Barak Obama is the Judas Iscariot of American Presidents: Obama Abandons Friendship with Israel while Kissing up to Iran

 

 

There are only two nations the President of the United States finds fault with, on a consistent basis, and those two unlucky nations are: the United States of America and the Jewish State of Israel. It’s bad enough to be an American who realizes that we’ve elected a man who is fundamentally anti American as our president: but I fear Obama’s faithlessness and arrogance is now a formidable danger to our ally Israel.  In the world view of the former Harvard Constitutional Law Professor, Barak Obama feels no need to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States because he knows better.  Obama has set about replacing the constitution, which he views as deeply flawed and obsolete, with a “living and evolving” constitution by which he can justify anything.  He want to appoint “feeling” judges who will judge the social outcomes, and not confine themselves to mere law, or racist concepts of right and wrong.  Obama is not defending the constitution he’s at best trying to redefine it or at worst trying to get rid of it. The same holds true of our traditional values and alliances which Obama has been taught to see as the superstructure of white male oppression that perpetuates our exploitation of others and keeps the oppressors ultimately in control.  Obama has absorbed this through twenty years at the Church of Jeremiah Wright, immersion in institutional “Multiculturalism” in higher education and by his literary heroes like Malcolm X and Saul Alinski. As the American left has adopted European Socialism, by any other name, they’ve also absorbed much of the latent anti Semitism that abounds in Europe.  While the people watch the Economic Crisis and the Swine Flu Crisis the Obama administration has been making deals with Iran and sticking it to Israel at every opportunity. 

·        Obama has perused the ability to ship troops and equipment to Afghanistan via Iran and a back door deal with Ahmadinejad. One wonders what we must have traded to Iran for this miracle of diplomacy, or abject stupidity, as the case may be.  How valuable is a military logistics route if you can’t count on it when there’s real trouble?  Remember when our ally Turkey refused to give our troops passage during the Iraq war and we had to change our battle plan at the last minute?

·        Obama has given tacit approval to Turkey recently when the Turks held their first ever joint military exercises with Syria. (Iran by any other name)  The Israeli’s were deeply shocked that an increasingly Islamic NATO member would hold exercises with a rouge state like Syria and even more shocked that Washington seemed to approve.  Washington is letting it be known that they don’t care about Israel and they want better relations with Iran and Syria and for that matter Turkey even if they have to throw Israel under the bus to do it.

·        Obama has approved of a large Turkish Arms Sale to Lebanon who has let it be known that they would join a Middle East war on the side of Iran and Syria against Israel.  If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv you must be wondering that if you have friends like Barak Obama who needs enemies?  Turkish arms will certainly be used from Lebanon against Israel when Israel is forced to attack Iran and neutralize their nuclear program. The United States could have stopped this arms sale but very pointedly did not.

·        Obama is now allowing Iran to sell its natural gas to Europe via a pipeline that goes from the Caspian Sea via Turkey to Europe.  Wasn’t the idea to make tougher sanctions on Iran as an incentive to make them give up their nuclear program?  I thought I read that somewhere!  How does helping Iran sell gas give them an incentive to give up their nuclear program and their stated ambition to wipe Israel off the map?  At best it seems inexplicably inconsistent and at worse it seems like the heights of treachery to our friend Israel.

As we in America have learned in the last few months: Don’t listen to Obama’s words, they mean nothing, but judge him by what he does.  Obama was a big mystery coming into office and some thought he was a pragmatic centrist while others though him a committed leftist.  Those who argued that he’s a socialist pointed to his voting record in the senate where he was rated the most liberal member of an organization that included Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer.  Since taking office Obama has been the most socialist, anti Christian, anti capitalist, anti American, anti Israel president we’ve ever had. A man of Obama’s moral fiber has alliances that are momentary and fleeting and Israel would be foolish to count on this man. Obama is clearly after, and rigorously pursuing, the end of capitalism and free speech and the creation of socialized medicine and a carbon tax that is thinly disguised economic suicide in an already over stressed economic milieu.

It sticks in my craw to say it but Israel must be made to understand that the American People still support them and admire them but the American President would sell them out in a heartbeat.  Obama is no great friend of Israel nor of the United States. Obama’s words are nothing as compared to his actions, which are flagrantly Anti Israeli, if not Anti Semitic. At this critical time Obama is abandoning Israel as his actions clearly illustrate and giving aid and assistance to those who would destroy another six million Jews given half the chance.  Israel needs to make plans for a world that includes a neglectful if not passively hostile American administration and must see to her own security.  If Israel doesn’t look after her interests no one will because the Obama Administration is now and will continue to stab her in the back.

Consider the following clips from the Debka File:

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6048

DEBKAfile – We start where the media stop

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Talks on Iranian corridor for US troops, supplies to Afghanistan on fast track

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly updated by DEBKAfile

April 28, 2009, 8:40 PM (GMT+02:00)

On March 27, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 390 revealed exclusively Barack Obama’s plans “to transform the Khomeinist Islamic Republic’s clenched fist against America into a helping hand by formally asking Tehran to permit the passage to Afghanistan of fresh US troops, weapons and supplies across Iranian territory.”

In its follow-up of April 3, our military sources reported that US defense secretary Robert Gates, Chief of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and transport command chief Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, have laid before the president a detailed plan, which had been cleared in back-door meetings between US and Iranian officers.

 

DEBKAfile’s sources ask how much leverage against Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb will be left to Washington when the US becomes dependent on Tehran for its war supplies to Afghanistan.

Tuesday, April 28, US envoy Dennis Ross set out on an extensive tour for pouring oil on troubled waters in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. He is accompanied by the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, Lt. Gen. John R. Allen, and National Security Council official Puneet Talwar.

Like secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who promised in Beirut this week that the US was not selling Lebanon out by dealing with Syria, Ross will try and reassure America’s Arab friends that Washington’s new ties of friendship and strategic cooperation with Tehran will not be at their expense.

Egypt is signally its willingness to team up with Israel to counter those ties, with Saudi Arabia quietly following suit.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6046

DEBKAfile – We start where the media stop

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Turkish-Syrian exercise prompts Israeli review of sophisticated arms sales to Ankara

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

April 27, 2009, 11:21 AM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak commented Monday, April 27, that Turkey’s decision to hold three days of military maneuvers with Syria is “disturbing.”

And that is not all. The exercise will be accompanied Monday or Tuesday by the signing of a letter of intent between Turkish defense minister Vecdi Gonul and his Syrian counterpart Hassan Turkmani for cooperation in the defense industry.

 

Israel is now in a hurry to slash its military exchanges with Turkey to prevent the leakage of military secrets to an avowed Arab enemy.

Ankara is furthermore defaulting on payments for military purchases and other contracts. It has piled up a debt of several million dollars to Israel’s military and air industries, in payment for a $5 billion deal to build a Mark 3 Chariot plant in Turkey. Production of 1,000 Israeli tanks, to have been Turkey’s main theater tank, should have begun in early 2009.

Construction is now halted.

 

The Turkish armed forces is no long the body it once was. The generals of today are in harmony with Recip Tayyep Erdogan’s decision to turn Turkey’s back on Israel.

                                                                                                                  

DEBKAfile – We start where the media stop

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Israel shocked by Obama’s approval of large Turkish arms sale to Lebanon

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

April 22, 2009, 10:49 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile quotes senior Israeli military circles as staggered by the discovery that US president Barack Obama had approved a large Turkish arms sale to the Lebanese army, including the services of Turkish military instructors. This was taken as further proof that the US president is deaf to Israel’s immediate security concerns. Lebanese president Gen. Michel Suleiman has more than once threatened neighboring Israel. When he signed the arms deal in Ankara Tuesday, April 21, he once again pledged publicly to place the Lebanese army at the disposal of the Shiite terrorist Hizballah in any confrontation with Israel.

If that happened, said one Israeli source, Israel could find itself under attack not just by Hizballah as in the past, but by a Lebanese army, well trained and armed by Turkey. He noted that more than 50 percent of Lebanon’s fighting manpower are Shiites loyal to Hizballah.

The conviction is growing in Jerusalem that the US president endorsed the transaction as a means of breaking up the long-standing military pact between Israel and Turkey, because it interferes with his Middle East objectives. Our sources note that neither Washington nor Ankara bothered to inform Israel of the transaction or its scope.

After meeting Turkish president Abdullah Gul, Suleiman at the head of a large Lebanese military delegation signed the contracts for the sale and declared with deep satisfaction: “We reviewed the new [US] policies towards the region in the light of President Obama’s recent visit to Turkey.”

