Stephen Lendman

NATO warlords concluded two days of meetings and related activities. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said a Readiness Action Plan was agreed on." It'll "strength (the alliance's) defense," he said. It can be deployed on very short notice. It includes "several thousand land troops." It complement's NATO's (multinational) Response Force. It includes land, air, sea and special force elements. It's a stand-alone force available for rapid deployment. It maintains up to 25,000 troops.

NATO's mission is offense, not defense. Its readiness tells "any potential aggressor: should you even think of attacking one (member), you will be facing the whole alliance." Rasmussen announced plans to launch a Defense Capacity Building Initiative. It "reinforce(s) (NATO's) commitment to partner nations. It includes cooperation with Georgia, Moldova and Jordan. It provides "security capacity support" for Libya. It's ready to assist Iraq on "request." The alliance's US-led Open Door policy aims for establishing a global police force. To include as many nations as possible. To subordinate member-state militaries under its command. To operate virtually everywhere. To do so extrajudicially. "Today we have decided how to make NATO more ready and better connected," said Rasmussen. "This is the blueprint for the NATO of tomorrow.

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Racheal Ninsiima

On November 28, 2013, Julius Kiiza, 26, a father of four, was diagnosed with MDR-TB – a multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis (TB).

Julius Kiiza was like many youths his age a few years back. He loved to hang out and live a good life. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he was developing a virulent form of TB.

Prior to this, Julius was already grappling with HIV which was diagnosed in 2011. Later he was to develop a wracking cough, characterized with chest pain.

“I would lose breath especially at night because of chest congestion,” he said.

Julius was diagnosed with TB and was started on the regular eight-month drug regimen. Five months down the road, Kiiza was found to have MDR-TB. MDR-TB occurs when bacteria do not respond to Isoniazid and Rifampicin, the two most powerful, first-line anti-TB drugs.

Because of Julius Kiiza’s co-infection (HIV and TB), he now takes at least 20 pills a day and he will be receiving an anti-TB injection daily for six months. I met him at Hoima regional referral hospital TB ward. As he motioned towards me, it was as if his legs would snap under the weight of his body.

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Les Visible

Yesterday afternoon I lay down for a nap. Some time after I fell asleep, I found myself in a noxious and toxic swamp. Hot winds blew across a blasted landscape, where the souls of the damned howled and shrieked. It was a place of infinite sadness and terror, juxtaposed in a land that the ineffable had forgotten. It was somewhere outside of The Ring Pass Not. I continued slogging my way through this odoriferous country that constantly reminded me of the intestinal track of a drowned hyena, ten days after the fact. I went on and on. I could not stay and I could not go back. Somehow... I knew that going back led to an even worse environment. Finally, I found myself in a long tunnel. It also stank horribly. Everything in this place stank. It stank of rot and a corruption that was both physical and spiritual. Under any normal circumstances I would have been retching uncontrollably but... it was a dream.

After a time I came to the end of the tunnel and was confronted by large columns of various sizes that reminded me of what the trunks of an infected mucous tree might look like, were there such a thing. You make weird comparisons in dreams. Don't ask me why. It happens. I found some rubble strewn about and I tossed some of it at the columns and the sound was what you might expect from ravens and frogs... but unlike any ravens and frogs from this plane. These were percussive sounds such as you might expect from infernal ravens and frogs, who perched on dead trees and in stagnant ponds, in some awful place far to the south of the worst purgatory.

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