Thursday 4th February 2010
Army may again patrol British streets to confront terror threat
Long-awaited Green Paper foresees new domestic role for Britain's services, with emphasis on greater co-operation as chiefs face up to budgetary constraints
Kim Sengupta - The Independent
Britain's armed forces could be used on a regular basis on the streets of Britain to confront the threat of terrorism, under the terms of a strategic defence review announced yesterday.
Two of the six "key questions" to be considered by the SDR will focus on domestic threats which "cannot be separated from international security", according to a Green Paper setting out the grounds for a full scale review to start after the election.
Decisions need to be made on the "balance between focusing on our territory and region and engaging threats at a distance" and "what contribution the armed forces should make in ensuring security and contributing to resilience within the UK".
The paper states: "Stronger, more effective partnership with other Whitehall departments, the intelligence agencies, police forces and others at the national level will become even more important to achieving our security objective."
One proposal due to be considered, according to Whitehall officials, was the formation of a rapid reaction force which could be deployed to counter Mumbai-style terrorist attacks and carry out swift operations outside the country.
On long-term missions overseas the economic circumstances meant that Britain will have to co-operate more closely with international allies like France, said the paper. While the US remained Britain's most important strategic ally, much closer co-operation should take place with other countries.
"In Europe, the return of France to Nato's integrated military structure offers an opportunity for even greater co-operation with a key partner across a range of defence activity" it added.
The main theme of the Paper was "adaptability", imperative due to the varying demands on limited resources. The 52-page document admitted that although commanders on the ground in Afghanistan have shown the ability to adapt rapidly to challenges this had been undermined by the system in London.
"There is a widely held view within defence that our structures and processes have hindered strategic adaptation to evolving challenges and have not been as effective as they should have been in supporting commanders' innovation on the ground."
The Paper made it clear that the SDR will have to carried out against the backdrop of the £178bn deficit in the public finances. Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, stressed: "The wider financial context means resources across government will be constrained. We should not underestimate the scale of that challenge.
"We cannot proceed with all the activities and programmes we currently aspire to, while simultaneously supporting our current operations and investing in the new capabilities we need."
The SDR, the first one in more than a decade, is supposed to take a "root- and-branch" look at defence policy with the constraint on spending a major factor. The Ministry of Defence has a £35m black hole in its budget.
However, in presenting the Green Paper yesterday Mr Ainsworth stated three times that he did not expect it to be too "radical". He also said that one of the most contentious investment in defence, two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, is likely to go ahead.
Senior officers in the Army, doing the vast bulk of the fighting previously in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, have forcefully argued in private that the carriers were a luxury in the current economic circumstances and were relics of the cold war in the age of the insurgent.
Mr Ainsworth said yesterday: "The strategic defence review will have to take a pretty radical direction not foreseen by me in order to suggest those capabilities will not be required" he said.
"While of course the whole defence is in the review we understand the commitments we have already made and the likelihood that those will continue to be a requirement in the future."
The Defence Secretary also confirmed that the £20bn updating of the Trident nuclear programme, another source of debate, will also go ahead.
Conservative defence spokesman, Liam Fox, questioned how much Britain could afford to rely on European allies such as France. "We also agree that France and the United States are likely to be our main strategic partners" he said. "For us there are two tests; do they invest in defence? And do they fight? Sadly, too few Europeans pass that test."
Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, Nick Harvey, said the omission of Trident from the review had left the Green paper "unbalanced". He continued: "Surely the manner, the scale and the timing of any replacement of Trident has cost implications for the entirety of the rest of the defence budget."
The Military Balance, an annual assessment of international defence published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies yesterday showed that China and India significantly raised their defence spending in 2009.
India raised its defence budget by 21 per cent following the Mumbai attack the previous year, while China raised its spending in the field by 15 per cent.
Irish terror threat rises as dissident ranks swell
Sobibor survivor identifies camp guard
A survivor of the German concentration camp in Sobibor says he recognises John Demjanjuk as one of the guards at the camp.
An
87-year-old Ukranian, Alexei Vaitsen,
told a Munich court he
recognised the former guard from photographs. He is the first witness
to recognise the defendant.Mr Demjanjuk is now 89-years-old and on trial in Germany for war crimes. He is accused of involvement in the deaths of 28,000 Jews in the Second World War.
The trial has been adjourned a number of times due to his poor health.
