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Monday, July 30, 2007 |
Aljazeera: "Tony Blair's seemless transition from prime minister to special representative for the Quartet last month was accompanied by raised eyebrows at the UN and within the British foreign office.
It also provoked outright hostility from the Russians.
Now, senior UN and British officials have told Al Jazeera that the US state department has been paying Mr Blair's bills, either directly or indirectly, via a trust fund. The amount remains undisclosed.
Marie Okabe, a UN spokeswoman, said: 'I don't think I can get into the legal position of the Quartet but as you know the UN is one of the four members of the Quartet, Tony Blair is representative of the Quartet, I think the question of resources for him, his staffing, that kind of thing, is an issue that is under discussion.'
Meanwhile, Blair's office said: 'These issues are still being discussed. Our focus has been on Tony Blair's trips and getting the office up and running in September.'"
10:39:10 AM 
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WashingtonPost: "A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate.
Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services."
Logrolling, nepotism, is a characteristic of the Bush administration.
10:35:27 AM
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BBC: "In scenes that may no longer be dismissed as far-fetched, a new film is to chart what would happen if the Thames Barrier was overwhelmed.
The movie, based on a book by Richard Doyle, imagines how London would look if it was deluged by a surge of water."
10:28:17 AM
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