RUSSIA - Sochi Olympics Doping Scandal

"RUSSIA SLAMMED IN WADA DOPING REPORT" by REBECCA R. RUIZ (New York Times writer), San Diego Union-Tribune 11/10/2015

NOTE:  This is from the online version, therefore no link.

Members of Russia’s secret service intimidated workers at a drug-testing lab to cover up top athletes’ positive results.  They impersonated lab engineers during the Winter Olympics in Sochi last year.  A lab once destroyed more than 1,400 samples.  Athletes adopted false identities to avoid unexpected testing.  Some paid to make doping violations disappear.  Others bribed the anti-doping authorities to ensure favorable results, and top sports officials routinely submitted bogus urine samples for athletes who were doping.  Those allegations were among hundreds contained in a report released Monday by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).  Across 323 pages, it implicated athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors and various Russian institutions, laying out what is very likely the most extensive state sponsored doping program since the notorious East German regime of the 1970s.

In addition to providing a granular look at systematic doping, the group that drafted the report made extraordinary recommendations, including a proposal that Russia be suspended from competition by track and field’s governing body and barred from track and field events at next summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“It’s worse than we thought,” Dick Pound, founding president of the World Anti-Doping Association and an author of the report, said at a news conference in a Geneva hotel.  “This is an old attitude from the Cold War days,” he said.  Russian officials responded with defiance, disputing the investigation’s findings.  “Whatever we do, everything is bad,” Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister, told the news agency Interfax.  “If this whole system needs to shut down, we will shut it down gladly.  We will stop paying fees, stop funding the Russian anti-doping agency, the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.  We will only save money.”

Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, director of the Moscow lab whom Monday’s report accused of having solicited and accepted bribes, dismissed the suggestions.  “This is an independent commission which only issues recommendations,” he said.  “There are three fools sitting there who don’t understand the laboratory.”

Pound said he had presented the group’s findings to Mutko before they were released publicly.  “He’s frustrated to some degree,” he said.  “He certainly knew what was going on.  They all knew.”

The report also recommended WADA impose lifetime bans on five Russian coaches and five athletes, including the gold and bronze medalists from the women’s 800 meters at the 2012 London Olympics.

“The Olympic Games in London were, in a sense, sabotaged by the admission of athletes who should have not been competing,” the report read.

Bans from competition are not all that could come of the inquiry.  Pound said the agency had negotiated a cooperation agreement with Interpol and handed over extensive documents and evidence.  Interpol confirmed that cooperation with its own announcement Monday, noting that related inquiries stretched from Singapore to France.

Last week, French authorities announced they had opened a criminal investigation into the former president of track and field’s world governing body, Lamine Diack of Senegal, for having allegedly accepted bribes to allow at least six Russian athletes to compete, including in the 2012 Olympics.

The former director of the medical and anti-doping division of that governing body is also under investigation, the International Association of Athletics Federations, French authorities said, along with Diack’s legal counsel.

Russian athletes, in soaring numbers, have been caught doping in recent years.  Russia had far more drug violations than any other country in 2013: 225, or 12 percent of all violations globally, according to data from WADA.  About a fifth of Russia’s infractions involved track and field athletes, the focus of Monday’s report.

“This level of corruption attacks sport at its core,” Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer and an author of the report, said in an interview.  In contrast to corporate governance scandals like those roiling world soccer, he said, drug use by athletes has distorted the essence of professional games.  “Bribes and payoffs don’t change actual sporting events,” McLaren said.  “But doping takes away fair competition.”  The report released Monday was the result of a 10 month investigation by an independent commission of WADA.  Its inquiry stemmed from a December documentary by the German public broadcaster ARD, which drew on accounts from Russian athletes, coaches and anti-doping authorities, who said the Russian government had helped procure drugs for athletes and cover up positive test results.

Further allegations emerged in August, when ARD and The Sunday Times of London released another report more broadly focused on the leaked results of thousands of international athletes’ blood tests dating to 2001, showing decorated athletes in good standing with suspicious drug tests.  Those allegations — which drew significant suspicion to Kenya — are also being investigated by the independent commission, but the results were not included in Monday’s report, as the inquiry is continuing, the agency said.

The three-person commission, chaired by Pound, also included McLaren, who teaches law at Western University in Ontario, and Gunter Younger, head of cybercrime for the police in the German state of Bavaria.

WADA’s foundation and executive board will decide whether to act on the commission’s recommendations; they are scheduled to meet next week in Colorado Springs, Colo., an event that motivated the timing of the release of the commission’s report, Pound said.

In a statement Monday, the International Olympic Committee called the report “deeply shocking,” and said it trusted the judgment of the IAAF, which would decide whether to bar Russia from competition.

Pound did not offer any time frame for the recommended suspension.  If Russia did not fight the prescriptions — to enact rigorous and specific drug-testing controls — he said he thought it could be possible for the country’s track and field athletes to compete in the summer Olympics.

The commission also recommended that the Russian anti-doping authority be declared non-code-compliant, indefinitely; that the director of the Moscow laboratory be removed from his job; and that the lab, which was provisionally banned in 2013, lose its accreditation.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 11/6/2015

"Shields and Brooks on Keystone pipeline politics, Ben Carson claims" PBS NewsHour 11/6/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline after seven years, and the October jobs report offered a brighter labor outlook.  Judy Woodruff discusses the week’s news with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, including claims about Ben Carson’s past, questions about Marco Rubio’s finances and revelations in a new biography about George H.W. Bush.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, first, a White House decision finally on the Keystone pipeline, a rough week for some Republican candidates, and wins for conservatives on Election Day.

First, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Gentlemen, welcome.

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist:  Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  It’s great to have you here.

So, that Keystone pipeline decision, David, the president finally — seven years later, we now know he’s against it.

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  Yes.  Well, first of all, it could be mythical.  With oil prices so low, they might never build it anyway.  So, it really doesn’t matter at some level.

But pretending it matters, I do think it’s an anti-environmental, anti-science move.  His State Department and many other experts decided, if the oil is going to come out of the sands, it’s a lot cleaner to have it go through the pipeline than to put on trains or trucks and send it over to China through ships that way.

And, so, if the oil comes out of the sands, which it’s going to do if it makes economic sense, we might as well do it in the cleanest way possible.  So, to me, this is just a political decision to placate some people who he’s offended with some of his other decisions.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Political decision, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS:  I don’t think anyone could accuse the President of being impulsive.  It was seven years, five exhaustive studies.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS:  And I think it became a symbol for both sides, bigger than it was really.

I don’t think it was going to be an environmental disaster.  And I don’t think, with gasoline $2 a gallon cheaper than it was the day that Barack Obama was nominated, the urgency had abated.

PRESIDENT OBAMA - Keystone XL Decision

"Obama:  Keystone XL wouldn’t serve national interest" PBS NewsHour 11/6/2015

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  To many observers, President Obama’s decision on the Keystone pipeline may have seemed like a forgone conclusion.

But earlier during his term, environmentalists were worried that he would approve it.  Climate change, however, has become a central focus of the Obama second term, and it was very much on his mind today when he announced the decision.  It was a decision seven years in the making.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  After extensive public outreach and consultation with other cabinet agencies, the State Department has decided the Keystone XL pipeline wouldn’t serve the national interest of the United States.  I agree with that decision.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  With that, President Obama formally rejected TransCanada’s application to extend the controversial pipeline.  The massive network would have connected oil sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Gulf Coast, adding to existing pipelines.  It would have carried 800,000 barrels of oil a day.

