news.notes20090522a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Friday, May 22, 2009
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, born this day in 1859, created Sherlock Holmes, one of the most vivid and enduring characters in English fiction and a prototype for the modern mastermind detective.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

Friday, May 22, 2009
337: Roman Emperor Constantine I baptized
On this day in 337, Constantine the Great, who had practiced Christianity since his youth and sparked its growth into a world religion, became on his deathbed the first Roman emperor to be baptized in the Christian church.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, May 22, 2009
H1N1 tally hits 292 over six prefectures
Tokyo braces for epidemic; Kyoto gets first case

By REIJI YOSHIDA and NATSUKO FUKUE
Staff writers

The H1N1 swine flu tally grew to 292 on Thursday after Kyoto confirmed its first case and Tokyo confirmed its third, placing the virus in six prefectures so far.

The first cases in greater Tokyo, two high school students in Tokyo and Kawasaki, put the national and local governments on alert Wednesday for a possible epidemic in the densely populated metropolitan region, which encompasses Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures. The third case, a woman in Meguro Ward, was announced Thursday night.

The new flu, locally called "shingata infuruenza" (new-type influenza), "has become substantially widespread inside the country," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe told the Diet Thursday, although the government maintains that Japan is still in the early stages of a domestic outbreak.

The 16-year-old girls, whose names are being withheld, both attend Senzoku Gakuen High School in Kawasaki.

They shared a room at a New York hotel from May 11 to 18 while participating in a mock session of the United Nations and returned to Narita airport at 1:55 p.m. Tuesday on a Continental Airlines flight, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said.

Both were hospitalized and are recovering, officials said Thursday. They have not returned to school since returning from the U.S.

The two students tested negative for flu at the airport after developing a fever during the flight, but later reported to local health authorities and were found to have H1N1.

"This can happen when a patient is in the early stage of flu," a Kawasaki official said.

In the Kansai region meanwhile, two new cases hit in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, along with a 10-year-old child in Kyoto, confirming infections in six prefectures.

The woman in Meguro Ward is in her 30s and returned from San Francisco on Tuesday, authorities said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said the government does not believe there will be an immediate swine flu epidemic in Tokyo.

Unlike Osaka and Kobe, the girls in the Tokyo area did not come down with the flu in Japan and did not infect a school, Kawamura said.

Both the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Kanagawa Prefectural Government decided to hold off on school closures for now.

But the operator of Senzoku Gakuen High School announced Thursday it will voluntarily close the high school and other schools in the same compound until next Wednesday.

The two girls were accompanied on their New York trip by four classmates and a teacher from the school. None has shown any flu symptoms, and as a precaution they have been staying at home to avoid contact with other people. Eleven students from five other Japanese schools also went to New York for the mock U.N. session but are not showing any symptoms and have not been going out.

Kawasaki health officials said the infected girl who lives there rode a bus from the airport to Tama Plaza in Yokohama, took the Denentoshi Line to Mizonokuchi and went the rest of the way home in a taxi. She was wearing a mask on the plane and on the way home from the airport, they said.

The girl in Hachioji reportedly rode a bus from the airport and then took the Keio and JR Yokohama lines to get to her home in Hachioji.

As of Wednesday, Japan had the fourth-largest number of H1N1 patients in the world after the United States, Canada, and Mexico, where the vast majority of deaths have occurred.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, May 22, 2009
Principal apologizes for letting students go to New York

By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer

Takayoshi Maeda, principal of Senzoku Gakuen's junior and senior high schools, apologized Thursday for letting a group of students go to New York, where two of them contracted swine flu, but said he thought he lacked the authority to cancel the special trip.

In all, the school sent six students and a teacher to attend the 10th Annual UNA-USA Model U.N. Conference in New York. The mock conference, which involved 2,600 high school students from about 100 countries, was organized by the United Nations Association of the United States of America, a nonprofit group that promotes U.N. activities in the United States.

The event ran from May 13 to Saturday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and U.N. headquarters in New York, where the new H1N1 virus is already spreading.

"All six students wanted to go, even though they knew the risk," Maeda told The Japan Times on Thursday while apologizing for the public anxiety the female students' illness have created since testing positive for the flu Wednesday night.

Before the trip, the school, in Takatsu Ward, Kawasaki, held a meeting May 2 with parents of five of the six students to confirm they wanted to let their children go to the U.S., Maeda said.

"All of them said yes," he said, adding that the six were excited about the event and had spent a lot of time preparing over the past five months.

"If the event had been organized by our school, I may have canceled the trip," he said.

The seven departed from Narita International Airport on May 11 and returned from New York on Tuesday. Maeda confirmed they went straight home without visiting the school because they were already scheduled to be absent upon their return for 10 days, which is the longest incubation period for H1N1, Maeda said.

The virus is being referred to locally as "shingata infuruenza" (new-type influenza), to avoid raising concern over the safety of pork.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government said there is effectively no chance that the seven will transmit the virus to other students or teachers.

But the school will be closed anyway from Thursday to May 27 to prevent media coverage from creating further anxiety among neighbors and students, Maeda said.

The two teens reportedly had fevers last night but are recovering normally, with their body temperatures returning to normal, he added.

In the mock U.N. session, Senzoku Gakuen's students teamed up with students from another country to act as Laotian delegates and discuss issues key to Laos, Maeda said.

Besides Senzoku Gakuen, five other high schools in Tokyo and in Kanagawa Prefecture participated in the event as representatives from Japan.

No students from those schools had reported any flu symptoms as of Thursday.

Some high school students in the vicinity of Senzoku Gakuen said they, too, would have seen the event as too good to pass up.

"I totally understand how much (the six students) must have wanted to go," a 16-year-old male student at a nearby high school said, wearing a mask on his way home.

When asked if he would have gone if he had been selected, he said, "Of course I would have.

