Making It Official: Hunting Al-Qaida Worldwide

This week, the House begins debate on a defense spending bill that would authorize the president to attack al-Qaida and its associates all over the world.

Supporters say the measure would give the U.S. more leeway to fight terrorists after the death of Osama bin Laden. But critics worry that it hands the White House too much power.

The last time Congress waded into this debate was September 2001, a week after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. Lawmakers passed an Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against the people who planned those attacks and the countries that harbored them; it didn't mention al-Qaida.

Well, a lot's changed in 10 years: Bin Laden's dead; al-Qaida has taken root in Yemen and Somalia; and Bobby Chesney, who teaches national security law at the University of Texas, says now might be a good time to update the law to cover new groups that are striking American troops.

? Says the United States is engaged in armed conflict with al-Qaida, the Taliban and associated forces, and the president can use military force against them or detain them until the end of hostilities.

? Does not limit the military force geographically or to groups that were involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as the original AUMF did.

"Groups like that that are not in any way encompassed by the original AUMF by its own terms, but that very clearly are engaging in combat operations against our soldiers in Afghanistan," Chesney says. "And of course, we should have a clear legal foundation for fighting back against them."

The defense authorization bill up for consideration by the House this week would do just that. The bill says the U.S. is at war with al-Qaida, the Taliban and associated forces. It gives the White House the power to take action against anyone who belongs to those groups or anyone who supports them, anywhere in the world.

For human rights lawyer David Remes, that's going too far.

"The fact of the matter is that it's a radical expansion of existing authority that would commit the United States to open-ended policing of the world. It would in effect make the United States the master of the world," says Remes, who works with the Washington-based Appeal for Justice.

Congress is giving up too much, Remes says. "It's a blank check to the president to wage war."

But Charles "Cully" Stimson, who worked on defense policy in the Bush administration, couldn't disagree more.

"It's not a blank check," Stimson says. "In fact, it fills in the blanks."

Stimson, now a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the new defense bill finally makes explicit that the administration can hold detainees until the end of any hostilities.

[New terror groups] are not in any way encompassed by the original AUMF ... but very clearly are engaging in combat operations against our soldiers in Afghanistan.

- Robert Chesney, national security law professor

"It puts to rest this nagging argument that we've seen over and over and over again, that the AUMF does not specifically authorize detention," he says.

Those arguments are still nagging at human rights groups.

Laura Murphy, who runs the Washington legislative office at the American Civil Liberties Union, says that if the House bill moves forward, the conflict might never end.

"It could be like the war on drugs," she says. "No one has declared an end to the war on drugs."

Because the measure doesn't say the conflict is confined to, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, Murphy fears that it could lead to some alarming situations.

"Unlike the Authorization for Use of Military Force that was passed in 2001, it has no geographic boundaries, so the president could take America to war in any country in the world, including inside the United States itself," she adds.

Critics have another concern. The defense authorization bill moved through the House Armed Services Committee earlier this month in a marathon session. The provision that authorizes military force got only a few minutes of debate, after midnight.

Human rights groups hope the measure gets a more careful look this week. They have one final option: the Senate.

"The Senate has an obligation to be much more deliberative than the House has been, and to really give this particular provision full and fair hearings and debate," Murphy says.

Former Bush administration Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told the bill's House sponsors Friday that the measure is "both timely and constructive."

Mukasey wrote House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon that the legislation "would add order and rationality to what has been an improvisational exercise overseen by judges who do not have the fact-finding resources of Congress or the accountability that comes from being responsible for protecting national security."

For its part, the White House has remained silent about its views on the legislation. In court cases filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees, President Obama has implied he's taking a lot of the authority to hold terrorism suspects that the House is debating whether to give him outright.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136500471/making-it-official-hunting-al-qaida-worldwide?ft=1&f=1004

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How to square budget cuts, need for aging research ? Health ...

WASHINGTON ? A disease standoff may be brewing: How can Alzheimer?s research receive more scarce dollars without cutting from areas such as heart disease or cancer?

In one of the stark realities of the budget crisis, scientists? chances of winning research dollars from the National Institutes of Health for any condition have dipped to a new low.

?We are clearly not able to support a lot of great science that we would like to support,? NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told senators last week. This year, for every six grant applications that NIH receives, ?five of them are going to go begging.?

That?s down from nearly 1 in 3 grants funded a decade ago, and 1 in 5 last year. And it comes before the looming fight over how much more to cut in overall government spending for next year, and where to make those cuts.

Already, a new report says one of the biggest losers is aging research, despite a rapidly graying population that promises a worsening epidemic of dementia, among other illnesses.

?Nobody wants to say Alzheimer?s is worse than diabetes or heart disease or cancer,? says Dr. Sam Gandy, a prominent neuroscientist at New York?s Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

But ?part of the problem now with all the pressure to cut the budget ? is that for Alzheimer?s to get more, something else has to lose,? adds Gandy. His own lab is scrambling for funds to study a potential dementia drug after losing out on an NIH aging grant.

