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WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Lawmakers on both sides of the U.S. Capitol struggled to reach a healthcare deal on Tuesday, with Senate Democrats near agreement with three Republicans on a plan that would not include a government-run insurance option backed by President Barack Obama.
After lengthy closed-door meetings, however, Democrats in the House of Representatives said it was unlikely they would vote on a healthcare overhaul before heading home for their August recess at the end of the week.
House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said there would not be a vote on Friday but there was still a “pretty slim” chance lawmakers could be held for a vote on Saturday. “We're trying not to foreclose our options,” he told reporters.
Obama has pushed for a measure that will rein in healthcare costs, improve care and cover most of the 46 million uninsured Americans, making it his top legislative priority.
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee said they were close to success in bipartisan negotiations with three panel Republicans — even if the full group does not take up the bill before the break starts on August 7.
“Whether we get through markup or not I can't tell you today. But I am confident we'll have a concept we'll agree on,” Senator John Kerry, a Democratic member of the panel, told reporters.
NON-PROFITS AND TAXES
The Senate Finance negotiations have zeroed in on a plan that would use non-profit cooperatives to compete with private insurers to drive down costs, members say, not the public plan favored by Obama and many Democrats.
The panel also is likely to back a tax on high-cost insurance policies to try to raise revenue and keep costs down.
The White House said it would wait until it sees the bill to comment on the cooperative approach, which is certain to disappoint some Democrats even if it wins over the three Republicans involved in the negotiations.
“I have done a lot of reading on the history of co-ops and it is not a nice history,” Senator John Rockefeller told reporters after a closed-door meeting of Democrats.
Democratic Senator Kent Conrad said the approach would use non-profit associations at a state, regional and national level and could attract some 12 million people.
He said the U.S. government could provide about $6 billion in start-up money to help healthcare cooperatives meet reserve requirements. Any co-op would need about 25,000 members to be financially viable and about 500,000 members to negotiate competitive rates with providers, he said.
Shares of U.S. health insurers rose broadly on Tuesday on hopes a health reform bill would not include a government-run option, which has drawn strong opposition from insurers who fear it would destroy the private marketplace.
The S&P Managed Health Care index of large U.S. health insurers closed 6.5 percent higher.
Aetna rose 12.6 percent, Coventry was up 12.7 percent and Cigna was 7.7 percent higher, all on the New York Stock Exchange. Centene rose 7.9 percent.
NO BLUE DOG DEAL
Obama's drive for a broad overhaul of the healthcare industry has been stalled in the Senate and House of Representatives, both controlled by his fellow Democrats. It has been hit by a deluge of criticism over the cost, scope and funding of the more than $1 trillion measure.
Republicans in both chambers have slammed the plans as an expensive first step to a government takeover of healthcare. No Republican has come out in favor of any of the plans so far, although the three Senate Republicans have worked with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to find agreement.
An August deadline to approve initial versions of the bill is dead in the Senate and on life support in the House, where conservative Democrats known as “Blue Dogs” have held up a vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee over cost concerns.
Members of the group met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Energy Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for several hours on Tuesday afternoon and reconvened on Tuesday night.
Representative Mike Ross, a leader of the group, said there were still 12 issues of disagreement. “It might be impossible to come to a resolution on some of them,” he told reporters.
Obama, who over the past week has lobbied hard for the overhaul plan, said there was no time to lose.
“The costs of doing nothing are trillions of dollars in costs over the next couple of decades — trillions, not billions,” Obama told a town hall meeting conducted by AARP, a lobbying group for seniors.
“I understand people being scared that this is going to be way too costly,” he said. “It's not too costly if we start making changes right now.”
(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Rick Cowan and Jackie Frank; Editing by John O'Callaghan and Eric Beech)

NEW YORK – Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck said he believes President Barack Obama is a racist.
Beck made the statement during a guest appearance Tuesday on the “Fox & Friends” morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
His remarks came during a discussion of Obama’s reaction to the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates is black and was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white policeman over a misunderstanding about a break-in at Gates’ home.
An Obama spokesman, William Burton, said the White House had no comment on Beck.
Beck’s statement was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation’s first black president are white.
“I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people,” Beck said. “He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.”
Beck wondered, during the discussion, what other president would immediately jump on the police for their actions in the case. Obama said in a news conference that he believed the police acted stupidly in the case, but later backtracked from the statement and invited Gates and the police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to the White House for a conciliatory meeting later this week.
Bill Shine, Fox News senior vice president of programming, told the TVNewser Web site that Beck had “expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.”
Racial controversies are hardly new to presidents. In 2005, entertainer Kanye West said during a telethon after Hurricane Katrina that President George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”
Beck, also a radio host and best-selling author, was an immediate hit with Fox News Channel viewers, starting in January when he made the jump from HLN (formerly CNN Headline News).
Beck didn’t speak about the racial comments on his own daily Fox show Tuesday.

WASHINGTONThe top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is expected to ask the Obama administration for additional troops and equipment, according to a senior U.S. military official familiar with Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s thinking.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s report on the war’s status will be delivered in August, the source says.
The request will be for troops and equipment for conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as more assets to deal with roadside bombs and explosives, said the official, who declined to be identified because McChrystal’s request has not been formally transmitted to the Pentagon. The request could be made in coming weeks after McChrystal completes a “troop-to-task review” to calculate whether there are enough U.S. troops in Afghanistanand the right mix of troopsto carry out the military’s war plan at an acceptable level of risk, the official said. The review could also lead to a request for additional troops for either combat or training of Afghan forces, but the official emphasized McChrystal has not made a decision on that. The military already has tasked an additional 4,000 troops to train Afghan forces. The official said McChrystal is likely to submit his recommendations to Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a series of options, with each option having a level of risk attached to it. “This will start the discussion” within the highest levels of the administration about whether to send a significant number of additional troops, the official said. Gates has signaled he would be open to sending more troops if it could be demonstrated they are needed. But he also has expressed caution that the United States not send so many troops that it has too heavy a footprint in the country.
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The troop-to-task review will follow McChrystal’s assessment of the war, due 60 days after he took command in mid-June. That report is expected to be sent to Gates and NATO’s secretary general by August 14, the official said. It will discuss a detailed strategy for success of the counterinsurgency mission, such as the need for U.S. and Afghan forces to conduct more integrated operations and the need to focus on population centers. It is also expected to call for an increase in the number of Afghan security forces. “This will be a really frank and honest discussion of how things are, and what it takes to get the job done,” the official said.
Source:CNN