It is uncertain whether more witnesses will be heard in the case.
In 1988, Mr Demjanjuk was sentenced to death by an Israeli court. The court identified him as "Ivan the Terrible" at Treblinka concentration camp. The verdict was overturned at appeal when fresh evidence identified someone else as "Ivan the Terrible".
Holocaust: The Ignored Reality
Baby Doc assets saga takes another twist
Simon Bradley - Swissinfo
Switzerland
says it will continue to freeze the assets of former
Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in a bid to keep them
out of the hands of his family.The latest move in the long-running saga immediately followed a Federal Court decision to reverse a lower court's ruling that a large share of the $5.7 million (SFr6 million) in Swiss accounts should have gone to charities working in Haiti.
Duvalier’s family and supporters have petitioned to reclaim the money.
“In view of the criminal origin of these funds, [the government] in this way avoids releasing the approximately $5.7 million for the benefit of the Duvalier clan,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It added that the move was in line with government policy “to avoid allowing the Swiss financial centre to become a haven for illicitly acquired assets”.
The government said it had instructed the foreign ministry to complete by the end of this month work on drafting a federal law that would allow such assets to be confiscated.
Earlier in the day Switzerland’s highest court said the family of Jean-Claude Duvalier could reclaim at least $4.6 million that had previously been awarded to aid groups.
The top court said Duvalier’s alleged crimes fell outside the statute of limitations, reversing an August decision by a lower court. That court found the Duvalier family had acted as a "criminal organisation" by diverting public funds through a Liechtenstein foundation to accounts in Swiss bank UBS.
The Supreme Court said it was unhappy about the ruling but that its hands were tied because the statute of limitations expired in 2001. It urged lawmakers to make it easier for assets belonging to deposed dictators to be repatriated to national governments.
The court rendered its decision on January 12, hours before the earthquake struck Haiti, but only announced it on Wednesday.
Urgent legal review
“This case shows how urgently we need a new law,“ Mark Pieth, a professor of criminology at Basel University, told the Swiss News Agency. “The conditions of the current draft are so narrow, that it’s practically impossible to pay back the funds.”
A coalition of non-governmental organizations expressed relief at the government’s last-minute move and concern at the Federal Court decision.
“The earthquake should have facilitated the return of this money to Haiti,” the group said in a statement. “Existing legal loopholes are damaging, both for Switzerland and for the country of origin of these funds.”
The coalition, which includes Transparency International Switzerland and the Bern Declaration, said it would be closely following the upcoming talks on the new draft law governing the confiscation of illicit assets to ensure full transparency and the involvement of civil society groups in future procedures.
“This an essential prerequisite to ensure returned funds do not disappear into inexistent or already completed projects, as was the case with the [Nigerian] Abacha funds in 2006, or into the pockets of a privileged few,” it added.
$100 million
“Baby Doc’s” family had appealed against a federal penal court decision to unfreeze the assets and give them to authorities in Haiti.
The family argues that the money is part of the personal fortune of Baby Doc's mother. However the penal court said she was part of the same criminal organisation headed by his father, who preceded him in office, and that she had benefited from the systematic embezzlement of funds which he had operated.
Many Haitians accuse Duvalier and his entourage of stealing over $100 million from public funds before he was ousted in 1986.
Duvalier is believed to be living in exile in Paris and has always denied wrongdoing. No legal proceedings have been launched against the Duvalier family in Haiti.
Haiti made its first request for the money in 1986, shortly after Duvalier's ouster.
It has been frozen ever since, but Switzerland has refused to give it back to Haiti because the Haitian government wasn't charging Duvalier with any crimes in its own justice system. As a way out, the Swiss government had proposed giving the money to aid groups working in Haiti.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey paid a brief visit to Port-au-Prince in Haiti on January 31, where she visited aid workers and met President René Préval to discuss the Duvalier funds, among other issues.
Failed States
Tzipi Livni to test UK law with visit
Sam Coates - The Times
Britain is braced for a diplomatic row after a senior Israeli politician warned that she was preparing to travel to the UK, where she faces an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.
Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli Foreign Minister and now the leader of the Opposition, said that she wanted to test promises by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, that he would change the law to ensure that she was not arrested for her role in last year’s Gaza offensive.
In December, a London court agreed to a request by pro-Palestinian groups to issue a warrant over alleged war crimes during the military operation, which took place when she was Foreign Minister. The court rescinded the warrant when it became clear that she was not on British soil.
