Legion of Angels News Archive

SYDNEY (AFP) – The Australian government may compensate as many as 191 people for wrongfully holding them in immigration detention centres, a parliamentary hearing was told Tuesday.

A government ombudsman last year reported that 247 Australian citizens, permanent residents and legal visa holders were incorrectly detained by the Immigration Department between 1993 and 2007.

The inquiry was sparked by the illegal detention of mentally ill Australian resident Cornelia Rau for more than 10 months in 2004 and 2005 and the wrongful deportation of Australian citizen Vivian Alvarez Solon to the Philippines.

The chief lawyer for the department, Robyn Bicket, said Tuesday the department had now reviewed all the cases.

“Currently we are at 191 cases (where) we believe there is risk of legal liability for compensation and 56 cases where we believe there is no compensatable risk involved,” she told a Senate estimates hearing.

Bicket said that the department had offered compensation in 40 cases and settlements had been reached in 17 instances.

Australia’s previous conservative government adopted a tough policy towards asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, making immigration detention mandatory even for children. That policy has since been scrapped.

Source — Yahoo!

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had lunch at Clinton’s Harlem office today, where Clinton predicted Obama’s victory and said he’d do whatever he’s asked to do.

From the pool report:

President Clinton was asked when he will hit the campaign trail for Sen. Obama.

“I’m going out there as soon as my Global Initiative is over.’’

Sen. Obama added, “We’re putting him to work.’’

Q: “Will you be out frequently?”

“I’ve agreed to do a substantial number of things. Whatever I’m asked to do.’’

Q: “What do you think of the state of the race?”

President Clinton: “I predict that Sen. Obama will win and win handily.’’

Sen. Obama: “There you go. You can take it from the President of the United States. He knows a little something about politics.”

They had sandwiches and flatbread pizza from Cosi, according to the report.

Source — Yahoo!

Two United States senators on Friday introduced a bill that would compel the Food and Drug Administration to make final comprehensive rules on sunscreen.

Last summer, the agency proposed updated rules that would standardize the labeling on sunscreens, giving consumers more detailed information about their efficacy. But the agency has not made the regulations final, which must happen before they can be implemented.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, said the agency appeared to be moving at a deliberately slow pace for the benefit of sunscreen manufacturers. “The delay is happening for economic reasons,” Senator Dodd said. “The F.D.A. knows better.

“It sounds like an industry reluctant to have a standard set because that may open the doors to insisting upon more accurate labels on certain other products as well.”

The proposed Sunscreen Labeling Protection Act of 2008, sponsored by Senator Dodd and Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, would give the F.D.A. 180 days to makes its own rules final. If the agency fails to do so within 180 days of enactment of the bill, the proposed rules would take effect.

“We hope the mere introduction of the bill will have the desired effect,” Senator Dodd said.

Rita Chappelle, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A., said, “As a federal agency, F.D.A. will continue to work to finalize the sunscreen rule as soon as possible for the American public.”

Since 1978, sunscreens have used the SPF numbering system to rate protection against sunburn caused by the sun’s shorter-wavelength ultraviolet B rays.

The new sunscreen rules would require manufacturers to test the efficacy of the products against the sun’s longer-wavelength ultraviolet A rays, which also can damage skin. Sunscreen labels would be required to display both the familiar SPF number and a new rating for UVA protection.

According to F.D.A. documents, if the agency makes the proposed rule final, manufacturers would then have an implementation period of up to 24 months to comply.

But some sunscreen manufacturers are asking for at least 36 months to test and relabel products.

Manufacturers estimated that the industry would need to put 2,700 products through UVA testing, at a cost of $12,200 per product and $124.2 million industrywide, including relabeling costs, according to collective comments submitted to the agency by two trade groups.

Source — The New York Times

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush signed a bill Thursday that overhauls rules about government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the United States spy on Americans in suspected terrorist cases.

He called it “landmark legislation that is vital to the security of our people.”

Bush signed the measure in a Rose Garden ceremony a day after the Senate sent him the legislation after nearly a year of debate in the Democratic-led Congress over surveillance rules and the president’s warrantless wiretapping program initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It was a battle that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terror attacks and Democrats’ fears of being portrayed as weak when it comes to protecting the country.