The NIH pays for much of the nation?s leading biomedical research. Republicans and Democrats alike have long been staunch supporters. But the agency?s nearly $31 billion budget offers an example of the hard choices facing lawmakers, especially if they?re to meet House calls for a drastic scale-back of overall government spending.

Consider aging issues.

The NIH spends about $469 million on Alzheimer?s research, says a new report from the Alzheimer?s Foundation of America that criticizes overall aging research as ?a minuscule and declining investment.?

About 5.4 million Americans now have Alzheimer?s disease, and studies suggest health and nursing home expenditures for it cost more than $170 billion a year, much of it paid by Medicare and Medicaid.

NIH?s Collins told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that there?s a ?very frightening cost curve.? In 2050, when more than 13 million Americans are projected to have Alzheimer?s, the bill is expected to reach a staggering $1 trillion. But he said that cost could be halved merely by finding a way to delay people getting Alzheimer?s by five years.

Monday, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich jumped into the debate, saying that over the next four decades Alzheimer?s could cost the government a total of $20 trillion. He suggested selling U.S. bonds to raise money for research rather than have the disease compete each year for a share of the federal budget.

?We are grotesquely underfunded,? Gingrich said of health research dollars.

The Alzheimer?s Foundation report goes beyond dementia, finding that the National Institute on Aging receives 3.6 cents for every dollar Congress sends to the NIH. Cancer and heart disease get nearly three to four times as much. Despite the tough economic times, the foundation has joined with other groups lobbying for an extra $300 million for the aging institute?s overall work next year, to boost its budget to $1.4 billion.

Competition for today?s dollars is fierce, with applications up 60 percent at the aging division alone since 2003. Aging chief Dr. Richard Hodes says last year, his institute couldn?t pay for about half of what were ranked as the most outstanding applications for research projects. Still, he hopes to fund more scientists this year by limiting the number who get especially large grants.

What?s the squeeze? Congress doubled the NIH?s budget in the early 2000s, an investment that helped speed the genetic revolution and thus a host of new projects that scientists are clamoring to try. But in more recent years, economists say NIH?s budget hasn?t kept pace with medical inflation, and this year Congress cut overall NIH funding by 1 percent, less than expected after a protracted battle.

The Obama administration has sought nearly $32 billion for next year, and prospects for avoiding a cut instead are far from clear. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the issue, warns that under some early circulating House plans to curb health spending, ?severe reductions to NIH research would be unavoidable. That doesn?t make sense.?

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., pushed Collins to make the case that investments in medical research really can pay off.

Collins? response: Four decades of NIH-led research revealed how arteries get clogged and spurred development of cholesterol-fighting statin drugs, helping lead to a 60 percent drop in heart-disease deaths. Averaged out, that research cost about $3.70 per person per year, ?the cost of a latte, and not even a grande latte,? Collins told lawmakers.

___

EDITOR?S NOTE ? Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington. Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

?

Source: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/16/health/how-to-square-budget-cuts-need-for-aging-research/

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Advantages of Transcription Training

The business world has only started to realize the full potential of transcription and how transcription services can help in maintaining of records and documentation. Companies are giving more importance to finding the best possible manner to meet their transcription needs; they are looking for professional transcriptionists who are capable of ensuring premier quality work and confidentiality.

With time the number of companies providing transcription services has only increased. The transcription industry is growing and so is the competition. The transcriptionists are growing in experience; they are better trained, better skilled, and more accurate in their work.

Training is not a necessity when it comes to being a transcriptionist. Many transcriptionists learn the tricks of the trade on the job, as they gain experience. Still, attending a school or a college to learn how to transcript professionally increases your value in the industry.

Transcription companies today increasingly prefer employing those who already have a certification in transcription. Pre-trained transcriptionist give companies a sense of assurance of quality and trust, as there is way more to transcription than simply diction typing. A transcriptionist must have the required writing skills, editorial skills, andknow how use of transcription tools.

A certified transcriptionist is already aware of the industry's standard level of quality and accuracy required.They are trained and possess the expertise required for accurate documentation and custom formatting.They are capable of determining when it's necessary to improvise, and clarify the diction.

The two greatest plus points of transcription training is the experience one gains before going professional, and the fact that a tanning course sharpens your listening and typing skills. A good training program will even teach you how to use the equipment required for transcription such as the foot pedal, transcription machine and the dictation software.

Transcription is not an easy job; it can take hours to transcript a recording of only half an hour if the transcriptionist is not well trained. As a profession it not only requires time, but is a strenuous process.

A trained transcriptionist knows the right approach towards his profession and would require a much smaller time frame to deal with an identical recording. He/she would be able to complete the same task comparatively more easily with a much lesser number of playbacks.

Many colleges, university and technical schools offer training programs in transcription. The length of such training programs may vary from one institution to another, but they usually tend to be for one or maximum of two years.

Even the timing of classes and sessions may vary, some institutions conduct full day time classes just like regular colleges, whereas a few offer part-time evening one's so you be able to keep up with your current job.

In transcription, you also have the option of practicing and training yourself at home. There are many training programs which are available online, such programs will guide you through the process of training you in transcription, but would require you to pre-invest in transcription equipment.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6271318

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