Archive for July 19th, 2010

Ontario to drop eco fee: report

Some products, like batteries and hand sanitizers, were under the lash to the eco feud. (Pras Rajagopalan/CBC)

The Ontario government have a mind scrap its controversial eco fee adhering Tuesday in a order to moderate consumer confusion and baffling from major retailers.

Government sources relate The Canadian Press that Environment Minister John Gerretsen will announce that the fees retailers started charging attached thousands of new products on July 1 will be eliminated.

A original says a waste-diversion program will prolong though.

Canadian Tire announced Monday that customers wouldn’t be charged eco fees starting Tuesday.

The company says the program is too complex and was mishandled by both commonwealth and businesses.

The powers that be gave Stewardship Ontario the host to collect fees to stock a recycling program that diverts potentially hazardous items — such as fire extinguishers, household cleaners and paint — from Ontario’session landfills.

But there was no public warning that the eco fee, that was introduced in 2008, would be slapped upon thousands of new items this month.

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Anti-HIV gel protects women: study

A vaginal gel cut of the HIV put drugs into tenofovir can reduce a woman’s chances of being infected through the virus by means of dint of. a male sexual partner, the results of a South African clinical tribulation put in mind of.

“Tenofovir gel could fill an important HIV prevention gap by empowering women who are unable to fortunately treat for mutual faithfulness or condom use with their masculine partners,” said Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, co-principal investigator of the double-blind, randomized control trial, in a news release Monday.

Karim is companion director of the Centre in quest of the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and join professor of epidemiology at Columbia University in New York.

“This strange technology has the potential to alter the course of the HIV prevalent, especially in southern Africa where young women hold up the brunt of this devastating disease,” Karim said.

The results need to exist confirmed.

Results of the South African trial are being presented at the International AIDS Conference currently infectious place in Vienna and appear in Monday’s online issue of the journal Science.

For the effort, about 445 women believed the tenofovir gel, and 444 received a placebo gel. The women were told to use it 12 hours before sex and as soon as possible not more than 12 hours thereafter.

All participants were assayed for HIV at monthly follow-up visits, at that they also received reproductive freedom from disease services, such as pregnancy tests, and HIV prevention services, including pre- and post-test counseling, HIV risk-reduction counseling, condoms and treatment for other sexually transmitted infections.

Adherence questions

At the period of the study, there were 38 HIV infections amidst the microbicide group compared by 60 in the other group.

About 40 per cent of the women in the trial had below 50 per cent tenacity, that points to a need to enhance and objectively measure for what reason closely women followed instructions about using the gel, the think respecting’sitting authors said.

Mild diarrhea was slightly more common among those using the gel.

The effectiveness of the gel seemed to decline after 18 months, which needs to subsist investigated further, the researchers said.

The gel is not turn to account commercially. It was made against this and not the same ongoing investigation by California-based Gilead Sciences Inc., which sells tenofovir as a pill.

Gilead has licensed the rights to produce the gel royalty-free in the world’session 95 poorest countries, reported Dr. Howard Jaffe, president of the Gilead Foundation, the company’session philanthropic arm.

The application of mind was sponsored through CAPRISA; Family Health International; CONRAD, an AIDS research effort based at Eastern Virginia Medical School; and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

With files from The Associated Press

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Conrad Black gets bail

Media baron Conrad Black has won release on surety pending a review of his refutation through regard to fraud by each appeal court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals has issued an instruction granting security, nevertheless it’s not clear yet at what time Black will have being released.

Convicted newspaper mogul Conrad Black has won bail, but when he resoluteness be released from jail isn’familiarily clear yet. (M. Spencer Green/Associated Press)

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago will have to assign the terms of the bail. Black applied for release on July 6.

Lawyers for the Montreal-born Black argued that he should have being released immediately in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late June that set aside his fraud convictions.

“Mr. Black has been in guardianship in opposition to outer two years,” his lawyer, Miguel Estrada, declared at the time in a 26-page filing with the court.

“The additional time he spends in prison between now and a favourable ruling can none be returned to him. Mr. Black should exist granted acquittance pending appeal,” Estrada argued.

America’session top princely retinue set aside his wile convictions in June, but Black’session persuasion for obstruction of judge remains in stronghold.

The seek reference of the case court mould next decide whether to overturn his fraud convictions in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The 7th Circuit Court is the like one that first denied Black’sitting request on account of surety in 2007 after he was convicted, together with three other Hollinger executives, of defrauding $6.1 million US from the company.

He was originally accused of pilfering more than $60 million US.

With files from The Canadian Press

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Arctic research linked to sovereignty push

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Zsa Zsa Gabor surgery reported successful

Zsa Zsa Gabor, seen in a courtroom in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 1990, underwent haunch re-establishment surgery after a weekend going astray. (Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press)Former actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor has emerged from a successful hip-replacement proceeding after inconvenience a become less at her Bel Air home excessively the weekend.

Gabor, 93, is recovering from a 3½-hour surgery at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to her husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt. Von Anhalt, Gabor’s ninth husband, said in that place were not any problems during the force and the surgeon was happy with the outcome.

According to her publicist, John Blanchette, Gabor was watching television Saturday darkness at her home in the wealthy Los Angeles neighbourhood, and fell when she reached to answer a telephone call.

Gabor has been partially paralyzed since 2002, when she was the tourist in a car that struck a telephone pole.

Born in Hungary, the former particular excellence queen’session acting credits include dozens of films, similar as 1952’sitting Moulin Rouge, and a small in number stage roles. Later, she ofttimes appeared in cameos portraying herself, as in films like Pepe, The Naked Gun 2 1/2 and TV shows of the like kind as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Along with her late sister Eva, who starred in the TV series Green Acres, Gabor became renowned for her high-profile marriages and posh lifestyle. She moreover made headlines in 1990 after being found guilty of assault for slapping a police officer when stopped for a trade constupration.

Gabor has one daughter, actress Constance Francesca Hilton, from her transitory second marriage to hotel mogul Conrad Hilton.

With files from The Associated Press

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