Ignoring realities

Whilst the debate about a proper health insurance scheme and coverage in the US continues, this piece on CommonDreams. org provides no more than compelling hard evidence that America, the so-called richest country in the world, badly needs to do something about the lack of health care for a goodly number of its citizens:

"An estimated 2,000 people without insurance turned up this weekend for a free health clinic in Houston, Texas - home to the highest rate of uninsured people in the country - thus breaking a sorry record for a free clinic. Many of those who started lining up at 5 a.m. have jobs, but can't afford insurance. They came to see more than 700 doctors, nurses and volunteers who came to help, the largest health mobilization since Katrina. This picture, this reality, in this country - it's a travesty."

Dr. Mehmet Oz: "The part that you have to understand about Saturday is that it wasn't in response to a disaster - it was just another day in Houston."

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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