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Copyright 2000-2009 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

 

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6039

 

Washington to cut Iran in on Nabucco pipeline

DEBKA-Net-Weekly Exclusive

April 28, 2009, 11:26 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran is about to become a major fuel supplier to the West, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports.

For the sake of dialogue and cooperation, Washington is ceding Tehran the chance to feed its natural gas into the 3,000 kilometer-long Nabucco pipeline project (from the Caspian to the EU via Turkey).

The strategic-economic consequences of the Obama administration’s major perk for Iran is analyzed in the coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s issue out Friday.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6047

Impressions from Barak Obama’s First Hundred Days: Will the US be Recognizable after Another Hundred?

 

Barak Obama is notable for his complete contempt for the law and the constitution.  Mr. Obama is first and foremost an American Lawyer of the early twenty-first century and his first instinct is to say whatever will win his case, with any given audience, and his second impulse is to circumvent the law to suit his wishes.  Mr. Obama has shown a marked love of crisis and is not above using crisis to completely exclude a proper legislative process and ram through pet projects having nothing to do with the crisis. No debate, no reflection, no consideration for our history, tradition or our most cherished beliefs; just the crisis of the moment and the demand for a given program lest the USA crash and burn.  This is not a democracy— This is the stuff of Mussolini’s fascist Italy.  There are many examples of his treating the law as an inconvenience when he doesn’t like what it says.

Mr. Obama wants his own cabinet without having congress confirm his real advisors.  He appoints political hacks to go through the confirmation process while appointing a staggering number of “czars” to run the real policy and undermine the entrenched bureaucracy.  The Czars report to Obama, who reins in the given cabinet secretary, and replaces an entire federal department with one unconfirmed loyalist. No kitchen cabinet in history has been as extensive or as powerful as the one cobbled together by Obama. The confirmation of Cabinet Secretaries has been a complete sham and has effectively cheated the Senate of its constitutional roll to advice and consent. 

Mr. Obama has shown a willingness to rule almost exclusively by fear.  Under the mantra of “Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste” he’s completely undermined the legislative branch by ramming through spending programs and “stimulus” that has the power to destroy the dollar and our economy.  This was rammed through an incompetent and compliant congress in giving over the fate of the republic to a boy Treasury Secretary with little or no oversight and an unlimited credit line. The congress is following the President in believing that they can spend us out of a “debt caused mess” by adding more debt.  The democrats are enacting legislation without reading it, and voting astounding sums of money for Universal Health Care that we don’t have a plan for, nor has it been debated.  The fear of economic disaster is being used to enact one gigantic socialist program after the other with staggering long term ramifications for economic growth and government credibility.

Mr. Obama has exhibited an astonishing hubris in destroying the free market economy we enjoyed by nationalizing banks and automobile manufacturing.  Mr. Obama has the government holding the note for over half the mortgages in America. For his next hostile takeover by virtue of a “crisis” he’ll certainly socialize medicine perhaps by the end of the year.  The government who can print its own money and still can’t manage to stay solvent is lecturing American Corporations and entrepreneurs about salary caps, ethical conduct, and efficiency when the government has a dismal record of abject failure at running anything besides a war.  Barak Obama is clearly after complete control of banking because he won’t let horrified banks give the government its money back.  Obama want control of the banks because he can than dictate who does, and does not, get financing in our economy according to his whim: or by his version of political correctness.  Now under Obama the Government is becoming more and more like God everyday and its power grows exponentially at the expense of our freedom.  We’re paying off the automakers retiree’s, even if they go bankrupt, and we’ve all gone from citizens of the United States to employees of Obama’s Socialist States of America. Obama is the greatest champion the unions ever had and its no wonder they contribute to his campaigns and work the streets for him. Obama’s congress has reneged on any middle class tax cuts and the wave of confiscatory taxation they’re about to unleash will destroy federal revenues and our economy.  Obama’s tax policy makes government the enemy for anyone who craves success in life. Obama has changed the country from free market economics to socialist economics and the process is gaining speed.

Mr. Obama has promised that lobbyists would not be working in his administration and yet has issued so many wavers for lobbyists they don’t talk about that promise much anymore.  Mr. Obama has had terrible trouble finding enough democrats, who actually pay their taxes, to serve in the sham cabinet that’s approved by the senate.  Mr. Obama makes a great show of vetting the candidates who want to serve in his administration with an economic proctoscope to the point where they’re critically understaffed. The Tax Cheating Boy Secretary of the Treasury has no staff because the vetting process is so over the top intrusive that most candidates find it’s not worth serving if one must have his personal life dissected.  The nation just got a Secretary of Health and Human Services thanks to the Pandemic causing everyone to drop their objections!  Obama has this public show of having great standards but he gets people through the process by cheating, or evading, or stampeding, the democratic possess and ignoring the constitution.

Mr. Obama has made a mockery of American Foreign Policy and has created in our enemies an expectation that we’ll be weak and ineffectual in defending our interests just as Jimmy Carter was in the late seventies.  Obama has been called “weak and naïve” by the President of France, he’s been made a fool of by Hugo Chavez, he’s kissed up to Syria and Iran and bowed low to the King of Saudi Arabia.  Obama’s total failure to grasp Middle East Politics has forced Israel into a war against Iran that could have dire consequences on our economy and that of the world as well.  Obama makes a show of apologizing and criticizing both the United States and Israel whenever he goes abroad, to the cheers of our enemies, and the exasperation of the people he’s supposed to be representing.  Obama is an Anti-American, American President and the world loves the absurd sideshow of Obama whipping the American culture he seems to despise even as he pretends to lead us.  Obama is a creature of the American Educational system run amok and may well be the fall guy when our middle class is gone and most of us enjoy the standard of living expected by an “untouchable” pavement dweller in Calcutta.  The Chinese are in massive arms buildup; North Korea is shooting of missiles like it’s the Fourth of July and now threatens another nuclear test. The Russians hold Obama in contempt: and the Chinese have grown bold in testing our navy, cyber security, and economic security even as they are in the midst of the greatest military buildup in history.  The few close allies we have like the United Kingdom and Israel are treated rudely in public and minimized by Obama who’s apparently only civil to sworn blood enemies and rouge nations.  Obama’s alienation of Israel may have disastrous consequences in the coming regional war when Israel is forced to take out Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Obama has distracted the American People, in the current Swine Flu Crisis, from the fact that few of the key players we need are in place, from the Secretary of Health and Human Services to the director of the CDC; with a flurry of activity and political theater in which not one single American has died. There’s been a whole lot of hype about an event that will doubtless be labeled a Pandemic but as far as the United States is concerned it’s a pretty tame pandemic.  You would think the world was ending with the alarm being generated but the only person in America to die was a Mexican trying to get American Health Care for his baby. If this flu is naturally occurring, or was cooked up in a third world lab it seems to me to be “fizzling out”.  THAT MAY NOT BE THE CASE: BUT AT THIS TIME IT LOOKS MORE LIKE A MILD FLU RATHER THAN THE END OF THE WORLD REQUIRING ANOTHER BILLION BUCKS FROM THE TAX PAYERS.  Time will tell if the Obama Administration is being truthful with us in proclaiming that the current outbreak was not in fact a terror attack.  (The Obama Administration doesn’t have terror attacks: they’re the victims of “Man Caused Disasters”) 

Mr. Obama has shown himself to be such a citizen of the world that he’s apparently quite willing to sign foreign treaties to force his desired outcome to destroy our right to arms, freedom of speech, parental rights and to pass massive carbon tax increases further penalizing production in this country. Law is fine if it agrees with Obama but when it doesn’t he just might enter into a “treaty” that would require the government to confiscate our guns, criminalize Christianity with hate crimes laws, and delegate to the state how we discipline our kids.  And this is just for starters folks.  If Obama can’t get what he wants in the constitution he goes around the constitution with a foreign treaty that would effectively nullify constitutional rights and safeguards.  Obama wants to have lots of other nations, and the United Nations, have a say in American Law and define our rights as coming from politicians rather than God.  Internationalism is the key to the destruction of American Sovereignty by claiming that our constitution is outdated and that law “evolves” and that law “evolving” in Washington DC is no better or worse than law “evolving” in Timbuktu.  Indeed if Timbuktu has a law deemed more “with it” than what we have we should adopt it!  By this reasoning no guns in London or Paris would require no guns in any US cities. Obama and his fellow travelers have no regard for law or the constitution and instead of acting to defend the constitution, as his oath requires; he instead acts to subvert the constitution at every opportunity.  This is not the mark of an American President but of Benito Mussolini and it bodes ill for the future.

