Natural Hormone Replacement Therapy

HRT is available in various forms. It generally provides low dosages of one or more estrogens, and often also provides either progesterone or a chemical analogue, called a progestin. Testosterone may also be included. In women who have had a hysterectomy, an estrogen compound is usually given without any progesterone, a therapy referred to as "unopposed estrogen therapy". HRT may be delivered to the body via patches, tablets, creams, troches, IUDs, vaginal rings, gels or, more rarely, by injection. Dosage is often varied cyclically, with estrogens taken daily and progesterone or progestins taken for about two weeks every month or two; a method called "sequentially combined HRT" or scHRT. An alternate method, a constant dosage with both types of hormones taken daily, is called "continuous combined HRT" or ccHRT, and is a more recent innovation. Sometimes an androgen, generally testosterone, is added to treat reduced sexual desire/(libido). It may also treat reduced energy and help reduce osteoporosis after menopause.

HRT is often given as a short-term relief (often one or two years, usually less than five) from menopausal symptoms (hot flashes, irregular menstruation, fat redistribution etc.). Younger women with premature ovarian failure or surgical menopause may use hormone replacement therapy for many years, until the age that natural menopause would be expected to occur.

MARRAKECH, Morocco – Trying to mute Arab criticism that the Obama administration had retreated from its tough stance on Israeli settlements, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday softened her praise for Israel's offer to restrain new housing in Palestinian areas.
While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements, Clinton said, its offer "falls far short" of U.S. expectations.
Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel's offer, during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as "positive reinforcement." But her comment drew widespread criticism from Persian Gulf ministers who interpreted it as a U.S drawback on settlements, which have been the main obstacle to a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In a sign of U.S. eagerness to calm Arab concerns, Clinton is extending her trip by one day to fly to Cairo to meet with President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, her staff announced. She had been scheduled to return to Washington on Tuesday.
Clinton's comments in Jerusalem on Saturday appeared to reflect a realization within the Obama administration that Netanyahu's government will not accept a full-on settlement freeze and that a partial halt may be the best lesser option. Her appeal on Saturday seemed designed to make the Israeli position more palatable to the Palestinians and Arab states.
Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking.
During a photo-taking session Monday with her Moroccan counterpart, Clinton was asked by a reporter about the Arab reaction, and she responded by reading from a written statement that appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration's views on settlements.
"Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel's settlement policy," she said. "That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."
Clinton's tweaking of her earlier remarks appeared to satisfy at least some of the Morocco meeting attendees. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said Monday that "we have heard her say something completely different from that statement in line with previous statements, so we are happy that such a position was highlighted and brought back to the right line and right now we will see how things will go."
Malki added that "we completely appreciate the sincere efforts made by President Barack Obama and his team to take this issue as a top priority and to try to deal with it from day one."
In her recalibrated comments Monday, Clinton also called on the Israelis to do more to improve "movement and access" for Palestinians and on Israeli security arrangements.
She added, however, that Israel deserved praise for moving in the right direction.
"This offer falls far short of what we would characterize as our position or what our preference would be," she added. "But if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth."
In her statement to reporters, Clinton also stressed that the Palestinian authorities deserved credit for what she called "unprecedented" steps to improve security in the West Bank and praised the Palestinians for progress in training their security forces.
On Monday evening, Clinton met with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus officials from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Morocco. Clinton also flew Monday to the south-central city of Ouarzazate for an audience with King Mohammed VI, then returned to Marrakech for talks with foreign ministers of several Persian Gulf nations.
Clinton was expected to meet separately with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who has rejected U.S. appeals for improved Arab relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks.
After taking office in January, Obama buoyed Palestinian hopes for progress toward establishing a Palestinian state with his outreach to the Muslim world and an initially tough stance urging a full freeze to all settlement construction.
But after making little headway with the Israelis in recent months, Clinton urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in a face-to-face meeting in Abu Dhabi on Saturday to renew talks, which broke down late last year, without conditions. Abbas said no, insisting that Israel first halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Then, at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday in Jerusalem, Clinton praised Netanyahu's offer to curb some settlement construction, saying it was an unprecedented gesture.

That statement provoked a chiding by Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. Jordan and Egypt also issued statements Sunday critical of the latest U.S. approach.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

On Monday, Sprint Nextel unveiled its first netbook offering, the Dell Inspiron Mini 10. The netbook is selling at some San Francisco Bay Area stores for $199 with activation on a Sprint Mobile Broadband plan and a two-year service agreement.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 10 features embedded EV-DO Rev. A wireless service from Sprint. The service promises faster data rates and higher system capacity so users can send and receive large amounts of data at broadband speeds comparable to DSL.

The netbook weighs 2.6 pounds and measures 10.3 by 7.2 inches. It's just more than one inch thick with a 10.1-inch LED screen. The machine has an Intel Atom Processor Z520, Microsoft Windows Home XP SP3, a built-in 1.3-megapixel webcam, a 160GB hard drive, integrated Intel 500 Media Accelerator Graphics, 5-in-1 media reader, Bluetooth technology, and Wi-Fi 802.11g.

"Dell Inspiron Mini 10 is a fun way to easily access the speeds of Sprint's network to catch-up on e-mail, surf the Web, and more," said Kevin Packingham, senior vice president of product development at Sprint. "It offers an affordable way to stay in touch and stay connected."

The Need for Speed

Sprint said the faster speed lets customers to take advantage of applications and services, such as wireless VoIP, high-speed video telephony, music on demand, and video messaging.

