UN official demands torture accountability.

02 July 2009 - Ratner: Navi Pillay, UN human rights advocate says senior officials must be held accountable.

US remains silent over McKinney arrest by Israel.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 | PressTV

McKinney has served as a Democrat in the US House of Representatives from 1993–2003 and 2005–2007.

Nearly a day after the detention of former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney by Israeli forces, Washington has yet to make a reaction.

Israeli Navy detained former US congresswoman and Nobel Prize laureate Cynthia McKinney and twenty other human rights activists on board a relief boat outside Israel's territorial waters on Tuesday as they were heading to Gaza on a humanitarian mission.

Tel Aviv claims the boat was trying to break Israel's two-year siege on Gaza. Ms McKinney -- the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States-- has accused Tel Aviv of violating the international law by seizing an aid vessel in international waters.

"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," McKinney said in a statement. "We are asking the international community to demand our release so we can continue our journey," she added. "My wife and I are very concerned about her safety," Cynthia's father told Press TV in a phone call.

Bill McKinney said that the US government should support Cynthia's message and added, "Her major concern is human." Green Party leaders have called on the White House and the US State Department to intervene and demand the immediate release of all the activists.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying 1.5 million Palestinians living in the coastal sliver are 'trapped in despair' because of the continuing Israeli blockade on the territory.

Since June 2007, when Israel imposed a blockade on the territory, no raw material has entered Gaza, stalling any attempt to rebuild the strip. According to the humanitarian agency report, seriously ill patients were not receiving the treatment they needed and thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed during Israel's three-week Christmas war were still without shelter.

Inside Story - Collateral damage?

30 June 2009 - Human rights watch group says Israeli spy drones killed Palestinian civilians during Gaza war.

Russia, Poland and U.S. Strategy - STRATFOR Insights

28 June 2009 - In the latest installment of the STRATFOR Insights video series, CEO George Friedman analyzes the upcoming meeting on July 6 between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama from a geopolitical perspective.

Likely topics on the agenda include Iran, Afghanistan, U.S. ballistic missile defense installations in Poland and Russia's overall sphere of influence.

Democratic deficit: parliament and democracy.

Posted: 6.19pm Tuesday 26 May 2009 | © Socialist Worker

As the crisis surrounding MPs’ expenses exposes the level of blatant fraud in Britain’s parliamentary system Simon Basketter looks at why capitalist democracy fails us

Britain’s famous parliament building overlooks the Thames, its gothic permanence supposedly representing the timelessness of the “mother of all parliaments”.

But it is a fake, just like the democracy it symbolises. It was built in the mid-19th century as a symbol of the British Empire and capitalism.

The eruption of a political crisis over MPs’ expenses has shone a light on the facade of British democracy, and the murky dealings of those who are supposed to represent us.

Parliament has been an instrument of the ruling class throughout its existence.

New Labour came to power in 1997 saying that it wanted to democratise Britain. Tony Blair promised the 1999 Labour Party conference that he would fight “the forces of conservatism, the cynics, the elites, the establishment”.

Ten years on from Blair’s pledge, the British ruling class is still almost exclusively white, male, over 50 and from a wealthy background.

The House of Lords is more dependant than ever on patronage, and the Commons has been revealed as corrupt.

New Labour has marked a new stage in the centralisation of government.

It is supine in its subservience to corporate power. The growth of privatisation and unelected quangos in the last 12 years have served to reduce democratic control.

Even New Labour’s celebrated Freedom of Information Act was more concerned to conceal than reveal. It was a leak to a newspaper that revealed the MPs’ expenses scandal not the act itself – which they had fought hard to exclude themselves from.

The ruling class’s hold on “democratic institutions” remains. Many MPs and members of the House of Lords have been to public schools, where pupils are taught to rule.

In the 1950s the establishment joked that a sign should hang outside the elite Eton school reading, “Cabinet makers to Her Majesty the Queen.”

Recently we have seen a slight move away from public school and Oxbridge cabinet members. However, a boom in private schools under Labour means we can look forward to a future generation of politicians and bosses who have never been near a comprehensive school.

And if Tory leader David Cameron wins the next general election he will become the 19th, of 52, prime ministers to have attended Eton.

Even the nature of Labour MPs has been altered over the last few years. The party’s rush to embrace free market economics means it has lost many of the links it once had with the working class.

