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The Nine Circles of Hell! – all the news that gives you fits in print – for Tuesday, October 5, 2010, including a bonus story on Geert Wilders, are:

“Wave of austerity” could irreparably damage global economy

Republicans work hard to stop Obama’s high-speed rail vision

Health insurers’ campaign money moves heavily to Republicans

Another drugmaker admits to illegally making, selling product

Feds ask Big Pharma if they’re involved in foreign bribery scheme

Hungarian toxic sludge spill spreading; “It’s an ecological catastrophe”

Growing number of Nigerian children dying from lead poisoning

Dutch anti-Islam politician on trial as his policies are enacted

Settlers suspected in Mosque burning during peace talks

“Wave of austerity” could irreparably damage global economy
Telegraph
(10/2/10)

Joseph Stiglitz: the euro may not survive

(Past This is Hell! guest) Joseph Stiglitz, one of the world’s leading economists, has warned that the future of the euro is “looking bleak” and the fragile European economic recovery could be irreparably damaged by a “wave of austerity” sweeping the continent.

The former chief economist of the World Bank and a Nobel prize winner also predicted that short-term speculators in the market could soon start putting pressure on Spain, which is struggling with a large deficit and high unemployment. Last week, Moody’s cut the country’s credit rating from AAA to Aa1.

The former adviser to President Bill Clinton also says that the banking sector has gone back to “business as usual” too quickly and that there are still risks of another financial crisis despite some improvements in regulation.

Mr Stiglitz, now a professor at Columbia Business School, makes the arguments in an updated edition of his book, Freefall, on the credit crunch. In the new material, exclusively extracted in today’s Sunday Telegraph, he reveals fears that governments around the world will attempt to cut their deficits too quickly and risk a double dip recession …

“The worry is that there is a wave of austerity building throughout Europe and even hitting America’s shores,” Mr Stiglitz said. “As so many countries cut back on spending prematurely, global aggregate demand will be lowered and growth will slow – even perhaps leading to a double-dip recession.

“America may have caused the global recession but Europe is now responding in kind.”

Mr Stiglitz warned that Spain, similarly to Greece, was now in the speculators’ sights.

“Under the rules of the game, Spain must now cut its spending, which will almost surely increase its unemployment rate still further,” he said. “As its economy slows, the improvement in its fiscal position may be minimal. Spain may be entering the kind of death spiral that afflicted Argentina just a decade ago. It was only when Argentina broke its currency peg with the dollar that it started to grow and its deficit came down.

“At present, Spain has not been attacked by speculators, but it may be only a matter of time.”

Republicans work hard to stop Obama’s high-speed rail vision
The New York Times
(10/4/10)

Rail Service Expansion Imperiled at State Level

Republicans running for governor in a handful of states could block, or significantly delay, one of President Obama’s signature initiatives: his plan to expand the passenger rail system and to develop the nation’s first bullet-train service.

In his State of the Union address this year, the president called for building high-speed rail, and backed up his words with $8 billion in stimulus money, distributed to various states, for rail projects.

But Republican candidates for governor in some of the states that won the biggest stimulus rail awards are reaching for the emergency brake.

In Wisconsin, which got more than $810 million in federal stimulus money to build a train linebetween Milwaukee and Madison, Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive and Republican candidate for governor, has made his opposition to the project central to his campaign.

Mr. Walker, who worries that the state could be required to spend $7 million to $10 million a year to operate the trains once the line is built, started a Web site, NoTrain.com, and has run a television advertisement in which he calls the rail project a boondoggle. “I’m Scott Walker,” he says in the advertisement, “and if I’m elected as your next governor, we’ll stop this train.”

Similar concerns are threatening to stall many of the nation’s biggest train projects. In Ohio, the Republican candidate for governor, John Kasich, is vowing to kill a $400 million federal stimulus project to link Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati by rail. In Florida, Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for governor, has questioned whether the state should invest in the planned rail line from Orlando to Tampa. The state got $1.25 billion in federal stimulus money for the project, but it will cost at least twice that much to complete.

