LONDON – Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart has reiterated the government’s intent to affect a major crackdown on prostitution and has said that though the issue was on a backburner, it was not abandoned.

“I’m not tolerant of the view that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and there’s nothing we can do to reduce it,” Ms Mactaggart was quoted as saying on The Guardian. “Prostitution blights communities. We will take a zero tolerance approach to kerb crawling.”

The Tony Blair government had asked for a consultation on the issue of prostitution and the then home secretary David Blunkett had proposed setting up licensed “red light” areas where prostitutes could carry on the sex trade. But Ms Mactaggart said that this plan was no longer being debated upon and that the whole operation would be banned altogether.

“”Men who choose to use prostitutes are indirectly supporting drug dealers and abusers. The power to confiscate driving licenses already exists. We want the police to use that power more,” she said. “It is a form of child abuse – most women who are prostitutes started being prostitutes at the age of 13 or 14 and we have got to have strong mechanisms to reduce prostitution.” She added that she could not accept the premise that prostitution was the oldest profession and must be allowed to be a part of the society.

However, campaigners are not so sure that the government’s crackdown is beneficial to the prostitutes, Carrie Mitchell, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, said that banning prostitution in Sweden had resulted in compounding the misery of the women who lived on it, “Neither the poverty that forces women into prostitution to support themselves and their families – or any of the grave injustices in the existing legislation – have been addressed,” she alleged, adding that the government was missing the point entirely in embarking on this “zero tolerance” policy.

Mark Oaten, the home affairs spokesman of the Liberal Democrats said that the announcement was a rehash of earlier proclamations, “Prostitution is likely to remain Britain’s oldest profession and the most effective approach to the problem will require managing it rather than attempting to completely end it,” he observed.

EDINBURGH: Patients covered under the National Health Service (NHS) in a part of Nottinghamshire are being told to desist from smoking at their homes when the health workers come visiting.

The new rules being introduced by Ashfield and Mansfield Primary Care Trust from the new year are part of a zero tolerance policy towards smoking. The rules prescribe that patients who will not stop smoking will have to approach another venue for treatment.

The Primary Care Trust does not allow patients and staff to smoke in all its building, grounds and community health centres. It says it indeed wants to protect its staff from the hazards of passive smoking. It also plans to ban health workers from smoking in cars when they are on a visit.

Primary Care Trust’s senior public health manager Barbara Brady said tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals in the form of particles and gases and some of the immediate effects of passive smoking include eye irritation, headache, cough, sore throat, dizziness and nausea.

The proposal had drawn criticism from some quarters. Tory MP Richard Bacon, himself a non-smoker, said people should be allowed to do what they like at their homes.

Simon Clark of pro-smoking group Forest, said the very idea that anybody is at serious risk from smoke by going into someone’s home for a short time is utter nonsense and part of the anti-smoking hysteria. He felt this could be a first step towards a campaign to ban all smoking in the home.

Green tea extract known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) seemed to have improved the condition of four patients having chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) in the Mayo Clinic in the United States.

In CLL, a blood and bone marrow cancer, white blood cells are affected. This is supposed to be the most common type of leukemia and normally occurs in persons above the age of 60.

The findings published online in Leukemia Research revealed that the patients showed signs of improvement after they took tablets containing EGCG.

At least, three of the four CLL patients showed signs of their cancer abating.

In fact, a Mayo Clinic study earlier found that EGCG kills leukemia cells which were taken from patients having CLL.

Study author and hematologist Dr. Tait Shanafelt said: “The experience of these individuals provides some suggestion that our previously published laboratory findings may actually translate into clinical effects for patients with the disease.”

He, however, said it was too early to draw any conclusions based on these results. He felt more studies needed to be carried out.

He added: “We do not know how many patients were taking similar products and failed to have any benefit. We also do not yet know the optimal dose that should be used, the frequency with which patients should take the medication, and what side effects will be observed with long-term administration.”

U.S. National Cancer Institute is sponsoring this study at Mayo clinic.

There is no cure as of now for this leukemia.

