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October 11, 2012 -- (San Diego’s East County) – ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflecting all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:
U.S.
- Mitt Romney's Climate Change Remarks On 'Meet The Press' Outrage Environmental Activists
- Meningitis-linked steroid may have been responsible for 13,000 cases in US (Reuters)
- Meningitis outbreak: steroid maker recalls all shots (Med Page Today)
- NY 9/11 judge okays$6 billion vs. Iran, Taliban, Al Qaeda (UT San Diego)
- Should TV stations refuse to air political ads that make false claims? (NPR)
- Supreme Court to hear Monsanto seed dispute (Huffington Post)
- Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril (Wall Street Journal Market Watch)
WORLD
- Drug ‘may’ prevent stroke damage (BBC)
- Libyan leader passes vote of no confidence dismissing leader (Reuters)
- Egypt’s hard-line Islamist party unravels (UT San Diego)
- Gauging poverty from Appalachia to Africa (Christian Science Monitor)
- Hamas election boycott leaves Palestinians with only one choice (Christian Science Monitor)
- Israel strikes Gaza after exchange of air strikes (Christian Science Monitor)
- France’s Hollande vows more security to allay Jewish fears (Reuters)
Read more for excerpts and links to full stories.
U.S.
Mitt Romney's Climate Change Remarks On 'Meet The Press' Outrage Environmental Activists
September 10, 2012 -- Mitt Romney outraged environmental activists on Sunday, telling NBC's David Gregory, "I'm not in this race to slow the rise of the oceans or to heal the planet," during an interview on "Meet the Press."
"The reason I'm in this race is to help people," Romney said. "I'm not in this race to slow the rise of the oceans or to heal the planet. I'm in this race to help the American people."
Romney made similar remarks during his speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., last month, where he declared to a cheering crowd, "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise ... is to help you and your family."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/mitt-romney-climate-change-meet-the-press_n_1870727.html
Meningitis-linked steroid may have been responsible for 13,000 cases in US (Reuters)
October 8, 2012 -- Some 13,000 people in 23 U.S. states may have received steroid injections linked to a rare fungal meningitis outbreak that has killed eight people, but far fewer are likely to contract the disease, the Centers for Disease Control said on Monday.
The CDC for the first time estimated the number of patients potentially affected, after previously saying only that it could be in the thousands.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/08/us-usa-health-meningitis-idUSBRE8970TQ20121008?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
Meningitis outbreak: steroid maker recalls all shots (Med Page Today)
October 7, 2012 -- The CDC reports 91 cases in the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak and the New England Compounding Center, maker of a steroid linked to outbreak, recalled all of its products Saturday.
The recall is being done "out of an abundance of caution due to the potential risk of contamination, and in cooperation with an investigation being conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy," the Framingham, Mass. company said in a press release posted Sunday on the FDA's website.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/35197
NY 9/11 judge okays$6 billion vs. Iran, Taliban, Al Qaeda (UT San Diego)
October 3, 2012 -- A New York federal judge who found Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaida culpable in the 2001 terrorist attacks has approved a $6 billion default judgment against them.
The order signed Wednesday by Judge George Daniels is largely symbolic, but it provides some hope the relatives of Sept. 11 victims can someday recover damages. A federal magistrate judge recommended the damages over the summer.
Daniels last year signed a default judgment pertaining to a lawsuit brought by relatives of 47 victims. He found al-Qaida, the Taliban and Iran liable and asked the magistrate to determine damages. He said support the defendants provided to al-Qaida enabled the terror attacks.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/oct/03/ny-911-judge-oks-6b-vs-iran-taliban-al-qaida/
Should TV stations refuse to air political ads that make false claims? (NPR)
October 3, 2012 -- If a television or radio station determines that a political ad is false, should it refuse to run the ad?
That's exactly what the nonpartisan group Free Press is calling on stations to do.
"They certainly could reject some of them," said Matt Wood, the group's policy director.
At the very least, they could do more fact checking, he said.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/10/03/162184983/should-tv-stations-refuse-to-air-political-ads-that-make-false-claims?ft=1&f=1003
Supreme Court to hear Monsanto seed dispute (Huffington Post)
October 5, 2012 -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a dispute between a soybean farmer and Monsanto Co. over the company's efforts to limit farmers' use of its patented, genetically engineered Roundup Ready seeds.
