news LV

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• ANSA: Petrolio: New York, chiude a 85,9 dlr
• ANSA: Cos'e' e come funziona lo scudo anti-spread
• ANSA: Male Borse Europee e Wall Street, Milano in controdendenza
• ANSA: Crisi: Ue, sì allo scudo anti-spread
• Aljazeera: Arafat's widow seeks French probe into death
• Aljazeera: DRC official claims Rwanda aiding M23 rebels
• Aljazeera: Russia seeks UN extension of Syria mission
• Aljazeera: Bolivia to revoke mine licence after protests
• Financial Times: US dominance still elusive for Spotify
• Financial Times: Global miners stage ‘retreat to the core’
• Financial Times: Banks face swaps threat after raft of ratings cuts
• Huffington Post: Coca-Cola Addiction: UK Teen Zoe Cross Hospitalized For Coke Habit
• Huffington Post: New Gene Finding Spurs Hope For Alzheimer's Treatment
• Huffington Post: Jesse Jackson Jr. Medical Leave: Nancy Pelosi Expects Jackson To Explain His Absence
• Huffington Post: World's Largest Breasts: Woman With 102ZZZ Cup Size On TLC's 'Strange Sex'
• Financial Times: Myanmar leader pleads for end to sanctions

ANSA: Petrolio: New York, chiude a 85,9 dlr Posted: 09 Jul 2012 12:40 PM PDT Quotazioni +1,7%

ANSA: Cos'e' e come funziona lo scudo anti-spread Posted: 09 Jul 2012 01:07 PM PDT E' il convitato di pietra alla riunione dell'Eurogruppo

ANSA: Male Borse Europee e Wall Street, Milano in controdendenza Posted: 09 Jul 2012 03:05 PM PDT

ANSA: Crisi: Ue, sì allo scudo anti-spread Posted: 09 Jul 2012 09:57 PM PDT Accordo all'Eurogruppo, 30 miliardi per le banche spagnole

Aljazeera: Arafat's widow seeks French probe into death Posted: 10 Jul 2012 03:12 PM PDT Lawyer says Suha Arafat wants "justice" after Al Jazeera report suggests the Palestinian leader could have been poisoned

Aljazeera: DRC official claims Rwanda aiding M23 rebels Posted: 11 Jul 2012 12:19 AM PDT Spokesman in North Kivu province says M23 rebels, who have seized towns in the country's east, are supported by Kigali.

Aljazeera: Russia seeks UN extension of Syria mission Posted: 11 Jul 2012 02:28 AM PDT Moscow submits draft resolution to extend Syria mission for 90 days, as envoy Kofi Annan set to brief Security Council.

Aljazeera: Bolivia to revoke mine licence after protests Posted: 11 Jul 2012 05:12 AM PDT President Evo Morales to revoke concessions of Canadian silver mine following violent opposition from Quechua Indians.

Financial Times: US dominance still elusive for Spotify Posted: 11 Jul 2012 06:41 AM PDT Despite its eye-catching $4bn valuation and global market leadership, Sweden's music streaming group lags behind Rhapsody in US subscriptions

Financial Times: Global miners stage ‘retreat to the core’ Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:03 AM PDT BHP, Vale and Anglo seek to shed non-core assets and prune costly portfolios as shareholders urge greater focus and spending discipline

Financial Times: Banks face swaps threat after raft of ratings cuts Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:10 AM PDT Concern that downgrade of a bank counterparty will lead to structured finance deals downgrades, potentially forcing up banks' funding costs

Huffington Post: Coca-Cola Addiction: UK Teen Zoe Cross Hospitalized For Coke Habit Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:56 AM PDT 18 year old Zoe Cross really loves Coke -- so much that she has been drinking around 18 pints of it a day for the last four years. The Sun reported that this soda habit landed Zoe in the hospital recently, with an E. Coli infection (possibly from drinking straight from unwashed cans) that was exacerbated by her incredible dehydration. "I ended up on a saline drip for five days. The doctors said my body couldn't cope with such a huge amount of sugar and caffeine and warned me my kidneys could shut down if I didn't stop," Cross told The Sun. Read More... More on E. Coli

