Docudharma Times Friday January 8

Jonathan Gruber Failed to Disclose His $297,600 Contract with HHS

Healthcare overhaul could save money and boost jobs, researchers say

In a report to be released today, Harvard and USC economists say legislation being considered would slow cost increases and free up money for companies to raise wages and hire more workers.

By Duke Helfand

January 8, 2010

National healthcare legislation in Congress could slow the growth of medical costs, allowing employers to create 250,000 to 400,000 new jobs a year over the next decade, economists from Harvard University and USC are predicting.

Wading into the hotly debated issue of whether the legislation is a job creator or a job killer, researchers from the two universities say that the reforms under consideration would slow the rate of cost increases and free up money for companies to raise wages and hire more workers.

Scientists say mountaintop mining should be stopped



By David A. Fahrenthold

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 8, 2010

Mountaintop coal mining — in which Appalachian peaks are blasted off and stream valleys buried under tons of rubble — is so destructive that the government should stop giving out new permits to do it, a group of scientists said in a paper released Thursday.

The group, headed by a University of Maryland researcher, said it performed the most comprehensive study to date of the controversial practice, also known as “mountaintop removal.”

Afterward, they did something that scientists usually don’t: step beyond data-gathering to take a political stand.

“The science is so overwhelming that the only conclusion that one can reach is that mountaintop mining needs to be stopped,” said Margaret Palmer, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences and the study’s lead author.

USA

E.P.A. Seeks Stricter Rules for Pollutants Causing Smog



By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: January 7, 2010

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a stricter standard for smog-causing pollutants that would bring substantial health benefits to millions of Americans while imposing large costs on industry and local governments.

The standard would replace one set by the Bush administration in March 2008, which has been challenged in court by state officials and environmental advocates as too weak to adequately protect human health and the environment.

The Obama administration’s proposal sets a primary standard for ground-level ozone of no more than 0.060 to 0.070 parts per million, to be phased in over two decades.

Two defense contractors indicted in shooting of Afghans

 

 By Jerry Markon

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 8, 2010

Two defense contractors working for a subsidiary of the former Blackwater Worldwide were charged with shooting and killing two Afghan citizens in Kabul and wounding a third, prosecutors said Thursday, the first slayings linked to the firm in that country and its latest legal blow.

Justin Cannon, 27, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Norfolk on murder and other charges in the May 5 shootings, in which the men opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles on a car that they said they thought was trying to run them down. The indictment was unsealed Thursday.

Asia

Family claim Chinese deputy mayor was murdered by corrupt officials

Widow wants alleged suicide case reopened after inconsistencies in police report and autopsy

Tania Branigan

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 January 2010

The family of a Chinese official who died in mysterious circumstances are urging the authorities to reinvestigate his alleged suicide, claiming he was murdered.

Yang Kuansheng, the deputy mayor of Wugang in central Hunan province, was found dead on 26 November outside his apartment block.

Local police closed the inquiry after less than 48 hours, saying Yang had slashed one of his wrists then tried to electrocute himself before leaping from a balcony.

But his widow says Yang called her the night before his death to say he feared someone would hurt him. She is asking the ministry of public security and national prosecutors to reopen the case.

Tamil Tiger video killing is genuine, declares the UN

From The Times

January 8, 2010

Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent, and James Bone in New York

A leading United Nations expert called yesterday for a war crimes inquiry in Sri Lanka after his investigation concluded that a video showing soldiers summarily killing Tamil prisoners last year was authentic.

In a damning report citing top scientific experts, Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, dismissed the Sri Lankan Government’s claims that the footage shown by Channel 4 had been fabricated. He urged Colombo to allow UN experts to investigate “persistent” allegations of war crimes in the final stages of its three-decade civil war.

“In light of these conclusions and of the persistent flow of other allegations concerning alleged extrajudicial executions committed by both sides during the closing phases of the war,” Professor Alston wrote, “I call for an independent inquiry to be established to carry out an impartial investigation into war crimes.”

Middle East

Defiant Yemen tells US soldiers to keep out

Donald Macintyre reports from Sana’a on the country’s refusal to become the latest hub of America’s war on terror

Friday, 8 January 2010

Yemen insisted yesterday that it could handle its own mounting security challenges without any direct foreign intervention, pointedly warning Washington to learn the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.

While welcoming US intelligence and technological co-operation, the Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security, Rashad al-Alimi, told a crowded news conference in the capital, Sana’a, that the government did not want foreign troops on its soil.

That message was reinforced by Foreign Minister Abukar al-Qirbi, who told CNN that fighting militants was “the priority and the responsibility of our security forces and the army”.

Israel says tests on Iron Dome missile shield have been a success

From The Times

January 8, 2010

Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

Israel has announced the successful testing of its Iron Dome anti-missile system, said to be capable of intercepting rockets launched by militants in Gaza and South Lebanon.

The shield, which fires missiles at incoming threats that it identifies by radar, is being called a “gamechanger” in the way that Israel can conduct its defences.

The system can estimate where a missile will land, targeting those that will hit populated areas while ignoring missiles heading for open ground, military experts said.

Iron Dome would stop missiles with a range of between 4 and 70 kilometres (2.5 and 45 miles), spanning smaller mortar shells from Gaza to the Iranian-made Fajr rockets fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Europe

France moves to outlaw the burka and niqab citing égalité

Proposal angers Sarkozy as he struggles to contain surge in anti-Islamic feeling

By John Lichfield in Paris Friday, 8 January 2010

The parliamentary leader of the ruling French party is to put forward a draft law within two weeks to ban the full-body veil from French streets and all other public places.

The announcement by Jean-François Copé, cutting short an anguished six-month debate on the burka and its Arab equivalent, the niqab, will divide both right and left and is likely to anger President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr Copé, in an interview with Le Figaro to be published tomorrow, said that he would bring forward a law which would impose fines of up to €750 (£675) on anyone appearing in public “with their face entirely masked”.

Yuri Gagarin death mystery solved after 40 years

The mystery surrounding Yuri Gagarin’s death in an aircraft crash more than forty years ago may finally have been solved by a report which quashes decades of conspiracy theories.

By Andrew Osborn in Moscow

Published: 6:00AM GMT 08 Jan 2010

Independent Russian investigators say they have uncovered crucial new evidence which finally reveals how the world’s first man in space died aged just 34.

The study claims Gagarin’s death during a routine training flight in 1968 was caused by his panicked reaction after realising an air vent in his cockpit was open.

He threw his MiG-15 fighter jet into such a steep dive that he blacked out and crashed into a forest below killing himself and his co-pilot.

Igor Kuznetsov, a retired Soviet air force colonel, believes his findings will end years of conspiracy theories ranging from claims he was drunk to allegations the accident was staged by jealous Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Latin America

Argentine central bank boss Martin Redrado steps down

Argentina’s central bank boss has stepped down after the president signed a decree firing him for refusing to use currency reserves to pay foreign debt.

The BBC  Friday, 8 January 2010

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner cited misconduct and dereliction of duties in a decree dismissing Martin Redrado.

A spokesman for Mr Redrado said he had agreed to step aside but not to resign, and was launching a legal challenge.

Constitutional lawyers say the decree may be illegal, as the central bank chief can only be removed by Congress.

Mr Redrado angered the president after he rejected her order to transfer $6.6bn to a government fund to pay foreign debts.

Argentina has $13bn of international debt that matures this year, and a hole in its budget of between $2bn and $7bn.

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