Its passage was a major victory for Bush, an unpopular pqresident with less than 200 days left in office who nevertheless has been able to prevail over Congress on most issues of national security and intelligence disputes.

Bush said the Sept. 11 attack “changed our country forever” and taught the intelligence community that it must know who America’s enemies are talking to and what they are saying.

“In the aftermath of 9/11,” Bush said, “few would have imagined that we would be standing here seven years later without another attack on American soil. The fact that the terrorists have failed to strike our shores again does not mean that our enemies have given up.”

Even before Bush signed the legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would challenge the new law in court.

The president said the bill gives the government anti-terror tools it needs without compromising Americans’ civil liberties.

Bush was joined at the ceremony by Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and more than a dozen members of Congress.

Source — MSNBC

WASHINGTON (AP) — People learning through genetic testing that they might be susceptible to devastating diseases wouldn’t also have to worry about losing their jobs or their health insurance under anti-discrimination legislation the Senate passed Thursday.

The 95-0 Senate vote sends the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act back to the House, which could approve it early next week. President Bush supports the legislation.

The bill, described by Sen. Edward Kennedy as ”the first major new civil rights bill of the new century,” would bar health insurance companies from using genetic information to set premiums or determine enrollment eligibility. Similarly, employers could not use genetic information in hiring, firing or promotion decisions.

”For the first time we act to prevent discrimination before it has taken firm hold and that’s why this legislation is unique and groundbreaking,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who sponsored the Senate bill with Sens. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.

There are more than 1,100 genetic tests available today, she said, but these are ”absolutely useless” if fear of discrimination discourages people from taking tests or participating in clinical trials.

Genetic testing could lead to early, lifesaving therapy for a wide range of diseases with hereditary links such as breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and Parkinson’s disease.

”But right now the ability to realize those goals is somewhat limited” because of patients’ fears that the information will be used against them, said Dr. David Herrington, a professor of cardiology at Wake Forest University and spokesman on genetic issues for the American Heart Association. The legislation ”will help them both be more willing to participate in research and avail themselves of the benefits of genetic testing.”

Congressional efforts to set federal standards to protect people from genetic discrimination go back more than a decade, to a time when there were only a small number of genetic tests. But now, with the mapping of the human genome in 2003, people have access to far more information about their hereditary disposition to such crippling afflictions as cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Bill sponsors said that has increased the likelihood that a prospective health insurance company or employer will reject a person because of concerns that person will suffer a costly disease in the future.

The Senate passed genetic nondiscrimination bills on unanimous votes in 2003 and 2005 but couldn’t get the House to act. A year ago the House approved a White House-backed bill on a 420-3 vote.

Senate action on that legislation has been slowed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who joined some business groups in warning that the bill could encourage a flood of lawsuits.

A compromise worked out earlier this week tightens language to ensure there is a ”firewall” between the part dealing with health plans and the section regarding employment, so as to discourage inappropriate claims.

It also makes clear that, while individuals are protected from discrimination based on genetic predisposition, insurance companies still have the right to base coverage and pricing on the actual presence of a disease.

”We certainly improved the bill from a liability standpoint,” said Coburn, an obstetrician. He said he was an adamant supporter of the legislation ”if it is not designed to feed the trial lawyers.”

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., chief House sponsor of the bill with Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., said the House would ”get it out to the White House as quickly as we can.” Slaughter, who first introduced a genetic discrimination bill 13 years ago, said personalized medicine advanced by genetic research has ”the potential to save billions of dollars in health care costs.”

Dr. Francis Collins, genetics chief at the National Institutes of Health, said it’s difficult to know how often genetic discrimination has occurred because victims are reluctant to come forward.

He cited one example of a Texas-based railroad that once conducted genetic tests on workers complaining of carpal tunnel syndrome in an effort to argue the injuries weren’t job related if patients had a genetic predisposition.

”All of us carry glitches in our DNA and we’re learning more and more about those every day,” he said. ”A system that allows that information to be used to deny people health care or a job is a system that has lost its way. This is a civil rights issue and it’s high time we took care of it.”

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The bill is H.R. 493

Source — The New York Times