Will we survive another hundred days with Barak Obama at the helm?  Sure. (But we’re likely to live to regret it.)

The Most Omitted Swine Flu Fact: IT’S NOT FLU SEASON

 

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) now reports some 40 cases of the flu in the United States of America but not a single death.  There are reports of continuing deaths in Mexico where much of the country lives in abject poverty and squalid conditions. In Mexico the WHO says there are 1600 confirmed infections of the flu with over 100 deaths.  This flue is being called the swine flu but that’s something of an over simplification.  The flue is a combination of Bird flu from Asia, Swine Flu from America, and a nasty Human Flu from Europe that somehow magically combined into the current bug: in Mexico City.  The Flu attacks the respiratory system and is apparently air born, spread by coughing and sneezing. The Flu has migrated to the United State, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Spain, and of course Mexico.  There are suspected cases in other places in the world including Israel but as of this report no Islamic nations have been affected. Europe is testing everyone coming in from the United States and Mexico.  Russia is not taking our pork products and our State Department is still thinking about issuing a travelers advisory to Mexico. (Now I see they are going to issue a travelers advisory)

Closing our boarder to Mexico is unlikely to occur, except perhaps in name only, as we’ve shown ourselves quite incapable of closing the boarder.  Mexico and Pakistan were considered by the CIA to be the two nations most likely to collapse because of the mixture of poverty, corruption, and anger and it would seem that Mexico is going to experience severe economic repercussions because of the flue.  The government may strengthen by using the flu as an excuse for a military crackdown or the government may fall if the panic becomes widespread in Mexico.  There may well be a run on the American Boarder, during a Pandemic, of Mexicans getting into the USA no matter what the cost. The Mexicans may have a difficult time convincing their people that their public health and medical recourses are as up to the challenge of combating the flue as the United States would be. 

Here is the sixty-four thousand dollar question:  Why is the flu so much worse and virulent in Mexico and not the United States where it seems mild and there are no deaths in the United States?  There has to be a reason and it seems likely that keys to defeating this bug will be found therein.

By the way: Isn’t it a fact that flu season in the United States ranges from November through March?  Isn’t this a bit late for a flu outbreak, to say nothing of a pandemic, of some hybrid including Swine, Bird and Human flu from three continents? What’s up with that?

28 cases are now being reported in New York with another 17 suspected cases.  No word on how severe the cases are. Here’s another question: Is this thing targeting Children?  I would like to see the age demographics of the people in Mexico who have died.  Remember it targeted that school in New York?  I can’t quite confirm that kids are more susceptible than adults.  Weren’t the California folks kids?  Mexico is closing its schools…  I would like more information on the demographics of the disease vector so if any readers find anything like this I would appreciate getting the word.  You can simply comment on this article. No one is saying it in so many words but it seems like kids are more at risk.

I read at the CDC website that we lose about 36,000 people annually to flu related deaths in the United States.  That’s just the normal flu season that normally runs November through March so this new outbreak of Swine/Bird/Human flu would have a way to go before it was considered a health disaster here…..  So far we’ve lost not a single person to this thing and the world seems to be turned on its head with fear of the flu. 

·        Then there’s the guy who died of the flu the day after shaking Obama’s hand….

·        Then there’s the fact its not flu season….

·        Then there’s the fact that Mexico was politically unstable and the government has the perfect excuse to crack down….

·        Then there’s what I understand to be a very unusual and rapid incubation of 24-48 hours…

·        Then there’s the natural coming together of Pig, Human and Bird flu’s from Europe, Asia and America having a “naturally occurring” outbreak in Mexico….

·        Then we have a “crisis” that precipitated a state of Health Emergency in the US and an administration that is bound and determined “never to let a good crisis go to waste”.  One wonders, especially with this administration if this “crisis” will be used to grease the skids for Universal Health Care…..   It almost seems immoral to govern by crisis and thus avoid the public debate that is supposed to set policy in a democracy….

I guess the good news is that the USA seems not to be hit as hard as Mexico.  That’s a big confirmable fact and the government has mobilized to fight this thing and the WHO is keeping an eye on it along with the CDC. There are many reasonable questions to ask about this outbreak and the possibility of what Janet Napolitano might call a “man caused disaster” (That would be “terrorism” in normal person speak) No one seems to be asking those questions now except for a terse denial that its terrorism.  Of course all reports I’ve seen have omitted the fact that its not flu season so call me silly for keeping the possibility of this new bug of Pig/Bird/Human flu from America/Asia/Europe being a designer bug alive.

Who am I going to believe:  Janet Napolitano or my lying eyes?

Swine Flu? Assassination Attempt on Obama? Terrorist Attack? Something’s Very Strange with Swine Flu Outbreak!

 

 

The Swine Flu Story just took a crazy turn as reported by Bloomberg.com.  It seems that one of the men who died from this new, never before seen swine flu bug died the day after shaking hands with President Barak Obama of the United States.  I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the flu should get this close to Obama because if it were not a coincidence it might be a bizarre assassination attempt or perhaps a terrorist attack.  I’m sorry——- an international contingency event or whatever the democrats have renamed terror attack.

Is there any evidence to support the idea that this is a terror or manmade disaster as DHS Secretary Napolitano might call it?  No.   There’s just a coincidence and a bug that they can’t contain.

By the way: the school in New York?  It’s confirmed to be flue and likely swine flu.  Is it the same bug from Mexico?  We don’t know yet but maybe it’s just a coincidence if it is. 

Mexico has now declared an emergency and President Calderon has invoked the power to quarantine and other emergency powers.  No travel restrictions to Mexico yet, that wouldn’t be politically correct but we can all take heart that the Catholic Church will indeed have mass in Mexico city tomorrow—- even if they are advising communicants to wear a gauze mask.  Soccer games will be played but to empty stadiums because of the flu. 

This is a story to keep an eye on and the facts are beginning to suggest that it could be a terror attack, a really sick assassination attempt or one big coincidence.

How about getting the FBI and the CIA involved in investigating this thing?  Well maybe just the FBI because Obama is thinking of prosecuting the CIA.

Here’s the story from Bloomberg:

Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak

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By Thomas Black

April 25 (Bloomberg) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an emergency in his country’s swine flu outbreak, giving him powers to order quarantines and suspend public events.

Authorities have canceled school at all levels in Mexico City and the state of Mexico until further notice, and the government has shut most public and government activities in the area. The emergency decree, published today in the state gazette, gives the president authority to take more action.

“The federal government under my charge will not hesitate a moment to take all, all the measures necessary to respond with efficiency and opportunity to this respiratory epidemic,” Calderon said today during a speech to inaugurate a hospital in the southern state of Oaxaca.

At least 20 deaths in Mexico from the disease are confirmed, Health Minister Jose Cordova said yesterday. The strain is a variant of H1N1 swine influenza that has also sickened at least eight people in California and Texas. As many as 68 deaths may be attributed to the virus in Mexico, and about 1,000 people in the Mexico City area are showing symptoms of the illness, Cordoba said.

Obama’s Visit

The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn’t confirm if Solis had swine flu or not.

The Mexican government is distributing breathing masks to curtail the disease’s spread. There is no vaccine against the new strain of swine flu, health authorities said.

Museums, theaters and other venues in the Mexico City area, where large crowds gather, have shut down voluntarily and concerts and other events canceled to help contain the disease. Two professional soccer games will be played tomorrow in different Mexico City stadiums without any fans, El Universal newspaper reported. Catholic masses will be held, the newspaper said, although church officials urged worshipers to wear breath masks and to avoid contact.

Schools will likely remain closed next week, Calderon said in the Oaxaca speech. The decree allows Calderon to regulate transportation, enter any home or building for inspection, order quarantines and assign any task to all federal, state and local authorities as well as health professionals to combat the disease.

“The health of Mexicans is a cause that we’re defending with unity and responsibility,” Calderon said. “I know that although it’s a grave problem, a serious problem, we’re going to overcome it.”

Normal Airport Operations

Mexico City’s international airport, which handles about 70,000 passengers each day, is operating normally, said Victor Mejia, a spokesman. Passengers are given a questionnaire asking if they have flu symptoms and recommending they cancel their trip and see a doctor if they do. The measures are voluntary, Mejia said, and no case of swine flu in airport passengers, workers or visitors has been confirmed.