At the time, Gordon Brown and Mr Miliband pledged to prevent this happening again and the Government has since been considering various ways of changing the law.
One plan would see a ban on arrest warrants for alleged war crimes, while another could give immunity to former ministers.
Ms Livni has set a deadline of February 23, after which she told The Jewish Chronicle that she planned to visit “within weeks”. Any change to the law would be made in the Crime and Security Bill going through Parliament, which is in the committee stage until that date.
Ms Livni said: “I will do this not for me, not for provocation, but for the right of every Israeli to travel freely. I am not going to be restricted by extremists because I fought terror.”
The British system was, she said, “being abused by extremists for political reasons. Belgium and Spain have changed their laws, and the British know that they have to do so”.
Despite a Tory pledge to support the change, a motion against a new law preventing her arrest has gathered 108 backbench signatories.
Tzipi Livni: terrorist-hunter secret of woman tipped to lead Israel
Sudan condemns ICC genocide ruling
Sudan has condemned a ruling by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that judges must reconsider whether Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir should face an additional charge of committing genocide in Darfur.
The Sudanese government calls the ruling a political move with destructive intentions. Rebels in the Sudanese region of Darfur have welcomed the ruling, saying it is a victory for the people of the war-torn region.
The United States thinks President al-Bashir should travel to The Hague to face trial.
Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had appealed against an earlier verdict not to prosecute the Sudanese president for genocide. He is already indicted with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In 2003, rebels took up arms in Darfur accusing the central government of neglecting the remote region. Khartoum's heavy-handed quelling of the revolt resulted in a humanitarian crisis which the United Nations estimates claimed 300,000 lives.
President al-Bashir has repeatedly dismissed the allegations made by the ICC, the permanent court in The Hague for prosecuting war crimes, as part of a Western conspiracy. The Sudanese government has refused to co-operate with the court.
What to Do About Darfur
Egypts black pharaohs
Patient ‘locked in’ by brain injury answers question using thoughts alone
Mark Henderson - The Times
A man who was presumed to be in a vegetative state for five years has answered questions using his thoughts alone in a ground-breaking experiment that promises to allow some patients who are “locked in” by brain injuries to communicate.
Graphic
from the MRC illustrates how a brain scan of a vegetative state patient
can communicate 'Yes' and 'No'
The 29-year-old Belgian was able to reply to simple “yes”/”no” questions such as “Is your father’s name Alexander?” by changing his brain activity.
Scientists then read his answers by studying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.
He had previously failed to show any signs of consciousness after suffering a severe brain injury in a road accident. A vegetative state (VS), in which patients wake from a coma but appear to have no awareness, had been diagnosed.
The remarkable results, from British and Belgian researchers, suggest that at least some VS patients are able not only to hear and understand people, but also to respond mentally in ways that can be harnessed for communication.
“It’s very possibly the case that we will get into a situation within ten years where patients incapable of any response are able to communicate using their brain alone on a day-to-day basis,” said Adrian Owen, of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, a leader of the research.
The advance, however, raises difficult ethical questions, such as whether patients could use the technology to express a wish to die. While they may be able to answer “yes”/”no” questions, their brain damage may mean they lack the capacity to give informed consent to life-or-death decisions.
“An obvious question you might ask is whether you want to be kept alive, but there are ethical and legal hurdles that need to be crossed to determine whether a patient has the cognitive wherewithal to make decisions like this for themselves,” Dr Owen said. “You can’t do that on the basis of these results for one gentleman.”
He said that the findings, which are published in The New England Journal of Medicine, had been a comfort to the patient’s relatives. “One of the most difficult things in this situation is not knowing whether you’re getting through, whether your loved one can understand you,” he said.
He emphasised, however, that not every patient in a vegetative state is aware. Of twenty-three who have been scanned with fMRI so far, only four have been shown to retain clear signs of consciousness.
The research, which was also led by Steven Laureys, of the University of Liège, and Martin Monti, of the MRC unit, builds on a study published in 2006 in which the team found that a 23-year-old woman who seemed to be in a vegetative state was conscious.
Scientists scanned her brain while she was asked to imagine playing tennis or moving from room to room in her home, and saw activity in parts of the brain responsible for motor control and navigation respectively.
