The ACN Morning Report -- Friday May 10, 2013

ASSAD SEEKS HEZBOLLAH SUPPORT -- BANGLADESH BUILDING COLLAPSE DEATH TOLL RISES -- NORTH KOREA LAYS OUT CASE AGAINST JAILED AMERICAN -- U.S. NOT SEEKING PERMANENT BASES IN AFGHANISTAN -- OHIO SUSPECT'S RELATIVES SAY HE BEAT THEM -- 7 YEAR OLD BOSTON BOMBING VICTIM HAS 11TH SURGERY -- RAND PAUL, JEB BUSH, MARCO RUBIO AND PAUL RYAN -- GAY MARRIAGE BILL HEADS TO MINN. SENATE -- 3D PRINTED LIBERATOR GUN ATTRACTS TENS OF THOUSANDS

AFTER SYRIA, ASSAD SEEKS HEZBOLLAH SUPPORT

Screenshot Photo

Israel’s alleged attack against Syria seems to have led President Bashar Assad to hunker down and more fully align his regime with the Iran-Hezbollah axis. As he fights for his regime’s survival, holding on to what some analysts say could become an Alawite ministate, he is publicly moving to a more hostile position vis-à-vis Israel and the West.

Assad told a local Lebanese paper that Syria was becoming a resistance state similar to the one Hezbollah has created in Lebanon.

DEATH TOLL FROM BANGLADESH BUILDING COLLAPSE TOPS 1,000

CNN

Dhaka, Bangladesh (CNN) -- More than two weeks after a building in Bangladesh housing factories full of garment workers caved in, the death toll from the South Asian nation's deadliest industrial disaster has surpassed 1,000, authorities said Friday.

For the 17th day, rescue and recovery workers are searching through the nine-story building's tangled wreckage in Savar, a suburb of the capital, Dhaka. During the first several days of dangerous and painstaking work, they got more than 2,400 people out of the rubble alive.

NORTH KOREA DETAILS CHARGES AGAINST JAILED AMERICAN

Reuters

North Korea provided more detail on the alleged activities of jailed American Kenneth Bae early Friday, accusing him of a multiyear effort to foment opposition to the regime that appears to darken prospects for his release.

One thing that wasn’t a surprise was apparent confirmation of his involvement in missionary work, something that has seen other Korean-Americans detained in North Korea in recent years.

SPOKESMAN: U.S. NOT SEEKING PERMANENT BASES IN AFGHANISTAN

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The United States is not seeking permanent military bases in Afghanistan, and any future American presence in the country will be possible only at the invitation of the Afghan government, White House spokesman Jay Carney said here on Thursday.

The spokesman echoed what U.S. President Barack Obama said in response to a statement made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier in the day about Washington's intention to set up nine military bases across the Asian nation after the exit of most U.S. and NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.

OHIO MAN'S EX-RELATIVES SAY HE BEAT THEM, KEPT MANNEQUIN IN HOME

AP

CLEVELAND –  The man accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his Cleveland home terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors in the years before their relationship disintegrated, her relatives say.

Several relatives of Grimilda Figueroa, who left Ariel Castro years ago and died after a long illness last year, painted a nightmarish portrait of Castro's family life as authorities made public horrifying details of the abuse endured by the imprisoned women.

 SISTER OF BOSTON BOY KILLED IN BOMBING HAS 11TH SURGERY

AP

Jane Richard, the wounded 7-year-old sister of the boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, had a crucial 11th surgery Wednesday night but faces more operations to prepare her for an artificial leg, the family said Thursday.

Doctors at Boston Children's Hospital finally closed the wound where one bomb tore off her left leg below the knee April 15, the Richard family wrote on its Tumblr page. She will eventually be fitted with a prosthetic device.

GOP'S RAND PAUL STEPS TOWARD 2016 RUN, JOINS GROWING FIELD

AP

DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Rand Paul says he’s only “considering” running for president. But he’s doing much more than mull it over.

The Kentucky Republican is unabashedly clearing a path to seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, with a series of early voting state visits, a beefed-up political operation and a deliberate plan to appeal to mainstream voters and raise his national profile.

