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Reform of Health passes pass	They accuse to the council for discrimination
Pensioners will not receive increases	They initiate plan to vaccinate against the flu H1N1
They protest in Puerto Rico against the government	The most controversial Nobel Prize

It obtains support of a republican

Reform of Health passes pass

The photographers take several members of the Commission of Finance of the Senate to the beginning of a hearing on the reform of the system of public health, on Tuesday, the 13th of October 2009, in Washington. Foto:AP/Harry Hamburg

Legislators look for a project of law that conciliates both versions of the Senate to be submitted again to voting.

Mitzi Mace
Washington Hispanic

After long debates days the Reform of Health impelled by the president Barack Obama passed pass on having been approved by the Committee of Finance, considered to be a key, by 14 affirmative votes and 9 in against.
Of equal way the decision of the committee presided by the democratic senator, Max Baucus was considered to be a historical victory because it achieved that a republican, senator Victoria Snowe supports a reform plan hardly criticized and pushed back almost in an unanimous way by the members of his party.

This proposal of the Senate does not contemplate a program of public health administered by the government, one of the principal reasons for which the republicans are opposed to the health reform because they think that it would cost too many million dollars to the government, and hence to the taxpayers.

For his part Snowe has declared that it would be in favor of a plan of the government that it takes control if the private insurances neither were assuming his responsibility, nor were expiring with the established rules.

Anyhow, nine months before the president was promising the reform in his assumption speech, the initiative advanced already more than it achieved the unsuccessful initiative of the previous democratic chief, Bill Clinton, more than one decade ago, and of what any other attempt has done it in several decades.

Now, it is supposed that the leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, should combine the projects approved in the different commissions, but in fact the senator – assisted by the White House - practically will have free route to arm a text that insures itself 60 votes. This is the necessary quantity to prevent the republicans from being able to unite the measurement of an indefinite way.

“ The result here is that we need a final project, a combined project, which gains 60 votes”, stood out Baucus. “Our goal is to approve the reform of the system of health, not only to speak of doing it”, he said during the debate.

The project would need that almost all the Americans acquire insurance and would bring a series of changes to the system of health of the country. The United States is the only nation industrialized without a national program of health and approximately 47 million Americans lack insurance.

It still remains great that to do before a law proposal comes to the Obama office, but the voting in the senatorial panel could mark a significant advance, after numerous delays and meetings marat�nicas headed by Baucus, in a fruitless effort to obtain a two-party proposal.

Only minutes after the voting, the trade unions and managerial organizations went out to ask for changes to the project.

Obama asks for payment for 250 dollars

Pensioners will not receive increases

ubilados, veteran and disabled they received only one I pay as part of the incentive. photo: I FILE

Writing
Washington Hispanic

The checks of pensions that the pensioners and disabled persons receive every month of the Administration of the Social Insurance will not present an increase next year, as the law establishes it, this way the government announced it on Thursday, the 15th of October.

The automatic adjustment of the quantity of money that there receive the beneficiaries of the Social Insurance was adopted in 1975 as the rise in the cost of life that is marked by the inflation, but that this year has thrown a negative index.
Before this situation the president Barack Obama asked to the Congress it to approve payments for 250 dollars for more than 50 million elders in order to compensate the increase absence in his services of the Social security.
The White House estimated the cost of the measurement in 13.000 million dollars.

“ Even when we try to bring the (economic) recovery, we must act on behalf of those who have been struck more hardly by the recession”, affirmed Obama in a bulletin. “This additional assistance will be especially important in the next months, after countless elders and others have seen his accounts of retirement and the value of his hearths to decline like result of the economic crisis”.

The Obama proposal is similar to several initiatives in the Congress. The payment for 250 dollars also would go for those veterans, disabled, retired persons of the railroads and retired civil servants who receive services and who do not benefit from the Social security. The recipients only would obtain a payment, even if they were fulfilling the requisites for more.

The payment would be compared to others expressed at the beginning of year like part of a massive bundle of economic recovery promulgated in February. Several conferees keys have said that they are opened to provide mitigation to the elders to compensate the absence of increase to the payments of the Social security.

“ We are looking for a way of treating the matter”, said the democratic senator Max Baucus, president of the Committee of Finance of the Senate, that supervises the Social security. “I am not yet sure what the correct answer is, but we are looking for ways of solving it”.

