Spies and Spy Tales

Suspected Mossad agent Ben Zygier was arrested by his own spymasters after they believed he told Australia's domestic intelligence agency about every aspect of his work with the Israelis, sources say.

The ABC's Foreign Correspondent program understands that Zygier met with ASIO officers in Australia and gave comprehensive detail about a number of Mossad operations, including plans for a top-secret mission in Italy that had been years in the making.

It is unknown who initiated the contact.

Sources have told the ABC that on one of four trips back to Australia in the years before his death in 2010, Mr Zygier - who also used the surnames Alon, Allen and Burrowes - applied for a work visa to Italy.

Last week, Foreign Correspondent revealed Zygier was secretly jailed in Israel's Ayalon prison, where it is claimed he committed suicide after 10 months in prison.

His incarceration was a state secret in Israel; the nation's security services went to extraordinary lengths to conceal his plight.

The ABC now understands Zygier was one of three Australian Jews who changed their names several times, taking out new passports for travel in the Middle East and Europe in their work for Mossad.

Foreign Correspondent has been told Zygier set up a communications company in Europe for Mossad, a venture that employed the two other Australian dual citizens.

The company exported electronic components to Arab countries as well as Iran.

Zygier returned to Australia frequently with his wife and children, at one stage enrolling in an MBA at Monash University.

It was during one of those visits he had contact with ASIO.

The ABC believes Mossad became concerned after it discovered Zygier's contact with the Australian spy agency.

Mossad was worried he might pass on operational methods and secrets of the organisation, including information about the major Mossad operation planned for Italy.     Read more…

 

Spending Money to Save

Baltimore, Maryland

Why did Baltimore need to pay outside consultants

half a million dollars for a report that says

the city's financial future is grim?

Some city residents wondered as much after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called for a new trash collection fee, a smaller city workforce and cuts to employee benefits as a way to deal with the projected $750 million, 10-year budget shortfall the consultants projected. For a city as financially strapped as Baltimore, couldn't that work have been done in house?

The answer, according to city budget director Andrew Kleine, is no.

Though the city's finance department makes three-year projections, it lacked both the manpower and the skill set to make long-term actuarial projections and propose reforms, Kleine said. Many of the more than 100 proposed reforms will be detailed Wednesday when Rawlings-Blake releases the full report, officials said.

"We just didn't have the staff or the expertise to do this," Kleine said. "Our core function is to formulate the budget and monitor the budget."

As for the cost, Public Financial Management Inc. of Philadelphia won the contract in 2011 with a proposal to charge the city $460,000, beating two other finalists whose work would have cost taxpayers $500,000 and $507,000, respectively.

But the scope of the needed work grew over the past year, Kleine said, and city officials added another $125,000 to the deal — meaning the consultants were paid $585,000 in all.

Even so, Kleine said, it was money well spent.

Public Financial Management assigned 20 employees to the project, with two workers logging more than 750 hours, he said. The company and its subcontractors did in-depth research on the "best practices" of other jurisdictions, conducted interviews, made actuarial predictions and suggested reforms.

On Wednesday, costs associated with the plan grew as the Board of Estimates approved spending $100,000 to hire a city employee to serve as project manager for implementing the plan.

Kleine said the city is already seeing savings. Prior to releasing the report, officials adopted the consultant's recommendations for overhauling municipal health care and, on Jan. 1, switched to a system that charges lower up-front premiums but higher out-of-pocket costs.

As a result, the city expects to save $10 million in health care costs this fiscal year and $20 million next year, Kleine said.

"Without the consultants, I don't see how we could have pulled off health care reform," he said.

In her State of the City address Monday, Rawlings-Blake used the consultants' findings to call for requiring more city workers to contribute to their retirement fund, charging residents for trash collection, asking firefighters to work longer hours and cutting the city workforce by 10 percent over time. In return, she said, the city could use the savings to raise employee salaries and cut property taxes by 22 percent — 50 cents per $100 of assessed value — over the next decade.

Hump Day Art

All you have to do is catch

 

the subway to downtown

 

and I'll be there waiting...

A Case of Humanity

JOPLIN, Mo. — Two weeks after a mile-wide tornado tore through this city, killing 161 people and rendering a landscape of apocalyptic devastation, the public school system here received a telephone call from a man working for the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington.



United Arab Emirates

“Tell me what you need,” the embassy staffer said.

