Friday, July 30, 2010

Green Queen: Bag yourself one of these fairtrade beauties

These amazing Chameleon Earth handbags are stylish and eco-friendly

These amazing Chameleon Earth handbags are stylish and eco-friendly

ECO CARRIER

Chameleon Earth was set up toprovide stylish, luxury bags while supporting fairtrade and, wherepossible, using recycled materials.

I love the Classic Athens coffee brown leather bag, made using natural extracts from African trees to tan the leather.

Priced 189 from chameleon earth.co.uk.

WILD FOR LINEN

Who says organic can"t be cute? Organictowels get softer with wear, so are perfect to wrap children in. Theelephant and giraffe designs with spotty backgrounds are adorable andthere"s a lovely bathrobe, too. The Move Organic towels are luxurious and soft

The Move Organic towels are luxurious and soft

Towels from 14 for the smaller size from 020 7923 7840 or dotmaison.com.

The Green Living guide is packed full of handy tips and pointers

The Green Living guide is packed full of handy tips and pointers

THE GOOD LIFE GUIDE

Just out is the new Green Living Guide, with 300 pages packed with useful and practical advice for those wanting to live a greener life - or those who just want to dip in at their convenience.

The guide is in a magazine format, so it"s fun to read even if you"ve only got five minutes to flick through it. It covers all aspects from children, to pets and more heavyweight issues for the committed.

From WHSmith at 7.99, or from magbooks.com and amazon.co.uk.

NATURAL OILS

The custom-blended special oils are perfect to combat dry skin

The custom-blended special oils are perfect to combat dry skin

Using Chinese principles of living in harmony with nature, acupuncturist Anee de Mamiel has created a stunning organic fusion of oils to put back what nature has taken out over the colder months. This oil is a true gift to skin and the first of a range of custom-blended seasonal oils.

Costs 65 for 25ml from 07516099010 or demamiel.com.

ECO-FRIENDLY CAT NAP

If you like to pamper your cat, check out this fabulous hemp bed. With lovely deep sides, your moggy can really snuggle in comfort.

This hemp cat bed is perfect for eco warrior moggies!

This hemp cat bed is perfect for eco warrior moggies!

It is stuffed with part-recycled polystyrene beads and the hemp is naturally repellent to fleas.

The cover can easily be removed for washing.

Costs 34.99 from the Eco Outlet 020 7272 7233.

NATO airstrike kills twenty-one civilians: Afghan supervision

Ismail Sameem KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:24am EST Related News Q+A: NATO still faces resilient Taliban in Afghanistan assaultSun, Feb 21 2010Factbox: Security developments in Afghanistan, Feb 20Sat, Feb 20 2010Afghan police deploy early in anti-Taliban pushWed, Feb 17 2010Missile that killed Afghan civilians not faulty: NATOTue, Feb 16 2010Missile that killed Afghan civilians not faulty: NATOTue, Feb 16 2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan has killed 21 people after an aircraft fired on civilians mistakenly thought to be insurgents, the Afghan government said on Monday.

World

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement civilians had been killed as they approached a joint NATO-Afghan unit in Uruzgan province on Sunday, but did not say how many.

Civilian casualties have been a major cause of friction between the Afghan government and foreign forces in Afghanistan, who have launched two big offensives in the past eight months in a bid to turn the tide of a growing Taliban-led insurgency.

"I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission," U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, said in the ISAF statement.

Zamari Bashary, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said 21 civilians were killed and 11 wounded, including women and children.

"ISAF troops were suspicious that several civilian vehicles contained insurgents and bombed them," Bashary said.

Amanullah Hotak, head of the Uruzgan provincial council, told Reuters the people were traveling in three mini-buses through a pass in the Char Cheno district.

An investigation has begun, ISAF said.