"Today is the first time I have worn a mask since swine flu was all over the news. My parents told me to wear it today," the boy said. "I think the Japanese are overreacting. There is Tamiflu that cures (the flu) and there are no casualties yet."

news.notes20090522b

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, May 22, 2009
Sony plans to slash suppliers in major test of CEO's mettle

(The Associated Press) Sony Corp. said Thursday it will halve the number of parts suppliers to slash costs under a turnaround plan that is testing the mettle of Chief Executive Howard Stringer.

The electronics and entertainment giant plans to cut purchasing costs by 500 billion, or 20 percent of the 2.5 trillion spent in the business year ended in March, company spokeswoman Mami Imada said.

Sony has been restructuring under Stringer, a Welsh-born American who in 2005 became the first foreigner to head Sony.

But analysts say his true test starts now — after he took on the additional role of president in February to speed up efforts to reshape Sony. At that time, he announced a new team of four Japanese executives under him, representing Sony's various businesses.

Sony sank to its first annual net loss in 14 years in the 2008 business year, racking up 98.9 billion in red ink, battered by sliding global demand, a strong yen and declining gadget prices. It is expecting an even bigger loss this year.

Koya Tabata, an analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said Stringer has perhaps another year and a half to turn things around before his position becomes untenable.

Sony needs to pursue low-end, high-volume business and improve management of inventories to boost earnings from electronics as well as expand its distribution network to improve profit from games, Tabata said.

"However, the company has yet to present a clear strategy," he said.

The streamlining of parts makers is the latest step in Stringer's drive, according to Sony.

Sony will reduce the number of its parts makers from about 2,500 now to about 1,200 next year. That message was relayed to suppliers this week.

One of Stringer's pet themes is stressing how the company's divisions need to work together. He has said the units often don't communicate well with each other, hinting that they even tended to be territorial.

In the past, Sony's units have each worked out contracts with different suppliers.

Now, Sony will centralize that to negotiate cheaper prices by boosting the amount of business it does with each supplier, while reducing the number of suppliers, Imada said.

The drop in prices in electronics products has also hurt Sony.

"The prices of digital home appliances have been declining by 15 percent to 20 percent every year lately. Unless we cut costs, we cannot hope to survive the price competition," Imada said.

Last week, Stringer brought on board George Bailey from IBM as senior vice president in a new position called "chief transformation officer," to oversee Sony's network products, content and services.

"We are fundamentally transforming Sony into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company," Stringer said in a statement.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, May 22, 2009
Crude steel output plunges 44%

(Kyodo News) Crude steel production totaled 5.72 million tons in April, down 43.6 percent from a year ago and the seventh consecutive monthly fall, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation said Thursday.

The dismal figure indicates steelmakers are still curtailing output in the face of weakening demand from automakers, federation officials said.

The drop in April production was the third-largest for any month.

By category, steelmakers produced 989,000 tons of specialty steel used in vehicles and other products, down 55.3 percent from the previous year and the sixth straight monthly contraction, the federation said.

Meanwhile, production of ordinary steel fell for the seventh consecutive month to 4.73 million tons, down 40.3 percent.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, May 22, 2009
Carmakers pull out

(Kyodo News) Porsche of Germany and Maserati of Italy have decided not to take part in the 41st Tokyo Motor Show this fall in Chiba, the organizer said Thursday.

The two luxury carmakers have joined Germany's Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW in passing on the biennial showcase in a bid to save money amid the global auto industry slump.

"While the decision is regrettable, the Tokyo Motor Show remains important as an opportunity to demonstrate advanced technologies to the world," said Satoshi Aoki, chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, which sponsors the event.

With a succession of foreign automakers deciding not to participate in this year's show, Japan's eight automakers are expected to dominate the event.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, May 22, 2009
Services demand falls at fastest pace since '97

(Bloomberg) Demand for services fell at its fastest pace in 12 years in March as job cuts discouraged consumers from spending.

The tertiary index, a gauge of money households and businesses spend on phone calls, power and transportation, dropped 4 percent from February, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Thursday, the biggest decline since April 1997. The median estimate of 21 economists surveyed was for a 1.5 percent decline.

The economy shrank at a record 15.2 percent pace last quarter as businesses and consumers slashed spending, a report Wednesday showed. Economic and fiscal policy minister Kaoru Yosano said rising unemployment is a risk even though there are signs exports and production are recovering.

"Households have become increasingly defensive," said Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital in Tokyo. "It will be difficult for consumption to break out of the current slump" given the deterioration in the job market and wages, he said.

Declines in retail and wholesale sales drove the drop in the tertiary index, the report showed. Demand for information services including software and outsourcing fell 18.8 percent, an indication that companies are also cutting back on spending.

"The report showed that business spending is deteriorating and consumer spending is very weak," said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo. "That poses a risk for the economic outlook."

"It's a clear negative for consumer spending," said Jesper Koll, chief executive officer of hedge fund adviser TRJ Tantallon Research Japan. "The pressure on purchasing power is very, very real."

The jobless rate surged to 4.8 percent from 4.4 percent in March, the largest advance since 1967. "Japan is far from a sound recovery," said Yuichi Kodama, chief economist at Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. "Worsening employment will keep weighing on consumer spending."

news.notes20090522c

[Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

In rural Washington state, law allows assisted suicide, but most doctors don't
Terminally ill patients who want to utilize a new law to end their agony often find that physicians, citing moral objections, refuse to take part.

By Kim Murphy
May 7, 2009

Reporting from Kennewick, Wash. -- Stephen Wallace had watched his wife die of cancer 22 years ago, using up the morphine as fast as they could put it into her and begging for more. NoNo, he said then. I won't let this happen to me.

So when he was diagnosed with an advanced case of pancreatic cancer March 8, and given a few days to a few weeks to live, Wallace hoped to go quickly. He told his doctor and family that he wanted to take advantage of Washington state's new law allowing physicians to prescribe a fatal dose of barbiturates to terminal patients. His five children agreed, but his doctor balked, citing moral reservations.

The family appealed to the hospital, got nowhere, and called two other hospitals in towns nearby. None of the doctors in the area was willing to give Wallace, 76, the pills for his deadly sleep.

Cancer of the pancreas has a cruel reputation, delivering what some say is the most intense pain humans can imagine. It killed Wallace on April 8.