They have since scanned a further twenty-two patients, three more of whom showed similar patterns of brain activity that suggest awareness. They then devised a way of using this to try to establish communication, by scanning the brains of healthy people
These volunteers were asked to imagine playing tennis if the answer to a question was “yes”, and to imagine moving through their house to say no. Answers were 100 per cent accurate.
The technique was then used to attempt to communicate with the Belgian man. He was asked six questions while his brain was scanned using fMRI. He answered the first five successfully, while no answer was obtained to the sixth. This could have been because the patient fell asleep or lost consciousness, Dr Owen said.
"We were astonished when we saw the results of the patient’s scan and that he was able to correctly answer the questions that were asked by simply changing his thoughts,” Dr Owen said.
Dr Laureys said: “So far these scans have proven to be the only viable method for this patient to communicate in any way since his accident. It’s early days, but in the future we hope to develop this technique to allow some patients to express their feelings and thoughts, control their environment and increase their quality of life.”
Dr Monti said: “This technique could be used to address important clinical questions. For example, patients who are aware, but cannot move or speak, could be asked if they are feeling any pain, allowing doctors to decide when painkillers should be administered.”
The team now plans to repeat the experiment. The next goal will be to refine the technique, to determine whether similar results can be achieved with simpler scanning technology such as electroencephalograms (EEGs).
This could allow patients to communicate routinely, rather than only when inside a fMRI scanner — an expensive and difficult procedure that can be done only infrequently.
“We want to identify whether consciousness and communication ability exists with fMRI, then progress to cheaper, more practical and efficient ways of picking it up,” Dr Owen said.
“It’s important to develop a technology that can be used reasonably routinely. It would be ethically very dubious to open up this possibility of communication and then to shut the door.”
Independent scientists welcomed the results. Nicholas Schiff, of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said: “These findings have extremely broad implications, not just for concerns about the accurate assessment of vast numbers of patients in custodial care situations, but in the context of any clinical encounter where we currently rely on behavioral assessment alone to identify consciousness.
“It is important, however, to appreciate the complexity of these measurements and assessments of such severely brain injured patients. Obtaining this type of result is only starting point and creates urgency to further investigate and assist such patients.”
Chris Frith, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at University College, London, said: “It is difficult to imagine a worse experience than to be a functioning mind trapped in a body over which you have absolutely no control. Obviously, more technical development is required, but we now have the distinct possibility that, in the future, thanks to Owen and colleagues’ work, we will be able to detect cases of other patients who are conscious and what’s more, we will be able to communicate with them.”
Stem Cells May Reverse Brain Damage
Vatican blamed for 'bogus dirt' that ousted Catholic editor
Michael Day - The Times
Whispers were reverberating around the corridors of the Vatican yesterday over incendiary claims by the editor of the Berlusconi family newspaper that the Holy See was the source of bogus documents sent to blacken the name of a Catholic editor.
Dino Boffo was forced to resign as editor of Italian Bishops' Conference daily Avvenire last September after an article by Vittorio Feltri, the Rottweiler editor of Il Giornale, claimed Boffo was a "renowned homosexual" who had been fined for harassing the wife of a man he was pursuing.
Mr Feltri later admitted the claims were based on bogus documents, which he said were sent to him. Although it emerged that Mr Boffo had made an out-of-court settlement with someone he had known 10 years earlier, Feltri apologised. By then relations between the church and Mr Berlusconi's government had gone into deep-freeze. Now, however, it has emerged that during a fence-mending lunch in Milan last week, Mr Feltri told Mr Boffo that "a very authoritative, and institutional source at the Holy See" had sent him the bogus dossier. Mr Boffo repeated the claims to another Catholic publication, Il Foglio, on 30 January. "A person in the church... contacted me and let me have the photocopies," he said.
Italian newspapers yesterday reported that the pope was concerned about the claims and that daggers might once again be drawn over the Boffo affair. Other senior church figures expressed alarm that the church may have been the source of the malicious documents. Monsignor Domenico Mogavero, Bishop of Mazara del Vallo in Sicily and head of judicial affairs for the Italian Bishops Conference, told La Repubblica he was "alarmed" by events.
"If the accusations against Boffo really originated from the church we are facing a moral situation, a sin," he said. "These events have damaged the church from the start. We hope they're not going to do so again." But Federico Lombardi, the Vatican press spokesman, dismissed Mr Feltri's claims as mischief-making. "I can categorically deny these claims, which are designed to create confusion and false rumours," he said.
