UNITED NATIONS – Out of genocides past and Africa's tumult a controversial but seldom-used diplomatic tool is emerging: The concept that the world has a "responsibility to protect" civilians against their own brutal governments.
At the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pushed Tuesday for more intervention for the sake of protection.
"The question before us is not whether, but how," Ban told the assembly, recalling two visits since 2006 to Kigali, Rwanda. The genocide memorial he saw there marks 100 days of horror in which more than half a million members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and moderates from the Hutu majority were slaughtered.
"It is high time to turn the promise of the 'responsibility to protect' into practice," Ban said.
Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down as it approached Kigali on the evening of April 6, 1994. The slaughter ended after rebels, led by current President Paul Kagame, ousted the extremist Hutu government that had orchestrated the killings.
"We still find ourselves in a world that has so far been maybe willing, but less likely committed to stop genocide and similar crimes," said Jacqueline Murekatete, a human rights activist who was 9 years old in Rwanda when she lost her entire family to the genocide.
Among those questioning the concept has been General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister who organized a two-day debate starting Thursday. He issued a four-page "concept note" that made clear his reservations.
"Colonialism and interventionism used responsibility to protect arguments," says the paper issued by d'Escoto's office. "National sovereignty in developing countries is a necessary condition for stable access to political, social and economic rights, and it took enormous sacrifices to recover this sovereignty and ensure these rights for their populations."
William Pace, executive director of the World Federalist Movement's Institute for Global Policy, said d'Escoto's views are a "political misuse of the GA presidency" since they contradict the General Assembly's 2005 endorsement of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine.
"It is not a synonym for military intervention," Pace added.
The idea that the world should take responsibility if nations fail to protect their own population was first promoted by Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, in 1999, citing conflicts in Angola, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and East Timor.
It gained huge momentum with the African Union's endorsement in 2000. The General Assembly backed it in 2005, though a budget committee has yet to provide funding for a special adviser's office.
In 2006, the U.N.'s most powerful body, the 15-nation Security Council, threw its weight behind the idea in two legally binding resolutions.
Proponents have recently pushed to implement it in places like Darfur, Congo, Kenya, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
In May 2008, for example, the council discussed a proposal by France to authorize the U.N. to enter Myanmar and deliver aid without waiting for approval from the nation's ruling military junta. China and Russia, citing issues of sovereignty, blocked the idea.
And in July 2008, Russia and China vetoed U.S.-proposed sanctions on Zimbabwe's leaders, rejecting an attempt by the global community to take action against an authoritarian regime widely criticized for a violent and one-sided presidential election.
At her first appearance before the Security Council in January, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice used the occasion to emphasize that the Obama administration takes the concept seriously. Earlier this month, at the Group of Eight summit in Italy, President Barack Obama called it "one of the most difficult questions in international affairs."
There is no "clean formula" for when to act, Obama said, but there are "exceptional circumstances in which I think the need for international intervention becomes a moral imperative, the most obvious example being in a situation like Rwanda where genocide has occurred."

Ban advised limiting U.N. action under the 'responsibility to protect' concept to safeguarding civilians against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. He acknowledged the possibility of some nations "misusing these principles" as excuses to intervene unnecessarily, but said the challenge before the U.N. is to show that "sovereignty and responsibility are mutually reinforcing principles."

"Military action is a major last — not first — resort," he said. "No part of the world has a monopoly on wisdom or morality."

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Morgan Stanley (MS.N) reported its third consecutive quarterly loss on Wednesday as earnings were saddled with a charge related to repaying a government bailout.

The New York-based firm swung to a loss applicable to common shareholders of $1.26 billion, or $1.10 per share, in the second quarter, compared with a profit of $1.1 billion, or $1.02 a share, a year earlier.

Morgan Stanley shares were down 5 percent in premarket trading.

Net Revenue fell 24 percent to $2.9 billion.

During the quarter, Morgan Stanley repaid $10 billion from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, incurring a one-time charge of $850 million.

It was a busy quarter for Morgan Stanley, which not only repaid TARP but also completed a joint venture with Citigroup Inc (C.N), forming the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney brokerage joint venture.

As Morgan Stanley scaled back on risk after the collapse of the financial sector last fall, it found itself posting lackluster earnings compared with longtime rival Goldman Sachs, which last week reported net revenue of $3.4 billion.

Morgan Stanley shares closed Tuesday at $27.56 on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares are up from a low of $6.71 last October but are down 40 percent from a high of $46.58 in 2008.