"It was very hard to watch my father die that way," said Tricia Crnkovich, who took turns with her brothers and sisters in Wallace's small bedroom as he shrank from 250 pounds to 60, losing most of the weight in the two months before he died. "I'll tell you, if I ever get cancer," she said, "I don't want to put my kids through that."

On March 5, Washington became the second state in the nation to allow physicians to help hasten the death of terminal patients. Oregon legalized a nearly identical "death with dignity" statute in 1997, and the courts in Montana have ruled that the right to privacy extends to patients seeking a doctor's help in ending their lives.

But outside the larger population centers around Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, many physicians are unwilling. That leaves residents east of the Cascades who choose to utilize the statute with the same problem women seeking abortions in conservative rural communities have faced: It's legal, but health providers' moral qualms mean it's essentially unavailable.

"We knew that it would be harder to find attending and consulting physicians in more rural areas," said Robb Miller, executive director of the advocacy group Compassion & Choices of Washington. "It's going to take time to get people educated about the law . . . and build up trust and confidence among the physicians -- many of whom support the law and want to use it, but who might not be ready yet to make the leap."

Wallace raised his family here amid the arid farmland that spreads out from the confluence of the Columbia, Snake and Yakima rivers. The growing popularity of Washington's wines have lent a certain cachet to an otherwise bland expanse of fast-food restaurants, budget hotels and modest neighborhoods.

The area also is home to the Hanford nuclear reservation, where plutonium for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, was manufactured. Hanford has since become a nightmare of leaky, poisonous tanks and a testament to the difficulty of cleaning up nuclear waste.

For most of his life, Wallace worked at Hanford. His job was one of the more dangerous ones, transferring the facility's perilous brews from tank to tank. His work there, Crnkovich and her siblings believe, led to his cancer.

From the moment he was diagnosed, the family said, Wallace refused even to go into hospice care. "When he retired in '94, he said, 'I bought this bed, and I will die in this bed,' " said his daughter-in-law, Ginny Wallace.

But Wallace's physician could not bring himself to assist, the family said. Dr. Idar Rommen, a family practitioner in Snohomish County -- another largely rural Washington area where most hospitals have refused to participate in the new law -- understands why.

"To me, personally, giving a patient a suicide pill is like abdicating my role," Rommen said. "I'm here to heal and to make better. And the other just doesn't seem like that's what I went into medicine to do."

The extent of the hurdles patients face in the Kennewick area became clear during a recent physicians' briefing that the Benton Franklin County Medical Society held here. The presentation on the new law, which allows a physician to prescribe a fatal dose of medication after a second qualified doctor also has certified that the patient is terminal, was met with silence.

"There was no feedback," said executive director Nicole Austin. "We're trying to walk a very neutral line. It's their decision as physicians if they choose to participate. I sense that it will be a challenge in this community."

Only about a third of Washington state hospitals have opted to allow their doctors to assist terminal patients under the law. Austin said many doctors are especially uncomfortable with the requirement under the law that physicians list the cause of death as the terminal illness, not suicide.

Similar reservations have made it difficult to get assisted-suicide statutes on the books in other states. California lawmakers have failed several times to pass such legislation, although late last year they adopted a measure requiring terminal patients be counseled on various end-of-life options, including the right to be heavily sedated and withdrawn from food and water.

Through 2008, 401 people in Oregon had opted for what Compassion & Choices prefers to call "death with dignity." So far, three Washington residents have obtained lethal prescriptions under the law.

Proponents characterize the laws as a means of allowing the terminally ill to have some say over how and when they will die.

Critics, including the American Medical Assn., contend that the better response is to offer patients adequate pain medication and reassurance.

"They want to force doctors to act against their conscience and to become essentially vending machines for individuals who requisition overdoses to kill themselves," said William L. Toffler, a professor of family medicine and executive director of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation, which has opposed assisted-suicide statutes.

"The solution to suffering," he said, "never is to eliminate the sufferer."

But for Wallace, alleviating the pain did not appear to be an option.

Crnkovich said her father had been given strong medications when he went home from the hospital, but that his nurses had resisted increasing the dosage as his pain grew more intense.

Soon Wallace's mental state began to deteriorate. Because the assisted-suicide law requires a 15-day waiting period between the first oral and the first written requests for lethal medication, and an additional 48 hours before the prescription can be written, he no longer qualified.

"He couldn't talk for the last eight days," son Steve Wallace said. "He was not in contact with reality. I'd come in there, and he'd call me somebody else."

Near the end, Steve and Ginny could hardly stand to be in the house because his father was in so much pain. By the time the doctor said his medication should be increased despite the nurses' concerns, it was too late.

"He was just moaning and screaming, and it got really bad on Friday," Ginny said. "By Monday when we left, he was just screaming at the top of his lungs."

Wallace was dead two days later. An autopsy revealed that the cancer had consumed his pancreas, liver and parts of both kidneys and lungs.

Crnkovich said her father had asked family members to speak out about his failure to find a doctor to help him. They have met with state and federal legislators, telephoned hospitals and spoken with the media.

"Since I started talking, I've had people come up to me in the supermarket parking lot and say, 'Murder's murder.' And other people have come up to me and said, 'Thank you. Now I know what to do if the time comes,' " she said.

"People don't know what it's really about," her brother added. "It's not about killing people. It's about people that are going to die, but don't want to go through hell to do it."

news.notes20090522d

[Today's Paper] from [The New York Times]

Civilian Deaths Imperil Support for Afghan War

By CARLOTTA GALL and TAIMOOR SHAH
Published: May 6, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — American airstrikes that Afghan officials and villagers said Wednesday had killed dozens and perhaps more than 100 civilians in western Afghanistan threaten to stiffen Afghan opposition to the war just as the Obama administration is sending 20,000 more troops to the country.

The reports offered a grim backdrop to talks on Wednesday afternoon in Washington between President Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, whose office called the civilian deaths “unjustifiable and unacceptable.”