For decades it sent people from working class backgrounds to parliament. While many of them did little for ordinary people, and others did more harm than good, there was an idea that they were there to represent workers.

But now Labour, as Peter Mandelson infamously put it, is “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Its policies and the people who implement them reflect this.

Very few New Labour MPs come from working class backgrounds, with many coming from the middle class professions.

Labour was founded on the belief that capitalism cannot be replaced with a better system. It believed that there could be improvements and reforms when the system can afford it.

This view affected the party’s trajectory, policies and its representatives.

When capitalism cannot afford any changes, Labour acts for the system rather than the workers it is supposed to represent.

Multinational firms

Capitalism is built on competition. The rush for profits piles pressure on each company to gain an advantage by developing strong relations with the state while cutting out its rivals.

Historically these interests have used the political system to fight for dominance. The state has been used to repress any movement that has challenged our rulers’ power.

When a crisis hits, British institutions have appeared to embrace drastic reforms, while remaining basically unchanged. They are a facade behind which the real rulers can pursue their objectives.

In reality, the handful of people who control the big corporations and financial institutions take all the major decisions about investment and jobs. They have only one interest – profits.

Because this drive impacts on the lives of millions of people, who capitalists try to make work longer and harder to maintain their wealth, it creates conflict.

The state, including parliament, claims to stand above these conflicts and to mediate between different groups in the interests of society as a whole.

But ultimately they always come down on the side of the class that shapes society through its economic decision-making.

Partly this is because the judges, the police chiefs, the military top brass and the secret service chiefs all come from the same background as the people who run the top firms.

They are allowed to share some of the wealth of the system and they all maintain close connections. These people represent the core of the state machine. They will stop at nothing to preserve their power.

Where does parliament fit into this? Parliament does not control these

unelected officials, who often pursue their own anti-democratic agendas and have a big effect on government.

In the past representatives of the ruling class used to go to London to argue among themselves, and with the monarch.

Politicians were the members of the classes they represented. As other classes developed their own interests, they too engaged in politics.

During the 19th century, politics became the sphere of the professional politician rather than the factory or the landowner.

Even the great democratic surge of the 19th and early 20th century was contained by channelling it into the structures of the system.

The state is the instrument by which the wealthy rule. But it is not necessary for its members to be present at all the meetings.

Wealthy individuals and corporations no longer need direct representatives in parliament or government to safeguard their interests. There are still a few rich men in parliament, and some old money persists – such as moat-owning Douglas Hogg.

But most of the time the rich and multinational firms can rely on lobbyists and pressure groups to push their cases for reduced taxation, regulation or increased attacks on the poor.

This process has seen an enthusiastic acceleration under Labour, which has embraced neoliberalism.

In recent years big business has attempted to make the government the direct servant of its immediate needs. We can see this most starkly when companies get into trouble and then demand that the government bails them out.

But it is also there in the background with corporations asserting their control over the state. Thousands of private sector lobbyists swarm around Westminster jostling for access and influence.

History shows us that parties that people elect to shift power away from the minority to the majority invariably end up administering the system that they had hoped to change.

There is another reason why parliamentary institutions do not allow change.

We elect our MPs once every four of five years, with no control over them between elections and with no means of holding them to account.

Workers vote as atomised constituents, allowing them to be influenced by the propaganda of the corporate media and the state. Our power lies in our collective strength in the workplace, where we can resist the diktats of the bosses.

Under capitalism, real power is concentrated beyond our reach – at the heart of the state and the corporations.

After over 100 years of Labour politicians sitting at the ruling class’s administrative trough and failing to change the system in workers’ interests, its time we looked elsewhere to get real democracy.

Lebanon elections - negotiations will start now.

June 08, 2009 - Jeffrey Feltman, acting assistant secretary at the US state department and a former US ambassador to Lebanon, spoke to Al Jazeera's Maryam Nemazee on the parliamentary elections in Lebanon and what they mean both for the nation and the region.

Shell in court over alleged Nigeria crimes.

June 02, 2009 - Royal Dutch Shell is to go on trial in a US court over alleged crimes against humanity and exploitation of the oil-rich Niger Delta more than 10 years ago.

The Dutch oil giant is accused of sponsoring a terror campaign by Nigerian security forces that led to the death of activist and author Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight others in 1995.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports.

Underlying the economic crisis is a human rights time bomb

2008 saw a global economic crisis. Stock markets crashed, banks went under and countries are hovering on the edge of bankruptcy – with governments rallying to find the billions needed for bailouts.

