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/ 15 November 2006

Hollywood gets a new role as great polluter

The city of Los Angeles is principally famous for two things: glittering movies and suffocating smog. Now researchers have found that the two are not unconnected. A study by the University of California Los Angeles shows the film and television industry to be the second largest polluter in the Los Angeles area.

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/ 15 November 2006

‘Final issues’ being sorted out for Coega smelter

The final issues are being sorted out between Alcan, the Canadian aluminium company, and South Africa over the building of a smelter at Coega in the Eastern Cape, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Tuesday. Briefing the parliamentary media, the minister said his government had been "in touch" with Alcan "quite a lot in the last two weeks".

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/ 15 November 2006

HIV/Aids barometer – September 2006

Another reason to quit: Smoking might increase the risk of contracting HIV, according to a study published in the August 21 online edition of the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. Andrew Furber, a public health consultant at the South East Sheffield Primary Care Trust in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a systematic review of studies examining tobacco smoking as a risk factor for either HIV infection or progression of the virus to Aids.

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/ 15 November 2006

HIV/Aids barometer – October 2006

Uganda has become the first country in Africa to try an HIV vaccine on a baby in an effort to find a solution to mother-to-child transmission. The lead investigator of the Makerere University John Hopkins University Research Collaboration (Mujhu), Francis Mmiiro, said the baby was born at Mulago Hospital last week.

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/ 15 November 2006

Thailand a hit with foreigners seeking surgery

Sitting cross-legged on his hospital bed at Yanhee Hospital in Bangkok, South African Neil van der Merwe unwraps a layer of bandages to reveal a six-inch tube inserted into the inner part of his forearm. The contraption is being used to grow a penis, the final step in his transformation from woman to man. ”I wanted to do this a long time ago,” says the 35-year-old, who sports a thin goatee and has lived as a man for five years.

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/ 14 November 2006

DRC’s Bemba rejects results showing Kabila win

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba’s coalition on Tuesday rejected results published so far, which showed his rival President Joseph Kabila poised to win a historic election. ”The Union for the Nation will not accept an electoral hold-up that aims to steal the victory from the Congolese people,” the coalition said in a statement.