And the nation’s most ambitious high-speed rail project, California’s $45 billion plan to link Los Angeles and San Francisco with trains that would go up to 220 miles per hour, could be delayed if Meg Whitman, a Republican, is elected governor. “In the face of the state’s current fiscal crisis, Meg doesn’t believe we can afford the costs associated with new high-speed rail at this time,” said Tucker Bounds, a campaign spokesman.

Ms. Whitman’s desire to delay the project, which has already received $2.25 billion in stimulus money, drew a rebuke from the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who champions high-speed rail. “To say ‘now is not the time’ shows a very narrow vision,” said Matt David, the governor’s communications director.

The state-level opposition is a reminder of the challenge of building a national transportation project in the United States: while the federal government can set priorities, the construction is up to the states …

All Republicans are not against trains. One prominent rail advocate, John Robert Smith, was a four-term Republican mayor of Meridian, Miss.

“Any notion that somehow rail is subsidized, and other modes of transportation aren’t, is simply not factual,” said Mr. Smith, the president Reconnecting America, a nonprofit transportation advocacy group, who noted that highways and airports were subsidized as well. “Honestly, transportation infrastructure should not be a partisan issue. When you talk about good transportation solutions, they cross party lines.”

Health insurers’ campaign money moves heavily to Republicans
Los Angeles Times
(10/5/10)

Health insurers pour money into GOP campaigns, hoping to limit new regulations

The insurance industry is pouring money into Republican campaign coffers in hopes of scaling back wide-ranging regulations in the new healthcare law but preserving the mandate that Americans buy coverage.

Since January, the nation’s five largest insurers and the industry’s Washington-based lobbying arm have given three times more money to Republican lawmakers and political action committees than to Democratic politicians and organizations.

That is a marked change from 2009, when the industry largely split its political donations between the parties, according to federal election filings.

The largest insurers are also paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobbyists with close ties to Republican lawmakers who could shape health policy in January, records show.

“The industry would love to have a Republican Congress,” said Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna Corp., one of the country’s biggest insurers. “They were very, very successful during the years of Republican domination in Washington” …

Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna, which gave more to Democrats in 2009, has given nearly three times more to Republicans this year. Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc. has done the same.

And Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which was vilified by Democrats for proposing huge rate increases in California, has given nearly nine times as much to Republicans this year.

WellPoint’s lobbying team includes a former senior aide to Wyoming Sen. Michael B. Enzi, who would chair the Senate health panel should Republicans take the chamber. Enzi is a leading proponent of less state regulation of health plans.

Aetna and Humana have hired former Republican aides to the Senate Finance Committee, which would also play an important role in modifying the healthcare law.

Cigna’s team includes the former Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, another key healthcare panel.

Another drugmaker admits to illegally making, selling product
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(10/4/10)

Forest’s push for profits led to drugmaker’s woes

At a congressional hearing in September 2004, a senior executive at Forest Laboratories Inc. insisted that his company didn’t market its antidepressant drugs to children and teenagers.

“I want to emphasize that, because the FDA has not approved pediatric labeling for our products, Forest has always been scrupulous about not promoting the pediatric use of our antidepressant drugs, Celexa and Lexapro,” said Dr. Lawrence Olanoff, then chief science officer and executive vice president at the New York-based firm. “That is the law, and we follow it.”

But that statement, federal regulators now say, was patently untrue. They accuse the company’s Earth City-based marketing arm — Forest Pharmaceuticals — of actively promoting its antidepressants for children’s usage.

Not only that, regulators said, but the company’s management concealed a negative pediatric study on Celexa, duped physicians about the drug’s clinical trials and encouraged sales reps to pay illegal kickbacks to pediatricians to induce them into prescribing antidepressants to children and adolescents.

New documents offer a glimpse into the push for profits at a little-known Earth City company while at the same time shedding light on aggressive marketing tactics used by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.

