The Capital Times Iran and nuclear power, the next Iraq? By Osman Abdalla Staff Reporter oaalo6@psu.edu The American and Iraqi experi ence is a tough issue, whether it is madness or genius. Either way, the effects will be wide ranging and will significantly shape the rest of our lives. These are just random, not necessarily connected, thoughts floating in my head, along with a great deal of wonder about how the American administration would do if there was a similar situation - or what the world would do. Iran’s non-cooperation with the inspectors shows that while it is easy to make agreements by dialogue - as many will say it is better -it remains a great chal lenge, and is time consuming if, for instance, it seemed not doable in our case with Iran. We have different nations in the world right now that are asking the same question, which makes it difficult for Iran to cooperate. How can we stop producing weapons of mass destruction if others are doing that and no one is talking to them? Is power a reflection of balance or integrity? The possibility of Iran develop ing nuclear weapons is unac ceptable to countries willing to do more than negotiate and embrace diplomacy, in particular the U.S. and Israel. In the mean time, it was looked at differently by the Iranians; the nation has a mentality of “they have to stop me so that I will remain weaker compared to the U.S. and Israel” - both of which (U.S. and Israel) Canadians call for drug export ban Canadian pharmacist, sen iors groups call on Ottawa to ban cross-border drug shopping By colin McClelland Associated Press Writer TORONTO - Canadians must stop Americans from using Internet pharmacies to raid its medicine chest or face a drug shortage, a coalition of Canadian groups representing seniors, pharmacies and patients has warned. The groups, claiming to repre sent 10 million Canadians, or about one-third the population, called on the Canadian govern ment Monday to ban prescription drug exports. They argue that Canada cannot afford to address U.S. drug shortages and soaring prescrip tion costs with its own stock, which are often considerably cheaper for Americans because of government price controls. An estimated 65 million Americans, most elderly, don’t have drug coverage or can’t afford drugs in the United States. Internet pharmacies and Canadian doctors willing to write prescriptions for Americans send an estimated $1 billion a year in Canadian drugs south of the border. “It is completely untenable to think that Canada could supply their needs and our own for even one month, let along on an ongoing basis,” said Louise Binder of the Canadian Treatment Action Council and Best Medicines Coalition. Binder said she has heard that in Winnipeg, Manitoba, there is a shortage of desperately needed cancer drugs that are readily available to American con sumers through Internet phar macies based in Canada. But Canada’s health depart ment insists Americans don’t pose a threat to the country’s drug supply- For example, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said Monday he believes have the capability and the moti vation to stop Iran from achieving nuclear status. Iran knows this. The political sidelining of Grand Ayatollah AN al-Sistani and Ahmed Chalabi, as well as the dissolution of the Iraq Interim Governing Council coincide with renewed Iranian posturing and defiance. But if the price of Xj V/ . H A’ Q' ■ \** ' S>' < x -v<. U. **. > Iranian cooperation is swaying democracy in Iraq, then to the ‘liberating’ U.S. that is surely too high a price. So the alternative for President Bush is to use or threaten hard force, along with conviction and without losing an election and without further Canada has a surplus of vaccine that could be provided to the United States, though probably not enough to meet the U.S. demand. The United States is grappling with a shortage of flu vaccine after contamination problems prevented a major supplier in England from shipping. Canada regulates drug prices “It is com pletely unten- able to think that Canada could supply their needs and our own for even one month, let along on an ongoing basis.” - Louise Binder as part of its national health care system, while the market dic tates pricing in the United States. Many popular medica tions for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol can be bought in Canada at less than half the U.S. price. Earlier this month, Illinois and Wisconsin started state-spon sored programs to help resi dents buy cheaper prescription drugs from both Europe and Canada. Several states, seeing the potential for huge savings in the costs of insuring employees, have Web sites designed to help citizens buy Canadian medica tions. Also, visitors to Canada can buy as much as three alienating the rest of the world. Then there is Saudi Arabia and the necessity (if jobs are to be kept, food delivered, hospitals supplied etc.) to keep Saudi oil flowing along with Iraqi oil while the nations simultaneously man age a domestic terror campaign. The balls are in the air, how will they land? Perhaps, more inter- 'ttJumiyeh i. v i f Hamadan* Qom* • KermansKah Map of Iran and key cities estingly, what really is the plan for where they land? As you probably already know, there is an ongoing anger among the youth of Iran, especially in Tehran (the capital). They are not happy with the restrictions that the religious regime is inflicting months of medication in Canada for personal use with a U.S. pre scription. U.S.