| The Kensington Review |
2 November 2005 |
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Volume IV, Number 131 |
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Bush’s Anti-Pandemic Program Offers no Panacea, but Progress -- The Bush administration’s announcement yesterday of a $7.1 billion program to fight a possible pandemic stemming from avian flu is far from perfect. However, it is a fine start to a problem governments the world over have ignored for too long. Whether the bird flu does turn into the scourge the tabloids fear is irrelevant. The efforts to build up public health capacity are needed whether this bug kills a few million or not.
UN Security Council Demands Syrian Cooperation in Hariri Killing -- Anti-French feeling in the US must have dropped a few notches after Paris joined London and Washington in sponsoring a resolution at the UN Security Council demanding that Syria cooperates fully in the investigation into the Hariri assassination. The Ba’athist regime of Bashar al Assad is now in the cross-hairs, and it will take intense diplomacy, deep wisdom and some luck to prevent large scale ugliness. Proposals on Taxation Favor Capital over Labor -- The president’ s tax reform advisory panel presented to the Treasury some ideas for changing the tax code of the US yesterday. Everyone wants a simpler, fairer system, and everyone wants a smaller tax bill with more government services. While Americans are at it, they might want to wish for universal popularity, eternal youth and a pony. Once again, the White House is showing a preference for wealth-holders at the expense of income-earners. Greenpeace Fined for Damaging Coral Reef -- Greenpeace, like all effective pressure groups, has its enemies. This week, those enemies were given cause to laugh. The group’s flagship, the Rainbow Warrior II, ran into a coral reef off the Philippines. Greenpeace will have to pay $7,000 in fines for damage to the world heritage site. It could have been worse. Greenpeace could have fought the case. Instead, it offered a lesson in how to bury bad news by leaving well enough alone. © Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux. |
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