The incident was not part of Operation Moshtarak, the major NATO-led offensive to clear Taliban militants out of neighboring Helmand province.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul, Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Paul Tait)

World

WINTER OLYMPICS: British span smashed and painful after terrifying bobsleigh pile-up

John Jackson and Dan Money

Terrifying: John Jackson and Dan Money

Britain"s two-man bobsleigh team John Jackson and Dan Money walked away from aterrifying crash during heats at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Jackson and Money lost control of their sled five curves from the end of theirheat one run and it overturned.Money was thrown out of the back as the sled flipped over and slid down thetrack on his back.

Pilot Jackson was trapped inside the upturned car until it came to a haltfurther down the run.

Jackson was able to climb out of the sled when it came to rest, helped out bytrack officials.Money, who suffered a gash on his left calf, said: "The track"s fast, thefastest track in the world but it"s a technical track.

"If you get it wrong at ahigh speed it can go very wrong."

Jackson had bloody scrapes underneath his shoulder blades after being draggedalong the ice while stuck inside his overturned sled.

He said: "I can"t wear my race jersey because my back is stinging."

The British pair hugged each other in relief when they met up and Money climbedinto the grandstand to reassure family and friends that he was ok.The Australian pairing of Jeremy Rollerston and Duncan Pugh also suffered acrash minutes after the British duo.

Their sled also flipped over and they too seemed to have escaped relativelyunhurt.The British and Australian sleds were disqualified from the second heat havingfailed to finish their first runs.

John Jackson

Battle scars: John Jackson hugs American sledder Bill Schuffenhauer

The Liechtenstein pairing of Michael Klingler and Thomas Duerr also lostcontrol of their sled but remained in the competition after crossing thefinishing line.The start of heat two was delayed because of the crashes.

The latest incidents are bound to raise concerns about the safety of the trackalthough earlier today Games organisers stressed that the bobsleigh federation(FIBT) were happy with it despite several injuries to athletes during training.

Swiss brake-man Daniel Egger suffered a spine injury after crashing during apractice heat on Friday, prompting he and driver Daniel Schmid to withdraw fromthe competition.

And American women"s bobsledder Shauna Rohbock has branded the track "stupidfast".

bobsled

Ordeal: John Jackson and Dan Money"s bobsled

But Tim Gayda, VANOC"s vice president of Sport, said: "The FIBT is extremelyhappy with the track and happy to race on it. We listen to them, they are theexperts."

Safety concerns have been heightened following the tragic death of Georgianluger Nodar Kumaritashvili in training on the same track.

But Gayda believes everything that could be done has been done to protectathletes.

"To make it 100 per cent safe you would need to put the track in a tube and that isnot what the sport is about," he said.

"My heart goes out to Nodar. It is something that has hit us all. But theincident that happened was extremely unfortunate and something no-one could havepredicted.

"We"ve always maintained the track is safe. Both federations (FIBT and lugefederation FIL) are part of the design process.

"It was they who recommended the designer we used. Both federations signed offon the design of the track."

More...Britain"s new Olympic champion Amy Williams reveals: I thought I"d finished thirdMinichiello: I want gold to answer bullies who made my life a misery No snow and no track, but still Great Britain rules the skeleton bob

Sudan signs ceasefire with Darfur JEM rebels

Andrew Heavens KHARTOUM Sat Feb 20, 2010 2:49pm EST Related News Sudan, Darfur rebel group sign deal -presidentSat, Feb 20 2010Darfur rebels say ready for temporary ceasefireSat, Feb 20 2010URGENT-Darfur rebels say ready for temporary ceasefireSat, Feb 20 2010Protest at funeral of "tortured" Darfur studentMon, Feb 15 2010Hundreds protest at funeral of "tortured" Darfur studentMon, Feb 15 2010

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan agreed a ceasefire with Darfur"s most powerful rebel group on Saturday as part of an agreement to "heal" the war in the western region, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said.

World

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said the framework agreement reached in the Chadian capital N"Djamena was not a final peace deal but set out the terms for negotiations that could still fail if it saw signs of bad faith from Khartoum.

