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U.S. NOT INVITED TO SUMMIT OF 40 PERCENT OF WORLD'S POPULATION

JEREMY PAGE, TIMES, UK - India, China and Russia account for 40 per cent
of the world's population, a fifth of its economy and more than half of
its nuclear warheads. Now they appear to be forming a partnership to
challenge the US-dominated world order that has prevailed since the end
of the Cold War. Foreign ministers from the three emerging giants met in
Delhi yesterday to discuss ways to build a more democratic "multipolar
world". It was the second such meeting in the past two years and came
after an unprecedented meeting between their respective leaders,
Manmohan Singh, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin, during the G8 summit in St
Petersburg in July. It also came only four days after Mr Putin stunned
Western officials by railing against American foreign policy at a
security conference in Munich.

The foreign ministers, Pranab Mukherjee, Li Zhao Xing and Sergei Lavrov,
emphasised that theirs was not an alliance against the United States. It
was, "on the contrary, intended to promote international harmony and
understanding", a joint communiqué stated.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/
us_and_americas/article1386812.ece


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A HAT TRICK OF DRAFT DODGERS & SERVICE EVADERS

IF RUDY GIULIANI is elected president he'll be the third draft dodging
or service evading president in a row. That's just one of tid-bit
contained in a 450 page damage control report compiled by the Rudyites
by Wayne Barret of the Village Voice.

Giuliani had been in an ROTC unit until he failed a physical. In 1968 he
sought unsuccessfully to get a deferment but a year later the federal
judge he was working for, Lloyd MacMahon wrote a letter to the draft
board and got him an occupational deferment. As Jimmy Breslin put it,
"MacMahon's letter to Giuliani's draft board state that Giuliani was so
necessary as a law clerk that he could not be allowed to get shot at in
Vietnam." UPI later noted, "The special draft status came in a year in
chich more than 14,5000American servicemen lost their lives in Vietnam.

Six years later, as an associate attorney general, Giuliani helped
prosecute other draft dodgers.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/
2007/0212072giuliani26.html

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AMBASSADOR SAYS CHENEY AIDE TOLD HIM ATTACK ON IRAN A REAL POSSIBILITY

THINK PROGRESS - As the Bush administration ratchets up pressure on
Iran, Vice President Cheney's top national security aide has been quoted
by the Washington Post — in the 10th paragraph on page A18 — that war
with Iran is "a real possibility" this year:

"Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a
direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken
aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney's national security
adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers
2007 'the year of Iran' and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real
possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article."

Those with knowledge of the build-up to war in Iraq will recognize John
Hannah's name. In Bush's second term, he replaced Scooter Libby as the
head of Cheney's national security staff. During Bush's first term, he
personally wrote the first draft of the infamous speech that Secretary
of State Colin Powell delivered to the United Nations, according to
Powell's former aide Lawrence Wilkerson.

Moreover, Hannah was a top source for false pre-war intelligence from
Iraqi exiles that was "stove piped" past the intelligence agencies and
sent directly to the White House:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/12/hannah-iran/

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THE CASE FOR REAL UNIVERAL HEALTH CARE. . . .BY A RETIRED BUSINESS OWNER

JACK E. LOHMAN, WIS POLITICS - With the vast majority of the public --
and even the "non-healthcare" business leaders -- supporting universal
health care, why are our politicians not on board?

It makes every bit of financial sense for businesses to get out of
providing health care and to turn it over to the most successful ever
public-private venture: Medicare. As a Medicare patient I have the same
coverage and physician choice I had before retiring. It's just managed
by a single payer: WPS in Madison.

Don't think for a moment that single-payer is just another liberal
giveaway; it is the most fiscally conservative way possible of financing
health care for Wisconsin citizens. . .

Medicare-for-all would do wonders for businesses by reducing labor costs
by 15 percent; reducing worker compensation costs by 50 percent; and
cutting their and everybody else's auto insurance rates in half. With
these reduced costs they could add jobs in Wisconsin rather than sending
them to other countries. Health care would no longer be a labor union
negotiation and job changes would not involve gaps in insurance,
preexisting disease exclusions or delays, or COBRA costs.

New jobs would mean new tax revenues, increased property values, and
less unemployment, welfare and associated costs. New businesses will
move to Wisconsin and old businesses will keep their doors open. And
when businesses no longer have to add their health costs to the price of
their product, we will see lower prices at the cash register and greater
competitiveness against foreign products that aren't burdened with
health care costs.

Who wouldn't like these single-payer benefits?

For one, the insurance companies that are currently reaping 20-30
percent of health care dollars won't like it a bit, and neither will the
politicians who receive campaign contributions from health care
interests. Nor will the board members that sit on both health care and
non-health care corporate boards, though business associations that
serve both factions owe it to the latter to sit this issue out. The
conflicts of interest that stand in the way of good public policy
abound.