MINNESOTA SENATE NEXT STOP FOR GAY MARRIAGE BILL

Photo: Jim Mone

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gay marriage supporters in Minnesota are already in celebration mode after the state House's passage of the bill to legalize it, but there are a few more steps before it gets to the desk of Gov. Mark Dayton.

"It's not time to uncork the champagne yet. But it's chilling," said Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, at a spirited rally in the Capitol rotunda a few minutes after the House voted 75-59 to let same-sex couples start getting married in Minnesota come Aug. 1.

DOWNLOADS FOR 3D PRINTED LIBERATOR GUN REACHES 100,000

The blueprint used to produce a 3D-printed plastic gun has been downloaded about 100,000 times since going online earlier this week, according to Forbes.

Defense Distributed told the news site it was surprised by the amount of interest its Liberator gun had generated.

Earlier in the week, the company demonstrated the firearm being fired

But even before any more guns come off the DIY printing presses, there are moves afoot to ban it.

Syria and Chemical Weapons: The United States and Israel Don't Have A Leg To Stand On

Red lines are all the rage -- whether it's Obama's "red line" for Syrian chemical weapons, of Israel's Netanyahu, here, for Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons. With war threatened in both cases without a shred of evidence.

If, as alleged, the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons, it would indeed be a serious development, constituting a breach of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, one of the world’s most important disarmament treaties, which banned the use of chemical weapons.

In 1993, the international community came together to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, a binding international treaty that would also prohibit the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, and transfer or use of chemical weapons. Syria is one of only eight of the world’s 193 countries not party to the convention.

However, US policy regarding chemical weapons has been so inconsistent and politicized that the United States is in no position to take leadership in response to any use of such weaponry by Syria.

The controversy over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles is not new. Both the Bush administration and Congress, in the 2003 Syria Accountability Act, raised the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, specifically Syria's refusal to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. The failure of Syria to end its chemical weapons program was deemed sufficient grounds by a large bipartisan majority of Congress to impose strict sanctions on that country.

Syria rejected such calls for unilateral disarmament on the grounds that it was not the only country in the region that had failed to sign the CWC—nor was it the first country in the region to develop chemical weapons, nor did it have the largest chemical weapons arsenal in the region.

Indeed, neither Israel nor Egypt, the world’s two largest recipients of US military aid, is a party to the convention either. Never has Congress or any administration of either party called on Israel or Egypt to disarm their chemical weapons arsenals, much less threatened sanctions for having failed to do so. US policy, therefore, appears to be that while it is legitimate for its allies Israel and Egypt to refuse to ratify this important arms control convention, Syria needed to be singled out for punishment for its refusal.

The first country in the Middle East to obtain and use chemical weapons was Egypt, which used phosgene and mustard gas in the mid-1960s during its intervention in Yemen’s civil war. There is no indication Egypt has ever destroyed any of its chemical agents or weapons. The US-backed Mubarak regime continued its chemical weapons research and development program until its ouster in a popular uprising two years ago, and the program is believed to have continued subsequently.

Israel is widely believed to have produced and stockpiled an extensive range of chemical weapons and is engaged in ongoing research and development of additional chemical weaponry. (Israel is also believed to maintain a sophisticated biological weapons program, which is widely thought to include anthrax and more advanced weaponized agents and other toxins, as well as a sizable nuclear weapons arsenal with sophisticated delivery systems.)

For more than 45 years, the Syrians have witnessed successive US administration provide massive amounts of armaments to a neighboring country with a vastly superior military capability which has invaded, occupied, and colonized Syria's Golan province in the southwest. In 2007, the United States successfully pressured Israel to reject peace overtures from the Syrian government in which the Syrians offered to recognize Israel and agree to strict security guarantees in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian territory.

The US position that Syria must unilaterally give up its chemical weapons and missiles while allowing a powerful and hostile neighbor to maintain and expand its sizable arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons is simply unreasonable. No country, whether autocratic or democratic, could be expected to accept such conditions.

This is part of a longstanding pattern of hostility by the United States towards international efforts to eliminate chemical weapons through a universal disarmament regime. Instead, Washington uses the alleged threat from chemical weapons as an excuse to target specific countries whose governments are seen as hostile to US political and economic interests.

