Ukraine fights spreading HIV epidemic

BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Andrei Mandrykin, an inmate at Prison No. 85 outside Kiev, has HIV. He looks ghostly and much older than his 35 years. But Mandrykin is better off than tens of thousands of his countrymen, because is he receiving treatment amid what the World Health Organization says is the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe.

Ahead of World AIDS Day on Saturday, international organizations have urged the Ukrainian government to increase funding for treatment and do more to prevent HIV from spreading from high-risk groups into the mainstream population, where it is even harder to manage and control.

An estimated 230,000 Ukrainians, or about 0.8 percent of people aged 15 to 49, are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Some 120,000 are in urgent need of anti-retroviral therapy, which can greatly prolong and improve the quality of their lives. But due to a lack of funds, fewer than a quarter are receiving the drugs — one of the lowest levels in the world.

Ukraine's AIDS epidemic is still concentrated among high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, sex workers, homosexuals and prisoners. But nearly half of new cases registered last year were traced to unprotected heterosexual contact.

"Slowly but surely the epidemic is moving from the most-at-risk, vulnerable population to the general population," said Nicolas Cantau of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, who manages work in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. "For the moment there is not enough treatment in Ukraine."

Stigma is also a big problem for those with HIV in Ukraine. Liliya, a 65-year-old woman who would give only her first name, recently attended a class on how to tell her 9-year-old great-granddaughter that she has HIV. The girl, who contacted HIV at birth from her drug-abusing mother, has been denied a place in preschool because of her diagnosis.

"People are like wolves, they don't understand," said Liliya. "If any of the parents found out, they would eat the child alive."

While the AIDS epidemic has plateaued elsewhere in the world, it is still progressing in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to Cantau. Nearly 21,200 new cases were reported in Ukraine in 2011, the highest number since the former Soviet republic registered its first case in 1987, and a 3 percent increase over 2010. As a result of limited and often delayed treatment, the number of AIDS-related deaths grew 17 percent last year to about 3,800.

Two years ago, Mandrykin, the prisoner, was on the verge of becoming part of that statistic, with his level of crucial CD4 immune cells — a way to measure the strength of the immune system — dropping to 11. In a healthy person, the CD4 count is usually over 600.

"I was lying in the hospital, I was dying," said Mandrykin, who is serving seven years for robbery, his fourth stint in jail. "It's a scary disease."

After two years of treatment in a small prison clinic, his CD4 count has risen to 159 and he feels much better, although he looks exhausted and is still too weak to work in the workshop of the medium-security prison.

The Ukrainian government currently focuses on testing and treating standard cases among the general population. The anti-retroviral treatment of more than 1,000 inmates, as well as some 10,000 HIV patients across Ukraine who also require treatment for tuberculosis and other complications and all prevention and support activities, are paid for by foreign donors, mainly the Global Fund.

The Global Fund is committed to spending $640 million through 2016 to fight AIDS and tuberculosis in Ukraine and then hopes to hand over most of its programs to the Ukrainian government.

Advocacy groups charge that corruption and indifference by government officials help fuel the epidemic.

During the past two years, Ukrainian authorities have seized vital AIDS drugs at the border due to technicalities, sent prosecutors to investigate AIDS support groups sponsored by the Global Fund and harassed patients on methadone substitution therapy, prompting the Global Fund to threaten to freeze its prevention grant.

Most recently, Ukraine's parliament gave initial approval to a bill that would impose jail terms of up to five years for any positive public depiction of homosexuality. Western organizations say it would make the work of AIDS prevention organizations that distribute condoms and teach safe homosexual sex illegal and further fuel the epidemic. It is unclear when the bill will come up for a final vote.

AIDS drug procurement is another headache, with Ukrainian health authorities greatly overpaying for AIDS drugs. Advocacy groups accuse health officials of embezzling funds by purchasing drugs at inflated prices and then pocketing kickbacks.

Officials deny those allegations, saying their tender procedures are transparent.

Much also remains to be done in Ukraine to educate people about AIDS.

Oksana Golubova, a 40-year-old former drug user, infected her daughter, now 8, with HIV and lost her first husband to AIDS. But she still has unprotected sex with her new husband, saying his health is in God's hands.