Six schools, including the city’s sole high school, were destroyed in the May 2011 disaster. Insurance would cover the construction of new buildings, but administrators were scrambling to replace all of the books that had blown away.

Instead of focusing on books, the staffer wanted “to think big.” So the school system’s development director pitched the most ambitious plan that came to mind, a proposal to obviate the need for high school textbooks that had been shelved two years earlier because nobody — not the cash-strapped school system, not the state of Missouri, not even local charities — had the money for it: Give every student a computer.

Today, the nearly 2,200 high school students in Joplin each have their own UAE-funded MacBook laptop, which they use to absorb lessons, perform homework and take tests. Across the city, the UAE is spending $5 million to build a neonatal intensive-care unit at Mercy Hospital, which also was ripped apart by the tornado.

The gifts are part of an ambitious campaign by the UAE government to assist needy communities in the United States. Motivated by the same principal reasons that the U.S. government distributes foreign assistance — to help those less fortunate and to influence perceptions among the recipients — the handouts mark a small but remarkable shift in global economic power.

For decades, the United States has been the world’s largest provider of foreign aid, paying for the construction of schools, health clinics and vaccine programs in impoverished countries. It still is, but the level of donations has been increasing among nations with new financial clout, including China, India and oil-rich Persian Gulf states. And at least one of them now sees poor parts of the United States as worthy recipients for that same sort of assistance.

“We spot needs and we try to help,” said Yousef al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States.

Read more...

 

A Belly Dancing Scandal

 

A widely-known private Egyptian TV channel, which showcases 24-hour rolling clips of belly-dancing, has been accused of airing ads that “arouse viewers,” and broadcasting illegally. An Egyptian court demanded its closure earlier this week.

Despite the ruling, the director, Baleegh Hamdy, says he will not give up broadcasting the al-Tet channel. It is now being aired from a different satellite.

In an interview with Al Arabiya Hamdy added that he is planning to launch a new channel called ‘Bom Tak’ and another channel on YouTube, also to showcase belly dancing.

Egypt’s administrative court on Saturday ordered the belly dancing channel to be taken off air for broadcasting without a license.

The channel was also accused of airing advertisements that “arouse viewers,” sell sexual-enhancement products and promote matchmaking, according to the court’s statement.

According to Hamdy, the court ruling was not based on accurate evidence. “The judge was supposed to check the facts present in the lawyer’s allegations.”

The lawyer, who filed a suit against al-Tet, accuses the channel of providing a platform for matchmaking, but “this is not true,” the director told Al Arabiya’s English website.

“The channel does not air ads for sexual products that aren’t licensed,” he added.

“There are more than 150 channels in Egypt airing the same ads for the same products ... why are people picking on al-Tet?”

Hamdy said that al-Tet had a license and that it is not aired through the Nilesat provider, but aired on Noorsat, an Arab satellite provider headquartered in Bahrain.

The judge issued a court ruling that says the channel must be taken off the Nilesat, Hamdy said, quoting the court’s final statement.

He added that the Egyptian court should not have authority over the Bahrain-based satellite provider.

However, contrary to his expectations, the Noorsat provider in Bahrain shut down al-Tet after the Egyptian court ruling, Hamdy confirmed.

“Noorsat was supposed to respect the contract between us, but the channel is still aired anyway,” he said.       Read more…

 

Prejudice Alive and Well in Some of Us

FLINT, Mich. -- An African-American nurse who is suing a Michigan hospital because she said it agreed to a man's request that no African-American nurses care for his newborn recalled Monday that she was stunned by her employer's actions.

"I didn't even know how to react," said Tonya Battle, 49, a veteran of the neonatal intensive care unit and a nearly 25-year employee of the Hurley Medical Center in Flint.

Battle's lawsuit states a note was posted on the assignment clipboard reading "No African American nurse to take care of baby," according to the eight-page complaint against the medical center.

Hurley, which according to its website was founded in 1908 and is a 443-bed teaching hospital, released a brief statement Monday, saying that it "does not comment on past or current litigation."

Battle said she was working as a registered nurse in Hurley's neonatal intensive care unit Oct. 31, when a man walked into the NICU, where Battle was at an infant's bedside. He reached toward the child, according to the lawsuit filed in Genesee County (Mich.) Circuit Court last month.