(Reporting by Steve Eder; editing by John Wallace)

Two
astronauts will head outside the International Space Station Wednesday to
begin the delicate task of replacing old batteries at the very edge of the
orbital outpost.

Spacewalkers
Dave Wolf and Chris Cassidy will replace four of six old solar array batteries
on the station's on the port side during the tricky
maintenance call, which is slated to begin at about 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458
GMT) and last more than six hours. It is the third of five spacewalks for
astronauts while the shuttle Endeavour is linked to the station.

"We've
always wrestled with how to do this battery change out," Wolf told SPACE.com
before flight. "We've been wringing our hands for upwards of seven years on
this task."

A tricky
chore

While it
seems straightforward, the batteries are the oldest ones on
the space station, which uses solar arrays to generate power. They are
attached to the station's Port-6 (P6) solar wing - the first ever launched to
the outpost - and have been in space since 2000.

Simply
reaching the work site is challenging since it sits at the end of the port side
on the station's backbone-like main truss. The space station's metallic
backbone is as long as an American football field and serves as
the foundation for its four sets of solar arrays. Wolf and Cassidy will be
working hundreds of feet away from the station's core, with no quick way back.

"I think
it's the farthest you could get from the airlock hatch...since the airlock's on
the starboard side," Cassidy said in a NASA interview.

All six of
the new batteries to be installed are attached to cargo pallet that is
currently perched at the tip of the station's 57-foot (17-meter) Canadarm2
robotic arm. Astronauts moved the arm into position on Tuesday and will stretch
it out to its full length today, with the battery carrier extended toward
today's portside worksite.

Moving the individual
batteries has its own challenges. Wolf and Cassidy will have to shuffle the old
and new batteries between their work site and the carrier on the robotic arm.
Each battery weighs 367 pounds (166 kg) and is the size of a refrigerator.

"It's a
long, complicated choreography to change all these batteries," Wolf told
reporters before flight. "They're heavy, delicate, so there's a lot of chance
for error...it just all has to go right."

Other
tasks on tap

Wolf is a veteran
NASA astronaut making his seventh career spacewalk with today's excursion.
He also serves the spacewalk branch chief in NASA's astronaut office.

Cassidy, a
U.S. Navy SEAL, will be making his first spacewalk during the orbital work and
is making his first spaceflight on Endeavour's construction flight to the space
station. He became the 500th person to reach space when Endeavour launched
toward the station last week.

In addition
to their battery swap work, Wolf and Cassidy also plan to prepare a trio of new
experiments for installation on the station's
Japanese porch. They are also expected to finish adding insulation to power
lines that allow visiting shuttle like Endeavour to tap into the station's
power grid.

The last
two of the six old batteries being replaced at the station will be swapped out
during a Friday spacewalk - the fourth for Endeavour's seven-astronaut crew,
mission managers said.

The
astronauts are currently in the middle of a 16-day mission to deliver the
station's new experiment porch and a new crewmember. They are slated to return
home July 31.

New
Video - The Kibo Lab: Japan's Hope in Space - Part 1, Part
2
Video - Meet the STS-127 Astronauts
New SPACE.com
Video Show: Moon Shots: Apollo Astronauts Remember
SPACE.com
is providing continuous coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz and
senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for mission
updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.

Original Story: Astronauts to Change Space Batteries in SpacewalkSPACE.com offers rich and compelling content about space science, travel and exploration as well as astronomy, technology, business news and more. The site boasts a variety of popular features including our space image of the day and other space pictures,space videos, Top 10s, Trivia, podcasts and Amazing Images submitted by our users. Join our community, sign up for our free newsletters and register for our RSS Feeds today!

VARANASI, India (AFP) –
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century plunged millions across Asia into temporary darkness on Wednesday, triggering scenes of religious fervour, fear and excitement across India and China.

Ancient superstition and modern commerce came together in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity likely to end up being the most watched eclipse in history, due to its path over Earth's most densely inhabited areas.

A woman was killed in a stampede in the holy city of Varanasi where tens of thousands of devout Hindus had gathered by the river Ganges at dawn.

Police said the 80-year-old fainted in the crush to enter a temple near the banks of the river and suffocated, triggering panic. More than 20 people were injured.

With Hindu priests conducting special prayers, the crowds in Varanasi cheered and then raised their arms in salutation as the sun re-emerged from behind the moon, before they took a spiritually purifying dip in the river's holy waters.

