…The real surprise, though, may be how so much of what you do on an everyday basis already gets screened, monitored, tracked, scanned and observed – often without your ever knowing it.

From spyware on your computer to police cameras on your street to GPS devices on your cell phone, how much of your private life is really private any more?

“It’s all part of the general evaporation of privacy,” said Peter Wayner, a Baltimore-based computer programmer who has written several books about online protocol and safety.

The Justice Department has obtained records of millions of anonymous, random searches made on Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online as it attempts to revive a child pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Google, the world’s most popular search engine, refused to comply, and the Justice Department has gone to court to force the company to turn over the data.

“I think the Justice Department isn’t looking for personal information. They seem to want to do some research,” Wayner said. “But the future may be different.”
sun=sentinel.com

MONDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) — Black Americans are five times more likely to die of asthma and four times more likely to be hospitalized for the condition than other Americans.

That’s just one of the asthma care disparities between minorities and whites noted in a number of studies in the February issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Among the other statistics:

Puerto Rican Americans have the highest prevalence of asthma (13.1 percent), followed by Native Americans (9.9 percent), and non-Hispanic blacks (9.5 percent).
The asthma death rate for blacks increased from 9.9 to 13.2 deaths per 1 million people from 1980-84 to 2000-2001. During that same time, asthma death rates for whites increased from 2.1 to 2.6 deaths per 1 million people.

One study noted that national efforts to improve asthma care over the past decade haven’t shrunk the gap between blacks and whites in terms of asthma-related deaths and hospitalizations. Reducing these disparities in asthma care should be a national priority, said study author Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

When treating children with asthma, doctors should consider racial/ethnic factors that might help prevent hospitalizations and premature death. In a prepared statement, Gupta also noted: “The number of uninsured adults is increasing, and lack of insurance for adults could explain why asthma prevalence and mortality has increased.”

Another study suggested genetics may explain the differences in asthma prevalence in blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans.

And separate research found that one way to reduce asthma disparities is through traditional prevention strategies, such as identifying and removing asthma risk factors, and disease detection, management and control.
yahoo.com

Let’s see-there’s the fact that poor, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods like South Bronx are subjected to an array of toxic pollutants from chemical plants, medical waste incinerators, etc. disproportionately placed there, and then there’s just the reality that asthma is also anxiety/stress related. The pscychological stress caused simply by being black in the USA is a killer.

…Awuah says that he could do more, but like some other enterprising individuals in Africa I know of, he has been turned away by official aid agencies. Everyone, it seems, was invited to the “Save Africa” campaign of 2005 except for Africans. They starred only as victims: genocide casualties, child soldiers, AIDS patients and famine deaths on our 43-inch plasma screens.

Yes, these tragedies deserve attention, but the obsessive and almost exclusive Western focus on them is less relevant to the vast majority of Africans — the hundreds of millions not fleeing from homicidal minors, not HIV-positive, not starving to death, and not helpless wards waiting for actors and rock stars to rescue them. Angelina, the continent has problems but it is not being destroyed.

…Dare one hope that in 2006, it will finally be understood that Africa’s true saviors are the people of Africa, and that those who would help them in their task must also be accountable to them?
washingtonpost.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – More than 10,000 people demonstrated in the Haitian capital demanding Rene Preval be declared president, despite partial results that put him just shy of the 50 percent needed to win the election outright.

Results announced earlier in the day and based on 75 percent of the ballots showed that Preval, a former president, had 49.1 percent of the vote, short of the majority he needs to avoid a runoff election.

Several hours before the final outcome of the February 7 election was to be announced, residents of dirt-poor shantytowns poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince for a second consecutive day, chanting “Preval president.”

The demonstrators marched and danced in a carnival atmosphere, and had no doubt the victory went to Preval, who enjoys widespread support among the millions of impoverished Haitians.

Tension mounted as the protesters stopped in front of the electoral council’s offices, where only a few Haitian police, armed with automatic weapons, were in evidence.

Pro-Preval marches were also staged in other parts of the country, according to radio stations.

Members of the 9,500-strong UN military and police force took position in key parts of the capital amid concern of a renewed explosion of violence if Preval fails be declared victorious.

