Global News Journal

from Maggie Fox:

Where scientists go to learn about swine flu

Usually, at a forum on swine flu, all the experts stand up, present a bunch of general background material, a few new findings, and leave. The learning curve on H1N1 is so steep that by the time you fill in the background, you are out of time, and there's no point in hearing the next presenter speak to a general audience

But this week's Institute of Medicine  meeting was different. Epidemiologists - the people who specialize in how disease spreads - were talking to molecular geneticists. Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization filled in the bench scientists on how negotiating to get vaccines and drugs for poor countries was taking up everyone's valuable time. Veterans of the 1976 swine flu vaccine mess told their stories. Every scientist sat there raptly listening to the other's presentations. Much of the material had not yet gone through the time consuming peer-review process needed for publication in a medical journal, so it was a little raw, but that much more useful and timely to an educated audience.

They traded notes on how technology could make it a lot harder to fight the rumor mill about vaccines and drug side-effects; presented good news about the severity of the pandemic and traded their worries about how the public health system -- or rather the lack of one in the United States and many other countries -- will cope.

CDC pathologist Dr. Sherif Zaki looked at the bodies of patients who died of swine flu and found a surprise -- the virus does not act like regular flu, at least not in seriously ill patients. And more study confirmed that the virus did indeed originally come from pigs.

The consensus is that while many may accuse the public health community and the media of hyping the pandemic, the world is not out of the woods yet, and this virus will continue to surprise the experts for a long time.

from Commentaries:

Shelved missile shield tests NATO unity

After just six weeks as NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen has his first crisis. The alliance may be slowly bleeding in an intractable war in Afghanistan, but the immediate cause is the U.S. administration's decision to shelve a planned missile shield due to have been built in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The shield, energetically promoted by former President George W. Bush, was designed to intercept a small number of missiles fired by Iran or some other "rogue state". But Russia saw it as a threat to its own nuclear deterrent and NATO's new east European members saw it as a useful deterrent against Russian bullying, by putting U.S. strategic assets on their soil.

President Barack Obama's decision to drop plans to install it on Polish and Czech territory leaves those former Soviet satellites feeling betrayed -- because they expended political capital to win parliamentary support -- and more exposed to a resurgent Russia, especially after its use of force against Georgia last year.

Obama's move is clearly part of a warming of U.S. relations with Moscow from which Washington hopes to gain help in return on supply routes to Afghanistan, pressure on Iran to rein in its nuclear programme, and an agreement on radical cuts in nuclear arsenals. But this "reset" of U.S.-Russian relations has only exacerbated the rift within NATO over Russia.

The three Baltic states and Poland were particularly critical of NATO's low-key response to Moscow's military action in Georgia. Some said the refusal of west European allies led by Germany and France to agree at a NATO summit last year to putting Georgia and Ukraine on a path to NATO membership emboldened the Kremlin to act. President Dimitry Medvedev's harsh attack on Ukraine's leader in an open letter last month fanned their fears of Russian bullying of its neighbours.

East European officials cite Moscow's playing with the gas taps and trade disputes, and its apparent determination to keep its Black Sea fleet in the Crimean port of Odessa Sevastopol beyond a 2017 deadline agreed with Ukraine as part of a strategy of tension intended to reverse the "colour revolutions" in Kiev and Tbilisi, and bring other former Soviet republics to heel.

All that makes it a particularly awkward moment for Rasmussen to deliver his inaugural keynote speech on NATO-Russia relations on Friday in Brussels. The former Danish prime minister has put a few noses out of joint in his first weeks by making clear he intends to run NATO in a more results-oriented way, leaving less room and time for ambassadors in the North Atlantic Council to debate any idea to a standstill. He has set strict time-limits on council meetings, streamlined flabby agendas and outsourced the drafting of a new Strategic Concept to a group of 12 experts led by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on which not all allies are represented.

In search of Russia

President Dmitry Medvedev’s conference on the modern state and global security this week was an object lesson in efficiency and organisation. Four hours north east of Moscow in the ancient city of Yaroslavl, security was tight but not overbearing, hundreds of Moscow and Saint Petersburg students guided guests to their hotels and waited tables with exquisite fish, caviar, pastries, vegetables and fruit in a marquee beside the conference hall.

Russia was showing the face of a modern state with a global role.

Escaping the speeches for a view of Yaroslavl’s medieval Kremlin and onion-domed churches and monasteries, a few of us set off down the road from the conference centre in search of a taxi to drive us into town. The modern conference grounds quickly gave way to small wooden kiosks selling ‘products’, ‘vegetables’ – no brand names here.

No taxi either but there was a kiosk selling water melons, run by an Azeri eager to earn some extra cash.

His Lada stank of petrol and exhaust fumes belched inside the car every time it pulled away from every junction. He told us police sometimes stopped him because of his dark colouring – in this part of northern Russia blonde is the order of the day. And he complained that his invalid allowance – he had kidney problems – barely covered the cost of his medicine.

