Brazil and a U.S. drug maker reached an agreement late Friday on a reduced AIDS drug price, prompting the South American nation to end plans to break the company’s patent, the Health Ministry said Friday. The agreement, reached after 10 days of negotiations, calls for Abbott Laboratories to significantly reduce its price for the drug Kaletra over the next six years, according to a ministry statement. The Health Ministry said Abbott’s price reduction will allow Brazil to save about $260 million over six years.
Scotland: Italians to withdraw
Italy plans to begin withdrawing some of its troops from Iraq in September, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Friday. Speaking at the end of the G-8 summit, Berlusconi said the withdrawal plans could change because they depend on security conditions on the ground. He denied they were linked to any terrorist threats against Italy. “We will begin withdrawing 300 men in the month of September,” said Berlusconi, who has come under increasing pressure in Italy over his support for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
Italy: Red Brigades sentencing
A judge in Rome on Friday convicted and sentenced to life in prison three members of the Red Brigades terrorist group for the 1999 killing of a government labor adviser, court officials said. A fourth was convicted and sentenced to nine years. Prosecutors had asked for life terms for all four, who were accused of gunning down Massimo D’Antona in Rome in May 1999 while he was working on labor market reforms that were bitterly contested by Italy’s labor unions.
Israel: Guard kills Arab teenager
An Israeli security guard shot dead a Palestinian teenager Friday during a protest against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, police said. Demonstrators marked the first anniversary of a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, that the barrier, a network of ditches, barbed wire and concrete blocks, violates international law and must be taken down. The guard was taken into custody and his weapon confiscated pending an investigation, a police spokesman said.
From Herald news services
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