Authorities throughout Central America have issued alerts to prevent the outbreak from spreading. Guatemala ordered tighter control yesterday of its northern border with Mexico, according to EFE. Gerberth Morales, who’s heading the Guatemala government’s response, said no cases of swine flu have been reported in his country, the Spanish news agency reported.

Brazil is intensifying vigilance in ports, airports and borders to check travelers’ health, luggage, aircrafts and ships in a preventive action against the outbreak in Mexico, the Agency for Sanitary Vigilance said on its Web site.

 

Swine Flu Threat Very Serious: World Wide Pandemic is Possible if not Likely

 

As I understand it the disease began in Mexico and there are some 60 dead in Mexico City.  As you know Mexico City is one of the worlds “Mega Cities” with an astronomical population like Cairo, or LA or New York City.  The Mexicans have far greater poverty and at one time they had thousands of homeless people who were permanent residents of the Mexico City Landfill.  Men, Women and Children alike were living in the landfill surrounded by squalid conditions that would make anyone sick, physically and spiritually. Now there are cases reported in San Diego and in Texas who share a common border with Mexico.  It’s possible that the disease may have made it to a prep school in New York City where as many as 75 kids may be ill.  This Prep School Outbreak is not confirmed to be the killer bug from Mexico. 

Authorities have been reluctant to close the boarder to Mexico because the ramifications for trade and commerce are pretty expensive.  There is the Political correctness factor as well in that the USA does not want to be seen closing its boarders to keep potentially infected Mexicans out of our country because someone might call us racists. According to the World Health Organization it’s too late to contain the thing in Mexico anyway.  It’s no surprise that major pophttp://wcbstv.com/health/swine.flu.nyc.2.994071.htmlulation cities are infected give the constant commerce and travel in today’s world.  Mexico City is a huge city so to is the vast population base in Sothern California, San Diego and LA. Air travel and trucks are constantly in and out of all our major cities so a report that from Mexico, Texas and Sothern California that it could make the jump to New York Cities is not surprising or unusual.  As of today I can find no credible reports or whispers that this is anything other than a natural outbreak as opposed to a weponized bug that someone dropped on us.  There’s not even a hint that this is anything but natural.

Protection for your family includes taking really good care of yourself from diet to exercise and rest to keep a good healthy immune system.  Frequent hand washing is always a good idea and very effective in combating flu bugs but if you do feel ill make sure you cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.  See a doctor if you’re having flue like symptoms and don’t let this report bug you too much.  All the deaths to date have been in Mexico and not the United States where our public health facilities, doctors and drug industry give us a huge advantage in handling a nasty flu outbreak.  Avoiding large gatherings is a good idea until this blows over.  Keep an eye on this story because bugs can mutate into more benign types of bug or more virulent so keeping a prudent eye on what’s going on with the bug allows you to take precautions and change your behavior if you deem it necessary.

Consider these reports from WCBSTV in New York as well as Reuters and Newsmax.

WCBSTV News New York

http://wcbstv.com/health/swine.flu.nyc.2.994071.html

Possible Swine Flu Outbreak At NYC Prep School

Department Of Health Officials Testing 75 Students At St. Francis Preparatory School In Queens

 

As many as 75 students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens got sick on Thursday. More got sick on Friday. What health officials want to know is was it swine flu or something more benign.

There are mounting fears about a deadly swine flu virus that is reported to have killed as many as 60 people in Mexico, one that health officials fear has already seeped into the United States.

St. Francis Prep was ordered to cancel an evening program Friday night because the New York City Department of Health isn’t sure what made students sick Thursday and Friday with flu-like symptoms.

“I just saw lot a lot of kids lined up along the wall near the nurse’s office,” sophomore Kelsey Dittmeir said.

If it’s the flu, the question is what kind of flu? And could it be the unique strain suspected in 20 recent deaths?

Tests are underway.

“It could be a strain we’ve seen before. It could be the regular flu,” Dr. Ross Weiss said. “It could be flu B that happens late in the year. It could be any of those so we really can’t speculate at this point. That’s why we were very anxious to get samples to the lab and get them tested so we can find out what we are dealing with.”

If it’s the new strain of swine flu it could be a problem. Most cases have been reported in Mexico, where schools, museums and public gathering places have been closed.

Eight patients have also turned up in California and Texas, although their symptoms have been mild.

Students told CBS 2 HD they plan on getting tested over the weekend. One senior we spoke to said she left school Thursday before her fellow classmates got ill.

“My chest just hurts and I have shortness of breath. My ears were hurting me earlier but they are okay now. My head is still in and out,” Noel Alexandria said.

Added Dr. Weiss: “There were people tonight interviewing students and we’ll be here tomorrow. And when we get the test results that will dictate what our next steps are.”

The city hopes to identify those symptoms as flu it has seen before. If the tests come back negative they will be sent down to the Centers for Disease Control. So far, officials have been told all the cases have shown mild symptoms.

Swine flu could infect U.S. trade and travel

Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:25am IST

 

 

 

By Kyle Peterson

CHICAGO, April 24 (Reuters) – Mexico’s deadly swine flu could disrupt trade and travel between the United States and Mexico if it prompts restrictions on the movement of goods across the border or sparks fear in consumers, analysts say.

The potential impact is far from clear as experts race to learn more about the disease, which has claimed the lives of as many as 61 people. But shipping and travel industries are especially vigilant.

“If you end up with a significant demand shift, you could end up with a very substantial effect on our products, whether it be government-imposed restrictions or alternatively if the consumers just decide to say ‘no’,” said Bob Young, chief economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Since Mexico and Canada are the two largest buyers of U.S. agricultural goods, such restrictions could be a drag on U.S. agriculture, Young said.

The World Health Organization has said it is concerned about 800 “influenza-like” cases in Mexico. The group confirmed the outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in the United States and said about 60 people had died in Mexico. [nN24524032]

Any decision to restrict food shipments due to flu would come from the U.S. Agriculture Department, which has the power to “shut down movement,” said Russell Laird, an executive director representing agricultural and food carriers at the American Trucking Associations.

“So far, we haven’t heard anything, but if that call is made we’ll make sure to do our part,” he said.

Katherine Andrus, general counsel for the Air Transport Association (ATA), said the airline trade group is taking its cues from the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) but that so far there had been no decision to restrict travel between the United States and Mexico.

TRAVEL RESTRICITONS?

“We generally monitor reports of these outbreaks,” Andrus said. “Any time there is an outbreak of something … we certainly pay attention. But we really look to CDC.”

“We wouldn’t expect to see international air traffic actually halted for something like this,” she said.

U.S. Commerce Department data show about 5.9 million U.S. citizens flew to Mexico in 2008.

The last major health-related disruption of air travel occurred during the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, outbreak, which killed hundreds of people around the world.

The outbreak, which began in China, came on the heels of the Sept. 11 attacks and hit earnings for airlines with large operations in Asia.

“Avian flu in 1997 and SARS in 2002-2003 killed economic activity, so a swine flu problem in 2009 might result in more of the same,” said Stephen Schork, editor of the Schork Report, an energy-related newsletter in Philadelphia.

In 2008, Mexico was the top export market for U.S. beef, with sales valued at nearly $1.4 billion. It was the No. 2 market for U.S. pork, valued at $691.28 million.

The pressure on oil prices that could result from decreased travel and economic activity was echoed by several other industry sources, who also noted that Mexico and Texas have large numbers of oil industry workers that could be affected. (Additional reporting by Bob Burgdorfer and Nick Carey in Chicago and Robert Gibbons; Editing by K.T. Arasu and Todd Eastham)

Newsmax.com

 

Mexico Swine Flu Deaths Spur Global Epidemic Fears

Friday, April 24, 2009 6:55 PM

MEXICO CITY — A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic.

The worrisome new virus _ which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before _ also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S.

“We are very, very concerned,” World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. “We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human … It’s all hands on deck at the moment.”

The outbreak caused alarm in Mexico, where more than 1,000 people have been sickened. Residents of the capital donned surgical masks and authorities ordered the most sweeping shutdown of public gathering places in a quarter century. President Felipe Calderon met with his Cabinet Friday to coordinate Mexico’s response.

The WHO was convening an expert panel to consider whether to raise the pandemic alert level or issue travel advisories.

There is no vaccine that specifically protects against swine flu, and it was unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer. A “seed stock” genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency’s acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.

