U.N. says an end to AIDS in sight

LONDON (Reuters) – A United Nations report said on Tuesday that eradicating AIDS was in sight, owing to better access to drugs that can both treat and prevent the incurable human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the disease.

An aim to eventually end the worldwide AIDS epidemic is not “merely visionary” but “entirely feasible”, the report said.

Success in fighting the disease in the past decade has allowed the “foundation to be laid for the eventual end of AIDS” by cutting the death toll and helping stabilize the number of people infected in the pandemic, UNAIDS said its annual report.

Some 34 million people had HIV at the end of 2011.

Worldwide, the number of people newly infected with the disease, which can be transmitted via blood and by semen during sex, is falling. At 2.5 million, the number of new infections in 2011 was 20 percent lower than in 2001.

Deaths from AIDS fell to 1.7 million in 2011, down from a peak of 2.3 million in 2005 and from 1.8 million in 2010.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the most severely affected region with almost one in every 20 adults infected, nearly 25 times the rate in Asia, there are also almost 5 million people with HIV in South, South-East and East Asia combined.

“Although AIDS remains one of the world’s most serious health challenges, global solidarity in the AIDS response during the past decade continues to generate extraordinary health gains,” the report said.

It said this was due to “historic success” in bringing HIV programs to scale, combined with the emergence of new combination drugs to prevent people from becoming HIV infected and from dying from AIDS.

Since 1995, AIDS drug treatment – known as antiretroviral therapy – has saved 14 million life-years in poorer countries, including 9 million in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.

Some 8 million people were being treated with AIDS drugs by the end of 2011, a 20-fold increase since 2003. The U.N. has set a target to raise that to 15 million people by 2015.

Scientific studies published in recent years have shown that getting timely treatment to those with HIV can also cut the number of people who become newly infected with the virus.

UNAIDS said the sharpest declines in new HIV infections since 2001 were in the Caribbean and in sub-Saharan Africa – where new infections were down 25 percent in a decade.

Despite this, sub-Saharan Africa still accounted for 71 percent of people newly infected in 2011, underscoring the need to boost HIV prevention efforts in the region, UNAIDS said.

HIV trends are a concern in other regions also, it said.

Since 2001, the number of new HIV infections in the Middle East and North Africa was up more than 35 percent from 27,000 to 37,000, it said, and evidence suggests HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia began increasing in the late 2000s after being relatively stable for several years.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Downgraded France says it needs more time

PARIS (AP) — France‘s government has shrugged off the latest downgrade of its credit rating, saying Tuesday that it just needs time for reforms to the sluggish economy to take root.

In a setback for President Francois Hollande‘s Socialist government, Moody’s Investors Service stripped Europe‘s No. 2 economy of it of its prized AAA credit rating late Monday on concerns that its rigid labor market and exposure to Europe’s financial crisis were threatening its prospects for economic growth.

This is the second ratings downgrade to have hit France this year: Standard & Poor’s agency lowered its score in January. The third leading agency, Fitch, still ranks France at AAA-rating but has had it on review for a downgrade since late last year.

But Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici insisted that France’s credibility remains strong and that the government‘s plan to reduce unemployment and restore growth would bear fruit.

France has come under scrutiny as its €2 trillion ($ 2.5 trillion) economy has stagnated, with many leading French companies laying off workers. Meanwhile Hollande has struggled to reassure economists that his attempts to revive the French economy will be successful.

Hollande’s government has laid out a series of deficit-reduction targets, vowing to bring it in line with European rules next year. It has also unveiled a plan to improve the competitiveness of its economy, by giving companies €20 billion ($ 25 billion) in tax rebates, reducing red tape for businesses, and providing small companies with extra support to compete abroad.

However, many economists say that the greatest threat to France’s economy is its stringent labor rules, which make firing difficult and expensive and thus deter hiring. The country has been losing global business for years to more dynamic economies like China‘s, while fighting unemployment of 10.8 percent and concerns about the future of the eurozone.

