Vienna - Oil ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) set to meet Friday in Vienna were expected to cut oil production in reaction to falling prices and slowing demand.

Several of the cartel's 13 members had indicated before the meeting that they were in favour of lowering the group's joint output by at least 1 million barrels per day. One barrel equals 159 litres.

Since mid-October, the basket price of OPEC crude has hovered below 70 dollars per barrel, down from its July high of 140.73 dollars.

According to a new study published in Human Reproduction, women who were severely depressed during early pregnancy were twice as likely to have a preterm delivery. The worse the depression the greater was the risk of giving birth prematurely, the leading cause of infant mortality.