If the higher toll proves true, the bombardment, which took place late Monday, will almost certainly be the worst in terms of civilian deaths since the American intervention began in 2001. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said there would be a joint investigation and she expressed regret at the loss of civilian lives, although she cautioned that the full circumstances were not known. Defense Department officials said investigators were looking into the possibility that Taliban militants were responsible for the civilian deaths.

One villager reached by telephone, Sayed Ghusuldin Agha, described body parts littered around the landscape. “It would scare a man if he saw it in a dream,” he said.

Civilian deaths — more than 2,000 Afghans were killed last year alone, the United Nations says — have been a decisive factor in souring many Afghans on the war. The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed dozens dead so far in this bombing, in the western province of Farah.

The American military confirmed that it had conducted airstrikes aimed at the Taliban, but not the number of deaths or their cause.

“We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties,” said the senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan. He would not elaborate but said American and Afghan investigators were already on the ground trying to sort out what had happened.

In a phone call played on a loudspeaker on Wednesday to outraged members of the Afghan Parliament, the governor of Farah Province, Rohul Amin, said that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to a legislator, Mohammad Naim Farahi. Afghan lawmakers immediately called for an agreement regulating foreign military operations in the country.

“The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred,” Mr. Farahi said. “Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene.”

Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including those of many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died, he said.

Early reports from American military forensic investigators at the scene raised questions about the Afghan account, according to a United States military official briefed on the inquiry.

Defense Department officials said late Wednesday that investigators were looking into witnesses’ reports that the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, and that the militants then drove the bodies around the village claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike.

The initial examination of the site and of some of the bodies suggested the use of armaments more like grenades than the much larger bombs used by attack planes, said the military official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

“We cannot confirm the report that the Taliban executed these people,” said Capt. John Kirby, the spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. “We don’t know if it’s true, and we also don’t know how many civilians were killed as a result of this operation.”

Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for the United States military in Kabul, confirmed that United States Special Operations forces had called in close air support in the area on Monday night, including bombs and strafing with heavy machine guns. “There is a heavy insurgent presence there,” he said.

Villagers reached by telephone said many were killed by aerial bombing. Muhammad Jan, a farmer, said fighting had broken out in his village, Shiwan, and another, Granai, in the Bala Baluk district. An hour after it stopped, the planes came, he said.

In Granai, he said, women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses. “Six houses were bombed and destroyed completely, and people in the houses still remain under the rubble,” he said, “and now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies.”

He said that villagers, crazed with grief, were collecting mangled bodies in blankets and shawls and piling them on three tractors. People were still missing, he said.

Mr. Agha, who lives in Granai, said the bombing started at 5 p.m. on Monday and lasted until late into the night. “People were rushing to go to their relatives’ houses, where they believed they would be safe, but they were hit on the way,” he said.

Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the organization had sent a team to the scene on Tuesday. It saw houses destroyed and dozens of bodies.

“It’s not the first time,” Ms. Barry said, but “really this is one of the very serious and biggest incidents for a very long time.” The dead included a volunteer for the Afghan Red Crescent and 13 of his relatives, she said.

She and Afghan officials worry that with the increase of American troops this year, the conflict is likely to intensify. “With more troops coming in, there is a risk that civilians will be more and more vulnerable,” she said.

United States and NATO forces have sought to reduce civilian casualties. After a prominent episode last year in Azizabad, General McKiernan issued a directive in December saying “all responses must be proportionate.”

The United Nations has said that figures in the first three months of this year have declined from the same period last year. Yet the concern remains.

One Western diplomat said that United States Special Operations forces should stop missions until after presidential elections here in August.

The forces have often been blamed for nighttime raids on villages, detentions and airstrikes that have brought the population in southern Afghanistan to the point of revolt.

The chairman of Parliament, Yunus Qanooni, called on the government to present a draft of a new agreement for the foreign forces in Afghanistan within a week, in order to “legalize their presence.”

Mr. Farahi, the Afghan lawmaker, blamed local officials for calling in the American forces without giving them more guidance. But he saved his most stinging criticism for President Karzai’s government. “People are ready to rise against the government,” he said.

news.notes20090522e

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

In Dueling Speeches, a National Security Debate
Obama Says Bush Set Aside Principles in Terrorism Fight

By Scott Wilson and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 22, 2009

President Obama and former vice president Richard B. Cheney yesterday gave the country the national security debate it never had during last year's campaign, with the two outlining starkly divergent views of American power and the presidency in the fight against terrorism.

In an extraordinary set of speeches, the still-new president, who refers often to the problems he inherited from his predecessor, and the previous administration's most forceful spokesman laid out their positions just minutes apart in locations separated by barely a mile. The virtual debate touched on Congress and the courts, interrogation tactics and truth commissions, and competing assessments of the nation's post-Sept. 11 history that are currently informing the debate in Washington over how best to balance public safety and civil liberties.

Presidential scholars could not recall another moment when consecutive administrations intersected so early and in such a public way.

The long 2008 campaign lacked a head-to-head discussion of the Bush administration's national security policies. The Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), largely agreed with Obama on the need to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and end interrogation methods that international humanitarian groups have called torture.

Obama's appearance at the National Archives had the feel of a campaign event, one aimed at convincing the American public and a recalcitrant Democratic Congress that strict adherence to the rule of law combined with an embrace of civil liberties is the most effective way to defeat America's enemies. Although Obama has recently adopted some elements of his predecessor's policies on terrorism trials and secrecy, he said that during the Bush administration, "too often we set those principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford."

"And during this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists and citizens -- fell silent," Obama said at the Archives, where the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are kept. "In other words, we went off course."

Speaking moments after Obama finished, Cheney delivered the most pointed rejoinder of his weeks-long media campaign in defense of the Bush administration's national security record, including its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and its adoption of harsh interrogation tactics and detention policies that have been widely criticized.

The "great dividing line in our current debate over national security" is whether that "comprehensive strategy has worked and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever," he said during his appearance at the American Enterprise Institute. "Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event, coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort."

