Monday, January 28, 2008
** 9/11 paramedic expected to attend State of the Union address to lobby for ill Ground Zero workers
** Indonesian ambulance personnel mobbed while transporting body of  former dictator
UNITED STATES NEWS
** Former New York paramedic and 9/11 survivor Marvin Bethea is expected to be present at this evening’s State of the Union address in Washington D.C. The Associated Press (Karen Matthews/January 27) said Bethea, as well as several politicians, intends to draw attention to the lack of federal funding for ill Ground Zero workers. Bethea, who suffers from several respiratory ailments, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, said he and his WTC colleagues are being treated expecially poorly, given the ‘hero’ moniker they once had. His comments come just a month after the government nixed a plan to monitor the health problems of 9/11 workers. Bureaucrats said the program would be too expensive.
INDONESIA NEWS
** An ambulance transporting the body of former dictator Suharto was mobbed in the streets of Jakarta yesterday. The New York Times (Seth Mydans/January 27) said the EMS unit saw hordes of people held back by uniformed police and security personnel. Suharto, 86, who died from multiple organ failure, had spent the past three weeks on a hospital intensive care ward. Removed from power in 1998 during an uprising, his tenure as ruler is widely believed to have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Suharto’s remains are expected to be flown to Java today for ultimate burial in the family mausoleum.