Authorities in Mexico urged people to avoid hospitals unless they had a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection. They also said Mexicans should refrain from customary greetings such as shaking hands or kissing cheeks. At Mexico City’s international airport, passengers were questioned to try to prevent anyone with flu symptoms from boarding airplanes and spreading the disease.

Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only fatalities so far were in young people and adults. It’s possible that more vulnerable populations _ infants and the aged _ had been vaccinated against other strains, providing some protection.

The eight U.S. victims recovered from symptoms that were like those of the regular flu, mostly fever, cough and sore throat, though some also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.

U.S. health officials announced an outbreak notice to travelers, urging caution and frequent handwashing, but stopping short of telling Americans to avoid Mexico.

Mexico’s Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba said 68 people have died of flu and the new swine flu strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, he said.

Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a worldwide pandemic of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.

Still, flu experts were concerned but not alarmed about the latest outbreak.

“We’ve seen swine influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it’s come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert with the University of Michigan.

“I think we need to be careful and not apprehensive, but certainly paying attention to new developments as they proceed.”

The CDC says two flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, seem effective against the new strain. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said the company is prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if requested.

Both drugs must be taken early, within a few days of the onset of symptoms, to be most effective.

Cordoba said Mexico has enough Tamiflu to treat 1 million people, but the medicine will be strictly controlled and handed out only by doctors.

Mexico’s government had maintained until late Thursday that there was nothing unusual about the flu cases, although this year’s flu season had been worse and longer than past years.

The sudden turnaround by public health officials angered many Mexicans.

“They could have stopped it in time,” said Araceli Cruz, 24, a university student who emerged from the subway wearing a surgical mask. “Now they’ve let it spread to other people.”

The city was handing out free surgical masks to passengers on buses and the subway system, which carries 5 million people each day. Government workers were ordered to wear the masks, and authorities urged residents to stay home from work if they felt ill.

Closing schools across Mexico’s capital of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home, as well as thousands of university students. All state and city-run cultural activities were suspended, including libraries, state-run theaters, and at least 14 museums. Private athletic clubs closed down and soccer leagues were considering canceling weekend games.

The closures were the first citywide shutdown of public gathering places since millions died in the devastating 1985 earthquake.

Mexico’s response brought to mind other major outbreaks, such as when SARS hit Asia. At its peak in 2003, Beijing shuttered schools, cinemas and restaurants, and thousands of people were quarantined at home.

In March 2008, Hong Kong ordered more than a half-million students to stay home for two weeks because of a flu outbreak. It was the first such closure in Hong Kong since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

“It’s great they are taking precautions,” said Lillian Molina, a teacher at the Montessori’s World preschool in Mexico City, who scrubbed down empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol between fielding calls from worried parents.

U.S. health officials said the outbreak is not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five people sickened in California and three in Texas have all recovered.

It’s unclear how the eight, who became ill between late March and mid-April, contracted the virus because none were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen before in people or pigs. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.

The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.

____

 

 

Democrat Party Witch Hunt Destroys American Intelligence: Democrat Ideology Neuters CIA

 

 

Why would any sane intelligence officer stick his neck out for an Obama Administration that will destroy them without hesitation, in a fit of ideological pique, while simultaneously publishing how our intelligence agencies work and how far they’ll go?  This is the way it was before the Twin Towers were destroyed on September 11^th and we’re right back to where we started.  Barak Obama seems determined to destroy all our covert and intelligence forces, which have kept us safe all these years, for reasons that just don’t ring true.  Why would the president of the United States deliberately blind our nation, in a dangerous world, when he is the one man charged with defending us and with knowing what our enemies are up too?  Obama has literally gouged our nation’s eyes out! Who is Barak Obama working for anyway?  First Obama releases memos that damage our national security and omit the fact that the interrogations worked and have been a key element of keeping us safe: and now he wants to release pictures of the interrogations?

I can’t imagine any CIA person ever sticking their neck out for this administration.  I can’t imagine any banker, automobile CEO, or Fannie Mae executive doing anything other than covering their ass where the government is involved.  The witch-hunt mentality of Mr. Obama means that we’re not working the problems any more; we’ve got our guys worrying about how they look, and their potential liability, regarding the administration.  No one takes any risks or strives for excellence in a socialist regime; they put in their time and play politics rather than building a better car, running a better bank, or risking their butts, getting critical information for a political regime that despises them.  This is not rocket science folks, this is so mind-blowingly-stupid behavior on the part of Barak Obama that it’s practically, if not morally, a volitional violation of his oath of office.

You don’t demonstrate American Good Will to other nations by making the country blind and defenseless.  You don’t advertise how we spy on others, how we interrogate terrorists, or criminalize policy differences between presidential advisors for craven political and momentary gain.  If anyone gets off a major attack on this nation maybe we should have trials for the entire Obama Administration and the Democrat Leadership of both houses of congress?  If we’re going to have witch hunts lets have real ones and kick the socialists out of power for good.

 We don’t know the ultimate price our nation will pay for this stupidity, if not sedition, on Obama’s part; but we know that such prices are usually paid in the blood of our citizens and armed forces.  In the corrupt mainstream media they’re getting ready to canonize Barak the Beneficent for his performance in his first hundred days but any rational observer of Obama’s actions would call for impeachment hearings on many different grounds. Barak Obama is essentially an anti American “internationalist” president and he’s on track to be the biggest mistake the electorate has made in our history.

Take a look at this story from ABC on Obama’s latest failure to live up to his oath of office and his betrayal of the fine men and women who defend our nation:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/obama-adminis-3.html

Obama Administration to Release Detainee Abuse Photos; Former CIA Official Says Former Colleagues ‘Don’t Believe They Have Cover Anymore’

April 24, 2009 10:23 AM

In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge yesterday, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over to the American Civil Liberties Union 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees — the same battle that led, last week, to President Obama’s decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups call torture.

Courts had ruled against the Bush administration’s attempts to keep the photographs from public view. ACLU attorney Amrit Singh tells ABC News that “the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency.”

Singh added that the photographs “only underscore the need for a criminal investigation and prosecution if warranted” of U.S. officials responsible for the harsh treatment of detainees.

But some experts say the move could have a chilling effect on the CIA even beyond President Obama’s decision last week to release the so-called “torture memos.”

Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs “prurient” and “reprehensible,” Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“They should have fought it all the way; if they lost, they lost,” Lowenthal said. “There’s nothing to be gained from it. There’s no substantive reason why those photos have to be released.”

Lowenthal said the president’s moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on “the undercurrent I’ve been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago.”

“We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong,” Lowenthal says. “They don’t believe they have that cover anymore.” Releasing the photographs “will make it much worse,” he said.

Even though President Obama has announced that the Justice Department will not prosecute CIA officers who were operating within the four corners of what they’d been told was the law, Lowenthal says members of the CIA are worried. “They feel exposed already, and this is going to increase drumbeat for an investigation or a commission” to explore detainee treatment during the Bush years, he said. “It’s going to make it much harder to resist, and they fear they’re then going to be thrown over.”

The Bush administration argued that releasing these photographs would violate US obligations towards detainees and would prompt outrage and perhaps attacks against the U.S. On June 9 and June 21, 2006 judges directed the Bush administration to release 21 photographs depicting the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, and last September, the Second Circuit Court affirmed that decision.

The Bush administration had argued that an exemption from FOIA was needed here because of the exemption for law enforcement records that could reasonably be expected to endanger “any individual.” The release of the disputed photographs, the Bush administration argued, will endanger United States troops, other Coalition forces, and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the court found that the exemption was not intended “as an all-purpose damper on global controversy.”

The Bush administration had also argued that releasing the photographs would violated the Geneva Conventions, which protect prisoners of war and detained civilians “against insults and public curiosity.” The court ruled that the Geneva Conventions “do not prohibit dissemination of images of detainees being abused when the images are redacted so as to protect the identities of the detainees, at least in situations where, as here, the purpose of the dissemination is not itself to humiliate the detainees.”

Moreover, the court found that releasing “the photographs is likely to further the purposes of the Geneva Conventions by deterring future abuse of prisoners.”

“There is a significant public interest in the disclosure of these photographs,” the court ruled. “The defendants concede that these photographs yield evidence of governmental wrongdoing, but nonetheless argue that they add little additional value to the written summaries of the depicted events, which have already been made public. This contention disregards FOIA’s central purpose of furthering governmental accountability, and the special importance the law accords to information revealing official misconduct.”

A November 6, 2008, petition for a re-hearing was denied last month.