The company, along with many Republican lawmakers in the U.S., argued the project would create thousands of jobs and lower gas prices.  But Mr. Obama disagreed, pointing out gas prices are already lower.  More importantly, he said, the pipeline wasn’t in line with his administration’s efforts to combat climate change.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  Today, we’re continuing to lead by example, because, ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable, but uninhabitable, in our lifetimes, we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground, rather than burn them.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  TransCanada quickly condemned the decision, calling it — quote — “misplaced symbolism.”

The company’s statement read:  “It is disappointing the administration appears to have said yes to more oil imports from Iran and Venezuela over oil from Canada, the United States’ strongest ally and trading partner.”

And even some Democrats in Congress, from states the pipeline would have passed through, criticized the move.

Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas:

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D), Texas:  So, you’re talking about jobs, you’re talking about energy independence.  And, all of a sudden, the State Department flip-flops and goes to the other directions.  Bottom line, it’s a job creator, and I see that on a day-to-day basis in my district.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  President Obama had faced considerable pressure from the left to act, while he kept his own opinion under wraps.

Environmental activists staged large protests in front of the White House and demanded he reject the proposal.  Today, they called the decision a big win.

But the fate of the pipeline could change after the 2016 elections if TransCanada reapplies.  Several Republican presidential candidates said today they would reverse Mr. Obama’s decision.

"What’s the impact of Obama’s Keystone pipeline decision?" PBS NewsHour 11/6/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  What do lawmakers think of President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline?  Judy Woodruff gets thoughts on the economic, environmental and political fallout from Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

U.S. NAVY - South China Sea

China, the bully on the 'block.'

"Why the U.S. Navy is navigating the South China Sea" PBS NewsHour 11/5/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  What do recent U.S. naval forays in the South China Sea -- including Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s visit aboard an aircraft carrier -- mean for tensions with China over the disputed waters?  Hari Sreenivasan speaks to Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Joining me now to help us understand the United States’ recent activity in the South China Sea and what it means is Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

So, first, how big a deal is this, if Ash Carter gets on a very nice ship and decides to take a cruise in territorially disputed waters?

BONNIE GLASER, Center for Strategic and International Studies:  Well, Secretary Carter has done this previously, when he attended the Shangri-La dialogue in June of this year.

He was on a P-8 surveillance aircraft flying over the Malacca Straits.  So it’s not unusual for the United States secretary of defense to be on a military platform out in the South China Sea demonstrating to the region that the United States has an abiding interest in peace and stability in the region.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Is it a provocative act to be in this specific place at this time?

BONNIE GLASER:  Undoubtedly, the Chinese see it as a provocative act, but I think that the other nations in the regions do not.

I think if you look at Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, the other claimants, they are very happy to see the United States’ flag shown in the region.  They supported the United States exercising freedom of navigation around what is called Subi Reef, which is the elevation, the low-tide elevation that the USS Lassen, a destroyer, conducted a freedom of navigation operation in just a few days ago.

So, this is something that the region supports generally.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  The freedom of navigation idea, is it a right that sort of use it or lose it?  If you don’t use it, is that kind of what we’re stressing here by having carrier groups go through?

BONNIE GLASER:  The United States has been doing this of course for centuries.  And since 1979, it has had a freedom of navigation program.

And, in fact, this is the seventh what we call FONOP that has been conducted since 2011 in the South China Sea.  And, yes, I think if the Navy does not sail through, and not just the U.S. Navy, but Australia navy, Japan’s navy doesn’t sail through waters that are high seas, that they are not territorial seas of other countries, even in territorial seas, we can sail through making innocent passage.

And, in fact, that is really what we did in this case.  We sailed through a territorial sea of China’s Subi Reef.  So, yes, you have to exercise it or other countries may claim it and may try to exclude other navies.

POLITICS - Bush on Bush

"What did Bush 41 think of his son’s presidency?  New bio reveals" PBS NewsHour 11/5/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In writing “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” Jon Meacham was given unprecedented access to the Bush family and their personal diaries.  Judy Woodruff sits down with Meacham to talk about what he learned about the former President, as well as what Bush 41 thought of his son George W.’s administration.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Biographies don’t always make news, but a new book on George H.W. Bush is garnering headlines across the country today for how Bush 41 felt about his son’s response to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent invasion of Iraq, among other things.

The book will not be published until next week, but we have an early look.  For “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” Jon Meacham, the executive editor at Random House, relied not only on extensive interviews of the president’s family, staff, and friends, but also on the nearly daily audio diaries the President recorded while in the White House.

Judy Woodruff talked with him earlier this week for the NewsHour Bookshelf.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Jon Meacham, welcome.

JON MEACHAM, Author, Destiny and Power:  Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  You had extraordinary, maybe unprecedented access to this president, all of his diaries, Barbara Bush’s diaries, the ability to interview almost everybody in the family.  Why do you think they trusted you with all this?

JON MEACHAM:  Well, I hope they felt that I would call it like I saw it, which was the sort of the mandate from the president.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  A life of privilege.  I mean, he certainly grew up in this family involved in politics, great wealth, but he also had a sense of responsibility from a very early age.  What do you think shaped him?

JON MEACHAM:  Well, you know, he comes out of the same world of noblesse oblige that shaped Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, and, frankly, some of the founding fathers.

You could argue that, culturally and temperamentally, George H.W. Bush has more in common with the founders than he does with his successors generationally, in terms of their life experience.  You know, his mother was hugely important.  She was very religious and very competitive in equal parts, I think, it’s safe to say.

And he believed in the doctrine, to whom much is given, much is expected.  What’s really interesting, I think — and I hadn’t realized this until I got into Mrs. Bush’s diary — is that there was an expectation, there was a sense that he could be president, that possibility was within the realm of the probable, as early as the 1950s.

HEALTH - Lewy Body Dementia

"Robin Williams had a disease that mimics Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and schizophrenia" PBS NewsHour 11/5/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  According to Robin Williams’ widow, an autopsy has revealed that the comedian suffered from Lewy body dementia before he committed suicide.  Susan Schneider Williams described the battle to treat and understand her late husband's symptoms as a game of Whac-A-Mole.  William Brangham learns about the lesser-known but common illness from Dr. James Galvin of Florida Atlantic University.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  After Robin Williams took his own life, his press representative said Williams was battling severe depression.  His widow, Susan Schneider Williams, also said back then that he was struggling with depression and early stages of Parkinson’s disease

But this week, Mrs. Williams told ABC News and “People” magazine that an autopsy revealed something else.  He had what is known as Lewy body dementia.  She described battling a mysterious set of symptoms for a year, something she compared to playing Whac-A-Mole — quote — “They present themselves like a pinball machine,” she said.  “You don’t know exactly what you’re looking at.  I have spent this last year trying to find out what killed Robin, because we didn’t know. He didn’t know.”

Joining me now to help us understand more about this disease is neurologist Dr. James Galvin.  He’s a professor and associate dean for clinical research at Florida Atlantic University.

Dr. Galvin, thank you for joining us.

It seems that before this news about Robin Williams broke, most of us had never heard of this disease.  Can you tell me a little bit more about it?

DR. JAMES GALVIN, Florida Atlantic University:  Sure.

So, Lewy body dementia may be the most common disease you have never heard of.  It’s the second most common cause of memory problems after Alzheimer’s disease and affects over 1.3 million Americans.  Its predominant symptoms are a progressive change in memory and other thinking functions, signs of Parkinson’s, so; slow movement, stiffness, balance problems, visual hallucinations, seeing things that aren’t there, like little people or furry little animals, fluctuations in levels of attention, concentration, and, lastly, a sleep disorder where people act out their dreams.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Among that huge array of symptoms, I’m curious about the particular visual hallucinations you described.  Is that common for a certain type of dementia to have such specific hallucinations?

