US approves first over-the-counter HIV home-use test. 3 July 2012Last updated at 19:07 ET OraSure says it is planning a major advertising campaign around the new home HIV test A home HIV test is expected to go on sale in the US within months, after winning regulator approval. The OraQuick test checks saliva from a mouth swab for HIV and can produce results in 20 to 40 minutes. Government estimates suggest 1.2 million people in the US are HIV-positive, but 20% do not know they are. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it hopes the over-the-counter test will reach people who might not otherwise get tested. The test is expected to be sold in as many as 30,000 pharmacies and homeware shops, as well as online.
The manufacturer, OraSure, has not said how much the test will sell for but confirmed it would cost less than $60 (£38). "We expect all the major retail outlets to carry this product," chief executive Douglas Michels said. The company is planning a "pretty massive effort" to market the test, Mr Michels added. 'Empowering people' Why Russia locks up so many entrepreneurs. 4 July 2012Last updated at 19:32 ET By Rebecca Kesby BBC World Service Businessman Alexei Kozlov has been jailed - and he says, framed - twice In the last 10 years Russia has imprisoned nearly three million entrepreneurs, many unjustly. This statistic comes from a new ombudsman for business rights, Boris Titov, who says it is "hard to find another social group persecuted on such a large scale". How has this come about? Businessmen have complained for years that people have been able to frame commercial rivals - by paying corrupt police officers to plant evidence and make arrests to order.
More and more well-heeled entrepreneurs have been joining, even leading street protests in recent months, with reform of the courts one of their main demands. Perhaps those protests influenced President Putin's decision last month to create a post of "ombudsman for business rights" - but he might also have been persuaded by the $84bn in capital that left Russia last year, a record amount.
“Start Quote. HTC defeats Apple in swipe-to-unlock patent dispute. 4 July 2012Last updated at 17:09 GMT The judge ruled in HTC's favour across all of the four disputed patents in the case HTC is claiming victory in a patent dispute with Apple after a ruling by the High Court in London. The judge ruled that HTC had not infringed four technologies that Apple had claimed as its own. He said Apple's slide-to-unlock feature was an "obvious" development in the light of a similar function on an earlier Swedish handset.
Apple has also cited the patent in disputes against firms using Google's Android system software. Slide-to-unlock HTC launched the London-based lawsuits a year ago as part of an effort to invalidate European patents Apple had referred to in a German court case. The four patents at stake were: Unlocking a device by performing a gesture on an image. Apple had claimed HTC's Arc unlock mechanism infringed its technology The judge ruled that the first three patents were invalid in this case, while the fourth did not apply to HTC's devices. 'Limited impact' Irish Republic 'encouraged' by successful bond auction. 5 July 2012Last updated at 07:18 ET Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is hoping his country can regain full access to capital markets The Republic of Ireland, which got an 85bn-euro (£68bn; $106bn) bank bailout in 2010, has returned to the capital markets after a near two-year absence.
On Thursday, the country's debt agency raised 500m euros in a short-term debt auction. The National Treasury Management Agency said it was "encouraged" by the level of interest. The agency auctioned three-month Treasury bills at a yield of 1.8%, lower than the equivalent Spanish debt. John Corrigan, chief executive of the NTMA, said: "We are encouraged by the strong demand, the competitive interest rate and the presence of significant international interest in today's auction.
"However, we are conscious that this is only the first step towards our ultimate goal of full access to the capital markets. " Skillswise - What are word types? Skillswise - English.