We all expected the bird flu virus to reach us from Russia, now the question is how to prepare. S... Nation & World Views..

We all expected the bird flu virus to reach us from Russia, now the question is how to prepare. Stockpiling antiviral drugs, like Roche's Tamiflu, is essential, and the countries ... which have ignored this have made a mistake.

But now Roche must license the patent for Tamiflu to other companies, so that we may have enough doses to face a (human) pandemic, if it should ever come. Roche should be compensated for its patent, but global health is more important than missed revenue.

The planet is so small that the virus crosses it quickly, the economy is one, so we need to hold on dearly to our shabby multilateral organizations and forget corporate egoism.

While Americans have been focused on how much more they have to pay to gas up the family SUV in this post-Katrina world, another energy crisis has been brewing. Natural gas prices have soared to record levels. That will hit Americans hard this winter. ...

Several factors have combined to drive prices out of sight. The increase in power generation and industrial demand hasn't been accompanied by a measurable increase in new supply. It was a very long, hot summer, which meant utilities burned more gas to power air conditioning. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted about 20 percent of natural gas production along the Gulf Coast. ...

The nation has resisted increased drilling because of environmental concerns. Communities have balked at new LNG terminals because of safety concerns and worries that the terminals could become terrorist targets. But those are necessary pieces of a long-range natural gas solution, as is additional pipeline capacity from Canada. In the meantime, it's going to be an expensive winter.

The agreement by the United Auto Workers to shift $1 billion a year in health care costs from General Motors Corp. to its 750,000 workers, pensioners and their families was necessary, sad and historic. It might also bring the nation closer to a day when it debates whether the best way to pay for medical coverage is through employer-purchased health insurance. ... This is a landmark reversal in American union history. American auto workers have been among the best-paid blue-collar workers in the world, but the days of steadily getting more from their employers at each union contract negotiation are over for the foreseeable future. ... At some point, American companies, especially those competing head-to-head with foreign companies whose workers get coverage from some variation of a national health insurance plan (or no coverage at all), might demand changes at home. And American workers fearful of staggering medical bills no doubt would join in.

The U.S. Army helicopters that have been diverted from combat duty in Afghanistan and other trouble spots to carry out mercy missions in earthquake-devastated northern Pakistan are still on the front line in the battle against global terrorism. By showing the might of the U.S. military harnessed to a humanitarian endeavor they can influence the way people in the Islamic world view America. ...

The humanitarian help being provided to Pakistan has enormous strategic implications. The Washington Post quoted a senior U.S. official as saying, "(President) Musharraf is a friend and hero in our eyes. There is a clear and unmistakable signal being sent that we help our friends." The official went on to say that the Bush administration is not acting to "curry favor with hostile Muslim populations," but added, "If there is a positive impact for the United States, so much the better." ...

The al-Qaida network and its Islamist associates cannot be defeated by military means alone. With its relief efforts, the U.S. military is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of Islam. For example, polls show that the U.S. military operation that brought fast relief to Indonesia after the tsunami resulted in support for Osama bin Laden dropping from 58 to 23 percent.

Hundreds of parliamentary hopefuls have been literarily elbowing to submit applications for candidacy since the agencies concerned started to receive them on Saturday. Egypt is bracing for parliamentary elections, which are widely believed to be more competitive than September's presidential polls.

This high turnout of parliamentary hopefuls reflects eagerness to be elected as a member of the parliament. Whether this can be a sign of keenness to serve voters' interest is anybody's guess.

In the run-up to the three-stage elections, which begin in Nov. 9, cracks are appearing among different political parties. The nascent liberal party of el-Ghad is facing an uncertain future. A group of its members have joined forces and decided to unseat the leader of the party. Each claims to be the legal leader of the party, which now has two mouthpiece newspapers. Several Egyptian parties are already in limbo due to similar squabbling over who should steer the helm.

The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is not in a good position either. Hardly had the party announced its list of 444 candidates to compete in the upcoming elections when its members, excluded from the slates, have decided to run as independents. Senior NDP officials threatened the renegades with dismissal from the party's ranks.

"What is the latest?" Iraqis ask as they come together for tea and sympathy in these times of hope and uncertainty. And there is always someone who answers by reporting the discovery of a new mass grave where the victims of Saddam Hussein were buried.

According to the latest estimates, the remains of more than 200,000 people, the fruit of the 35-year-long rule of his Arab Socialist Baath Party, have been found in this ever expanding archipelago of death. ...

Lawyers at the special Iraqi tribunal, where Saddam and his seven co-defendants will be tried, say that the Dujail case, in which all victims were Shia, was chosen because it was easier to find witnesses and amass evidence for prosecution. Saddam and his supporters, including Roland Dumas, the former French Foreign Secretary, who heads the fallen despot's team of lawyers, claim that the Dujail case represents an attempt by Iraq's Shia majority to exact revenge. The lawyers' strategy is to transform Saddam from one of the most brutal rulers in history into a victim of rough justice. ...