DR. JAMES GALVIN:  It’s very common in Lewy body dementia.

Typically, if other dementias, other memory problems develop hallucinations, they’re not until much later in the course of the disease, and the hallucinations are not so well-formed.

What’s particularly characteristic of Lewy body dementia are these very well-formed hallucinations.  They’re usually not frightening initially to the patient, but they are very well-formed.  They usually can describe exactly what they’re seeing.

MIDDLE EAST - Looking back, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin

"The assassination that shattered Mideast peace dreams" PBS NewsHour 11/4/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Twenty years ago Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin addressed an evening rally in Tel Aviv in support of his peace accords with the Palestinians.  Moments later he was fatally shot by a Jewish ultra-nationalist who opposed the peace initiative.  Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner looks back at events leading up to the assassination.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now, the elusive goal of peace in the Middle East.

Two decades ago, there was a moment of hope.

But, as chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports, the assassination that shattered that momentum still resonates today.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  One hundred thousand people swelled the crowd at a Tel Aviv peace rally 20 years ago tonight, as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took the microphone to speak.

YITZHAK RABIN, Prime Minister, Israel (through interpreter):  We know how to make peace, and not just sing about peace.

MARGARET WARNER:  But minutes later, he was fatally gunned down by a 27-year-old Jewish ultra-nationalist opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians.

Rabin was nearing the end of a reelection campaign and pressing forward with peace initiatives on several fronts.  He’d already signed the historic Oslo accords in Washington in 1993, famously shaking hands with Yasser Arafat, head the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO.

For the first time, Israelis and Palestinians agreed to acknowledge each other’s right to exist.

"How 20 years since Rabin’s death has changed peace prospects" PBS NewsHour 11/4/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  What would have been different if Israeli Minister Yitzhak Rabin hadn’t been murdered 20 years ago?  Gwen Ifill gets reflections on the late leader and the peace process then and today from former Middle East peace negotiator Dennis Ross, Israeli columnist Ari Shavit and Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab.

CALIFORNIA - The Water Problem

"To build or not to build, that’s the dam question in dry California" PBS NewsHour 11/3/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Across California, after years of punishing drought, reservoirs that normally fill canals and make crops bloom are greatly depleted or even empty.  Some say that getting more water into storage by building more dams is key.  But dams also create problems for native fish, and some see them as a waste of money that may not provide sufficient supply.  Special correspondent Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS (NewsHour):  It may be the sign of a hopeful farmer, a biplane spreading fertilizer on a dry field in California’s Central Valley.  There’s no irrigation in this part of the valley, so, for now, rain is the only way these crops will grow, and there hasn’t been much of that for the last four years.

And the reservoirs, like Folsom Lake near Sacramento, that normally fill the canals and make the crops bloom, are depleted.  Folsom is just 17 percent full.

TIM QUINN, Executive Director, Association of California Water Agencies:  It’s flat-out empty because of this drought.

SPENCER MICHELS:  Tim Quinn is executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies.

And what’s the solution to this, build another reservoir?

TIM QUINN:  Well, if we’d had more water going into storage, we could still have more left than we have got today.

SPENCER MICHELS:  And that’s important, says Quinn, not just to Californians.

TIM QUINN:  We’re a big part of this economy.  And we provide food to the nation and to the world.

SPENCER MICHELS:  Quinn and many in state government want a comprehensive solution, including conservation.

TIM QUINN:  We do need to build more dams, but we also need to connect them with more underground storage.

SPENCER MICHELS:  But building new dams goes against a recent trend in some states, including Washington, of actually demolishing dams, mostly for environmental reasons like protecting fish and restoring wildlife habitat.

These days in California, the mood is quite different.  Since the gold rush, building dams and canals has been California’s answer to unpredictable rain and snowfall.  To get the water from where it falls in the mountains hundreds of miles away to the dry farms and populated areas, Californians have constructed more than 1,400 dams, including Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River.

In 1968, the state dedicated Oroville Dam, tallest dam in the country, and sent water south to farms and cities.  For many farmers and those whose livelihoods are tied to farming, the success of those dams is a key to what needs to happen now.

IMHO:  Without water you, and every other living thing dies.  A dry parched environment is also harmful.  BUILD MORE DAMS, just be smart about it.

ELECTION 2015 - On State Ballots

"From legal pot to Airbnb limits, 2015 election offers test cases to watch" PBS NewsHour 11/3/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  On this Election Day, a handful of states voted to elect state and local leaders and decide a number of ballot measures, from the legalization of marijuana to the expansion of LGBT protections.  Judy Woodruff gets a rundown of the contests from Reid Wilson of Morning Consult.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The presidential election may still be a year away, but a handful of states voted today to elect state and local leaders and decide on a number of important ballot measures.  Issues ranged from the legalization of marijuana to the expansion of LGBT protections.

For a look at the big races and voter initiatives around the country, we are joined by Reid Wilson of the Web site and newsletter Morning Consult.

So, welcome, Reid Wilson.

Let’s start out talking about some of these major ballot measures around the country, Ohio looking at legalizing marijuana, but in a limited way.  Tell us about that one.

REID WILSON, Morning Consult:  Ohio would become fifth state along with the District of Columbia to legalize marijuana for recreational use, but there is a little twist here.

As states create new laws about marijuana, they have to come up with new regulatory structures.  Nobody has ever regulated marijuana, because it’s always simply been illegal.  So what Ohio is thinking of doing is allowing 10 groups, 10 businesses to control production for the first four years or so.

It seems a way to sort of control what makes it to the market and to sort of demand some quality.  However, there are a lot of people who are worried that they’re essentially handing over monopoly control of a major industry — and it is a major industry — there are millions at stake here — to just a small handful of people, including some very wealthy investors.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, if this passed, it would set a precedent. It would be different.

REID WILSON:  Well, every state that has legalized marijuana has done so in a slightly different way.  Washington State regulates it like alcohol.  Colorado regulates it in a sort of slightly different way that allows sellers to grow their own marijuana.

Everybody is sort of trying to figure out what’s right, what is the right way to do these things.  The big question is, what is going to come on the ballot in 2016?  There are at least 17 states that are considering some kind of marijuana legislation or ballot initiatives, including 10 alone in the state of California.

TURKEY - Election Results

"Do Turkey’s election results signal stability or steps toward autocratic rule?" PBS NewsHour 11/2/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  After five months of political instability and uncertainty, Turkey is again under firm control of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, which regained its majority in a national election Sunday.  Supporters say it’s a return to stability, but opponents worry that the win signals a shift towards autocracy. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  The call to prayer rang out around Central Istanbul today, reinforcing the message that after five months of political instability, Turkey is now back on a familiar track, under the firm control of the Islamic A.K., or A.K. Party, founded by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Political analysts here believe most Turks rejected the opposition parties because they needed a sense of security during a dangerous time.  But not everyone in Taksim Square was happy.

MAN:  Like I said, personally, I’m upset about what is going on.  You don’t have to be asking normal citizens.  I think everybody knows about how democracy goes on here in Turkey, so many prisoners.  You can’t say what you’re thinking, exactly.  I don’t feel free.  I’m also a bit scared.