The French government is currently leading negotiations between businesses and unions in the hopes of reforming labor rules by the end of the year.

Moscovici pleaded for time Tuesday, saying the government was convinced it was on the right path but that its reforms just need to take effect.

“It takes time to reverse the flow of things. It takes courageous decisions, and that’s what we’re promising to do,” he told reporters.

To the ratings agencies, critics and investors, he said: “Judge us on our results.”

Trouble for France would mean wider trouble for Europe. France and Germany, which underpin the group of 17 European Union countries that use the euro, have taken the lead in finding solutions to Europe’s debt crisis. Any slip in France’s clout could endanger its ability to lead negotiations.

He also insisted that relations with Germany remained strong. There have been reports recently that Germany is concerned about the health of the French economy.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble seemed unconcerned about the downgrade.

“We have received the news that, overnight, our most important partner got a little admonition from a rating agency,” Schaeuble said in the German Parliament. “The rating for France is still very stable, so that we avoid any dramatization.”

Moody’s itself said that the rating remains so high — now Aa1, just a notch below triple-A —because of the size of the French economy and the government’s commitment to make structural reforms. It kept the rating’s outlook at negative, meaning it could face future downgrades.

The downgrade, like S&P’s before it, appeared to be having a limited effect on France’s borrowing costs. The yield, or interest rate, on the benchmark 10-year bond was up 0.04 percentage points to 2 percent on Tuesday afternoon. Germany’s was up the same rate to 1.39 percent.

Moscovici said he expected the country to continue to be able to borrow at those historically low rates because of the seriousness of its reform package.

___

Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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U.S. fiscal impact of great concern to Canada: Canada’s Harper

TORONTO (Reuters) – Any fiscal problems that would significantly slow the U.S. economy would be of great concern to Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday.

The United States needed a credible medium-term fiscal plan, Harper said at a business forum in Ottawa, adding that he was following the U.S. fiscal debate with “great interest.”

(Reporting by Solarina Ho)

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Wii U Launch Day: Everything You Need to Know

For Nintendo fans, the big day has arrived. Nintendo‘s newest console, the Wii U, began selling at midnight on Sunday morning across the United States.

[More from Mashable: Meet the Super Fan Who Waited in Line for a Month for a Wii U [VIDEO]]

The Wii U boasts high definition graphics and an innovative, new tablet controller called the GamePad. The GamePad can act as a second screen, either mirroring or displaying asynchronous content from the console. The GamePad can also function without the television even turned on.

Nintendo hosted a launch event at its Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center in New York on Saturday night. Some fans had been lined up for a week or longer to pick up a console, and as the countdown ticked down to midnight, the line wrapped around the building. The event was attended by Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Amie, who addressed the crowd, as well as other Nintendo executives.

[More from Mashable: Marijuana Vending Machine Maker’s Stock Skyrockets and Everybody Freaks Out]

But demand for the console may not reach the insatiable levels of the 2006′s Wii launch, which sold out in stores across the country preceding the holidays. At 11:30 a.m., a Nintendo World employee said they still had consoles in stock, though there was a line of 30 people outside. Mashable was able to pick up a Wii U in a Brooklyn Target with no lines at 9:30 a.m.

We collected peoples’ photos and tweets of their experiences waiting in line across the country with Storify.

We want to hear your stories. Are you picking up a Wii U today? Drop a note in the comments or tweet a picture with the hashtag #wiiulines.

Assassin’s Creed III

A version of the latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga, a week after it was released on other console.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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One in 20 youth has used steroids to bulk up: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – About five percent of middle and high school students have used anabolic steroids to put on muscle, according to a new study from Minnesota.

In addition to steroid use, more than one-third of boys and one-fifth of girls in the study said they had used protein powder or shakes to gain muscle mass, and between five and 10 percent used non-steroid muscle-enhancing substances, such as creatine.

Researchers said a more muscular body ideal in the media may be one factor driving teens to do anything possible to get toned, as well as pressure to perform in sports.