"I introduced myself to him. 'Hi, I'm Tonya and I'm taking care of your baby. Can I see your (identification) band?,' " Battle said, referring to the hospital-issued identification used to identify infants' parents. "And he said in return, 'And I need to see your supervisor.' "

Perplexed by his curtness, she asked for the charge nurse, who spoke separately to the man.

When the charge nurse returned, she told Battle that the father didn't want African Americans to care for his child. Further, the charge nurse told Battle that he had rolled up his sleeve to expose what appeared to be a swastika.

"I felt like I froze," Battle said. "I just was really dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that's why he was so angry (and) that's why he was requesting my charge nurse. I think my mouth hit the floor. It was really disbelief."

The charge nurse passed the request to her supervisor, and Battle was reassigned, according to the complaint.

Even after hospital officials removed the sign that had been placed for a short time on the assignment chart, Battle and other black nurses were not assigned to care for the baby for about a month "because of their race," according to the lawsuit. Battle is seeking punitive damages for emotional stress, mental anguish, humiliation and damage to her reputation.    Read more…

 

All God's Children

The death of a man with Down syndrome who was reportedly killed after lying face-down in police custody has been ruled a homicide.

WJLA reports that Robert Saylor, 26, of New Market, Md., was asphyxiated on Jan. 12, according to a medical examiner's ruling late last week.

A "law enforcement source familiar with the case" told the station that Saylor "went into distress when he was put face down on the ground."

Police were reportedly called to a Frederick movie theater by employees who couldn't get Saylor to leave. He had come to the theater with a health aide, paid admission for "Zero Dark Thirty," but allegedly remained after it was over.

Dr. George Kirkham, a criminologist and former law enforcement officer, told the Frederick News Post that Saylor's death may have been caused by positional asphyxia.

Frederick County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Jennifer Bailey said the case is still under investigation and that the three officers involved in Saylor's death -- Lt. Scott Jewell, Sgt. Rich Rochford and Deputy First Class James Harris -- "continue to work their normal assignments," according to the Post.

Frederick County State's Attorney Charlie Smith said his office is reviewing the incident and has not decided whether to bring charges.

WJLA previously spoke with Saylor's mom after the incident.

"He just loved unconditionally everybody," Patti Saylor said. "He has never had anyone put their hands on him in his life. He would not have been doing anything threatening to anybody."

Police officers nationwide often lack appropriate training for dealing with suspects who have special needs, according to a study by Crisis Intervention Team International.    Read more…

War Criminals

I wonder why?

GENEVA, Feb 18 (Reuters) - United Nations investigators said on Monday that Syrian leaders they had identified as suspected war criminals should face the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The investigators urged the U.N. Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for violations, including murder and torture, committed by both sides in a conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began in March, 2011.

"Now really it's time...We have a permanent court, the International Criminal Court, who would be ready to take this case," Carla del Ponte, a former ICC chief prosecutor who joined the U.N. team in September, told a news briefing in Geneva.

The inquiry, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, is tracing the chain of command to establish criminal responsibility.

"Of course we were able to identify high-level perpetrators," del Ponte said, adding that these were people "in command responsibility...deciding, organizing, planning and aiding and abetting the commission of crimes".

She said it was urgent for the Hague-based war crimes tribunal to take up cases of very high officials, but did not identify them, in line with the inquiry's practice.

Del Ponte, who brought former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the ICC on war crimes charges, said the ICC prosecutor would need to deepen the investigation on Syria before an indictment could be prepared.

Pinheiro, noting that the Security Council would have to refer Syria's case to the ICC, said: "We are in very close dialogue with all the five permanent members and with all the members of the Security Council, but we don't have the key that will open the path to cooperation inside the Security Council."

Karen Koning AbuZayd, an American member of the U.N. team, told Reuters it had information pointing to "people who have given instructions and are responsible for government policy, people who are in the leadership of the military, for example".

The inquiry's third list of suspects, building on lists drawn up in the past year, remains secret. It will be entrusted to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, upon expiry of its mandate at the end of March, the report said.

Pinheiro said the investigators would not speak publicly about "numbers, names or levels" of suspects, adding that it was vital to pursue accountability for international crimes "to counter the pervasive sense of impunity" in Syria.   Read more…

 

Human Intelligence Decling

Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations. But human intelligence is suffering for other reasons as well.

 

According to Crabtree, our cognitive and emotional capabilities are fueled and determined by the combined effort of thousands of genes. If a mutation occurred in any of these genes, which is quite likely, then intelligence or emotional stability can be negatively impacted.

