Press covering Michelle O shoved, screamed at, blocked from events in China...

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Press covering Michelle O shoved, screamed at, blocked from events in China...

"West blocked naming CW culprits"

Syria Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem says the US, Britain and France have blocked the naming of the real perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in the Arab country.

In his address to the 68th UN General Assembly on Monday, Muallem also warned that “terrorists” fighting against President Bashar al-Assad government are being supplied with chemical weapons.

The minister also stated that the al-Qaeda-linked militants eat human hearts and dismember people while they are still alive, then send their limbs to family members.

Washington had threatened to take military action against Syria over an unsubstantiated claim that the Syrian government had been behind a deadly chemical attack near Damascus on August 21.

Syria strongly rejected the allegation, saying the attack had been carried out by the foreign-backed militants to draw in military intervention.

On September 14, Russia and the United States agreed on a deal under which Syria must account for its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week and see them eliminated by the middle of 2014. Syria has agreed to the deal.

The UN Security Council on September 27 unanimously approved a resolution to avert a US-led military strike against Syria. The resolution condemned the use of chemical weapons in the country and called for their elimination.

Syria has been gripped by deadly turmoil since 2011.

Reports indicate that Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside the country.

PG/SS

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"West blocked naming CW culprits"

Alabama Abortion Ban 2013: Parts Of Alabama"s Abortion Ban Are Blocked in Court

Alabama Abortion Ban 2013: Parts Of Alabama’s Abortion Ban Are Blocked in Court

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson temporarily blocked a portion of Alabama’s TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) bill from taking effect until July 12. Regularly scheduled to take effect on July 1, the provision covered by the judge’s ruling would require that physicians performing abortions in the state have admitting privileges to local hospitals. While it is likely that this provision will be overturned, other provisions of HB 57 have the potential to close clinics and increase the cost of abortion procedures for patients.

The lawsuit, filed on June 11 by Planned Parenthood Southeast and Reproductive Health Services (a privately-owned clinic in Montgomery), claims that the provision of HB 57 that requires physicians who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges would create an undue burden on people seeking legal abortion services. Because many abortion providers do not live in the communities (or even the states) in which they work, it can be difficult for them to receive admitting privileges from hospitals in those communities. Furthermore, the stigma of providing abortions would also prevent many local physicians from being granted admitting privileges.

Though many state lawmakers have said that HB 57 is intended to increase the safety of abortion services, there is no evidence to suggest that legal abortions performed in Alabama require additional regulation. Nationwide, only 0.3% of all abortions result in complications that require hospitalization. Alabama’s rates are lower.

“We’re an extremely low-risk facility,” Dalton Johnson, the owner and operator of Huntsville’s Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, said of his own clinic. “Our safety record shows that. Fifteen thousand procedures in 12 years and only six complications and no fatalities. There are procedures with higher risks they need to look into.”

While Judge Thompson believes that the admitting privileges requirement of the law will likely be overturned, HB 57′s requirement that clinics make the necessary upgrades to meet the state’s regulatory standards for ambulatory surgical centers could still close clinics and, at the very least, decrease or eliminate abortion access for those with little or no income.

“It requires clinics to be like a miniature hospital. It’s going to pretty much probably close us down,” Johnson said. “I’m letting my staff know that it’s a possibility.”

The financial burden to transition into an ambulatory surgical center will disproportionately affect privately owned clinics. Gloria Gray, the operator and part-owner of Tuscaloosa’s West Alabama Women’s Center, said, “It is much more difficult for an independent clinic to meet the requirements of the law or to challenge the law due to limited financial resources.” While nonprofit organizations like Planned Parenthood have “their own attorneys on staff who are able to challenge the law and numerous resources available in donations and federal funds,” privately owned clinics have a much more difficult time fundraising to pay legal fees to challenge the law or become compliant with newly imposed regulations.

Because of the stigma attached to providing abortion services, some privately owned clinics are also having difficulty finding architects and contractors that will agree to work with them on making the mandated upgrades, and, even when people can be hired, privately owned clinics must be able to pay for these services using their own financial resources.

Coming up with the money to meet Alabama’s regulatory standards for ambulatory surgical centers will ultimately come out of the pockets of patients, but it’s not clear as to whether patients will be able to afford the high cost of procedures in these “safer” clinics.

Currently, the average cost of a medical abortion (RU 486, Mifepristone, Mifeprex) is $ 450 in Alabama and is effective for terminating pregnancies up to eight weeks. The cheapest surgical abortions can be performed from about 5-11 weeks into the pregnancy and cost, on average, $ 400. However, surgical abortion patients can expect to add at least $ 100 to the cost of the procedure for every additional week after 11 weeks.

While service fees at the West Alabama Women’s Center will not increase as a result of the mandated upgrades, patients at the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives will most definitely face fee increases if the clinic can remain open. Rightly, Johnson worries that the patients affected most by HB 57 will be those low-income and no-income patients who come from outside Alabama to obtain abortion services.

“We have people who ride the bus to get here,” Johnson said. “They come from places like Mississippi, where there’s only one clinic, and they take the bus to Huntsville and get a cab from the bus station to the clinic. Then they have to get a hotel room, because they have to wait at least 24 hours to have the procedure done.”

In addition to overturning the requirement that abortion providers have local hospital admitting privileges, the federal court should recognize that the increased cost of abortion services that results from TRAP legislation places an undue financial burden on those who seek to exercise their right to terminate a pregnancy.         

PolicyMic

Alabama Abortion Ban 2013: Parts Of Alabama"s Abortion Ban Are Blocked in Court

Obama Golfs With Tiger Woods (Update: Press Blocked)

President Barack Obama, who is on a weekend getaway in Florida this weekend, hit the links with Tiger Woods today, the White House reveals. 

“The President played golf today with USTR Ron Kirk, Jim Crane and Tiger Woods,” deputy press secretary Josh Earnest says in a statement.

The Weekly Standard

Obama Golfs With Tiger Woods (Update: Press Blocked)