WASHINGTONOnce the cameras stopped rolling at the opening session of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, top officials got down to brass tacks in what one called “very constructive, very candid” discussions.
Chinese state councilor Dai Bingguo confers with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday at the U.S. State Department.
Trying to pull themselves out of the worldwide financial crisis, the United States and China both enacted massive stimulus programs. Now they must decide howand whento phase out those programs without damaging their economies. “The U.S. and China, in some ways, have acted more like each other than many of the other major economies,” David Loevinger, the U.S. Treasury Department’s senior coordinator for China, told reporters. Both countries put in place “very aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus policies,” he said. Those policies are starting to take effect, but “both sides are grappling with the timing of the withdrawal of their macroeconomic stimulus,” he said. “I think there was general agreement that it’s very important that this doesn’t occur too soon,” Loevinger said, “because the recoveries are still very fragile, but also an acknowledgment that they have to take place at the right time and not let another set of imbalances and bubbles build up in the economy.” A major danger in both countries is inflation. Economists said China is worried about the soaring U.S. fiscal deficit and any attempt by the United States to “inflate” its way out of the crisis. Such a move would hurt the value of Chinese investments in U.S. Treasury bonds.
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U.S., China launch ‘new dialogue’
At this meeting, American officials said they, in turn, are warning China that the U.S. economy has fundamentally changed in response to the crisis. Americans are saving more and buying less. “The Chinese economy needs to adjust to that and promote homegrown growth … led by [Chinese] household consumption,” Loevinger said. “If China’s going to grow, it’s not going to be able to grow by exporting to the U.S., and as far as we can tell, to the rest of the world.” The two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue concludes Tuesday afternoon. On tap for Tuesday’s discussion are trade and investment policies. At the meeting’s conclusion, the two countries will release what they’re calling a “joint fact sheet,” laying out a plan to define what issues these two giant economies will be focusing on together over the next several years.
Source:CNN

Iraqi forces raid Iran exile camp
Iraqi forces have raided a camp north of Baghdad which for years has housed an exiled Iranian opposition group.The situation in the Ashraf camp in Iraq’s Diyala province is unclear, with conflicting reports as to whether the operation spiralled into violence. A government spokesman said forces were trying to set up a police station in the camp. But residents say they fear being forcibly repatriated to Iran. The People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI) set up a base in Iraq in the 1980s. The exiles’ presence was welcomed by then-President Saddam Hussein, who was fighting a war against Iran at the time. The camp was disarmed by US soldiers following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. But since then, relations between Iran and Iraq have improved, and the Iraqi government has repeatedly vowed to close the camp – home to some 3,500 people. Iraqi forces took over its security from the US earlier this year, and the top US general in Iraq said he had had no advance warning of the raid. ‘Four killed’An Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said the aim of the raid had been to establish a police station, but denied Iraqi forces had used violent means.
“We will not force them to depart against their wishes, but they should co-operate with the governmental procedures,” he said, according to the Associated Press news agency. But a PMOI spokesman, Shahriar Kia, said four unarmed camp residents had been killed when they were fired on by security forces. The group released video of what it said were Iraqi forces using tear gas and water cannon, and pictures showing some of dozens of residents it said had been injured. A local Iraqi police captain also told AFP news agency about 200 camp residents had been injured, along with 60 Iraqi police and troops. The PMOI is considered a terrorist group by the US and Iran. It was removed from a European Union terrorist list earlier this year after a legal battle. But reports suggest Washington has received intelligence from the group, and has urged Iraqi authorities not to repatriate its members or use lethal force against them. “We have had promises from the government of Iraq that they would deal with the [PMOI] in a humane fashion,” said top US Gen Ray Odierno. “That’s what we’ve been watching and so far they’ve been abiding by that.” PMOI spokesman Mr Kia said residents were terrified of being handed over to Iranian authorities. The group says it is ready to return to Iran – but only on condition that none of its members will be prosecuted or persecuted.

Source:BBC

WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was mildly critical Tuesday of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Barack Obama.
Powell, interviewed by CNN’s Larry King, criticized the way Gates dealt with Sgt. James Crowley, a white officer who responded to reports of a possible break-in by arresting the black professor at his home on a charge of disorderly conduct. The charge was soon dropped.
Gates “might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it,” said Powell, one of the nation’s most prominent African Americans.
“I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal,” he said.
But, Powell said, Gates was just home from China and New York and “all he wanted to do was get to bed.”
When asked about the incident at a news conference, Obama said the police acted stupidly. The president subsequently toned down his criticism but not his denunciation of racial profiling generally.
Powell said he was the target of racial profiling many times and he sometimes got mad.
On one such occasion, he said, he tried to meet someone at Reagan National Airport “and nobody thought I could be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy.”
Asked how he dealt with the situation, Powell said “You just suck it up. What are you going to do?”
“There is no African American in this country who has not been exposed to this kind of situation,” Powell said.
But, he said, “when you are faced with an officer trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is not the time to get in an argument with him. I was taught that as a child.
“You don’t argue with a police officer,” Powell said.

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Which would you rather be: expecting your first child or owing the government more than 3 million?
Yeah, we thought so.
But we won't give you the which-is-which between Ugly Betty's Ashley Jensen and Mr. Rush Hour Chris Tucker just yet.
Money isn't saying very nice things to one of them, who skipped out on paying taxes for the years 2001-02 and 2004-07, while the expectant star is known for being extra funny.
Can you guess who is having a bad day and who is having a good one?
Now that she's no longer a surrogate-cum-actual mom on Ugly Betty, Jensen and her husband, Terence Beesley, are preparing to start a family in the fall, People reports. Luckily, maternity won't affect her escalating career much—she plays a pregnant woman on Jenna Elfman's new sitcom, Accidentally on Purpose.
Tucker, however, is in the red to the state of California to the tune of 3.6 million, according to the Detroit News. Talk about a high-pitched shriek!
··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.com

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Daughters, lock up your mothers. The Backstreet Boys are back yet again.
Apparently, someone forgot to tell them that the only ones who can pull off bubblegum pop these days are Disneyfied tween stars, not borderline irrelevant boy bands old enough to be their target market's fathers.
But we digress.
Nick, Howie, Brian and AJ have managed to squeeze out This Is Us, their seventh studio album, set for release on Oct. 6. And because they're generous like that, they're already streaming the debut single, “Straight Through My Heart,” online and putting the final touches on a yearlong tour.
Somewhere, Kevin Richardson is breathing a huge sigh of relief.
··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.com

NEW YORK – Car and truck owners looking to junk their gas guzzlers are flocking to dealerships to take advantage of the government’s “cash for clunkers” program and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, boosting sales in showrooms across the country.
“It’s water to thirsty people,” said Dave Kelleher, owner of two Chrysler dealerships outside Philadelphia. He said the number of shoppers has more than doubled at one of his dealerships and is climbing at the other.
“The last two days have been ripping,” he said.
The program — officially called the Cash Allowance Rebate System, or CARS — took effect over the weekend at the nearly 20,000 car dealers who have signed up with the Department of Transportation. The program offers rebates of 3,500 to 4,500 for car shoppers who scrap their old vehicles to buy ones with better gas mileage.
Jim Aten, 68, was at a Toyota dealership in Gladstone, Ore., where he used the government rebate to get a peppy new Scion xB. The car gets about 28 miles per gallon on the highway compared with 17 for his old Ford Starcraft, a monster of a vehicle.
Without the incentive “I would probably keep driving it,” Aten said. He said he was concerned that the government was spending money on the program, but acknowledged, “Maybe it will jump-start the car industry a little bit.”
In Chattanooga, Tenn., the rebates generated about a dozen deals over the weekend for Mountain View Ford. “Most of them are truly clunkers,” Mountain View President Clay Watson said of the big Expeditions and vans that customers have been trading in.
One customer brought in a 1989 Ford F150 pickup. It had 285,000 miles on it and would have gotten only about 200 or 300 in a trade-in.
Congress passed CARS earlier this year to help boost flagging sales and get some of the filthiest cars and trucks off the nation’s roads. Nationally, new vehicle sales are down 35 percent for the first half of the year, and the downturn has been devastating for automakers and dealers alike.
Here are the program’s rules: The trade-in vehicle must be a 1984 model or newer and must get 18 mpg or less in the government’s combined highway/city ratings.
Buyers can get 3,500 for a new car if it gets at least 4 mpg more than the old one. That rises to 4,500 if the new vehicle gets at least 10 mpg more.
For SUVs, pickup trucks or minivans, owners can get a 3,500 rebate if the new vehicle gets at least 2 mpg more than the old vehicle, 4,500 if it gets at least 5 mpg more.
That is a good deal for customers with old vehicles that would get less than 3,500 in an ordinary trade-in. Those with a vehicle worth more than that, however, are probably better off selling it.
Under the program, the traded-in gas guzzler cannot be resold by the dealer and put back on the road. It must be junked.
Congress has set aside 1 billion to remove about 250,000 vehicles through CARS. As of Tuesday, the government had dispensed about 17 million, for 4,026 new vehicle sales, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More than half were cars; the rest were pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans.
The program ends on Nov. 1, or earlier if the money runs out.
Kitty Van Bortel, who owns a Ford and a Subaru dealership in Victor, N.Y., said she normally sells about 50 to 60 cars and trucks a week, but last week sold well over 100.
“Everybody is just panicked that they’re not going to get the deal because the money is going to be gone,” she said.
Some industry watchers are skeptical the program will do much to lift auto sales.
The auto Web site Edmunds.com said that in any given three-month period, Americans trade in about 200,000 vehicles worth less than 4,500. That means, given the program’s 250,000-vehicle cap, it will spur only 50,000 additional car sales.
“The incremental sales will be limited and at a considerable cost,” Edmunds CEO Jeremy Anwyl said. “We are paying consumers to do something most would do anyway.”
Others have criticized the program as overly complicated. Ralph Ward, a writer and editor in Alma, Mich., was surprised by the paperwork and time required to trade in his 1991 Ford Explorer.
He said he spent about 5 1/2 hours on Monday — including a trip to the secretary of state’s office to validate his registration — scrapping the SUV for a 2009 Jeep Compass.
But he got a phenomenal deal, said his wife, Marianne. Using the CARS rebate, incentives from Chrysler and the dealer, and the trade-in value of Marianne’s Chevrolet Malibu, the couple slashed the price of the Compass from about 25,300 to 11,000.
___
Associated Press Writers Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., Ben Dobbin in Rochester, N.Y., Ken Thomas in Washington, Bree Fowler in New York, Ryan Kost in Gladstone, Ore., and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
Car Allowance Rebate System official site: http://www.cars.gov
List of qualifying trade-ins: http://www.edmunds.com/cash-for-clunkers/eligible-vehicles.html

WASHINGTON – After months of talk, decision time is nearing for President Barack Obama on health care.
Bipartisan Senate negotiators are weakening some of his top priorities, leaving the president with a difficult choice: He can give ground, and implore disappointed liberals to go along with him. Or he can try to ram through a Democratic bill with his wishes intact, infuriating Republicans.
His eventual decision could be a pivotal moment in his presidency. Remaking health care is Obama’s top domestic priority. He wants to expand coverage, contain costs, make insurance more competitive and change the way doctors and hospitals are compensated.
Liberals, noting that Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, see no need for serious compromises. Some moderates and independents, however, say a one-party solution would undermine public confidence in the plan and poison the atmosphere in Congress for the rest of Obama’s term.
For now, the president continues to hold his cards close, giving lawmakers more time to seek a compromise that could attract some Republican votes. But many Democrats are impatient, ready for Obama to insist that Republicans either endorse the main elements of his proposal or step aside as a Democrats-only bill is enacted.
“He’s going to have to choose pretty soon,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Tuesday.
If Obama decides to run roughshod over the Republicans, Graham said, “he’ll ruin his administration” by destroying his image as a political healer under a big tent.
But many Democrats want Obama to stand firm on his campaign proposals.
“Because we want three Republicans to come along on this, we betray what the American people want?” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. “I don’t think so.”
The outlines of Obama’s approaching choice are taking shape. Bipartisan negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee — the panel making the biggest effort to gain support from both parties — are starting to show details of their thinking. In several crucial respects, they fall well short of Obama’s health care proposals.
For instance, Obama’s campaign called for large employers either to provide their workers with health insurance or pay into a national fund to subsidize insurance for low-income people. The Senate Finance plan would require “a much more modest” contribution from employers than would Obama’s “pay or play” scenario, said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., one of the key negotiators.
Obama also proposed to help pay for health care by trimming tax deductions taken by high-income earners. Lawmakers rejected the idea months ago, and the Senate Finance plan offers no alternative means of extracting new revenue from wealthy people.
Most troubling to many liberal Democrats, the Senate Finance plan does not call for a robust government-run option for buying health insurance. It calls for an insurance cooperative, but liberals such as Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont Independent, say that’s unacceptable.
“I think we have the votes to pass a strong bill,” he said, which would include a public option for health insurance that is comparable to Medicare in its reach and cost controls. If Republicans don’t agree, Sanders said, then Senate Democrats can use a strong-arm tactic called “reconciliation” to pass major elements of Obama’s plan without any GOP votes.
Asked if he would like Obama to speak out more forcefully for his campaign proposals, Sanders answered: “Yeah.”
White House adviser David Axelrod said it’s too early for Obama to fully endorse the Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan approach or the liberals’ call to stand firm.
“This is the legislative process,” Axelrod said Tuesday. “The important thing is to keep the process moving forward.”
“There’s no doubt that what we’ll have at the end of the day will not fully satisfy any major player in this process,” he said. The most important goal, he said, is to improve the nation’s health care system.
“Everyone is going to have to give a little to get there,” Axelrod said.
But in a political system dominated by Democrats, some liberals say a down-the-middle approach will give conservatives and Republicans more influence than they have earned. Instead of everyone giving a little, they wonder if either GOP lawmakers or liberal activists will have to give a lot.
Obama has more power to answer that question than anyone. Decision time is coming.
___
EDITOR’S NOTE — Charles Babington covers the White House for The Associated Press.