Amnesty International believes they may be missing the point…

“This is not just an economic crisis; it’s fundamentally a human rights crisis. We are sitting on a powder keg of injustice, inequality and insecurity. This is a time bomb of social, political and economic problems.” – Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International

Gerakan’s call on Chin Peng return slammed

Chin Peng & Mat Amin

KUALA LUMPUR, May 22,2009 – Bernama

The Ex-Policemen’s Association of Malaysia (PBPM) has protested against a call for former communist leader Chin Peng to be allowed to return to Malaysia.

PBPM acting president Ku Mohamad Khalid Tuan Ibrahim said the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) had waged a reign of terror against the country during the Emergency where scores of policemen were slain.

The suggestion made by Penang Gerakan chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan is uncalled for, said Ku Mohamad.

Dr Teng Hock Nan has called on the government to re-look at Chin Peng’s case and allow the CPM chairman to return to the country on humanitarian grounds as he was no longer a security threat.

“Many people were also killed. The country was in upheaval during the communist insurgency,” said Ku Mohamad Khalid, adding that Dr Teng should study the implication of his suggestion.

Umno Youth information chief Datuk Reezal Merican said the movement was against any move to make a hero out of a person who had committed crimes on the people and country.

“The crimes inflicted on the people cannot be neutralised merely for sentimental values under whatever circumstances,” he said.

He urged all quarters to refrain from extremist views which could raise the anger of certain groups.

Aung San Suu Kyi

14 May 2009 - Interview: Myanmar journalist Aung Zaw

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is facing the prospect of years in prison after being charged with breaching the conditions of her house arrest.

Al Jazeera spoke to exiled Myanmar journalist Aung Zaw about the reasons for the charges.

US a Republic or Empire?

May 14, 2009 - Bruce Fein: Former Reagan official says Americans must choose between a Republic or an Empire.

Another mega-thief walks free in the US

Marc S. Dreier, center, with Michael Strahan and William Shatner at a party in 2007

Tue, 12 May 2009 - While the US criminal justice system is notoriously punitive and heavy-handed when it comes to crimes of theft and trespass, its collective heart melts when it comes up against a mega-criminal. Witness the ability of self-confessed fraud, thief, and confidence trickster Marc S. Dreier, who pled guilty on Monday in a New York court to selling $400 million worth of fake promissory notes and running an illegal Ponzi scheme, yet managed to walk free from the courthouse.

This echoes another US court's compassion toward Mr. Bernard Madoff, who was allowed bail, despite being charged with the biggest fraud in the history of mankind, near $50 billion, and who, while under 'house arrest' in his mansion apartment in New York, was busy dispensing his private possessions to relatives to avoid being forced to provide even meager restitution to his countless creditors.

Not so lucky was Mr. Jerry Williams, 27, who in 1995 was sentenced to 25 years to life for stealing a slice of pizza. Admittedly, it could have been his third offense, which put him at the wrong end of California's "three strikes" law, but in all likelihood, all that Mr. Williams ever stole in his life would not amount to Harvard Law School graduate Marc Dreier's gasoline costs for his Aston Martin and Mercedes.

Welcome to the US of A.

Why Sedition Act is the new ISA

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 2009 | malaysianinsider — By Syed Jaymal Zahiid and Melissa Loovi

The recent spate of arrests made under the Sedition Act has led opposition leaders and lawyers to unanimously conclude that the government might have found a better tool than the Internal Security Act (ISA) to quell dissent.

The continued use of the ISA, condemned locally and internationally, does not appear to be politically tenable. This week, a number of activists and opposition party leaders were detained under the Sedition Act.

Many Barisan Nasional (BN) component party leaders have also joined their Pakatan Rakyat (PR) counterparts in calling for the government to abolish the British-inherited law. Umno is the only party that believes that the unpopular law should be maintained.

The Sedition Act is, however, perceived to be less oppressive than the ISA but yet drafted in such a way that it gives the government absolute power to make arrests on its political enemies.

According to section 4 (1) of the Sedition Act, a person is considered to have committed an offence under this law if he or she attempts to do, or make any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act which has or would, if done, have a seditious tendency.

It further read that any person is found to have committed an offence under this law if he or she utters any seditious words, prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes, or reproduces any seditious publications or imports any seditious publications.