-based drug makers Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP and Wyeth have cut supplies to some Canadian pharmacies when they suspected orders were too large for the Canadian market and were being sold to Americans. Lothar Dueck, president of the Coalition for Manitoba Pharmacy, said he is under restrictions by U.S. drug compa nies and often must call col leagues to scrounge enough medicine to fill prescriptions for his customers in Vita near the U.S. border. Recently he ran out of Imuran, a drug used to treat immune system deficiencies such as lupus. “I don’t want to see our health system decimated by forcing Canadians to compete with Americans for our drug supply,” Dueck said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opposes com mercial prescription drug imports, arguing that it cannot vouch for their safety. Binder said Canada’s reputa tion could be on the line if drugs imported from countries where quality cannot be verified, such as China, Iran, India and Thailand, cause problems after being resold to the United States. Jeff Poston, executive director of the Canadian Pharmacists Association, also expressed concerns about safety. “Drugs are a therapy; they should not be treated as a com modity to be bought from any where in the world at the cheap est price,” Poston said. Binder objected to the argu ment of U.S. drug companies that cheaper Canadian drugs don’t help pay for expensive research and development. “Most R&D is started by the government and when it becomes lucrative, the patent rights are bought up by the drug companies,” Binder said. International News • Qazvin •Tehran • Rey fR A N #E§fahan • Qomsbeh #Ya;! . d • ,|hlpg^ on them. But so far, there has not been any serious counter-revolu tion, just students demonstrating by strikes here and there. There were some rumors among some Iranians around the world about someone coming from the U.S. to start a counter-revolution against the mullas of Iran. Iran’s economy is in very good • \ Mashhad ) 0 Kerman - Bandar- e •fK* ;;;uli!* ;?\A Map courtesy of Google Images shape. The government controls 95 percent of the economy. Their main income is oil. With the recent drop in oil prices their estimated revenue has decreased by about half. On one hand the financial debt increas es, and on the other hand Karzai team believes victory “secure” with one-quarter of votes counted By STEPHEN GRAHAM Associated Press Writer KABUL, Afghanistan - Interim leader Hamid Karzai is certain to win Afghanistan’s landmark presidential election, his cam paign spokesman said Tuesday, after early returns gave him a commanding advantage. With one-quarter of the votes from the Oct. 9 ballot counted, Karzai has captured 61.6 per cent. His closest challenger, for mer Education Minister Yunus Qanooni, trails with 18.2 per cent. “We think we are secure now,” Karzai’s spokesman, Hamed Elmi, told The Associated Press. “When they announce it formal ly, then we will celebrate.” Elmi said that Karzai was “quite pleased” with the results so far and his campaign staff was “100 percent” sure that the U.S.- backed incumbent would win the majority of the 8 million votes needed to avoid a run-off. Qanooni has so far refused to concede defeat and claimed on Monday that only fraud has given Karzai the lead in the race to become the country's first popularly elected leader. On Tuesday, the running-mate of ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, currently third in the vote count, conceded defeat. Chafiga Habibi, vice-presiden tial candidate on Dostum’s tick et, told AP, “I think Karzai is going to win because he’s a long way ahead in the results, and we can’t ignore this reality.” Election officials say they will not call the result until the win ner is certain, but have also said that the tallies are unlikely to change much once 20 percent of the votes have been counted. Despite poor weather and Taliban threats of more attacks, an estimated 8 million Afghans cast their ballots in a democratic experiment supposed to cement the country’s re-emergence since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. In a reminder of the country’s continuing insecurity, a doctor who helped to organize the elec tion was killed along with four other civilians when an explo- I 35* V 5 « ■'€, c-i ■. i«k. . ey use may be the individual reputation, and this system is working for them. In these societies that we call primitive or savage in our dis approval, one can actually find a better and stronger social structure, caring hearts, and unlimited non-mutual coopera tion. Let us together look at this phenomenon of so-called revi talization which is, in other words, to bring back to con sciousness. I believe this is the one motivational factor that led to many revolutions. For exam ple if you believe in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or any other set of beliefs, and you want the people to follow you and you want to remind them how good this belief is, and the good it has done to the people before you, you are practicing revitalization, especially when you gain followers. This phe nomenon is available in every society. People want to look back for values, want to rely on a legendary or religious story to prove what they think is right. I believe revitalization is the seed for extremism, and there fore it produces no progress in terms of ideology. Speaking of progress, do you think the human being has progressed ideologically as it has pro gressed technically? People in today’s world vastly abide to beliefs which were found at least one century ago, so logically we can claim that people tend to preserve what they found. Now, let us exam ine one more phenomenon, called ethnocentrism, which means that one will judge oth ers according to the one’s own preserved culture, regardless of another culture’s beliefs. I believe there is no such right culture or wrong culture; there are conflicts in every given cul ture that are not overcome by the same culture. These con flicts can possibly be overcome by diversity, just like the envi ronment - it won’t stand if it is not diversified. At this point I came to the conclusion that these two interconnected con flicts, revitalization and ethno centrism, are universal and are true. In the next issue I am going to bring vivid examples of these two conflicts from today’s real life for you to examine, and to wonder, and please always ask yourself - what is better?