Khmer rock revival seeks new audience
By Sarah Cuddon
Decades after Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge silenced the sound of Westernised music in Cambodia, the little-known 60s genre “Khmer rock” is finding new fans.Khmer rock is the sound of the West meeting the East in the 1960s – a mixture of US surf guitar music, early rock and doo-wop mixed with Cambodian traditional instruments. At the time, the music was virtually unknown outside Asia but its followers in the West are now burgeoning. Music writer Nik Cohn is a new fan who stumbled across the sound by chance.

He said: “One night I was watching (the film) City of Ghosts, and there’s an amazing moment when Matt Dillon jumps on a motorbike and rides through Phnom Penh and this incredible music comes on. An unbelievable voice. “(I’d) not heard anything that good since Ronnie and Ronettes… and then I began to think about it musically.” Today, the sounds of the old Phnom Penh are being revived in the West by the Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever, which is fronted by a Cambodian singer, Chhom Nimol, the daughter of musicians who played with the original Khmer rockers. The band’s guitarist Zac Holtzman loves the sound and stories of Phnom Penh’s music scene. “It was modern city, with lots of musicians. By day they played traditional stuff and by night they’d rock out.
“In general the Khmer culture is reserved, but this is the closest to stepping out and going crazy. We can really have fun here.” The country’s former controversial ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was a big influence on the sound. Despite presiding over an often corrupt and repressive regime, he was passionate and liberal about the arts, and encouraged the traditional court musicians to experiment with Western styles. But influences also came directly from the US – as the American military presence in Vietnam increased, the American Forces Radio Network also became more well-known. Flying studios operated by the US Navy spread the sound of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music to Cambodia. Phnom Penh’s young musicians did not necessarily know who Jimi Hendrix, the Doors or the Beach Boys actually were, but they loved the sound and they started to imitate it. “They just took the sound and re-channelled it through instruments equivalent to guitars… a primitive drum kit, and they certainly had bass guitar,” Nik Cohn said. The Khmer rock musicians did not have elaborate studios, and most of the songs were recorded live – often in one take – with any keyboards or guitars they could find, and incorporated traditional instruments. For a decade, this experimental Khmer rock music transformed the nightlife of the capital, Phnom Penh. But in 1975 the fanatically anti-Western Khmer Rouge marched in, led by Pol Pot, and the vibrant rock and roll scene was silenced. Within four years, the Khmer Rouge killed an estimated two million Cambodians in the notorious killing fields, including many of the Khmer musicians. Him Sophy was one of those sent to a labour camp.
The scene’s leading lights were all extinguished by the Khmer Rouge
“Ninety percent of the famous singers were killed. I saw the prisoners they took,” he said. Jon Swain, who was the Sunday Times war correspondent in South Vietnam and Cambodia at the time, said: “Educated people, musicians, people with glasses… a lot were taken to the killing fields… so the great singers disappeared.” All the local heroes the scene had produced – like Sinn Sisamouth, who became known as “the King of Khmer music” – were wiped out, killed by the Khmer Rouge. Cambodian musician and composer Sophy Him was a young music student in Phnom Penh and remembered him well. “Sinn Sisamouth would play (royal) court music, then rock music… improvisation from traditional and rock.” Guitarist Zac Holtzman said Sinn Sisamouth was a songwriter who he initially thought “was like the Elvis of Cambodia”, but then he found his lyrics were more like the “Bob Dylan of Cambodia”.
No one quite knows what happened to the famous diva of the time, Ros Sereysothea, but it is believe she also died under Pol Pot. Like almost all the Khmer rock artists, Ros Sereysothea came from a poor farming family. She moved to Phnom Penh, where was heard singing by Prince Sihanouk, who later honoured her as “The Golden Voice of the Royal Capital”. It was her voice that Nik Cohn first heard on the soundtrack for film City Of Ghosts, and he said there was always “something tragic about her”. The music was wild and anarchic, but the lyrics often told a different story of teenage angst, death, betrayal and sorrow. The translation to Ros Sereysothea’s funky rock song “Have You Seen My Love” is: “I drink until I get drunk, but I can’t seem to get drunk. The sky is all black, love has wings to fly.” It is this strange mix that appeals to fans like Nik Cohn. “It’s the sound of innocence, teenagers and innocence, symbolising everything that was lost – and when you know that every one them was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge, many in hideous ways, it deepens the experience of listening to it.” Khmer Rock is adored in Cambodia. It survived on bootlegged cassette tapes and vintage vinyl kept hidden during the Communist years at enormous risk to the owners. “The name of Sinn Sisamouth is still there… after Khmer Rouge was overthrown, his songs came back on the radio. “I remember hearing them again and they are still going on now,” Jon Swain said. And the old songs are winning new fans through reissues and compilations, a presence on the internet, and the new recordings by Dengue Fever.
presented by Robin Denselow, is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Tuesday, 28 July, at 1330 BST.