Bumping into the centre of Yaroslavl, the Volga stretched before us, we saw a harbour packed with millionaire’s boats. Out of the car and walking through the ancient gates of the Kremlin, we were greeted by an old woman sitting on a wooden chair.

Can the real Russia please step forward?

Less content, more Merkel in campaign posters

With two weeks to go before Germany holds an election, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives have unveiled a new set of election posters, depicting Merkel, Merkel, and more Merkel.

Rather than campaigning on the issues highlighted in their election programmes, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) are keeping it simple and hoping to capitalise instead on the popularity of their leader, Germany’s first female chancellor.

“The key question is whether Angela Merkel, who has intelligently guided Germany throughout the crisis, should continue to govern,” said Ronald Pofalla, general secretary of the CDU, at a press conference in Berlin.

“With the new posters, we want to make clear to people that they will only get Merkel again as a chancellor if they vote for the CDU.”

The posters show only Merkel, smiling benevolently against a minimalist black background, and feature slogans like: “We vote for the Chancellor” or “We vote for confidence”.

The latest posters are emblematic of the conservatives’ general campaign, which has focused less on hard-hitting issues such as tax cuts and atomic energy than on popular personalities like Merkel and the Economy Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg.

On previous posters, Guttenberg and other well-known conservative politicians were shown against a blurry background, alongside vague slogans such as “economy with reason”, “strong families” and “good education”.

from Tales from the Trail:

Is Chavez helping Iran build the bomb?

Veteran Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau is on Hugo Chavez's case.

Morgenthau warned last week at Washington's Brookings Institution that Iran is using Venezuela's financial system to avoid international sanctions so it can acquire materials to develop nuclear weapons and missiles.  He urged more scrutiny of the "emerging axis of Iran and Venezuela" in an op/ed article in the Wall Street Journal, in which he said a number of mysterious Iranian factories had sprung up in remote parts of Venezuela.

Chavez's man in Washington, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez, called the allegations "outrageous ... unfounded and irresponsible" in a letter to the district attorney seen by Reuters.

True, leftist President Chavez has done little to endear himself to Americans. A fierce critic of the United States, his foreign policy rule of thumb is my enemy's enemies are my friends. His last trip abroad included visits to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus and Russia. He loudly announced plans to buy Russian tanks and anti-aircraft missiles.

But Chavez maintains the weapons are needed to defend Venezuela, which he says is threatened by a growing U.S. military presence in neighboring Colombia. And he swears he has no intention of developing an atomic bomb.

Besides vast oil reserves, Venezuela has large deposits of uranium, though there are no signs of any plans to mine them.

German election TV debate: Live 2

10:20 p.m. - My colleagues Dave Graham and Sarah Marsh have been busily keeping track of the debate highlights. Here is their report.

9:58 p.m.- Merkel has also obviously rehearsed her closing speech-let. She gets all those terms in that conservatives want to hear: family, children, parents, grandparents, education and “ensuring jobs.” After a rousing debate, Merkel is back in her “feel-good” campaign-speech mode now: vague. “Together we can accomplish a lot,” she says.

9:55 p.m. – Closing statements: Steinmeier up first and he’s clearly been practicing his little speech. He gets all his buzz words in again about minimum wage, healthcare for everyone, social balance, shutting down nuclear power and expresses his worry about a growing “gap between rich and poor.”

9:45 p.m. They’re getting a bit testy with each about tax cut plans by the conservatives if they get in power with the pro-business Free Democrats. Steinmeier wants to know how, in the face of all the government stimulus spending going on, are they going to pay for that? Merkel responds with growth. “Growth creates jobs,” she said. But Steinmeier has done his homework and shoots back: “How can you finance that out of growth? You’d need to have an annual growth rate of 9 percent to afford that. We’ve never had that much growth.” Merkel insists tax cuts are do-able. “I don’t want to confuse the viewers here with numbers,” she says.

German election TV debate: Live

8:50 p.m. - Steinmeier and Merkel don’t use the informal “du” with ach other, the world has just learned. It might sound like a trivial question but I bet a lot of people will remember Steinmeier’s answer to that unusual question: “We don’t use ‘du’ — that’s not something that I consider necessary in politics,” Steinmeier says.

Germany’s Greens trade in woolly sweaters for business suits

Having traded in their woolly sweaters, jeans and sandals for dapper suits and shiny shoes, Germany’s Greens are ready for business, claiming that to be the “party that truly knows its economics”.

The world’s most successful environmental party is eager to get back into power at the federal election on Sept. 27 after a first stint in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) from 1998 to 2005.

The Greens hope that by developing a plan for economic growth, rather than just focussing on the ecology, they will broaden their appeal for voters.

“We are the party that truly knows its economics,” said Renate Kuenast, one of the party’s leading politicians, at a campaign rally in Stuttgart. “We are the party which brings together economics and the environment, as the environment has so much to offer to the economy.”

The concept is a enticing one, but I spoke with a couple of political analysts who were sceptical about the Greens’ new tack. “The Greens have attempted to add new competences beyond ecology to their electoral program, notably social and economic policy,” said Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University.

