FOX SHOT OVER HEALTH BILL

Having Digital Plus TV not only can I watch Spanish TV channels but also I can eaves drop on what is happening in the USA through Fox News.

Fox News – fairly unbalanced as its slogan should read – serves a wonderful service to the world. It reminds us all how truly lucky we are not to live in the USA.

Those of us who do not live in totalitarian states expect our TV stations to be unbiased so to watch Fox – where a balanced debate involves two Republicans – comes as quite a shock.

Fox News has invested much of its credibility in defeating Obama’s health care bill. Wars may erupt around the world, natural disasters occur but for Fox watchers the only news worth headlining was the progress of the legislation and what a disaster it spelt for the land of the free if passed.

The Canadian and British national health services might not be perfect but Fox was happy to slander them holding them up as the bogey men that could be inflicted upon US citizens if the Obama bill was passed. The thought of universal health care and the concept that a person should receive medical assistance based on their need and not their ability to pay for insurance sent Fox and its broadcasters in to a frenzy.

Whilst Shepherd Smith might present the fair face of Fox we also have the unbalanced, deranged performances of the likes of the Glenn Beck – a man with all the charm and santity of a mediaeval witch-finder pursuivant. Not even President Obama being mugged in a lengthy interview by Fox’s Brett Baer just days ago could prevent the march of the health care bill.

Republican politicians are well used to the rough and tumble of Washington – to victory and defeat. The real shocked faces on Monday were on Fox News – a station that has invested its prestige in defeating Obama – and lost twice!

MR PRESIDENT – A CUBA LIBRE PLEASE!

By the time I was born World War II was finished by a couple of years so I had to wait to the Cuba crisis before I had the very real sense of fear of pending war.

At the time I was at boarding school in Lancashire and I remember standing outside in the dark getting some air after the evening meal. We were all fully aware of the pending nuclear Armageddon as we scanned the night sky wondering if the small light passing overhead was an aircraft or the first of the missiles that would signal our end. Would our world still be there in the morning?

Well that was a long, long time ago - for it was in 1962 that the USA imposed stinging sanctions against the Castro regime under the Trading with the Enemy Act and they are still in place to this day. They totally failed to bring down the Cuba government and in 2009 do more political harm to the USA than the Caribbean Island. Indeed given the evils we face in this modern world there can be no justification for the on-going crusade against Cuba.

On September 14 President Barack Obama is due to renew these sanctions. Amnesty International is calling on the president to take the first step towards dismantling the US embargo against Cuba by not renewing them.

Amnesty has just published a report – “The US embargo against Cuba: Its impact on economic and social rights”. In it the human rights group concludes that the sanctions are particularly affecting Cubans’ access to medicines and medical technologies and endangering the health of millions.

Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Irene Khan said:

“This is the perfect opportunity for President Obama to distance himself from the failed policies of the past and to send a strong message to the US Congress on the need to end the embargo.

“The US embargo against Cuba is immoral and should be lifted. It's preventing millions of Cubans from benefiting from vital medicines and medical equipment essential for their health.”

Amnesty International states that Cuba faces severe restrictions in importing medicines, medical equipment or technologies from the USA or from any US company abroad because of the embargo. The sanctions also limit other imports to the island and restrict travel and the transfer of money.

Products patented in the USA or containing more than 20 percent US-manufactured parts or components cannot be exported to Cuba, even if they are produced in third countries.

Further more according to data from the United Nations, Cuba’s inability to import nutritional products for consumption at schools, hospitals and day care centres, is contributing to a high prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia. Some 37.5 per cent of Cuba’s children under three years old are affected according to UNICEF.

Children's health was also put at risk by a decision from US syringe suppliers to cancel an order for three million disposable syringes made in 2007 by UNICEF’s Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation when it became known that the units were destined for the implementation of a programme in Cuba.

Similar situations have affected the implementation of UN programmes to prevent and fight HIV/AIDS on the island.

Irene Khan continued:

“Although responsibility for providing adequate health care lies primarily with the Cuban authorities, governments imposing sanctions such as embargoes need to pay special attention to the impact they can have on the targeted country's population.”

Amnesty International in Spain, where for historic reasons the plight of Cuba has a higher profile than in the UK, is asking people to urgently add their signature to a letter to President Obama. You can do that by clicking on this link:

http://www.es.amnesty.org/actua/acciones/levantamiento-embargo-cuba

As a human rights organisation Amnesty International is not blind to nor has it been silent on the abuses that have taken place on the Caribbean island. However two wrongs do not make a right and viewing Cuba as “the enemy” has no place in the modern world.

(Photo of medicine rationing queue in Cuba - Amnesty International)