Source:BBC

Rifts emerge over tackling the Taliban
Guest columnist Ahmed Rashid on the growing rift between the US and Pakistan over fighting the Taliban.There are serious differences emerging between the US and the various power centres in Pakistan which could adversely affect the entire region. At stake are the upcoming Afghan elections, the US offensive in Helmand province in Afghanistan, curbing the Taliban in Pakistan and a potential worsening in Islamabad’s relations with both Kabul and Delhi. The differences emerge as the US, Britain, France and Nato stake an enormous amount of political prestige on rapidly improving the security situation in Afghanistan and receiving more co-operation from Pakistan on combating the Taliban in both countries. When Pakistani and Indian leaders met in Egypt on 16 July, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani handed over an intelligence dossier to his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh outlining India’s alleged role in destabilising Pakistan from Afghanistan.
This included funding and training Baloch militants for the separatist insurgency in Balochistan province and providing support for the Pakistani Taliban, in particular its leader Baitullah Mehsud. The Pakistani dossier was almost certainly a retaliatory move following US and Nato allegations that Pakistan’s military continues to provide sanctuary to the top leadership of the Afghan Taliban including Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Adm Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on 23 July that al-Qaeda’s leadership is also in Pakistan. Meanwhile India accuses Pakistan of continuing to harbour extremist groups in Punjab province including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is accused of carrying out the Mumbai attacks of last year. The dossier has worsened the long running tit-for-tat accusations between India and Pakistan and expanded their differences to now involve the US and Nato. That in turn puts at risk the entire security of the region. The dossier is also a sign of the growing ascendancy of the military in Pakistan over the civilian government in the making of foreign and national security policy. Military’s viewIn the past President Asif Ali Zardari has taken a pragmatic, conciliatory line towards both India and Afghanistan saying Pakistan has no enmity with them. He has also pledged to clamp down on all “terrorists” regardless of their origins. However now the government appears to be quietly going along with the military’s view of the region. Western diplomats say that the Pakistani dossier was followed up by a series of hard-hitting briefings by the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for selected foreign journalists and diplomats, blaming the Americans for refusing to curtail the so-called Indian subversion of Pakistan through Afghanistan. The ISI also denied there were Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil and instead accused the joint US-British offensive in Helmand province of worsening the security situation for Pakistan because fleeing Taliban will escape into Balochistan. Western diplomats have responded by reminding the Pakistanis that ever since their defeat in Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban have been given sanctuary in Balochistan.
Pakistan has accused India of supporting Baloch insurgents
The military is also insisting that the US stop bombing Pakistan’s tribal areas with drone-fired missiles and instead share the technology and intelligence with Pakistan. The military has become even more incensed after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed supplies of nuclear reactors and new fighter jets to India during her trip there in late July. These tensions could have the most impact in Afghanistan where presidential elections take place on 20 August with no sign of a Taliban let-up in their bid to disrupt the polls. The US offensive in Helmand province is meeting stiff resistance and if the fighting continues there is little chance of the Afghan public coming out in large numbers to vote in the southern provinces. A high number of US and British soldiers have been killed in the first three weeks of July. UncertainIn 2004 before the first presidential elections, former President George W Bush successfully exerted pressure on President Pervez Musharraf and the ISI to reign in the Taliban for two months so that elections could take place peacefully.
The army is accused of fighting only militants who threaten the government
US attempts to register a similar deal now have been denied by Pakistan, who insist that there are no Afghan Taliban in Pakistan. It is also uncertain if the Pakistanis have the same kind of influence with the Taliban as they did in 2004. Meanwhile India has made it clear to the US that it will not resume normal relations with Islamabad until there is a clamp down against Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Punjab-based militant groups. Only the civilian government is in favour of such a clamp-down. Meanwhile after driving the Pakistani Taliban out of the Swat valley but failing to kill any of the Taliban commanders, the army is under pressure from the government, the public and the US to go after the Taliban leadership in the tribal areas. So far it has declined, citing tensions with India and the need to keep the bulk of its army on the Indian border. Western diplomats say Pakistan is choosing to fight only those Taliban who threaten the government, but refusing to act against those groups who are fighting in Afghanistan. The rising differences between the US, Europe and India on one side and Pakistan on the other is cause for growing concern as Islamic extremism shows no signs of abating in the region. Ahmed Rashid is the author, most recently of Descent into Chaos: How the war against Islamic extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
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Source:BBC

WASHINGTON – They call them Cadillac health plans. But a clunker may be hiding behind the sticker price. Senators scrambling to pay for a 1 trillion health care overhaul are leaning toward taxing health insurance companies on policies costing more than 25,000 a year — about twice the value of the average employer-provided family plan.
But some insurance experts say the reason certain plans are so expensive isn’t that they’re providing lavish benefits like full-body diagnostic scans and tummy tucks. Instead, the super-high premiums are likely being charged to older, sicker people, either as individuals buying their own coverage, or working for a small employer.
“Maybe it’s Cadillac profits for the insurance industry, but it’s not Cadillac coverage for the person,” said Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University research professor who studies the market for individual coverage. “It’s not like that policy gives you health care that’s gold-plated; it’s just the insurance company manipulating those premiums.”
Indeed, Pollitz says the coverage that members of Congress get could cost 25,000 or more — if the federal health plan were allowed to charge higher premiums just because of age. Under the health overhaul legislation, private insurers selling to individuals and small businesses would still be able to do that. One proposal lawmakers are weighing would allow a five-to-one difference between premiums for 20-year-olds and for people in their 60s.
Pollitz did the math.
Assuming a five-to-one age differential, she said a family of four headed by a 64-year-old would pay 31,725 for the standard federal health benefits package — which is worth an average of 13,500. And a similar family headed by a 59-year-old would pay 25,600.
“The whole notion of Cadillac plans is kind of a made-up notion,” said Pollitz. “A typical employer plan covers all the stuff you’d want and pays 90 percent of the bills.”
Senate Finance Committee negotiators are looking at taxing insurance companies on the high-cost plans as a way to nudge consumers toward more frugal coverage, helping to curb unsustainable medical inflation. They hope to raise as much as 90 billion over 10 years by means of a tax rate that could range as high as 35 percent.
“The idea of taxing insurance companies is getting some serious consideration,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a Finance member. “I’m open to looking at it, but I can think of a variety of circumstances — age is a big one — that ought to be looked at.”
Only a tiny fraction of health insurance policies — perhaps fewer than 1 percent — cost more than 25,000 a year. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 0.3 percent of workers with employer-provided family coverage in 2008 were in plans worth more than 25,000.
It’s unclear if such a narrowly targeted tax could have much of an impact on health care costs overall. It is a fact that a small number of patients account for most costs. Government statistics show that about 20 percent of people — often those with chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease — account for 80 percent of medical costs. But the proposed tax doesn’t appear to affect the way care is delivered to the costliest patients.
“I question the impact its going to have ultimately on health care use,” said Paul Fronstin, an economist with the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.
How would the insurance industry respond to the tax? “I don’t see the companies eating it,” said Fronstin. “They’d either pass it on directly to the plans being taxed, or they’ll pass it on by increasing their premiums across the board.”