One of the most effective instruments for international arms control in recent years has been the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention by inspecting laboratories, factories, and arsenals, and oversees the destruction of chemical weapons. The organization’s most successful director general, first elected in 1997, was the Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, praised by the Guardian newspaper as a “workaholic” who has “done more in the past five years to promote world peace than anyone.”

Under his strong leadership, the number of signatories of the treaty grew from 87 to 145 nations, the fastest growth rate of any international organization in recent decades, and – during this same period – his inspectors oversaw the destruction of 2 million chemical weapons and two-thirds of the world’s chemical weapons facilities. Bustani was re-elected unanimously in May 2000 for a five-year term and was complimented by Secretary of State Colin Powell for his “very impressive” work.

However, by 2002, the United States began raising objections to Bustani’s insistence that the OPCW inspect US chemical weapons facilities with the same vigor it does for other signatories. More critically, the United States was concerned about Bustani’s efforts to get Iraq to sign the convention and open their facilities to surprise inspections as is done with other signatories. If Iraq did so, and the OPCW failed to locate evidence of chemical weapons that Washington claimed Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed, it would severely weaken American claims that Iraq was developing chemical weapons.

US efforts to remove Bustani by forcing a recall by the Brazilian government failed, as did a US-sponsored vote of no confidence at the United Nations in March. That April, the United States began putting enormous pressure on some of the UN’s weaker countries to support its campaign to oust Bustani and threatened to withhold the United States’ financial contribution to the OPCW, which constituted more than 20 percent of its entire budget. Figuring it was better to get rid of its leader than risk the viability of the whole organization, a majority of nations, brought together in an unprecedented special session called by the United States, voted to remove Bustani.

The Case of Iraq

The first country to allegedly use chemical weapons in the Middle East was Great Britain in 1920, as part of its efforts to put down a rebellion by Iraqi tribesmen when British forces seized the country following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. According to Winston Churchill, who then held the position of Britain’s Secretary of State for War and Air, "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.”

It was the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, that used chemical weapons on a scale far greater than any country had dared since the weapons were banned nearly 90 years ago. The Iraqis inflicted close to 100,000 casualties among Iranian soldiers using banned chemical agents, resulting in 20,000 deaths and tens of thousands of long-term injuries.

They were unable to do this alone, however. Despite ongoing Iraqi support for Abu Nidal and other terrorist groups during the 1980s, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism in order to provide the regime with thiodiglycol, a key component in the manufacture of mustard gas, and other chemical precursors for their weapons program.

Walter Lang, a senior official with the US Defense Intelligence Agency, noted how "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern" to President Reagan and other administration officials since they "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose." Lang noted that the DIA believed Iraq’s use of chemical was “seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival.” In fact, DIA personnel were dispatched to Baghdad during the war to provide Saddam Hussein’s regime with US satellite data on the location of Iranian troop concentrations in the full knowledge that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons against them.

Even the Iraqi regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians was not seen as particularly problematic. The March 1988 massacre in the northern Iraqi city of Halabja, where Saddam's forces murdered up to 5,000 Kurdish civilians with chemical weapons, was downplayed by the Reagan administration, with some officials even falsely claiming that Iran was actually responsible. The United States continued sending aid to Iraq even after the regime’s use of poison gas was confirmed. 

When a 1988 Senate Foreign Relations committee staff report brought to light Saddam's policy of widespread extermination in Iraqi Kurdistan, Senator Claiborne Pell introduced the Prevention of Genocide Act to put pressure on the Iraqi regime, but the Bush administration successfully moved to have the measure killed. This came despite evidence emerging from UN reports in 1986 and 1987, prior to the Halabja tragedy, documenting Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians—allegations that were confirmed both by investigations from the CIA and from US embassy staff who had visited Iraqi Kurdish refugees in Turkey. However, not only was the United States not particularly concerned about Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, the Reagan administration continued supporting the Iraqi government's procurement effort of materials necessary for their development.

Given the US culpability in the deaths of tens of thousands of people by Iraqi chemical weapons less than 25 years ago, the growing calls for the United States to go to war with Syria in response to that regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons that killed a few dozen people leads even many of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s fiercest opponents to question US motivations.

This is not the only reason US credibility on the issue of chemical weapons is questionable, however.

After denying and covering up Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the late 1980s, the US government—first under President Bill Clinton and then under President George W. Bush—began insisting that Iraq’s alleged chemical weapons stockpile was a dire threat, even though the country had completely destroyed its stockpile by 1993 and completely dismantled its chemical weapons program.

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel—when they served in the US Senate in 2002—all voted to authorize the US invasion of Iraq, insisting that Iraq still had a chemical weapons arsenal that was so extensive it constituted a serious threaten to the national security of the United States, despite the fact that Iraq had rid itself of all such weapons nearly a decade earlier. As a result, it is not unreasonable to question the accuracy of any claims they might make today in regard to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons.

It should also be noted that many of today’s most outspoken congressional advocates for US military intervention in Syria in response to the Damascus regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons were among the most strident advocates in 2002-2003 for invading Iraq. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), whom the Democrats have chosen to be their ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was among the right-wing minority of House Democrats who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction. When no such weapons were found, Engel came up with the bizarre allegation that “it would not surprise me if those weapons of mass destruction that we cannot find in Iraq wound up and are today in Syria.”

Engel is currently the chief sponsor of the Free Syria Act of 2013 (H.R. 1327), which would authorize the United States to provide arms to Syrian rebels.

UN resolutions

Unlike the case of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, there are no UN Security Council resolutions specifically demanding that Syria unilaterally disarm its chemical weapons or dismantle its chemical weapons program. Syria is believed to have developed its chemical weapons program only after Israel first developed its chemical, biological, and nuclear programs, all of which still exist today and by which the Syrians still feel threatened.

However, UN Security Council Resolution 687, the resolution passed at the end of the 1991 Gulf War demanding the destruction of Iraq’s chemical weapons arsenal, also called on member states “to work towards the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of such weapons.”

Syria has joined virtually all other Arab states in calling for such a “weapons of mass destruction-free zone” for the entire Middle East. In December 2003, Syria introduced a UN Security Council resolution reiterating this clause from 12 years earlier, but the resolution was tabled as a result of a threatened US veto. As I wrote at time, in reference to the Syrian Accountability Act, “By imposing strict sanctions on Syria for failing to disarm unilaterally, the administration and Congress has roundly rejected the concept of a WMD-free zone or any kind of regional arms control regime. Instead, the United States government is asserting that it has the authority to say which country can have what kind of weapons systems, thereby enforcing a kind of WMD apartheid, which will more likely encourage, rather than discourage, the proliferation of such dangerous weapons.”

A case can be made, then, that had the United States pursued a policy that addressed the proliferation of non-conventional weapons through region-wide disarmament rather than trying to single out Syria, the Syrian regime would have rid itself of its chemical weapons some years earlier along with Israel and Egypt, and the government’s alleged use of such ordnance—which is now propelling the United States to increase its involvement in that country’s civil war—would have never become an issue.

The ACN Morning Report -- April 10 2013

North Korea's Imminent Threat -- Germany/Japan United Against North Korea -- Quake Strikes Iran -- North Korea Closes China Border -- Cuba Sends American Children Home -- TX Student Stabs 14 -- McConnell Office Bugged? -- Detecting A Nuclear Test -- The Smell Of Semen Is In The Air

US: NORTH KOREA COULD LAUNCH MISSILE TEST AT ANY TIME

Photo: EPA

The Obama administration calculates it's likely North Korea may test fire mobile ballistic missiles at any time, based on the most recent intelligence showing Pyongyang probably has completed launch preparations, a US official told CNN Tuesday.

According to the official, a test launch could happen without North Korea issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping warning them to stay away from the missile's path.

GERMANY GIVES SUPPORT TO JAPAN AGAINST NORTH KOREA

Wikipedia

THE HAGUE —

Japan can count on German solidarity in the face of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Tuesday, as North Korea stepped up its saber-rattling.

“There is a clear message from the government of our country… that Japan can count on solidarity and other peaceful countries can count on that solidarity,” Westerwelle told journalists in The Hague.

QUAKE HITS NEAR IRAN CITY OF BUSHEHR, 37 DEAD

Reuters

A powerful earthquake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 37 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages, Iranian media reported.