The Obama administration could have opted to go all the way to the Supreme Court to try to keep these photographs from public view, but yesterday Acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin wrote to District Judge Alvin Hellerstein and said the Pentagon was preparing to release 21 photos at issue in the appeal, in addition to 23 others “previously identified as responsive.”

The materials will be released to the ACLU no later than May 28, after which the ACLU says it will make them public. This release will come just days before President Obama travels to the volatile Middle East.

Dassin wrote that the Pentagon also was “processing for release a substantial number of other images contained in Army CID reports that have been closed during the pendency of this case.”

Singh said in a statement that the photographs “will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration’s claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational. Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse.”

Lowenthal said his former colleagues at the CIA were “put off” by President Obama’s trip to the CIA earlier this week. “I don’t think the president’s speech went down very well, particularly the part when he said they made mistakes. They don’t think they made mistakes. They think they acted to execute policy. And those in the intelligence service don’t make policy.”

Those in intelligence are “gong to become increasingly wary about doing dangerous things,” Lowenthal said. “They feel at the end of the day they won’t be covered. It’s not irreparable right now, but it’s problematic.”

 

 

 

Killer Swine Flu Bug Emerges in Mexico: It May be Spreading North to the USA

 

 

 

According to Breitbart.com the health officials in Mexico City are launching a massive vaccination outreach against what other sources are calling a new, never before seen strain of swine flu.  This action was apparently prompted by nearly a thousand infections with some 45 deaths that may be a result of the new bug.  Here are three mainstream news sources, Reuters, Associated Press and Bloomberg who have now written on the subject.  This would seem to be a serious and developing story with the possibility (not certainty) of a pandemic.  In any event the cat is out of the bag and it’s wise to keep an eye on this outbreak because most of what I’ve read on the subject indicates that we’ve been very lucky, by historical standards, that we haven’t had an outbreak sooner.  In other words we’re overdue for a nasty bug and we have been for some years.

New, deadly swine flu hits Mexico, may spread

24 Apr 2009 15:22:25 GMT

Source: Reuters

Mexican government announces fatal swine flu outbreak

* New mixture of viruses never seen before

* Some Mexico City residents don surgical masks (Updates with color, quotes)

By Noel Randewich and Armando Tovar

MEXICO CITY, April 24 (Reuters) – A deadly strain of swine flu never seen before has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears it is spreading across North America.

The World Health Organization said it was concerned about what it called 800 “influenza-like” cases in Mexico, and also about a confirmed outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in the United States.

Mexico canceled classes for millions of children in its sprawling capital city and surrounding areas on Friday after authorities noticed a higher number of deaths involving flu-like illness than normal in recent weeks.

“It is a virus that mutated from pigs and then at some point was transmitted to humans,” Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told the Televisa network.

He linked the disease in Mexico to a new kind of swine flu that struck seven people in California and Texas.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the virus in the United States was a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans. All seven American patients have recovered.

The Mexican government warned people not to shake hands or kiss when greeting or share food, glasses or cutlery for fear of contracting the flu.

Mexico City, one of the world’s biggest cities and home to some 20 million people, was quieter than usual on Friday morning. Normally choking traffic was less chaotic in the absence of school buses and parents driving kids to school.

Many people waiting to enter subway stations had their faces covered with surgical masks.

The virus is an influenza A virus, carrying the designation H1N1. It contains DNA typical to avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses, the CDC has said.

WHO said about 60 people in Mexico have died from the disease. The Geneva-based U.N. agency said it was in daily contact with U.S., Canadian and Mexican authorities and had activated its Strategic Health Operations Center (SHOC) — its command and control center for acute public health events.

Surveillance for and scrutiny of influenza has been stepped up since 2003, when H5N1 bird flu reappeared in Asia. Experts fear this strain, or another strain, could spark a pandemic that could kill millions. (Additional reporting by Maggie Fox in Washington and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Eric Walsh)

 

Health experts hunt new swine flu after 7 sickened

 

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writer – 22 mins ago

ATLANTA – Federal health experts expect to find more cases of a unique new form of swine flu as they check people who had contact with seven California and Texas residents diagnosed with the illness.

All of the seven victims recovered from the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The cases are a growing medical mystery because it’s unclear how they caught the virus. The CDC said none of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

Still, health officials said it’s not a cause for public alarm: The five in California and two in Texas all recovered, only one person was hospitalized and testing indicates some mainstream antiviral medications seem to work against the virus.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe it can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus.

The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

Because of intensive searching, it’s likely health officials will find additional cases, said Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.

Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.

The virus was first detected in two children in southern California — a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County.

The cases were detected under unusual circumstances. One was seen at a Navy clinic that participates in a specialized disease detection network, and the other was caught through a specialized surveillance system set up in border communities, CDC officials said.

On Thursday, investigators said they had discovered five more cases. That includes a father and his teenage daughter in San Diego County, a 41-year-old woman in Imperial County who was the only person hospitalized, and two 16-year-old boys who are friends and live in Guadalupe County, Texas, near San Antonio.

The Texas cases are especially puzzling. One of the California cases — the 10-year-old boy — traveled to Texas early this month, but that was to Dallas, about 270 miles northeast of San Antonio. He did not travel to the San Antonio area, Schuchat said.

The two 16-year-olds had not traveled recently, Texas health officials said.

The swine flu’s symptoms are like those of the regular flu, mostly involving fever, cough and sore throat, though some of the seven also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.

CDC are not calling it an outbreak, a term that suggests ongoing illnesses. It’s not known if anyone is getting sick from the virus right now, CDC officials said.

It’s also not known if the seasonal flu vaccine that Americans got last fall and early this year protects against this type of virus. People should wash their hands and take other customary precautions, CDC officials said.

U.S. health officials are consulting with Mexican and Canadian health officials, and the CDC is beginning to receive samples from Mexico for testing, a CDC spokesman said. The ethnicity of the seven confirmed cases was not disclosed.

 

 

 

Swine Flu, Mexico Lung Illness Heighten Pandemic Risk (Update1)

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By Jason Gale

April 24 (Bloomberg) — Disease trackers are trying to determine whether a previously unseen strain of influenza in the U.S. is related to more than 130 cases of severe respiratory illness in Mexico and may spark a pandemic.

A new variant of H1N1 swine influenza has sickened at least seven patients in California and Texas, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. Mexico’s Health Minister Jose Cordova canceled classes in the capital, Mexico City, today and recommended citizens avoid public places after 20 fatalities from an illness possibly caused by a flu virus.

Scientists in both countries and Canada are studying the illnesses to determine whether they pose a larger public health threat. A pandemic can start when a novel influenza type-A virus, including swine flu, begins spreading, since no one has a natural immunity. The so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people, experts said.

“The infection of humans with a novel influenza-A virus infection of animal origins, as has happened here, is of concern because of the risk, albeit small, that this could represent the appearance of viruses with pandemic potential,” the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a statement.

There’s no evidence a pandemic strain is evolving in the U.S., the Stockholm-based agency said. The CDC reached the same conclusion.

“We don’t think this is a time for major concern,” Anne Schuchat, CDC’s director of respiratory diseases, told reporters on a conference call yesterday.

Health-Care Workers

Authorities in Mexico asked the Public Health Agency of Canada to help identify what’s causing the lung infection that has also spread to five health-care workers, the Ottawa-based agency said in an e-mail yesterday.

Canada’s National Microbiology Lab received 51 specimens from Mexico on April 22 and will test them for pathogens. Tests in Mexico found patients had the H1N1 and type-B influenza strains and the parainfluenza virus, the agency said.

Three main human flu strains — H3N2, H1N1 and type-B — cause 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year globally, according to the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency. Pigs also are susceptible to flu, including the H1N1 subtype.

“It will be critical to determine whether or not the strains of H1N1 isolated from patients in Mexico are also swine flu,” Donald Low, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, told the Canadian Press.

The CDC is discussing its cases and viruses with Mexico and the Pan American Health Organization, Schuchat said.

“At this point, we do not have any confirmation of swine influenza in Mexico,” Schuchat said.

Fatal Cases

Thirteen fatal cases of severe respiratory illness were reported in Mexico City; four in San Luis Potosi, north of the capital; two in the state of Baja California Norte, bordering California; and another in Oaxaca city in the south. Most cases occurred in southern and central Mexico in previously healthy adults ages 25 to 44.