Millions of those who suffered at the hands of the regime would be glad to see Saddam punished as quickly as possible. Kangaroo courts have a long history in Iraq, starting with the televised murder-express trials presided over by the notorious Fadhil al-Mahdawi under Colonel Abdul-Karim Qassem in 1958. The typical al-Mahdawi trial lasted 15 minutes, often ending with a death sentence. When Saddam seized power he reduced that time by two-thirds and added a new feature: The accused were shot on live television by their former comrades. ...

Saddam may try to present himself as the champion of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who account for 15 percent of the population. The fact is that Sunni Arabs were as much a victim of his as any other community. ... Next, he may try to appear as the champion of the Baath and its claimed ideals of socialism and Arab unity. But more Baathists were killed under Saddam than any other ruler since 1947 when the party arrived in Iraq. When it seized power in 1968 the Baath had an 18-man politburo. By 1988 he was the only one still alive and in power. ...

In the three decades that Saddam dominated Iraq he had almost $200 billion in oil revenues not only to finance three large-scale wars and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but also to buy influence in the West. Part of that investment may be bearing fruit as the chorus of his admirers, led by the French, raises its voice.

Saddam is enjoying what he denied his victims: a public trial with defense lawyers of his choice and the rule of evidence taking into account the principle of reasonable doubt. Here a new Iraq, based on the rule of law, will be trying the old Iraq of cruelty and corruption. The Arabs will watch and decide which they would rather live under. The rest of the world should also watch to decide which side to support in the struggle for Iraq's future.

After the federal government announced it would go back and bid the contracts it should have bid in the first place in the Katrina recovery, the Bush administration has struck another good chord by saying it will boost small and minority businesses' access to those deals.

That should have happened from the start as well. It's fair to say the Bush administration learned some valuable lessons after it colossally blew the immediate response to Katrina.

The new chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Paulison, restored some credibility to the process recently when he said the government would go back and use a bidding process, this time with a commitment to including minorities and small businesses.

The Commerce Department is offering help to the contractors through an information center and a Web site. The feds were slow to respond to the emergency, and even when they got their bearings they handed out the plush contracts to the usual suspects.

The coziness with big business did not make for good government. The Katrina recovery will last a long time. It will take participation from every possible source.

Small businesses and minority contractors were ready to respond, but their government overlooked them at a time it needed help from all corners.

Political bloggers have made the Internet their own personal soapbox. They can react 24/7 to anything or anyone on myriad Web sites across the political spectrum. They freely rant and rave to like-minded or diametrically opposed bloggers the world over.

The Federal Election Commission has been ordered by a federal court to draw up regulations that would extend the nation's campaign finance laws to political activities on the Internet. But the court didn't tell the FEC how to do it. The commission has apparently resolved a number of Internet matters but is still considering whether long-standing freedom of press exemptions to its rules should apply to online publications and, by extension, bloggers. ...

It's safe to say most bloggers would not describe themselves as traditional or mainstream journalists offering unbiased and fair views, but that's not the point of exempting their speech from government regulation. They argue convincingly that FEC regulations on the Internet, even ones limited to advertising, would have a chilling effect on free speech.

The FEC should be more concerned about protecting bloggers from government oversight than scrutinizing their ideological communiques for the appearance of corruption. Fortunately wiser heads on the six-member commission are expected to prevail on this debate. ...

In a nation as politically unstable as Iraq, small steps toward democratic self-rule are cause for celebration. Iraqi authorities, backed by a heavy U.S. military presence, provided enough security on Saturday to prevent insurgents from disrupting the second election in the post-Saddam Hussein era. ...

Sunnis question the legitimacy of Saturday's vote. Their leaders said that election workers stuffed the yes boxes to enhance the chances that the charter would pass in Sunni-majority areas. The Electoral Commission said it cannot determine yet if fraud occurred, but the dispute is likely to delay the announcement of the final results. ...

The Bush administration mistakenly thought this process would be a lot easier. Even if President Bush had sent in enough U.S. troops to stem lawlessness in the chaos that ensued after Saddam was overthrown 2 1/2 years ago, the development of a free and democratic Iraq would have been a major challenge.

Democracy requires that rival ethnic, religious and tribal groups come together in peace to craft leadership teams and a set of laws reflecting majority rule while respecting the political and cultural aspirations of minorities. That's a tall order in a nation with no history of democracy.

If the federalist model of government leaves the geographically central Sunnis without a share of the nation's oil wealth, Iraq never will escape the factional divide that plagues the country now. ...

The Bush administration hopes that if Iraqis continue steps even limited steps toward self-rule, the Pentagon can begin to draw down U.S. troop levels sometime in the next year.

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