The Obama administration booked the Archives for the speech on Monday, aides said, after the president concluded that a series of decisions that disappointed his liberal allies, including preserving elements of the Bush-era military commissions system to try terrorism suspects, were being misconstrued by the news media.

The address was designed as a way for Obama to regain the initiative in a national security debate that he appeared to be winning early in his administration, after ordering the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year and requiring CIA interrogators to adhere to standards in the Army Field Manual. Those fortunes changed this week when the Democratic-controlled Senate denied the funds Obama had requested for closing the Guantanamo facility.

The path to the speech began last month when the administration agreed to the release of once-classified Justice Department memos that outlined the legal rationale for the severe interrogation methods, including the simulated-drowning technique known as waterboarding. Aides said the president huddled with advisers over the address for more than a week and did not complete a final draft until 2:30 yesterday morning.

"I think it is unprecedented in the modern era," said Peniel Joseph, a historian at Brandeis University. "We've seen outgoing administrations that did not get along with the new administration, but we have never seen the vice president of an outgoing administration lambasting the new administration like this."

Joseph said Cheney's aggressive posture and challenge of Obama are likely to animate the Republican base but probably few people beyond that. "This notion that 'we did everything right' has a certain revisionist appeal, but it does not have a crossover appeal to transform the Republican Party," he said.

In explaining his recent decision to oppose the release of photos of prisoner abuse, Obama effectively declared an end to the all-powerful executive branch that Cheney and other Bush administration officials have long favored. He said the difference between his position on transparency and the Bush administration's is that "whenever we cannot release certain information to the public for valid national security reasons, I will insist that there is oversight of my actions -- by Congress or by the courts."

Standing in the Archives' rotunda, Obama called the Bush administration's national security decisions "ad hoc" and "hasty." He said opening the Guantanamo prison was a "misguided experiment" that has created a legal "mess" that his administration is now struggling to clean up.

"I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values," Obama said. ". . . Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset."

Obama has been attempting to change the subject of the debate in Washington from the legacy of the Bush administration's national security policies to a domestic agenda including health care and energy reform that is now working its way slowly through Congress. He attempted to do so again yesterday but notably passed up an opportunity to highlight his successful campaign last year, which was built in part on his opposition to torture and Guantanamo.

"When it comes to actions of the last eight years, passions are high," Obama said. "Some Americans are angry. Others want to refight debates that have been settled, in some cases debates that they have lost."

According to his prepared remarks, Obama had something different in mind. He had planned to say that those debates had been settled "most clearly at the ballot box in November."

news.notes20090522f

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Obama: A Jump to the Left, a Step to the Right

ByDaniel Politi
Posted Friday, May 22, 2009, at 6:44 AM ET

The Washington Post, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal 's world-wide newsbox lead with President Obama's speech at the National Archives yesterday where he defended his antiterrorism policies. The setting was particularly symbolic. By giving his address where the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are kept, Obama meant to underscore the idea that Americans don't have to compromise their values in order to protect the nation's security. As soon as he was done speaking, former Vice President Dick Cheney gave his own speech at a conservative think tank, where he defended the previous administration's policies toward terrorism and harshly criticized Obama. The "contentious tit for tat," as the WSJ puts it, that captivated Washington yesterday was made up of "an extraordinary set of speeches" that "gave the country the national security debate it never had during last year's campaign," notes the Post. The NYT says the competing views amounted to "the debate Americans might have witnessed had Mr. Cheney run for president."

The Los Angeles Times continues to lead with California's budget woes, noting that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering a series of cuts that would hit the state's poor particularly hard. To make ends meet, Schwarzenegger is considering getting rid of California's main welfare program, as well as the medical coverage for low-income families. The program that provides cash grants to college students each year might also be eliminated. These proposals would transform "California from one of the country's most generous states to one of the most tightfisted in aiding the poor," notes the paper. USA Today devotes its top spot to Memorial Day, noting how the Internet "is changing how Americans remember the war dead." On Monday, tens of thousands of people will turn to memorial Web sites to mourn, honor, and share memories of men and women who died while serving in uniform. Of course, no one is suggesting that memorial services are going to stop taking place. But the superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery says that "how you remember someone, how you tell the story of a life, that's changing fast."

The WP states that Obama's speech yesterday "had the feel of a campaign event" since he seemed very intent in trying to convince the American people that his approach toward national security, which has come under fire from members of his own party recently, is the right one. Obama emphasized he still intends to transfer some of the detainees from Guantanamo to the United States, noting that his predecessor had carried out a "misguided experiment" that has left the country in "a mess." He once again vowed to hold civilian or military trials for many of the detainees, and emphasized that the nation's supermax prisons are perfectly capable of housing dangerous terrorists.

Obama also noted that "a legitimate legal framework" needs to be created to indefinitely detain dangerous terrorists who can't be tried or released. He called it the "toughest single issue we will face." Naturally, human rights groups were none too pleased with what they heard. Obama—and this is really quite the shocker—tried to claim the middle ground, criticizing conservatives for taking an "anything goes" attitude in fighting terrorism, and liberals for not facing the hard truths about terrorism. "Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right," Obama said in what may soon become the catchphrase of his administration.

It's easy to dismiss the Obama vs. Cheney duel as nothing more than media hype (frankly, TP was bored with the narrative before the speeches even started), but the truth is that this kind of mano-a-mano has likely never happened before. "I think it is unprecedented in the modern era," one historian tells the Post. "We've seen outgoing administrations that did not get along with the new administration, but we have never seen the vice president of an outgoing administration lambasting the new administration like this." And lambast he did, particularly in making fun of Obama's attempt to stake a middle ground. "Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy," Cheney said. The WP's Dana Milbank notes that Cheney is "building a case for Obama to be blamed if there is a terrorist attack on his watch."

In a front-page analysis, the NYT notes that Obama is taking "a nuanced set of positions that fall somewhere between George W. Bush and the American Civil Liberties Union." Yesterday he described it as a "surgical approach." This is hardly the first time the president has put on his professorial hat and tried to explain complex issues to the American people. But the truth is that the combination of harshly criticizing Bush-era policies, while also taking some on as his own has "has generated confusion and disappointment across the political spectrum," notes the NYT. And as shrewd as a political operator as he may be, Democrats are nervously looking forward toward next year's midterm elections, wondering how this will all play out.