A total solar eclipse usually occurs every 18 months or so, but Wednesday's spectacle was special for its maximum period of "totality" -- when the sun is wholly covered by the moon -- of six minutes and 39 seconds.

Such a lengthy duration will not be matched until the year 2132.

State-run China Central Television provided minute-by-minute coverage of what it dubbed "The Great Yangtze River Solar Eclipse" as the phenomenon cut a path along the river's drainage basin.

Millions of people in areas of southwestern China enjoyed a clear line of sight, according to images broadcast on CCTV, but the view was obstructed along much of its path by cloudy weather.

Shanghai viewers braved rain and overcast skies to witness the spectacle as darkness shrouded China's commercial hub at 9:36 am (0136 GMT).

"It is working hours now, but with such a spectacle going on, you don't want to miss it. The experience is truly thrilling," said Allen Chen, a Shanghai office worker, who stepped out into the street to witness the event.

Despite the weather, hotels along Shanghai's famed waterfront Bund packed in the customers with eclipse breakfast specials.

Those who could afford it grabbed expensive seats on planes chartered by specialist travel agencies that promised extended views of the eclipse as they chased the shadow eastwards.

The cone-shaped shadow, or umbra, created by the total eclipse first made landfall on the western Indian state of Gujarat shortly before 6:30 am (0100 GMT).

It then raced across India and squeezed between Bangladesh and Nepal before engulfing most of Bhutan, traversing the Chinese mainland and slipping back out to sea off Shanghai.

From there it moved across the islands of southern Japan and veered into the western Pacific.

In Mumbai, hundreds of people who trekked up to the Nehru planetarium clutching eclipse sunglasses found themselves reaching for umbrellas and rain jackets instead as heavy overnight rain turned torrential.

"We didn't want to watch it on television and we thought this would be the best place," said 19-year-old student Dwayne Fernandes. "We could've stayed in bed."

Others opted to stay home and shuttered their windows, fearful of the effects of the lunar shadow which some believe can lead to birth defects in pregnant women.

"I was advised not to leave the house as the eclipse brings bad luck to you and your family," said Deepa Shrestha, a 25-year-old housemaid in Kathmandu.

Superstition has always haunted the moment when Earth, moon and sun are perfectly aligned. The daytime extinction of the sun, the source of all life, is associated with war, famine, flood and the death or birth of rulers.

The ancient Chinese blamed a sun-eating dragon. In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to "swallow" the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

Some Indian astrologers had issued predictions laden with gloom and foreboding, and a gynaecologist at a Delhi hospital said many expectant mothers scheduled for July 22 caesarian deliveries insisted on changing the date.

The last total solar eclipse was on August 1 last year and also crossed China.

The next will be on July 11, 2010, but will occur almost entirely over the South Pacific.

OAKLAND, Calif. – Michael Cuddyer hit a go-ahead triple in the 10th inning a night after he was called out in a game-ending play at home trying to score the tying run, and the Minnesota Twins beat the Oakland Athletics 3-2 on Tuesday night.
Cuddyer's two-out triple off All-Star closer Andrew Bailey (4-3) scored Joe Mauer, who singled with one out.
Matt Guerrier (5-0) worked two scoreless innings for the win in this pitcher's duel, a far cry from the offensive slugfest these teams exhibited a night earlier in Oakland's 14-13 comeback victory. All-Star Joe Nathan finished for his 26th save in 28 chances and 20th straight.
Delmon Young hit an RBI triple in the fourth and Nick Punto followed with a sacrifice fly that tied the game at 2 for Minnesota, which squandered a 12-2 lead a night earlier. Cuddyer and manager Ron Gardenhire thought Cuddyer had beaten Michael Wuertz's tag at the plate — and he looked safe on replay.
It was the biggest comeback in Oakland history and matched Minnesota's worst collapse.
That game featured two grand slams, eight total home runs and 39 hits — 22 by Oakland.
There were only 11 hits Tuesday and runs were tough to come by.
Wuertz pitched a 1-2-3 eighth and Bailey followed with a perfect ninth before running into trouble in the 10th.
The A's took the early lead Tuesday on Adam Kennedy's RBI groundout and a run-scoring single by Orlando Cabrera in the third.
Since 2007, 12 of the 23 games between these teams have been decided by one run.
Mauer was back in the Minnesota starting lineup after only a late-inning appearance Monday.
Twins third baseman Joe Crede also returned after missing two games with a sprained right shoulder. He got hurt making a diving catch Friday at Texas, but started Saturday before coming out with he felt tingling in his right hand.
Oakland starter Dallas Braden pitched seven strong innings, retiring eight of his final nine batters.
He had won two of his last three starts, but was tagged for a career-high 10 hits in five innings of a 6-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels last Thursday. The left-hander and Oakland opening day starter came into Tuesday's outing with the second-lowest run support in the American League at 3.45.
Twins starter Anthony Swarzak also hung tough and was helped by double plays in the first, second and fifth.
NOTES: Nathan hasn't given up a run in his last 24 appearances. ... Twins leadoff hitter Denard Span got the day off before a pinch-hit strikeout in the 10th and then a defensive appearance in the 10th. He is 2-for-19 on the road trip. ... Injured A's starter Justin Duchscherer, a two-time All-Star recovering from March elbow surgery, threw a 20-pitch simulated game in Arizona and is set to appear in a real game Monday. ... Twins relievers Bobby Keppel and Brian Duensing weren't available. ... Oakland starter Gio Gonzalez, knocked out of Monday's game after 2 2-3 innings, is scheduled to make his next start.

