7/17 - Lee Silver

• Stephen & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made headlines in the past month with the June 15 announcement that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates would transition out of a day-to-day role at the company in July 2008 in order to spend more time on charitable work through the foundation (release on-line here) and with the announcement that renowned investor Warren Buffet would give away much of his fortune to it and four other foundations (article on-line here). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on global health and education issues, is on-line here.

• Middle East. Israel currently is involved in military action on two fronts: it has sent forces into Gaza after members of the terrorist organization Hamas captured an Israeli soldier on June 25, and it has sent forces into Lebanon, fired missiles at the airport in Beirut, and imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon’s ports after members of the terrorist organization Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
  President George W. Bush has acknowledged Israel’s right to defend itself but has said that Israel should refrain from acts that destabilize Lebanon’s government, which Bush described on July 13 as a “fragile democracy” (on-line here). Bush said on July 13 that for the situation to settle down, “the soldiers need to be returned, and [Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad] needs to show some leadership toward peace.” When asked if he was concerned if Israel’s attacks on the airport in Beirut could trigger a wider Middle East war, Bush said that he was most concerned about weakening the government in Lebanon, where the anti-Syrian opposition won a majority of seats in the parliament in June 2005.
  An article about President George W. Bush’s comments on July 17 while his microphone was on without his knowledge is on-line here.

• The Word: T&A. The Miss Universe 2006 pageant will air July 23 and is on-line here.

• Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger. Arizona citizens will vote in November on a measure to award a $1 million prize to one voter in the primary and general elections held every two years, beginning retroactively with the 2006 elections. Proponents of the measure say that it will help encourage voter turnout, while opponents say that the measure is unnecessary and possibly illegal. The text of the measure is on-line here and an article on the measure is on-line here.
  A New York Times story about the change in Wal-Mart policy towards shoplifting of items under $25 in price is on-line here. The story is based on documents provided by WakeUpWal-mart.com, a group trying to unionize Wal-Mart workers (release on-line here.

• Stem Cells. Stem cell research is not currently illegal in the United States, but President George W. Bush has allowed federal funding only for research on existing embryonic stem cell lines, which some have criticized as limiting the extent to which effective research can be done. The Senate is considering a bill (H.R. 810) that would change Bush’s policy and allow for federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells that are taken from embryos that would otherwise be destroyed. The White House has announced its opposition to this bill and has said that Bush would veto it if passed (policy statement on-line here.
  Embryonic stem cells have been controversial in recent years, first because of their derivation from aborted fetuses, and then because of their connection with a particular kind of human, non-reproductive cloning. Stem cells in general are unspecialized cells that can self-renew indefinitely and that can develop into more mature cells with specialized functions, and embryonic stem (ES) cells are derived from an early-stage embryo. Whether the federal government should fund the development of such cells grew into a major policy question in recent years, culminating with President George W. Bush's decision on August 9, 2001 to allow federal funding for research on then-existing stem cell lines as long as the lines were derived from embryos that were already destroyed and that had not been created specifically for research (on-line here).

posted by Stephen Lee @ 7/18/2006 08:20:00 AM