The 6.3 magnitude quake totally destroyed one village, a Red Crescent official told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), but the nearby Bushehr nuclear plant was undamaged, according to Iranian officials and the Russian company that built it.

NORTH KOREA CLOSES CHINA BORDERS TO TOURISTS

AFP

The biggest border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official says, as nuclear tensions mounted, but business travel was allowed to continue.

"Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave," the official at the Dandong Border Office said.

CUBA SENDS AMERICAN COUPLES' CHILDREN BACK TO U.S.

HAVANACuba on Tuesday said it would hand over to the United States a Florida couple who allegedly kidnapped their two young sons from the mother's parents and fled by boat to Havana.

U.S. diplomats in Havana said in a statement early Wednesday that the two children had left Cuba and "are safely on their way home." The statement did not mention whether the parents had left for the U.S.

TEXAS COLLEGE STUDENT STABS, WOUNDS 14

Reuters

(Reuters) - A community college student who said he had fantasized since childhood about stabbing people to death went on a slashing spree at his Houston campus on Tuesday, wounding at least 14 people, two of them critically, before bystanders subdued him, police said.

The suspect, identified as Lone Star College student Dylan Quick, 20, was charged with three counts of aggravated assault stemming from the rampage, carried out with a weapon described by the Harris County Sheriff's Department as a "razor-type knife."

McConnell Says Foes Bugged Office

POLITICO

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell accused political opponents of bugging his campaign headquarters after a recording of a private meeting with his aides was posted on Mother Jones magazine’s website.

During the Feb. 2 strategy session in Louisville, the Kentucky Republican and his aides discussed ways to attack potential Democratic adversaries in the 2014 campaign, including actress Ashley Judd, according to the audio recording. Judd said last month she wouldn’t challenge McConnell.

HOW TO DETECT A NUCLEAR BOMB ON YOUR PHONE

WWW.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

When Mita bought her new iPhone, she had opted-in to the "citizen-scientist" program. Her smartphone was continually monitoring and storing data from built-in motion sensors, from the GPS receiver, and from the newly developed MEMS Krypton and CO₂ gas sensors. Yes, buying the new "green" iPhone had cost a bit more, but Mita wanted to do something to support the new carbon emissions treaty and the president's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Only 10 percent of smartphone buyers had chosen this more expensive option, but that still amounted to hundreds of thousands of verification sensors in Mita's country alone.

YOUR STREET PROBABLY SMELLS LIKE SEMEN RIGHT NOW

www.theawl.com

In a mild April night some years ago, I walked past a college dorm in New Haven and smelled something I couldn’t place. It reminded me vaguely of swimming pools. Was it chlorine? I sniffed again, more deeply than before. Suddenly I knew exactly what it was and hurried away, internally berating an unseen teenage boy. A few evenings later, in the same spot, I smelled it again. Filled with a sense of moral outrage I looked around, I looked up, and identified the culprit: A tree.

More precisely, a Callery Pear, or Pyrus calleryana, a deciduous tree that’s common throughout North America. It blossoms in early spring and produces beautiful, five-petaled white flowers—that smell like semen.

The ACN Morning Report Friday March 15, 2013

Good Morning! Today is Friday March 15th, 2013. Here are today's top and most interesting headlines from ACN: 

HIV Cure Progress -- VW Shares The Wealth -- The Growing Consensus On Banks -- Nuclear Power: The Future Lies In The Past -- Bill Gates: 'Capitalism Means..." -- "47%" Bartender Speaks Out -- Cable News' Coverage Of Cuts To Poor? -- Higgs Boson Discovered -- Scientists Grow New Teeth -- Samsung's Runaway Train -- A Subway To Carry Nukes? -- Chavez's Role In New Pope -- "Spring Is Coming" Obama, Netanyahu And The Red Line -- The Carnival Dream?

MORE HIVE IS CURED: FIRST A BABY, NOW 14 ADULTS

(Image: Bruce Forster/Getty)

Two weeks after the revelation that a baby has been "cured" of HIV, reports suggest that a similar treatment can cure some adults too. Early treatment seems crucial, but does not guarantee success.

Asier Sáez-Cirión of the Pasteur Institute's unit for regulation of retroviral infections in Paris analysed 70 people with HIV who had been treated with antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) between 35 days and 10 weeks after infection – much sooner than people are normally treated.