Another leading church figure, close to the Pope, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, said the suggestion that someone in the Vatican had supplied the documents was "unthinkable". He raised the possibility that Mr Feltri had made the claims to conceal the real source of the dossier.
IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri under pressure to go over glacier error
Ben Webster - The Times
The head of the UN’s climate change body is
under pressure to resign
after one of his strongest allies in the environmental movement said
his judgment was flawed and called for a new leader to restore
confidence in climatic science.Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has insisted that he will remain in post for another four years despite having failed to act on a serious error in the body’s 2007 report.
John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK , said that Dr Pachauri should have acted as soon as he had been informed of the error, even though issuing a correction would have embarrassed the IPCC on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.
A journalist working for Science had told Dr Pachauri several times late last year that glaciologists had refuted the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Dr Pachauri refused to address the problem, saying: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.” He suggested that the error would not be corrected until 2013 or 2014, when the IPCC next reported.
The IPCC issued a correction and apology on January 20, three days after the error had made global headlines. Mr Sauven said: “Mistakes will always be made but it’s how you handle those mistakes which affects the credibility of the institution. Pachauri should have put his hand up and said ‘we made a mistake’. It’s in these situations that your character and judgment is tested. Do you make the right judgment call? He clearly didn’t.”
The IPCC needed a new chairman who would hold public confidence by introducing more rigorous procedures, Mr Sauven said. “The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri [as chairman]? I don’t think so. We need someone held in high regard who has extremely good judgment and is seen by the global public as someone on their side.
“If we get a new person in with an open mind, prepared to fundamentally review how the IPCC works, we would regain confidence in the organisation.”
Dr Pachauri did not return calls yesterday but he told Indian television at the weekend that he believed attacks on him were being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits because of actions against climate change recommended by the IPCC.He added: “My credibility has been established because I was re-elected chairman in 2008 by all the countries of the world. They must have been satisfied with what I did in terms of the fourth assessment report [published in 2007] because they have given me the mandate of completing the fifth assessment report [[to be released over 2013 and 2014] which I intend doing.”
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said the countries that had appointed Dr Pachauri should consider his handling of the glacier issue when the IPCC plenary meeting is held in October. “That issue ought to be dealt with by them. It would depend on how he responds to the crisis facing the IPCC.
“He has made mistakes but I don’t think those mistakes are so serious that you would automatically get rid of him. If you changed the head, I don’t think that would necessarily restore the credibility of the IPCC.”
World news briefs at Sunday 17th January 2010
Pig lungs in human transplants moves step closer
The use of pig lungs in transplants into humans has moved a step closer with a medical breakthrough.
Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, used a ventilator and pump to keep the animal lungs alive and "breathing" while human blood flowed in them.
Experts estimated the work could lead to the first animal-human transplants within five years.
Dr Glenn Westall, who helped conduct the experiment, said: “The blood went into the lungs without oxygen and came out with oxygen, which is the exact function of the lungs.
"It showed that these lungs were working perfectly well and doing as we were expecting them to do.
“This is a significant advance compared to experiments that have been performed over the past 20 years."
The breakthrough came after scientists were able to remove a section of pig DNA, which had made the pig organs incompatible with human blood.
Previous attempts to combine unmodified pig lungs and human blood ended abruptly two years ago when blood clots began forming almost immediately, causing the organs to become so blocked no blood could pass through.
Human DNA is now added to the pigs as they are reared to reduce clotting and the number of lungs which are rejected.
The full results of the research are due to be announced in Vancouver in August.
The issue has prompted an ethical debate about the use of animals for human transplants.
Medical ethicist Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said: “It is basically a human-pig, a hybrid, or whatever you want to call it.
“It is about whether the community is prepared to accept a part human, part animal."
Pakistani scientist found guilty of attempted murder of US agents
A neuroscientist trained at an elite American university has been found guilty of two charges of attempted murder after she tried to kill US agents in Afghanistan in 2008
Ed Pilkington - The Guardian
A
Pakistani neuroscientist trained at an elite American university has
been found guilty of two charges of attempted murder after she tried to
kill US agents in Afghanistan in 2008.The conviction, which could see Aafia Siddiqui sentenced to life in prison, is the latest chapter in a life story that has baffled observers and divided legal opinion. The scientist has been accused of being an al-Qaida sympathiser, but has claimed that she was kidnapped and held in secret detention by the US for five years before her arrest.
