JOSHUA KURLANTZICK, - The New Republic
Stephan: If we had spent a fraction of the money we have spent on war on education, clean water, decent sanitation, and similar low cost programs in the Islamic world democracies would be prospering, and we would be seen as benefactors not oppressors.
Joshua Kurlantzick is Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
As the revolt that started this past winter in Tunisia spread to Egypt, Libya, and beyond, dissidents the world over were looking to the Middle East for inspiration. In China, online activists inspired by the Arab Spring called for a ‘jasmine revolution.
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JEREMY LAURANCE, Health Editor - The Independent (U.K.)
Stephan:
If you are a woman hoping to get pregnant, beware of that morning espresso or lunchtime latte – and maybe hold the Red Bull, too.
Research suggests that caffeine, the world’s most widely consumed stimulant drug, can affect fertility. One study of 9,000 Dutch women found that drinking more than four cups a day cut the chances of conceiving by about a quarter. Now scientists think they have discovered why.
Caffeine reduces muscle activity in the Fallopian tubes that carry eggs from a woman’s ovaries to her womb.
Little is known about how eggs move through the Fallopian tubes. It was generally assumed that the tiny, hair-like projections in the lining of the tubes, called cilia, moved the eggs along with the help of muscle contractions in the tube walls.
In experiments on mice, American researchers have shown that the drug inhibits the muscle contractions necessary to transport the eggs. In the laboratory studies at the University of Nevada, Professor Sean Ward has shown that caffeine stops the action of specialised pacemaker cells in the wall of the tubes.
These cells co-ordinate tube contractions so they occur in waves. When they are inhibited, eggs cannot move down the tubes. The research, published in the British […]
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RICHARD SIMON, - San Francisco Chronicle/Los Angeles Times
Stephan: This is the latest in this extraordinary chapter in the history of ideology trumping data and good sense. It is not so much a struggle between the Republicans and the Democrats and, much more, a struggle between a small extreme group of right wing ideologues, and the population of the state, just months after the Republicans won a vote. What is happening is a collective expression of buyer's remorse.
In yet another twist in Wisconsin’s bitter fight over the unions, a judge Thursday struck down the Republican-sponsored bill to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights, moving the battle to the state Supreme Court.
Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled the Legislature violated the state’s open meetings law in approving the bill championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker that sparked massive protests and the flight of 14 Democratic senators to Illinois in a futile effort to prevent its passage.
The state Supreme Court is scheduled to decide June 6 whether to hear the case.
As the Wisconsin fight intensifies – with six Republican and three Democratic senators facing recall elections, most likely July 12 – union workers and their allies in Ohio are about halfway toward their goal of collecting more than 450,000 signatures to put a measure on the fall ballot repealing that state’s law sharply curtailing the collective bargaining rights of public employees.
The recall proponents need to gather 231,149 valid signatures by the end of June. They say they have collected 214,399 signatures as of last week.
In Wisconsin, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, said, ‘The Supreme Court is going to have the ultimate ruling,’ calling […]
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BRUNO WATERFIELD, - The Telegraph (U.K.)
Stephan: I see Ratko Mladic's arrest as good news; it is the least the world can do for having allowed the Srebrenica Massacre.
The Srebrenica massacre took place as United Nations peacekeepers stood by and watched while Bosnian Serb forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, killed thousands of Muslim men and boys.
Ratko Mladic arrest: Srebrenica massacre was the UN’s darkest hour
Designated as a UN ‘safe haven’, 600 Dutch infantry were supposed to be protecting thousands of civilians who had taken refuge from earlier Serb offensives in north-eastern Bosnia.
As Serb forces began shelling Srebrenica, Bosnian Muslim fighters in the town asked for the return of weapons they had surrendered to the UN peacekeepers but their request was refused.
Colonel Thom Karremans, the Dutch commander, threatened to call in air strikes unless the Serbs withdrew. Mladic refused but no air strikes came, Col. Karremans had submitted his request on the wrong form.
Gen. Mladic entered Srebrenica and summoned the Dutch commander to deliver an ultimatum for Muslim surrender in a meeting that came to symbolise the West’s helplessness in the face on genocide.
Just days later, on 13 July 1995, the first killings of unarmed Muslims took place in a warehouse in the nearby village of Kravica. Three days later the Dutch retreated from Srebrenica and the way was clear for Bosnian Serb forces to overrun the […]
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JEANNIE KEVER, - HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Stephan: This is the coming reality. The cuts in the Ryan budget work directly against preparation for it, leaving us woefully unprepared at every level from health care to city planning. The healthcare crisis arising from the illness profit system could be resolved over three years as the entire system was moved into single payer Medicare for everyone. The savings arising from the difference between the administrative over head of Medicare compared with Illness Profit System, and the power of collective bargaining with the pharmaceutical companies would, just these two changes, resolve most of the problems the current model creates.
Seniors and aging baby boomers have criticized Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to replace Medicare with private vouchers, and figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau suggest the issue isn’t going away.
‘That’s a huge financial burden the government is facing,’ said Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
It is likely to get worse as the population grows older.
The median age in the United States – meaning half of people are older and half are younger – was 37.2, according to the 2010 Census.
Just 20 years ago, it was 32.
Lindsay Howden, a statistician with the bureau’s age and special populations branch, said the increase is a result of aging baby boomers, longer life spans and stable, rather than growing, birth rates.
While the ranks of middle-aged and older Americans are growing rapidly, the youngest age groups are expanding much more slowly.
The number of people between 44 and 64 increased by 31.5 percent over the past decade, while those 65 and older grew 15.1 percent, Howden said. But the number of people younger than 18 grew 2.6 percent.
That indicates fewer workers in the future, even as their taxes will be needed to support more retirees through […]
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