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On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Michael McCaul (R-TX) stated that there are around 10,000 interpreters who worked with U.S. forces still in Afghanistan, and they “are gone. The Taliban will not allow them to leave.” And are “already being executed.” McCaul said, “The interpreters who worked with our special forces, they are gone. The Taliban will not allow them to leave.” Host Wolf Blitzer then cut in to ask McCaul if he was referring to SIV holders. McCaul responded, “Special Immigrant Visas, these are the guys that worked right with our special...

Here is some of what is posted on the page: Jan. 17 — The chimpanzee version of the AIDS virus appears to be extremely rare in wild chimps, which suggests the apes evolved a way to deal with the killer virus generations ago, researchers said on Thursday. The study also confirmed earlier theories that AIDS passed to humans from chimps in Central Africa, they said SCIENTISTS HAVE long known nonhuman primates carry their own version of the AIDS virus. But so far, it has been found only in captive chimpanzees. No one knows how prevalent or geographically or genetically diverse ...

Some chimps in Gombe National Park have been succumbing to an AIDS-like disease.Michael L. Wilson Researchers have overturned a decade-old consensus that chimpanzees cannot fall ill as a result of infection with a virus similar to HIV.Previously, scientists had thought that chimpanzees were like other non-human primates that can become infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) — which is closely related to HIV — but do not go on to be seriously sickened by the virus.The results suggest that it will not be possible to find the key to HIV immunity in the chimpanzee genome, as scientists had hoped. However,...

Enlarge ImageDesigner genes. Monkeys given a virus that holds the DNA for lab-made antibodies dodged SIV.Credit: Malcolm Linton Researchers are reporting that a new antiviral strategy powerfully protects monkeys from SIV, the simian cousin of HIV. The approach combines elements of vaccines and gene therapy, and experts say the development could eventually lead to a vaccinelike weapon against AIDS--a goal that has thus far proved elusive. Vaccines work by priming the "adaptive" immune system to recognize and attack a specific invader. But despite 2 decades of research, several potential AIDS vaccines have failed to teach the immune system to...

Enlarge ImageRelative similarities. Gombe chimps infected by SIVcpz have a remarkably high death rate and evidence of AIDS-like immune damage.Credit: Michael Wilson MONTREAL, CANADA--Researchers have long assumed that SIVcpz, the chimpanzee virus that infected humans and triggered the AIDS epidemic, caused no harm to the apes. But new data presented here today at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections reveal that wild chimps infected with SIVcpz are more likely to die than uninfected chimps. The animals also show AIDS-like damage to their immune systems. The finding raises the possibility that chimps, too, are suffering from an AIDS...

Citigroup Will Assume Control of 7 Structured Investment Vehicles With $49 Billion in Assets NEW YORK (AP) -- Citigroup Inc. said Thursday it plans to assume control of the seven "structured investment vehicles" the bank advises to help them repay their debts. Citigroup will provide a "support facility" for its seven SIVs with investments totaling $49 billion and incorporate them onto its balance sheet. The bank previously said it had no plans to bring the SIVs onto its books. SIVs are complex investment funds established by banks like Citigroup and sold to investors. SIVs borrow money by selling short-term debt...

Meredith Whitney, the CIBC World Markets' financial services analyst, believes the only way forward for new chairman Robert Rubin and interim chief executive Sir Win Bischoff is to carve the bank up and sell it off. Asked about the possibility of a Citi break-up, Ms Whitney, who received death threats following her comments last week, said: "That's really the only thing they can do. They don't have the capital to manage it as an ongoing entity." Ms Whitney's views stem from her belief that Citi does not have enough capital to meet its existing commitments, something the bank denied in...

By studying chimpanzee droppings in remote African jungles, scientists reported yesterday, they have found direct evidence of a missing link between a chimpanzee virus and the one that causes human AIDS. Scientists have long suspected that chimpanzees are the source of the human AIDS pandemic because at least one subspecies carries a simian immune deficiency virus closely related to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. But because the simian virus, known as S.I.V.cpz, was identified in chimpanzees in captivity, researchers could not be sure that the same simian virus existed among these apes in the wild. It does, the team...