VW SHARES MORE THAN $1.1 BILLION IN PROFITS WITH WORKERS

Reuters

Volkswagen is coughing up a massive NZ$1.1 billion in bonuses to workers after a record year.

The company sold 9.3 million vehicles, up nearly 12 per cent, in boosting revenues by more than 20 per cent to NZ$305 billion during 2012.

That pushed its pre-tax profit to an asonishing NZ$40 billion. Net profits came in at NZ$10.1 billion.

VW's success, however, doesn't just go to shareholders with the company's German workforce sharing some of the record profits.

VW says it will pay German workers a bonus of around €7200 or a little over NZ$11,000 at the current exchange rates. The bonus is being given to around 100,000 employees in Germany.

''The Volkswagen team has done an excellent job in 2012, and this team effort pays off for everyone.''

BIG BANKS HAVE A BIG PROBLEM

The largest banks in the United States face a serious political problem. There has been an outbreak of clear thinking among officials and politicians who increasingly agree that too-big-to-fail is not a good arrangement for the financial sector.

Six banks face the prospect of meaningful constraints on their size: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. They are fighting back with lobbying dollars in the usual fashion – but in the last electoral cycle they went heavily for Mitt Romney (not elected) and against Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown for the Senate (both elected), so this element of their strategy is hardly prospering

THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER RUNS ON THE WASTE OF OUR NUCLEAR PAST

Image Credit: Justin Randall

America alone produces about 2,000 metric tons of nuclear waste annually and our best solution for disposing of it: bury it deep in the Earth. However, a pair of MIT scientists believe they've found not only a better way of eliminating nuclear waste but recycling the deadly detritus into enough clean electricity to power the entire world until 2083. Win, meet win.

BILL GATES: CAPITALISM MEANS MORE BALDNESS RESEARCH GETS MORE FUNDING THAN MALARIA

Capitalism means that there is much more research into male baldness than there is into diseases such as malaria, which mostly affect poor people, said Bill Gates, speaking at the Royal Academy of Engineering's Global Grand Challenges Summit.

"Our priorities are tilted by marketplace imperatives," he said. "The malaria vaccine in humanist terms is the biggest need. But it gets virtually no funding. But if you are working on male baldness or other things you get an order of magnitude more research funding because of the voice in the marketplace than something like malaria."

WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BARTENDER GOES PUBLIC

"You shouldn't have to be able to afford $50,000 to hear what a candidate actually thinks." -Scott Prouty, the bartender who secretly taped Mitt Romney's "47%" remarks, on why he felt obligated to come forward.

The most influential bartender in history came forward Wednesday night to reveal himself as Scott Prouty, the source behind Mitt Romney’s infamous “47%” video. His answer to why he felt obligated to publish the video was one of the best of the interview.

CABLE NEWS COVERS CUTS TO WHITE HOUSE TOURS, IGNORES CUTS TO PROGRAMS FOR THE POOR

Thanks to Congressional gridlock, automatic budget cuts took effect 14 days ago, threatening 700,000 jobs and gutting fundsfor vital programs in housing assistance, early childhood education, disaster relief, and national security. Secret Service staffing was also impacted, prompting the cancellation of White House tours last week. Republicans immediately attacked the decision as a political move designed to turn the public against the sequester and 14 Republican senators signed a letter demanding information.

The media has also latched on to preserve the White House tours, while largely ignoring other much more devastating sequester cuts. As Ari Melber of The Nation pointed out on Wednesday, there are 12,000 news stories concerning White House tours and less than 1,000 about the sequester’s impact on housing assistance programs, which disproportionately affect low-income Americans.

EVIDENCE THAT PARTICLE DISCOVERED AT CERN IS HIGGS BOSON

Geneva, 14 March 2013. At the Moriond Conference today, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented preliminary new results that further elucidate the particle discovered last year. Having analysed two and a half times more data than was available for the discovery announcement in July, they find that the new particle is looking more and more like a Higgs boson, the particle linked to the mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles. It remains an open question, however, whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle physics, or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model. Finding the answer to this question will take time.