"Those who are afraid get infected," Golubova said.

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Wall Street little changed; Obama to speak on "fiscal cliff"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Friday as investors were hesitant to make big trading bets ahead of a statement by President Obama on the progress of budget talks.

Trading has been choppy lately, as investors buy on sporadic dips in the market and react to mixed headlines out of Washington regarding discussions on averting the "fiscal cliff," spending cuts and tax hikes that will come into effect in the new year.

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to travel to a factory in Pennsylvania to press his case on raising taxes on the wealthy to narrow the deficit.

The S&P 500 was on track to end the month 0.3 percent higher, after declining nearly 2 percent in October.

"The correction from the S&P 500's September peak has allowed overbought momentum and optimistic sentiment conditions to recede, and we believe the index is closer to an intermediate-term buy signal than a sell signal," said Ari Wald, analyst at PrinceRidge Group.

After a close relationship for several years, Facebook Inc and Zynga Inc revised terms of a partnership agreement between the companies; under the new pact, Zynga will have limited ability to promote its site on Facebook.

Zynga shares were down 6.5 percent at $2.45. Facebook shares were down 0.6 percent at $27.15.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 13.89 points, or 0.11 percent, at 13,035.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.35 points, or 0.02 percent, at 1,415.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 3.20 points, or 0.11 percent, at 3,008.83.

Whole Foods Market Inc announced a special cash dividend of $2.00 per share. In expectation of higher dividend tax rates in 2013, companies have been shifting dividends or announcing special payouts to shareholders. The stock was up 1.1 percent at $94.07.

Data showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded for the first time since August, a report showed on Friday, buoyed by an improvement in the labor market.

U.S. consumer spending fell in October for the first time in five months as income growth stalled, suggesting slower economic growth in the fourth quarter.

The equity market's reaction was muted to both data.

Apple Inc's latest iPhone has received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. Shares of Apple were down 0.3 percent at $587.55.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Hacking Report Criticizes Murdoch Newspaper and British Press Standards

LONDON — The leader of a major inquiry into the standards of British newspapers triggered by the phone hacking scandal offered an excoriating critique of the press as a whole on Thursday, saying it displayed “significant and reckless disregard for accuracy,” and urged the press to form an independent regulator to be underpinned by law.

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson on Thursday with his inquiry on press standards.

Kerim Okten/European Pressphoto Agency

The British actor Hugh Grant arrived Thursday at the Queen Elizabeth II conference center in London, where Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson was scheduled to release a report on the British press.

The report singled out Rupert Murdoch’s defunct tabloid The News of the World for sharp criticism.

“Too many stories in too many newspapers were the subject of complaints from too many people with too little in the way of titles taking responsibility, or considering the consequences for the individuals involved,” the head of the inquiry, Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, said in a 46-page summary of the findings in his long-awaited, 1,987-page report published in four volumes.

“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court,” Sir Brian said, referring to what form new and tighter regulations should take. “They must now decide who guards the guardians.”

The report was published after some 337 witnesses testified in person in 9 months of hearings that sought to unravel the close ties between politicians, the press and the police, reaching into what were depicted as an opaque web of links and cross-links within the British elite as well as a catalog of murky and sometimes unlawful practices within the newspaper industry.

“This inquiry has been the most concentrated look at the press this country has ever seen,” Sir Brian said after the report was made public.

But in a first reaction, Prime Minister David Cameron resisted the report’s recommendation that a new form of press regulation should be underpinned by laws, telling lawmakers that they “should be wary” of “crossing the Rubicon” by enacting legislation with the potential to limit free speech and free expression.

Mr. Cameron’s remarks drew immediate criticism from the leader of the Labour opposition, Ed Miliband, who said Sir Brian’s proposals should be accepted in their entirety.

Mr. Cameron ordered the Leveson Inquiry in July, 2011, as the phone hacking scandal at The News of the World blossomed into broad public revulsion with reports that the newspaper had ordered the interception of voice mail messages left on the cellphone of Milly Dowler, a British teenager who was abducted in 2002 and later found murdered. Sir Brian said there had been a “failure of management and compliance” at the 168-year-old News of the World, which Mr. Murdoch closed in July, 2011, accusing it of a “general lack of respect for individual privacy and dignity.”

