US Govt sees overhaul of AIDS vaccine effort

BETHESDA, Md, Mar 26: The US Government began a major overhaul of its effort to produce an AIDS vaccine, stressing a return to basic scientific research after the failure of a key clinical trial last year.

Government officials at a summit with AIDS scientists pledged to prioritize spending on lab work and animal tests rather than expensive, and thus far disappointing, large-scale vaccine trials on humans.

''We need to turn the knob in the direction of discovery. That is unambiguous,'' said Dr Anthony Fauci yesterday, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who convened the meeting outside of Washington.

''We really do need new and novel ideas.''

The vaccine summit follows the failure last year of an experimental HIV vaccine developed by Merck & Co <MRK.N> which had been widely touted as one of the best hopes in the field.

Clinical trials, however, indicated the vaccine candidate did not protect against infection with the AIDS virus and might even have made recipients more susceptible, although how is not exactly clear.

Scientists said the surprising outcome of the Merck trials demonstrated how little HIV is understood after more than two decades of intensive research.

''Despite hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, the reality is that in 2008 an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine is beyond our grasp,'' said Warner Greene, a co-chair of the summit and professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.

''There is no question in my mind that the HIV vaccine effort is in need of a major mid-course correction.''

Fauci suggested the overall AIDS research budget at his institute, now about 1.5 billion dollars, could tilt more in favor of basic laboratory work rather than vaccine product development, which currently accounts for about a third of spending.

''We really need to seriously look at torquing that balance more to answering some of the fundamental questions that we don't have answers to,'' he said.

The new funding initiative is expected to begin within months and will focus on both broader, more imaginative research and on encouraging younger scientists to begin cracking HIV's mysteries, Fauci said, adding that all projects were being examined.

''Everything is on the table,'' he said.

Nearly 30 potential AIDS vaccines are being tested on people around the world, and advocates argue that ultimately an effective vaccine would be the best way to stop a virus that still infects some 12,000 people every day. Globally, AIDS has killed about 25 million people.

Some AIDS advocacy groups have criticized US spending on the vaccine effort. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation this week said suspending US funding for a vaccine and investing in strategies that save lives and stop new infections would be the wisest and most effective use of limited public resources.

Fauci said any suggestion that the overall AIDS vaccine project would stop was off the mark.

''Under no circumstances will we stop AIDS vaccine research. Not only will we not cut it, wherever possible we will increase it,'' he said.

(AGENCIES)

Aid agencies urge world not to forget Somali crisis

NAIROBI, Mar 26: Forty aid agencies urged the world on Wednesday to focus attention on Somalia's ''catastrophic'' humanitarian crisis where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from war, drought and food shortages.

Their statement, issued by Oxfam, said Somalia now had one million internal refugees, their numbers swelled by an exodus of 20,000 a month from Mogadishu, where Islamist insurgents are fighting the Ethiopian-backed government.

Record high food prices, hyper-inflation and drought across the Horn of Africa nation were exacerbating the situation and will worsen if seasonal rains due from April fail as predicted.

''The crisis engulfing Somalia has deteriorated dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease,'' the agencies said, citing attacks on aid workers and looting of supplies.

Foreign aid workers are increasingly frustrated at the lack of attention to Somalia, which has suffered 17 years of near-incessant conflict since warlords toppled former military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre.

In Africa, the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region has overshadowed Somalia, even though some UN officials say the humanitarian situation may be worse in Somalia.

''For too long, the needs of ordinary Somalis have been forgotten,'' the agencies added.

''(We) ask the international community and all parties to the conflict to urgently focus their attention on the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Somalia.''

The 250,000 people camped in a small corridor between Mogadishu and Afgoye to the west are now considered the largest group of internally displaced people in the world, the statement said.

''According to (UN children's agency) UNICEF Somalia is the worst place in the world for children. Approximately one in seven children under the age of five in Somalia are acutely malnourished,'' it added.

(AGENCIES)

Gay Palestinian gets OK to live with Israeli lover

JERUSALEM, Mar 26: Israel has granted a Palestinian a rare residency permit after the man, who is gay, said his sexuality put his life in danger in the West Bank, a Defence Ministry official said.

The 33-year-old Palestinian from Jenin was issued a temporary permit to live with his Israeli partner in Tel Aviv after arguing he faced death threats from fellow Palestinians who disapproved of him being gay, the official said yesterday.

Israel's Interior Ministry rarely issues permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who want to live with their partners in Israel, regardless of sexuality. Requesting such a permit can take years.

''In this case the man's lawyer said his life was in danger because of his sexual preference,'' said Peter Lerner, spokesman for Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, whose office comes under the defence ministry.

''On this basis we issued the temporary permit,'' he said.

But while homosexuality is largely taboo in conservative and majority Muslim West Bank cities, one rights groups working with Palestinian gays said there had been few reports of physical violence in recent years.