Symptoms include high fever, headache, eye pain, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue with rapid progression of symptoms to severe respiratory distress in about five days, the Canadian agency said. A “high proportion” of cases require mechanical respiration, it said.

The four males and three females in San Diego County and Imperial County, California, and in San Antonio, Texas, diagnosed with swine flu had mild flu-like symptoms. The patients, 9 to 54 years old, included a father-daughter pair and two boys attending the same Texas school.

Human-to-Human Spread

The virus is contagious and spreading from human to human, the CDC said in a statement on its Web site. The patients began feeling sick from March 28 to April 19. All have recovered and only one was hospitalized, according to the CDC. None had direct contact with pigs.

“That’s unusual,” Schuchat said. “We don’t know yet how widely it’s spreading and we certainly don’t know the extent of the problem.”

As precaution, CDC is preparing the virus as a vaccine seed strain that could be used to make immunizations, she said.

The swine flu virus contains four different gene segments representing both North American swine and avian influenza, human flu and a Eurasian swine flu, CDC said.

“We haven’t seen this strain before, but we haven’t been looking as intensively as we are these days,” Schuchat said. “It’s very possible that this is something new that hasn’t been happening before.”

Human Infections

Swine influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type-A influenza that regularly causes outbreaks among the animals, according to the CDC. Swine flu doesn’t normally infect people, though human infections do occur and cases of human-to- human spread of swine flu viruses have been documented.

Infection in pigs is regarded as especially problematic because of the risk of “reassortment” to produce a new virus, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said.

“These mild U.S. cases infected with a novel influenza are not reflecting the emergence of a pandemic strain, but they at least raise the possibility that there has been limited human- to-human transmission,” the health agency said.

 

 

By Any Means Necessary: Obama’s Need to Remold America

 

 

Internationalism, trans-nationalism, is the order of the day at the White House of Barak Husain Obama.  Does Barak the Beneficent get in a snit when he realizes that the people will likely block some of his pet projects key to building the Socialist States of America? No.  Barak Obama knows full well that he can’t get his “cap and trade” tax from congress so he’s likely to sign an international treaty, that the senate will ratify, that will do the same thing.  Nifty, don’t you think?

Obama can’t get guns away from the law abiding citizens because we’re too busy clinging to god, guns and religion?  No problem.  He’ll sign an international agreement, a treaty that will effectively ban citizens from owning guns or make it so onerous and risky to do so that people will give up.  Obama wins again.

Barak wants to make the old white men on Wall Street share with the other children in the world and he knows he can’t come up with excuses to redistribute their wealth fast enough to get the job done, even if he had two term’s so what does he do?  Easy!  He signs an international treaty that no one really pays attention to (You know, like the act creating the Federal Reserve) and overnight the power has shifted from America without anyone really realizing it!  Genius!  This proves Barak is a citizen of the world and a real cool guy!

Obama doesn’t want to dictate terms to the world anymore because that’s not fair nor is it politically correct.  He wants to make sure that America is but one voice in a chorus when it comes to control of the global economy and with the article below one can get a good sense of how he’ll go about doing it. Barak believes that if something is good enough for Mozambique and Mauritania its good enough for the United States of America.

If Obama can’t get something he wants from congress or the courts look for him to turn it into a treaty of some kind so he can get what he wants using  world opinion rather than the ballot box or the constitution.  Look for this sort of thing to be a trend.

A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF
Changes Suggest Shift in How Global Economy Is Run

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 20, 2009

Inside a cavernous assembly hall in downtown Washington, dignitaries gather twice a year for routine meetings of the International Monetary Fund. Before long, though, the room could take center stage in the IMF’s transformation into a veritable United Nations for the global economy.

Surrounded by blond wood paneling and a digital screen the size of a cinema’s, central bankers and finance ministers would meet to convene a financial security council of sorts. Serving almost as ambassadors to the IMF, they would debate ways to put out the world’s economic fires and stifle reckless policies before they ignite new ones.

Bowing to a new economic world order, the IMF would grant fresh powers to the likes of China, India and Brazil. It would have vastly expanded authority to act as a global banker to governments rich and poor. And with more flexibility to effectively print its own money, it would have the ability to inject liquidity into global markets in a way once limited to major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve.

That image of a radically transformed IMF — whose role in the global economy had turned largely advisory in recent years — is now coming together through internal IMF documents, interviews and think-tank reports. Finance ministers from major nations will begin grappling with the formidable details of the IMF’s makeover this weekend when they converge in Washington for the fund’s biannual assembly.

The changes, broadly outlined by President Obama and other leaders of the Group of 20 nations in London earlier this month, could take months, even years to take shape. But the IMF is all but certain to take a central role in managing the world economy. As a result, Washington is poised to become the power center for global financial policy, much as the United Nations has long made New York the world center for diplomacy.

The IMF’s mission is expanding so broadly that its managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said in an interview that the organization — which underwent deep cuts last year before the financial crisis swept the globe — may boost staffing in coming months, potentially creating dozens of high-paying jobs in the District.

“The IMF is changing, and with it, there will be a sea change in the way the world economy is run,” said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Their role will dramatically shift. You’re talking about monitoring fiscal stimulus, moving toward tighter regulations for financial institutions. You’re talking about global economic management in a way we have never seen.”

Already, the economic crisis is triggering a profound cultural shift, with the IMF moving away from its long-held mission to spread the gospel of capitalism around the globe.

Founded at the end of World War II to maintain stability in global currency markets, it later became known as the lender of last resort for nations in crisis, particularly as financial fires raced across Asia and Latin America in the 1990s. Its bailouts, however, were the bane of many poor countries; they often came with demands for fiscal austerity and free-market reform as the cures for developing nations — even if that meant nations had to cut back on programs for health care and schools.

The IMF, Strauss-Kahn suggested, will become less ideological. Critics maintain the fund is still attaching too many restrictions to its longer-term bailouts for poor countries. But the IMF has signed off in recent weeks on no-strings-attached credit lines for countries with solid economic track records, offering $47 billion to Mexico and $20.5 billion to Poland.

“If the fund is considering a country and is technically convinced that privatization of any enterprise is needed to fix the country today, let’s privatize. But if it’s a general idea of privatization that has nothing to do with the problem, let’s forget it,” Strauss-Kahn said. “At the same time, if nationalization will help, let’s do it.”

Developing nations — including some that were once down-and-out clients of the fund — are now coming to the IMF’s rescue as part of the pledge made by leaders in London to beef up the organization’s war chest to $1 trillion. In exchange for better representation on the governing board, China, which has fewer voting rights than Belgium, is set to give more than $40 billion. Brazil, which received a massive IMF bailout in the late 1990s, is pledging $4.5 billion.

There is even talk that the next managing director — traditionally a European, while an American ran its sister organization, the World Bank — may come from the developing world. “Why not?” Strauss-Kahn said.

For an organization long demonized by the developing world, such changes were once unthinkable. “I spent 20 years of my life carrying posters that said ‘IMF out,’ ” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former union leader, said last week in Rio de Janeiro. “Now the minister of finance says we are going to lend money to the IMF.”

The IMF is also moving toward taking the lead role as the global economic watchdog. An intense debate, however, remains over the scope of the edicts it may issue as well as the power it will be granted to enforce them.

Along with the Switzerland-based Financial Stability Board, the IMF is set to develop benchmarks for financial governance, from guidelines on executive pay to methods to prevent the spread of toxic assets through global banks. But no one is talking seriously about allowing the IMF to impose sanctions to force compliance as the United Nations does. There is even a strong reluctance to grant the IMF powers such as those held by the World Trade Organization in Geneva, which issues binding rulings on violations of global trade law.

Instead, the IMF is likely to wield what Strauss-Kahn called “the strength of truth telling.” Put another way, the organization’s public pronouncements would carry the force of the nations seated at its table, including the world’s most powerful industrialized and developing economies.

Some critics, however, say that may not be enough. A case in point: An internal IMF document recently called for Eastern European nations to adopt the euro as their currency to stabilize their economies, even without the approval of euro-zone nations. But stiff opposition from Western Europe has thus far prevented that document from being made public.

Additionally, some smaller European and low-income nations remain skeptical about the creation of a financial security council, arguing they would not be well represented. Even within the IMF, there is a debate over the council’s purview and makeup. Some see the council turning into a venue to hash out major economic disputes, such as U.S. and European charges that China is keeping its currency artificially weak.

Others say it should steer away from country-specific rulings. Another camp argues the fund should not exist at all. Even Strauss-Kahn has sought to dispel the notion of too grand a role for the IMF, saying its primary mission should remain monitoring and surveillance rather than enforcement.