According to whistle-blowers who bolstered the government’s case against Forest, each sales agent was armed with a budget exceeding $240,000 per year — money that was spent on lavish gifts, speaker’s fees and other inducements to physicians.

For decades, Forest Pharmaceuticals prospered without fanfare, employing hundreds of people in the St. Louis area. Few locals were familiar with the drugmaker’s low-profile operations here, its occasional manufacturing snafus in Ohio and an aggressive sales force that now numbers about 2,700 representatives nationwide.

But the company’s guilty plea to federal criminal charges and its agreement to pay more than $300 million in criminal and civil penalties has changed all that.

Forest is the latest drug company to have acknowledged illegal conduct in making and selling prescription drugs and over-the-counter remedies. Its guilty plea in federal court in Massachusetts follows a slew of criminal admissions, recalls, settlements and corporate integrity agreements in recent years, ranging from industry stalwarts such as Pfizer Inc. to lesser-known firms like Bridgeton-based KV Pharmaceutical Co.

“Sometimes companies forget the true purpose of their drugs, which is to help people, and they end up focusing on an alternative purpose, which is to make money for their shareholders. And that always comes back to haunt them,” said Dr. Jeffrey Bishop, a biomedical ethicist and physician who heads St. Louis University’s Center for Health Care Ethics. “It moves beyond ethics into criminality.”

Feds ask Big Pharma if they’re involved in foreign bribery scheme
The Wall Street Journal
(10/5/10)

Drug Firms Face Bribery Probe

Federal investigators are looking at ways that drug makers could be paying bribes overseas to boost sales and speed approvals, according to letters sent to the companies and people close to the matter.

Big companies—including Merck & Co., AstraZeneca PLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC—in recent months have disclosed they are being investigated for possible violations of a 1977 law that makes it illegal for companies whose stock is traded in the U.S. to bribe government officials in other countries to get business.

The companies said they are cooperating with the government, with several adding that the investigation is industry-wide and broader than their companies specifically. Many said they have policies meant to ensure compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

So far, none of the companies has been accused of wrongdoing, and the investigation ultimately may not result in charges.

The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission requested that companies voluntarily report any violations of the FCPA. Some companies, including SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co., disclosed receiving subpoenas from the SEC. Baxter International Inc. also has said it is being investigated.

The investigation is targeting transactions in Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter said …

Such requests from the government typically kick off internal investigations at companies, which generally comply with the requests in order to win leniency from the government if a violation is found …

Letters from the government to one of the companies, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, identified four types of possible violations: bribing government-employed doctors to purchase drugs; paying company sales agents commissions that are passed along to government doctors; paying hospital committees to approve drug purchases; and paying regulators to win drug approvals.

People familiar with the situation said the other companies received similar letters.

The requests are similar to the government’s actions in an older bribery probe involving medical devices. In that investigation, settlement talks are ongoing with several companies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Representatives for Merck, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers, Glaxo and Baxter declined to comment on the probe beyond saying they were cooperating fully with the government.

Hungarian toxic sludge spill spreading; “It’s an ecological catastrophe”
Agence France Presse
(10/5/10)

Hungary declares emergency as toxic mud spill kills four

Hungary declared a state of emergency Tuesday after a toxic mud spill swamped seven villages killing four people and injuring 120 in what officials said was the country’s worst-ever chemical accident.

Eight injured were in a serious condition and six people were missing after the walls of a reservoir of residue at an aluminium plant broke on Monday afternoon and officials feared the death toll could rise.

Interior Minister Sandor Pinter insisted there was no threat so far to drinking water in the area but warned against eating home-grown produce from the region for the time being.

Seven villages were swamped with 1.1 million cubic metres (38.8 million cubic feet) of toxic red sludge from the reservoir in Ajka, western Hungary.

“It’s an ecological catastrophe,” said environment state secretary Zoltan Illes, who visited the area Tuesday, describing its as the worst chemical accident in the country …

The sludge “can cause burns to the skin and blindness if it gets into your eyes,” the interior minister told a news conference in Budapest.