“It was said that The News of the World had lost its way in relation to phone hacking,” the summary said. “Its casual attitude to privacy and the lip service it paid to consent demonstrated a far more general loss of direction.”

Speaking after the report was published, Sir Brian said that while the British press held a “privileged and powerful place in our society,” its “responsibilities have simply been ignored.”

“A free press in a democracy holds power to account. But, with a few honorable exceptions, the U.K. press has not performed that vital role in the case of its own power.”

“The press needs to establish a new regulatory body which is truly independent of industry leaders and of government and politicians,” he said. “Guaranteed independence, long-term stability and genuine benefits for the industry cannot be realized without legislation,” he said, adding: “This is not and cannot reasonably or fairly be characterized as statutory regulation of the press.”

In the body of the exhaustive report, reprising at length the testimony of many of the witnesses who spoke at the hearings, the document discusses press culture and ethics; explores the press’s attitude toward the subjects of its stories; and discusses the cozy relationship between the press and the police, and the press and politicians.

John F. Burns, Sandy Lark Turner and Sandy Macaskill contributed reporting.

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RIM jumps 10 percent in Toronto trade after Goldman upgrade

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Matthew McConaughey's Extreme Weight Loss Has Caused 'Body Soreness'

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/29/2012 at 10:55 AM EST

Seen a photo of a rail-thin Matthew McConaughey recently? The actor, who has significantly slimmed down for a new movie role, says there's nothing to worry about.

"I feel fine. I really do," McConaughey, 43, tells The Daily Beast in a new interview, noting that his regime to lose nearly 40 lbs. from his 183-lb. frame was healthy, disciplined and well thought-out.

Nevertheless, that hasn't quelled chatter over the meaty matter of his dramatic weight loss for Dallas Buyers Club, in which he plays the real-life Ron Woodruff, who contracted HIV.

"I'm eating fresh fish. I'm just eating small amounts. I'm not being starved," says the actor, who also says he's sleeping well. "If anything, it's as much a spiritual journey as it is physical."

Though his body's "fine," McConaughey says, "Everything has shrunk quite a bit. ... I don't have the leverage I used to. I have body soreness. ... [But] I'm as healthy as can be. My blood pressure, everything's fine."

Getting back to his normal weight, McConaughey points out, will take special care, or else he may risk a form of diabetes.

"You can't just start eating cheeseburgers and ice cream," the actor, who just nabbed two Independent Spirit Awards for roles in Magic Mike and Bernie, says. "Your body will go into shock."

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Wall Street cuts gains on "fiscal cliff" worry

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A young model was either insane, or a calculating, quick-thinking murderer who feigned mental illness when he killed and castrated his lover, a prominent Portuguese journalist, in their New York hotel room last year, a jury heard on Wednesday. No one disputes that Renato Seabra, 22, killed Carlos Castro, 65, in January 2011. Seabra pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a charge of second degree murder, and his trial reached closing arguments at Manhattan criminal court. ...

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Bombings Are Said to Kill Dozens Near Syria’s Capital

Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Rebels celebrated on top of a downed Syrian jet in Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo, on Wednesday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Syrian state media said on Wednesday that 34 people and possibly many more had died in twin car bombings in a suburb populated by minorities only a few miles from the center of Damascus, the capital, as the civil war swirls from north to south claiming ever higher casualties. One estimate by the government’s opponents put the death toll at 47.

There were also reports from witnesses in Turkey and anti-government activists in Syria that for the second successive day insurgents had shot down a government aircraft in the north of the country, offering further evidence that the rebels are seeking a major shift by challenging the government’s dominance of the skies. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft, apparently a plane, had been brought down.

Video posted on the Internet by rebels showed wreckage with fires still burning around it. The aircraft appeared to show a tail assembly clearly visible jutting in the debris. Such videos are difficult to verify, particularly in light of the restrictions facing reporters in Syria. However, the episode on Wednesday seemed to be confirmed by other witnesses.

“We watched a Syrian plane being shot down as it was flying low to drop bombs,” said Ugur Cuneydioglu, who said he observed the incident from a Turkish border village in southern Hatay Province. “It slowly went down in flames before it hit the ground. It was quite a scene,” Mr. Cuneydioglu said.