“The findings are interesting, but we cannot say yet this is a new treatment for cancer,” says Ken Campbell, clinical information officer at the Leukaemia Research Fund.

LONDON: Britain has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia for the sale of an unspecified number of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft. The British embassy in Riyadh issued a statement saying, “Under the terms of the signed document, Typhoon aircraft will replace the Tornado Air Defence Variant aircraft and others currently in service by Royal Saudi Armed Forces.”

No other details were given as the embassy said specific details of the arrangement is governed by the “existing confidentiality agreement”.

Sources in Riyadh said the deal covers at least 48 Eurofighter jets with an option to increase the number to 72 later.

The agreement follows high-level talks between visiting British defence minister John Reid and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Wednesday. Reid had talks with the Saudi Arabian defence minister Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, earlier.

This will be the first order for the aircraft outside Europe. In Europe, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain are buying 620 Eurofighter planes in three batches. Austria has placed an order 18 jets.

Munich-based Eurofighter GmbH is a consortium formed by British defence company BAE Systems, European aerospace group EADS Co. and Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA. The Saudi deal provides for BAE Systems to transfer technology and invest in Saudi companies, while providing local training to Saudi nationals. The London-based company had provided Tornado planes, parts and airbase management to Saudi Arabia under the Al Yamamah programme since 1985. It employs 4,600 workers in Saudi Arabia, more than half of them Saudi nationals.

Defence deals between Saudi Arabia and Britain date back to the 1960s and are mostly governed by the arms-for-oil principle.

Reid said in an e-mailed message from Riyadh that BAE Systems, as prime contractor, and its many UK sub-contractors will benefit from the work, which will help sustain several thousand U.K. jobs over the next 10 years.

Analysts estimated that the deal could secure 10,000 jobs, which rely directly or indirectly on BAE’s Eurofighter’s Lancashire plant. Another 4,000 Rolls-Royce jobs will also be secured because the jets use its EJ200 engine.

BAE issued a brief statement welcoming the deal and hoping the agreement will be signed in the next few months. It did not put a value to the contract, but analysts said it could be in the range of 6 billion pounds to 20 billion pounds over a 10-year period.

The Al-Yamamah programme had contributed 215 million in profit on sales of 1.3 billion pounds for the company last year.

LONDON: Underlying mortgage lending recorded a 5.1 billion-pound increase in November, the highest in more than a year, according to the British Bankers’ Association, emphasising that housing market is very much on its stabilisation path.

The increase is in line with details outlined in a report by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which showed that house prices rose for the first time since July 2004 in the three months to November. It said its members saw the first overall rise in U.K. house prices in 15 months.

It said 4 per cent more members reported a rise than a fall in November. This is based on inquiries from buyers, which has risen for the sixth month in a row. RICS described this as the longest spell of rising inquiries since 2001.

BBA said the increase, highest since July 2004, compared with the growth of 4.3 billion pounds in October and the average 4.4 billion pounds over the last 6 months. The latest lending number too showed stronger mortgage approvals — the number of loans agreed but not yet made — which is an indicator of house prices.

BBA’s director of statistics, David Dooks felt the above average rise in mortgage lending rates is proof enough that the mortgage market was at its lowest in the summer and it is now on an climb-back.

The International Monetary Fund, which came out with data in its annual health check of the British industry, said risk of a sudden adjustment has lessened. IMF had earlier warned of the dangers posed by the static housing market.

The Building Societies Association, which carried out a study on the value of mortgage approvals, said approvals in November had gone up to 4.051 billion pounds compared with 4.148 billion in October. A year-earlier figure stood at 3.055 billion pounds.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders too came out with data saying the gross mortgage lending was 28.45 billion pounds in November, up from 26.99 billion pounds in October. The November figure indicated a 31 per cent increase over the year.

The council’s director-general, Michael Coogan, said the housing and mortgage markets have clearly strengthened from the lows of a year ago.

Earlier, Halifax too said house price inflation had gone up to nearly 5 per cent.