Further, the geneticist explains that people with specific adverse genetic mutations are more likely than ever to survive and live amongst the ‘strong.’ Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ is less applicable in today’s society, therefore those with better genes will not necessarily dominate in society as they would have in the past.

While this hypothesis does have some merit: are genes really the primary reason for the overall cognitive decline of the human race? If humans really are lacking in intelligence more than before, it’s important to recognize other possible causes. Let’s take a look at how our food system plays a role in all of this.

It’s sad, but true; our food system today is contributing to lower human intelligence across the board.

Researchers from Harvard have found that a substance rampant in the nation’s water supply, fluoride,  is lowering IQ and dumbing down the population. The researchers, who had their findings published in the prominent journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a federal government medical journal stemming from the U.S National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, concluded that ”our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment”.

One study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that pesticides, which are rampant among the food supply, are creating lasting changes in overall brain structure — changes that have been linked to lower intelligence levels and decreased cognitive function. Specifically, the researchers found that a pesticide known as chlorpyrifos (CPF) has been linked to ”significant abnormalities”. Further, the negative impact was found to occur even at low levels of exposure.  Read more:

I wonder what some of our ancient philosophers would think about our intelligence if they were to visit us right now?

Would we have an easy time understanding them or would they, for the most part, be talking over our heads?

Sunday Funnies

Quote of the Week

An Understatement:

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, making his first appearances on the Sunday talk shows in his new role, was asked if the delays in filling out Obama's Cabinet presented a threat to national security.

"It's a grave concern," he said.

Hagel "has one thing in mind: How do we protect the country," McDonough said, adding that there was nothing to worry about in any disclosures about Hagel that may still come.

Obama has criticized Republican senators for delaying the nomination, accusing them of playing politics with national security.

Caturday

Hey...  I've been practicing...

 

T. G. I. F.

Methinks,

she's been out of the kitchen

far too long...

Google Air

Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are proposing to build a $82 million facility for private and corporate jets at Mineta San Jose International Airport.

 

According to a news release issued by the airport, Signature Flight Support will be awarded a 50-year lease on the airport’s West Side “to develop and operate a 29-acre, $82 million facility, in which they will manage, most notably, the personal aircraft of the principals at Google, among other clients.”

The issue of where to park your planes is certainly an important one; however, many of us only have to deal with where to park our cars.

 

The combined fleet of Page, Brin, and executive chairman Eric Schmidt is estimated at around 8 jets, not including Google’s corporate fleet. The planes are currently housed at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, which is spitting distance from Google’s headquarters.

 

However, last year Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley made a fuss claiming that this situation wasn’t fair and Google was getting the sweet end of the deal. As Boeings can’t just be locked up on the street or tucked away in a garage, an alternative location was needed.

What’s a billionaire to do?  How sad it is to be in that type of predicament...

In this case, the answer is to build your own airport, complete with an executive terminal, hangars, aircraft and car parking, office space, and retail shops. This deal represents a significant boost to the struggling San Jose airport. Mineta recently went through a $1.4 billion renovation and can use the additional revenue. Mayor Chuck Reed is quoted in a Mercury News article as saying he is “excited” because “each of those airplanes is a property tax generator.” Furthermore, the airport will bring in rent and other fees that amount to at least $3 million a year.

A committee comprised of city and airport officials and real estate and airline executives chose Signature Flight Support’s proposal for the project because of the British firm’s financial stability. It cites itself as the world’s largest operator of ‘fixed base’ airports and has private air facilities in 113 locations, including San Francisco, Chicago O’Hare and Boston Logan international airports. Director of aviation Bill Sherry said that the company is committed to ”the private aviation needs of local high-tech companies, most notably the personal aircraft of the principals at Google.”

Google could be the first of many major clients to store their aircraft in San Jose. Executives at international businesses often travel extensively for work and don’t want to drive all the way to San Francisco International Airport, which is about 10 minutes further away from Mountain View than Mineta. Time is money, after all.

Really, it is a win-win situation. Google executives have a safe, friendly, personal place to store their airplanes, without having to interact with regular people or the federal government. For San Jose, the project creates hundreds of new jobs and bolsters its local budget.

 

Innovation...

By: Robert Frank

CNBC Reporter & Editor

On Wednesday, a private yacht sailed slowly and quietly up the Hudson River and docked near midtown Manhattan.

