Haroon Siddiqui, Cancer from Kitchen, When Pigs Fly,

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Siddiqui: Dragon Slayer still fearless: 'Mother of all Uighurs' wants international inquiry into Beijing's crackdown on Muslims in her province

She is the equivalent of the Dalai Lama – a leader in exile, battling Beijing over the persecution of her people in China. Her story is even more compelling. Whereas the Tibetan leader was anointed a child god and, at age 24, whisked out of China in 1959 on a donkey over the Himalayas to exile in India where he remains, she was a dirt-poor housewife who walked out on her abusive husband, became a multi-millionaire entrepreneur and a human rights activist, married a fellow-dissident and was persecuted and jailed

File this from Thomas Friedman under When Pigs Will Fly: That is why Mr. Obama is going to have to make sure, every day, that Karzai doesn’t weasel out of reform or Pakistan wiggle out of shutting down Taliban sanctuaries or the allies wimp out on helping us. To put it succinctly: This only has a chance to work if Karzai becomes a new man, if Pakistan becomes a new country and if we actually succeed at something the president says we won’t be doing at all: nation-building in Afghanistan. Yikes!

Nicholas Kristof: The removal of lead from gasoline resulted in an 80 percent decline in lead levels in our blood since 1976 — along with a six-point gain in children’s I.Q.’s, Dr. Landrigan said. I asked these doctors what they do in their own homes to reduce risks. They said that they avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5.It suggests that the “plastics to avoid” are those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked “BPA-free”).

How to empty Guantanamo - By Michelle Shephard on Insight-

Special envoy Daniel Fried's task is to find homes for the dozens of prisoners the Pentagon has cleared for release.