WOMAN (through interpreter):  I think our people selected stability once again.  And I think they decided well with a single-party government again.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  As the A.K. Party celebrated last night, the prime minister urged his parliamentarians to employ humility, instead of triumphalism.  President Erdogan wasn’t giving much away about his intentions today.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, Turkish President (through interpreter):  The national will manifested itself on November 1 in favor of stability.  After the short-term developments, the national will decided that there is no way out other than choosing stability.  They decided in favor of stability.  I hope this outcome will be good for our people and our country.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  But international observers complained about election irregularities.  Representing European election monitors, Andreas Gross urged President Erdogan to end Turkey’s divisions and to be less authoritarian.

ANDREAS GROSS, European Election Monitor:  Fear is the enemy of democracy, enemy of free choice.  And in this sense, we are disappointed of the quality of the process.  And in light of this, it is even more vital that this is an appeal that the president works in the future for a more inclusive political process.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Leading Turkish political analyst Cengiz Aktar believes President Erdogan is now on course to get a referendum aimed at boosting his executive powers.

ISIS - Prophesying the End-of-Days

(aka "The World of the Delusional")

"How the Islamic State group justifies brutality with an apocalyptic vision" PBS NewsHour 11/2/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Islamic State militant group is taking advantage of chaos and upheaval in the Middle East to recruit fighters by prophesying the end of days, says William McCants, an early Islam historian.  McCants joins chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner to discuss his new book “The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State.”

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now another addition to the NewsHour Bookshelf.

As the U.S. steps up military efforts against the Islamic State in Syria, a question persists:  How did this extremely brutal group emerge so rapidly?  A new book offers one answer, “The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State.”  Its author is early Islam historian William McCants, senior fellow and project director at the Brookings Institution.

He spoke recently with chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  Will McCants, welcome.

You suggest right at the beginning of the book that it was triggered in a way by a question your father asked, which is, why do they do that?  Is that what this book is, an answer for that?

WILLIAM MCCANTS, Author, The ISIS Apocalypse:  That’s right.

My dad is 85 years old.  And like most Americans, he watches the news and he can’t understand why a group like the Islamic State is so brutal to people and why they would be so extreme in their actions.  So, it’s for him that I — and people like him that I wrote this book.

MARGARET WARNER:  So, you, as your title says, chalk that up to its apocalyptic vision.  What is that vision?

WILLIAM MCCANTS:  That’s right.

The Islamic State believes that the end of the world is approaching and it believes that it has also reestablished God’s kingdom on Earth.  And that kingdom is going to wage an epic battle against the infidels before it all comes tumbling down.

MARGARET WARNER:  And that drives them, what, with a special sense of urgency?

WILLIAM MCCANTS:  Gives them a special sense of urgency, but also has been terrific for recruiting.

They have been able to attract a lot of foreigners to their cause and many of the foreigners, based on interviews with journalists, say that the main reason they’re there is because they believe that the world is coming to an end and the Islamic State is a fulfillment of prophecy.  So, they’re traveling there to do their bit.

GREED FILES - EPA's Revolving Door

"Why the United States Leaves Deadly Chemicals on the Market" by Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman, In These Times 11/2/2015

Excerpt (very long article)

A 6-month investigation finds that the revolving door between government and the chemical industry has led the EPA to rely on easily manipulated research.  The result? Toxic substances remain in everyday products.

Scientists are trained to express themselves rationally.  They avoid personal attacks when they disagree.  But some scientific arguments become so polarized that tempers fray.  There may even be shouting.

Such is the current state of affairs between two camps of scientists, health effects researchers and regulatory toxicologists.  Both groups study the effects of chemical exposures in humans.  Both groups have publicly used terms like “irrelevant,” “arbitrary,” “unfounded” and “contrary to all accumulated physiological understanding” to describe the other’s work.  Privately, the language becomes even harsher, with phrases such as “a pseudoscience,” “a religion” and “rigged.”

The rift centers around the best way to measure the health effects of chemical exposures.  The regulatory toxicologists typically rely on computer simulations called “physiologically based pharmacokinetic” (PBPK) modeling.  The health effects researchers—endocrinologists, developmental biologists and epidemiologists, among others—draw their conclusions from direct observations of how chemicals actually affect living things.

The debate may sound arcane, but the outcome could directly affect your health.  It will shape how government agencies regulate chemicals for decades to come; how toxic waste sites are cleaned up, how pesticides are regulated, how workers are protected from toxic exposure and what chemicals are permitted in household items.  Those decisions will profoundly affect public health; the rates at which we suffer cancer, diabetes, obesity, infertility, and neurological problems like attention disorders and lowered IQ.

The link from certain chemicals to these health effects is real.  In a paper published earlier this year, a group of leading endocrinologists concluded with 99 percent certainty that environmental exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals causes health problems.  They estimate that this costs the European Union healthcare system about $175 billion a year.

Closer to home, Americans are routinely sickened by toxic chemicals whose health effects have been long known.  To cite one infamous example, people exposed to the known carcinogen formaldehyde in FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina suffered headaches, nosebleeds and difficulty breathing.  Dozens of cancer cases were later reported.  Then there are workplace exposures, which federal government estimates link to as many as 20,000 cancer deaths a year and hundreds of thousands of illnesses.

“We are drowning our world in untested and unsafe chemicals, and the price we are paying in terms of our reproductive health is of serious concern,” wrote the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics in a statement released on October 1.

Yet chemical regulation in the United States has proceeded at a glacial pace.  And corporate profit is at the heart of the story.

That the chemical industry exerts political influence is well documented.  What our investigation reveals is that, 30 years ago, corporate interests began to control not just the political process but the science itself.  Industry not only funds research to cast doubt on known environmental health hazards; it has also shaped an entire field of science—regulatory toxicology—to downplay the risk of toxic chemicals.

Our investigation traces this web of influence to a group of scientists working for the Department of Defense (DOD) in the 1970s and 1980s—the pioneers of PBPK modeling.  It quickly became clear that this type of modeling could be manipulated to minimize the appearance of chemical risk.  PBPK methodology has subsequently been advanced by at least two generations of researchers—including many from the original DOD group—who move between industry, government agencies and industry-backed research groups, often with little or no transparency.

The result is that chemicals known to be harmful to human health remain largely unregulated in the United States—often with deadly results.  For chemicals whose hazards are just now being recognized, such as the common plastics ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) and other endocrine disruptors, this lack of regulation is likely to continue unless the federal chemical review process becomes more transparent and relies less heavily on PBPK modeling.

Here we lay out the players, the dueling paradigms and the high-stakes health consequences of getting it wrong.

The dawn of PBPK simulation

The 1970s and 1980s saw a blizzard of environmental regulation.  The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Toxic Substances Control Act, along with the laws that established Superfund and Community Right-to-Know Programs, for the first time required companies— and military bases—using and producing chemicals to account for their environmental and health impacts.  This meant greater demand for chemical risk assessments as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to establish safety standards for workplace exposures and environmental cleanups.

In the 1980s, the now-defunct Toxic Hazards Research Unit at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was investigating the toxicity and health effects of chemicals used by the military.  Of particular concern to the DOD were the many compounds used by the military to build, service and maintain aircraft, vehicles and other machinery; fuels and fuel additives, solvents, coatings and adhesives.  The military is responsible for about 900 of the approximately 1,300 currently listed Superfund sites, many of which have been contaminated by these chemicals for decades.

