Israel Warns Against Travel in Mideast

Aug 6 08:53 PM US/Eastern

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli security officials on Monday warned citizens traveling in Egypt, Jordan and other Muslim countries to leave immediately due to a "concrete and severe" threat of terror attacks.
Israelis anywhere in the world should also be alert to the danger of being kidnapped by operatives from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, according to the announcement from Israel's National Security Council.

Israeli tourists are allowed to visit Egypt and Jordan, which have peace agreements with Israel. But the council said any Israeli citizens in those countries should cut their trips short.

The council also warned against travel to Morocco, where Israelis can visit with special permission from that country's government, and to Tunisia. But those warnings were less urgent than the "severe" warning for other Muslim states.

The announcement on the council's Web site, a renewal of a travel advisory issued twice a year, also warned Israelis not to travel to Mideastern countries like Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, as well as African nations like Somalia, Djibouti and Chad.

sun-sentinel.com/sfl-0806publix,0,1726442.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Publix to offer 7 popular prescription antibiotics for free

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

2:45 PM EDT, August 6, 2007

CAPE CORAL

Publix supermarket chain said today it will make seven common prescription antibiotics available for free, joining other major retailers in trying to lure customers to their stores with cheap medications.

The oral antibiotics, representing the most commonly filled at the chain's pharmacies, will be available at no cost to anyone with a prescription as often as they need them, Publix CEO Charlie Jenkins Jr. said. Fourteen-day supplies of the seven drugs will be available at all 684 of the chain's pharmacies in five Southern states.

The prescription antibiotics available under the program are amoxicillin, cephalexin, penicillin VK, erythromycin, ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, and ciprofoxacin.

Gov. Charlie Crist went to a suburban Fort Myers store to help the company make the announcement and to praise the Lakeland-based employee-owned company, one of the dominant retailers in the region.

"It can't be any more affordable than free," Crist said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Kmart and other retailers already offer discounted drug programs. But Publix Super Markets Inc. officials say the company is the first large regional chain to offer certain drugs at no cost. In addition to Florida, the company operates stores in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee.

With health care costs one of the biggest challenges facing many Americans, Crist said that the private sector's involvement in the solution was "a great trend."

Jenkins acknowledged that increasing pharmacy sales was a part of the company's motivation, but said the company also wanted to contribute to that trend.

"Frankly, we're interested in building our pharmacy business," said Jenkins. "But moreover, we want to help the citizens of our state have affordable health care, and we thought this was just a good start in doing that."

Barbara Lemay, who was shopping in the Publix where Crist and the company made the announcement, said it would be a good start for her.

"I've been on antibiotics occasionally, and to get anything free with the price of medications today is phenomenal," she said. "People just can't afford the medications. You have no insurance, you're looking at hundreds of dollars a month."

Lemay, who gets Social Security benefits, said if she is prescribed one of the antibiotics she definitely would go to Publix to get it, and said it could save her "thousands of dollars."

Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, secretary of Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration and a pediatrician, said many of the antibiotics are prescribed for children, and he noted that Florida has 3.6 million uninsured people and many who have some insurance but no coverage for prescription drugs.

"So I hope (Publix stores) are ready," Agwunobi said, predicting a heavy response.

Wal-Mart last year started offering hundreds of prescription drugs of all different kinds, ranging from diabetes medication to high blood pressure drugs, for $4. It hopes it can draw more shoppers into its stores who may come for prescriptions and then stay to buy in other departments.

Kmart, a unit of Sears Holding Corp., began last month offering a 90-day supply of generic drugs for $15. Now, more than 300 drugs are included in that program.

Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Lessons from the Edge of Globalization: Part 2, Day 1

I am back in Kurdistan again; my fourth trip in 4 months -- this time beginning the roll-out of our Development-in-a-Box™ solution for post-conflict reconstruction and development. I am excited to begin this journey to help create a templated means of delivering an appropriately scaled, pre-packaged “Marshall Plan”-like program to Kurdistan. If our efforts are successful, which I have every belief they will be, then we will have created a breakthrough way to manage some of the disconnectedness between modern developed nations and developing states at the same time creating stability which will hopefully lead to peace in unstable regions.
Sunday the CBS news program "60 Minutes" updated and rebroadcast a report that Bob Simon did from Kurdistan last February [Kurdistan, the Other Iraq]. The program found the same vibrant and independent people that I discussed the last time I posted from Iraq. Simon also pointed out that behind the economic boom he found is a sense of security that generates hope in the people and fosters confidence in investment.