In its own analysis, the LAT points out polls clearly show there is a real risk for both Republicans and Democrat as they try to come up with an approach to national security. Obama may have good approval ratings, but that doesn't mean the traditional support that Republicans have enjoyed in national security issues is gone. A new poll shows the parties are essentially tied when voters are asked which would do a better job in fighting terrorism, and Republicans still have a bit of an advantage on national security. But some suggest that, on Guantanamo and interrogation Obama might be doing the smart thing by not caving in to liberal critics. "The center of the country on these issues is to the right of the Democratic Party," one expert said.

The NYT's David Brooks points out that Obama and Cheney both talked as if "we lived through an eight year period of Bush-Cheney anti-terror policy and now we have entered a very different period." But that "is a completely bogus distortion of history." After Sept. 11 there may have been a period of Bush-Cheney policy but that lasted "maybe three years." Then a number of Bush officials became more influential and "tried to rein in the excesses" of that policy. "When Cheney lambastes the change in security policy, he's not really attacking the Obama administration," writes Brooks. "He's attacking the Bush administration."

All the talk about whether it's too dangerous to send Guantanamo detainees to federal prisons often ignores the fact that almost three dozen "international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo.," notes the Post. And many are what would be considered Real Bad Guys, including one who was convicted of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and the leader of the group that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

California leaders are hunkering down, trying to come up with a way to balance the state's budget at a time when analysts say the seemingly never-ending deficit has already increased to $24 billion. The outlook grew even worse yesterday when federal officials in Washington seemed to make it pretty clear they really have no desire to bail out the state, either through direct assistance or loan guarantees. The White House described it as an issue of fairness, noting that if the White House steps in to help California other states will soon clamor for the same treatment. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner even expressed doubts that he had the authority to use some of the $700-billion TARP money to aid California. Administration officials recognize they could work around that, but it seems clear that if aid is given to California it would have to be accompanied by such unattractive terms that no other state would want the same deal.

Helping out the nation's most populous state? That's preposterous! Giving billions more to an automaker? Of course! The WP fronts word that the White House is preparing plans to push General Motors into bankruptcy as early as the end of next week, in a plan that could see the company receiving almost $30 billion in additional federal loans. The paper's source warns that the number and timing could still change, but if the dollar amount does end up being that large it would mean the taxpayer investment in GM would total almost $45 billion. Meanwhile, the administration is preparing to get Chrysler out of bankruptcy protection as early as next week. Just as was the case with Chrysler, the administration still hasn't been able to reach an agreement with GM's bondholders. But the "speed with which the Chrysler bankruptcy has proceeded has given the administration more confidence that the best path for GM may be a similar trip," notes the Post. These express bankruptcies are raising concerns that the government may be ignoring the rights of investors and dealers, while also failing to recognize that GM's suppliers could face their own problems if the automaker declares bankruptcy.

CONTINUED ON news.notes20090522g

news.notes20090522g

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Obama: A Jump to the Left, a Step to the Right

ByDaniel Politi
Posted Friday, May 22, 2009, at 6:44 AM ET

CONTINUED FROM news.notes20090522f

Nobody fronts the latest from Iraq, where at least 23 Iraqis and three American soldiers were killed yesterday. The Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber killed at least eight members of the Awakening, the U.S.-backed militia.

The NYT fronts, and everyone goes inside with, more details about the four men who were arrested yesterday on suspicion of trying to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes. Lots is still unknown, but there are troubling signs that the federal informant was more than a little instrumental in making the wild dreams of what mostly seem to be petty criminals into a reality. At a small mosque in Newburgh, NY, many became suspicious they had a federal informant in their midst since he loudly talked of jihad and even offered people money. Many stayed away. But four men who had previously served time in prison moved in and started hatching the plot, all of which "played out on a veritable soundstage of hidden cameras and secret microphones," notes the NYT. One of the men is on medication for schizophrenia and was living in squalor. Another told the informant he wanted to "do jihad" and told a story of how his parents used to live in Afghanistan, but that all appears to have been part of a fantasy.

The LAT profiles Jack Passion, a 25-year-old musician who won first place in the "full beard: natural" category of the World Beard and Moustache Championships and became an "overnight celebrity in the insular subculture of competitive facial hair." Yes, competitive facial hair is apparently serious business. He recently finished writing a how-to book called The Facial Hair Handbook and is recording his first solo album. But Satruday he'll have to defend his title at the biennial battle. "People are gunning for me," Passion said. " America doesn't love champions, America loves underdogs."


[News & Politics] from [Double X, Slate's magazine for women]

The Mystery of the Soldier in the Pink Boxers

Posted: May 21, 2009 at 5:46 PM
By Susannah Breslin

On May 12, the New York Times ran a photograph featuring a soldier in his underpants. The photo was eye-catching—I know it caught my eye—and appeared above the fold on the front page. The photo was taken by David Guttenfelder for the Associated Press, and its subject was Specialist Zachary Boyd of Fort Worth, Texas. But what made it a stand-out was that it was taken in Afghanistan, and Boyd was in his army gear and brandishing a weapon, but doing so in pink underwear. A few days later, an IT guy at the Times noticed that site visitors were searching for the usual subjects—"Obama," "India," and "cancer" among them—but there was something new, too: "pink boxers." As it turned out, they were looking for Boyd.

Lens, a wonderful new photojournalism blog the Times launched recentlly, has the story behind the photo that spawned the pink boxers searches.

"It had an impact on me immediately," [Times editor Michele McNally] said. "Your first reaction is: 'What? What’s going on?' Because you are smiling—and then you realize its meaning. War never stops, look how intense it could get. You understand then that he is fighting out of uniform, in underwear which reads "I Love NY," in the midst of really rough terrain in a remote region so very far from home. And New York.

"And yet again, it calls up what mom said, 'Always wear clean underwear, you never know.'"


