iraq-war

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The health care system in Canada is funded by a mix of public (70%) and private (30%) funding. The U.S. spends more per capita than any other nation in the world, but is the only wealthy industrialized country in the world that lacks some form of universal health care. In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States. U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).

All Canadian citizens are covered with a provincial Medical Services Plan, which receives funds from the federal government via tax transfers. The system is therefore a single-payer one, whereby everyone contributes to the care of all citizens. Individuals choose their own physicians, who decide what care is required - not the government, regardless of what you might hear on radio and TV talk shows - and they do not have to ante up large sums for emergency and intensive care or even for infant delivery. The system works very well.

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Photos courtesy of costofwar.com and docotube.com

Original Source: Wikipedia and The Seattle Times

According to UNHCR, 2.1 million Afghan refugees were reported in 72 asylum countries; UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visits the camps for displaced persons in northern Sri Lanka; Red Cross: refugee status in Sri Lanka "very critical"

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With less global hostility, less conflict, there would be more money to work on the fast climate change... In addition, putting aside the notion of Geneva Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, who would believe confession under torture? (see movie Goya's Ghosts)

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White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said during our exclusive interview on "This Week" that President Barack Obama will not pursue the prosecution of Bush-era officials who devised torture policy against detainees, as laid out in memos the Obama administration released this week.

Earlier in the interview, I asked Emanuel about a series of officials, including former CIA director Michael Hayden and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who have criticized the Obama administration's decision to release the Bush-era memos outlining torture techniques of detainees. "First of all, we banned these techniques and practices. Banned them because we didn't think they were consistent with American security and its values," Emanuel said on "This Week." "Second is, we've enhanced America's image abroad. These were tools used to by terrorists, propaganda tools, to recruit new terrorists. And the fact is having changed America's image, does have an impact on our security and safety to make us stronger.  read more »

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Amanda Henderson's husband Patrick worked as a recruiter at the army's recruitment station in Longview, Texas. A veteran of the Iraq war, Sgt. 1st Class Henderson struggled with the pressures placed on recruiters, who until recently were ordered to enlist at least two new soldiers each month. Forced to work long hours at a task he didn't want, Henderson hanged himself in a shed behind his house in September, 2008.

Sgt. Henderson's situation was not atypical. The Hendersons met at recruiting school and were married in January 2008. She worked at a recruiting station in Nagadoches, Texas, 70 miles away from the station in Longview where Patrick was assigned. Henderson was forced into a second recruiting assignment he didn't want after he returned from a combat tour in Iraq.

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Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said there had been a "failure to disclose to the Australian people the qualified nature of the intelligence - for example, the pre-war warning that an attack on Iraq would increase the terrorist threat, not decrease it".

Mr Rudd, a former diplomat, also dismissed his prede- cessor's argument that Australia had been obliged to send troops to Iraq because of its long-standing alliance with the United States.

He said while he valued the alliance highly, it did not mean that Canberra should automatically accede to US requests for military support.

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Photos courtesy of AP and defenselink.mil/HomePagePhotos/

Original Source: Telegraph

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A British military band performs during the handover ceremony of Basra's international airport from British forces to the U.S. forces, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad March 31, 2009. People in the Iraqi city of Basra fear the U.S. troops taking over from departing British forces, whose relatively light touch contrasts with the U.S. military's fearsome, and sometimes trigger-happy, reputation.

HOLLYWOOD - MARCH 21: Anti-war demonstrators carry model coffins in a protest march on Hollywood Boulevard to mark the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war ground invasion on March 21, 2009 in Hollywood, California. An estimated 91,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the invasion. The US has lost more than 4,200 military service members. While violence is reportedly at its lowest point since the US invasion, suicide bombers still terrorize the people of some regions of Iraq. President Barack Obama has ordered US combat troops home by September of 2010 and all US forces out by 2012.  read more »

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(Above:) Pakistani tribesmen stand beside coffins of the victims of a suspected U.S. missile strike in Zharki village, near Miran Shah, the main town of Pakistan's tribal area along Afghanistan border, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009. Suspected U.S. missiles killed 18 people on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border, security officials said Friday, the first attacks on the al-Qaida stronghold since President Barack Obama took office.

Pakistan urged President Barack Obama to halt U.S. missile strikes on al-Qaida strongholds near the Afghan border, saying Saturday that civilians were killed the previous day in the first attacks since Obama's inauguration.

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Photos courtesy of AP Photo/Hasbunallah Khan and AFP

Original Source: Huffington Post