JERUSALEM – In the four months since hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, West Bank Palestinians have enjoyed an economic recovery and Israel has experienced a period of relative calm.
That progress is the backdrop for a fresh round of U.S. diplomacy aimed at getting Palestinian-Israeli peace talks started again.
But there is a major sticking point. Palestinians are refusing to resume negotiations unless Netanyahu heeds the U.S. demand to stop all construction in Israeli settlements on lands they claim for their future state.
Netanyahu grudgingly accepted the idea of Palestinian statehood last month only under heavy U.S. pressure and with conditions attached. And he is still balking at President Barack Obama’s demand to stop building Jewish settlements.
But on the ground, the Israeli leader is pursuing his own idea of how to best achieve lasting calm. His so-called “economic peace” aims to create the conditions for a settlement by building up the West Bank’s economy.
He has focused only on the West Bank, the Palestinian territory run by a moderate leadership, as opposed to Gaza which is controlled by the rival government of the militant Hamas.
Netanyahu’s plan has gotten off to a pretty good start. In the West Bank, military checkpoints have been lifted, permits for importing raw materials are being granted. Shopping centers and movie theaters are popping up and concerts and sporting events are other signs that life there is taking on a semblance of normality.
The International Monetary Fund recently predicted the West Bank economy could grow by 7 percent this year, its first optimistic forecast in three years.
“We are not waiting. We are doing. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,” Netanyahu said Tuesday while presiding over the extension of trading hours at the crucial Allenby crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.
The Palestinian demand to stop all settlement building before they will resume peace talks is not a condition they placed on Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who brazenly expanded settlements even as he talked peace.
But two things have changed since Olmert left office: a new administration in Washington has shown less tolerance for settlement activity, and Palestinians are more distrustful of Netanyahu.
Palestinians doubt Netanyahu, who leads a coalition of rightists opposed to territorial compromise, would ever do what it takes to make peace, including uprooting tens of thousands of Jewish settlers to make room for a Palestinian state.
The Israeli leader attached so many conditions to his acceptance of Palestinian independence last month as to render it meaningless in the eyes of many Palestinians.
And some wonder whether his decision to ease Israel’s chokehold on the West Bank is more about getting Obama off his back — and deflecting attention away from settlements — than any precursor to historic compromise.
“Netanyahu is offering real and serious improvements in the West Bank, much more than his predecessor Olmert did,” said Khalil Shahen, a commentator for the al-Ayyam daily. “The only explanation for this is that Netanyahu is seeking an economic peace rather than the political peace.”
The West Bank’s economic revival sharply contrasts with the misery of Hamas-controlled Gaza, where an Israeli and Egyptian imposed blockade is stifling most economic activity.
Of all the obstacles to achieving peace, perhaps none is as large as Hamas militants’ violent takeover of Gaza two years ago.
But even on that front, there is some improvement. The rockets that Gaza militants had been firing into southern Israel for the past eight years have all but stopped, after a punishing war at the start of the year that killed more than 1,000 Palestinians.
For now, Palestinian leaders seem to be savoring the tensions brewing between the conservative Netanyahu and the liberal Obama — despite historically close ties between Israel and the U.S.
“I don’t think that the Palestinians would resume talks with Israel before freezing settlement expansion,” said Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. “Every time we had the negotiation track beside the settlement expansion track, the settlement track killed the negotiation one.”
Israel captured the West Bank, now home to some 2.5 million Palestinians, in 1967. The number of Israeli settlers there has more than doubled since the mid-1990s and now stands at around 300,000, in addition to another 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built by Israel in east Jerusalem, also captured in 1967. Gaza has about 1.5 million Palestinians.
The Palestinians hope to establish a future state in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli leaders say they expect to reach an agreement with Washington over Obama’s demand for a settlement freeze. But Netanyahu’s public rejection of Washington’s demand that it drop plans to build new apartments in east Jerusalem — which the Palestinians claim as a future capital — show that his simmering disputes with Obama are far from over.
A fresh point of contention emerged on Monday on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, standing beside visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, suggested three times that Israel is not ruling out military action against Iran, despite Washington’s clear preference to keep the focus on diplomacy.
Obama’s top Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, wrapped up a new swing through the area on Tuesday, announcing “progress” in his attempts to resolve the settlement dispute but with no word of a breakthrough.
Obama’s attempts to persuade Arab nations to begin normalizing relations with Israel, perhaps by opening up trade offices, could make it easier for Israel to compromise.
Bahrain’s crown prince, Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, wrote an unusually conciliatory op-ed piece in the Washington Post calling on Arabs to engage the Jewish state. Mitchell met with the crown prince Tuesday in Bahrain and praised his initiative, the official news agency reported.
But Saudi Arabia — the country whose participation most matters to Israel — is refusing to heed Obama’s call.
____
Steven Gutkin is The Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories. AP correspondent Mohammed Daraghmeh in the West Bank contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
Higher speed limits led to about 12,500 more deaths on US roads between 1995 and 2005, a new study in the American Journal of Public Health shows.
Earlier studies had suggested that any effects of an act of Congress that eliminated all federal controls on speed limits would be temporary. The findings debunk those claims, Dr. Lee S. Friedman of the University of Illinois in Chicago, one of the study's authors, told Reuters Health.
To date, Friedman and his team note in their report, most studies of the effects of speed limit changes on highway fatalities and injuries have looked at only a couple of years' worth of data, in only a few states. In their analysis, the researchers looked at traffic fatalities in every US state except Massachusetts and Hawaii over the decade after the change in Federal law.
The National Maximum Speed Law, passed in 1974, put a 55 mph speed limit on all interstate roads. The law was intended to cut fuel consumption in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo, but it also led to a 16.4% reduction in car crash mortality from 1973 to 1974, Friedman and his colleagues note in their report.
In 1987, Congress passed the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act allowing states to lift the speed limit on rural interstates to 65 mph, which 41 states did. In 1995, Congress passed the National Highway Designation Act, which wiped out all federal speed limits.
Overall, Friedman and his team found that increased speed limits led to a 3.2% jump in road deaths. On rural interstates, car crash deaths increased 9.1%, while the increase for urban interstates was 4%.
The biggest increases in deaths due to increased speed limits were seen in states that had 55 mph speed limits before 1995 and raised them to 65 afterwards.
In states that kept the same speed limits, the number of deaths and injuries in fatal car crashes actually declined.
Overall, Friedman and his colleagues estimate that the federal law change led to 12,545 more deaths on US highways, and 36,583 more injuries in fatal crashes.
Bringing back a federal speed limit could not only save lives, Friedman noted; it could also reduce carbon emissions and dependence on foreign oil. The Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act is coming up for renewal this November, which could offer an opportunity to put a new federal speed limit in place, he said.
More speed cameras could also help make roads safer, Friedman added. These are automated systems that take photos of speeders and their license plates, and then send the offender a ticket in the mail.
“You don't have the fun of having a police officer pull you over and take your license,” Friedman said. Nevertheless, he added, “these systems are very effective for reducing and controlling systematic speeding.”
SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, September 2009.

NEW YORK – Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck said he believes President Barack Obama is a racist. Beck made the statement during a guest appearance Tuesday on the “Fox & Friends” morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
His remarks came during a discussion of Obama’s reaction to the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates is black and was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white policeman over a misunderstanding about a break-in at Gates’ home.
An Obama spokesman, William Burton, said the White House had no comment on Beck.
Beck’s statement was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation’s first black president are white.
“I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people,” Beck said. “He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.”
Beck wondered, during the discussion, what other president would immediately jump on the police for their actions in the case. Obama said in a news conference that he believed the police acted stupidly in the case, but later backtracked from the statement and invited Gates and the police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to the White House for a conciliatory meeting later this week.
Bill Shine, Fox News senior vice president of programming, told the TVNewswer Web site that Beck had “expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.”
Racial controversies are hardly new to presidents. In 2005, entertainer Kanye West said during a telethon after Hurricane Katrina that President George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”
Beck, also a radio host and best-selling author, was an immediate hit with Fox News Channel viewers, starting in January when he made the jump from HLN (formerly CNN Headline News).
Beck didn’t speak about the racial comments on his own Tuesday Fox show.

