The U.S. Senate, bringing congress to the brink of passing the most comprehensive regulation of the financial industry since the Great Depression, approved a bill that imposes restrictions on proprietary trading by banks and creates a consumer protection agency designed to prevent lending abuses that triggered the housing collapse and the worst unemployment in almost three decades.
BusinessWeek.com — Finance
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British Foreign Secretary William Hague meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on May 22. Senior British cabinet ministers warned that Britain wants to withdraw its troops as soon as possible. (AFP)
Hague, Defence Secretary Liam Fox and International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell are set to meet President Hamid Karzai in their first visit to the country since a new coalition government took power in London this month.
Related Topics Europe
Hague described Afghanistan – where around 10,000 British troops are helping fight a Taliban-led insurgency well into its ninth year – as “our most urgent priority” in comments released from London as the party touched down.
In an interview with The Times newspaper before arriving in Kabul, Fox made clear the visit would focus on speeding up the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, and that no new troops would be deployed.
“We need to accept we are at the limit of numbers now and I would like the forces to come back as soon as possible,” he was quoted as saying.
“We have to reset expectations and timelines.
“National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman. We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened,” Fox said.
With Karzai having promised that Afghan forces will take on responsibility for the country’s security by 2014, Fox said he would see if training could be accelerated to that end.
“I want to talk to people on the ground, our trainers, to see whether there is room to accelerate it without diminishing the quality,” he said.
read more…
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Pandemic flu remains moderate but strikes young–WHO
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) – The H1N1 flu pandemic is moderate but infects and sometimes kills much younger people than traditional seasonal influenza, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.
Comparing the number of deaths from the pandemic virus known as swine flu with those from seasonal influenza can be misleading, the U.N. agency said.
So… don’t be mislead by the “Pandemic” not being severe? And it will take a couple of years to evaluate?
“WHO continues to assess the impact of the influenza pandemic as moderate,” it said in a statement. “Accurate assessments of mortality and mortality rates will likely be possible only one to two years after the pandemic has peaked.”
read article here… Pandemic flu remains moderate but strikes young–WHO | South Asia | Reuters.
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The Health Ranger comes up with some interesting info on the close ties between the US Gov (CDC) and Big Pharma…
Former head of CDC lands lucrative job as president of Merck vaccine division
(NaturalNews) You’ve heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant “revolving door” through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key employees. That reality was driven
home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She’s the new president of the vaccine division.
How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and of course H1N1 swine flu vaccines, too.
This is opinion of course, but makes very good sense…
So what’s the problem with all this? The problem is that private industry and government health offices such as the CDC or FDA should never be so cozy. When they are, it creates an environment of collusion between Big Government and Big Pharma. We’ve already seen this with the government-led push for swine flu vaccines that are manufactured (and sold) by drug companies like Merck.
Big Pharma is Big Dollars and the biggest source for funding Big Pharma is Big Gov…
You might even say that the CDC already functions as the marketing division of the pharmaceutical industry. It was the CDC that pushed so hard for swine flu vaccines, even amid the obvious realization that swine flu was no more dangerous than seasonal flu. To this day, the CDC still hasn’t bothered to recommend vitamin D for the prevention of either seasonal flu or swine flu. It remains heavily invested in the lucrative vaccine approach — an approach that just happens to financially benefit the very corporations that are hiring ex-CDC employees like Dr. Gerberding.
How to triple your salary by selling out to industry….
read the rest here… Former head of CDC lands lucrative job as president of Merck vaccine division (opinion).
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Fed’s Evans Says Low Inflation Gives Fed Breathing Room – NYTimes.com
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, said on Monday he expects the U.S. economy to grow 3.0 to 3.5 percent over the next 18 months, but that low inflation will give the central bank room to keep monetary policy easy for an extended period.
Next year “will definitely be a better year” than 2009, Evans told business television channel CNBC in an interview, but added he expects the jobless rate to creep up further.
Evans said he expects the U.S. jobless rate — currently
read article here… Fed’s Evans Says Low Inflation Gives Fed Breathing Room – NYTimes.com.
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Flu pandemic? U.S. has been there for weeks | U.S. | Reuters
Thu Jun 11, 2009 3:50pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science EditorWASHINGTON (Reuters) – The World Health Organization may have just declared a pandemic of the H1N1 flu virus, but the United States has been acting as if a pandemic was under way for weeks, health officials said on Thursday.
The new swine flu virus was first identified in two U.S. children in April and by the time the news was out, it had already begun spreading. CDC experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of people are likely infected in every state.
Although most had mild symptoms, there have been at least 27 deaths and 1,000 people have been sick enough to be hospitalized.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, who has been in his job as CDC director for just four days, told a news conference the WHO declaration did not come as a surprise. “There are no practical implications for most state and local governments,” he added.
“Here in the United States, the basic declaration isn’t going to change our day-to-day activities,” added the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat.
WHO raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.
Flu pandemic? U.S. has been there for weeks | U.S. | Reuters.
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