“The fund is supposed to take on a more regulatory role, holding accountable even wealthy countries,” said Moshin Khan, the IMF’s former Middle East and Central Asia director. “But I will have to see that happen to believe it. Whenever I’ve seen them going after the bigger countries, if the countries don’t like what the fund has to say, the fund doesn’t say it.”

 

 

Jews Rebuilding the Temple of Solomon: Pipedream or Post Iran/Syria War Reality

 

 

 

War can come at anytime in the Middle East.  Iran is working fervently to obtain the nuclear weapons it covets.  Moderates like Egypt are casting a baleful eye on Iran wondering how they’ll like a world where a nuclear armed Islamic state calls the shots and Egypt has no choice but to fall into line.  Obama is bowing low to the Saudi King while destroying Americas Economy with Childlike denial and profligate spending. The Americans are becoming used to rule by crisis and the idea that our way of life is forfeit in the face of the new green transnationalism sweeping the globe. Neither Obama nor his team has any regard for Israel and they intend to steamroll Israel into making suicidal concessions to a band of thugs that will, of course, backfire creating a war that finally destroys Israel or frightens everyone into peace. War can come at any time in the Middle East but that’s nothing new.

 In the midst of great peril in Israel there is a dream that won’t die; the Rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon.  While it’s inconceivable in today’s world that the Temple could be built; in the world of tomorrow, it may become a spoil of war or a symbol of new peace. If the upcoming war with Iran and Israel is sufficiently terrifying for both sides it may prompt world powers to demand a real peace from the Arabs. If ever there was an enticement that could compel the Israeli’s to sign a peace treaty, perhaps with a Palestinian State,  the ability to rebuild the Temple might be the inducement to end the hostilities. The powers of an Oil Dependant Planet can’t afford to allow continued instability in the Middle East as the upcoming war with Israel and Iran will make clear to everyone.  This coming war isn’t going to be a cake walk and there’s going to be casualties aplenty including, possibly the limited uses of WMD’s before it’s over.

I know there’s a prophesy out there about Damascus Syria being wiped out that is yet to be fulfilled.  I believe there’s also a prophesy about a bunch of casualties in Jerusalem from something that sounds like a chemical or biological weapon as well.  Given the fact that Israel and Iran are heading for war over the Iranian nuclear threat this may be the time something like Damascus getting wiped out from launching a chemical attack on Jerusalem will be played out.  It’s possible.  Given how oil dependant every economy on Earth has become it’s possible that the world will insist on real peace so it can sleep nights knowing all the worlds factories are still humming along.

 

Consider this most interesting article from the Jerusalem Post.  Its still, I admit a pipedream, but in a post war world where too much bloodshed has changed minds and softened the hearts of the most committed fanatics it may happen.  It’s an interesting exercise to think about how the conditions may arise to rebuild the temple, on the temple mount, and what conditions would be necessary to precede such an event.

Feiglin: If I were PM, I’d rebuild the Temple

Apr. 20, 2009
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST

Moshe Feiglin, head of Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership Movement) said last week that if he was elected prime minister, he would try to rebuild the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.

“I don’t know if I will have the merit of doing something that is the aspiration of every Jew,” said Feiglin. “But if I become prime minister I will take away control over the Temple Mount from the Wakf [the Islamic trust] and reinstate Jewish sovereignty over the entire mount and, hopefully, rebuild the Temple.”

Feiglin said that rebuilding the Temple and all that it symbolized was the essence of a Jewish state.

Feiglin made the comments during the second annual Ramle Conference, sponsored by the religious Zionist settler movement Komemiut and a small group of young rabbis who are involved in outreach in Ramle.

The subject of the conference was “Between Israel and the Nations of the World.”

Speakers who included Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu and Rabbi of Hebron-Kiryat Arba Dov Lior managed to draw only a few dozen people to the event. The conference, which took place at Ramle’s community center, was also broadcast on Arutz 7’s Internet site.

Feiglin said that Israel’s political leadership since 1967 had missed the chance to “realize every Jew’s aspiration.”

“I am not saying that I will fulfill this dream, but I am saying that if I get the chance I will do my utmost to bring our hopes in line with reality. It may seem altogether disconnected from reality to talk about rebuilding the Temple, but imagine how an Auschwitz survivor would have responded if he were told in 1945 that the Jewish people would have a state of their own with a Jewish army,” he said.

In December of last year, ahead of national elections, Feiglin, who was number 20 on Likud’s list, was sidelined by Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu. In an internal party decision, Feiglin was bumped down to the number 36 slot, leaving him out of the present Knesset.

However, Feiglin, who spoke with The Jerusalem Post Sunday, said he still harbored ambitions of replacing Netanyahu and becoming Israel’s next prime minister.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, a leading spiritual leader of the settlement movement and rabbi of Beit El, envisioned a time when a majority of Israelis would be religious.

“There is a steady process unfolding in which the state is gradually becoming more religious,” said Melamed.

“Haredim and families from our crowd have large families. Also, there are growing numbers of newly religious families. There is a deep feeling that people want the redemption to arrive already. And part of that process will be the rebuilding of the Temple.”

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710740195&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

Times Up: Why Israel Must Attack Iran Immediately Without Regard to Obama

 

 

 

In the end the State of Israel can’t let the “Mad Mullahs” of Iran get their paws on a single nuclear bomb to say nothing of 60 nuclear bombs within 18 months.  If the demented Ahmadinejad acquires a bomb he’ll surely use it on Israel.  All he needs is a single successful nuclear detonation and the Jews are finished, Israel is lost, and the Arabs will have to go to work on the “Great Satan”, the United States directly. “The little Satan,” as hordes of peace loving Islamic fanatics call Israel, is so small a nation that just one nuclear strike will destroy it and a half dozen will probably kill all the Jews, millions of them, in an act that rivals anything Hitler did.  It’s overwhelmingly obvious that either the Jews destroy the bomb making facilities in Iran or a second holocaust will destroy the Jewish homeland. The Principle of Self Defense has given Israel the green light to strike Iran and Syria for some time now the same principle of self defense mandates an attack.

It’s as plain as the nose on your face:  Times Up, regardless of world opinion; or the sniveling of Mr. Obama you must attack now while you have a chance because if you wait much longer your delay will be paid by the blood of millions of your fellow Israeli citizens. Consider this chilling report from the Debka File:

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6035

 

Iran could produce first nuke in 60 days with 7,000 centrifuges working 24/7 – Western experts

DEBKAfile Special Report

April 21, 2009, 12:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s military sources cite some Western intelligence and nuclear weapons experts as predicting that Iran could turn out nuclear weapons some time in the next 12 months.

This estimate is based on Tehran’s announcement that 7,000 centrifuges are in operation to enrich uranium. If all those machines were to work at top speed day and night, seven days a week, they could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a bomb in 60 days, say some intelligence sources. According to American experts, given the current rate of the program’s development, Iran will be in a position to manufacture as many as 60 nuclear bombs and warheads in 12 to 18 months.

This judgment was confirmed by Israel’s military intelligence (AMAN) chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin in his latest briefing to the cabinet Monday, April 20. He reported that Iran is going all-out for enriched uranium from overseas to shorten the process.

Japanese sources recently reported that a North Korean boat shipped a large quantity to Iran earlier this year. According to the big-circulation The Nikkei, the North Korean vessel’s hold carried a secret cargo of uranium highly-enriched to 50-60 percent. The ship set out for Iran in December, moving moved at a leisurely pace so as not to call attention from Western spy satellites, surveillance vessels and warships. Earlier this year, the illegal consignment was dropped at an Iranian port for transport to a facility near Tehran, according to the Japanese paper.

Yadlin noted that extreme economic crisis has not delayed Tehran’s headlong nuclear progress or curtailed its designs on other Middle East countries – Hizballah’s subversive activities in Egypt are not a lone instance. Inflation is officially put at 30 percent but is probably closer to 50 percent, while unemployment is deepening, yet Tehran upped the 2009 appropriation for its nuclear program by 15 percent.

Rather than translating the crisis into leverage for persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear objectives, the Israeli intelligence chief noted that the Obama administration has opened the door to dialogue with all the extremists of the Middle East, including Iran, albeit “with open eyes.”

Iran, for its part, is accelerating its nuclear program, taking full advantage of the undercover communications with Washington which are aimed at gaining Tehran’s cooperation for the US war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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