Moldovans to vote in poll re-run
Moldovans are due to vote in a parliamentary election shortly, three months after a disputed ballot led to violence and two deaths.The opposition has been demanding a re-run of April’s election, claiming it was rigged. The latest vote is being held because the Communist Party failed to gain the majority needed to elect a president. Opposition parties boycotted the votes to elect a replacement for outgoing President Vladimir Voronin. Polling stations will be opened from 0700 to 2100 local time (0400-1800 GMT) on Wednesday. After the April result, thousands of citizens took to the streets, clashing with police, and storming parliament and the presidential offices. The opposition and some international observers said the vote had been rigged, although others said it was generally fair. The Communist Party gained 60 of the 101 seats – one short of the 61 seats needed to meet the three-fifths majority required to elect its presidential candidate, current Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii. Polls this month suggested a drop in support for the Communists, giving them about 30% compared with just under 50% in April, Reuters news agency reports Coalition pledgeIn Wednesday’s vote, three opposition parties hope to join the Communist Party in parliament – the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Our Moldova Alliance. Polls suggested that the Liberals and Liberal Democrats would win a combined total of some 20%. Other smaller parties are unlikely to gain enough votes for a seat. The opposition parties have pledged to create a ruling coalition if they collectively gain enough votes. They have also said that they will co-operate with the Communist Party in the new parliament if the “early election is fair, democratic and transparent”. Mr Voronin’s successor will lead the poorest country in Europe – where the average wage is just under 250 (151) a month – and will inherit an unresolved conflict over the breakaway region of Trans-Dniester.

Source:BBC

Lewisburg, Pa. –
A rare opportunity has emerged for the United States and North Korea to directly engage in diplomatic dialogue. The Obama administration should quickly and firmly grab it.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a statement Monday saying that “there is a specific and reserved form of dialogue” with the US that can address the nuclear situation.
The statement followed remarks over the weekend by Sin Son-ho, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, who said his government was “not against a dialogue” with Washington. These statements are apparently in response to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for North Korea to return to the negotiating table.
Secretary Clinton said last week in Thailand that if North Korea agrees to irreversible de-nuclearization, the US will move forward on a package of incentives, including normalizing relations with Pyongyang. Clinton later said on NBC's “Meet the Press” that North Korea won't be “rewarded for half-measures” toward ending its nuclear weapons program.
The willingness on both sides to resume talks is encouraging, but there are major hurdles ahead.
Frankly, it is unrealistic for the US to ask North Korea to give up its nuclear technology. The reason is simple: The nuclear card is the only one North Korea has; it will not easily give it away. The ostrich policy of refusing to accept North Korea as a nuclear state has to be ditched. A solution to the North Korea conundrum must begin with recognizing the fact that North Korea has the ability to produce nuclear weapons and will remain nuclear-capable.
The cold war has not ended on the Korean Peninsula. Regime survival is a top priority for Pyongyang. Depicted as being belligerent and menacing to its neighbors and the US, North Korea retorts that it is the US that has been hostile and provocative.
The impoverished North needs the nuclear program as a bargaining chip. It is also in dire need of energy, which nuclear technology can provide. It is highly unlikely that Pyongyang will actually use nuclear weapons against its neighbors or the US – the Communist leaders are fully aware that it would be suicidal.
In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton took a soft-line policy toward North Korea. He promised millions of dollars in aid, food, oil, and even two nuclear reactors in exchange for denuclearization. President Clinton also sent Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-il.
But Congress never approved the budget for the construction of the two nuclear reactors, there was evidence that North Korea was violating its end of the bargain, and Clinton left office, unable to solve the problem.
Then George W. Bush put North Korea on the “axis of evil” list and took a hard-line approach, which also backfired. More sanctions will not affect the lives of North Korean rulers and will only cause more suffering for the common people. Heated rhetoric does not help solve the problem, either.
But that doesn't mean there's no way forward.
Kim Jong-il is now apparently picking his successor. Kim Jong-un, his youngest and favored son, has been rumored to be the next leader of North Korea. If this is true, there might be some hope for North Korea.
The younger Kim was educated in the International School of Berne in Switzerland. He is reported to have been introverted but friendly to his classmates. Unlike his father and grandfather, he has first-hand experience in a Western society.
It would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility that Kim Jong-un may introduce political and economic reforms to North Korea after he consolidates his power.
Consider China: Mao Zedong, who only spent a few months in Moscow and never ventured to the West, kept China in isolation and constant conflict with foreign powers while Deng Xiaoping, who studied and lived in France as a teenager, brought sea changes to post-Mao China.
When Deng emerged as China's leader after the Cultural Revolution, the US and other Western countries welcomed him. President Jimmy Carter invited him to Washington and praised his bold economic reform initiatives.
Nearly two decades after Russia and China established diplomatic relations with South Korea, neither the US nor Japan has taken steps to recognize North Korea. Why doesn't President Obama reach out to Kim Jong-un and establish a working relationship with him as early as possible?
North Korea is predictably unpredictable, but one thing is clear now: It is determined to keep nuclear technology and strengthen its nuclear weapons. Yet, what North Korea needs most is not the two light water reactors promised to it under the collapsed 1994 Agreed Framework; it needs security guarantees and diplomatic recognition.
Acquiring nuclear technology does not make North Korea more dangerous; it is how the regime uses this technology that matters. Since North Korea is already nuclear-capable, the US should keep this traditional enemy close by signing a nuclear cooperation deal with it and co-managing its nuclear program. Both South Korea and China are also supportive of a less confrontational approach to North Korea.
Ultimately, the US-North Korea dialogue should aim at establishing diplomatic relations and signing a peace treaty, which may be the best way to keep North Korea's nuclear program and technology under control.
Zhiqun Zhu is an associate professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. He is also the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur chair in East Asian Politics at Bucknell.