WASHINGTON – NASA's new boss said Tuesday he will be "incredibly disappointed" if people aren't on Mars — or venturing somewhere beyond it — in his lifetime.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., who's 62, said his ultimate goal isn't just Mars — it's anywhere far from Earth.
"I did grow up watching Buck Rogers, and Buck Rogers didn't stop at Mars," Bolden said in an interview with The Associated Press. "In my lifetime, I will be incredibly disappointed if we have not at least reached Mars."
That appears to be a shift from the space policy set in motion by the Bush administration, which proposed first returning to the moon by 2020 and then eventually going to Mars a decade or two later. Bolden didn't rule out using the moon as a stepping stone to Mars and beyond. But he talked more about Mars than the moon as NASA was still celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing.
Bolden said NASA and other federal officials had too many conflicting views about how to get to Mars, including the existing Constellation project begun under President George W. Bush. That project calls for returning to the moon first, with a moon rocket design that Bolden's predecessor called "Apollo on steroids." NASA has already spent $6.9 billion on that plan.
"We cannot continue to survive on the path that we are on right now," Bolden told NASA employees in a televised speech earlier Tuesday.
A new independent commission is reviewing that plan and alternatives to it.
Bolden said in an interview that his main job over the next few months will be to champion an "agreed-upon compromise strategy to get first to Mars and then beyond. And we don't have that yet."
Bolden met with President Barack Obama on Monday, and some experts said he seems to be signaling a refocusing of NASA's general exploration plan.
A former astronaut, Bolden also vowed to extend the life of the international space station beyond 2016, the year the Bush administration planned to abandon it.
As one way to help fund a new moon rocket, the Bush administration had proposed not paying for the space station beyond 2015 — even as astronauts are currently in space building additions to it. And just last week, the space station program manager told The Washington Post that the plan was to guide the $100 billion station into the ocean at the end of its life.
"We have an incredible asset in the international space station that we need to preserve," Bolden said. The idea, he said, is to make the station work to further "our strong desire to leave the planet and leave low Earth orbit."
___
On the Net:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that hundreds of radio stations his government plans to seize for allegedly operating illegally could be turned over to Venezuelans who share his socialist vision.
"We are going to retake control of the radio waves," Chavez told a crowd of supporters.
Chavez said his government isn't planning to take control of radio frequencies "to give them to the bourgeoisie" — a term he frequently uses to refer to his political adversaries. "A popular radio in the hands of the people must be created," he said.
The leftist leader has endorsed a move to revoke the licenses of 240 radio stations — about 40 percent of the country's stations — after officials said they didn't update their registrations with the telecommunications commission.
Tensions between Chavez and Venezuela's privately owned media are on the rise.
Officials have launched investigations that could lead to the closure of Globovision, an opposition-aligned television station that is the last over-the-air TV broadcaster strongly critical of Chavez's policies. The government has also endorsed plans for a proposed law that would punish as-yet-unspecified "media crimes."
The Paris-based media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders warned Venezuela's government Tuesday against making any moves that would stifle dissent.
"Regulations and laws changed or reinterpreted by a government to impose what it sees as the only possible media truth are just the instruments of an ideological crusade that is already well under way," the group said in a statement. "We urge the government to shelve steps contrary to fundamental constitutional principles and inter-American jurisprudence on freedom of expression."