Yet in all of this, there is no real and clear definitive guideline as to what constitutes sedition.

Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo, who is also a lawyer, said such a vague law lends the authorities indefinite power to silence the opposition.

“A conviction can be so easily secured under the Sedition Act because it is under the discretion of the judge (to conclude what is seditious or not),” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Malik Imtiaz, a prominent human rights lawyer, also said that due to the vague definition, the Sedition Act can be easily used by the BN government on its enemies.

“Where do you draw the line between responsible expression and unethical ones (if the law does not provide such guidelines) so the police are left with the power to draw its own conclusion,” he said.

Centre for Public Policy Studies, or ASLI, chairman Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam told The Malaysian Insider that with the Sedition Act, the government would stand to gain more if it were to make arrests under the Sedition Act instead of the ISA.

"With the Sedition Act, one can stand for an open trial and the government would be seen as conducting a proper exercise of the rule of law.

"But with the ISA, its provision for detention without trial is a violation of one's fundamental rights and a vital aspect of a democracy and the people would perceive this as oppressive," he said.

Navaratnam added that it was wrong for the government to clamp down on opposition leaders and rights activists in recent days as it had encroached their democratic rights to freedom of expression.

Looking back at the history of the Sedition Act, prominent academician Farish A. Noor said it was rather ironic that the British-inherited law is being used against the opposition.

"I think members of the public should remember that the Sedition Act was created by the British colonialists and it was used to silence nationalist opposition who were freedom fighters fighting for the country's independence.

"So it's ironic that the current leaders that came from the same background are actually using the Sedition Act to silence their opposition," he said.

Deadly Mexico Swine Flu Sparks worldwide pandemic.

April 26, 2009 - A deadly strain of swine flu has sparked concerns of a worldwide pandemic after suspected cases have been reported in the United States, Mexico, New Zealand and Israel.

More than 80 people have died from flu-related pneumonia in Mexico - where the virus originated.

Over 1,300 people are now thought to have contracted the virulent H1N1 swine influenza after it mutated into a form that spreads from human to human.

The disease has already spread to the United States, where 11 cases have been confirmed in Texas, California and Kansas.

A group of school children from New York is also undergoing tests, where a further eight are suspected to have contracted the virus, health officials said.

Another group of 10 school children in New Zealand have tested positive for influenza after returning from Mexico, which the health minister there has said is "likely" to be the H1N1 strain.

A 26-year-old Israeli man has also been admitted to hospital after returning from a trip to Mexico with flu-like symptoms.

The UK is on alert after the global health watchdog warned countries to look out for unusual flu cases, especially among passengers returning from affected areas.

Yesterday a British Airways cabin crew member was taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from Mexico City.

But a spokesman for Northwick Park Hospital in London said tests confirmed he did not have the deadly strain.

World Health Organisation director-general Margaret Chan said the outbreak constituted a "public health emergency of international concern".

It means nations will be expected to step up reporting and surveillance of the contagious respiratory disease, which she said had "pandemic potential".

Mexico's health minister Jose Angel Cordova said all schools have been shut in Mexico City, the surrounding area and the central state of San Luis Potosi until May 6.

The UK Health Protection Agency called the outbreak unusual and called for further investigation and vigilance among all countries involved.

The Agency said those with flu-like symptoms who have recently returned from the affected areas should stay at home to limit contact with others and seek medical advice from a local health professional or NHS Direct.

But an HPA spokesman added: "No cases of swine flu have been identified in the UK or anywhere in Europe."

"The HPA and the NHS have systems in place, which will alert public health authorities of any unusual strain circulating in the UK."

Britons are not currently being advised to avoid travelling to affected areas of Mexico and the US.

The H1N1 strain of swine flu is usually only seen in pigs - but in humans can cause serious symptoms including fever and fatigue.

Rubber-growing nations cut exports to prop up prices

BANGKOK, April 26 – malaysianinsider – Bernama

Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top three natural rubber producers, have agreed to reduce exports by 48,000 tonnes per month in the second quarter of the year to prop up falling prices of the product.

Yium Tavarolit, chief secretary of the International Rubber Consortium (IRCo), said the proposal needed ratification by the International Tripartite Rubber Corporation (ITRC) which was scheduled to meet here on May 14 and 15.

Last December, IRCo agreed to cut 915,000 tonnes of rubber from the market in 2009, some 270,000 tonnes of it in the first quarter.