Bashir said he would cancel death sentences handed out to JEM prisoners and free 30 percent of them immediately. More than 100 men were sentenced to death by hanging after being found guilty of taking part in a JEM attack on Khartoum in 2008.

Bashir told state television: "Today we signed an agreement between the government and JEM in N"Djamena, and in N"Djamena we heal the war in Darfur."

Khartoum has agreed to a series of ceasefires during the seven-year conflict, but some have fallen apart days after their signing, and distrust between the warring parties remains deep.

Talks between JEM and Khartoum, hosted in Qatar, have been stalled for months. But there has been a flurry of activity in recent days against a background of thawing relations between Sudan and Chad, which borders Darfur.

Sudan and Chad, both preparing for elections, agreed earlier this month to end their long-running proxy war, fought by arming each other"s rebels. Chadian President Idriss Deby has ethnic links with JEM"s leaders and has been accused of backing JEM.

"BEGINNING OF THE END"

JEM officials said the "framework" agreement would include a list of areas to be fleshed out in negotiations, including compensation for Darfuris, humanitarian access and the broad topics of "power sharing" and "wealth sharing."

"This is not the end. It is the beginning of the end," senior JEM official Al-Tahir al-Feki told Reuters.

JEM officials said Saturday"s deal would be formally ratified by Sudan"s president and JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim in the Qatari capital Doha early next week.

Before the deal was signed, JEM spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam said the ceasefire would be temporary and dependent on Khartoum"s behavior.

"We will not play their game if they are only interested in buying time, in tactics, in just signing papers to make it easier for them in the elections," he said. "The vicious circle can begin again and we can resume our armed struggle."

Sudan holds presidential and legislative elections in April, its first multi-party contests in 24 years.

Sudanese presidential advisor Ghazi Salaheddin, who reached the deal in Chad, told reporters on his return to Khartoum he was ready to sign similar agreements with other rebel groups.

JEM and Darfur"s rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) took up arms against the government in 2003, accusing Khartoum of leaving their region marginalized and underdeveloped.

SLA founder Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, with strong support among the region"s displaced population, is refusing to talk to Khartoum, demanding an end to violence before negotiations.

The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died in Darfur"s crisis, but Sudan rejects that figure. The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Bashir last year to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Abdel Aziz in Khartoum and Betel Miarom in N"Djamena; editing by Myra MacDonald)

World

ATHLETICS: Meadows pockets key reward as she smashes Kelly Holmes 800m British jot down

Jenny Meadows earned a welcome bonus after one of the best performances of her career and it could not have come at a better time.

;Pocket Rocket Meadows won 4,200 from the sponsors after breaking Dame Kelly Holmess 800metres British record at the Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham.

Jenny Meadows

Record breaker: Jenny Meadows beat Kelly Holmes" record by 0.10secs

She is coached by husband Trevor and Meadows revealed: ;Hes going part-time in his job from April 1 so he can devote more time to the training group, so the money will definitely help.

Meadows, 28, will be one of Britains major medal hopes at next months World Indoor Championships the selectors meet today to choose their team for Doha after taking her form from last summer into the winter season.

She won 800m bronze at the Championships in Berlin last August and at the Nnational Indoor Arena on Saturday she beat Holmess record by 0.10sec as she triumphed in a time of 1min 59.11sec ahead of Ukraines Yyuliya Krevsun and fellow Briton Vicky Griffiths.

Holmes, who won Olympic 800m and 1500m gold in Athens in 2004, was a delighted spectator and she backed 5ft 1in Meadows for glory next month.

Holmes said: ;I didnt do indoors that much but I benefited from being small. I could make the moves and just nip in when it matters and Jenny can do that, too.

"I will be surprised if she doesnt come back with a medal. Shes the right build for indoor running. She is small and thin. And she believes in herself. Thats the main thing.

Phillips Idowu, Britains world triple jump champion indoors and out, was fourth with a seasons best of 17.25m. The 2004 Olympic champ Christian Olsson, of Sweden, won with 17.32m.

