The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Health care becomes a right in US

Washington, March 24
President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed into law a drastic overhaul of the US health care system, the culmination of a yearlong struggle that deeply divided the country and threatened to derail his vast domestic agenda.

"Today, after almost a century of trying, today after more than a year of debate ... health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America," Obama declared to often-boisterous applause from supporters gathered in the White House East Room.

The seminal moment came after the House of Representatives on Sunday approved a version of the health reforms passed by the Senate late last year. But a second package of changes also approved by the House will have to go through the Senate one last time this week.

The legislation marks the most significant transformation of the costly health care system in more than four decades and aims to provide nearly all Americans with access to at least some form of health insurance.

Obama signed the bill before lawmakers from his Democratic Party and individual citizens whose cases he touted on the health campaign trail throughout the year.

The President was later to give another speech at the Interior Department, marking the occasion before a broader audience of about 600 lawmakers, health care professionals and lobbyists who supported his reform effort throughout the year.

There were no Republicans in the room. The opposition party fiercely opposed the bill as a government takeover and rejected claims that it will reduce costs over the long term. Conservatives vowed to repeal the bill if they regain the majority in the Congress.

The sweeping overhaul is predicted to expand health coverage to about 32 million uninsured Americans and bans certain practices of insurance companies, such as refusing to provide insurance to people with pre-existing health conditions.

The legislation is estimated to cost $940 billion over 10 years, but is reputed to lower the federal budget deficit over the next two decades and tries to cut costs in a health system that engulfs 17 percent of the US economy.

Health care had been Obama's top domestic priority since he entered office in January 2009, but his popularity suffered greatly as much of the public viewed the reforms sceptically and worried about its effect on their own insurance coverage.

Passage of legislation had been in doubt as late as January, after Republican Scott Brown won a shocking victory in the left-leaning state of Massachusetts that ended the Democratic Party's super-majority in the Senate.

Brown's victory ultimately prompted Democrats to abandon Obama's hopes of returning a bipartisan style of governing to Washington. The health legislation was approved with a rash of procedural tricks that limited the Republican Party's ability to block the bill.

"Our presence here today is remarkable and improbable," Obama said. "It's been easy at times to doubt our ability to do such a big thing, such a complicated thing." But "we are not a nation that scales back its aspirations," he said. "We are a nation that does what is hard, what is necessary, what is right".

Republicans hope Obama's gamble will cost his party dearly when much of the Congress is up for re-election this November. Most political analysts expect the health care push will cost Democrats some seats in Congress come November, but it remained to be seen whether the party would lose its stranglehold on the majority in both chambers.

About a dozen Republican states also plan to challenge the health reforms in US courts. They are targeting an individual mandate that for the first time would require all Americans to purchase some form of health insurance. — DPA

Israel to build more in East Jerusalem
Lingering tensions evident after White House talks

Jerusalem, March 24
Undeterred by turbulence in its ties with the United States and Britain, Israel today confirmed further plans to expand the Jewish presence in occupied East Jerusalem, with more building freshly approved.

In a move sure to anger Palestinians and frustrate Western proponents of a freeze on settlement construction, a city official said approval was given to develop a flashpoint neighbourhood from which Palestinians were evicted last year.

Word of the move came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu completed an unusually low-profile meeting in Washington with US President Barack Obama for fence-mending talks, after their open spat over East Jerusalem earlier this month.

Netanyahu says he regretted the bad timing of an announcement of East Jerusalem building plans during the visit of US Vice-President Joe Biden two weeks ago, which Washington called "insulting".

But on Monday he insisted before an audience of influential American Jews that "Jerusalem is our capital" and building will continue there as Israel sees fit.

His defiant assertion coincided with a public slap to Israel from Britain, which announced it was expelling an Israeli diplomat over the forgery of British passports used by the suspected killers of a Hamas commander in Dubai.

Israel said it regretted Britain's decision but commentators on Wednesday predicted no meaningful damage to bilateral ties. Irish, French, German and Australian passports were also forged by the assassination squad, and their authorities were expected to examine Britain's evidence implicating Israel.

