MANILA: Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos has amassed 3,000 pairs of shoes in the past five years, a newspaper reported on Monday. The flamboyant Marcos showed her new shoe collection to a European broadcast company during an interview at her posh condominium in the financial district of Makat I, the Today reported. A source close to the Marcos family told the newspaper the woman known as the `iron butterfly' just wanted to prove that she can still live as "lavishly as when her husband was in power." The old shoe collection is now on display in a wing of the presidential palace that has been converted into a museum.

Chinese herb for malaria

TUEBINGEN: A herb used in traditional Chinese medicine could bring relief to malaria sufferers in some of the world's poorest regions, if a project set up by two German scientists is successful. Lutz Heide of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology Attuebingen University in South-West Germany andpharmacist Hans-Martin Hirt aim to make Chinese mugmort (artemisia annua) directly available in regions where malaria is endemic. Mugwort has been used to treat malaria in China for 2,000 years.