WICHITA, Kan. – An anti-abortion activist pleaded not guilty Tuesday to opening fire on late-term abortion provider George Tiller after a witness gave chilling testimony that he saw the alleged shooter point a gun at the Kansas doctor’s head before pulling the trigger.
Scott Roeder, 51, is accused of threatening two ushers who tried to stop him during the May 31 shooting in the foyer of Tiller’s church.
Roeder, dressed in a jacket and tie but shackled at his ankles, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated assault charges after witnesses described seeing him shoot Tiller and speed away from the church. Roeder’s public defender entered the plea on Roeder’s behalf and the Kansas City, Mo. man did not speak during the hearing.
If convicted, Roeder is likely to face life in prison. Prosecutors have said they will not pursue the death penalty, and Roeder would be eligible for parole after 25 years.
Tiller had been the target of relentless protests at his Wichita clinic, where he practiced as one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions. He was shot in both arms by an anti-abortion activist in 1993.
For weeks, Roeder has refused to discuss his alleged role in Tiller’s death, advocating in general terms for justifiable homicide — which he has repeatedly said is an acceptable action to protect “unborn children.”
In rambling phone and jailhouse interviews since his arrest, Roeder has told the AP he would be pleased if others took action to stop abortion by any means necessary.
“Violence is not wrong in all situations, so if it takes that — then if it is done righteously — then, if it’s done, it is OK,” Roeder has said.
Unlike his peers, Tiller embraced a high profile even after being wounded in 1993. His clinic, heavily fortified after a bombing in 1986, became the target of both peaceful and violent protests. In 1991, a 45-day “Summer of Mercy” campaign organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators to Wichita. More than 2,700 arrests resulted.
During Tuesday’s hearing, an usher at the church in Wichita, Gary Hoepner, testified that he and Tiller were chatting when a man walked through the door, put a gun to Tiller’s head and shot him. Hoepner identified the man as Roeder.
Hoepner said he wasn’t sure if the weapon used to kill Tiller was real until he saw Tiller fall to the ground. He said he followed the shooter, whom he identified as Roeder, out of the church but stopped after Roeder warned him.
“`I’ve got a gun and I’ll shoot you,’” Hoepner recalled the gunman saying. “I believed him and I stopped.”
He said he later called police to give them the license plate number on the shooter’s car.
But defense attorney Steve Osburn said some of Hoepner’s testimony was based on assumptions, including whether the gunman spoke directly to the other usher. Osburn also asked Hoepner if he told police he heard the gunman say something along the line of “Lord, Forgive me.” Hoepner said he did.
Later Tuesday, a judge ordered Roeder held on 20 million bond and set a trial date for Sept. 21.
After Tiller’s death, his family said that they would permanently shut the doors to the clinic. The facility’s signage has been taken down, and a tall privacy fence of solid boards surrounds the building.
Mainstream abortion opponents have been swift to condemn Tiller’s death. Two of the movement’s leading groups, Operation Rescue and Kansans for Life, have disputed that Roeder belonged or donated money to either group.

MINNEAPOLIS – Brett Favre won’t be coming out of retirement to play for Minnesota. Vikings coach Brad Childress confirmed to The Associated Press in a text message Tuesday that the three-time MVP quarterback for the Green Bay Packers would not join his team when training camp opens later this week. Favre’s decision was first reported by The Star Tribune on its Web site.
Childress told the paper Favre did not want to put himself through the grind of a 19th NFL season. Favre himself did not immediately offer a comment from Hattiesburg, Miss., where he worked out with high school players this summer in a bid to keep in shape for a potential return to the NFL.
“It was a rare and unique opportunity to consider adding not only a future Hall of Fame quarterback but one that is very familiar with our system and division,” Childress said in a statement on the team’s Web site. “That does not detract from the team that we have.”
The decision a crushing blow for the Vikings, who openly courted Favre all summer. Adding Favre would have been viewed by many as the final piece for a team that already has star running back Adrian Peterson and a stingy veteran defense that returns nearly intact from last year’s NFC North championship season.
Favre came out of retirement last year to play for the New York Jets. He retired again, had surgery in May to alleviate a torn biceps tendon and then openly flirted with the idea of coming back again with the Vikings, the Packers’ NFC North rival.
After two months of rehab, Favre told Childress he didn’t think he had enough in him to get through a full season.
Now Childress has some damage control to do with Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, the two veterans who were expected to compete for the job before the Favre drama began for a second straight year.
Jackson and Rosenfels were peppered with questions about Favre during the team’s minicamps this summer. It was a testy situation already for them to deal with, and now they will likely face a whole new set of inquiries with the job up for grabs all over again.
Favre’s decision comes at the 11th hour. Vikings players will begin arriving in Mankato for training camp on Wednesday, with a mandatory reporting day of Thursday and the first practice on Friday.
Now it’s back to square one, though Childress has said he believes the Vikings will be good with or without Favre.
“As we have consistently communicated, we feel good about our team and they have put forth a tremendous effort this offseason preparing for the season ahead,” he said. “With this behind us, we look forward to getting to Mankato and getting training camp under way.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
A common and safe blue food dye might provide the best treatment available so far for spinal cord injuries, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
Tests in rats showed the dye, called brilliant blue G, a close relative of the common food dye Blue no. 1, crossed into the spinal fluid and helped block inflammation, Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center and colleagues reported.
“We have no effective treatment now for patients who have an acute spinal cord injury,” Dr. Steven Goldman, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
“Our hope is that this work will lead to a practical, safe agent that can be given to patients shortly after injury, for the purpose of decreasing the secondary damage that we have to otherwise expect.”
When nerve cells in the brain or spine are damaged, they often release a spurt of chemicals that causes nearby cells to die. No one is sure why, and stopping this process is key to preventing the damage that continues to build after a stroke or spinal cord injury.
One of the chemicals is ATP. Nedergaard's team looked for something that would interfere with this and found the blue dye, which they called BBG, would do this via the P2X7R receptor or doorway.
“We found that IV administration of the P2X7R inhibitor BBG significantly reduced the severity of spinal cord damage without any evident toxicity,” they wrote.
“Remarkably, BBG is a derivative of the widely used food additive FD&C Blue number 1. Currently, more than 1 million pounds of FD&C blue dye No. 1 are consumed yearly in the United States, corresponding to a daily intake of 16 mg per person.”
The only known toxicity is in patients with blood infections known as sepsis.
Nedergaard cautioned that tests in humans are likely still years away. Treatment would have to be immediate, she added – because the damage to nerve cells is irreversible.

U.S. swimmer and
Beijing Olympics gold medalist Ricky Berens gave the
world a peep show over the weekend when the back of his
swimsuit split open during a qualifying heat of the
4×100-meter relay freestyle during the World
Qualifying Championships at Rome.
The bulk of the
news photo agencies failed to get a picture of
Berens's face — in fact, nearly all of the
available images look just like this one… of
the swimmer diving into the water with his bare butt
exposed.
“I kind of
freaked out for just a second,” Berens said after the
swim. “I felt like [the hole] was almost down to my knees. I
felt like I was putting on a pretty good show.”
And he did,
indeed, put on a good show. The U.S. team qualified for the
finals and won.
Click here for more photos.