In a comparatively rare public complaint, Saudi Arabia today asked major powers involved in Middle East peace-making for "clarifications about Israel's arrogant policy and its insistence on defying international will".

Israeli media said Netanyahu was surprised by news of the latest plans to build apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah district, which has become a focal point for anti-settler demonstrations since Palestinian residents were evicted.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said it was "part of Israel's attempt to forcibly end any Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem, and to foreclose any hope of reaching agreement on the core issue of Jerusalem in line with international law."

"There is growing international frustration with Israel over the actions and decisions it is taking," he said. "Israel is digging itself into a hole that it will have to climb out of if it is serious about peace."

Speaking on Army Radio, Jerusalem councillor Elisha Peleg said the plan had been advancing for months. The latest move was just "a technical step" on the way to approving 100 homes.

"We will continue to build all over Jerusalem, in Sheikh Jarrah and Ras al-Amud as well," he said, naming another Palestinian neighbourhood in the Jerusalem area. Erekat said President Mahmoud Abbas would insist that Israel revoke the Sheikh Jarrah project, as well as plans published during the Biden visit to build 1,600 houses at another site.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem as part of its capital after capturing it in the 1967 war. Its claim is not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state they are seeking in the occupied West Bank.

In Washington, the Obama-Netanyahu talks yielded no sign of a breakthrough in the stalled peace process, which has been suspended for 15 months since Israel launched its offensive on the Islamist Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

In a sign of lingering tensions, the Obama administration withheld from Netanyahu some of the usual trappings of a White House visit. Press coverage of the Oval Office talks was barred, and the leaders made no public statements afterward.

"President Obama and the prime minister met privately for an hour and a half, the atmosphere was good," Netanyahu spokesman Nir Chefetz said in a statement several hours after. He said advisers "continued discussions on the ideas raised at the meeting" and would hold further talks today. — Reuters

Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom echoes in Pakistan

Lahore, March 24
Pakistani rights groups and members of civil society have demanded that the place here where freedom fighter Bhagat Singh was hanged should be named after him to commemorate his role in the movement for the independence of the subcontinent.

A large number of people, including students from various educational institutions, gathered for a rally yesterday at Shadman Chowk, the spot where Bhagat Singh was hanged in 1931 at the age of 23, to mark the 79th anniversary of his martyrdom.

People who participated in the rally said the government should rename Shadman Chowk as Shaheed Bhagat Singh Chowk.

The gallows of Lahore Jail were located at the site till they were demolished in the 1960s and replaced with the square and a residential colony.

Speakers at the rally described Bhagat Singh as one of the pioneers of the struggle for an independent subcontinent.

Participants carried candles, banners and posters and demanded the preservation of historic places linked to revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh.

The participants, in a token gesture, placed a plaque with details of Bhagat Singh’s heroics at Shadman Chowk.

Rights activist Saeeda Diep said the citizens of Lahore had launched an initiative for preserving the city’s heritage by naming the square after Bhagat Singh and the government should also rename Shadman Colony as Bhagat Singh Colony as he gave his life for the independence of the subcontinent.

Diep said the ruling establishment might not like heroes like Bhagat Singh, Dullah Bhatti, Rai Ahmad Khan Kharal, Peer Sibghat Ullah and Kartar Singh for being among those who challenged the authoritarian agendas of the establishment but they are heroes of the people and they would not be forgotten.

She said the people would acquire other places linked to Bhagat Singh, like his alma mater Bradlaugh Hall, from the government to convert them into a small museum or a library dedicated to the life of the martyr.

“The government has named cities and places after a number of foreigners but it has failed to name a few places after a legendary person who received worldwide recognition and was the son of the soil. People won’t tolerate this injustice anymore and that is why they have gathered here today,” she said.

Taranjeet Singh, a Sikh from Hassanabdal, told the media that he had come to Shadman Chowk to mark the anniversary of Singh’s martyrdom.