Should the balloting go to a runoff, scheduled for March 19, Preval, 63, would likely compete against Leslie Manigat, 75, also a former president, who had 11.7 percent in the partial results.
yahoo.com

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites as a “last resort” to block Teheran’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic’s nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.
telegraph.co.uk

Boston Globe: Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn
WASHINGTON — Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country’s nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists.

US and Israeli officials have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to thwart its nuclear ambitions. Among the options are airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations or covert action to sabotage the Iranian program.

But military and intelligence analysts warn that Iran — which a recent US intelligence report described as ”more confident and assertive” than it has been since the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution — could unleash reprisals across the region, and perhaps even inside the United States, if the hard-line regime came under attack.

Iran ‘danger for world’: Gore
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) – Former US vice president and defeated presidential hopeful Al Gore lashed out at Iran’s clerical regime, denouncing it as a threat “for the future of the world.”

“Iran is ruled by corrupt politicians and clerics,” the Democrat said in an address to the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia.

He said the “corrupt leadership” combined with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli outbursts should raise alarm bells all over the world, including the Arab world and the Gulf region.

Ahmadinejad: Israel ‘will be removed’
Tehran (dpa) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and “other nations” will eventually remove Israel from the region.

Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran – one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution – he once again questioned the Holocaust “fairy tale”.

“We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them,” Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

“Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations,” the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a “fairy tale” and said Europeans have become hostages of “Zionists” in Israel.

This guy is just too good an evil enemy to be true.

Sanction the IAEA Board, not Iran
You probably heard that – as a result of extreme pressure brought by the Bush-Cheney administration – a “special” meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors was convened last week to discuss what to do about the “gravest” threat to develop to “our” national security since the end of the Cold War.

The “threat”?

The announced resumption of certain IAEA Safeguarded programs, voluntarily and temporarily suspended by Iran more than two years ago.

What did the Board decide to do?

Well, you may have heard misleading reports that the Board – unable to satisfy itself that Bush-Cheney allegations that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that IAEA inspectors had been unable to find any trace of, despite almost three years of intrusive inspections were without merit – did “refer” the matter to the Security Council.

The Associated Press even reported – falsely – that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had “ordered” the end of voluntary cooperation with the IAEA “in response to the U.N. agency decision to refer Iran to the Security Council over fears the country is trying to develop a nuclear bomb.”

But there was no referral.

Far from turning over the alleged “Iranian nuclear crisis” to the Security Council, the IAEA Board specifically “remains seized with the matter.”

The AP did correctly report that “Iran will resume uranium enrichment and will no longer allow snap IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities – voluntary measures it had allowed in recent years in a gesture to build trust.”

But, the AP didn’t tell you that Iran’s Parliament had passed a law last year that required – in the event the IAEA Board reported Iran to the Security Council – the cessation of all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA above and beyond that required by Iran’s Safeguards Agreement. And, a resumption of all Iranian Safeguarded nuclear programs that had been voluntarily suspended.

…It is too simplistic and easy to categorize this as a clash of civilizations, a very Western perspective that explains political tensions primarily through the lens of cultural and values differences. Most Muslims (and non-Muslim Middle Easterners such as several million Christian Arabs) probably see the current tensions as a political battle, not a cultural one. This is not primarily an argument about freedom of press in Europe, much as our dashing European friends would like to believe it is. It is about Arab-Islamic societies’ desire to enjoy freedom from Western and Israeli subjugation, diplomatic double standards and predatory neo-colonial policies.
rockymountainnews.com

The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding”, intelligence sources have claimed.

Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he was “not quite as aggressive as he might have been” in pursuing Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counter-terrorism at the agency, said: “It is not that Grenier wasn’t aggressive enough, it is that he wasn’t ‘with the programme’. He expressed misgivings about the secret prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists.”

Grenier also opposed “excessive” interrogation, such as strapping suspects to boards and dunking them in water, according to Cannistraro.
informationclearinghouse.info

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Four years after the United States led the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a new Taliban movement has taken control in a swath of neighboring Pakistan.