In the mid-1980s, scientists at the Wright-Patterson Toxic Hazards Research Unit began using PBPK simulations to track how chemicals move through the body.  Known as in silico (in computers) models, these are an alternative to testing chemicals in vivo (in live animals) or in vitro (in a test tube).  They allow scientists to estimate what concentrations of a chemical (or its breakdown products) end up in a particular organ or type of tissue, and how long they take to exit the body.  The information can then be correlated with experimental data to set exposure limits—or not.

PBPK simulations made testing faster and cheaper, something attractive to both industry and regulators.  But the PBPK model has drawbacks.  “It tells you nothing about effects,” says Linda Birnbaum, director of both the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Toxicology Program (NTP).  Observational studies and laboratory experiments, on the other hand, are designed to discover how a chemical affects biological processes.

Even regulatory toxicologists who support PBPK acknowledge its limitations: “[PBPK models] are always going to be limited by the quality of the data that go into them,” says toxicologist James Lamb, who worked for the NTP and EPA in the 1980s and is now principal scientist at the consulting firm Exponent.

The late health effects researcher Louis Guillette, a professor at the Medical University of South Carolina famous for studies on DDT’s hormonedisrupting effects in Florida alligators, put it more bluntly: “PBPK?  My immediate response; Junk in, junk out.  The take-home is that most of the models [are] only as good as your understanding of the complexity of the system.”

Many biologists say PBPK-based risk assessments begin with assumptions that are too narrow, and thus often fail to fully capture how a chemical exposure can affect health.  For example, a series of PBPK studies and reviews by toxicologist Justin Teeguarden of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and his colleagues suggested that BPA breaks down into less harmful compounds and exits the body so rapidly that it is essentially harmless.  Their research began with certain assumptions; that BPA only mimics estrogen weakly, that it affects only the body’s estrogen system, and that 90 percent of BPA exposure is through digestion of food and beverages.  However, health effects research has shown that BPA mimics estrogen closely, can affect the body’s androgen and thyroid hormone systems, and can enter the body via pathways like the skin and the tissues of the mouth.  When PBPK models fail to include this evidence, they tend to underestimate risk.

Because of its reliance on whatever data are included, PBPK modeling can be deliberately manipulated to produce desired outcomes.  Or, as University of Notre Dame biologist Kristin Shrader-Frechette, who specializes in human health risk assessment, says: “Models can offer a means of avoiding the conclusions derived from actual experiments.”  In other words, PBPK models can be customized to provide results that work to industry’s advantage.

That’s not to say PBPK itself is to blame.  “Let’s not throw the baby out completely with the bathwater,” says New York University associate professor of environmental medicine and health policy Leo Trasande.  “However, when you have biology telling you there are basic flaws in the model, that’s a compelling reason that it’s time for a paradigm shift.”

A handy tool for industry

That PBPK studies could be used to make chemicals appear safer was as clear in the 1980s as it is now.  In a 1988 paper touting the new technique, Wright-Patterson scientists explained how their modeling had prompted the EPA to stop its regulation process for a chemical of great concern to the military, methylene chloride.

Methylene chloride is widely used as a solvent and as an ingredient in making plastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other industrial products.  By the 1990s, the U.S. military would be the country’s second greatest user.  Methylene chloride was—and remains—regulated under the Clean Air Act as a hazardous air pollutant because of its carcinogenic and neurotoxic effects.

Between 1985 and 1986, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimated that about 1 million workers a year were exposed to methylene chloride, and the EPA classified the compound as a “probable human carcinogen.”  A number of unions, including United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers, also petitioned OSHA to limit on-the-job exposure to methylene chloride.

In 1986, OSHA began the process of setting occupational exposure limits.  Stakeholders were invited to submit public comments.

Among the materials submitted was a PBPK study by Melvin Andersen, Harvey Clewell—both then working at Wright-Patterson—and several other scientists, including two employed by methylene chloride product manufacturer Dow Chemical.  Published in 1987, this study concluded, “Conventional risk analyses greatly overestimate the risk in humans exposed to low concentrations [of methylene chloride].”

Later that year, the EPA revised its previous health assessment of methylene chloride, citing the Wright-Patterson study to conclude that the chemical was nine times less risky than previously estimated.  The EPA “has halted its rulemaking on methylene chloride [based on our studies],” wrote Wright-Patterson scientists in 1988.

OSHA, too, considered the Wright-Patterson study in its methylene chloride assessment—and its rulemaking dragged on another 10 years before the agency finally limited exposure to the chemical.

The usefulness of PBPK modeling to industry did not escape the Wright-Patterson researchers.  “The potential impact,” wrote Andersen, Clewell and their colleagues in 1988, “is far reaching and not limited to methylene chloride.”  Using PBPK models to set exposure limits could help avoid setting “excessively conservative”—i.e., protective— limits that could lead to “unnecessary expensive controls” and place “constraints on important industrial processes.”  In other words, PBPK models could be used to set less-stringent environmental and health standards, and save industry money.

So far, they’ve been proven right.  The work done at Wright-Patterson set the stage for the next 30-plus years.  Results obtained using PBPK modeling—especially in industry-funded research, often conducted by former Wright-Patterson scientists—have downplayed the risk and delayed the regulation of numerous widely used and commercially lucrative chemicals.  These include formaldehyde, styrene, tricholorethylene, BPA and the pesticide chlorpyrifos.  For many such chemicals, PBPK studies contradict what actual biological experiments conclude.  Regulators often defer to the PBPK studies anyway.

A web of influence

At the time that PBPK modelling was being developed, the chemical industry was struggling with its public image.  The Bhopal, India, disaster—the methyl isocyanate release that killed and injured thousands—happened in 1984.  The following year, a toxic gas release at a West Virginia Union Carbide plant sent about 135 people to hospitals.

In response to these incidents, new federal regulations required companies to account for the storage, use and release of hazardous chemicals.  The minutes from a May 1988 Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) meeting show industry was feeling the pressure.  Noting the federal scrutiny and the growing testing requirements, the CMA recommended that industry help “develop exposure data” and “explore innovative ways to limit required testing to that which is needed.”

Industry had already begun to do this by founding a number of research institutes such as the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT), a nonprofit toxicology research institute (renamed the Hamner Institutes in an act of linguistic detoxification in 2007).  This period also saw the rise of for-profit consulting firms like Environ (1982), Gradient (1985), ChemRisk (1985) and K.S. Crump and Company (1986), with which industry would collaborate advantageously in the following decades.

“Our goal was to do the science that would help the EPA and other regulatory bodies make the policies,” explained William Greenlee, Hamner president and CEO, in an interview for a business website.  Indeed, over the past 30 years, Hamner and these consultancies have produced hundreds of PBPK studies, often with the support of chemical companies or trade groups.  Overwhelmingly, these studies downplay or cast doubt on chemicals’ health effects—and delay regulation.

“I have seen how scientists from the Hamner Institutes can present information in a way that carefully shapes or controls a narrative,” says Laura Vandenberg, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst.  She explains that Hamner scientists often use narrow time windows or present data in a limited context, rejecting information that does not conform to their models.  “These are the kinds of tactics used to manufacture doubt,” she says.

A close look at the authors of studies produced by these industry-linked research groups reveals a web of influence traceable to Wright-Patterson (see chart on following page).  At least 10 researchers employed at or contracted by Wright-Patterson in the 1980s went on to careers in toxicology at CIIT/Hamner, for-profit consulting firms or the EPA.  About half have held senior positions at Hamner, including the co-authors of many of the early Wright-Patterson PBPK studies: Melvin Anderson, now a chief scientific officer at Hamner, and Harvey Clewell, now a senior investigator at Hamner and principal scientist at the consulting firm ENVIRON.  “I’m probably given credit as the person who brought PBPK into toxicology and risk assessment,” Andersen told In These Times.