He said Bhagat Singh was the person who took up arms against the British and launched the freedom struggle by taking along people of all creeds, unlike political parties, which only talked about people having similar ideologies. — PTI

Google’s exit draws mixed reaction from Chinese

Beijing, March 24
A day after world’s leading Internet firm, Google shut its search engine for China, the step drew admiration, hate and anger in equal measure from the country’s netizens. Reaction poured in blogs, tweets and wired comments had a common thread of users expressing bewilderment what it will mean for Internet services they depend on.

The extent of provocation it must have caused to Beijing became apparent as the government was believed to be attempting to block access to Google’s new uncensored site in Hong Kong from the mainland. Vast majority of the comments and blogs on Chinese mainland websites appear to express hate and anger towards Google.

But tweets and comments that appear to come from users in mainland China on websites based outside the country express sympathy and support towards Google, and anger towards the Chinese government. China’s state media came down sharply on Google’s decision to quit saying the Internet firm had taken a huge misstep in the world’s largest online market.

The newspapers claimed that Google would earn little sympathy from users who had been loyal to it in China and following the official line said the firm had turned its dispute on government web censorship and cyberattacks into a political issue.

The Global Times said there was an improvement in China’s business climate and urged foreign companies to adapt to “transnational Chinese society”. The exit of Google from China would cleanse the country’s Internet of “pornographic and subversive content” besides providing a major opening for domestic and international web companies to make a dent into the market, the daily said.

“With the company’s credibility among Chinese netizens now plummeting, Google will be greeted with less sympathy and fewer parting sentiments from Chinese Internet users,” it said.

“With other search engines not in a position to fully replace Google, netizens will have to cope with the inconvenience from Google’s decision,” it said. There was however mixed reaction in blogs which are widely used in China.

There is sharp division between the reactions from Chinese Internet users on websites that lie inside and outside Chinese government censorship. "This kind of company should definitely be cleansed from China! Don't give it any opportunity to do business in China! Do you still assume that we are in the era of the Eight-Power Allied Forces [the intervention by eight nations to end the 1900 Boxer rebellion]?" "The power, status and reputation of a country is unshakable, a blogger commented. — PTI

Fonseka fears for his life

Colombo, March 24
Sri Lanka's former army chief, Sarath Fonseka, facing court martial in detention, has said "he has been set up" and fears that his life is at risk. Maintaining that the charges against him were "bogus", the 59-year-old Fonseka claimed that he was being held "illegally" as the country's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he lost to in the recently concluded Presidential elections, was "jealous" of him.

"He (Rajapaksa) is jealous of me as I got more votes than him although he rigged, he knows that I can challenge him," the Lankan war hero said in an interview to the UK-based Channel 4.

The channel said Fonseka's handwritten answers were smuggled out of Sri Lankan Naval Headquarters, where the former army chief is being held on charges of flouting military rules by meeting political leaders, while still in uniform and procuring weapons for the forces at inflated prices.

Fonseka's interview from behind the bars apparently caught the authorities off-guard and the Director General of Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) Lakshman Hulugalle said the matter was being investigated.

He clarified that the general's wife Anoma was questioned on Sunday as part of these investigations as also to probe the use of foreign exchange for Fonseka's Presidential campaign.

"Anoma and (JVP leader) Anura Kumara Dissanayake were questioned separately on the issue of the foreign exchange funds used for campaigning (during Presidential elections," Hulugalle said.

In the interview, Fonseka said he was being held illegally and that his life remains at risk. — PTI

3 die as train rams into building in Oslo

Oslo (Norway), March 24
Three persons were killed and three seriously injured when a freight train derailed and plunged into the Oslo fjord today after running away out of control, police said.

“Three people have been confirmed dead and three others were seriously injured,” an Oslo police spokeswoman told AFP.

Norwegian media said the train of 16 empty trucks with no locomotive had sped along wildly for several kilometres before ramming into a warehouse in an industrial part of the Norwegian capital.

The warehouse collapsed and part of the train fell into the fjord. — AFP