Word: britains
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...debate rages in the U.S. over greater federal involvement in health care, Britain's socialized health-care system has come under scrutiny. The McKinsey report, and its fallout, highlights some of the pros and cons of such a system. On the one hand, McKinsey's analysts laid bare the scores of redundancies and inefficiencies within a bloated national health-care structure that employs some 1.5 million people in England. According to the Health Service Journal, which obtained a copy of the confidential report, McKinsey believes the NHS could afford to eliminate 137,000 clinical and administrative posts...
...refusing to push through those that may curtail care. There will be many aspects of McKinsey's confidential report not pertaining to job cuts that the NHS will most likely adopt, says John Appleby, chief economist of the King's Fund, a British health-care think tank. (Read:"Is Britain's Health-Care System Really That...
...Britain asked for something else as well? The finger-pointing began even before al-Megrahi was released. Scotland may have had jurisdiction over the case, but British opposition politicians blamed Gordon Brown's government for its handling of the case. Victims' families and lawyers say they suspect that officials, eager to help British companies win multibillion-dollar energy and defense contracts, cut a backroom deal in exchange for al-Megrahi's freedom...
Beleaguered Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill insisted he alone freed al-Megrahi, but suspicions are likely to linger--especially given the West's careful wooing of Gaddafi since international sanctions ended in 2004. Within hours of a visit to Libya by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2007, Britain's BP inked a $900 million oil-and-gas-exploration deal. More recently, in July, Prime Minister Gordon Brown met Gaddafi during the G-8 summit in Italy. And a week before al-Megrahi's release, John McCain led a group of fellow Senators in trade talks with Gaddafi, tweeting...
Gaddafi thanked Britain for helping secure al-Megrahi's release. A British newspaper reported that Gaddafi's son (and possible successor) Seif al-Islam Gaddafi told al-Megrahi during the flight home that he was "on the table in all commercial, oil and gas agreements." British Foreign Secretary David Miliband vociferously rejects that claim, as does Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson, who twice met Seif this year. British officials must hope the brouhaha blows over soon. Because Libya's oil is light and low in sulfur, it is prized for being among the easiest to refine. And since Libya...