This wasn't just any yacht, however. It was Eclipse -- the largest private yacht in the world. And its presence is sure to touch off a frenzy of speculation about its owners and future.

(Read more: 'My Other Yacht Is a Support Yacht')

Seeing Eclipse docked off the midtown piers is the boating world equivalent of seeing a blue whale swim up the Hudson in the dead of winter. It just doesn't happen -- or hasn't happened. Eclipse's owner, the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, is famously private and averse to publicity. Eclipse is almost always kept in the rarified preserves of Monaco, Cannes, Portfino or St. Bart's, visible to other billionaires but rarely the hoi polloi.

By docking the boat in Manhattan, under the gaze of millions and a horde of media companies, Abramovich is, to say the least, inviting attention.

A spokesman for Mr. Abramovich declined to comment on the boat or its owner's reasons for being in Manhattan. But several dock workers and officials who have been briefed on the boat say it is scheduled to be in town until mid-April.

Some speculate that Abramovich may be using the boat as a temporary residence, since it is more secure and can better accommodate his large security force than a New York coop or hotel. Abramovich's partner, Dasha Zhukova, has announced that she is pregnant, and due in the Spring.

(Read more: The World's Largest Yachts 2012)

Eclipse has a crew of more than 60 people and a battalion of security cameras and sensors. It has two helicopter pads, two pools and a submarine.

At 533-feet, it remains the largest yacht in the world. But it may hold the title only for a few more months. A new yacht, called Azzam, is being built for a MIddle East billionaire that could be 590 feet.

 

Taking it Back

American manufacturers and automakers are an economic success story. Jobs are returning home and U.S. auto production next year will reach its highest level since 2007. The American automotive industry is delivering high-quality products that the world wants.

 

In fact, the sector is the largest U.S. goods exporter, selling vehicles and parts all around the globe. As the auto industry strengthens and contributes to the economic recovery, our government leaders should be focused on creating an environment where we can compete fairly in every market by insisting that our trading partners allow their currencies to be established by markets — not government intervention.

Not all of our friends are playing by the same rules we do. Japan, despite being a strong ally for more than half a century, has been breaking those rules to provide its auto industry with an unfair advantage.

With the resurgent Liberal Democratic Party in Japan back in power, the country continues to engage in currency policies that hurt its neighbors and allies. By artificially weakening the yen, Japan provides a huge unfair advantage to its own exports to the United States while impairing U.S. exports to Japan. The result of this imbalance is an increase in the chronic, multibillion-dollar U.S. trade deficit with Japan. That translates into lost jobs for American workers.

Japan’s refusal to allow market forces to dictate the value of the yen is nothing new. Going back a quarter of a century, both Democratic and Republican leaders have called for Japan to practice fair trade policies but to little avail. Japan’s self-serving policies are incongruous with a modern, globalized economy. Just as nations evolved from mercantilist policies centuries ago, it is now time for Japan to lay aside its tired practices of the past and join the rest of us on a level playing field. If they don’t, then the United States and its allies must act to protect their economies.

The United States and like-minded countries should show Japan that they no longer will tolerate being on the short end of Japan’s currency manipulation. By artificially boosting their exports, Japanese automakers are able to undercut competition in foreign markets, including the United States. Ignoring the problem is not a solution. That approach could lead to fewer jobs and less investment here at home.

Read more:

Hump Day Art

GE Sells to Comcast

LOS ANGELES — Comcast is buying the rest of NBCUniversal from General Electric several years ahead of schedule to take advantage of low interest rates and what its CEO calls a "very attractive price" of $16.7 billion.

Investors thought the move was good for both companies – GE because it got cash for its stake earlier than expected and Comcast because it will benefit more from the rising price of sports rights and other TV programs. With the NBCUniversal businesses, Comcast avoids solely being in the uncomfortable position of passing those costs onto consumers. That was one reason Comcast bought a majority stake in NBCUniversal two years ago.

Comcast Corp. also raised its annual dividend 20 percent to 78 cents per share and vowed to buy back another $2 billion in shares this year. Following Tuesday's announcement, Comcast's stock jumped 7 percent in after-hours trading. GE's stock rose almost 4 percent.

Comcast's business as a cable TV, Internet and phone provider generates nearly two-thirds of the company's revenue. The NBCUniversal business makes up the rest and includes the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, pay TV channels such as USA, CNBC, Bravo and SyFy, the Universal Pictures movie studio and theme parks in Florida and California.