Whether or not it is a Higgs boson is demonstrated by how it interacts with other particles, and its quantum properties. For example, a Higgs boson is postulated to have no spin, and in the Standard Model its parity – a measure of how its mirror image behaves – should be positive. CMS and ATLAS have compared a number of options for the spin-parity of this particle, and these all prefer no spin and positive parity. This, coupled with the measured interactions of the new particle with other particles, strongly indicates that it is a Higgs boson.

TESTING OUT NEW TEETH

Cells taken from adult human gums can be combined with cells from the molars of fetal mice to form teeth with viable roots, according to research published this week in the Journal of Dental Research. The method remains a long way from clinical use, but the findings represent a step toward the goal of growing bioengineered replacements for lost teeth.

Teeth develop when embryonic epithelial cells in the mouth combine with mesenchymal cells derived from the neural crest. Previous studies have shown that these cells can be combined in the lab to formal normal teeth, but the challenge was to find non-embryonic source of the cells that could be used in the clinic.

SAMSUNG HAS AN UNSTOPPABLE HIT IN S4

No, it's not too early to declare the Galaxy S4 a roaring success.

So what if the latest flagship smartphone from Samsung Electronics won't be out for another month (at least)? Or that Samsung hasn't yet released any pricing information? Or that all of its key features had already been leaked in advance? Or that it's not even that different from theGalaxy S3?

The fact is, Samsung will sell boatloads of this phone, and the foundation for its success was laid down awhile ago.

As I explained earlier, Samsung has been relentless when it came to marketing the Galaxy S franchise and building out its brand, which broke out with the Galaxy S2 and truly hit mainstream awareness with the Galaxy S3.

THAT'S NO TRAIN! AIRFORCE EYES SUBWAY FOR NUCLEAR MISSILES

The Air Force wants to upgrade its aging nuclear missiles and the hundreds of underground silos that hold them. One idea it’s exploring: the construction of a sprawling network of underground subway tunnels to shuttle the missiles around like a mobile doomsday train. As one does.

As first reported by Inside Defense, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center will award several study contracts next month worth up to $3 million each to research the idea. A broad agency announcementfrom the Air Force describes the hair-raising concept, intended to keep the weapons secure through 2075, as a system of tunnels where nuclear missiles are shuttled around on rails or some undefined “trackless” system.

The advantage of the world’s deadliest subway: During an atomic holocaust, mobile missiles are harder for an adversary to target than a static silo. Missiles could be positioned at launch holes placed at “regular intervals” along the length of the tunnels.

DID VENEZUELA'S CHAVEZ NUDGE CHRIST IN PICK OF SOUTH AMERICAN POPE

(Reuters) - Late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez's influence may have stretched into the afterlife and had a hand in Christ's decision to opt for a Latin American Pope, acting President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday.

"We know that our commander ascended to the heights and is face-to-face with Christ," Maduro said at a Caracas book fair. "Something influenced the choice of a South American pope, someone new arrived at Christ's side and said to him: 'Well, it seems to us South America's time has come.'"

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday, the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years.

OBAMA WON'T TRIP OVER NETANYAHU'S IRAN "RED LINE"

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama visits Israel next week at the onset of spring - the "red line" previously drawn by his host, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to trigger an attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

But an Israeli-Iranian war, Washington's nightmare as it tries to scale back defense commitments abroad and avoid a draining Gulf oil crisis, does not appear trip-wire imminent.

Officials and analysts say Iran has warded off the Israeli threat by calibrating its mid-level uranium enrichment so that it does not accrue enough fuel for a potential first bomb - the threshold Netanyahu warned about in a United Nations speech in September.

CARNIVAL CRUISE HAS PROBLEMS....AGAIN

(CNN) -- Another Carnival cruise ship is having problems. This time the Carnival Legend is having technical difficulties that are affecting its sailing speed, the travel company said Thursday.

The Legend is on the last leg of a seven-day Caribbean cruise that departed Tampa on Sunday, March 10, according to a statement from the cruise company.

The news comes after the Carnival Dream became a nightmare for some passengers Wednesday when power went off, some toilets stopped working and no one was allowed to get off the vessel -- despite the fact that the ship was docked at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, in the eastern Caribbean.