“Really the pressure to start using (steroids) is in high school,” said Dr. Linn Goldberg, from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

“You get the influence of older teens in high school, so when you’re a 14-year-old that comes in, you have 17-year-olds who are the seniors, and they can have great influence as you progress into the next stage of your athletic career.”

The new data came from close to 2,800 kids and teens at 20 different middle and high schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. During the 2009-2010 school year, those students completed a survey on food and weight-related behaviors, including activities tied to muscle gain.

The majority of kids surveyed were poor or middle-class.

Almost all of them had engaged in at least one muscle-building activity in the past year, most often working out more to get stronger. But up to one-third of kids and teens used what the researchers deemed to be unhealthy means to gain muscle mass, including taking steroids and other muscle-building substances or overdoing it on protein shakes, dieting and weight-lifting.

Student-athletes were more likely than their peers to use most methods of muscle-building. Steroid use, however, was equally common among athletes and non-athletes.

According to findings published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Asian students were three to four times more likely to have used steroids in the past year than white students. Most Asians in the study were Hmong, lead researcher Marla Eisenberg from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and her colleagues noted.

Their study shows higher adolescent use of steroids and other muscle-boosting substances than most other recent research and “is cause for concern,” according to the researchers. But it’s not clear whether the findings would apply to an area outside of the Twin Cities, or among wealthier students, they noted.

ROID RAGE?

Anabolic steroids are synthetic versions of testosterone, the male sex hormone. Steroids are prescribed legally to treat conditions involving hormone deficiency or muscle loss, but when they’re used for non-medical purposes, it’s typically at much higher doses, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In those cases, steroids can cause mood swings – sometimes known as roid rage – and for adolescents, stunted growth and accelerated puberty.

Anabolic steroids have become pervasive in professional sports, including baseball, football and boxing. (Another example of performance-enhancing drug use is “blood doping” with erythropoietin or EPO, which is behind the Lance Armstrong cycling controversy that caused him to be stripped of his Tour de France titles last month.)

Experts have worried that the drive to get ahead of competitors at any cost could trickle down to college and high school athletes, as well.

Goldberg, co-developer of the ATLAS and ATHENA programs to prevent steroid and other substance use on high school teams, said it’s important to give teens healthier alternatives to build muscle.

“I would stay away from all supplements, because you don’t know what’s in them,” Goldberg, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

“What’s important is to teach kids how to eat correctly,” he said. Goldberg said getting enough protein through food, eating breakfast and avoiding muscle toxins like alcohol and marijuana can all help young athletes get stronger without shakes or supplements.

Eisenberg’s team did not find clustering of steroid use and other muscle-enhancing behaviors within particular schools.

“Rather than being driven by a particular school sports team coach or other features of a school’s social landscape, this diffusion suggests that muscle-enhancing behaviors are widespread and influenced by factors beyond school, likely encompassing social and cultural variables such as media messages and social norms of behavior more broadly,” the researchers wrote.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/jsoh2P Pediatrics, online November 19, 2012.

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SAS near deal to avoid bankruptcy

19 November 2012 Last updated at 08:16 ET

The troubled Scandinavian airline SAS has said it is close to reaching a deal with trade unions needed to avoid bankruptcy, following all-night talks.

Owners and creditors of the airline have a plan to cut costs and jobs, but it needs approval from eight trade unions representing pilots and cabin crew in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

The airline said on Monday morning it had reached agreement with all but one of the unions.

SAS wants to cut 6,000 jobs.

Talks are still continuing with the Danish cabin crew, according to the news agency Reuters.

Shares in the company jumped by a quarter in early trading on hopes of a turnaround. Even so, they are still down by 98% since their peak in 2007.

Cashflow concerns

“We have successfully negotiated seven of eight collective agreements, which is gratifying,” said chief executive Rickard Gustafson.

“But there remains one union and we must have it on board too. That is a condition for carrying out our plan.”

An agreement with all eight unions is a precondition for SAS to receive a 3.5bn-Swedish crown ($ 518m, £325m) loan from its three government parents and from six banks.

