Paris, France | Google and French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi announced a new joint venture focused on diabetes care.

The tie up between the drug maker and Verily, the health subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, will focus on treatments for people living with the chronic disease.

Details on what the company's products will look like -- or when they will reach the market -- were scant, but they will combine the drugmaker's clinical know-how with the tech company's background in analytics and mini devices, a joint statement said.

"As it will initially consist of connecting already existing products, we can expect the first innovations to arrive more quickly than if it was a pharmaceutical research programme starting from scratch," the head of Sanofi's diabetes business Stefan Oelrich told AFP.

The venture, called Onduo, will initially focus on type two diabetes, the more common form of the disease. The prevalence of type two diabetes is soring globally as obesity rates also rise.

Eventually, Onduo plans to expand its business to type one diabetes, an autoimmune disorder that requires daily insulin, and eventually those at risk of developing the disease. 

Sanofi has invested $248 million in the venture, with Verily putting in an "equivalent" amount, according to Oelrich.

The new company will be based in the US town of Cambridge, near Boston, the epicentre of the global biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industries, where Sanofi already has a presence.

Verily was born out of Google's X lab and has previously partnered with other pharma giants, including Johnson & Johnson to develop surgical robots and in a bioelectronic venture with UK-based GlaxoSmithKline.

New York, United States | Personal items belonging to the late Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy head to the auction block to raise funds for the popular US leader's presidential foundation.

The hundreds of items that Christie's auction house will put to the highest bidder in New York include the Republican president's cowboy boots and a signed chunk of the Berlin Wall, as well as more mundane items like furniture and porcelain sets.

Other items include a lot of five wooden walking canes (estimated price: $300-$500), porcelain lamps ($1,500-$2,500), a Chinese screen, embroidered cushions, enameled boxes, and a painting signed by singer Frank Sinatra.

The Berlin Wall piece, measuring 63 centimeters (23 inches) long, is signed by the former president and valued between $10,000 and $20,000.

The boots, which carry the seal of the president of the United States, are estimated to sell for $10,000 to $20,000. More affordable are pencil doodles on White House stationary and signed by Reagan, valued at $2,500 to $3,500.

A marine chronometer timepiece made by US jeweler Tiffany and given by Sinatra and his wife Barbara to the Reagans for the president's 1981 inauguration is estimated to fetch $5,000 to $10,000.

Nancy Reagan's jewelry headed for the auction block includes an octagonal diamond, sapphire and ruby ring in the design of the US flag that she wore on Independence Day 1986.

The sale of the 700 lots is expected to raise more than $2 million.

Besides the two-day public sale, some 260 lots will be sold online.

Reagan, who was in office from 1981 to 1989, is an icon of US conservatives. He died in 2004 at the age of 93 after a ten-year struggle with Alzheimers.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan died in March at 94.

Washington, United States | US President Barack Obama named a powerful new oversight board for Puerto Rico charged with helping restore the finances of the debt-mired Caribbean island. 

The White House said the seven members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board would be charged with helping the government of the US territory restructure its $70 billion in debts and restore economic growth after a decade of recession.

The seven include a mix of figures from the banking industry, government and legal sector, four of them selected by Republicans in Congress who had fought giving Puerto Rico the right to declare bankruptcy, and three from the Democrats.

Having already defaulted on more than $2 billion in debt payments, Puerto Rico is blocked by US law from seeking protection in bankruptcy courts the way US cities like Detroit have done.

Instead, the FOMB will fill that role in a way, overseeing the Puerto Rican government's reforms and fiscal discipline as it reschedules its debt -- including possible write-downs -- with creditors.

One of the FOMB appointees, Arthur Gonzalez, was formerly chief judge of the US Bankruptcy Court in New York City and oversaw some of the largest and most complex corporate bankruptcies, including those of Enron, WorldCom, and Chrysler.

Amid fears the FOMB would be insensitive to the social needs of Puerto Rico, where the collapsing economy has increased poverty and sent hundreds of thousands of natives to the US mainland for jobs, four of the White House appointees have Puerto Rican roots.

