Docudharma Times Thursday October 29

Shortage of Vaccine Poses Political Test for Obama



By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: October 28, 2009

WASHINGTON – The moment a novel strain of swine flu emerged in Mexico last spring, President Obama instructed his top advisers that his administration would not be caught flat-footed in the event of a deadly pandemic. Now, despite months of planning and preparation, a vaccine shortage is threatening to undermine public confidence in government, creating a very public test of Mr. Obama’s competence.

The shortage, caused by delays in the vaccine manufacturing process, has put the president in exactly the situation he sought to avoid – one in which questions are being raised about the government’s response.

In China, too, a health-care system in disarray

Despite recent reforms, 300 million lack insurance — and gaps in care quality grow

By Steven Mufson

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, October 29, 2009

BEIJING — Shen Baohou, 72, who once worked for a hydropower station in Sichuan province, has a serious heart problem, and he — and his children — are paying for it dearly.

Doctors have operated twice on Shen to implant stents at a cost of more than $15,000, about five times China’s per capita income. Under China’s health-care system, the government pays 60 percent of his hospital expenses and virtually nothing for the medications and oxygen he has needed since.

“I am retired and have little pension every month. So I cannot afford the treatment fee at all,” he said, adding that, luckily, his children could afford to help him out. “Without them, I don’t think I could have had the operation.”

USA

Justices will scrutinize life sentences for youths

Cases of two Florida juveniles raise questions about penalty for non-homicide crimes

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, October 29, 2009

It did not take long for the judge to determine that the convicted rapist in front of him was irredeemable.

“He is beyond help,” Judge Nicholas Geeker said of Joe Harris Sullivan. “I’m going to try to send him away for as long as I can.”

And then Geeker sentenced Sullivan to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the time, Sullivan was 13 years old.

Now, 20 years after that sentencing in a courtroom in Pensacola, Fla., the Supreme Court will consider whether Sullivan’s prison term — and what his supporters say is an only-in-America phenomenon of extreme sentences for juveniles — violates the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Government report is expected to mark end to recession

Forecasters say the report is likely to show the economy resumed growth in the third quarter after four straight quarters of contraction. But positive GDP numbers are unlikely to spur hiring.

By Don Lee and Alana Semuels

October 29, 2009

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington – Struggling business owners and millions of unemployed Americans may not believe it, but the government is expected to report today that the U.S. economy turned a corner and resumed growth in the third quarter in what would mark the end to the worst recession since World War II.

Forecasters say the economy probably expanded at an annual rate of about 3% in the three months ended Sept. 30, a solid performance driven largely by the federal stimulus package and improved business spending. The growth — coming after four straight quarters of contraction — is the evidence most economists say is needed to declare victory against the recession.

Middle East

Iran jails British diplomat over summer uprising

• Foreign Office denies political analyst was involved in protests

• David Miliband condemns any conviction as ‘harassment’

Vikram Dodd

The Guardian, Thursday 29 October 2009

Britain’s relations with Iran worsened last night after a senior UK diplomat in Tehran was reportedly sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for orchestrating the mass protests that followed June’s bitterly disputed presidential election that returned the hardliners to power.

Britain denies that Hossein Rassam, its chief political analyst at the Tehran embassy, was involved in the demonstrations that angered and embarrassed the Iranian regime.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London was unable to say if reports Rassam had been convicted were true.

Does J Street arrival signal a split in America’s Israel lobby?

J Street challenges the dominant role AIPAC has played in defining how US Jews see Israel. Why is a prominent Israeli politician not attending J Street’s national conference in Washington this week?.

By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

JERUSALEM – Since the 1950s the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has been the mainstream voice of the Jewish-American community and its efforts to strengthen support for Israel in Washington.

Along comes J Street, a young upstart founded last year, in part as an answer to AIPAC – perceived by many progressive American Jews to have a clear right-wing tilt, and hardly representative of those want to see a much more aggressive push towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

J Street, in the thick of its first national conference in Washington that began Sunday and concludes Wednesday, has attracted 1,500 attendees – above and beyond what its organizers expected. Perhaps more interestingly, it has attracted the attention of the highest levels of government and diplomacy, and has the blogosphere buzzing about what it all means for the future of US-Israel relations.

