MANILA: Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell began her inaugural tour as a United Nations ambassador of goodwill, but her visit to the Philippines ran smack into opposition from the country's powerful church. ``I believe that if you can't control your fertility, you can't control your life, and if you're having sex, you've got to be protected against unwanted pregnancy and infection,'' Halliwell, 27, told reporters yesterday after a visit to a slum community in Manila. Those were candid words and controversial in the Philippines, where they run counter to the belief of the Roman Catholic Church. ``This is a free country, we don't interfere in the right of anybody to go anywhere or say what they believe... (but) we do not need population control, and any effort at safe sex is totally, utterly immoral from top to bottom,'' said Reverend James Reuter, director of the National Office of Mass Media of the Catholic Church of the Philippines. Halliwell spoke to 30patients of Marie Stopes International in Manila about responsible sex and family planning.

`Ecstasy' causes lasting brain damage: Report

WASHINGTON: Ecstasy, a so-called designer drug favoured by club-goers, can cause long-lasting damage to the brain, researchers said here. Experiments on monkeys showed that as little as four days of using Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, can cause damage lasting six to seven years later. ``People who take MDMA, even just a few times, are risking long-term, perhaps permanent, problems with learning and memory,'' Dr Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study, said in a statement on Monday. MDMA, used at `rave' parties and other large gatherings, has a stimulant effect. Users report a sense of euphoria and well-being, but it has been associated with some deaths some of them immediately after use.

France shuts down 384 farms over dioxin fears

PARIS: French authorities have shut down 384 farms that receiveddeliveries of dioxin-contaminated animal feed from Belgium, the agriculture ministry said. In all, 246 beef farms, 131 poultry breeders, four sheep farms and three pork breeders were ordered to halt activities pending tests to determine whether the meat is contaminated. Many countries have turned away European foods suspected of containing cancer-causing dioxin introduced into the food chain through Belgian animal feed.