“We strongly advise people not to consume any home-grown products from the affected areas. We have conducted water checks, but so far haven’t found anything wrong with drinking water in the area.”

Up to 40 square kilometres (15.4 square miles) of land were affected and there were fears that some of the sludge had already found its way into the Marcal river, potentially polluting the connecting Raba and Danube rivers.

The sludge could reach the Danube in four or five days, said the deputy chief of the water management company for western Hungary, Sandor Toth.

“From the point of view of water management, it’s a catastrophe,” Toth said.

The red mud is a toxic residue left over from aluminium production. It is slightly radioactive, highly corrosive and contains toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium.

State secretary Illes said there was suspicion that Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company (MAL), which owns the reservoir, had stored more red sludge in the reservoir than was allowed, or that the containers had not been sufficiently fitted.

But MAL insisted it had done nothing wrong.

Growing number of Nigerian children dying from lead poisoning
Agence France Presse
(10/5/10)

Lead poisoning kills 400 children in Nigeria: MSF

Lead poisoning has killed more than 400 children under the age of five as a result of contamination from illegal gold extraction in northern Nigeria, an international aid agency said on Tuesday.

The children died over the last six months in several villages in Zamfara state, where lead-rich run-off from illegal gold mining has entered the soil and water supply, said Medecines Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders – MSF).

“Based on the record of fatalities from lead poisoning, more than 400 children have died in the last six months,” said El-Shafii Muhammad Ahmad, MSF project director in Zamfara.

“But we in MSF believe the figure is much more than that,” he told AFP by telephone.

Preliminary findings by UN experts on the contamination in Zamfara state, which were released on Tuesday, said that “growing amounts of children are dying from lead poisoning.”

Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP in Geneva that more than 3,000 children lived in seven affected villages in an area of high-intensity wildcat gold mining.

Byrs said many parents were afraid to come forward when their children fell ill, or mistook symptoms including convulsions with malaria.

“The pollution is far from over in these areas, we have looked at five villages,” Byrs told journalists following the release of a joint OCHA-United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report into the poisoning.

Women and children often participated in the makeshift processing of lead-rich ore to extract the gold, and crushed rock often ended up being taken into homes, MSF said. Residue was discarded haphazardly in the open, exposing children to inhalation or ingestion of contaminants.

“The lead pollution and intoxication crisis in Zamfara State is far from over. In fact, we have only seen the tip of iceberg,” the UN report said.

However, the Nigerian government’s chief epidemiologist disputed the MSF figures …

The UN report, which follows a fact-finding visit to the region, said lead poisoning was spreading in mining communities in northwestern Zamfara.

“The list of polluted villages continues to grow,” it said, adding that there were signs of resumed mining activities in Dareta, one of two villages decontaminated by a US-based environmental firm.

The study focused on ground water pollution in the affected areas of the state and found “highly fluctuating” concentrations of lead in samples after a survey of five of the villages.

Contamination levels of up to 10 times above maximum standards were recorded in water wells in two villages.

“The concentrations of lead in ponds and rivers are often not meeting the drinking water standards for lead,” the report added.

Symptoms of lead poisoning normally build up over long periods as the heavy metal accumulates in the human body, producing abdominal pain, nervous disorders affecting growth and ultimately leading to kidney failure.

Dutch anti-Islam politician on trial as his policies are enacted
The Associated Press
(10/4/10)

‘Hate’ trial for far-right politician Geert Wilders

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders appealed for freedom of expression today as he went on trial for alleged hate speech at a time when his popularity and influence in the Netherlands are near all-time highs.

Prosecutors say Wilders has incited hate against Muslims, pointing to a litany of quotes and remarks he has made in recent years. In one opinion piece he wrote “I’ve had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate,” adding “I’ve had enough of the Koran in the Netherlands: Forbid that fascist book.”