The Morning Report -- Monday March 4 2013

N. Korea To Obama: Call Me Maybe? -- Queen Elizabeth II Hospitalized -- Iran Open To Direct Talks -- Netanyahu Warns Iran Stalling -- Cuts to Achieve Deficit Goals -- Romney Explains Loss -- Republicans Signal Spending Cuts Are Permanent -- Officials Say Sequester Deal Likely -- Child With HIV Cured -- Senator, Congresswoman Propose Pay-Cut During Standoff

Rodman Says North Korea's Kim Wants Obama To Call Him 

WASHINGTON — Flamboyant ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman Sunday defended his trip to North Korea, saying leader Kim Jong-Un does not seek war but does want one thing -- a call from US President Barack Obama.

Rodman, a colorful Hall of Famer who won NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls and at one time dated Madonna, is now the most high-profile American to have met Kim, with whom he watched a basketball game last week in Pyongyang.

Queen Elizabeth II Hospitalized 

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II, who is 86, was admitted to a London hospital on Sunday after experiencing symptoms of gastroenteritis, according to a statement issued by Buckingham Palace.

The statement said that all the queen’s engagements for the next week would be postponed or canceled, including a two-day visit to Italy that was scheduled to begin Wednesday. She had already skipped one event, a military parade in the Welsh city of Swansea on Friday, because of the illness.

Iran Open To Direct Talks With U.S. 

Iran would be willing to sit down for direct talks with the United States, the country's ambassador to the United Nations said in an interview broadcast on CNN.

"I can confirm it here with you, and also for your distinguished audience, that Iran will come negotiation and direct talks with the United States provided that we make sure that U.S. is serious and do not act differently," Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired on Fareed Zakaria GPS.

Netanyahu Says Iran Stalling For Bomb

(Reuters) - Renewed international efforts to negotiate curbs on Iran's disputed nuclear program have backfired by giving it more time to work on building a bomb, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

His remarks on the inconclusive February 26-27 meeting between Iran and six world powers signaled impatience by Israel, which has threatened to launch preemptive war on its arch-foe, possibly in the coming months, if it deems diplomacy a dead end.

Cuts To Achieve Goal For Deficit But Toll Is High

WASHINGTON — The latest budget impasse ushered in a new round of austerity on Saturday, with the nation facing reduced federal services, canceled contracts, job furloughs and layoffs.

But lost in the talk of Washington’s dysfunction is this fact: on paper at least, President Obama and Congress have reduced projected deficits by nearly $4 trillion over a decade — the widely embraced goal for stabilizing the national debt.

Romney Offers Explanation For Loss

Republican Mitt Romney, in his first television interview since he lost November's presidential election, said a failure to connect with minority voters doomed his bid for the White House.

"We weren't effective in taking my message primarily to minority voters—to Hispanic-Americans, to African-Americans, other minorities," Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, told Fox News in an interview that aired Sunday. "That was a real weakness."

Republicans Call Spending Cuts Modest, Indicate Here To Stay 

WASHINGTON — The spending cuts are here to stay if you believe the public posturing Sunday.

The Senate’s Republican leader Mitch McConnell called them modest. House Speaker John Boehner isn’t sure the cuts will hurt the economy. The White House’s top economic adviser, Gene Sperling, said the pain isn’t that bad right now.

Officials Say Deal To Avert Government Shutdown Likely

Congress returns to work this week with no plan to reverse across-the-board spending cuts that took effect Friday, but with hope on both sides of the aisle of averting an end-of-the-month showdown that could result in a government shutdown.

The House plans to vote Thursday on a spending measure that would keep the government running after its current funding mechanism elapses March 27.

Doctors Cure Child Born With HIV 

Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented.

The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe.

Though medical staff and scientists are unclear why the treatment was effective, the surprise success has raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns.

McCaskill Introducses Bill To Cut Pay During Sequestration

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill and Bill Nelson will introduce legislation that would cut pay for members of Congress if federal employees are furloughed due to the sequester. The legislation calls for a reduction in Congressional salaries once federal furloughs begin.

"The federal workforce is looking at furloughs that would result in a sizeable pay cut-and there's absolutely no reason members of Congress should exempt themselves," McCaskill said. "We can and should reach a balanced compromise to replace these damaging across-the-board cuts, but until we do, this is an obvious step to hold Congress accountable for the job we need to get done."