Despite the encouraging turn of events, rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Monday that it had cut SAS’s credit rating from B- to CCC+, and placed it on review for further downgrade.

S&P attributed its downgrade decision to the company’s weak cashflow position, noting it had debts coming up for repayment over the next 12 months, and risked a loss of confidence by its suppliers.

The rating agency made no reference to the union negotiations, but said it would make a decision about a possible further downgrade in the next three months, once it becomes clear whether SAS’s restructuring plan is successful, including the possible knock-on impact on ticket sales.

SAS has struggled to deal with stiff competition from rival discount airlines, despite several attempts to cut its own costs.

Continue reading the main story

It has been a very gruelling process”

End Quote Espen Pettersen Deputy head of the main Norwegian cabin union

The airline, in which the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway control key stakes, had set Sunday as a deadline for an agreement with trade unions on wage cuts, as well as changes to pensions and working hours for staff, but talks were extended into Monday.

‘Not very happy’

In the early hours of Monday, at Copenhagen’s main airport, negotiators were seen entering and leaving the company’s headquarters, taking a break for food and drink.

“It has been a very gruelling process,” said Espen Pettersen, deputy head of the main Norwegian cabin union.

“We have made big concessions in this agreement. We are not very happy, but we felt we had no other choice but to sign to secure the jobs and the company.”

According to Norwegian press, pilots have agreed to a pay cut equivalent to one month’s salary, as well as an 8% increase in their workload.

Fears have been widely expressed in the Scandinavian media that a lack of a deal might prompt the airline to apply for immediate bankruptcy.

SAS has told crews to ensure planes are fully fuelled, so that they are able to return home if necessary.

The carrier has also given cash to staff to ensure they can get access to hotels in the case of a bankruptcy.

SAS has said that it wants to cut staff numbers from 15,000 to 9,000, as well as cut salaries by up to 17%.

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Canada pledges again to balance budget by 2015

OTTAWA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Canadian government on Friday reiterated its intention to balance its budget by 2015, three days after projecting there would be deficits until 2016-17.

In separate appearances in Quebec City and New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.

“It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election. The recent economic and fiscal update by the minister indicates we are actually very close to that objective,” Harper told reporters in Quebec City. The next election is in October 2015.

Flaherty’s fall fiscal update on Tuesday had pushed back the target date for eliminating the deficit by a year, to 2016-17, citing a weak global economy.

But the minister said in a speech in New York that the government was on track to balance the budget in the next two to three years, barring major external events, and he later clarified that he intended a balanced budget by 2015.

“The prime minister’s always correct,” he chuckled.

He sought to explain the discrepancy by saying the fiscal update had built in a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion, meaning there was an underlying surplus of C$ 1.2 billion for 2015-16. He said the projection of a C$ 1.8 billion deficit amounted to about half a percent of the C$ 275 billion federal budget.

“There’s lots of water to go under the bridge between now and then,” he said.

The opposition New Democratic Party noted the discrepancy in a release headlined: “Stephen Harper makes stuff up about balancing the budget.”

It pointed out that balancing the budget by the next election was not the same as balancing it by 2016-17.

As it is, even the 2015-16 timetable is a year later than offered in the Conservative campaign for reelection in May 2011. They had promised a balanced budget by 2014-15, followed by major personal income tax relief before the 2015 election.

Flaherty’s timetable drew criticism this week from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said the minister had become expert at kicking the can down the road.

The projections could be thrown out of whack if the United States goes off the fiscal cliff, a set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are to be triggered on January 2 if legislators and the White House cannot agree on a more nuanced budget deal.

Flaherty said U.S. failure to avert the fiscal cliff would cause a significant and immediate decline in Canada’s gross domestic product, and he would counter it.

Referring to a possible economic shock from Europe or the United States, he said: “If that were to happen and if the Canadian economy were to be pushed back into recession with the resulting danger for higher unemployment and the danger always of a prolonged recession, then we would act.”

He added: “We would not stand by and let that happen. The kinds of measure we can take: there are various tax measures we can take, there are measures with respect to stimulus we can take, these are things that we have done before and we can do again.”