“But this is only theoretical because they haven’t been able to prove them anywhere.”

Still, recent flagship projects — such as a 400 billion euro plan by a consortium of finance and industrial firms mostly from Germany to power Europe with sunlight — have reduced the perception that Green ideas are at odds with business interests, or pie in the sky.

IAEA nations, but not Israel, fete El Baradei in sendoff

Some nations who once criticised Mohamed ElBaradei over his approach to Iran’s disputed nuclear programme joined a roomful of effusive tributes to the outgoing chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency on Thursday.

But Israel, ElBaradei’s most public and caustic critic, left its seat empty to sidestep the succession of delegations hailing the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, participants in the closed-door meeting said.

The IAEA’s multinational board of governors presented ElBaradei, 67, with a silver platter, approved a resolution declaring him “Director-General Emeritus” for after he retires on November 30, and gave him a standing ovation.   He was moved to tears of appreciation.

The tall, slightly stooped IAEA chief said he felt “humbled and grateful” and picked up on his cherished theme of international cooperation to solve conflicts, poverty, disease and other iniquities of the world.

“We are all partners on a human journey and we are on the right track,” he said. “The human family is not a zero-sum game — we will either win or lose together. No problems can be solved alone,” ElBaradei said, gently alluding to past differences with a unilateralist United States under George W. Bush.

He repeatedly praised Bush’s successor as U.S. president, Barack Obama, for his commitment to nuclear disarmament and multilateral consultations to defuse conflict.

ElBaradei also said his successor as director-general, Yukiya Amano, a dry Japanese diplomat without the incumbent’s charisma who was only narrowly elected in July, would lead the IAEA with “competence, courage and vision”.

For Berlusconi, politics is a piece of cake

Non-Italians may struggle to understand why Italy has let Silvio Berlusconi become (as of two days ago) its longest-serving leader in post-war history, and the foreign media dedicates often indignant editorials and articles to the subject. But the centre-right leader himself put it very succinctly to a conservative youth meeting in Rome this week, “I have 68 percent support because the people are like me: they love women, football, life and someone who gets things done and does so much for his country.” At the same meeting, the 72-year-old leader responded to another day of newspaper revelations about his sex life (two newspapers reported that 30 young women had attended parties at his home, with some them paid 1,000 euros to sleep with him) by sticking defiantly to the jocose style of politics that he repeatedly says is the secret to his success (he calls it “la politica del cucu” or “hide-and-seek politics”, referring to a practical joke he once played on an unimpressed Angela Merkel). Berlusconi, the father of five and a grandfather, invited all the girls in the audience of young militants from the centre right to “give me their phone numbers”. Last weekend Berlusconi had extended the same invitation to the female host of the new Tunisian-based Mahgreb television channel Nessma (in which his family business empire is reported to have a stake ). After recalling his earlier incarnation as a cruiseship crooner, the smiling Berlusconi said to the programme’s host: “And your phone number?” This attitude helps explain why many Italians have little difficulty believing in the reports about the prime minister’s partygoing private life. He himself only denies that he ever paid for sex, not that some of the young women in question stayed overnight at his apartment in Rome or attended parties at his villa in Sardinia. But, as Reuters Television found out when asking people on the streets of the capital whether all these revelations could bring down the premier, as some of his critics and even allies have been suggesting in recent days (see our story from yesterday), many Italians think such behaviour is either perfectly acceptable, irrevelant to politics, or they are resigned to the fact that it will not have a political impact. “I think in private everybody is free to do what they want,” said Rome resident Giovanni Cravero, while Giulia Fratelli told us that it “would not be fair” if it did prove Berlusconi’s undoing. Many Italians clearly find Berlusconi’s uninhibited style to be a faithful reflection of the country’s mentality, rather than an insult to women. Few politicians take him to task for his blatantly sexist comments and would probably be accused of being overly “moralistic” or hypocritical if they did, especially since the court case in Bari that is digging up most of the dirt about Berlusconi’s private life has spattered some centre-left opposition figures too. The prime minister, a former construction mogul who is the owner of AC Milan football club and of Italy’s largest private broadcaster Mediaset, often cites his background in business as the key to his political success, contrasting it with rivals who have spent their entire working lives in politics. Despite all the debate in Italian political and journalistic circles this week about whether the “Berlusconi era” is coming to an end, he still has the support of about half the country, according to opinion polls (though that falls far short of his own privately commissioned polls, which are never published). Perhaps part of the explanation can be found in the entrepreneurial energy with which he has addressed the reconstruction of L’Aquila, which was hit by an earthquake in April. Bringing a salesman’s touch to politics, Berlusconi promised that the 30,000 people in the area made homeless by the earthquake would all have nice new homes, with all mod cons, by December — “beautiful houses, with lawns out front. And in the fridge I will put cake, some bubbly and a note wishing them a nice life in their new home.” Why do you think Silvio Berlusconi still has the support of about half the country? What do you think of his style of leadership?