However Palestinians are wary of collaborators and Rauda Morcos, director of Aswat support group for Palestinian lesbians, said this suspicion was directed at gay men and women.

Morcos said Palestinian gays were sometimes targeted by the Israeli secret service and told they must collaborate or face being outed.

While homosexuality is more widely accepted in Israel, some sections of society such as ultra-Orthodox Jews are strident opponents of gay rights and some religious Jews threatened violence during last year's Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem.

Lerner said the man, whom he could not name, would still need eventual approval from the Interior Ministry to stay in Israel on a permanent basis.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said on its website the Palestinian man had been asking for permission to live with his Israeli lover, a computer engineer in his 40s for five years. They have been together for 8 years, the paper said. (AGENCIES)

James and Elizabeth voted names for success

EDINBURGH, Mar 26: What's in a name? William Shakespeare asked in his love tragedy Romeo and Juliet.

Success, luck and attractiveness, a survey by an English psychology professor suggests more than 400 years later.

Richard Wiseman, psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire, said yesterday an online survey of 6,686 people in Britain voted James and then Richard as the names most likely to bring success -- along with Elizabeth and Caroline for girls.

Jack and Chris respectively were the luckiest names for males and Lucy and Katie for females, while Ryan followed by James got the vote for attractiveness for men and Sophie and Rachel for women.

Asked about the validity of the survey, released at the week-long Edinburgh Science Festival yesterday, Wiseman told Reuters: ''I think it's pretty valid. It's over 6,000 people and the effects are very strong, the difference between the top names and the bottom names are very, very striking, so I think there's something going on.''

The least successful names for men were Ryan and Brian and for women Lucy and Lisa.

The unluckiest names for males were Thomas and John and for females Elisabeth followed by Helen.

At the bottom of the attractiveness survey came Thomas and George for men and Jane and Ann for women.

Wiseman, author of ''Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Life'' said the survey followed a similar look at surnames, where people with surnames starting with letters at the beginning of the alphabet were thought more likely to do better than those with letters at the end.

What about his own name? He said he was pleased that Richard rated high among given names, while with the surname Wiseman ''I think I was destined to be an academic.'' (AGENCIES)

Dispute drags on over a name for Macedonia

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26: A UN envoy handed Greece and Macedonia fresh proposals on an agreed name for Macedonia but there was no immediate end to a dispute that could delay Skopje joining NATO and the European Union.

''The positions of the two governments are still different. There isn't a meeting of the minds on what a name would be,'' envoy Matthew Nimetz said yesterday after talks with Greek ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis and Macedonia's Nikola Dimitrov.

''I used the opportunity to give my views to the parties and outline what I thought a reasonable solution would be,'' Nimetz told reporters, declining to detail his proposals.

Pressure to resolve the 17-year-old dispute has intensified recently because Macedonia wants to join NATO. Greece has threatened to veto the move unless Macedonia changes its name, which is the same as Greece's northernmost province.

Diplomats say the solutions proposed involve Macedonia, which adopted that name when it became independent in 1991 following the breakup of Yugoslavia, using different names in different contexts.

Last week, Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki and Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni said they would study new ideas to resolve the row put forward at talks in Brussels hosted by US Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried.

Macedonia hopes for a solution in time for an April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest to invite it to join the 26-member military alliance alongside Croatia and Albania, whose invitations were agreed in principle in March.

NATO and the EU are eager to see a solution to the row for the sake of stability in the Balkans.

''Both governments have a very strong desire to resolve this issue,'' Nimetz said.

''I think what I suggested to the parties is fair, I think it's honorable, I think it has a geographic dimension and I very much hope that both governments look at it seriously ... Hopefully it can be a basis of a settlement.''

Skopje uses the name Macedonia in bilateral ties with the United States, Russia, China and Canada but at the United Nations it is called ''The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.'' NATO and the EU also use the acronym FYROM.

Nimetz said there was no time limit for a response from Athens and Skopje. NATO diplomats have said they expect the issue to go down to the wire in Bucharest, and possibly be resolved after the opening dinner on April 2.

One NATO diplomat said last week a fall-back option being considered was to give Macedonia a conditional NATO invitation, making clear that ratification of its accession would be subject to prior resolution of the name issue.

Macedonia has been hoping for a green light later this year to open EU membership negotiations.

(AGENCIES)

Clinton calls Bosnia sniper fire story a mistake

GREENSBURG, PA, Mar 26: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she made a mistake when she claimed she had come under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady.

In a speech in Washington and in several interviews last week Clinton described how she and her daughter, Chelsea, ran for cover under hostile fire shortly after her plane landed in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Several news outlets disputed the claim and a video of the trip, showed Clinton walking from the plane, accompanied by her daughter. They were greeted by a young girl in a small ceremony on the tarmac and there was no sign of tension or any danger.

