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ORIGINAL: Level

SEATTLE - Pharmacists have sued Washington state over a new regulation that requires them to sell emergency contraception, also known as the "morning-after pill."

In a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into choosing between "their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19998286


A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
 
The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20016388

 
TOKYO - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party suffered humiliating losses in parliamentary elections Sunday after a string of political scandals, exit polls showed, but Abe said he did not plan to resign.

The Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan almost without interruption since 1955, was set to lose its majority in the upper house while the leading opposition party made huge gains, according to exit polls broadcast by Japanese television networks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20021988


BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah’s leader said Saturday that the militant Islamic group’s war last summer with Israel has left the U.S. vision of a “new Middle East” in shambles and claimed the guerrilla group was ready to strike Israel again at any time.

During the 34-day war in southern Lebanon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a new era of democracy and peace in the region, “a new Middle East.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20019757


Karzai: SKoreans' kidnapping un-Islamic
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago
 


Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday in his first comments on the kidnapping of 22 South Koreans that the hostage-taking was shameful and that abducting women was particularly un-Islamic.

Karzai criticized the Taliban's kidnapping of "foreign guests," especially women, as contrary to the tenets of Islam

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070729/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan