WASHINGTON — In a rebuke to government prosecutors, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007.
Judge Ricardo Urbina said government prosecutors violated the defendants rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe to build their case...
22 million missing Bush White House e-mails found
By PETE YOST (AP) – 39 minutes ago
WASHINGTON — Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush, according to two groups that are settling lawsuits they filed over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.
The two groups made the announcement as they settled lawsuits that they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.
But the public might not see any of the e-mails for quite some time because they will now go through the National Archives normal process for releasing presidential and agency records...
..."We may never discover the full story of what happened here," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "It seems like they just didn't want the e-mails preserved."
Sloan said the latest count of misplaced e-mails "gives us confirmation that the Bush administration lied when they said no e-mails were missing...
Health care loophole would allow coverage limits
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurance companies place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer.
Adding to the confusion, the language is tucked away in a clause of the bill captioned "No lifetime or annual limits." Advocates for patients say it fails to deliver on that promise.
"The primary purpose of insurance is to protect people against catastrophic loss," said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. "If you put a limit on benefits, by definition it's going to affect people who are dealing with catastrophic loss...
The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned dollar limits on medical coverage, but a second panel — the Finance Committee — disagreed...
As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not "unreasonable." The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials...
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that banning all limits could have have unintended consequences, leading to higher costs. "We continue to work with experts on how best to accomplish our goals of preventing insurance companies from imposing arbitrary coverage limits while providing the premium relief American families need and deserve," said Jim Manley...
Under both health care bills in Congress, most of the expansion of health insurance coverage won't take place until three to four years after enactment. Democrats have touted a series of consumer protections as immediate benefits Americans will secure through the legislation. Both the Senate and House bills, for example, ban lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage.
But Finan said the change in the Senate bill essentially invalidates the legislation's ban on lifetime limits.
"If you can have annual limits, saying there's no lifetime limits becomes meaningless," he said. The cost of cancer treatment can exceed $100,000 a year. A patient battling aggressive disease in its later stages could exhaust insurance benefits.
"If you are a cancer patient you could be faced with a situation where you either have to terminate your care, or face a financial catastrophe," said Finan. "We see this kind of situation with some regularity."
...In the House bill, neither annual nor lifetime limits would be allowable under an essential benefits package intended to provide comprehensive coverage...
Advocates for patients are concerned the language in the Senate version will make into the final bill, all the way to Obama's desk.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Bush better than Obama on Aids in Africa
Activists are expressing disappointment with President Barack Obama’s plans for the Aids treatment programme in Africa, charging that he has fallen short of the achievements of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
“President Obama has all but failed to fulfil his commitments to wage an aggressive battle against global Aids,” a coalition of Aids-focused groups declared last week, assigning him a grade of D+ for his performance to date.
Gregg Gonsalves, a leading US anti-Aids campaigner, warned an audience in New York last week, “I am about to say something shocking: I miss George W Bush.”
In many respects, Gonsalves continued, Bush was a terrible president, but “he was exceptional in one. The President’s Emergency Programme for Aids Relief (Pepfar), despite its flaws, saved millions of lives around the world.”
Obama, by contrast, is not providing the resources needed to sustain the rate of growth in the number of HIV-positive Africans who receive ant-viral treatments through Pepfar.
That trend prompted Dr Peter Mugyenyi, director of a Uganda Aids clinic, to express fear that “the carnage of Aids will once again surge and the obvious success we have seen of Pepfar may begin to be reversed.”
Since its inception in 2004, Pepfar has provided anti-viral treatments to nearly 2.5 million people with Aids.
The programme targets 15 poor countries, 12 of them in black Africa.
Kenya ranks as the single-biggest beneficiary of this aspect of Pepfar, with close to 300,000 Kenyans receiving anti-viral drugs as of September 30.
Nigeria has the world’s second-highest number of Pepfar treatment recipients: 286,000. Some 197,000 Tanzanians are getting anti-viral medications through the programme, as are 175,000 Ugandans...
...Leaders of three dozen US medical and public health schools recently urged Obama to accelerate Pepfar and other initiatives until treatment becomes available to everyone who needs it.
The deans and presidents specifically asked Obama to fund global Aids programmes at the level projected in a Bill approved by Congress and signed by Bush.
That legislation calls for the United States to spend $48 billion over the next five years to fight tuberculosis and malaria as well as Aids.
Obama has not yet made a funding commitment for Pepfar in the coming year.
As a candidate for president, he pledged to increase Pepfar spending by $1 billion a year, but in his first budget, Obama called for only $165 million in additional funds...
In Summary
* Close to 300,000 Kenyans, 197,000 Tanzanians and 175,000 Ugandans were receiving anti-viral drugs as of September 30.
* The programme helps support care for 10 million Africans who have contracted Aids.
* Aids-related death rates in Kenya have dropped by 29 per cent since 2002, while the overall Aids mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa has fallen 18 per cent since 2004.
* Over the past five years, an average of 500,000 people with Aids were added to the treatment roster each year
* By 2014, according to this new plan, about 4 million people worldwide will be receiving anti-viral drugs through Pepfar.
* The overall Aids mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa has fallen 18 per cent since 2004
HOUSTON — Houston became the largest city in the United States to elect an openly gay mayor on Saturday night, as voters gave a solid victory to the city controller, Annise Parker.
From the U.S. Department of State Daily Appointment Schedule December 10, 2009
SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON:
...1:15 p.m. Secretary Clinton receives the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award in Human Rights for her Steadfast Leadership and Devotion To Women’s Rights as Human Rights, via Videoconference from the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE – A TRANSCRIPT WILL BE AVAILABLE FOLLOWING THE VIDEOCONFERENCE)...
Leaked agreement rocks Copenhagen
The Copenhagen climate talks have been rocked by the leak of a draft final agreement which weakens the role of the United Nations in climate change negotiations and abandons the Kyoto Protocol.
The "Danish text" draft agreement, published by the UK's Guardian newspaper, has been described as a dangerous document for developing countries.
Over the past week, parts of Denmark's proposal have leaked into the public domain, but this is the first time it has been published in its entirety.
According to the Guardian, the secret agreement has been worked on by a group of individuals known as the 'circle of commitment'.
It is understood to include Australia, the US, the UK and Denmark, which are all said to have finalised the deal in the past two days.
The document abandons the Kyoto Protocol, sidelines the United Nations in future climate change negotiations, and hands most of the power to rich countries.
The Kyoto Protocol relied on the principle that rich nations - responsible for the bulk of emissions - can and should be compelled to take on the biggest burden when it comes to cutting those emissions.
Under Kyoto, poorer nations were not required to act at all.
The leaked agreement not only brings the developing world into the frame, it allows rich countries to emit twice as much carbon as poor countries....
...the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five...
...The hot air this week will be massive, the whole proceedings eminently mockable, but it would be far too early to write off this conference as a failure.
WASHINGTON — A measure to let voters decide whether to ban same-sex marriages in D.C. cannot go on the ballot because it would violate a city human rights law, the Board of Elections and Ethics ruled Tuesday.
The D.C. City Council is expected to approve gay marriage next month, but opponents wanted voters to weigh in.
The elections board said allowing residents to vote on a ban would conflict with the city's 1977 Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination.
Errol R. Arthur, chairman of the two-member board, suggested as much at an October hearing. He said in a press release Tuesday that the "laws of the District of Columbia preclude us from allowing this initiative to move forward."...
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