Taliban militants control much of Waziristan, a rocky, mountainous area twice the size of Long Island along the Pakistani border. Despite a heavy presence of Pakistani troops, Waziristan has become the largest and most protected sanctuary for Islamic militant guerrillas in the Afghan-Pakistani theater of the “global war on terror.”

U.S. military officers and Afghan officials in three neighboring provinces of Afghanistan say the infiltration of guerrillas from Waziristan has continued unabated and is the primary engine of the continued Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Waziristan “is very important to the Taliban” as a base of operations in the Afghan-Pakistani theater, said Mike Scheuer, a former top analyst at the CIA.

And it is likely to stay that way for years, analysts say. “The strength of the militants in Waziristan has built up over a generation,” said Behroz Khan, the regional bureau chief for a Pakistani daily, The News. At best, “it will take a generation to pacify and integrate this region” into the Pakistani state, he said.
newsday.com

The province where the Taliban were never defeated
he Taliban never really fell in Helmand province. While the outside world was celebrating the end of the Taliban regime after the fall of Kandahar in 2001, the Taliban were still in control of most of Helmand. It was in Helmand that the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, took refuge after the fall of Kandahar, and from which he is believed to have staged a dramatic escape on the back of a motorcycle in early 2002. There were even claims from the Taliban in 2003 that the world’s most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, had spent some time on the border between Helmand and the neighbouring province of Nimroz, under the noses of US forces.

When a British security contractor was forced out of his car at gunpoint, taken into the hills and beheaded in the nearby province of Farah last year, there were reports that the Taliban insurgents responsible were from Helmand.

Over the past year, Helmand has emerged as one of the main centres of the Taliban insurgency. Although it is only now attracting the attention of the outside world, the Taliban insurgency has been raging in Helmand ever since the original victory of US-led forces in Afghanistan in 2001. As early as 2002, the insurgents tried to assassinate the Afghan intelligence chief in the province. In March 2003, two US special forces soldiers were ambushed and killed by the Taliban in the province.

But over the past year the insurgency has rapidly grown in intensity, with the import of tactics from Iraq. There has been a spate of suicide bombings, beheadings, and attacks on soft targets, where previously the Taliban preferred to attack US and Afghan forces head on.

Into the valley of death: UK troops head into Afghan war zone
uicide bombings and firefights, Western troops under attack, sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni, foreigners taken hostage. Days of escalating violence have left dozens of people dead and more than a hundred injured. This is not Iraq but Afghanistan, a conflict which has now overtaken on the grim league table of body counts – 89 killings in the last eight days in Afghanistan compared with 54 in Iraq during the same period.

It is into this maelstrom that the Royal Marines – the first batch of 5,700 British troops being sent to Afghanistan – will begin deploying this week in a mission lasting at least three years at a cost of £1bn.

With no exit strategy from Iraq in sight, British forces are entering another deadly conflict. Tony Blair’s insistence that there should be no sizeable withdrawal from Iraq until the security situation appreciably improves means that contingency plans for a large-scale reduction in numbers have had to be shelved. But last week John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, appeared to pave the way for a “significant” withdrawal from Iraq even if the country continued to face serious problems.

WASHINGTON Feb 12, 2006 (AP)— Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.

Harry Whittington, 78, was “alert and doing fine” after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.

Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance.

Cheney’s spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
abcnews.go.com

With oil exporters Venezuela and Mexico leading, Latin America and the Caribbean posted a 100.8 billion US dollars trade surplus with the United States in 2005, up 32.2% percent from the previous year, reported Friday the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 17.5% of all goods and services imported by the United States, up slightly from its 17% share of 2004. But the region accounted for a significantly lower percentage of U.S. exports, 13.2%, compared to 21% in 2005.

Venezuela’s trade surplus with the United States rose to 27.6 billion last year, compared with 20.2 billion in 2004. Mexico jumped to a 50.1 billion surplus in 2005 from 45 billion the previous year. Brazil’s trade surplus in 2005 was up almost 2 billion to 9.1 billion, and Argentina posted 472 million US dollars surplus compared with 357 million in 2004.

The United States 2005 overall trade deficit was 725.8 billion in 2005, almost 18% more than in 2004. While exports have climbed, they have struggled to keep up as record oil prices, strong consumer demand and cheap foreign goods boosted imports.
falkland-malvinas.com