"With a broad range of skills and experiences, these officials have the breadth and depth of knowledge that is needed to tackle this complex challenge and put the future of the Puerto Rican people first," Obama said in a statement.

Under the Promesa reorganization plan established by Congress in June, the Puerto Rican government must come up with and implement a credible multi-year plan for righting its finances and restoring growth.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew called Wednesday for the island to move quickly.

"Time is of the essence. The Puerto Rico government should bring together all of its resources to develop and submit a plan to the Oversight Board as soon as possible."

Reykjavik, Iceland | Iceland has been forced to bow to pressure from elves and uncover a supposedly enchanted elfin rock after highway workers accidentally buried it -- infuriating the mythical creatures, reports said.

The angry elves were suspected of causing a series of mishaps after the rock was covered over when workers cleared away the debris from a landslide, the Morgunbladid daily reported. 

Iceland is no stranger to bending to the will of its elfin population.

Construction sites have previously been moved so as not to disturb the creatures and fishermen have refused to go to sea because of their warnings: in Iceland, elves are part of every day life.

Sveinn Zophoniasson, who works for the Bass road construction company, told the paper that his woes began in August 2015 in Siglufjordur, close to the site of the so-called "elfin lady stone" that was covered with earth following efforts to cleat a mudslide from a highway.

After the landslide was cleared, the road was subsequently flooded and a colleague of Zophoniasson who came to clear the route was injured. Then industrial machinery began to fail and a journalist who came to cover the growing chaos fell into a mud pool and had to be pulled to safety.

"Nobody even thought of the rock," even though the area is regarded as a sacred place in local folklore, said Zophoniasson.

The decision was made that the Iceland Road Administration would unearth the rock -- an artefact according to a 2012 law to protect Iceland's elfin heritage -- and it was subsequently cleaned with a pressure washer last week.

Elves are described by the hundreds of people who claim to have seen them as simple, normally peaceful creatures that look like humans -- but smaller.

In 1971 elves reportedly disrupted construction of a national highway from Reykjavik to the northeast. The project suffered repeated unusual technical difficulties because, it was claimed, elves did not want the large boulder that served as their home to be moved to make way for the new road.

Lo Manthang , Nepal | In Nepal's isolated, high-altitude desert of Upper Mustang, a new road to China is bringing economic transformation to the former Buddhist kingdom, once a centre for trans-Himalayan commerce.

The remote region is ringed with vast canyons and red mountains that, legends say, are stained with the blood of a demon killed by the founder of Tibetan Buddhism.

Yet the recently completed unpaved highway that connects Upper Mustang with China is also bringing unprecedented cultural change to a region that was closed off to foreign visitors until 1992.

In the medieval walled capital of Lo Manthang, young men have swapped Tibetan robes for blue jeans and local cafes broadcast live coverage of Euro 2016 matches to rapt viewers.

Nevertheless, while modern life holds considerable allure for many, the push to preserve traditional culture is no less important to the local Loba community. Buddhists who speak a variant of the Tibetan language, they have lived in Upper Mustang for centuries.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the ongoing effort to restore sacred murals and monuments, supported by foreign and Nepali non-profit organisations, including the Lo Gyalpo Jigme Foundation, which is headed by the former king of Upper Mustang.

Although the region's rich heritage escaped the ravages of the Cultural Revolution that hit neighbouring China, its monuments fell prey to environmental damage.

Wind and rain eroded mud walls and caused wooden rooftop beams to decay, while smoke from ceremonial butter lamps darkened indoor frescos.

Over the last decade, restorers have been working hard to shore up structures, clean murals and retouch damaged paintings in line with Buddhist beliefs.

Buddhists believe it is better to pray to undamaged images of the Buddha, and see it as their duty to repair and retouch them when necessary.

The painstaking process involves grinding gemstones like lapis lazuli and malachite into a fine powder, which is then mixed with water and animal glue to create luminous pigments fit for gods. 