Video posted by insurgents on the Internet showed a man in aviator coveralls being carried away. It was not clear if the man was alive but the video said he had been treated in a makeshift hospital. A voice off-camera says: “This is the pilot who was shelling residents’ houses.”

The aircraft was said to have been brought down while it was attacking the town of Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo and close to the Turkish border. The town was the scene of a mass killing last June, when the government and the rebels blamed one another for the deaths and mutilation of 25 people. The video posted online said the plane had been brought down by “the free men of Daret Azzeh soldiers of God brigade.”

On Tuesday, Syrian rebels said they shot down a military helicopter with a surface-to-air missile outside Aleppo and they uploaded video that appeared to confirm that rebels have put their growing stock of heat-seeking missiles to effective use.

In recent months, rebels have used mainly machine guns to shoot down several Syrian Air Force helicopters and fixed-wing attack jets. In Tuesday’s case, the thick smoke trailing the projectile, combined with the elevation of the aircraft, strongly suggested that the helicopter was hit by a missile.

Rebels hailed the event as the culmination of their long pursuit of effective antiaircraft weapons, though it was not clear if the downing on Tuesday was an isolated tactical success or heralded a new phase in the war that would present a meaningful challenge to the Syrian government’s air supremacy. In Damascus, the official SANA news agency said the explosions in Jaramana outside the city at around 7 a.m. were the work of “terrorists,” the word used by the authorities to denote rebel forces seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Photographs on the SANA Web site showed wreckage and flames in what looked like a narrow alleyway with cars covered in chunks of debris from damaged buildings. The agency said the bombings were in the main square of Jaramana, which news reports said is largely populated by members of the Christian and Druse minorities. Residents said the neighborhood is home to many families who have fled other parts of Syria because of the conflict and to some Palestinian families. The blasts caused “huge material damage to the residential buildings and shops,” SANA said.

The photographs on the Web site showed shattered windows at the Abou Samra coffee house and gurneys laden with injured clogging what seemed to be a hospital corridor.

SANA said two bombings in other neighborhoods caused minor damage. Activists reported that there were four explosions and said they were all “huge.”

Footage broadcast on Syria’s private Addounia channel and state television showed damage scarring gray, six-story apartment houses above tangles of wrecked cars as ambulances arrived to transport the wounded and rescuers playing fire hoses on the damage. The camera panned over bloodstained sidewalks.

The blasts seemed initially at least to shift the focus of the fighting from the north, where insurgents have claimed string of tactical breakthroughs in recent days, to areas ringing Damascus.

In the north in recent days, the insurgents also claimed to have seized air bases and a hydroelectric dam, apparently seeking both to expand their communications lines and to counter the government’s supremacy in the air.

The death toll from Wednesday’s bombings was not immediately confirmed. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, initially said that 29 people had died but revised the figure later to 47, of whom 38 had been identified. Of the 120 injured, the rebel group said, 23 people were in a serious condition, meaning that the tally could climb higher.

The explosions reflected the dramatic shift since Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 as a peaceful protest centered on the southern town of Daraa. It has since spread across the land in a full-blown civil war pitting government forces against a rebel army of Army defectors, disaffected civilians and what the authorities say are foreign jihadists.

Hala Droubi reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Seattle police plan for helicopter drones hits severe turbulence

SEATTLE (Reuters) – One of the latest crime-fighting gadgets to emerge on the wish lists of U.S. law enforcement agencies – drone aircraft – has run into heavy turbulence in Seattle over a plan by police to send miniature robot helicopters buzzing over the city.

A recent push for unmanned police aircraft in several cities is being driven largely by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including more than $ 80,000 the city of Seattle used to buy a pair of drone choppers in 2010.

But getting aerial drones off the ground has run into stiff opposition from civil libertarians and others who say the use of stealth airborne cameras by domestic law enforcement raises questions about privacy rights and the limits of police search powers.

The aircraft would never carry weapons, but the use of drones for even mundane tasks raises ire among some because of the association of pilotless crafts with covert U.S. missile strikes in places such as Pakistan and Yemen.