''I did make a mistake in talking about it, you know, the last time and recently,'' Clinton told reporters in Pennsylvania yesterday where she was campaigning before the state's April 22 primary. She said she had a ''different memory'' about the landing.

''So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human, which, you know, for some people, is a revelation.''

''This is really about what policy experience we have and who's ready to be commander in chief. And I'm happy to put my experience up against Senator Obama's any day.''

Democratic rival Barack Obama's campaign accused Clinton, a New York senator, of mischaracterizing the Bosnia trip and overstating her foreign policy experience, particularly during the eight years when her husband, Bill Clinton, was president.

In a speech in Washington on March 17 Clinton said of the Bosnia trip: ''I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.''

She also told CNN last week: ''There was no greeting ceremony and we were basically told to run to our cars. Now that is what happened.''

Turning to a subject that has dogged Obama, Clinton said she would not have remained a member of his Chicago church where the pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made inflammatory comments about racism and the September 11, 2001 attacks.

''We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend,'' she said. ''Given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor.''

Clinton had previously deflected questions about the topic, saying they should be posed to Obama, who gave an emotional speech last week rejecting Wright's remarks and urging Americans to move past their ''racial stalemate.''

A spokesman for Obama, a senator from Illinois, said Clinton was simply trying to change the subject from the Bosnia story.

''After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it's disappointing to see Hillary Clinton's campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia,'' spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

''The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor's offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech.''

Wright, who retired recently, has railed that the Sept 11 attacks were retribution for aggressive U.S. Foreign policy, called the government the source of the AIDS virus and expressed anger over what he called racist America. (AGENCIES)

Crane accident at Miami condo construction site kills two

MIAMI, Mar 26: Part of a construction crane plummeted 30 floors at the site of a high-rise condominium, smashing into a home that the contractor used for storage and killing two workers, police has said.

Five workers were injured, including one in critical condition, in the mishap yesterday, officials said. The other four had injuries not considered life-threatening.

One of those killed died inside the house, and the other died at a hospital, police spokesman Delrish Moss said.

The crane's main vertical section was intact, but the part that fell was a 20-foot section that workers had been raising to extend the equipment's reach, Miami fire spokesman Ignatius Carroll said. It fell 30 floors and smashed through the home's Spanish-tiled roof.

Authorities were checking employee logs to make sure no workers were missing. But an initial survey by rescue workers and dogs found no evidence of victims trapped at the site of the 40-plus-story luxury condo tower on Biscayne Bay, Moss said.

Fire officials said rescue efforts were hampered because the crane remained unstable.

David Martinez, 31, a pipe fitter, was on the fourth floor of the condo tower eating lunch when the crash occurred.

"It was like a small earthquake," he said. "We looked outside, and we couldn't even see." It took several minutes for the dust to clear, Martinez said.

The two-story house that was damaged was used in the movie "There's Something About Mary," Carroll said.

Mary Costello, a senior vice president for Bovis Lend Lease Holdings Inc, which was managing the construction, said the accident occurred when a subcontractor tried to raise the crane section and it came loose. The company is cooperating with investigators, she said. (AGENCIES)

HK to reopen schools next week, flu virus unchanged

HONG KONG, Mar 26: Hong Kong will resume classes for schoolchildren next week after scientists confirmed that seasonal flu viruses circulating in the city had not mutated to become more vicious, public health officials said today.

The outbreak had no links to H5N1 bird flu, but the decision to shut schools brought back memories of 2003, when an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) hit Hong Kong.

''After virological analyses, we found that the viruses had not mutated. They are the same viruses that are prevalent this season, the genes are the same and there is no sign to say this is a (more) vicious virus,'' Thomas Tsang, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, told a news conference.

Hong Kong shut elementary schools for two weeks in mid-March to contain a seasonal influenza outbreak after two children who contracted the flu died.

But experts later said they found no evidence that the children had been infected by virus strains that were more virulent or aggressive, which opened up the possibility that their deaths might have been linked to other causes.

''Six students had severe complications resulting from flu in the last two weeks ... The figure is more or less average and it goes to prove we are not seeing (a rise in) serious admission cases because of the flu season, so we are confident we can resume classes on 31st of March,'' Tsang said.

(AGENCIES)

Thai temples flooded with pets after viral outbreak

BANGKOK, Mar 26: Buddhist temples in central Thailand have been flooded with abandoned cats and dogs after an outbreak of feline and canine distemper killed hundreds of pets in the past month, newspapers reported today.

One temple in the rice growing province of Phichit, 350 km north of Bangkok, had to put up a sign asking pet owners to stop ''supplying'' the monastery with cats and dogs.

''Wat Bung has enough of cats and dogs,'' said a sign at the monastery posted on newspaper Web site www.Manager.Co.Th.

''We prefer bricks, stones, sand, cement or paint,'' for construction in the temple, it said.