"When visiting Kurdistan, one can see nation-building wherever one looks—Kurds are building their country day by day. There are more cranes here than minarets and there's a run on cement. A new mall with 8,000 shops and stalls is going up. So is an apartment complex known as 'Dream City,' in which some of the units are selling for $1 million. A giant bowling alley is almost finished, and an opera house is not far behind. What's behind the boom? Security."

It is amazing that the rest of Iraq (with this role model sitting within its borders), hasn't seized the vision and wrested its future from those who desire to keep the world out and the country down. Sectarian disputes and political in-fighting continue to hamper efforts to rebuild that country. As Simon reported, "Distinct from much of Iraq, the security forces in Kurdistan are disciplined and loyal. And they're all Kurds. There are no ethnic divisions here, so the violence stays on the other side of the border." Although being a homogenous community helps, the decision to be uncooperative elsewhere in Iraq is just that -- a choice, not an inevitability.

"60 Minutes wanted to test the security situation, so one Saturday morning Simon and the team dropped by the main market in Erbil, the self-styled capital of Kurdistan, just 40 miles from the rest of Iraq. The only disagreements here were about prices. Just how safe is it? Simon, an American, strolled through the market in his shirtsleeves, without wearing the flack jackets reporters often have to wear in other parts of Iraq. In any other part of Iraq, walking down the street like this would be patently suicidal. But the point is as far as people here are concerned this is not another part of Iraq—it's not Iraq at all. You may not be able to find it on a map but it is, Kurds will tell you, another country."

That perception of Kurdistan as a separate government is not good news for most of the international community. This is because a separate Kurdistan carved from Iraq would undoubtedly encourage separatist movements in Turkey, Syria and Iran, sparking a larger crisis that could reverse the progress made in the Kurd region of Iraq. That is why the international community desires to see Iraq's geographical boundaries maintained intact. It won't be easy. The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government is under great pressure.

"The Kurds are acting as if the end of Iraq is near. In many schools, English, not Arabic, is being taught as the second language. The Kurds are very big on the trappings of statehood. It's as if they're eager to prove that they exist. They have their own 175,000-man Army, the pesh merga, which means 'those who face death.' When you arrive in Erbil, immigration officers give your passport a Kurdish stamp. And if you want to see the Iraqi flag, don't come to Kurdistan. It has been banned. 'Under that flag they destroyed our country, our people. So that's why our approach is to change that flag and have a new one,' Prime Minister Barzani explains. The new Kurdish flag is literally everywhere; but it's a flag without a country. Like most Kurds, Dr. Ali Saed Mohammed, the president of Sulemaniya University, would like to change that, and soon. '"What would happen if tomorrow the prime minister of Kurdistan went before parliament and said I declare a state, an independent Kurdistan,' Simon asks. 'This decision will be welcomed by 99.9 percent of the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. We will say yes. We will back it,' Dr. Mohammed says. Dr. Mohammed wants the prime minister to take the step, preferably 'tomorrow,' he tells Simon. But the Kurdish prime minister is not likely to push for complete independence. Not tomorrow. Not next year."

Prime Minister Barzani recognizes that a move for independence would create more problems than it could possibly solve.

"The Kurds have a saying: no friends but the mountains. There are 30 million Kurds in the world, the largest nation without a state. But only five million reside inside Iraq's borders. The rest are in Iran, Syria and primarily Turkey. There are so many Kurds in Turkey that the Turks are afraid that an independent Kurdish state would lead to unrest; they are dead set against it. So Kurdish leaders believe that, at least for the time being, the answer is federalism, a soft partition of Iraq into three parts. Kurdistan in the north, a Sunni state in the middle and a Shiite region to the south, with Baghdad as only a nominal capital."

Although a federated state may be the eventual outcome, the Bush administration is struggling hard to strengthen the central government believing that only it can provide the overall security that will permit economic progress throughout the entire country. It wants Kurdistan to serve as a model for the rest of Iraq rather becoming a thorn in its side. Simon points out that the one thing that holds Iraq together for the moment is oil -- much of which lies under an area disputed by Kurds and Arabs.