Comcast has owned 51 percent of NBCUniversal since January 2011, and GE the rest. Comcast had planned to take a larger stake in NBCUniversal over seven years, paying for it from operating cash, starting in July 2014.

But CEO Brian Roberts told The Associated Press that the sale of Comcast's stake in pay TV network A&E and some wireless spectrum gave it plenty of cash on hand. He also said Comcast got a good deal given that the market value of media conglomerates has been rising.

"We thought that we would have to pay more later," he said. "We really have known we wanted to buy 100 percent from the beginning of the transaction. We wanted to learn the business. ... We feel that now is an opportune time."

GE's history with NBC goes back to 1919, when it co-founded the Radio Corporation of America. RCA created NBC as a radio network, figuring that people would buy its radios if they had interesting things to listen to. RCA took full ownership of NBC in 1932, but GE bought it back in 1986 to get a reliable source of cash while overseas manufacturing competition loomed.

Unlikely Shortage

SACRAMENTO — As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients.

 

Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare.

They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.
"We're going to be mandating that every single person in this state have insurance," said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and leader of the effort to expand professional boundaries. "What good is it if they are going to have a health insurance card but no access to doctors?"

Hernandez's proposed changes, which would dramatically shake up the medical establishment in California, have set off a turf war with physicians that could contribute to the success or failure of the federal Affordable Care Act in California.

Doctors say giving non-physicians more authority and autonomy could jeopardize patient safety. It could also drive up costs, because those workers, who have less medical education and training, tend to order more tests and prescribe more antibiotics, they said.

"Patient safety should always trump access concerns," said Dr. Paul Phinney, president of the California Medical Assn.

As the nation's earliest and most aggressive adopter of the healthcare overhaul, California faces more pressure than many states. Diana Dooley, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, said in an interview that expanding some professionals' roles was among the options policymakers should explore to help meet the expected demand.

Only 16 of California's 58 counties have the federal government's recommended supply of primary care physicians, with the Inland Empire and the San Joaquin Valley facing the worst shortages.

In addition, nearly 30% of the state's doctors are nearing retirement age, the highest percentage in the nation, according to the Assn. of American Medical Colleges.

Physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and optometrists agree that they have more training than they are allowed to use.

"We don't have enough providers," said Beth Haney, president of the California Assn. for Nurse Practitioners, "...so we should increase access to the ones that we have."

Patients of the TB center in Khayelitsha, South Africa, wait to see doctors, March 23, 2009. Tuberculosis is a contagious lung disease that spreads through the air, including through coughing and sneezing.

In a patient's fight against tuberculosis—the bacterial lung disease that kills more people annually than any infectious disease besides HIV— doctors have more than 10 drugs from which to choose. Most of those didn't work for Uvistra Naidoo, a South African doctor who contracted the disease in his clinic. For those who contract the disease now, maybe none of them will.

A new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warns that the first cases of "totally drug-resistant" tuberculosis have been found in South Africa and that the disease is "virtually untreatable."

Like many bacterial diseases, tuberculosis has been evolving to fend off many effective antibiotics, making it more difficult to treat. But even treatable forms of the disease are particularly tricky to cure; drug sensitive strains must be treated with a six-month course of antibiotics.

Tougher cases require long-term hospitalization and a regimen of harsh drugs that can last years.

Plenty of Mooolay...

As reported by Howard Schneider, of The Washington Post:  There’s plenty of money in the world. That’s the good news.

The not-so-good news: The flood of dollars, euros, yen and pounds pumped into the global economy by major central banks in recent years has yet to pay off in the form of job creation, investment and stronger economic growth.

It has kept banks afloat, let corporations build large cash reserves and restructure debt and, arguably, staved off a worldwide depression. But the ultimate aim — strong and self-sustaining growth in the world’s core industrial economies — remains out of reach, and analysts are wondering whether central banks are at the limits of what they can do to help.

For three of the four central banks involved, their local economies remain in recession or have flat-lined despite years spent in crisis-fighting mode. New data Thursday showed that economic output in Europe fell more sharply than analysts expected at the end of last year, with gross domestic product in the 17-nation euro zone declining 0.6 percent in the last three months of 2012, compared with the prior period. Growth in Britain was zero percent, while Japan’s economy contracted 0.4 percent at the end of the year.