On Tuesday, Flaherty spoke of having prepared various contingency plans.

(Additional reporting by Louse Egan; Editing by David Gregorio)

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So, Here’s That ‘Big Bang Theory’ Flashmob You Wanted

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Beating Novak Djokovic: Never Forget Three-Fingered Steve

Psychologist Richard Wiseman has an interactive game for you to let you know you’re just predictable. To be fair, a couple of us tried it out and were not as predictable as Wiseman thought we were going to be. But without further ado, here it is (have some screen cleaner ready):

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We too are very excited for the Disney installments of Star Wars. New movies, Ewoks, whatever count us in. We’re just not this excited: 

RELATED: A Video to Restore Our Faith in Humanity and a Glacier Tsunami

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If you don’t know, The Big Bang Theory is basically a show about a bunch of really smart, really nerdy dorks. Now when it comes to the actual cast of The Big Bang Theory, we’re only pretty sure (and happy to be proven wrong) only one of those things apply:

And finally, do you have $ 37? If so, would you mind donating it to The Atlantic Wire robot fish aquarium fund? We promise, it’s totally a great cause. Thanks in advance!

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

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Monti repeats Italy does not need euro zone aid

MILAN (Reuters) – Prime Minister Mario Monti rejected suggestions on Saturday that Italy should seek aid from its euro zone partners to bind a new government to strict reform conditions after elections likely to be held in March.

Monti’s comments, in a panel discussion at Milan’s Bocconi University, follow growing speculation that he might try to use an aid program to guarantee that his broad economic agenda is continued once his term in office ends.

He said he had nothing against mechanisms including the special euro zone bailout fund and the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program to help governments that have undertaken budget and economic reforms but he said he would like to see other countries resort to such assistance.

“I don’t think Italy needs it, nor will need it,” he said in answer to a question during the discussion.

Italy’s borrowing costs have come down sharply since the ECB announced its so-called “Outright Monetary Transactions” plan in September. The yield on its 10-year BTPs is now just under 5 percent, well below a high of over 7 percent when Monti came to office during the height of the financial crisis a year ago.

Monti also defended his government’s decision to stick to the goal of a balanced budget, in structural or growth-adjusted terms, by 2013, despite the strain the objective imposes on Italy’s recession-hit economy.

He said the government had considered asking for more time to meet the objective but had decided not to.

“I have not regretted not asking for it,” he said, noting that a number of other euro zone countries had delayed budget deficit reduction targets and that Italy would not have seen its own interest rates fall if it had done the same.

The discussion came on the same day the government issued a 17-page account of its year in office which emphasized the international credibility Italy gained after Monti took over from the scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi.

CREDIBILITY

With the countdown to elections now on following President Giorgio Napolitano’s indication on Friday of a possible date of March 10, attention has focused on what will come after.

Opinion polls suggest that a center-left government of some form is the most likely outcome, but the political parties have yet to choose their main candidates or even decide under what voting system the ballot will be held.

Much attention has been focused on the possibility that Monti himself may return at the head of a broad-based reform coalition if the election fails to produce a clear winner.

His government has been widely praised abroad and the former European commissioner has strong support among business leaders, but the painful tax hikes and spending cuts imposed by his government have also sparked anger among ordinary Italians.

On Saturday, students protested outside the university buildings where Monti was speaking and two policemen were injured by firecrackers.

Monti, who said his record in office was neither as good as his many international admirers believed nor as bad as the critics among his fellow economists claimed, has said repeatedly that he would be available to serve if needed.

But he repeated that he had no plans to run in the election himself. “Noone has asked me for a commitment and I’m not committing myself today,” he said.

At a separate event in Rome, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the chairman of sportscar maker Ferrari, who leads a civil movement aimed at promoting reform, praised Monti but said that he did not expect him to take a political lead.

“We are not asking the premier today to assume the leadership of this political movement because it would prejudice his work,” he said.

(Writing By James Mackenzie; editing by Jason Webb)

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