Yium said the 144,000 tonnes to be cut in the second quarter could be increased or reduced depending on the market movement.

“We will monitor the market on a weekly and monthly basis. If the prices go up, we might reduce the quantum, but if they drop, we might increase it,” he said, adding that the agreement to cut 48,000 tonnes per month was made by the Bangkok-based IRCo during its board of directors and shareholders meetings here Friday.

Yium said the current price for technically specified rubber 20 (TSR20) was US$1,500, which was much lower than that for the same period in 2008.

China, the world’s biggest rubber buyer, imported a total of 376,386 tonnes in the three first three months of 2009, down 23 per cent year-on-year.

The benchmark ribbed smoked sheets RSS3 currently is around US$1.70 per kg, compared to a high of US$3.25 per kg last July, the highest in 56 years.

The IRCo consists of the three countries – Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand – which produce 70 per cent of the global production of rubber and which exported 5.9 million tonnes in 2008.

Yium said IRCo was confident that the new measures to reduce exports would push up the rubber prices, or at least bring them to an acceptable figure to both smallholders and other industry players.

The lower prices were due to a lack of demand, he said and cited the current global economic crisis, low oil prices and reduction in car production in Thailand as the reasons for the drop.

In October 2008, the three nations agreed to implement several measures under the Supply Management Scheme (SMS) to counter the prevalent fall in natural rubber prices.

The measures included acceleration of replanting, with the total annual area to be replanted in the three countries in 2009 having increased from 112,000 hectares to 169,000 hectares, which would reduce natural rubber production by around 215,000 tonnes.

Taliban pull back after raising nuclear fears

April 24, 2009 - Pakistan said Friday that Taliban militants have completely withdrawn from the Buner district outside Pakistan's capital, which they seized control of earlier this week raising international concerns.

The reported withdrawal -- which was disputed by a human rights group monitoring the area -- comes after a Taliban land grab sounded alarms worldwide about the possibility of terrorists taking control of the country.

Syed Mohammed Javed, commissioner of the Malakand Division which includes Buner, said the Taliban withdrew without any conditions. He said they had violated a peace agreement signed two months ago.

Earlier in the day, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan told CNN that the militants would pull back from the district.

Pakistani Express TV showed live footage of armed and masked Taliban militants in Buner, loading pick-up trucks and driving away.

But Amnesty International's regional chief said people in the area were reporting a different scenario.

"What we're hearing from people in Buner ... is that the Taliban that have moved out are the non-local ones," Sam Zarifi, Amnesty's Asia Pacific director, told CNN. "So the local branch of the Taliban are still in place in Buner."

The human rights agency issued a report on Friday raising concerns about Taliban rule in Buner, which it says includes a ban on music and mandatory beards for all men.

Another concern is the swath of destruction to Buner's civilian infrastructure. Zarifi said schools, courts and medical facilities have been shut down under the Taliban's control. *

Zarifi said he thinks the test for Pakistan's government is not a military defeat over the Taliban, but "whether the schools will once again open, whether the health units will once again operate (in Buner)."

Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that nuclear-armed Pakistan was in danger of falling into terrorist hands.

Before the Taliban's apparent withdrawal Friday, a local Pakistani official expressed doubt about whether the militants would leave, as they pledged to local elders on Thursday.

"Nobody can trust them," Sardar Hussain Babik, the provincial education minister, said by phone from Buner.

The Taliban have broken promises before and probably would do so again, he said.

Sufi Muhammed, an Islamist fundamentalist leader who has been negotiating on behalf of the Taliban, was overseeing the withdrawal, police said.

Taliban militants surged into Buner this week. Takeover of the district brought the Taliban closer to the capital than they had been since they started the insurgency.

Militants subsequently locked up courthouses, seized court documents, and battled Pakistani troops who were sent to protect residents.

The militants said they took control of the district to ensure that Islamic law, or sharia, was properly imposed. The Pakistani government called the land grab a breach of a recent peace agreement.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani told the national assembly Friday that the military could stop the Taliban and that the country's nuclear weapons were safe.

"If anybody challenges the writ of the government, then we will react," Gilani said. "Yesterday, I heard that [the Taliban] had reached Buner and close to Islamabad. Do we not have any courage? Does this parliament not have moral courage to stop them? The defense of the country is in strong hands. Our nuclear program is in safe hands."

