Abbott Laboratories has been granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval for Norvir, a new tablet formulation of its anti-retroviral medication.

The tablets that do not require refrigeration and can be stored at room temperature; come in the form of soft-gelatin capsules, which contain 100 mg of ritonavir. As well, they can also be used in combination with other anti-retroviral HIV medications.

Research shows a brain defect is responsible for many autistic people being frightened of intimacy, avoiding the hugs even of their parents.

Mostly individuals who have the Fragile X Syndrome, the genetic cause of autism and inherited mental retardation, are affected by the problem.

According to scientists, Fragile X delays sensory cortex development, an area of the brain that responds to touch, and in a domino effect triggered by the delay, this part of the brain becomes wrongly wired.

Spanish police overnight detained 36 suspected supporters of the militant Basque separatist group ETA, police sources said Tuesday. The suspected members of the illegal youth organization Segi were held in the northern Basque region and neighbouring Navarre.

The detainees included several suspected leaders of Segi. Police searched 34 addresses, and were looking for three more suspects.

The Spanish judiciary has increased pressure on organizations linked to ETA, which has killed more than 820 people since 1968.

Visitor arrivals in Singapore fell slightly in October, the Tourism Board said Tuesday, as the city-state's hotel industry continues to suffer from slumping revenues. In October, 845,000 tourists came to Singapore, down 0.5 per cent from a year ago, the board said in a statement.

The average occupancy rate climbed to 82.7 per cent, the highest so far in 2009, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to October 2008.

Next week, with the issuing of their third-quarter management statements, Barclays and HSBC are also likely to announce major staff bonuses. Free of Government ownership, these banks are expected to post strong reports, making the week a big one of UK's banking sector.

According to the UN, an investment of $39-billion or $12.9 per child is needed for saving 5.2-million lives in developing countries by 2015.

Every year, pneumonia, a lung disease kills 1.8-million children under the age of five, killing more young children than any other disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) and U. N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) say, despite the heavy toll, few resources are used for tackling it.

There is a whole generation of Victorian teenagers, over a quarter of 15-year-olds, binge drinking till they black out, the point at which brain damage is likely to occur.

Research also reveals that over a third of 11-year-old boys have consumed alcohol, which figures contained in the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute study, have raised the alarm amongst brain development experts, who say an entire generation of young people are destroying all their chances of achieving their full potential.

A small study has found Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Telaprevir, a hepatitis C drug to be equally effective in eliminating the virus in 80% of the patients taken twice daily, compared to three times a day.

Previous Phase II studies of this promising new experimental drug tested dosages given thrice a day 8-hours apart. The current study conducted to prove Telaprevir administered twice a day at 12-hour intervals, proved to be more convenient for patients.

China will benefit the most after the global crisis ends and will become the most significant in financial-economic respect in the world, predicts the famous financier George Soros.

"Serious changes in the global financial and economic arena are forthcoming as the most serious among them seems to be the change in the status of the United States and China", said Soros during his lecture in his native Hungary.

The financier does not believe that after the crisis the world economy will fully stabilize, even he predicts a second wave of the crisis.

An official review of the policy banning blood donations by gay men, the Government Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SABTO) met today, as fresh attempts are made to overturn a longstanding safeguard.

Current rules forbid any man to have indulged in anal intercourse with another man from donating blood, as such sexual behaviour is medically dangerous.

According to the National Blood Service (NBS), overturning these rules will only 'result in a fivefold increase in the risk of HIV-infected blood entering the blood supply'.