A revolving door between these industry-affiliated groups and federal regulators was also set in motion.  More than a dozen researchers have moved from the EPA to these for-profit consultancies; a similar number have gone in the other direction, ending up at the EPA or other federal agencies.

Further blurring the public-private line, CIIT/Hamner has received millions of dollars in both industry and taxpayer money.  The group stated on its website in 2007 that $18 million of its $21.5 million annual operating budget came from the “chemical and pharmaceutical industry.”  Information about its corporate funders is no longer detailed there, but Hamner has previously listed as clients and supporters the American Chemistry Council (formerly the CMA, and one of the most powerful lobbyists against chemical regulation), American Petroleum Institute, BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow, ExxonMobil, Chevron and the Formaldehyde Council.  At the same time, over the past 30 years, CIIT/Hamner has received nearly $160 million in grants and contracts from the EPA, DOD and Department of Health and Human Services.  In sum, since the 1980s, these federal agencies have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to industry-affiliated research institutes like Hamner.

But the federal reliance on industry-linked researchers extends further. Since 2000, the EPA has signed a number of cooperative research agreements with the ACC and CIIT/ Hamner.  All involve chemical toxicity research that includes PBPK modeling.  And in 2014, Hamner outlined additional research it will be conducting for the EPA’s next generation of chemical testing—the ToxCast and Tox21 programs.  Over the past five years, Hamner has received funding for this same research from the ACC and Dow.

Meanwhile, the EPA regularly contracts with for-profit consultancies to perform risk assessments, assemble peer review panels and select the scientific literature used in chemical evaluations.  This gives these private organizations considerable sway in the decision-making process, often with little transparency about ties to chemical manufacturers.  The upshot: Experts selected to oversee chemical regulation often overrepresent the industry perspective.

These cozy relationships have not gone unnoticed; the EPA has been called to task by both its own Office of Inspector General and by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.  “These arrangements have raised concerns that ACC or its members could potentially influence, or appear to influence, the scientific results that may be used to make future regulatory decisions,” wrote the GAO in a 2005 report.

Asked for comment by In These Times, the EPA said these arrangements do not present conflicts of interest.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 10/30/2015

"Shields and Brooks on shifting strategy in Syria, Paul Ryan’s speaker ascension" PBS NewsHour 10/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the Obama administration’s announcement that it is putting boots on the ground in Syria, newly elected Speaker Paul Ryan’s goals for the House and takeaways from the GOP debate in Boulder.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, first, there is a new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the political landscape may be shifting in the Republican race for the White House.

For that and more, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Welcome to you, gentlemen.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Friday before Halloween.  Thank you for being here.

So, let’s talk about the lead story tonight, Mark, and that is the decision by the administration to send less than 50 special operations troops into Syria.  They say, it’s not a change, there won’t be — they won’t be involved in combat.

But does this make it any clearer what the administration’s strategy is in Syria?

MARK SHIELDS:  No.

And it’s — well, taking them at their word that they won’t be involved in combat, Judy, obviously, they are now in harm’s way.  And it increases the risk or exposure of capture and all that that could mean.

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  Yes.  My view is, you can leave the Middle East, but it won’t leave you.  And so the President’s tried to withdraw from the Middle East and withdraw separately from Afghanistan, and, as a result, there has been a void and a chaos and the destruction of these two countries, of Syria and Iraq, as we formerly knew them, a continued crisis in Afghanistan.

And so he’s begun to look around and seeing the situation deteriorating, and he’s trying to adjust.  And, to his credit, he’s trying to adjust in a way that’s politically embarrassing, because he made these statements, we will not put combat — we will not put boots on the ground.  He said it bluntly in Syria.

But he’s doing the right thing.  The question is, is there a strategy?  And I still don’t see what the strategy is.  Are we willing to tolerate Assad?  Are we just trying to get ISIS?  Are we trying to get Assad?  Who are we actually trying to get?

And then it’s — the steps are so small.  And so it looks like the classic case of mission creep.  And what happens if one of these guys gets captured?  What happens if a Russian bomb lands on them?  You can imagine the world the day after that.

And so one would feel more comfortable if there was some plausible road forward, rather than what you get this feeling is, of a series of tactical mission creeps.

WAR ON ISIS - Syria, On the Ground and Diplomacy

"U.S. steps up military involvement against IS in Syria as Kerry meets for diplomatic talks" PBS NewsHour 10/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The White House confirmed that U.S. commandos are going into Northern Syria as part of a coalition aimed at dismantling the Islamic State, marking a shift from President Obama's previous stance against committing ground troops.  Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry attended talks on finding a diplomatic solution in Syria.  Judy Woodruff learns more from Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The United States steps up its mission in Syria, part of a coalition aimed at dismantling the Islamic State, as leaders from the U.S., Russia, and Iran meet in Vienna trying to find a political end to the civil war.

Confirmation that commandos are going into Northern Syria came at the day’s White House briefing.

JOSH EARNEST, White House Press Secretary:  The core of our military strategy inside of Syria is to build up the capacity of local forces.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Spokesman Josh Earnest gave few details on whether the U.S. effort will aid Kurdish or Arab fighters or both.

JOSH EARNEST:  The President did make a decision to intensify that support by offering a small number of U.S. special operations military personnel to offer them some advice and assistance on the ground as they take the fight to ISIL.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  That small number, Earnest said, is fewer than 50.  And he insisted they will not be on a combat mission.

JOSH EARNEST:  The responsibility that they have is not to lead the charge to take a hill.  It still means that they’re in a dangerous situation.  It still means that they will have all of the equipment that they need to protect themselves if necessary.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  U.S. special operations troops have conducted raids inside Syria, but this will be their first sustained presence.  It comes amid Russia’s month-old air campaign in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  And it marks a shift for President Obama.  He had said repeatedly he wouldn’t commit ground troops in Syria.

The military developments came as Secretary of State John Kerry was in Vienna for talks on a diplomatic solution in Syria.  There was no agreement on the future of Assad, but the U.S., Russia and other nations directed the U.N. to try again to bring Syria’s government and opposition groups to the table.

"Will U.S. military and diplomatic efforts help resolve the Syrian war?" PBS NewsHour 10/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  How significant is the Obama administration decision to send special forces into Syria to help combat the Islamic State?  And how does the move impact diplomatic efforts to end the war?  Judy Woodruff gets reaction from Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma and Michael McFaul of Stanford University.

GREECE - Tsipouro Tax

"Greeks find tax hike on a traditional liquor hard to swallow" PBS NewsHour 10/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Amid the financial crisis, there's one EU-imposed austerity measure that's causing particular angst among Greek citizens; a tax hike on one of the country's favorite traditional liquors.  Greeks are worried that raising taxes on Tsipouro, a powerful, clear type of brandy, will hurt the industry and farmers.  Hari Sreenivasan reports.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  In a barn full of pungent fumes, Demetrios Papafigos is distilling, applying the techniques of monks who created this quintessentially Greek elixir in the 14th century.

This alcohol time capsule, in the central town of Tyrnavos, is at the heart of the latest tax dispute in a country that’s broke and under intense pressure to extract as much revenue as possible from its citizens.  Brewed from fermented grape skins, it’s a powerful (40-45% alcohol by volume), clear type of brandy, similar to Italy’s grappa, called Tsipouro.

