News in Brief
Joint committee to probe schoolgirls’ poisonings: Iran MP
A senior Iranian lawmaker said a fact-finding committee consisting of representatives of Parliament and the government traveled to the holy city of Qom on Monday to investigate the poisoning of schoolgirls.
Ahmad Amirabadi told ICANA News that the committee seeks to “find a clear answer” about the cause of the poisonings.
Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls in Qom and the western city of Borujerd, with some needing hospital treatment.
Last week, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri ordered a judicial probe into the incidents.
On Monday, Deputy Judiciary Chief Mohammad Mossaddeq said the prosecutor of Qom had “seriously” investigated the issue but had failed to achieve a result.
Jalal Rashidi, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on internal security, said the “serial poisonings” had been “intentional” and “directed from abroad”.
A deputy governor of Lorestan Province, where Borujerd is located, told IRNA on Monday that a “more thorough investigation” is required after some students at two girls’ schools in the city were poisoned.
Scientists boost efficiency of a cheap solar
panel material by 250%
SCIENCE ALERT – In a new study, scientists have been able to significantly improve the efficiency of a particular type of this material, known as a lead-halide perovskite. By combining the perovskite with a substrate of metal rather than glass, light conversion efficiency was increased by 250
percent.