his life too soon.

"Too many of our children are dying before their time," he said. "We must not accept that narrative that has become all too common."

Before the funeral, Robinson's family asked that those who attend leave their social and political concerns at the door.

“We want this to be about a celebration of Terrell/Tony’s life and not necessarily about the issues it raises,” Robinson’s uncle, Turin Cater, said in a statement to Milwaukee Fox affiliate WITI.

There have been large, peaceful protests in Madison, with activists saying the shooting highlights a longstanding trend of racial bias among law enforcement in the city. The protests have drawn up to 2,000 people and echoed chants and slogans from "Black Lives Matter" demonstrations over police-involved deaths in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City and Cleveland.

Madison Police Officer Matt Kenny said Robinson attacked him as he responded to a call about a man who had assaulted several people.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice expects to turn over reports of its investigation to the Dane County district attorney in about two weeks. The prosecutor will decide whether Kenny should face charges.

A preliminary autopsy report released Friday said Robinson died from "firearm related trauma," and was struck in the head, torso and arm. The medical examiner did not disclose how many times he was shot.

(Writing by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Grant McCool and Marguerita Choy)

However, other scientists have called for a moratorium on editing the human germ-line, arguing that it is ethically unacceptable because it is too unpredictable and too risky.

Nevertheless, researchers at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have attempted to use the Crispr (pronounced “Crisper”) gene-editing technique on human ovarian tissue cultured in the lab to see if it might be possible to correct the defective BRAC1 gene involved in inherited breast and ovarian cancer. As ovarian cells develop into egg cells, the research is likely to have involved the altering of some immature egg cells, known as oocytes.

The work was carried out last year by Luhan Yang, a researcher working in the lab of the veteran Harvard geneticist George Church. But the study has not been published in a scientific journal and Dr Yang was unavailable for comment.

Professor Church emphasised that the work was purely experimental. He said that it was carried out on human ovarian cells cultured in a laboratory dish and there was no intention of fertilising any eggs or transplanting them into a woman.

“Almost all post-docs in a cutting-edge lab like mine like to explore what is possible. The experiments were not in human beings. They were in cells in culture,” Professor Church told The Independent.

“Our lab works on human cells of all sorts, and it is quite likely that at some point she [Dr Yang] has worked on human cells that could be the lineage of oocytes. I’m not sure they were proven to be functional oocytes,” he said.

“This is very basic science and there is a very big difference between doing experiments on human cells in culture, which we’ve been doing for many years, and putting them into a human being.”

Since its development only a few years ago, the Crispr technique has been used to correct inherited diseases in laboratory animals as well as mending human genetic defects in non-reproductive human cells grown in the laboratory.

Its precision and apparent safety have astonished researchers, which is why it is now being considered for human germ-line therapy to correct inherited human diseases by genetically modifying eggs, sperm or IVF embryos.

Although the work in his laboratory is pioneering, Professor Church is one of several experts who believe that there should be stricter controls on scientists who may be tempted to use Crispr for human germ-line therapy on IVF embryos.

A comment article in Nature this week by leading academics, including US-based geneticist Fyodor Urnov, a pioneer of gene editing, warns of the danger of moving too fast.

“Genome editing in human embryos using current technologies could have unpredictable effects on future generations. This makes it dangerous and ethically unacceptable,” they write.

“Many oppose germ-line modification on the grounds that permitting even unambiguous therapeutic intervention could start us down a path towards non-therapeutic genetic enhancement. We share these concerns.”

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Pakistan churches bombed

By Mubasher Bukhari

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Bombs outside two churches in the Pakistani city of Lahore killed 14 people and wounded nearly 80 during Sunday services, and witnesses said quick action by a security guard prevented many more deaths.

A Pakistani Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility.

Islamist militants in Pakistan have attacked Christians and other religious minorities often over the last decade or more.

Many Christians, who make up less than two percent of Pakistan's population of more than 180 million, accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow to act to improve security.

Sunday's blasts occurred minutes apart in a majority Christian suburb of the eastern city. Police said it seemed they targeted two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, that are very close to each other.

After the explosions, enraged residents protested and lynched two suspects, police said.

"I was sitting at a shop near the church when a blast jolted the area. I rushed toward the spot and saw the security guard scuffle with a man who was trying to enter the church. After failing, he blew himself up," said witness Amir Masih.

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Pakistani Christians shout slogans during an anti-Taliban protest in Karachi on March 15, 2015, foll …

"I saw his body parts flying through the air."

The guard died as well, he said. It was not clear if the first blast was also triggered by a suicide bomber, Masih said.

Fourteen people were killed and 78 wounded, said Zahid Pervaiz, provincial director of general health.

"The rescue operation is still underway and the death toll may increase," rescue services spokesman Sajjad Hussain said.

The Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility.

Pope Francis told crowds at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican he felt "great pain" over the bomb attacks, departing from scripted remarks in his customary address on Sunday.

"These are Christian churches. Christians are persecuted, our brothers spill their blood simply because they are Christians," the pontiff said.

Following the blast, enraged residents lynched two men they suspected of involvement, a police official said. Journalist Riaz Ahmed said he had seen the two burnt bodies at an intersection.

Protesters also smashed shops and attacked vehicles. Police and several politicians were chased from the scene, residents said.

Pakistan's police are notoriously poorly trained and under-funded while the court system is overburdened with a backlog of more than a million cases.

Lahore is the capital of Punjab, Pakistan's wealthiest and most populous province and the political heartland of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The city is considered peaceful compared with many other areas of Pakistan, but violence has been increasing after the government's failed attempts to hold peace talks with the Taliban last year.

After the talks failed, the military launched an offensive in the remote northwestern region of North Waziristan along the Afghan border to push the Taliban from the last major region they controlled.

The military now holds the major urban centers there, but residents say many militants fled before the offensive began and others remain in rural areas.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan; writing by Katharine Houreld; editing by Robert Birsel and Jason Neely)

Deadly blasts target churches in Pakistan

The bombs went off minutes apart in a majority Christian suburb of Lahore, authorities say.
Residents lynch suspects