Wilders argues he has a right to freedom of speech and that his remarks were within the bounds of the law …

If convicted he could face up to a year in jail, though a fine would be more likely. He could keep his seat in parliament regardless of the outcome.

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday shortly after Wilders’ opening remarks, when he declined to answer any questions from the three judges, invoking his right to remain silent.

Presiding judge Jan Moors said Wilders is known for making bold statements but avoiding discussions, and added that “it appears you’re doing so again”.

Wilders’ lawyer, Bram Moszkowicz, said the remark showed Moors is biased against Wilders and moved to have him substituted. The move delayed the trial for at least a day as a separate panel considers the request.

The move for a delay comes at delicate moment in Dutch politics when Wilders is close to seeing many of his policy goals realised.

Wilders’ Freedom Party has agreed to support a new right-wing Dutch government set to take office this month, despite reservations even by some politicians about working with Wilders.

In return, his political allies have promised to carry out much of his anti-immigration agenda. They say they will turn away more asylum-seekers, and cut immigration from non-Western countries in half, notably by making it difficult for foreign spouses or children to join families that have already immigrated and become Dutch citizens.

They also plan to force new immigrants to pay for their own mandatory citizenship classes.

Immigration-related issues have dominated politics in the Netherlands and much of Europe over the past decade. Wilders has drawn comparisons with populists such as the late Jorg Haider in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France.

His stances resound deeply with Dutch voters, who have reconsidered their famous tolerance amid fears their own culture is being eroded by immigrants who don’t share their values. Around 6% of the Dutch population is now Muslim.

The flamboyant, bleach-blond politician also has called for taxing clothing commonly worn by Muslims, such as headscarves – or “head rags,” as he once called them – because they “pollute” the Dutch landscape.

He may be best known for the 2008 short film Fitna, which offended Muslims around the world by juxtaposing Koran verses with images of terrorism by Islamic radicals.

In a sign of the emotions at stake in Wilders’ political rise, Naziism is invoked on both sides. Wilders compares the growth of Islam influences in the Netherlands to the rise of Nazi ideology, while his critics say his populist, anti-foreigner rhetoric is reminiscent of Hitler’s.

A handful of anti-Wilders protesters gathered outside the court behind a banner reading “fascism rules,” with a Dutch pun on Wilders’ name.