STATELINE, Nev. – Former NBA all-star Antoine Walker has been arrested on criminal charges stemming from $822,500 in gambling debts in Las Vegas.
Douglas County sheriff's Sgt. Jim Halsey says Walker was arrested Thursday at a Harrah's Tahoe cabaret bar on Lake Tahoe's south shore.
Deputies were notified of his presence by an employee who had seen a television report about an arrest warrant issued for Walker two days before.
Walker is accused of three felony counts of writing bad checks. Clark County prosecutors say he failed to make good on 10 checks totaling $1 million to Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood and the Red Rock Resort.
Walker has repaid $178,000 of the debts that were incurred from last July to January.
Walker was released from jail after posting $135,000 cash bail.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the use of wigs fell into abeyance in the West for a thousand years until revived in the 16th century as a means of compensating for hair loss or improving one's personal appearance. They also served a practical purpose: the unhygienic conditions of the time meant that hair attracted head lice, a problem that could be much reduced if natural hair were shaved and replaced with a more easily de-loused artificial hairpiece. Fur hoods were also used in a similar preventative fashion.

Another use seen in modern day society is for men who crossdress as women, wigs are used to make the men have more feminine hair in all sorts of styles, they wear this along with other 'female' clothing.

Long Wigs

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. imposed new sanctions Thursday against five North Korean officials, four companies and a state agency, and banned imports of two weapons-making materials, in a rare unified push by the world's powers to thwart Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
The sanctions, which take immediate effect and are to be carried out by all of the U.N.'s 192 member nations, include travel bans and a freeze on the financial assets against the officials, companies and state agency. Nations also were instructed to refrain from supplying North Korea with certain types of graphite and para-aramid fiber — two of the materials used in ballistic missile parts.
"It is of course significant that we have also put individuals on the list, as this is the first time. This shows that the sanctions are going on a higher level at this moment," said Fazli Corman, Turkey's deputy U.N. ambassador, who chairs the panel.
The newest sanctions were approved against:
_The General Bureau of Atomic Energy in Pyongyang, the chief agency directing the North's nuclear program. That includes the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and its plutonium production research reactor, as well as its fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities.
_Three Pyongyang-based companies — Namchongang Trading Corp., Korea Hyoksin Trading Corp., and Korean Tangun Trading Corp. — and one Iranian-based company, Hong Kong Electronics.
_Yun Ho-Jin, director of Namchongang Trading Corp.; Ri Je-Son, director of the General Bureau of Atomic Energy; Hwang Sok-Hwa, chief of the bureau's scientific guidance; Ri Hong-Sop, former director of Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center; and Han Yu-Ro, director of Korea Ryongaksan General Trading Corp.
_Two types of goods used in ballistic missile parts by North Korea — a graphite designed or specified for use in electrical discharge machining; and a para-aramid fiber, filament and tape, which is a Kevlar-like material.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States was pleased with the list, which required unanimous approval among the 15 nations that make up a sanctions panel of the U.N.'s powerhouse Security Council. China, North Korea's biggest ally and trading partner, went along with most of the U.S. recommendations.
The U.S. has launched what it calls a major effort to ensure that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, which along with a previous resolution in 2006 serves to authorize the latest sanctions, is implemented effectively.
"These new designations — five individuals, five entities and two goods — strengthen the sanctions regime against North Korea and will serve to constrain North Korea from engaging in transactions or activities that could fund its WMD or proliferation activities," Rice said.
The sanctions panel, which said it plans to add still more names and entities, has been focused on three areas: sensitive dual-use goods, ballistic missile-related items and nuclear-related items.
Pak Tok-hun, deputy chief of North Korea's U.N. mission in New York, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that the sanctions were "unfair" but said they will not harm his country.
Pak said North Korea "will not accept Security Council resolutions against the North and any sanctions under the resolutions," adding, "Sanctions will not resolve any problems."
A U.S. expert on North Korean sanctions said the latest measures — putting the U.N. seal of approval on measures the U.S. already has prepared to undertake — are "a modest first step" that might scare off some of North Korea's weapons-buying customers.
"We're now into a game of Whack-A-Mole," said Marcus Noland, an economist at Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, referring to the game in which moles keeping popping up from their holes randomly.
"What's going to happen is that the North Koreans are going to try to reconstitute their entities and form new shell companies, new front companies, to continue these activities," he said. "If there's really going to be comprehensive efforts on this, they're going to have to go after the financial intermediaries, some of which are in China, and after the customers."
North Korea has not indicated how it might react to the sanctions panel's latest decisions.

But on June 13, North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened to take "countermeasures" including accelerating plutonium reprocessing and starting up uranium enrichment, which would give the regime a second way to make atomic bombs.