In Seattle last month, a community meeting where police officials presented plans to deploy their two remote-controlled helicopters erupted into yelling and angry chants of “No drones!”

“My question is simple: What’s the return policy for the drones?” said Steve Widmayer, 57, one of numerous citizens who spoke out against the unmanned aircraft. He predicted the City Council would commit “political suicide” if it backed the plan.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.

Police in Seattle, along with Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Houston, are among a handful of big-city law enforcement departments known to have acquired aerial drones. But those cities have not started operating the robot aircraft.

FEAR OF FLYING ROBOTS

In Oakland, California, this month, an Alameda County sheriff’s application for a federal grant to buy an aerial drone to help monitor unruly crowds and locate illegal marijuana farms drew opposition at a Board of Supervisors meeting.

“I do not want flying spy robots looking into my private property with infrared cameras,” Oakland resident Mary Madden said. “It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

County Board President Nate Miley said the issue would be taken up by the supervisors’ Public Protection Committee.

The two Draganflyer X6 remote-controlled miniature helicopters purchased by Seattle have so far been mostly grounded, restricted to training and demonstration flights.

Equipped to carry video, still and night-vision cameras, they can remain aloft for only 15 minutes at a time before their batteries run out, police said.

Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said the aircraft would not be used in Seattle for surveillance or for monitoring street protests. Instead, his department’s plans to deploy drones to search for missing persons, pursue fleeing suspects, assist in criminal investigations and for unspecified “specific situations” subject to McDonagh’s approval.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.

Months ago in Texas, Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office raised eyebrows by saying he hoped to equip his department’s drones with rubber bullets and tear gas, though he told Reuters his thinking on armed aircraft has since evolved.

“From a law enforcement standpoint, that’s never going to happen,” he said. McDaniel said his office received Federal Aviation Administration clearance earlier this month to begin operational drone flights but has not yet had occasion to do so.

Actual U.S. domestic use of law-enforcement drone aircraft remains extremely limited.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado has been operating two small drones, also bought with Homeland Security funds, since 2010.

It uses them largely to create three-dimensional images of crime scenes, said Benjamin Miller, director of the department’s drone program. They are not used for surveillance, he said.

In North Dakota, the Grand Forks police department last year called in a high-flying Predator drone operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to monitor a tense standoff with a rancher over alleged stolen cattle.

The rancher, Rodney Brossart, and five family members are believed to be the first Americans nabbed by police with drone assistance – with the possible exception of operations along the southwest border with Mexico.

The use of drones there by the Customs and Border Protection agency – a part of Homeland Security – led to 7,500 arrests and the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs up to the end of last year.

The nationality of those arrested in drone assisted operations in the borderlands is not clear, nor is if Customs and Border Protection partnered with local forces in any of those arrests.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Jackie Frank)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Christina Aguilera Faces Major Blow on The Voice

TV Watch

The Voice

By Julia Haskins

11/28/2012 at 10:30 AM EST

Dez Duron and Christina Aguilera (inset)

Tyler Golden/NBC (2)

Monday night on The Voice, the coaches were confident, but some of the contestants were seeing green.

After Amanda Brown and Trevin Hunte opened with Lady Gaga's "Marry the Night," the first save was revealed. An ecstatic Cassadee Pope from Team Blake celebrated her win, before Cee Lo Green treated viewers to another surprise – a duet with Kermit the Frog to the signature Muppet tune, "Bein' Green."

Voters also rescued Team Adam's Amanda Brown. After reveling in her victory, Melanie Martinez, Nicholas David, Terry McDermott and Bryan Keith joined her for a rendition of Plain White T's "Rhythm of Love."

Then Team Adam's Melanie Martinez got the good news she was safe for another night, followed by Cassadee Pope and Dez Duron's singing Rihanna's "Hate That I Love You." Team Cee Lo's Nicholas David then found out that he still has a spot on the show.

But with room for only two more singers, Team Cee Lo's Cody Belew said goodbye to The Voice, along with Team Christina's last remaining member, Dez Duron.

"You will always be on Team Xtina, and I will always support you," Aguilera told him.

Trevin Hunte and Terry McDermott rounded out the top six, which means they'll be performing again on Monday's show.

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