DEMETRIOS PAPAFIGOS, Licensed Tsipouro home Brewer (through interpreter):  Tsipouro provides the grape growers with supplementary income.  Without it, the vineyards would have to be uprooted.  The vineyards wouldn’t survive otherwise.

They have only survived thanks to production of Tsipouro, because, during difficult times, when bad weather destroyed the crop, we could even distill damaged grapes and make some money.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Fellow grape farmers from this close-knit community have joined Papafigos for lunch, washed down, of course, with Tsipouro.

If the European Union gets its way, the Tsipouro makers will have to pay double the alcohol excise duty, which is currently applied.  At the moment, the liquor enjoys a low taxation rate because it’s considered to be a traditional speciality, not one that’s mass produced.

And Antonis Giamelides, the technical director of the local cooperative, is deeply concerned.

ANTONIS GIAMELIDES, Technical Director, Tyrnavos Tsipouro Cooperative:  It’s a crazy situation.  We don’t know what will happen tomorrow.  If the excise taxes go up at that level, then it will destroy all the wine production in Greece, because these people will not be producing any grapes anymore, because it will not be profitable.

INEQUITY IN AMERICA - The Wall Street Loophole

"The war over a tax break for hedge funds and money managers" PBS NewsHour 10/29/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The so-called carried interest loophole is a tax break used by hedge funds and other investment groups that lets wealthy money managers pay a relatively low investment tax rate.  Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a close look at the controversial tax break.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now, a tax break that is coming under fire, one used by hedge funds and money managers, controversial because of the way profits are taxed at a much lower rate.

Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, explores what it’s all about, part of our weekly series Making Sen$e, which airs every Thursday on the NewsHour.

PROTESTERS: (NewsHour)  Hey, hedge fund billionaires!

PROTESTERS:  Pay your fair share!

Hey, hedge fund billionaires, pay your fair share!

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  The Hedge Clippers, an activist group targeting hedge fund billionaires and especially their tax breaks.  In the past few months, the Clippers have been taking their tools to their targets’ backyards, like their March field trip to Greenwich, Connecticut.

PROTESTERS:  Hedge funds, pay your taxes!  Billionaires, pay your taxes!

PAUL SOLMAN:  Their July jaunt to The Hamptons, summertime playground of the 0.1 percent.

PROTESTERS:  We can see your greedy side.

PAUL SOLMAN:  And, earlier this month, to the Midtown Manhattan headquarters of Bloomberg, where a conference was taking place to — quote — “celebrate the leaders and innovators who shape economies.”

LINK: Patriotic Millionaires

CHINA - One-Child Policy

"Facing a demographic crisis, China modifies its one-child policy" PBS NewsHour 10/29/2015

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to a massive shift in China.

Earlier today, its ruling Communist Party announced a turn from its more-than-three-decades-old restriction on the number of children couples can have.

Lucy Watson of Independent Television News reports from Beijing.

LUCY WATSON, Independent Television News:  China’s one-child policy is changing, and the end of its brutal intrusion into family life is nigh.  Couples will now be allowed two children.  For more than 35 years, the one-child rule has been enforced by punishing families.

BAI XIO LING, Mother (through interpreter):  When they fired me for having a second baby, we were almost too poor to feed ourselves.  We were beaten up for campaigning for my daughter’s life.  But nobody would listen to us.

LUCY WATSON:  Bai Xio Ling dared to have two daughters, Li Bing and Li Xue, two sisters eight years apart.  One exists according to Chinese law.  The other doesn’t, just because she came second.

LI XUE, Daughter (through interpreter):  I was born in China.  I’m Chinese.  But I have no rights.  I couldn’t go to school.  I can’t travel.  I can’t see a doctor.  Nothing in my life works.

LUCY WATSON:  It was in 1979 that the legislation was introduced by Deng Xiaoping to curb a then surging population and avoid stifling economic growth.  Now a different demographic crisis looms.

DU PENG, Renmin University (through interpreter):  A labor shortage and a rapidly aging population caused by the policy to undermine economic growth.  It’s not always good if the birthrate stays low.  We need a more balanced model.

LUCY WATSON:  But it could be too little too late in a country where the rights to have and raise a child are still being manipulated.

"Under new policy, will Chinese families choose a second child?" PBS NewsHour 10/29/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  China will now allow families to have not one but two children, due to the nation’s economic needs.  But has China’s policy change come too late?  Judy Woodruff discusses the impacts of the old policy on both the country and for individual families with Mei Fong, author of "One Child."

(Chinese Government = U.S. Tea Party, no change wanted)

POLITICS - Congress and the Debt Limit

(aka: Tea Party Terrorists Loose a Battle)

"Treasury Secretary Lew on Congress ‘coming to terms’ with the debt limit" PBS NewsHour 10/28/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The bipartisan budget deal passed by the House is the product of negotiations between Congressional leaders and the White House.  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sits down with Gwen Ifill to discuss how Congress achieved its moment of breakthrough, plus a rundown of some of the budget nuts and bolts.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Earlier this afternoon, I sat down with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew, thank you for joining us.

JACK LEW, Secretary of the Treasury:  Great to be with you, Gwen.

GWEN IFILL:  As we speak this afternoon, it looks like a vote is imminent on the budget deal and on budget deal that would also allow the debt limit to go up.

After kicking this can down the road repeatedly with Congress, what changed this time to allow a two-year deal to be on the verge of approval?

JACK LEW:  Well, I think a lot of things came together.

Obviously, the fact that the debt limit is going to be reached on Tuesday of next week, and they have to act before then, focused their minds on the debt limit in a very real way.  I have been communicating with Congress on a very regular basis.  It’s been getting closer and closer.  And I think it’s a good thing that they have reached an agreement, so that it certainly seems to be on track for the debt limit being raised in time to avoid that unnecessary self-inflicted wound.

On the budget side, there have been conversations going on for many years, but intensely for many weeks, to try and figure out how to resolve this year’s funding bills.  The approach is one that we have supported for a long time, which is to relieve the across-the-board cuts in sequestration by replacing the savings with a balanced mix of tax and spending items.

The breakthrough in the last week has enabled us to reach an agreement, where we have achieved that goal, and providing $80 billion of relief is going to give Congress the ability to write appropriations bills to meet our domestic needs and our defense needs.  This means that they will be able to invest in research and education and also in our national defense.

I think that’s what Americans want Congress to do.  It shouldn’t be so hard to get to these moments where these agreements can be reached.  And I hope this passes in a way that’s uneventful and enables Congress to get on with its work.

CULTURE AT RISK - Medieval Italian Town, Civita di Bagnoregio

"The crumbling, picture-perfect Italian town that’s making a comeback" PBS NewsHour 10/27/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  There are just seven year-round residents -- and who knows how many cats -- in the Medieval Italian town of Civita di Bagnoregio, also known as the dying city.  The picturesque hilltop town, visited by droves of tourists, is built upon layers of rock and shifting clay, susceptible to weather and natural disaster.  Jeffrey Brown reports on efforts to revive and reinforce the city.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Next, an Italian hilltop town hovering between life and death, and the efforts being made to save it.

Jeffrey Brown traveled there as part of our ongoing series Culture at Risk.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Each morning, as the sun rises on this medieval town seemingly plucked from a fairy tale, the narrow lanes of Civita di Bagnoregio are quiet.  By the latest count, there are just seven year-round residents, and who knows how many cats.