After last year's massive earthquake killed nearly 9,000 in Nepal and severely damaged monasteries in Lo Manthang, restorers now face an even bigger challenge.

Like many here, they too are locked in a race to preserve Upper Mustang's unique cultural legacy for future generations.

Stockholm, Sweden | A Swedish woman filed a police complaint after a rejected and vindictive suitor broke wind as he stormed out of her apartment, but police found no proof of intent -- not a whiff -- and dismissed the case.

The woman, a resident of the Laholm municipality in southern Sweden, told the online edition of daily Hallandsposten  that the man had been invited into her home for coitus. 

Once inside she had a change of heart and turned him down. But before leaving, the disgruntled man left her with a malodorous memento.

"It smelled awful," she wrote in her police complaint, asking for a harassment charge to be pressed against the man, which would carry a fine or prison sentence of up to one year.

Swedish police decided however to drop the case.

"It's impossible to prove that he wanted to pass particularly smelly wind on purpose," said a spokesman for the local police, Kenneth Persson.

Wellington, New Zealand | A New Zealand police video of cops performing the latest "running man" Internet craze has gone viral, attracting millions of hits and prompting a response in kind from the New York Police Department.

The running man challenge is a social media craze in which people video themselves dancing to the 1990s hit My Boo by the Ghost Town DJs, and challenge others to do the same.

The 37-second video of North Island police performing the dance in an Auckland carpark was posted Tuesday on the force's Facebook page www.facebook.com/NZPoliceRecruitment.

In less than 24 hours it had 4.8 millions hits, more than the entire population of New Zealand.

"It's about showing police having fun and building trust and confidence," said spokeswoman Shelley Nahr, who helped organise the video.

"Most of the staff in the video were either at a training day or came in on their day off to help."

The police said when clicks on other websites such as YouTube were included, the video had attracted staggering viewing figures of more than 11 million.

"We catch people on the run every day, this was a new #runningmanchallenge for our team," the original post said, calling on 10 other police forces around the world to take up the challenge.

The NYPD was the only force to have responded positively to the Kiwi call by Wednesday, with officers dancing to a backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Isles of Scilly police -- a tiny force off the English coast with a huge social media following -- said its five officers and cat would not be dancing.

"Our combined age on this small rock in the Atlantic (including feline years) is over 300. Ours is not to dance or body pop," it posted on Facebook, adding it preferred "levity in the medium of cake".

Laas Geel, Somalia Centuries have passed since Neolithic artists swirled red and white colour on the cliffs of northern Somalia, painting antelopes, cattle, giraffes and hunters carrying bows and arrows.

Today, the paintings at Laas Geel in the self-declared state of Somaliland retain their fresh brilliance, providing vivid depictions of a pastoralist history dating back some 5,000 years or more.

"These paintings are unique. This style cannot be found anywhere in Africa," said Abdisalam Shabelleh, the site manager from Somaliland's Ministry of Tourism.

Then he points to a corner, where the paint fades and peels off the rocks. "If nothing is done now, in 20 years it could all have disappeared," he added.

The site is in dire need of protection. "We don't have the knowledge, the experience or the financial resources. We need support," Shabelleh said.

The paintings, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, are considered among the oldest and best preserved rock art sites in Africa but are protected only by a few guards who ask visitors not to touch the paintings.

- Diplomatic donor legal limbo -Applications for assistance by Somaliland's government have gone unheeded. A former British protectorate, Somaliland declared independence from the rest of Somalia when war erupted following the overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, but it is not recognised by the international community.

The "lack of recognition" of the country blocks the cave's protection, said Xavier Gutherz, the former head of the French archaeology team that discovered the site in 2002.

Amazed by the remarkable condition of the paintings as well as their previously unknown style, the archaeologist asked for the cave's listing as a UNESCO world heritage site.

But that request was refused because Somaliland is not recognised as a separate nation. "Only state parties to the World Heritage Convention can nominate sites for World Heritage status," said a UNESCO spokeswoman.