[News & Politics] from [Double X, Slate's magazine for women]

He Had a Sex Change. So What?

Posted: May 22, 2009 at 8:39 AM
By Samantha Henig

On Wednesday, Hanna asked "Is it normal to be transgender?" On Thursday, Adam Reilly at the Boston Phoenix asked whether being transgender is newsworthy. Reilly analyzes the coverage of Aiden Quinn, the 24-year-old subway driver who crashed a Boston train earlier this month, injuring 50, moments after texting his girlfriend. And hey, by the way, he used to be a woman. Reilly writes:

Given Quinn's admission that he was, in fact, texting prior to the accident, there's a general consensus that he's a dumbass. But there's no such agreement among the Boston media as to whether his switch from identifying as a woman to a man was germane to the larger story.

According to Reilly's story, WFXT-TV and the Boston Herald played up Quinn's sex change. New England Cable News dropped the detail late in its story. And some Boston Globe pieces didn't even mention it. As Globe metro editor Brian McGrory told Reilly: "It's certainly a provocative part of his personal history, but the question we asked was, ‘Was it relevant to the crash itself?' And we couldn't determine that it was."

In the spirit of letting the American Psychiatric Association's DSM, the Bible of psychiatry, define what's "normal," it's interesting to turn to another definitive book—the New York Times style guide—for its take on gender identity. Here's how the old gray lady handled it. Reporting on Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick's plan, in response to the crash, to ban bus and train operators from having cell phones with them while on duty, the Times never mentions Quinn's sex change. Apparently it considers that fact irrelevant. And the paper does call him "Mr."

news.notes20090522h

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

Baby P mother and stepfather jailed for toddler's death
• Killing could have been prevented, official report says
• Stepfather also jailed for raping two-year-old girl

James Sturcke and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 May 2009 12.28 BST
Article history

Baby P's mother was jailed indefinitely today for causing or allowing her son's death, as an official report said the killing "could and should have been prevented".

The mother was told she would serve a minimum term of five years. "You are a manipulative and self-centred person, with a calculating side as well as a temper," the judge, Stephen Kramer, told Peter's mother.

Her boyfriend, 32, was given a 12-year sentence at the Old Bailey for his role in the killing of Baby P, now named as Peter. To run concurrently, he was also given life with a minimum term of 10 years for raping a two-year-old girl.

Jason Owen, 37, from Bromley, Kent, a lodger at the same home as the pair, was given an indeterminate sentence and told he would serve a minimum of three years.

Due to the time the mother has already served in custody, she could be eligible for parole in August 2012. Her boyfriend cannot be released until August 2017.

Neither Peter's mother nor her boyfriend can be named for legal reasons.

Peter was 17 months old when he was found dead in a blood-spattered cot in August 2007 with a broken back and fractured ribs.

He had more than 50 injuries despite being on the at-risk register and receiving 60 visits from social workers, doctors and police over eight months.

The sentencing came as a second review, by the Haringey safeguarding children board, said doctors, lawyers, police and social workers should have been able to stop the situation "in its tracks at the first serious incident".

Even after Peter was put under a child protection plan, his case was regarded as routine "with injuries expected as a matter of course". Agencies were "lacking urgency", "lacking thoroughness" and "insufficiently challenging to the parent".

The review found that agencies "did not exercise a strong enough sense of challenge" when dealing with Peter's mother and their outlook was "completely inadequate" to meet the challenges of the case.

Peter's mother showed no emotion in the Old Bailey until her boyfriend was sentenced to life. Her mouth fell open as she appeared to mouth "No". As she was led away, a woman's voice called out "fucking tramp".

Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat MP in Haringey, welcomed the sentence and the second report. "The guilty have at last been punished, but we still cannot rest until we fully understand how this poor little boy suffered so terribly, and for so long, under the noses of Haringey's children's services."

Featherstone praised the rigour of the second serious case review. "The first serious case review either showed clear incompetence or was a cover-up," she said.

"This one could not be more different from the first. It says exactly what we should have learnt at the start of this awful tragedy: Haringey council, health professionals and the police all failed to protect Baby Peter from three individuals who set out to harm him."

The judge told all three defendants that "significant force" had been used on Peter "on a number of occasions".

"Whatever the truth of what took place and the role and motivation of each individual, the result was that a child died in horrific circumstances with injuries that can only have caused great pain and distress prior to his death."

Peter's mother wrote a letter to the judge from prison that was read aloud in court yesterday.

In it she apologised for the pain and suffering she had caused and begged her family, including Peter's natural father, for forgiveness.

"I have lost all I hold dear to me. Now every day of my life is full of guilt and trying to come to terms with my failure as a mother," she wrote.

"I punish myself on a daily basis and there is not a day that goes by where I don't cry at some point."

Peter's natural father told the Old Bailey yesterday of his horror at the knowledge that the little boy suffered months of pain, fear and loneliness before his death.

He said his life had become a "living nightmare" since losing his son.

In a victim impact statement, the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told of the moment he was confronted with his son's lifeless body in a north London hospital. "He appeared to be asleep, and I just wanted to pick him up and take him home. But there was nothing I could do for him.

"I kissed him on his forehead and said goodbye. My son was gone forever."

Peter's death prompted an outpouring of public anger and led to strong criticism of the social workers, police officers and health professionals responsible for protecting him.

Five employees of Haringey council in north London were sacked, including the children's services director Sharon Shoesmith, and the General Medical Council has suspended two doctors involved in the case.

news.notes20090522i

[News From Space and Beyond] from [ABCNEWS]

Stormy Weather Keeps Space Shuttle up Extra Day
Stormy weather keeps space shuttle Atlantis up extra day; NASA aims for Saturday landing

By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. May 22, 2009 (AP)

Thunderstorms prevented space shuttle Atlantis and its crew from landing Friday, leaving them to circle the Earth hoping the weather would improve by the following day.

The news came as no surprise to the seven astronauts, who are wrapping up a successful mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. For days, the weather outlook had been grim. By dawn, all the forecasts proved to be true and there was no hope of improvement, forcing NASA to pass up both of Friday morning's landing opportunities.