If corporations are not willing to provide employee health care at least
equivalent to Medicare, they should get out of the way and let the
government do it. We don't want their inadequately funded solutions or a
mish-mash of prohibitively expensive half-way measures. Or health
savings accounts that are time bombs waiting to explode in credit card
debt and bankruptcies.

Nor do we want an incremental approach that will not cover all citizens
and is sure to fail. The public wants it done right and wants it done
now.

Think about it. For the same amount of money we are paying to cover 85
percent of the public now, we could cover 100 percent under a
single-payer plan like Canada's -- but without the wait times. Over 80
percent of Canadians prefer their system to ours. Their life expectancy
is two years longer and infant mortality 35 percent less than ours --
mostly because everybody is insured under a single-payer plan.

Canada spends 10 percent of its gross domestic product on health care
while we spend 15 percent of GDP and get less for it. They cover 100
percent of their people and we cover 85 percent and that is shrinking.
Their administrative costs are 10 percent compared to our 20-30 percent.
They have no wait times for urgent procedures, and those for elective
care could be eliminated with a simple increase in funding by 10 percent
-- to 11 percent of GDP. While their problem is funding, ours is
systemic.

http://wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=6227

THROW THE RASCALS OUT
http://www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org

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STUDY FINDS POT HELPS EASE PAIN

SABIN RUSSELL, SF CHRONICLE - Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital
reported today that HIV-infected patients suffering from a painful nerve
condition in their hands or feet obtained substantial relief by smoking
small amounts of marijuana in a carefully constructed study funded by
the State of California. Although the study itself was small, it is the
first of its kind to measure the therapeutic effects of marijuana
smoking while meeting the most rigorous requirements for scientific
proof -- a so-called randomized, double-blinded placebo-controlled
trial. As such, the results of the trial are being hailed by medical
marijuana advocates as the most solid proof to date that smoking the
herb can be beneficial to patients who might otherwise require opiates
or other powerful painkillers to cope with a condition known as
peripheral neuropathy. . . "It's time to wake up and smell the data,"
said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a group
advocating legalization of medicinal use of the drug. "The claim that
the government keeps making that marijuana is not a safe or effective
medicine doesn't have a leg to stand on.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/
2007/02/12/BAG6KO3BLP5.DTL


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DOCUMENTS SAY MONSANTO DUMPED THOUSANDS OF TONS OF
HIGHLY TOXIC WASTE IN BRITISH LANDFILLS

JOHN VIDAL, GUARDIAN, UK - Evidence has emerged that the Monsanto
chemical company paid contractors to dump thousands of tons of highly
toxic waste in British landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were
liable to contaminate wildlife and people. The Environment Agency said
it had launched an inquiry after the chemicals were found to be
polluting underground water supplies and the atmosphere 30 years after
they were dumped. According to the agency it could cost up to L100m to
clean up a site in south Wales that has been called "one of the most
contaminated" in the country.

A previously unseen government report read by the Guardian shows that 67
chemicals, including Agent Orange derivatives, dioxins and PCBs which
could have been made only by Monsanto, are leaking from one unlined
porous quarry that was not authoriZed to take chemical wastes. . .

Much of the new information about Monsanto's activities in Britain in
the 1960s and early 1970s has emerged from court papers filed in the US
and previously unseen internal company documents. They show how the
company knew from 1965 onwards that the PCBs - polychlorinated biphenyls
used mainly as flame retardants and insulaters - manufactured in the US
and at its plant in Newport, south Wales, under the trade name Aroclor,
were accumulating in human milk, rivers, fish and seafood, wildlife and
plants.

The documents show that in 1953, company chemists tested the PCB
chemicals on rats and found that they killed more than 50% with
medium-level doses. However, it continued to manufacture PCBs and
dispose of the wastes in south Wales until 1977, more than a decade
after evidence of widespread contamination of humans and the environment
was beyond doubt. . .

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2011024,00.html

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PENTAGON TRIES TO CENSOR '24'

ANDREW BUNCOMBE, INDEPENDENT UK - In the hugely popular television
series 24, federal agent Jack Bauer always gets his man, even if he has
to play a little rough. Suffocating, electrocuting or drugging a suspect
are all in a day's work. As Bauer - played by the Emmy Award winner
Kiefer Sutherland - tells one baddie: "You are going to tell me what I
want to know - it's just a matter of how much you want it to hurt.". . .


The US military has appealed to the producers of 24 to tone down the
torture scenes because of the impact they are having both on troops in
the field and America's reputation abroad. Forget about Abu Ghraib,
forget about Guantanamo Bay, forget even that the White House has
authorized interrogation techniques that some classify as torture, that
damned Jack Bauer is giving us a bad name.

The United States Military Academy at West Point yesterday confirmed
that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan recently traveled to California
to meet producers of the show, broadcast on the Fox channel. He told
them that promoting illegal behavior in the series - apparently hugely
popular among the US military - was having a damaging effect on young
troops.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2264632.ece