Requests for funding from donor countries face the same legal and diplomatic headache.

Centuries of isolation and local beliefs that the site was haunted and the art the work of evil spirits may have contributed to Laas Geel's protection.

But since their discovery, the cave paintings have become one of the main attractions for visitors to Somaliland. 

- 'Part of our blood' -Around a thousand visitors each year endure long stretches of rugged terrain and travel with armed escorts to reach Laas Geel, and numbers are growing.

"The concerns of Somaliland are legitimate," said Gutherz, who has identified key areas to tackle to help protect the site.

"We have to secure the site, arrange access paths, strengthen the rocks that could collapse, divert rainwater runoff and improve the training of guards," he said.

With a major development planned for Somaliland's main port at Berbera, the number of visitors is expected to increase.

Ahmed Ibrahim Awale, who heads local environmental group Candlelight, said that dust is adding to the damage at the caves.

"The increased human activity in the area, trampling on the bare gravelly soil, does not allow the natural regeneration of plants," Awale said. "The resulting dust particles may contribute to the fading of the paintings."

Archaeologists say that Laas Geel may only be one of many treasures awaiting discovery in the vast rocky plains stretching towards the tip of the Horn of Africa.

Musa Abdi Jama, one of the guardians of the site, sees in the ancient site of Laas Geel the hope of a new nation to be, flying the flag for the cultural identity and uniqueness of Somaliland.

"Here, it was once known as the home of djinn (spirits) by the local nomadic people, who used to slaughter domestic animals for sacrifice in order to live there in peace," Jama said.

"Now it is part of our blood. Tomorrow, God willing, it will be the first place in Somaliland to be internationally recognised."

Seoul, South Korea | Pedestrians glued to their smartphones were given something else to look at this week, as officials in Seoul launched a safety campaign to keep them from walking into busy traffic.  

Smartphone-related collisions between pedestrians and vehicles in South Korea have more than doubled in five years to around 1,000 reported incidents in 2014, according to the Transportation Safety Authority.

The problem is especially acute in a country where smartphone penetration currently stands at around 80 percent of the population, most of whom seem intent on mastering the art of walking and texting.

In a bid to reduce the number of people either stepping carelessly into oncoming traffic or slamming into each other on the sidewalk, officials in Seoul -- one of the world's most wired cities -- have begun installing the first batch of 300 warning signs this week in five locations across the capital.

"We picked locations with the highest number of young pedestrians since the majority of smartphone users are in their teens to their 30s," Kim Ooc-Kyeong, a Seoul city official in charge of the project, told AFP on Wednesday.

Some signs are attached to traffic light poles and depict a person looking at his smartphone as he is about to be hit by a car.

But given that the target audience are people who wouldn't look up from their screens to see such warnings, other signs have been plastered on the actual sidewalk.

"We put 250 signs on the pavements because they will actually be seen by the pedestrians that are looking down at their smartphones," Kim said.

But neither type of warning seemed to have registered with locals interviewed at lunchtime by AFP.

"I'm always on my smartphone, and I've never seen the signs before," said Kim Hyun-Chul, 29. "They need to make them stand out more."

Koo Sung-Hoi, 27, was also unaware of the efforts to keep him from a smartphone-related injury.

"I think the signs on the pavements are too small to be noticed," Koo said.

South Korean smartphone users spend an average of four hours a day tweeting, chatting or playing games, with about 15 percent showing symptoms of addiction, according to state data. 

Seoul plans to monitor the effectiveness of the signs until the end of the year before deciding whether to expand the project.

Similar campaigns have already been trialed in Europe.

Antwerp has introduced designated walking lanes in a handful of busy shopping streets so smartphone users can look at their mobiles without bumping into other pedestrians.

The German city of Augsburg even installed traffic lights in the pavement at tram crossings for smartphone gazers.

A 2014 simulation found that if 1,500 people looking at their phones tried to cross Tokyo's notoriously crowded Shibuya intersection, only about a third would make across without bumping into others, falling or dropping their mobiles.