Swine flu hits Mexico

April 24, 2009 | MEXICO CITY -- A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico in an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global epidemic.

The new virus -- which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before -- also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S.

"We are very, very concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human. . . . It's 'all hands on deck' at the moment."

Mexico's Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba said 68 people have died of flu and the new swine flu strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, he said.

Residents of the capital donned surgical masks, and authorities ordered a sweeping shutdown of public gathering places. President Felipe Calderon met with his Cabinet yesterday to coordinate Mexico's response.

The WHO was convening an expert panel to consider whether to raise the pandemic alert level or issue travel advisories.

It might already be too late to contain the outbreak, a prominent U.S. pandemic flu expert said late yesterday.

There are probably cases incubating around the world already, said Dr. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.

In Mexico City, "literally hundreds and thousands of travelers come in and out every day," Osterholm said. "You'd have to believe there's been more unrecognized transmission that's occurred."

At Mexico City's international airport, passengers were questioned to try to prevent anyone with flu symptoms from boarding airplanes.

There is no vaccine that specifically protects against swine flu, and it was unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer. A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.

Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only fatalities so far were in young people and adults.

The geographical spread of the outbreaks also concerned the WHO -- while 13 of the 20 deaths were in Mexico City, the rest were spread across Mexico.

The CDC says two flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, seem effective against the new strain. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said the company is prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if requested.

Closing schools across Mexico's capital of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home, as well as thousands of university students. All state and city-run cultural activities were suspended, including libraries, state-run theaters, and at least 14 museums.

U.S. health officials said the outbreak is not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five people sickened in California and three in Texas have all recovered.

The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.

Brief Swine Flu Update

Fri Apr 24, 2009 - by DemFromCT

CDC and WHO are closely following a large outbreak of swine flu in central Mexico and a much smaller cohort in the US (no data on anywhere else at this time.) You'll be hearing about it on the news (but, of course, readers of Daily Kos are well familiar with the topic.)

There are 6 documented cases of swine H1N1 in the San Diego area and Imperial County, and 2 in the San Antonio area, all relatively mild (one case was hospitalized, but not primarily for flu.) Seasonal H1N1 is an antigenically distinct virus which means that rapid flu tests cannot tell them apart (CDC will be issuing guidance to clinicians on this), and the current vaccine may not be protective. Tamiflu works, as does Relenza. while there are likely more cases in the US, there are no large scale outbreaks. Mexico is having a larger problem, but details are sketchy and will likely remain so.

This is a unique set of circumstances that's concerning enough for CDC and WHO to ramp up their surveillance, and collect data and investigate the outbreak. It is not a pandemic alert, and guidance on that topic has not changed, but this is an "evolving situation", and the story and guidance could change. It's at the very least become a news story. It could easily fizzle out in a few days, but until it does, it bears watching (and not necessarily on the front page here.)

Mexican officials, scrambling to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 16 people and possibly dozens more in recent weeks, shuttered schools from kindergarten to university for millions of young people in and around the capital on Friday and urged people with flu symptoms to stay home from work.

"We’re dealing with a new flu virus that constitutes a respiratory epidemic that so far is controllable," Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told reporters late Thursday, after huddling with President Felipe Calderón and other top officials. He said the virus had mutated from pigs and had at some point been transmitted to humans.

We've been following it at Flu Wiki forum, we will continue to do so there. As circumstances warrant, we'll update you here. In the meantime, definitive guidance can be found at CDC's web site, and for those who wish to explore more, we recommend pandemicflu.gov, your state public health web site, Flu Wiki and Get Pandemic Ready, two sites with basic flu info.- courtesy Daily Kos

Divorce by text message - hitting Saudi

April 24, 2009 - A Saudi man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper.

The man was in Iraq when he sent the message informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported.

A court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah finalized the split -- the first known divorce in Saudi Arabia by text message -- after summoning the two relatives to check they had received word of the husband's intention, the paper said.

Saudi Arabia practices a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, and clerics preside over Sharia courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying "I divorce you" three times.

The Saudi man was in Iraq to participate in "what he described as 'jihad,'" according to the Arab News. Many Saudis have gone to fight with al Qaeda militants against the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.

US-Mexico relations

April 14, 2009 - Riz Khan speaks to Denise Dresser, a Mexican analyst and writer, about prospects for peace and stability in Mexico, Obama's visit to Mexico, and evolving US-Mexico relations.