Hundreds of herbal medicinal products will be banned from sale in Britain next year under what campaigners say is a "discriminatory and disproportionate" European law. With four months to go before the EU-wide ban is implemented, thousands of patients face the loss of herbal remedies that have been used in the UK for decades.
From 1 May 2011, traditional herbal medicinal products must be licensed or prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner to comply with an EU directive passed in 2004. The directive was introduced in response to rising concern over adverse effects caused by herbal medicines.
Europe to ban hundreds of herbal remedies
Former Obama Auto Industry Czar Steven Rattner Will Pay $10 Million in Restitution
Steven Rattner, the former principal of private equity firm Quadrangle Group LLC, will pay $10 million to settle a probe by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of corruption at the state pension fund in a deal that largely ends a three-year investigation that has yielded eight guilty pleas.
Rattner's payment of restitution to the state of New York is less than half of the $26 million Cuomo sought. Rattner also agreed to be banned from appearing in any capacity before any public pension fund in the state for five years, the attorney general’s office said in an e-mailed statement. Cuomo, New York's governor -elect, sought a lifetime ban from the securities industry.
Iraq advisory firm, run by former US special forces officer, seeks a third of Gulf Keystone oil wealth
Gulf Keystone Petroleum is facing a legal battle over its Iraqi oil fields, after an advisory company run by a former US special forces officer filed a claim for up to 30pc of its lucrative reserves.
The £1.25bn AIM-listed explorer saw its share price dive 17 to 167½p after disclosing that it is strongly contesting a suit filed 12 days ago in London’s Commercial Court. It has also been hit with a request for arbitration proceedings in New York.
Canada plans bigger anti-smoking warnings
Canada says it will increase the size of anti-smoking warnings on cigarette packages to cover three-quarters of the surface of the packs.
The federal government says the new health warnings will feature images of an iconic Canadian cancer victim covering 75 percent of the packages of cigarettes and little cigars, Postmedia News reported Wednesday.
The struggle for East Jerusalem
Half way down a hill, sandwiched between Jerusalem's Hadassa hospital and Hebrew University, sits the compact and overcrowded occupied East Jerusalem village of Issawiya.
Before crossing the makeshift police checkpoint of concrete block obstacles at the edge of the University and entering the neighbourhood – which resembles more of a besieged West Bank refugee camp than a Jerusalem municipality – there is a clearly marked 'Dead End' street sign. On the main road leaving towards the hospital on the other side of the neighbourhood there is a wall of concrete cubes blocking any traffic, leaving just a narrow space for pedestrians to cross.
Veterans of recent wars confront grim employment landscape
"I have a passion to be a cop," said Janssen, 23, a fitness buff who dabbles in mixed martial arts. "But no one is hiring."
Janssen's experience is common among the 2 million veterans of the long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As they return home to the worst labor market in generations, the veterans who are publicly venerated for their patriotism and service are also having a harder time than most finding work, federal data show.
Protesters at Beale AFB decry treatment of alleged WikiLeaks figure Manning
Peace groups outside the main gate of Beale Air Force Base on Wednesday protested the treatment of the private suspected of handing secret reports over to WikiLeaks. They also called on military personnel at the base to resist war and the use of drones.
Protesters from Veterans for Peace, CodePINK and other groups asked for "basic constitutional principles and human rights" be extended to Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning is suspected of downloading thousands of secret reports and diplomatic cables and handing them over to WikiLeaks.
Anybody seen $8 million in missing CDC equipment?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost or misplaced more than $8 million in property in 2007, losing track of items including computer and video equipment, government auditors say. Agency officials said Wednesday they have corrected the lapses that led to that amount of waste.
The report was released this week by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of the CDC. In 2007, the auditors checked on 200 randomly sampled items and found 15 were lost or not inventoried, including a $1.8 million hard disk drive and a $978,000 video conferencing system.
Manmade Problem Turned Deadlier than AIDS - Is There Still Time to Correct Course?
Animals in factory farms are given doses of antibiotics -- both to keep them alive in stressful, unsanitary conditions, and to make them grow faster. The practice leads to new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as the now-widespread form of staph (MRSA) known as ST398.
Federal regulators have in the past refused to release estimates of just how much antibiotics the livestock industry uses. But recently the FDA released its first-ever report on the topic. And the amount? Twenty-nine million pounds of antibiotics in 2009 alone.
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