The democratic representative Charles Rangel, president of the Committee of Means and Wills, which one has jurisdiction on the Social security in the House of Representatives, he said that it supports the payments for 250 dollars.

In repudiation to the Fortu�o politics

They protest in Puerto Rico against the government

70-year-old Olga Santana, to the right, and his daughter Olga Montalvo they protest opposite to the term puertorique�a against the dismissal of 111 workers of the Lawyer's office of the Persons advanced Age. photo: AP

For Manuel Rivera
ap

Thousands of Puerto Rican protested on Thursday, the 15th to demand from the governor Luis Fortu�o that it should re-spill the dismissal of more than 20 thousand civil servants.

“ For the rich ones, the contract; for the people, the maltreatment”, the demonstrators were chorusing in repudiation to the politics of Fortu�o, who decreed the dismissals shortly after signing a law that public promotes alliances deprived to create work places in the private sector.

The Meeting of Restructuring and Fiscal Stabilization, named by Fortu�o, announced in September the dismissal of 16.970 governmental employees to reduce the fiscal deficit for 3.200 million dollars. Other four thousand had been stopped from May.

“ We go on today from the protest to the resistance and from the resistance to the civil disobedience”, expressed before the multitude the reverend Methodist Juan Vera, spokesman of the coalition The whole Puerto Rico for Puerto Rico, which organized the unemployment.
Edge demanded “that there should stop the politics of the dismantling of the institutions that give essential services to the Puerto Rican society, that one finishes the politics of privatization of the government properties, which preserve the institutions and the undivided assets and the cultural heritage of our people”.

The demonstrators congregated from early in different points of the metropolitan area of Saint John and went for the principal avenues up to converging on the biggest shopping center of the Caribbean Sea: Square The Americas, which it remained closed.

In a written declaration, the government said to understand that “there are many difficult personal histories that this type of dismissals creates. Nevertheless, without these dismissals the government faces future shortfalls that more of workpeople will affect to thousands, inside and out of the government”.

The governor supported that there is no reverse gear in the decision and did called the calmness.

“ Here the important thing is that if we all respect the right of the neighbor, we are going to be able to have a much more pacific and much more fruitful coexistence”, showed Fortu�o the radio WKAQ.

The economists have pointed out that the dismissals will prolong the economic recession in the island and that the unemployment of one day will have an economic impact of at least 32 millions of dollars.

The unemployment valuation promoted 15,8 % in September and the government thinks that it will raise 17,1 % when most of 16.970 civil servants stay without work on November 6.

Hispanic community of DC lifts his voice

They accuse to the council for discrimination

Maria G�mez, director and CEO of Mary's Center informed of the declaration in support Ximena Hartsock photo: Alvaro Ortiz/Washington Hispanic.

Mitzi Mace
Washington Hispanic

One week later that the DC council decided not to confirm to the temporary director of the Department of Parks and Recreations, Ximena Hartsock, after facing a controversial hearing, which was catalogued of “sexist and racist”, members of the Hispanic community and representatives of Latin organizations congregated in the door of the building Wilson, head office of the council, to demand a major respect to the immigrant community and a just process for doctor Hartsock.

“ The form since they treated Ximena Hartsock was shameful and the Hispanic community reacted”, expressed Rodrigo Leyva, executive director of the Latin Federation of Washington.

“ The point is not the rejection of his nomination because we understand that the councilmen can have differences as for the Hartsock management, but it is inconceivable that question his skill to work with a multicultural and multiethnic community, or that ask him for his migratory status or discriminate against it for English is not his first language”, he argued Leyva.

There came to the declaration the general district attorney of Washington DC, Peter Nickles, who not only expressed again his support to doctor Ximena Hartsock, but also clarified that never the temporary director acted against the law.

Hartsock is accused of wrongful dismissals and of new personnel having hired, instead of promoting the ancient workpeople.

The representatives of Latin organizations are asking to the council it to express in writing an excuse for the dealing to doctor Hartsock that has been seen like a “outrage to the Hispanic community”. The same way they request an urgent review of the regulations that must govern the hearings to guarantee an irreproachable and professional process.

“ We want that the regulation becomes stronger so that no person, independently of his ethnic or cultural origin, is treated by so much disrespect in the future”, pointed out Leyva.

On the other hand, although an official request does not exist yet, Rodrigo Leyva showed that they are employed at a document to request to the council a new hearing for Hartsock.

