With Health Minister Abbott speaking of vaccinating all Australians [really? - some 20 million people] against the bird flu virus perhaps it is timely to determine what this whole bird flu "thing" is all about. Lots is being written and spoken about the issue - most probably misguided and scare-mongering. The Mayo Clinic has, I believe, issued a sober and easily read assessment of bird flu. By the way, it is well worth subscribing, for free, to the Clinic's weekly email bulletin / newsletter.
There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
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