Europe

Blair bid for EU presidency wins support from Brown

PM backs former PM amid signals that opposition is mounting across Europe

By Nigel Morris, Tony Paterson in Berlin and Michael Day in Milan

Thursday, 29 October 2009

Gordon Brown travels to Brussels today to press the case for Tony Blair to become the first president of the European Union, but indications from around the continent last night suggested the appetite for Blair was waning and that he might have a fight on his hands.

The Prime Minister spoke out publicly for the first time in support of his predecessor’s potential candidacy on the eve of the crunch two-day EU summit. Although the topic is not on the formal agenda – because the Czechs have yet to ratify the Lisbon Treaty that creates the post – the 27 EU leaders will hold preliminary discussions over who should take the inaugural position.

Swiss crackdown on ‘suicide tourism’ could spell end of Dignitas clinic  

From The Times

October 29, 2009

Roger Boyes

Switzerland announced plans yesterday to crack down on “suicide tourism”, signalling that it might close the Dignitas clinic that has helped hundreds of terminally ill people to take their lives.

The plans – in the form of two draft Bills that will be offered for public debate – are likely to set off a rush of patients from Britain and elsewhere in Europe since Switzerland has become the main destination for those seeking assisted suicide.

Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Justice Minister, said that two options would be presented to parliament.

Asia

Drought, typhoons threaten Asia food supplies

Philippine minister says repeat of 2008 deadly rioting is possible

Associated Press  

CEBU, Philippines – A drought in India and typhoons in the Philippines have damaged large tracts of rice paddies, threatening to upset the fragile food market amid fears of shortages and riots, experts said Wednesday.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap of the Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, told an international rice conference the impact of the next “perfect storm” will be greatest on vulnerable countries like his, and the world’s poor.

As US seeks closer ties with Turkmenistan, government cracks down on students

Turkmenistan has prevented dozens of students from travelling abroad to study at a US-sponsored university, and has harassed some that have come home.

By Robin Forestier-Walker | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 28, 2009 edition

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN – The United States has in recent months sought to improve relations with Turkmenistan, the secretive former Soviet possession that is home to rich oil and gas deposits and straddles a strategically vital central Asian location, sharing borders with both Iran and Afghanistan.

But those efforts are being complicated by a government campaign against students seeking to study at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Some students have been barred from travelling abroad to the school and others have been subject to surveillance and harassment when they come home.

“What do you study, how do they teach you, and why do you study it?,” are some of the routine questions that one student from Turkmenistan, who asked not to be identified to protect herself, is peppered with by Turkmen KBG officers every time she returns home from the AUCA in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

Africa

Zimbabwe officials deport UN investigator invited by government

From Times Online

October 29, 2009

Times Online and Jan Raath in Harare

The United Nations chief torture investigator was deported from Zimbabwe early today, after being detained by security officials on Wednesday night as he arrived at the invitation of the country’s government.

Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, was held for several hours at Harare airport before being put on a plane and returned to Johannesburg.

“We are boarding the plane to Johannesburg now,” a U.N official said by mobile phone from Harare airport.

Mr Nowak had been due to spend a week in the country to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. He had been invited formally by Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister, in February.

Somali pirates threaten to kill British couple

Somali pirates who captured a retired couple on a sailing trip around the Indian Ocean have threatened to kill them and “burn their bones” if a rescue attempt is launched

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent, and Mike Planz, East Africa Correspondent

The pirates claim they have captured Paul and Rachel Chandler, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and will use them as “insurance” against military action.

Speaking in broken English one of the pirate leaders, Mohamed Hussein, said: “We are telling Britain that any bullet of our friends on the yacht will be big cries for the families of the two old people we held.

“We warn them any attack on us, this is a good advice for them, otherwise they will burn their two people’s bones.”

Another pirate who gave his name as Shamun Indhobur, speaking by radio telephone from the pirate town of Haradheere to a Spanish news agency in the Somali capital Mogadishu, said the Chandlers would be held for ransom and added: “We ask their families to get in contact with us and pay what we ask.”