Ximena Hartsock of Chilean origin was nominated by mayor Adrian Fenty in April of this year and it needed to be confirmed by the council to assume officially his functions as Head of department of Parks and Recreations of Washington DC.

The case of Hartsock also attracted attention on national organizations as LULAC, which became present to express his rejection to this type of actions of racial court that is turning into a tendency in the whole country.

In Washington DC, MD and IT GOES

They initiate plan to vaccinate against the flu H1N1

Mitzi Mace
Washington Hispanic

To guarantee that the vaccine against the flu H1N1 comes to all the persons who want to prepare the infection, especially those considered of high risk, as they are the workpeople of the area of the health, pregnant women and children between 2 and 10 years, the authorities in the different jurisdictions have presented a vaccination calendar. Following the handlebar presented by the Center of Prevention and Control of Illnesses (CDC, for his initials in English), the District of Columbia has prepared a calendar of supply of vaccines that initiated last October 5 with the vaccination of the federal workpeople and personnel of the sector health.

The Department of Health of DC does called the residents who belong to one of these groups so that they obtain the vaccine when this one is free. For the time being enough vaccines exist to expire with the calendar, but one hopes that more doses should come to cover other specific groups and the public in general.

According to the Department of Health in the state of Virginia there have registered more than 2.900 centers where the vaccine is offered and the same way the first mailing has been destined to vaccinate the persons of high risk. Of 43.500 doses, 30.200 are dedicated to hospitals and 13.300 to the health departments across the state.
In Maryland

For the time being the county of Montgomery in Maryland informed that they are offering the vaccine H1N1 intranasal and that in the next weeks it will receive a lot of injectable vaccines.

In this sense the health officials told that the vaccine applied in spray is weaker than the injectable dose therefore it is advisable for healthy persons between 2 and 49 years. In this sense it is necessary to apply neither in pregnant women, nor in children and adults with chronic illnesses. Also if a person receives the regular vaccine against the seasonal influenza he must wait 28 days before applying the vaccine to him intranasal against the H1N1, but if they decide to be vaccinated against two viruses with injectable doses waiting period does not exist.

Award of the Peace for Obama unties applauses and criticism

The most controversial Nobel Prize

Barack Obama obtained the Nobel Prize of the Peace 2009, fact that an immense polemic has generated between those who praise and criticize the decision. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

Chief donates $ 1,4 millions of the award to benefactions.

Washington Hispanic
ap

The president Barack Obama gained the Nobel Prize of the Peace 2009, in a forceful decision taken on Friday, the 9th of October, with that the Norwegian committee praised his initiatives to reduce the nuclear weapons, to relieve the tensions with the Moslem world and to endorse the diplomacy and the cooperation instead of the unilateralismo.

Nevertheless, the announcement caused a controversy that has been on the increase with the step of the days. World leaders and local politicians have showed a big division, some with big applauses and praises and others with hard criticism of the determination of the jury.

Obama, of 48 years, affirmed to have remained astonished and deeply been grateful for the honor and added that he thinks to travel to Oslo in December to accept the award.

The award is not “a recognition of my own achievements” but a recognition of the targets that it has established “for the United States and the world”, he affirmed.

The award includes an award in cash this year of 1,4 million dollars. The White House said that Obama will donate this money to the charity.

They defend decision

Four of five members of the Committee Norwegian Nobel Prize had to go out to the step of the wave of negative comments, and on Sunday, the 11th they indicated that they were already anticipating that the decision was generating surprise and criticism.
Also, they confirmed that Obama deserves the Nobel Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen the international diplomacy and cooperation between the peoples”.

“ Simply we disagree with the idea of that he has not done anything”, affirmed the president of the panel, Thorbjoern Jagland, on Tuesday, the 13th. “The gan� the award since it has done”, it added.

Jagland mentioned the efforts of Obama to cure the breach between Occident and the Moslem world and to withdraw the proposal of the age of antimissile Bush of a shield in Europe.

“ All these things have contributed to, he would not say a surer world, but to a world with less tensions”, supported Jagland, also General Secretary of the European Council.

He remembered that most of the leaders of the world had expressed themselves positively about the award and that almost all the criticism was coming from the press and from the political rivals of Obama.

“ Alfred Nobel wrote that the award should be for the person that he has contributed more to the development of the peace in the previous year”, added Jagland.: “Who has done more than Barack Obama?”, asked Jagland.