"The Kurds may have to wait a long time because for the U.S. military there is another overwhelming reason to keep the Kurds inside Iraq: oil. One of Iraq's largest oil fields sits just across Kurdistan’s de facto border in an ethnically mixed city called Kirkuk. It is crucial to the future economic health of Iraq. The trouble is the Kurds say Kirkuk historically belongs to them. And this year there will be a referendum asking Kirkuk's citizens if they want to join Kurdistan. Asked why Kirkuk is so important, Prime Minister Barzani says, 'It's Kurdistan. If you go back to history, any fight between Kurds and Baghdad is over Kirkuk.' If the Kurds win the referendum, and they are favored to do so, many fear Iraqi Arabs could turn Kirkuk into an inferno."

The best outcome is a reasonable revenue sharing plan that gives everybody something, even if it doesn't provide everyone with everything they desire. The overall objective is make conditions so prosperous that maintaining the status quo becomes more important than fracturing the state. Simon concludes:

"Free state? Not yet. Free market? Right here. While in the rest of Iraq they're counting bodies, the Kurds are counting their money. Gleaming shopping centers are sprouting up from the sand. One sports an escalator, the first in Kurdistan. There are plans for an American University, not surprising since there is a strong desire to have it the American way."

Once again I find myself meeting with business and government personnel in Kurdistan and I see opportunity everywhere. Enterra Solutions' interest, of course, is in fostering the free market sector. We are working to establish a system to help Iraqi businesses connect with the rest of the world and begin the process of building relationships and trust. We are starting in Kurdistan, because -- as Bob Simon noted -- the Kurds have security, but they also have a resilient culture and a populace that desires success and modernity and is willing to work hard to get it. More later as I continue my visit to this prospering Edge of Globalization.

Turkey to Warn Iraq on Rebel Sanctuaries
Cross-Border Attack on Separatists Appears Likely If Baghdad Fails to Act
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 6, 2007; A12

CAIRO -- Turkish leaders this week will give visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki what Turkish military commanders and analysts said could be a final warning to act against anti-Turkey Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq -- or to stand by while Turkish forces go after the rebels themselves, risking a new front in Iraq's war.

Leaders of Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party appear to be in agreement with Turkey's generals that the time has come to move against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish initials, PKK, in its bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, former generals and a military expert close to the Turkish military's general staff said.

At least 30,000 people have been killed since the Kurdish rebels launched a campaign in 1984 for an independent Kurdish homeland in eastern Turkey. Clashes and bombs this week killed 14 Turkish soldiers and rebel fighters. The rebels also kidnapped eight residents of a Kurdish village in the east.

Turkey accuses Iraq's Kurds -- who have built a nearly autonomous Kurdish state in northern Iraq under protection of the U.S. military since the early 1990s -- of giving the Kurdish rebels a haven and allowing them free passage back and forth across the Iraqi border into Turkey.

"The Turkish people want the government to do something, and in this case, the Turkish military and government now coincide," retired Turkish Maj. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu said in a telephone interview from the Turkish capital of Ankara.

"It could be any moment, basically," said Zeyno Baran, a senior fellow and director at the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute in Washington who is familiar with the Turkish military command.

"Both the civilian and military leadership believe we really have to do something about it, that this is getting ridiculous," Baran said.

Turkey's military, outraged at what it says have been escalating attacks on its troops by the PKK, has been warning for months of an imminent invasion of northern Iraq in pursuit of the PKK.

The timing of a Turkish attack is a matter of "whenever it's convenient," Baran said. "August or September," she added.

Baran and some others expect U.S. forces to join in if Turkey does act against the rebels in northern Iraq. The scenario most often cited is an operation involving U.S. and Turkish special forces already in northern Iraq.

"I do believe that the Americans . . . are probably getting ready to do something jointly with Turkey, but they really don't want the Turks to go on their own," Baran said.

Robert D. Novak wrote in a syndicated column that appeared July 30 in The Washington Post that Eric S. Edelman, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and now an undersecretary of defense policy, had secretly briefed U.S. lawmakers that the United States was planning a covert action with the Turkish army against the PKK in northern Iraq. Edelman added that "the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied," according to Novak.