Huffington Post: New Gene Finding Spurs Hope For Alzheimer's Treatment Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:58 AM PDT By Sharon Begley NEW YORK, July 11 (Reuters) - A gene that causes the rare, early-onset form of Alzheimer's disease can also carry a mutation that produces the opposite effect, staving off the devastating illness, scientists announced on Wed nesday. The finding, published in the journal Nature, suggests that new drugs that mimic the mutation's effect could do the same, researchers said. "Less than 1 percent of the population has these alleles," or DNA variants, said Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, a research and advocacy group. "So there's no impetus to go out and get tested. But many companies are working on compounds that target the mechanism they found and so might be encouraged by these results." Alzheimer's disease is defined by the presence of sticky plaques, composed of a peptide called amyloid beta. Amyloid beta comes from a larger protein called amyloid precursor protein, or APP. Over the last two decades, scientists have identified some two dozen mutations in the APP gene that cause early-onset Alzheimer's, which strikes before age 65. A novel mutation in the APP gene does the opposite, scientists led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of privately held deCODE Genetics in Reykjavik found when they sequenced the genomes of 1,795 Icelanders. Those 85 or older who have the beneficial mutation are 81 percent less likely to develop the neurodegenerative disease than others in that age group, the team found. The variant also makes developing Alzheimer's four times less likely across all age groups. "It confers extraordinarily strong protection," said Stefansson. "We found only five Alzheimer's cases (out of thousands of people) with it." Because the beneficial mutation is so rare, however, its value is likely to be in pointing the way to drugs that prevent or treat Alzheimer's rather than encouraging testing to see which patients have the variant. The disease strikes an estimated 5.4 million Americans, including 13 percent of those 65 and older and 45 percent of those 85 and older. STOPPING PLAQUE FORMATION The mutation affects how APP, the protein, is fragmented. After a brain cell makes this protein, enzymes - designated alpha, beta and gamma - cleave it into fragments. Alpha-secretase snips APP in such a way as to prevent the production of amyloid beta and thus of plaques. Instead, a fragment that promotes the growth and survival of neurons is produced. But beta-secretase, also called BACE, is a more deadly cleaver. Together with gamma-secretase, it snips APP so as to produce amyloid beta. Floating out of the neuron, it sticks to other amyloid beta fragments, forming plaques. The beneficial mutation interferes with BACE's ability to cleave APP. That reduces the formation of amyloid beta by 40 to 50 percent, scientists at Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit, who co-authored the new study, found. "This gives you a proof of concept that if you inhibit BACE it will protect against Alzheimer's," said deCODE Genetics' Stefansson. "Big pharma has been working on inhibitors for beta-secretase for 15 to 20 years, and this offers greater confidence" that those efforts will pan out. Several companies are developing compounds that inhibit BACE. In April, Merck presented data from an early-stage human trial evaluating the safety of its MK-8931, reporting that it was generally well-tolerated and reduced amyloid beta levels as much as 92 percent. Vitae Pharmaceuticals and Boehringer Ingelheim are jointly developing a BACE inhibitor whose progress a spokesperson describes as "robust," with an announcement expected this year. Eli Lilly and Co's BACE inhibitor recently advanced into mid-stage human trials. But targeting enzymes that make amyloid beta has not worked so far. A drug from Lilly that inhibited gamma secretase failed in clinical trials in 2010 and made the disease worse. "Hitting gamma secretase with a sledgehammer made people sick," said Rudolph Tanzi, a veteran Alzheimer's researcher at Harvard Medical School. One reason is that gamma secretase has many crucial functions in the body that have nothing to do with amyloid beta. Targeting BACE could backfire for the same reason. The enzyme is involved in numerous physiological functions, said Tanzi. They include cleaving proteins to make myelin - the fatty sheath that allows neurons to carry electrical signals - and sodium channels - proteins that let ions in and out of brain cells. Drugs that inhibit BACE too broadly might therefore cause serious side effects, said Tanzi. "That's why although this paper is going to encourage development of these compounds, I'm not optimistic." The challenge is to develop compounds that interfere with the APP-cleaving enzymes only during that function, which Tanzi and others are pursuing. The new study also found that people with the beneficial APP mutation are less likely to suffer other forms of age-related cognitive decline. The very elderly, aged 80 to 100, with the mutation scored better on a standard test of cognitive function than their peers without the mutation. That suggests that normal cognitive decline also might be worsened by amyloid beta. If so, a breakthrough in developing an Alzheimer's drug that works might help other patients with memory loss, slowed mental processing and other cognitive impairments that accompany aging. (Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Vicki Allen and Dan Grebler) Read More... More on Video

Huffington Post: Jesse Jackson Jr. Medical Leave: Nancy Pelosi Expects Jackson To Explain His Absence Posted: 11 Jul 2012 11:04 AM PDT WASHINGTON -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi says she expects Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to explain his weeks-long leave of absence after he has had an evaluation of his medical condition. Pelosi indicated that she had not spoken to the Illinois Democrat. Read More... More on Nancy Pelosi

Huffington Post: World's Largest Breasts: Woman With 102ZZZ Cup Size On TLC's 'Strange Sex' Posted: 11 Jul 2012 11:06 AM PDT TLC's "Strange Sex" (returns with Season 3 on Sunday, July 15 at 10 p.m. ET) is featuring the woman with the world's largest breasts. Meet Arlington, Virginia's Annie, who has size 102ZZZ breasts. Annie's breasts weigh nearly 85 pounds. She has suffered from gigantomastia, which is slow progresssive growth of breast tissue and fat tissue, for nearly her entire life -- she started wearing a bra in third grade. Read More... More on TV Spoilers

Financial Times: Myanmar leader pleads for end to sanctions Posted: 11 Jul 2012 11:25 AM PDT Myanmar president calls for the total lifting of sanctions to allow the investments he says the country 'desperately needs at this time'

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