December 7, 2004

Report: Palestinians, Israel Back Peace Plan ABC News - Palestinians and Israelis have agreed in principle to proposals aiming to end their conflict, Egypt's official news agency MENA reported. 3:31:00 PM

Novel Leukemia Pills Show Promise WebMD - A new generation of medications to treat leukemia is wiping out cancer in people who fail to benefit from the blockbuster drug Gleevec, researchers say. One of the new drugs, known as BMS-354825, obliterated signs of leukemia in nearly nine of 10 people who took it, says Charles Sawyers, MD, a cancer specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is leading tests of the drug. Sawyers and others spoke about the novel drugs at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology this week. The experimental medications are being tested in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia or CML, a blood and bone marrow cancer that strikes about 4,400 Americans and 10,000 people worldwide each year. 2:37:26 PM

When rules go out the window and near-torture is self-defence Al-Qaeda fights outside the Geneva Conventions and so is not protected by them, writes Ted Lapkin. The laws of war essentially propose a contract to combatants: if you observe these rules of civilised warfare, then you will be treated in a civilised manner. The conditional nature of legitimate combatant status is reflected in the text of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. A common article two of those conventions states that parties to the treaty are under no legal obligation to apply their terms to non-parties who do not themselves abide by the law of armed conflict. The men detained at Guantanamo were captured on the battlefield while fighting for organisations that systematically violated the most basic tenets of the law of war. Captured al-Qaeda fighters were drawn from the ranks of an organisation that sees the deliberate destruction of women, children and the elderly as a legitimate tactic. From flying hijacked airliners into office buildings to bombing commuter trains in Madrid, Osama bin Laden’s minions have committed every war crime on the books. Bottom line: We will not go quietly to be slaughtered again. 10:32:53 AM