The leak of the alleged plans for a U.S.-Turkish operation makes a fully covert mission now impossible, noted Strategic Forecasting, a private intelligence-analysis agency based in Austin.

With the alleged planning made public, "the United States is betting that the Iraqi Kurdish leadership will succumb to pressure to act against the PKK itself, and thus preclude the need for a major Turkish incursion -- which would be an extremely messy situation considering the bloody result of having two NATO allies, PKK rebels and battle-hardened pesh merga forces fighting it out in mountainous terrain," the group wrote, using the Kurdish term for fighters. Strategic Forecasting was founded in 1996 by George Friedman, a political scientist and former college professor.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, for months has resisted Turkish appeals for action in Kurdish northern Iraq. Any major operation would mean diverting U.S. troops needed for operations in the rest of Iraq and risk mass defections by Kurdish forces from the Iraqi army.

U.S. action against the Kurdish separatist fighters also would expose American forces to retaliation by PKK forces in northern Iraq, one of the few relatively calm and prosperous regions in the country.

U.S. reluctance to hit the PKK has angered many in Turkey and damaged relations between the two NATO allies. A recent Pew public opinion survey showed only 9 percent of Turks viewed the United States favorably. The governing party's slowness to agree to appeals by the Turkish military for permission to invade northern Iraq helped elect a pro-invasion nationalist bloc to parliament in elections last month.

Iran, also combating Kurdish rebels on its soil, has used the situation to court an alliance with Turkey. Last month, the two countries signed a major gas line proposal, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited Maliki to the Turkish capital, after Erdogan's party triumphed in the elections. The prime minister accompanied his invitation with a new public warning that Turkey's military would strike the PKK in northern Iraq if the United States and their Iraqi allies failed to do so. Maliki is due in Ankara on Tuesday.

Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers have urged Maliki to tell the Turkish leader to stay out of Iraq's affairs.

Turkish forces for years have launched occasional, small-scale raids and artillery strikes into northern Iraq in pursuit of the PKK.

Kurdish leaders now in the Iraqi government at times in the past paired up with Turkey to fight the PKK. But while Iraq's two main Kurdish parties have their own objections to the PKK, there also is sympathy for the PKK among Iraqi Kurds, making it politically difficult for Kurdish leaders to be seen as endorsing an attack on the rebels.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders also appear to regard the PKK as providing useful leverage in any negotiations over Kirkuk, an oil center in northern Iraq, said Omer Taspinar, a Turkish expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Kirkuk residents are to vote by the end of this year on whether to annex the city to Iraq's Kurdish north. Many Turks object to the annexation, in part out of concern for the fate of Kirkuk's Turkmen population.

Some Iraqi Kurds want to trade their agreement to crack down on the PKK "as a quid pro quo for Kirkuk," Taspinar said.

A former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Morton Abramowitz, urged the Iraqi Kurds to move against the PKK. The United States should press the Iraqi Kurds to do so -- and send U.S. forces into action against the Kurdish rebels if the Iraqi Kurds refuse, Abramowitz said by telephone from the Washington area.

"It's time for the Kurds to act," Abramowitz said. "If they don't, I hope the Americans will act. And if there's another serious incident, I think the Turks will act. I think you have a very dangerous situation."

count


May 23: 2954

June 12 3195 11:45 p
June 13 3210 10:30p
June 14 3228 7:30p
June 15 3238
June 16 3249 11:45p
June 18 3274 8 a.m.
June 18 3288 10p.m
June 20 3350 11p.m
June 22 3371 8 a.m.
June 23 3381 10 a.m.
June 24 3408 10 p.m
June 26 3435 8 a,m.

June 27 3455 4p.m.
June 28 3465 9p.m.
June 29 3486 7p.m.
June 30 3501 11p.m.
July 1, 3547 11.p.m.
July 2 3585
JUly 3 3649 11 p.m.
July 6 3718 4p.m.
July 15 3830 10 p.m.
July 16 3885 11 p.m.
July 18 3997 1 p.m. afternoon
July 19 4024 1:30 p "
July 20 4071 1 p
July 21 4097 8p
July 23 4131 8p
july 28 4210 1 a.m.
Aug 6, 4308