"Appreciate your patience," Mission Control said. "We don't see any value in waiting two or three hours, so we're going to wave off for the day."

"We know you looked at it hard," replied commander Scott Altman. "We appreciate you making the call early and understand."

NASA is now aiming to bring Atlantis back on Saturday morning after 12 days of flight, if not at Kennedy Space Center then possibly at the backup landing site in Southern California. Forecasters held out only slight hope of improvement in Florida, over the next few days, because of the stalled low-pressure system stretching from the Gulf of Mexico into the Caribbean. The weather over at Edwards Air Force Base, on the other hand, looked good.

The shuttle has enough supplies to stay up until Monday.

NASA prefers a Florida touchdown because of the time and money — about $1.8 million — it takes to haul a shuttle across the country atop a modified jumbo jet.

The astronauts settled in and relaxed after getting the news of the delay. "We're enjoying the view," Altman said.

Atlantis blasted off May 11 on NASA's last trip to Hubble. The astronauts carried out five back-to-back spacewalks to fix and upgrade the 19-year-old observatory, now considered better than ever.

The repairs added five to 10 years to Hubble's working lifetime. Scientists hope to begin beaming back the results by early September.

One of the Hubble cameras that was replaced is returning to Earth aboard Atlantis so it can be put on display at the Smithsonian Institution. A more powerful and sophisticated wide-field camera took its place.

The six men and one woman aboard Atlantis were the last humans to set eyes on Hubble up close. NASA plans no more satellite-servicing missions of this type, with the space telescope or anything else. That's because the shuttle is being retired next year. The replacement craft will essentially be a capsule to ferry astronauts back and forth to the international space station and, ultimately, the moon.

NASA considered this fifth and final Hubble repair mission so dangerous that, in 2004, a year after the Columbia tragedy, it was canceled. The space agency reinstated it two years later after putting a potential rescue mission in place and developing repair methods for astronauts in orbit.

news.notes20090522j

[HEALTH] from [CNN.com]

NASA puts off shuttle landing until Saturday

CNN) -- NASA officials have postponed the landing of space shuttle Atlantis until Saturday because of weather concerns.

The first opportunity to land the shuttle at Florida's Kennedy Space Center will be at 9:16 a.m. ET Saturday, NASA said on its Web site.

NASA canceled two possible landing times Friday morning because of a weather system that has dumped more than 2 feet of rain over parts of northeastern Florida.

That weather system is lingering in the Gulf of Mexico and continues to spread rain across the region.

If the weather continues to cause problems Saturday, the shuttle could land at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The space agency listed five potential landing times for Saturday.

NASA also listed six potential landing times on Sunday for Edwards, Kennedy and White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

Atlantis launched May 11 for NASA's final repair visit to the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis astronauts conducted spacewalks during the mission to perform routine repairs and replace key instruments.

The mission was one of the most ambitious space repair efforts ever attempted. Hubble was released back into solo orbit Tuesday morning.

In space for 19 years, Hubble can capture clear images that telescopes on Earth cannot, partly because it does not have to gaze through Earth's murky atmosphere.

news.notes20090522k

[Today's Headlines] from [REUTERS]

Japan eases flu rules, no let up in Australia

Fri May 22, 2009 9:52am EDT
By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan scaled back measures for handling the H1N1 flu on Friday but there was no let up for the rest of Asia as experts warned of more trouble with the approach of winter in the southern hemisphere.

Japan's move came after most of the nearly 300 infections in the country appeared to be mild and officials tried to reduce disruption the contagious new disease brought to everyday life.

"It is important to make it possible for the local government to respond flexibly depending on the situation of the region," Prime Minister Taro Aso told a meeting on influenza.

Japanese central bank governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Friday the flu was not having a major impact on the country's economy.

With Japan's new guidelines, suspected patients in areas where infections are rapidly increasing can go to regular medical institutions rather than "fever centers" and schools would not be automatically shut down.

Quarantine checks on most airplanes will also no longer be conducted. Japan also relaxed its travel warning for Mexico.

Julian Tang, a consultant with the microbiology division at Singapore's National University Hospital said the scaling back of measures, such as in Japan, was understandable.

"This virus will continue to spread. I'm not saying we should stop trying to prevent its spread at this point - particularly in countries where there are few or no cases, but this seems to be a well-adapted human flu virus that may well become part of the seasonal circulating influenza viruses in the future," he said.

"The type of extreme quarantining used in Hong Kong for their first case, in retrospect, may no longer be necessary - given the relatively mild nature of this virus so far."

TURNING "NASTY"

An expert in the southern hemisphere warned of more trouble ahead with winter approaching.

Robert Booy who heads Sydney university's immune research and surveillance center said more people than usual in Southern hemisphere countries could become infected this winter and die from the new swine flu because of the "novelty" of the virus.

"Once you have enough virus out there, evolution is simple," Booy said, adding the H1N1 virus could change to the point that it could get "nasty."

The H1N1 flu strain is a never-before-seen mixture of swine, bird and human viruses that spreads easily between people. It has killed 85 people and infected more than 11,000 in 41 countries, according to the World Health Organization.

So far the symptoms of the new virus appear mild, but it is starting to cause more severe effects as it spreads.

U.S. federal health researchers said on Thursday the seasonal flu vaccine provides virtually no protection against the new flu.

Their study also supports an intriguing theory that people over the age of 60 have some immunity to the new H1N1 strain, perhaps because it resembles an older version of seasonal flu.

In Australia, where cases have spread across several states and two of its 11 infections were locally contracted, the government raised its flu alert level to mid-range "containment" on Friday. This would give it power to shut schools.

In Hong Kong, the epicenter of the SARS epidemic in 2003, officials were taking no chances even though it has had only three cases of H1N1 so far, all imported.

"If there are many patients, we will have designated clinics that will perform checkups and monitor them and administer antiviral drugs (Tamiflu) if needed. We will require them to be quarantined at home," health secretary York Chow said.