MELBOURNE, Australia – A team of 16 surgeons and nurses successfully concluded 25 hours of delicate surgery Tuesday to separate twin Bangladeshi girls who had been joined at their heads, sharing blood vessels and brain tissue.
It is too early to know whether the two-year-old girls, Trishna and Krishna, suffered any brain damage during the marathon operation — an outcome doctors said had a 50-50 chance. The girls will remain in an induced coma for monitoring for several days after the completion of the surgery.
The medical team began the work Monday morning on separating the girls, who were brought to Australia as infants by an aid organization.
"The teams managed to separate their brains and they are both very well," Royal Children's Hospital chief Leo Donnan told reporters. "Now we have the long task of the reconstructive surgery, which will go on for many hours."
Plastic surgeons finished reconstructing the girls' skulls using a combination of their own skin, bone grafts and artificial materials about five hours after the separation surgery ended.
"Their bodies have to recover from this, and we've got a lot of unknown territory we're moving into," Donnan said. "All I can say is that everything is in place for the best possible outcome. The main thing is that the girls are healthy."
Earlier Tuesday, Ian McKenzie, a member of the surgical team, said the girls were improving as their bodies began to work individually.
"The twins are actually in better condition because the degree of separation has increased and this problem we've had with their circulation affecting each other has actually gotten less," he said.
The girls shared parts of their skull, brain tissue and blood flow.
Before the surgery, doctors had said there was a 50 percent chance the girls could suffer brain damage and a 25 percent chance one of the sisters would die.
They were found in an orphanage in Bangladesh in 2007 by a representative from the Children First Foundation, who brought to them to Australia.

Creators Syndicate –
Are we at war — or not?

For if we are at war, why is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed headed for trial in federal court in the Southern District of New York? Why is he entitled to a presumption of innocence and all of the constitutional protections of a U.S. citizen?

Is it possible we have done an injustice to this man by keeping him locked up all these years without trial? For that is what this trial implies — that he may not be guilty.

And if we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that KSM was complicit in mass murder, by what right do we send Predators and Special Forces to kill his al-Qaida comrades wherever we find them? For none of them has been granted a fair trial.

When the Justice Department sets up a task force to wage war on a crime organization like the Mafia or MS-13, no U.S. official has a right to shoot Mafia or gang members on sight. No one has a right to bomb their homes. No one has a right to regard the possible death of their wives and children in an attack as acceptable collateral damage.

Yet that is what we do to al-Qaida, to which KSM belongs.

We conduct those strikes in good conscience because we believe we are at war. But if we are at war, what is KSM doing in a U.S. court?

Minoru Genda, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, a naval base on U.S. soil, when America was at peace, and killed as many Americans as the Sept. 11 hijackers, was not brought here for trial. He was an enemy combatant under the Geneva Conventions and treated as such.

When Maj. Andre, the British spy and collaborator of Benedict Arnold, was captured, he got a military tribunal, after which he was hanged. When Gen. Andrew Jackson captured two British subjects in Spanish Florida aiding renegade Indians, Jackson had both tried and hanged on the spot.

Enemy soldiers who commit atrocities are not sent to the United States for trial. Under the Geneva Conventions, soldiers who commit atrocities are shot when caught.

When and where did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed acquire his right to a trial by a jury of his peers in a U.S. court?

When John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, alleged collaborators like Mary Surratt were tried before a military tribunal and hanged at Ft. McNair. When eight German saboteurs were caught in 1942 after being put ashore by U-boat, they were tried in secret before a military commission and executed, with the approval of the Supreme Court. What makes KSM special?

Is the Obama administration aware of what it is risking by not turning KSM over to a military tribunal in Guantanamo?

How does Justice handle a defense demand for a change of venue, far from lower Manhattan, where the jury pool was most deeply traumatized by Sept. 11? Would not KSM and his co-defendants, if a change of venue is denied, have a powerful argument for overturning any conviction on appeal?

Were not KSM's Miranda rights impinged when he was not only not told he could have a lawyer on capture, but that his family would be killed and he would be water-boarded if he refused to talk?

And if all the evidence against the five defendants comes from other than their own testimony under duress, do not their lawyers have a right to know when, where, how and from whom Justice got the evidence to prosecute them? Does KSM have the right to confront all witnesses against him, even if they are al-Qaida turncoats or U.S. spies still transmitting information to U.S. intelligence?

There have been reports that in the trials of those convicted in the first World Trade Center bombing, sources and methods were compromised, weakening our security for the second attack on Sept. 11.

If the trial is held in lower Manhattan, how much security will be needed to protect against a car bomber who wants the world to see a mighty blow struck against the Great Satan? And if, as some suggest, the trial should be held on Governor's Island, would that not make the United States look like a nation under siege?

What do we do if the case against KSM is thrown out because the government refuses to reveal sources or methods, or if he gets a hung jury, or is acquitted, or has his conviction overturned?