• Here’s the scary part; Wilders wants to take his show to America. So reports Foreign Policy in their article, “Mainstreaming Hate”:
  Not that long ago, both American Democrats and Republicans were considered rightwing by Dutch, and indeed European, standards. No longer. Wilders sometimes makes the likes of Fox News host Glenn Beck, anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller, and even the most extreme fringes of the Tea Party crowd look like moderates — and the comparison is not a random one. Several Dutch media outlets have delved into ideological and financial ties between Wilders and American archconservatives such as David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, and Jim DeMint. In an article this May, the respected Dutch NRC newspaper reported that Horowitz had brought Wilders over for a “conservative conference in California” at the end of 2009, attended by DeMint and Liz Cheney, among others. It also quotes Pipes as saying that he had gathered a “six-figure sum” to support Wilders.
  Wilders’s American connection caught the international public’s eye at the height of the controversy over the Park51 project in New York, the so-called Ground Zero mosque. He was the keynote speaker, invited by Geller and her Stop Islamization of America campaign, at a much-hyped rally against the project held on Sept. 11.
  Increasingly, it’s not just ideology that American and European anti-Muslim activists have in common; their tactics are growing similar, too. Just as opponents of the Park51 project have accused its imam, Faisal Abdul Rauf, of radicalism, Wilders has tried to link the people behind a mosque that he opposes, Rotterdam’s Essalam mosque, to Islamic extremism. He suggested in parliamentary questions this January that the main donor for the mosque’s construction, Dubai’s Crown Prince Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, could have ties to Afghanistan’s Taliban …
  Wilders’s success rests almost entirely on such strident rhetoric. To give an idea of the tone of his discourse in the Netherlands, he has called for a “head rag tax” on women wearing headscarves. He favors banning the Quran, wants to close Muslim schools but not equivalent Christian or Jewish ones, wants to force immigrants to sign “assimilation contracts,” and wants to include the “Judeo-Christian character” of the state in the constitution.
  Wilders’s ambitions go beyond either Dutch or European borders. In July, Wilders announced that he was setting up a Geert Wilders International Freedom Alliance aimed at stopping Muslim immigration to the West. He designated the United States as one of five countries that were “ripe” for his alliance, and he may have had this confirmed at the 9/11 rally in New York. Says Golyardi, “He sees that there are people who agree with him all over the world, and he wants to provide an umbrella for them, to found an anti-Islam international.”
  High-profile international sallies appear to be part of Wilders’ strategy. During a June 2009 visit to Denmark, he said on Danish television that “deporting millions of European Muslims may be necessary.” Earlier he had caused international concern over a possible repeat of the Danish cartoon riots in the run-up to the release of his widely hyped anti-Islam film Fitna in 2008. In the end the video compilation of familiar anti-Islam snippets was a dud. Wilders also gained some notoriety when he was banned from entering Britain, where he had been invited to show Fitna in the House of Lords. The ban was later reversed.
  So Dutch politicians across the political spectrum breathed a sigh of relief after Wilders’s New York speech. His most notable one-liner was a warning that “New York, rooted in Dutch tolerance, will never become New Mecca.” Earlier, Wilders had even appealed to mainstream opinion in the United States and Europe by opposing the planned burning of the Quran in Florida, even though he has compared the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
  Such newfound mildness plays into assertions by some Dutch politicians and analysts that once Wilders has been co-opted into the system, as he now is, his sharp edges will be blunted. It may also indicate that above all else, Wilders is a wily politician who is gunning for more influence, both internationally and in the Netherlands. The mildness detected in his New York speech was at the time taken as a green light for the other parties to proceed with the talks and eventually reach an agreement with him.

Settlers suspected in Mosque burning during peace talks
The Christian Science Monitor
(10/4/10)

Did militant Israeli settlers burn mosque near Bethlehem?

Israel is worried that Jewish militants torched a West Bank mosque overnight Monday in a bid to undermine peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

A mosque in the Palestinian village of Beit Fajar, just south of Bethlehem, became the fourth in the last two years to be the target of an arson attempt, according to human rights workers. The attack is believed to be part of a campaign by vigilante settlers to ignite violence by attacking Muslim holy sites.

“Whoever did this is a terrorist in every sense of the word, and intended to hurt the chances for peace and dialogue with the Palestinians,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a statement. “This was a shameful act that besmirched the State of Israel and its value.”

Perpetrators of previous attacks against mosques have left behind in Hebrew graffiti the words “price tag,” referring to a policy of using violence against Palestinians and Israeli security forces in retaliation for outpost evacuations and militant attacks on settlers.

The price tag campaign is seen by experts as an attempt by militant settlers to deter Israel from making concessions to Palestinians, either by evacuating illegal settler outposts or by temporarily halting settlement expansion in the West Bank. Militant settlers have rioted in Palestinian villages and uprooted crops belonging to Palestinian farmers.

The arson attack in Beit Faraj comes as Israel, the US and the Palestinians are trying to reach a compromise on a new freeze in settlement building to enable peace talks to continue.

In 1994, Israeli Palestinian peace talks were disrupted after Baruch Goldstein, a New York-born born Jewish settler, walked in to a mosque in Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs and gunned down worshipers, killing 29.

“Everyone knows this was Israeli settlers. There is no question that they want to disrupt any process, and they think they can do it by a conflagration that redefines it as a religious war between Jews and Muslims,” said Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew University. “The most explosive element in the conflict is the religious tension.”

The renewal of peace talks on Sept. 2 has prompted an uptick in violence by Palestinian militants as well. There have been three shootings in the last two months which have left four dead.