Each of the 50 monks' living quarters is shared by two to five cats, the Bangkok Post newspaper quoted a monk at the temple, where chicken owners abandoned their birds when the province was hit by a deadly bird flu outbreak, as saying.

The panic prompt cat-loving Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and other state agencies to urge people to take their pets back from the temples and have them vaccinated.

''Don't worry. The vets say they are hit by cat measles or cat flu,'' Samak told reporters. ''It didn't bother me when six of my cats died at one time.''

Temples remain community centres in predominantly Buddhist Thailand and people make donation to monks or temples hoping the good deeds will bring them a better next life.

''Those who abandon their pets at the temples are giving themselves sin, not merit,'' a senior official at the National Buddhism Office was quoted in the Thai Rath daily as saying. (AGENCIES)

UN team evaluates situation in Albania

NEW YORK, Mar 26: A United Nations team is carrying out a rapid evaluation this weekend of the situation in Albania in the aftermath of deadly explosions which forced thousands of people to evacuate Gerdec.

The seven-member team of the UN Disaster and Assessment Coordination (UNDAC) which arrived in Tirana, earlier this week, is reviewing the situation in Albania, where a series of explosions at a military ammunition depot have killed 21 people.

Albania has sought UN help to identify priority needs and coordinate their response to the explosions, which occurred on March 15 during an ongoing programme to destroy old military ordnance at a depot in the village of Gerdec.

Government figures indicate that 4,000 people have had to be evacuated from a wide area around Gerdec, which is located about 15 kilometers west of Tirana. As of last Thursday, 408 homes were reported to have been destroyed and over 3,700 others were heavily or partially damaged.

The situation is complicated by the thousands of artillery shells, mortar shells, grenades and small arms ammunition that now litter the area for up to five kilometers around the depot. (PTI)

Chimps also gamble

LONDON, Mar 26: Adding to the growing list of human-like behaviour seen in chimpanzees, it has emerged that they are risk takers and gamblers.

When given the choice between a safe bet and a high-risk and highstakes option, chimps will always choose the latter, a study revealed

The apes, who share 98 per cent of their DNA with humans, are the only member of the animal kingdom prepared to gamble.

The study, led by Dr Sarah Heilbronner of Duke University, North Carolina, compared the gambling habits of a group of chimps with their relatives, bonobos or pygmy chimps.

Although both species feed heavily on fruit, bonobos have a more predictable supply of food and eat more ground-based vegetation.

Common chimps, in contrast, have less stable food supplies and are forced to take risks.

The authors said, ''Because chimpanzees exploit riskier food sources in the wild, we predicted that they would exhibit greater tolerance for risk in choices about food.''

''Results confirmed this prediction-- chimpanzees significantly preferred the risky option, whereas bonobos preferred the fixed option,'' they added.

Previous studies have shown that chimps use tools to gather food, are better at memory puzzles than students and leave notes to each other in the forest using leaves and twigs. (UNI)

Slab of Antarctic ice shelf collapses amid warming

WASHINGTON, Mar 26: Satellite images show that a large hunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf has started to collapse in a fast-warming region of the continent, scientists said.

The area of collapse measured about 160 square miles (415 square km) of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, according to satellite imagery from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice that spans about 5,000 square miles and is located on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula about 1,000 miles south of South America.

''Block after block of ice is just tumbling and crumbling into the ocean,'' Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

''The shelf is not just cracking off and a piece goes drifting away, but totally shattering. These kinds of events, we don't see them very often. But we want to understand them better because these are the things that lead to a complete loss of the ice shelf,'' Scambos added.

Scambos said a large part of the ice shelf is now supported by only a thin strip of ice. This last ''ice buttress'' could collapse and about half the total ice shelf area could be lost in the next few years, Scambos added.

British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan said in a statement: ''This shelf is hanging by a thread.''

''One corner of it that's exposed to the ocean is shattering in a pattern that we've seen in a few places over the past 10 or 15 years. In every case, we've eventually concluded that it's a result of climate warming,'' Scambos added.

Satellite images showing the collapse began on Feb 28, as a large iceberg measuring 25.5 by 1.5 miles fell away from the ice shelf's southwestern front leading to a runaway disintegration of the shelf interior, Scambos said.

A plane also was sent over the area to get photographs of the shelf as it was disintegrating, he added.

Scambos said this ice shelf has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a breakup. In the past half century, the Antarctic Peninsula has witnessed a warming as fast as anywhere on the planet, according to scientists.

''The warming that's going on in the peninsula is pretty clearly tied to greenhouse gas increases and the change that they have in the atmospheric circulation around the Antarctic,'' Scambos said.

With Antarctica's summer melt season coming to an end, the he said he does not expect the ice shelf to disintegrate further immediately, but come January scientists will be watching to see if it continues to fall apart. (AGENCIES)