Average upload speeds are 350-500 Kbps and download speeds are between 600 Kbps and 1.4 Mbps. Peak download data rates increase to 3.1 Mbps and peak upload rates to 1.8 Mbps. The speed comes at a price -- $59.99 a month for a 5GB data plan.

"Netbooks and data cards seem to be the first place that carriers look when they roll out faster networks because the difference in speed correlates directly to usability," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. "If you are working on a notebook or a netbook, then faster Internet is immediately useful. When you are downloading large files, uploading a lot of e-mail, or watching video, these activities benefit from faster networks."

Sprint Tests Netbook Waters

Sprint said the Dell netbook is suited for small businesses and consumers who live a mobile lifestyle and want to enhance productivity by being connected just about anywhere they go.

Taking a page out of retailer Best Buy's playbook, Sprint is also pushing its Ready Now service with trained retail associates to work with customers to set up the Dell Mini 10 and demonstrate how it works.

"The carriers seem to be testing the waters for netbooks," Greengart said. "It looks like Sprint has been waiting to see what the demand is like. They must like what they see with the AT&T and Verizon launches, and they are following suit."

KABUL – Afghanistan's election commission proclaimed President Hamid Karzai the victor of the country's tumultuous ballot Monday, canceling a planned runoff and ending a political crisis two and a half months after a fraud-marred first round.
The Obama administration — which has been waiting for a government deemed legitimate to emerge in Kabul before announcing whether to deploy tens of thousands more troops — quickly commended the ruling.
"We congratulate President Karzai on his victory in this historic election and look forward to working with him" to support reform and improve security, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. Britain and the United Nations also issued statements of congratulations.
The cancellation of Saturday's vote came one day after former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah announced he was pulling out of the Nov. 7 vote. Abdullah said the ballot would not have been fair and accused the Karzai-appointed Independent Election Commission of bias.
The annulment is a huge relief to organizers who were scrambling to hold the election before the onset of Afghanistan's harsh winter, as well as to authorities who feared a wave of bloody violence on polling day after a Taliban spokesman threatened attacks against anyone who took part.
Election commission chairman Azizullah Lodin announced Karzai the winner during a news conference in Kabul.
"His excellency Hamid Karzai, who has won the majority of votes in the first round and is the only candidate for the second round, is declared by the Independent Election Commission as the elected president of Afghanistan," Lodin said.
Lodin said that the commission had the authority to make the decision because the Afghan constitution only allows for a runoff between two candidates. There is a chance that the ruling could be contested, but the international community came out strongly in support of it.
The U.S. statement said the commission's decision was in line with "its mandate under Afghan law."
A spokesman for Abdullah, however, said the decision did not reflect Afghan law but declined to say if the candidate would challenge it.
"The announcement that was made by the electoral commission today will not solve the problems of Afghanistan, and it doesn't have any basis in law," Fazel Sancharaki said.
He said Abdullah would give his reaction in a speech Tuesday. "We expected that this commission would announce something like this because this commission has never been independent and has always supported President Karzai," Sancharaki said.
Ronald Neumann, a retired U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said canceling the runoff was the country's best available option and that few were likely to contest the decision.
"It's over. He withdrew. Karzai wins. I think we are much more hung up than they will be on rules," Neumann said.
Karzai has led Afghanistan since U.S. forces invaded to oust the Taliban in 2001. He won elections in 2004 and his latest victory will give him another five-year mandate.
The U.S. will have to find a way to work with the Afghan leader, who has fallen out of favor in Washington after openly criticizing U.S. military tactics, including the heavy use of air power that has killed many civilians.
The mass ballot-box stuffing that characterized the Aug. 20 vote further sullied Karzai's reputation. Fraud investigators threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes, dropping him below the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright.
Worried that Karzai's government would not be seen as legitimate, a bevy of international figures, including U.S. Sen. John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, pressed Karzai to consent to a runoff.

But on Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Kabul on a surprise visit, welcomed the decision to forego the runoff.

"This has been a difficult election process for Afghanistan, and lessons must be learned," said Ban. "Afghanistan now faces significant challenges and the new president must move swiftly to form a government that is able to command the support of both the Afghan people and the international community."

Last week, insurgents in suicide vests stormed a guest house in the heart of Kabul filled with U.N. election workers, killing five U.N. staffers and three Afghans. The attack raised questions about whether the world body might scale back its operations in the war-ravaged country.

But Ban promised Monday that the U.N. work would continue in Afghanistan despite the slayings. He also said Karzai had assured him Afghan security forces would work to protect his staff.

Ban told reporters that "we cannot be deterred, we must not be deterred. ... The work of the United Nations will continue."

The same day, however, the world body announced it would pull some expatriate staff out of Pakistan and suspend long-term development work in areas along the Afghan border because of violence.

The U.N. kept operating after an August 2003 truck bombing at its headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, including mission chief Sergio Vieira de Mello, but after a second bombing it shut down operations in Iraq in late October 2003 for years.

Meanwhile, Afghan authorities ordered all schools and universities closed for three weeks amid swine flu fears that were heightened Wednesday after the country registered its first death from the virus.

The Health Ministry said large gatherings at public baths and wedding halls will be forbidden for the same period. Elsewhere, NATO-led forces said one Afghan girl was accidentally killed during an operation against militants in the southern province of Kandahar on Sunday. A joint Afghan-international force fired on two motorcycles carrying militants south of the city, killing a girl who was on one of the motorbikes, NATO said in a statement.

___

Associated Press Writer Todd Pitman contributed to this report from Kabul.