In America, trials often become games, where the prosecution, though it has truth on its side, loses because it inadvertently breaks one of the rules.

The Obamaites had best pray that does not happen, for they may be betting his presidency on the outcome of the game about to begin.

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's supreme leader on Tuesday warned against the U.S. imposing its will on negotiations with Tehran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's statements come as Iran is asking to modify a U.N. proposal for Russia and France to turn its uranium stockpile into nuclear fuel and allay Western fears over a possible weapons program.
"Whenever the U.S offers a smile, it hides a dagger in his back," said Khamenei according to the state news agency. He rejected "talks in which the U.S. decides about its results in advance."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday in Marrakech that the U.N. nuclear deal could not be altered.
Khamenei's statements came the day before annual anti-American demonstrations for the 30th anniversary of the 1979 storming of the U.S. embassy — traditionally a time for speeches slamming Washington.
The U.S. and its western allies fear that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward producing a weapon, while Tehran maintains it is for peaceful purposes.
Khamenei said that even as the U.S. talks about negotiations with Iran, it is threatening it.
"American talk about negotiations on one hand but on the other they continue their threats and say how negotiations must reach their own desired conclusion."
Khamenei also slammed what he called "the new U.S. president's beautiful words," which are not supported by deeds, referring to several messages directed by President Barack Obama to the Iranian people.
Khamenei, who has final say in all state matters, also urged the U.S. not to pin its hopes on the Iranian opposition, who are calling for better ties with the West, describing them as "few" and "naive."
Even as Khamenei dismissed the opposition, however, a possible showdown is looming over Wednesday's annual anti-U.S. demonstration as reformists have called for anti-government protests.
The demonstrations would be a display of resolve by the opposition against Ahmadinejad's crackdowns since his disputed re-election in June, but authorities have said they will not tolerate any disruptions to Wednesday's events.
The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the head of Tehran's security forces, Gen. Ali Reza Alipour, as saying that police will use all their "power and capacity" to confront any demonstrators.
The government's presentation of a united front toward the opposition belies splits among the conservatives as well. On Tuesday, the supreme leader's protege, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with his ostensible allies in parliament over cutting subsidies.
The president backtracked on plans to trim energy and food subsidies in the latest sign he remains weakened by the political rifts opened by the postelection turmoil.
"We will take back the bill," Ahmadinejad said in comments broadcast on Iran's state radio.
Iran's president portrayed himself as a champion of the poor when he swept to power in 2005, promising to use the country's oil wealth to eradicate poverty.
The sticking point in the bill was that the money saved from cutting the subsidies would go to a fund controlled only by Ahmadinejad's administration, not parliament.

WASHINGTON – A threatened Republican boycott of a Senate committee's consideration of climate legislation is exposing the sharp partisan divide over a Democratic proposal to combat global warming.
Republicans for the most part plan to stay away from a meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday as the panel begins deliberations over legislation that would cap greenhouse gases from power and industrial plants and curb the use of fossil fuels.
Democrats have a 12-7 majority in the committee and enough votes to advance the measure to the full Senate. But GOP members are demanding additional studies on the cost and job impact of the bill, arguing that an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency was inadequate. The EPA study projected it would cost average households no more than $111 a year.
On Monday, the ranking Republicans on five other committees that will have some say in climate legislation also called the EPA analysis unsatisfactory and said senators should not be expected to vote on a bill "without a full and complete analysis of the likely effects."
The Republicans warned in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the environment committee chairman, that failure to accommodate GOP senators seeking further studies "would severely damage rather than help" the chances of getting the bipartisan support needed to get a bill through the Senate.
Boxer called the EPA cost study "unprecedented in scope" and said it didn't matter that it was largely based on an analysis of the House-passed climate bill because "our bill is 90 percent the same."
Boxer told reporters late Monday she wants to try to accommodate the Republicans, but insisted she will push ahead with plans to begin voting on amendments to the bill. But when those votes will start was unclear. Boxer said Tuesday would be limited to senators' remarks, and said she will make officials from the EPA available so Republicans can quiz them about their cost study.
"We think this is going the extra mile for our friends on the other side," Boxer told reporters. "We want to move the process forward."
The Democratic bill calls for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and industrial facilities 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by mid-century. Polluters would be given pollution permits that they could trade among themselves to ease the economic effect of the transition from fossil fuels.
Republicans have argued the bill amounts to a huge energy tax because energy, including electricity, from fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Democrats privately called the GOP tactic largely an attempt to delay consideration of climate legislation and said all seven of the committee's Republicans already had made clear that they have no intention of voting for the bill.
While Boxer said she hoped the Republicans would change their minds and participate, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., another committee member, wasn't as kind at a news conference.
"It's almost like schoolchildren over there," said Lautenberg, referring to the GOP boycott.