By mid-morning, though, the scene on this beautiful fall day has changed, as thousands of tourists make the difficult hike up a long, steep footbridge.  There’s no cars allowed here, drawn by the beauty and peculiarity of this place, where staircases lead off cliffs and windows lead into the clouds.

In Italian, it’s called la Citta Che Muore, the Dying City, dying because it’s literally crumbling before our eyes.  But now a mix a geological engineering and tourism is giving this ancient city new life.

CLAUDIO MARGOTTINI, Italy Geological Survey:  After we have a collapse, it takes about two, three, 10 years to have the next collapse in the same part of the cliff.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Claudio Margottini, with Italy’s Geological Survey, has worked in Civita for several decades.

So, here’s part of the problem, right, buildings falling down?

CLAUDIO MARGOTTINI:  Yes, exactly.  This is exactly an example of what the problem is in this town.  So, we are just close to the cliff.  And the cliff is falling down piece by piece, maybe five, six meters at a time.

DOCTOR'S ORDERS - Dalai Lama

"Dalai Lama’s American doctor wants more compassion in medicine" PBS NewsHour 10/27/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Before he was a personal physician to the Dalai Lama, Dr. Barry Kerzin never imagined that a professional trip to Tibet would lead him down a decades-long path studying Buddhism and meditation.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro talks to Kerzin in India about his feeling that compassion and empathy are essential to medical training.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  Sixty-eight-year-old California native Barry Kerzin began his career as a professor of family medicine at the University of Washington.  He never dreamed it would lead to a pro bono house calls thousands of miles away in Tibetan.

DR. BARRY KERZIN, Buddhist Scholar:  I keep pinching myself, Fred.  I don’t know.

(LAUGHTER)

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  He first arrived here after hearing that the Dalai Lama had wanted a Western physician to train traditional Tibetan doctors in modern research methods.

DR. BARRY KERZIN, Buddhist Scholar:  We did a research study.  And we used that pedagogically to train the local Tibetan medicine doctors how to do the research.

And then I got more involved with Buddhism.  I had already been very interested.  I got more involved with meditation and study.  And I ended up extending my stay.  And that’s happened again and again and here I am 27 years.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  He came to India from a life punctuated by pain and loss, at 11, a near fatal brain abscess that required extensive surgery and left a permanent lump on his skull.  His mother died young, and a few years later so did his wife, only in her mid-30s, both from cancer.

Buddhism became a sanctuary under the tutelage of the Dalai Lama, who told him to stay connected to the world.

DR. BARRY KERZIN:  He always encouraged me to keep my credentials and to continue practicing medicine.  Don’t just do the wisdom.  Also do the love and the compassion.  In fact, do them 50/50.  Those were his words.

CANCER - Processed Meat Debate

"Study finds that processed meat causes cancer, but how big is the risk?" PBS NewsHour 10/26/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Eating processed meats such as hot dogs, sausages, ham and bacon can cause colorectal cancer, says the World Health Organization.  While the cancer risk in most cases is slight, it does increase with the amount of processed meats consumed, according to the WHO's investigation.  William Brangham learns more from Dr. Jonathan Schoenfeld of Harvard Medical School.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  This new report released today by the World Health Organization found that often-beloved meats, like sausage, bacon, ham, and hot dogs, can cause certain types of cancer.  Prior studies had established similar connections, but the WHO is the most prominent health organization to specifically say processed meats can cause cancer.

It looked at more than 800 studies around the world.  It also found that eating freshly prepared red meat like steak or pork or lamb probably can cause cancer as well.

Here to help us sort through this is Jonathan Schoenfeld.  He is a professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School.  He co-wrote a notable paper for “The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” in 2012 about the links between diet and cancer.

Dr. Schoenfeld, thank you for doing this.

The WHO certainly put the scare into meat eaters all over the country today.  How much of this — if I’m someone who has a couple of slices of bacon or a turkey sandwich a few times a week, how worried should I be?

DR. JONATHAN SCHOENFELD, Harvard Medical School:  Sure.

So, I Think it’s important to realize that what the World Health Organization was, like you said, as looked at hundreds of studies and put the evidence from those studies together to show that the consumption of processed or red meats was quite possibly associated with an increased risk of a variety of different types of cancer.

Now, what these studies did was look at the overall risk of cancer.  And so it’s hard to say that any one piece of bacon, for example, or piece of meat would increase your risk of cancer by a certain amount, but, in total, you know, these studies show that being one of the people who consume the most amounts of meats or processed foods could potentially increase your risk of these cancers.

EDUCATION - American Students and in Afghanistan

"What will Obama’s new testing plan mean for American students?" PBS NewsHour 10/25/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  President Obama on Saturday called on states to cut back on standardized testing for U.S. school kids, who, on average, take eight of them every year, from pre-K through 12th grade every year.  The Obama administration also released a testing action plan with new guidelines.  Kate Zernike of The New York Times joins William Brangham to discuss.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  President Obama and the federal Department of Education are calling on states to cut back on standardized tests in schools.  U.S. school kids from pre-K through 12th grade, on average, take eight standardized tests every year.  That’s almost one test a month during the school year.

In a Facebook video yesterday, the President said teachers have told him the pressure to teach to those tests — quote — “takes the joy out of teaching and learning.”

His administration has now released a testing action plan with new guidelines.

For more insight on that, I’m joined by Kate Zernike of The New York Times.

Welcome.

KATE ZERNIKE, National Correspondent, The New York Times:  Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  So, this is a pretty big statement from the president on this very contentious issue.  Why — why is he coming out now?

KATE ZERNIKE:  Well, I think they wanted to get past the spring testing push last year, or this — or this year.

But I think, also, there was a report coming out from the Council of the Great City Schools, which is a coalition of about 70 urban school districts.  And they have generally been pro-testing.  But their superintendent set out to find out how many tests the kids are taking.

And what they found, the report also came out yesterday — or Saturday — was that there are just are — that, as you said, there are, you know, eight tests a year.  There’s just so many — so many people are calling for so many different tests, that a lot of these tests are — they’re not only onerous, but they’re sort of pointless and purposeless.  They’re not really tied to what we want them to be tied to, to learning in the classroom.

"Afghanistan’s first women and gender studies program now in session" PBS NewsHour 10/25/2015

MEGAN THOMPSON (NewsHour):  Twenty-eight students at Kabul University filed for a first-of-its-kind class for Afghanistan.

It’s the introductory course in a new master’s degree program in gender and women’s studies in a county that has long struggled to provide equal rights to women.

When the Taliban seized power in 1996, the hard-line Islamist regime banned women and girls from going to school, having jobs outside the home, or even stepping out in public without being covered head to toe in a burqa.

After the U.S.-led invasion after 9/11 toppled the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan’s new constitution guaranteed women’s rights.

There’s been progress, but many Afghan women remain marginalized, and violence against women has been on the rise.

For example, earlier this year, an angry mob beat a 27-year-old female law student to death in the center of Kabul, the nation’s capital.

Protesters renewed calls for the government to do more to protect women.

Still, millions of Afghan girls and women have gone back to school, their access to higher education remains limited.

One Islamic studies (knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, IMHO) professor at Kabul University disapproves of the new women’s studies program there, because, he said, women are not, in fact, equal to men.

Students in the two-year program hope to change those beliefs.

ZHEELA RAFHAT, STUDENT:  This gender program is really needed in Afghanistan, because many women do not know about their rights, so through this program, we can make women aware of their rights, which enables them to work and study in this society, and we also want to tell women that you are not only made for housework.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  The university expects these empowered graduate students to spread that message beyond these classroom walls.