CARACAS http://www.cheapairmaxshoesoutlet.com/ , July 16 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela saw its feuding political factions both prepare polls on Sunday, with the government holding a simulation of the July 30 vote to elect the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) while the opposition was organizing an unofficial referendum of its own to gauge public support or rejection for the ANC.


According to a report by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Sunday, the simulation was seeing "high participation", with CNE executive Sandra Oblitas saying that the event was taking place normally in Caracas.


"This is an opportunity to become familiarized with the particularities of the...vote for the ANC, where we are seeing very high participation and no irregularities," she indicated to the press.


Another CNE official, Socorro Hernandez, mentioned that the voting action is very quick and that international observers would be welcomed to supervise the July 30 ballot.


Representatives from the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) are expected to be on hand.


The simulation on Sunday was supervised by the Venezuelan military, who are in charge of ensuring there are no acts of violence at all elections.


However, this vote comes at a time of high tension in Venezuela, with anti-government protests by the opposition, Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), having led to at least 94 dead since early April.


The MUD sees the ANC, which will rewrite the Constitution, as a power grab by President Nicolas Maduro.


It is holding an unofficial referendum on Sunday to give the Venezuelan people a chance to be heard about the ANC, since Maduro called it without any warning.


According to the MUD, people can turn out at over 2,000 voting stations, without the supervision of the CNE, which dismissed the referendum as illegal.


Carlos Ocariz, mayor of the town of Sucre, wrote on Twitter that Venezuelan communities abroad, in countries such as Australia and Spain, were also taking part.


The referendum asks three questions of the Venezuelan people, whether they support or not Maduro's call for the ANC, whether they support the Constitution of 1999, which Maduro is seeking to change, and whether officials in public office should be replaced.


The organizers that 47,272 voting officials and over 80,000 volunteers have been deployed to ensure the results are confirmed rapidly, while the participation rolls will be destroyed in order to avoid manipulations.


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WASHINGTON, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have genetically engineered human embryos for the first time in the United States, according to a report in the MIT Technology Review.


The effort, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, involved changing the DNA of a large number of one-cell embryos with the gene-editing technique CRISPR, the report which was released Wednesday said.


Ma Hong, a staff scientist at Mitalipov's lab, told Xinhua on Thursday that their paper is about to be published and that, for the moment, she cannot reveal any information about the research.


"Although none of the embryos were allowed to develop for more than a few days -- and there was never any intention of implanting them into a womb -- the experiments are a milestone on what may prove to be an inevitable journey toward the birth of the first genetically modified humans," said the report in the MIT Technology Review, a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


"To date, three previous reports of editing human embryos were all published by scientists in China," it said.


Scientists like Mitalipov believe they can eradicate or correct genes that cause inherited disease and even cancer by altering the DNA of human embryos.


Critics, however, said that it could open the door to the world of "designer babies," where people choose the traits they want in a child.


According to the report, the earlier Chinese publications have found CRISPR caused editing errors that lent weight to arguments that the technique "would be an unsafe way to create a person."


Currently, any effort to turn an edited human embryo into a baby in the United States is banned by Congress.


But in February, a report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Medicine said that clinical trials for gene editing of human reproductive cells "could be permitted in the future, but only for serious conditions under stringent oversight."


Frances Flinter, professor of clinical genetics at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in Britain, who was not involved in the study, said it's impossible to comment on a reported scientific development that has not been peer-reviewed and published in a reputable scientific journal.