Tuesday, August 10, 2010

JP Iran and USA

Castro warns of nuclear war between US and Iran

Updated at: 1036 PST, Sunday, August 08, 2010
Castro warns of nuclear war between US and Iran

HAVANA: Fidel Castro has used a rare speech to warn that the tension between the US and Iran could degenerate into a nuclear holocaust.

The 83-year-old addressed Cuba's National Assembly on Saturday for the first time since stepping down as president in 2006.

He looked little different from the closing days of his regime as he entered the assembly chamber wearing his trademark fatigues and sporting his familiar straggly beard, as deputies cheered and shouted "Viva Fidel".

Although renowned for his lengthy addresses, he restricted his speech to just ten minutes and ignored Cuba's current financial plight, instead focusing on foreign affairs.

The revolutionary leader revealed that he believes the US and Israel may launch a nuclear attack on Iran, as the dispute about the Tehran government's own nuclear programme continues.

"If war breaks out the current social order will suddenly disappear and the price will be infinitely greater," Castro said.

The veteran politician added that nuclear war would change the world order and that it is up to Cuba and other nations to persuade Barack Obama not to attack Iran or North Korea.

Assembly members appeared to hang on every word of Castro's address, which was broadcast live on television and radio, and many paid glowing tributes to him after the speech.

Fidel handed power to his brother Raul Castro four years ago after falling ill and then disappeared from public view, until making a handful of television appearances last month.

Pics and toons 8/10/10 (4)

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Pics and toons 8/10/10 (3)

The Ultimate Car Promise

The car business must be down more than I thought!

Can You Handle It? The Five Spiciest, Hottest Foods in the Country

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2010/08/spiciest_foods_in_america_heat.php

JP Doctors have successfully transplanted windpipes into two cancer patients

August 10, 2010

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Doctors: Transplant advance in windpipe cancer

Summary

Doctors have successfully transplanted windpipes into two cancer patients in an innovative procedure that uses stem cells to allow a donated trachea to regenerate tissue and create an organ biologically close to the original, they said Friday.

Doctors: Transplant advance in windpipe cancer

Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, centre, and Walter Giovannini, the director of the AOU Careggi hospital, meet the journalists during a press conference, in Florence, Italy, Friday, July 30, 2010.

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ROME (AP) — Doctors have successfully transplanted windpipes into two cancer patients in an innovative procedure that uses stem cells to allow a donated trachea to regenerate tissue and create an organ biologically close to the original, they said Friday.

The 31-year-old Czech and 19-year-old British patients are in good condition and have been released from the hospital in Florence just weeks after the surgery. The British woman was speaking after only three or four days, said Dr. Walter Giovannini, the director of the AOU Careggi hospital where the surgeries took place on July 3 and 13.

"This is a unique solution for a problem that had none, except the death of the patient," Giovannini said.

Surgeons have been making advances in the transplant of windpipes, but previous cases have mostly focused on patients whose windpipes have been physically damaged due to trauma.

While trachea cancer is rare, it is very difficult to treat because it is resistant to chemotherapy and radiation and transplants of mechanical devices to replace the windpipe have not been effective, Giovannini said.

The new technique is extraordinary, said Alessandro Nanni Costa, the director of Italy's National Transplant Center, who was not involved in the research. "What is new about this procedure is combining a surgical technique with biotechnology, through the use of stem cells," he said.

The hospital did not release the patients' identities or more details about their cases due to privacy concerns. Giovannini said the Czech woman is the mother of a 6-month-old.

The surgical team was headed by Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, who participated in a windpipe transplant in Spain nearly two years ago. In that case, doctors gave a Colombian woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs.

A similar procedure was followed in this case. The donor windpipe was stripped of all cells until it was just a tube with no organic material. Just before being transplanted, Dr. Macchiarini injected the donor trachea with the stem cells. In the Spanish case, the stem cells were grown on the trachea before the transplant.

It takes two to three months for the stem cells to completely cover the trachea, creating a new organ, Giovannini said.

In the meantime, the windpipe is functional without the cells — acting as a sort of mechanical device before the stem cells transform it into an organ, Giovannini said.

Because the new trachea contains no organic substance foreign to the patient, no anti-rejection drugs are needed.

Macchiarini told a press conference in Florence the procedure could in the future be applied to other organs.

"I'm thinking about the larynx or surgeries involving lungs," Macchiarini said.

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[Fwd: News Alert: Ted Stevens, Former Senator From Alaska, Dies in Plane Crash]

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Fwd: Why I am not hiring

Unemployment: What Would Reagan Do?

No other recession in the last 60 years saw such rapid job destruction.

By HENRY OLSEN

Friday's grim labor report is the latest confirmation that our economy is not recovering. A loss of 131,000 jobs and a stagnant 9.5% unemployment rate are bad enough. But a deeper look—at the little-known civilian employment-population ratio—shows how hard it's going to be to pull out of our crisis, and why the Obama administration's policies are unlikely to do the job.

In contrast to the better-known unemployment rate, which measures the percentage of working-age Americans who are actively seeking jobs but do not have one, the civilian employment-population ratio measures the percentage of working-age Americans who have a job, whether they are seeking one or not.

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Associated Press

President Ronald Reagan

Incomes Fall in Most Metro Areas

This distinction matters because the state of an economy affects whether someone looks for a job at all. Bad times discourage potential workers from seeking jobs; boom times encourage marginal workers to seek them. As our population grows, we have more working-age adults who need work. A growing economy needs to replace the jobs we have lost and add new ones to accommodate these added potential workers.

Looking at this ratio, America is suffering its largest drop since World War II. When the economy was at its Bush-era height, in 2007, a little over 63% of adult Americans had jobs. Friday's report shows that only about 58.4% do, a decline of nearly five percentage points. While the unemployment rate remains steady at 9.5%, the employment-population ratio continues to fall each month. In April it was 58.8%, in May 58.7%, and in June 58.5%.

Since America has about 238 million noninstitutionalized civilian adults of working age, this decrease means that we have nearly 12 million fewer jobs today than we would have if the employment-population rate were still at its 2007 level of 63%.

No other recession in the past 60 years saw such rapid job destruction in either absolute or percentage terms. In the 1979-82 recession, unemployment topped out at a higher rate, 10.8%, but the employment-population ratio declined by only three percentage points, to 57% from 60%.

History also delivers sobering news on how long it might take to recover our economic health. There is only one instance since World War II of the U.S economy increasing the employment-population ratio by five percentage points in a decade: the recovery that followed Ronald Reagan's tax cuts in 1983.

In the mid-1980s, the employment-population ratio recovered less than two years after hitting bottom. The momentum continued for the rest of the decade, fueled by the 1986 tax reform that lowered the top marginal income tax rate to 28%, allowing America to employ the millions of late baby boomers, women and immigrants who sought jobs. By the time the boom ended in 1990, the employment ratio had rocketed to 63% from 57%.

An administration that pursued job creation—not ideology—would note this history and see how individuals and companies can create wealth and jobs quickly if they have the right incentives. Instead, we have policies that are uncertain and portend higher taxes and greater regulatory burdens. This is causing business and consumers alike to restrain spending, creating a drag on the economy too great for any government stimulus to reverse.

Someone once said that we should never let a crisis go to waste. In this historic employment crisis, we have no time to waste. Rather than tear down Reaganism, our leaders in Washington should heed its lessons and unleash the private sector that alone can pull us out of our doldrums.

Mr. Olsen is a vice president at the American Enterprise Institute.

Why I'm Not Hiring http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704388504575419280283794598.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion

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