This stagnation follows a historic run in which $5.5 trillion has flowed into the global economy from central banks in the United States, Japan, Britain and the euro zone.

“This is a very unique situation, and we cannot exclude that we are over treating the patient,”

said Domenico Lombardi, a former Italian board member of the International Monetary Fund and now an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

“There has been huge liquidity pumped into the system, but only a fraction translates” into economic support for businesses and households in those economies.

“Each successive effort at quantitative easing has had diminished returns. There are limits, and we are probably at the threshold” where more central bank action could do more harm than good to the global economy, said Timothy Adams, managing director for the Institute of International Finance, a trade group representing the world’s major financial institutions.

The paradox of a cheap money/ slow growth world will be at the center of talks this week in Moscow among finance and central bank officials from the Group of 20.

With all of the major economies struggling to grow, the rest of the world has become concerned about dwindling options. Many of the traditional crisis-fighting tools are off limits. Governments already have high levels of debt, making officials hesitant to borrow and spend in hopes of boosting jobs and growth. Structural changes to economies in Europe, Japan and the United States could take years to fully understand and longer to address. Interest rates — the traditional means for central banks to speed or slow the economy — are already near zero, leaving no room to cut further.

That has left central banks to rely on a variety of methods to try to boost economic growth, by, in essence, making money and loans easier to get.

Major currencies such as the dollar, euro and yen, however, don’t stay at home. They circulate around the world as the fuel for the international monetary system.

Developing nations in particular argue that the policies pursued in Washington, Tokyo and elsewhere are driving up prices in other markets, making stocks and real estate more expensive, increasing the value of local currencies and perhaps setting the stage for another round of problems if the process gets out of hand.

Having Compatible Partners

The Christian co-founder of the popular dating site eHarmony is no stranger to sparking controversy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Neil Clark Warren has gone even further, saying he's "tired" of the same-sex marriage debate and what he perceives as its negative impact on eHarmony.

"I think this issue of same-sex marriage within the next five to 15 years will be no issue anymore," Warren told Yahoo! Finance. "We’ve made too much of it. I’m tired of it. It has really damaged our company.”

It seems his company's decision to launch a separate service for gay and lesbian singles called Compatible Partners in response to a lawsuit filed against eHarmony in 2008 for not offering LGBT matchmaking brought along its own set of challenges.

"When the attorney general of the state of New Jersey decided that we had to put up a same-sex site and we did it out of counsel that if we didn’t do it we were not going to have any business in New Jersey — we literally had to hire guards to protect our lives because the people were so hurt and angry with us, were Christian people, who feel that it’s a violation to scripture," Warren, who deemed himself a "passionate follower of Jesus" in the interview, added.

"I have said that eHarmony really ought to put up $10 million and ask other companies to put up money and do a really first class job of figuring out homosexuality," he also noted. "At the very best, it's been a painful way for a lot of people to have to live."

In 2010, the company settled a separate California lawsuit claiming it discriminated against LGBT people by linking Compatible Partners with eHarmony and allowing users to use both sites without paying a separate fee for each, the Associated Press reported.

Hiding Away and Away and Away

NOOOOoooooooo...

While sequester as a verb mean to "isolate or hide away," as a noun it means a general cut in government spending.

High level sources on Capitol Hill expect the sequester to happen at this point.

Some leading Republicans have said this. But Hill aides also say they expect, essentially, two failed votes and then a possible negotiation after the impact of the sequester is actually felt.

The two votes would come the week after next. Congress is out on recess next week, and will have four days when they come back before the sequester hits on March 1.

The negotiations over a potential replacement will be guided, in part, by the public response to the sequesters impacts. If it is dramatic, that could force Republicans to come to the table. If the public reaction is not overwhelming, Republicans are likely to just let the sequester stay in place.

The sequester would restrain the federal budget over the next decade by roughly $1 trillion. Half would come from defense spending, and half from non-defense. It wouldn't actually cut current spending levels, but would rather reduce future projected increases in spending.

Democrats want to replace the first year of sequester reductions with a plan that is half tax increases and half spending reductions.

Two clarifications. Because the sequester would impact the current fiscal year, which ends in September, the $85 billion reduction would function as an actual cut in the first year, and as a restraint of scheduled increases beyond that. And the two expected failed votes referred to are both Senate votes, one proposed by Republicans and one by Democrats.