More...Sebastian Coe v Steve Ovett: There was only one winnerOlympic star David Davies tells his parents not to travel to DelhiHagen claims victory in the closing time trial of the Tour of Oman

Future of AIDS gels might distortion in drug experts contend

Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:59pm EST Related News U.S. company Virxsys says using AIDS to fight AIDSThu, Feb 18 2010HIV drugs prevent infection in African studyWed, Feb 17 2010HIV/AIDS drug puzzle crackedMon, Feb 1 2010Scientists say crack HIV/AIDS puzzle for drugsSun, Jan 31 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The quest for a cream or gel to prevent AIDS infection has narrowed to using powerful HIV pills that are already on the market, scientists say.

Health

AIDS experts have long been searching for a microbicide -- a cream, gel or vaginal ring that women or men could use as a chemical shield to protect themselves from sexual transmission of the deadly and incurable virus.

Several substances have been tried unsuccessfully but experiments presented this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, a scientific meeting of AIDS experts, suggested HIV drugs might hold the key to making such gels work.

"The next wave of compounds is all going to be based on antiretroviral drugs," Dr. John Moore of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York told reporters.

Moore"s team tested Pfizer"s new drug maraviroc, sold under the brand name Selzentry. It is in a new class of drugs called CCR5 entry inhibitors, designed to stop the human immunodeficiency virus from getting into human cells using a type of cellular doorway or receptor named CCR5.

"The CCR5 inhibitors are compelling candidates as an alternative because these drugs are not being used for treatment in, for example, Africa," Moore said.

That means there is less risk of resistance developing -- when viruses evolve to get around the effects of drugs.

Moore"s team took a unique approach to formulating their experimental microbicide using Selzentry.

"We found a friendly physician, scrounged a tablet, ground it up," Moore said. "I assure you it actually works very well," he told the San Francisco meeting.

Tests in monkeys showed it would protect a female from sexual transmission for about four hours. "You couldn"t apply these gels in the morning and have protection in the evening," Moore said.

A vaginal ring with a time-release formula may work better for longer-term protection, Moore said.

The approach is affordable, he said. "A single maraviroc tablet, about 300 mg, retailing for about $15 on the Internet, contains enough drug to fully protect around 15 macaques. That is broadly going to be applicable to women."

Laura Guay of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation said the approach sounds reasonable. Her group supports the development of microbicides to protect women and by extension their children.

"The hope is by putting antiretrovirals into the microbicide, you can prevent the virus from either entering or replicating," she said in a telephone interview.

Last year researchers found Gilead Sciences Inc."s drug Truvada also might work as a microbicide. But a gel made by Massachusetts-based Indevus Pharmaceuticals that did not include an HIV drug failed in human trials.

The AIDS virus, which infects 33 million people globally and has killed 25 million, is mostly passed sexually. In Africa women account for more new cases than men and are often infected by their husbands.

Abstinence and condom use are not options for women trying to have children, but a microbicide would be. Microbicides using HIV drugs would represent a large new market for the companies that make the drugs, which are currently now used only to treat infection.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

Health

Glimmer of goal in writer payrolls romantic

James B. Kelleher - Analysis CHICAGO Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:42pm EST Related News Climate control supporters focus on job creationWed, Jan 27 2010 Stocks & &

CHICAGO (Reuters) - If you thought the recent recession was hard on U.S. blue-collar workers, wait till you see what the recovery has in store for them.

The U.S. economic downturn that began in December 2007 was especially brutal for manufacturing workers, who absorbed a disproportionate share of the job losses associated with the slump.

Manufacturing generates less than 12 percent of U.S. economic output and accounts for less than 9 percent of the jobs in the country. Yet it accounted for more than 26 percent of the 8.4 million layoffs in the downturn, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Now, as the economy slowly recovers, and producer payrolls show encouraging signs of growth again, many of the 2.2 million manufacturing employees idled in the slump are hoping the long-awaited call back to the plant may finally be coming.