She was never charged with terrorism, but prosecutors called her a grave threat who was carrying "a road map for destruction" bomb-making instructions and a list of New York City landmarks when she was captured.
As jurors left the courtroom following her conviction, Siddiqui raised her arm and shouted: "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America." Then she turned to the public benches and said: "Your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof."
Her lawyer, Elaine Sharp, said: "This verdict is based on fear, not on fact."
Siddiqui, 37, was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm and assault of US officers and employees. The jury found, however, that the crime had not been premeditated.
The charges related to her arrest at an Afghan police station in 2008. The prosecution alleged that as US agents were coming to interrogate her, she grabbed a military rifle and opened fire shouting "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for God is great.
None of the officers were hurt, but they returned fire and Siddiqui was injured.
Siddiqui took a degree from MIT and then gained a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Brandeis University. She returned to Pakistan in 2002, and a year later she mysteriously disappeared.
What Happens If Nothing Happens to Health Care?
David Wessel - Wall Street Journal
A month ago, President Barack Obama was on the verge of a victory that eluded all his predecessors, as Congress neared approval of legislation to expand health-insurance coverage to nearly all Americans. Today, this initiative is in critical condition, perhaps even dying.
The initial idea was logical: Cover nearly everyone and control the rise in health costs. The emerging House-Senate compromise was ugly and unpopular. The left said it did too little of the first, and did too much to protect health-care profits. The right said it didn't do enough of the second, and did too much to enlarge government's already formidable role.
Back in April, I argued that we would get the big health-care fix. When Bill and Hillary Clinton failed 15 years ago, every interest's first choice was its own favorite plan; everyone's second choice was the status quo. But, I wrote, the status quo had become so uncomfortable that it was no longer everyone's second choice so a compromise would emerge. I was wrong.
Conversation among Washington wonks, corporate chieftains and health-care executives isn't any longer about how "health reform" will work in practice. It's about what happens if nothing happens.
Barring a political miracle, we're going to learn the cost of doing nothing—nothing significant to restrain health-care cost increases, nothing to prod the health-care system to produce more benefit for each dollar it takes, nothing to expand health-insurance coverage.
This, too, will be ugly and unpopular.
"Failure to enact health reform will result in increasing numbers of people without health insurance because fewer employers will offer it and many employees will not be able to pay the cost of plans that are available," predicts Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist at Washington's Urban Institute think tank.
"For people not offered employer coverage, many will not be able to get coverage due to pre-existing conditions that insurers won't cover or because premiums simply won't be affordable. Even people with coverage will find costs becoming a greater financial burden," he said.
And all of us—employers, workers and taxpayers—will spend ever more on health care.
The numbers are so large they're hard to grasp. The U.S. health-care tab in 2009 was $2.5 trillion, equal to 17.3% of the nation's gross domestic product, the sum of all its output, much bigger than 2008's 16.2% because the recession depressed GDP. The economy will grow again, of course, but health-care costs will rise even faster. In a new forecast, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services predict that without some big change, health care will amount to 19.3% of GDP by 2019.
Last spring, the Urban Institute ran the do-nothing outcome through its computers, and offered three scenarios. In the best case, the number of uninsured rises to 57 million, or 20.1% of the population, from 49.1 million, or 18.4%, in 2009, most of them middle-income adults. More employers drop coverage as it grows more costly. The fraction of Americans on the government's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program, now at 16.5%, would rise sharply to between 16.5% and 18.3%—and that's without the much-derided "public option."
All this will swell an already large budget deficit. The "fiscal course that we're on, out in 2020 and 2030 and 2040, is unsustainable and it needs to be addressed," White House budget director Peter Orszag said this week. "If we don't address rising health-care costs, there's nothing else that we're going to be able to do that will alter that basic fact," he said.
This year, Medicare and Medicaid will cost nearly $725 billion, about 50% more than Congress appropriates for all domestic agencies from the National Park Service to K-12 school aid. In 2014, the cost is projected at $950 billion. Gulp!
If nothing changes, employers who still offer health insurance will pay more for it, and will pay lower wages as a result.
In the Urban Institute's best case, employer premiums per worker will rise 64% over the next decade. In the worst case? They more than double. Gulp!