LONDON: British bank Lloyds TSB Group Plc. is selling its Goldfish credit card business to U.S. financial firm Morgan Stanley Bank International Limited for 1 billion pounds in cash.

Morgan Stanley said it hoped the acquisition will help it to expand its existing credit card business — increasing the number of cards by as much as 47 per cent — to 2.3 million accounts and securing 800 million pounds worth of business through balance transfer to its existing 1.5 billion pounds. The price the U.S. bank is paying constitutes a premium of 175 million pounds to the business unit’s net balances.

Lloyds TSB, Britain’s fifth-largest bank in assets terms, will make a profit before tax of 70 million pounds from the deal. The bank’s head of retail Terri Dial said the bank would want to have a Lloyds TSB-branded credit card.

The bank had acquired Goldfish by buying the 70 per cent stake in did not own from utility major Centrica in 2003 for a premium of 112.5 million pounds to the unit’s net balances. The deal with Morgan Stanley includes transfer of the brand and loyalty program. Dial said a vast majority of Goldfish’s Glasgow-based staff will move to Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley International’s chairman David Walker said the acquisition is consistent with the bank’s strategy of growing its international business by taking opportunities for bolt-on acquisitions. It is also in consonance with its decision to commit resources in the U.K. and Europe.

LONDON – Mozilla’s Firefox browser is now ahead of the Internet Explorer in terms of usage on European computers. A study by technology company AdTech says that the popularity of the open-source browser has grown by 40 percent over the last six months.

Plus Firefox has managed to increase its market share from 8.96 percent to 12.41 percent in the same six-month period between March and October this year. The main reason for users shunning Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is the dodgy security in the latter. That is not to say that Firefox is not vulnerable to being attacked.

But the fact remains that IE supports the ActiveX controls, which remains the main channel for the entry of malicious codes as well as spyware. Firefox does not support these controls, but it has still made massive improvements in the 1.5 version. The tabbed browsing feature has always been its main attraction to many users and this feature continues to deliver in leaps and bounds in the new version as well.

The main feature that has rendered Firefox relatively safe against hackers has been its open-source origins, which means that programmers have been regularly updating this version as keeping it out of the reach of malware makers. The new version boasts of a better pop-up blocking feature, but initial feelings are that it remains pretty much similar to earlier versions. The “Clear Private Data” command is pretty useful in wiping out all your traces including that of saved passwords and usernames. Firefox scores heavily over Internet Explorer in this category.

The new version also presents two new web-design categories called Canvas and SVG and this makes surfing more interesting. A big plus is the RSS button, which is now displayed on top of the page rather than at the bottom. All said and done, Firefox is at the moment ahead of Internet Explorer in the stakes and this should serve as a wake-up call to the Redmond honchos. A IE 7.0 is in the works and it is a sure thing that all the popular features of Firefox will be taken into consideration before releasing it. Till then happy “tabbed” browsing!

LONDON: European drug distributor Alliance UniChem Plc., which is in the process of merging with Boots Group Plc. in a 7 billion-pound deal, said it expects to meet financial goals in the current fiscal although it had encountered difficulties in some markets.

The company said it could not achieve expected growth in Spain and Britain during the second half of the year. However, this was compensated by a strong performance by its retail division. It, however, expected the British market to return to the growth phase in 2006 after the impact of the government-imposed price cuts in January last wanes.

Under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, drug companies have agreed to cut prices on products that are sold to the NHS by 7 per cent.

Alliance UniChem said it continued with its tight cost controls and a strict financial regimen, which it hoped should yield results in 2006.

The company added 101 pharmacies in the 11 months to 30 November, reaching a total of 1,283. Nearly 120 of the stores are operated by associates.

The proposed merger with Boots is expected to create one of Europe’s largest drug and healthcare firms with sales reaching 13 billion pounds and 2,600 stores across the U.K. The Office of Fair Trading is debating whether the deal should be referred to the Competition Commission. It anyway requires the approval of both companies’ shareholders.

Alliance UniChem brings out its financial results on 28 February. The company’s shares were down 1 penny at 789, valuing the business at 2.9 billion pounds.