But executives, economists and long-time industry watchers have some bad news for them. "I wouldn"t hold my breath," said Eli Lustgarten, an industrial analyst at Longbow Research.

Even under the best-case scenario, more than half the U.S. manufacturing jobs lost over the past two years will never return, they say. Those that do will return far more slowly than in past recoveries and offer far less employment security than industrial jobs of old.

What the country definitely will not see, experts say, is a repeat of 2005, 2006 and 2007, when the industry scrambled to keep up with record global demand by adding capacity -- and headcount -- with little regard for the effect on margins and bottom line.

When the downturn hit, U.S. manufacturers moved aggressively to further streamline operations and slash overhead costs -- in many cases firing 20 percent or more of their workforce.

Their actions have turned the sector into what one analyst recently called an "operating leverage beast," capable of turning even modest increases in demand into big jumps in profitability without needing a lot of extra permanent workers.

"When you get in a crunch like what we"ve been through, you figure out ways to do more with less," said Tom Murphy, head of the manufacturing practice at consultant RSM McGladrey.

But what is good news for investors in the sector is bad news for the United States, which faces spiraling deficits at every level of government.

If the manufacturing sector, where workers earn 20 percent more per week than the average U.S. worker, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is not going to start adding taxpayers back into the system, who will?

BUBBLE TROUBLE

Last year alone, the U.S. manufacturing sector shed 11.4 percent of its total workforce -- the largest one-year percentage drop since the Great Depression, dwarfing even the 10.4 percent drop seen in 1945, when America"s victorious industrial war machine throttled back production.

Why were U.S. producers so hard-hit by the downturn? Analysts say it is simple: Manufacturing was concentrated where the bubble was, making products -- from nails to furniture to construction equipment -- that were either tied to housing or to industries like mining and energy that quickly followed housing into the slump.

So when a DOL report earlier this month showed the first monthly growth in producer payrolls in three years, almost all of it from recalled autoworkers, it fanned hopes that the hard-hit sector had reached a tipping point.

Perhaps the manufacturing sector would lead the recovering economy in job creation just as it led the faltering economy in job destruction.

But such hopes ignore longer-term trends. The manufacturing sector has now cut jobs for 11 consecutive years, a relentless contraction that has eliminated one in every three assembly line jobs. And the long decline in employment in the sector began much earlier than that. In 1979, manufacturing accounted for 22 percent of all nonfarm jobs in the country. Today, it accounts for less than 9 percent.

That is why no one believes the country is on the verge of a massive rehiring. Even Daniel Meckstroth, the relatively upbeat chief economist at the industry trade group Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, has a sobering take on the situation.

"We won"t get back 2 million jobs," Meckstroth said. At best, he says, "the job bleeding is temporarily over for the next two or three years until productivity swamps the growth rate in production. Then you"ll see manufacturing job losses again."

LAW OF NATURE

The reason for the inexorable decline in jobs is simple: The industry does not need as many workers here in the United States as in the past. Moving many lower-skilled products and processes overseas, where labor costs are cheaper, has eliminated millions of jobs.

Fast-rising productivity on the factory floor, thanks to the installation of robots and computerized machining and the adoption of lean manufacturing techniques pioneered by Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) (TM.N), has wiped out millions more.

But in recent years, another factor has come into play. Companies like 3M Corp (MMM.N) and many others have decided the best way to serve rapidly growing emerging markets like China, Brazil and India is by locating factories in those places rather than exporting to them from the United States.

With those emerging markets expected to dramatically outgrow the United States in the coming decades, that means more plants there and fewer plants here.

"The challenge is that right now we have about 65 percent of our sales outside the United States and 65 percent of our manufacturing in the United States," George Buckley, 3M"s chairman, president and chief executive, told an audience in Chicago late last year.

"Unless we can find ways to drive growth in the United States ... the natural laws of nature are going to pull that manufacturing out of the United States."

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher, editing by Matthew Lewis)