Helen Darling has been buying or thinking about health care her whole career, first as a Xerox Corp. executive, now as head of the National Business Group on Health, a coalition pushing for change.
She says she was "absolutely inspired" by Mr. Obama's initial vow to finally act to slow health-care cost growth, and disappointed at how little of that survived Congress. In that sense, she says, legislation wouldn't have accomplished much to slow costs, and thus its death won't matter much.
But she draws a more ominous conclusion. "The most depressing thing about it," Ms. Darling says, "is that it shows the failure of the political system. Have we lost the capacity to do certain things? Can we govern? That's the most frightening thing. I'm very depressed that we can't solve even parts of these problems."
Unruly Passenger Blames Medical Pot Cookies
CBS3
A San Francisco man claims he was high on a double dose of medical marijuana cookies when he screamed, dropped his pants and attacked crew members on a cross-country flight, forcing its diversion to Pittsburgh, the FBI said Wednesday.
Kinman Chan, 30, was charged in a criminal complaint with interfering with the duties of a flight attendant on allegations that he fought with crew members of US Airways Flight 1447 from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Sunday. His federal public defender, Jay Finkelstein, declined to comment.
Crew members said Chan made odd gestures before he entered the plane's rear restroom shortly after takeoff and began to scream, according to the complaint.
Chan told the FBI that he "came back to reality" and exited the restroom, at which point the crew noticed his "pants were down, his shirt was untucked and all the compartments in the restroom were opened."
When crew members tried to get Chan to sit, he fought them and had to be subdued in a choke hold, the complaint said.
Chan told agents who interviewed him in Pittsburgh that he ate marijuana cookies while waiting for his flight to depart in Philadelphia.
"Chan advised he has a medical marijuana card and he took double his normal dose," the complaint said.
Margaret Philbin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Pittsburgh, said Chan has a legally issued medical marijuana card for a "legitimate" health issue, which she declined to identify.
The flight was diverted to Pittsburgh International Airport, where Chan was arrested, then jailed until a federal magistrate granted him bond Tuesday, Philbin said.
Chan remained jailed Wednesday because Allegheny County officials have also charged him with disorderly conduct, Philbin said.
Chan arrived at Philadelphia International Airport after attending a conference in the Dominican Republic. The flight to Los Angeles was part of his trip home to San Francisco, authorities said.
Chan was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon, but that was postponed until Friday because of a paperwork delay, Philbin said.
The charge of interfering with the duties of a flight attendant carries up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Hemp Is Not Pot: It's the Economic Stimulus and Green Jobs ...
Psychosis and cannabis
India conveys concern over long term consequences of attacks
Hindustan Times
Indian High Commissioner to Australia has reportedly met Australian Governor-General, warning of long term consequences unless more action was taken to prevent attacks against the Indians and pointed that the Victoria was in "a state of denial".
The new development came after Victorian premier John Brumby on Wednesday lashed out Indian media and some government officials for "unbalanced views on the ongoing attacks".
According to The Age report, top Indian envoy Sujatha Singh had sought a meeting with Bryce in Sydney last Friday.
She has believed to have told the Governor-General Quentin Bryce that Australia is not racist but warned of long term effect unless more action was taken to prevent attacks.
The report said while she applauded the role of police in NSW, Queensland and South Australia for handling racist attacks, Victoria was taking too long to respond and was in a state of "denial" over the severity of the attacks.
Citing more than 100 incidents of racist violence against Indians, she told Bryce Victorian authorities were in denial over the scale of the attacks.
The report said even as Victorian police have repeatedly said they do not record the ethnicity of assault victims, a spokesman yesterday was unable to confirm Singh's claimed number of incidents.
The 29-year-old Jaspreet Singh of Grice Crescent, Essendon, was charged yesterday with making a false report and criminal damage with a view to gaining financial advantage over the car fire.
Police told a bail justice that Singh was in financial difficulty and stood to gain AUS $ 11,000 in insurance from the incident.
He was bailed to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on March 15.
Sharply reacting on the latest developemnt, Victorian Premier on Wednesday commented "I hope that there is some balance to the debate, some balance to the reporting in India, and certainly to date that balance hasn't been there".
Brumby said the point needed to be made that the people charged with the murder of Indian Ranjodh Singh in NSW were Indian.
The Indian High Commission declined to comment on the meeting between Singh and Bryce.
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