The justices said they will hear an appeal from Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, who is trying to fend off Monsanto's lawsuit claiming Bowman made unauthorized use of the seeds.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/07/supreme-court-monsanto-seeds_n_1946361.html
Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril (Wall Street Journal Market Watch)
October 7, 2012 -- Tucked into the U.S. Supreme Court’s agenda this fall is a little-known case that could upend your ability to resell everything from your grandmother’s antique furniture to your iPhone 4.
At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04
WORLD
Drug ‘may’ prevent stroke damage (BBC)
October 7, 2012 -- It may be possible to use a drug to prevent some of the lasting and crippling damage caused by a stroke, according to doctors in the US and Canada.
A safety trial, published in the Lancet Neurology medical journal, suggested the chemical NA-1 was safe to use.
The study on 185 people also hinted that patients given the drug developed fewer regions of damaged brain tissue.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19812066
Libyan leader passes vote of no confidence dismissing leader (Reuters)
October 7, 2012 -- Libya's national congress dismissed the newly elected prime minister on Sunday in a vote of no confidence which underscored the difficulties of forming a government which can unite the country's different factions and regions.
The vote came minutes after prime minister Mustafa Abushagur named 10 new ministers - his second and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to form a government - after he was forced to withdraw his previous cabinet in the face of protests.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/07/us-libya-government-idUSBRE8960DQ20121007?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29
Egypt’s hard-line Islamist party unravels (UT San Diego)
October 4, 2012 -- Internal feuds are threatening to unravel the political party of Egypt's ultraconservative Islamist Salafis, as pragmatists try to shake off the control of hardline clerics who reject any compromise in their stark, puritanical version of Islam.
The fight for leadership could paralyze the Al-Nour Party, which rocketed out of nowhere to become Egypt's second most powerful political force, behind the Muslim Brotherhood. Together, the Brotherhood and Al-Nour embodied the rise of Islamists to prominence after last year's fall of Hosni Mubarak.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/oct/04/egypts-hardline-islamist-party-unravels/
Gauging poverty from Appalachia to Africa (Christian Science Monitor)
October 7, 2012 -- When New Yorkers find out I grew up in West Virginia, they often ask if I've read "The Glass Castle." Jeannette Walls's memoir, on The New York Times bestseller list for an absurd 288 weeks now, is about growing up poor. At one point she lived in Welch, W.Va., where her house leaks and freezes, where she makes her lunch out of sandwiches kids throw away in the bathroom at school – and some days that's all she eats.
It's only one woman's story, but it reinforces Appalachian poverty stereotypes that much of the rest of the country accepts as truths.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2012/1007/Gauging-poverty-from-Appalachia-to-Africa?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fworld+%28Christian+Science+Monitor+|+World%29
Hamas election boycott leaves Palestinians with only one choice (Christian Science Monitor)
October 6, 2012 -- Municipal elections in the West Bank are still three weeks away, but the self-styled patriarch ofNablus politics, Ghassan Shakaa, speaks as if he is already in the mayor's office.
He describes one of his key plans – an after-school program for teens who, he laments, currently languish in coffee shops – as if it's a sure thing.
"We have already started to engage in discussions with the youth of Nablus themselves and we have asked them to discuss among themselves what they need and what we can do for them,'' says Mr. Shakaa, a veteran leader of the West Bank's ruling Fatah movement.
Shakaa may be justified in his confidence. With Hamas, one of the two main Palestinian political movements boycotting the elections, he has a good shot.
Israel strikes Gaza after exchange of air strikes (Christian Science Monitor)
October 8, 2012 -- Israel said it struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday after Palestinian militants fired rockets at southern Israel, in what they said was a response to an Israel air strike on Sunday that wounded two militants and eight bystanders.
Sunday's Israeli air strike was aimed at two Palestinian militants, one of whom was critically wounded. The armed wing of Hamas, the Islamists who control the Gaza Strip, said it joined in Monday's rocket attack along with the Islamic Jihad group.
France’s Hollande vows more security to allay Jewish fears (Reuters)
October 7, 2012 -- French President Francois Hollande pledged on Sunday to increase security around synagogues and introduce tougher anti-terrorism measures, a day after a series of police raids dismantled a radical Islamist network that targeted Jews.
Seeking to calm the fears of France's Jewish community, the largest in Europe, Hollande invited seven leaders of Jewish groups to the presidential palace where he promised support to fight a rash of anti-Semitic attacks.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/07/us-france-raid-idUSBRE8960B720121007?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29
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