Category: In The News

Old & and New World Birds don’t normally share Flu

“Even though the big flyway maps look like they overlap, the birds themselves don’t,” says Dr. William Karesh, director of the field veterinary program of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Gene studies of avian-flu strains from the past 30 years seem to confirm that, with no evident commingling among the viruses. “The birds of the New World and the birds of the Old World don’t share their viruses,” Karesh says. “That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. That would be irresponsible. But it doesn’t happen normally.”

In any event, most commercial chicken houses (where the birds spend their entire lives indoors) have no contact with migratory birds. Even free-range chickens are generally not clucking all over hither and yon and so can easily be brought indoors if need be. That still leaves the exotic-pet market (legal and illegal) and the illegal importation of poultry products. (Full Article)

A Sharp Debate Erupts in China Over Ideologies

A Deabte
BEIJING, March 11 — For the first time in perhaps a decade, the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-run legislature now convened in its annual two-week session, is consumed with an ideological debate over socialism and capitalism that many assumed had been buried by China’s long streak of fast economic growth.

Let the exchange of trade and ideas with Iran begin.

Christopher Hitchens at his usual provocative best(Click here for the full article)

So, picture if you will the landing of Air Force One at Imam Khomeini International Airport. The president emerges, reclaims the U.S. Embassy in return for an equivalent in Washington and the un-freezing of Iran’s financial assets, and announces that sanctions have been a waste of time and have mainly hurt Iranian civilians. A new era is possible, he goes on to say. America and the Shiite world have a common enemy in al-Qaida, just as they had in Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban, and the Iraqi Baathists. America is home to a large and talented Iranian community. Let the exchange of trade and people and ideas begin! There might perhaps even be a ticklish-to-write paragraph, saying that America is not proud of everything it is has done in the past—most notably Jimmy Carter’s criminal decision to permit Saddam to invade Iran.

Iraqi official blames Golden Mosque attack on Iran

Iraqi official blames Golden Mosque attack on Iran

The only ones who really stood to benefit, and those who really took advantage of the al-Askariya shrine bombing, is Moqtada al-Sadr and his counterparts in Iran. Now, a preliminary investigation by the deputy governor of Saladin, where the Shia holy city of Samarra and the shrine is located, has yielded that the perpetrators of the bombing was most like… dun dun dun… Iran!

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani immediately issued a fatwa following the attack and urged the Shia faithful to restrain themselves. it was al-Sadr who organized the mass extra-judicial killings of hundreds of Sunnis afterwards. It was his Medhi Army militia, along with men infiltrated into the Interior Ministry through the UIA, who ran people off the streets in fear to their homes, and attacked dozens of Sunni mosques. He was the first to call for revenge, yet he was the one praised for brokering compromise between the Shias and Sunnis afterward.

Al-Sadr is in a power struggle with the traditional Shia leader Sistani. The outcome will determine if Iranian-backed Islamo-Facists take over Iraq or if a Unity government can be formed. The Kurds, Sunnis and Secular Parities (Ex-Prime Minister Allawi) are trying to influence the outcome by refusing to back current Prime Minister Jafari, for the same position in the newly elected Parliament. Jafrai, Sadr’s candidate, won the Shia’s own Unity Party (UIA) backing by just one vote. Now the non-Shia parties, who have 53% of the elected seats, are looking for allies amongst the Sistani followers to back another candidate for Prime Minister. Previously they had backed the current Vice President, who lost when Al Sadr cast the deciding UIA party vote. Under the constitution, the nominee of the biggest bloc in parliament gets the first chance to form a new government. The Shiites won 130 of the 275 seats giving them the biggest bloc, but not enough to govern without partners.

If the religious Shia UIA is going to insist on having its way, and al-Sadr is going to remain the most dominant force in that coalition, then the rest of Iraq is ready to block his seemingly destined ascent to power. They realize the danger of a one-party monopoly based on religion, so they’re ready to make the UIA pick a new one or instead form an even larger bloc, allowing them the pick the new government. In our own history, the Second American Revolution was when power was first transferred peacefully from John Adams, who gave up power to Thomas Jefferson, after the presidential election of 1800, effectively realigning the nation. Now, Iraq will have its own. Can the Shia give up power peacefully should it be challenged?…

AP FRIDAY NIGHT CLARIFICATION ON BUSH/KATRINA VIDEO

Now that all the hysterical “gotcha” headlines have convinced the public that Bush lied in the oft repeated ABC TV interview about the levee breach, here comes the embarrasing retraction, which will invariably be a footnote in the ongoing news coverage; thus continuing the public’s misperception. Supposedly AP had the tape, of Bush being briefed at his ranch before Katrina hit, in their vault for months and only “found” it just now.
the Associated Press reporter, who narrated the videotape, implies that Mr. Bush lied when he said after the storm that nobody had anticipated “the breach of the levees.” This is supposed to be contradicted by the video footage of a pre-landfall briefing in which the National Hurricane Center told the President of the possibility that “the levees will be topped [emphasis added].” But in fact the New Orleans levee system wasn’t topped; it was breached, just as Mr. Bush said — and there’s a big difference between the two. The levees being topped by the storm surge would have caused damage, but arguably much less severe than what happened after the structural failure that actually occurred.

AP FRIDAY NIGHT CLARIFICATION ON BUSH/KATRINA VIDEO
Fri Mar 03 2006 19:48:29 ET

Clarification: Katrina-Video story
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.
The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.
The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn’t until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.

Here is some background on the levee failures and successes in New Orleans – the distinction between topping and breaching is clear. And a last thought – saying that Bush did not lie about this is different from saying that the Federal response to Katrina was A-OK.  Katrina: What went right

We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran

We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran – New York Times
Each time a new nuclear weapons state emerges, we rightly suspect that the world has grown more dangerous. The weapons are enormously destructive; humans are fallible, organizations can be incompetent and technology often fails us. But as we contemplate the actions, including war, that the United States and its allies might take to forestall a nuclear Iran, we need to coolly assess whether and how such a specter might be deterred and contained.

A Port in the Storm Over Dubai

A Port in the Storm Over Dubai – New York Times
Since January 2005, every container entering the truck gates of two of the world’s busiest container terminals, in Hong Kong, has passed through scanning and radiation detection devices. Images of the containers’ contents are then stored on computers so that they can be scrutinized by American or other customs authorities almost in real time. Customs inspectors can then issue orders not to load a container that worries them.

So why not take advantage of the sudden interest in Port Security and mandate that such scrutiny be applied to everything coming to America?