North Korea warned that any attempted blockade of its ships would be considered "an act of war" that would draw "a decisive military response." It also has threatened a "thousand-fold" military retaliation against the U.S. and its allies if provoked.

Security Council Resolution 1874, approved on June 12, responded to the North's underground nuclear test blast on May 25. It called for clamping down on alleged trading of banned arms and weapons-related material and stepped-up inspections of suspect shipments by sea and air.

Since then, the council also has condemned and expressed "grave concern" over North Korea's recent firing of seven ballistic missiles on U.S. Independence Day. The missile launches off the nation's east coast defied three previous council resolutions and further aggravated tensions already high after North Korea's May 25 test blast.

Japan, which lives in constant fear of a nuclear-armed North Korea, asked all Southeast Asian nations, except junta-ruled Myanmar to enforce the U.N.'s North Korea resolutions.

A North Korean ship, the first to be monitored under the June 12 resolution, turned back before reaching port, possibly in Myanmar, with its suspected illicit cargo of weapons.

Creators Syndicate –
If you think government is too big and too costly, wait until Obamacare kicks in. The Congressional Budget Office put the price tag of the House Democrats' health care takeover plans at $1.5 trillion over 10 years. But the CBO's fine print included a telltale caveat:

"We have not yet estimated the administrative costs to the federal government of implementing the specified policies, nor have we accounted for all of the proposal's likely effects on spending for other federal programs."

You don't need an accounting degree or clairvoyant powers. The administrative costs and spillover spending effects will be astronomical. Look at existing federal programs. In 1966, the Office of Management and Budget put the total taxpayer costs for Medicare at $64 million. In 2011, Medicare costs are expected to balloon to nearly $500 billion. Medicaid cost $770 million in 1966. By 2011, that program will cost taxpayers an estimated $264 billion. The Virginia-based Council for Affordable Health Insurance estimated that the administrative expenses of both programs last decade were 66 percent higher than those of private sector health insurance companies.

And we ain't seen nothing yet. House Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee sifted through their opponents' 1,018-page health care bill and released a dizzying flow chart detailing the Byzantine bureaucracy Obamacare would create. Washington would become the home of at least 31 new federal programs, agencies and commissions to oversee the government-run health insurance regime.

Because 32 "czars" isn't enough, the Democratic plan would add another overlord to the Obama administration. The new "Health Choices Commissioner" would helm the new "Health Choices Administration" (section 141 of the bill) — separate from the already existing Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration), the Veterans Health Administration and the Indian Health Service.

Because the government has done such a boffo job managing the near-bankrupt Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, the Democrats have proposed creating a "Public Health Investment Fund" and a "Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund." The latter would create a "transparent and functional marketplace for individuals and small employers to comparison shop among private and public insurers."

No matter that state insurance departments already operate such systems. Health care must be "fixed." The federal cure is redundancy.

The Obamacare bill also creates a new "Bureau of Health Information" (not to be confused with the already existing National Center for Health Statistics) within the department of Health and Human Services. A new "Assistant Secretary for Health Information" will lead the BHI. The new assistant secretary will coordinate with the recently created "National Coordinator for Health Information Technology" — who is responsible for monitoring the $19.5 billion in the stimulus law to implement "a nationwide interoperable, privacy-protected health information technology infrastructure."

New bureaucracies always have old special interests to appease. The Bureau of Health Information will house its own "Office of Civil Rights" and "Office of Minority Health." The information czar will be required to collect health statistics in the "primary language" of ethnic minorities — and, thus, the need for a new "language demonstration program" to showcase their efforts. Obamacare will also ensure "cultural and linguistics competence training" and establish "a youth public health program to expose and recruit high-school students into public health careers." The government health care juggernaut must be fed and staffed, after all.

Providing more stimulus for taxpayer-funded jobs, the Democrats' bill would add a new "Senior Advisor for Health Care Fraud" and require the Attorney General to appoint a "Senior Counsel for Health Care Fraud Enforcement." There's already a national Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program, but who's counting?

To coordinate all the new bureaucrats, Obamacare would create a new "Health Care Program Integrity Coordinating Council" to "to coordinate strategic planning among federal agencies involved in health care integrity and oversight."

To make sure all the existing local and state environmental public health agencies don't feel lonely, the Democrats' plan creates a new "Coordinated Environmental Public Health Network" to "build upon and coordinate among existing environmental and health data collection systems and create state environmental public health networks."

A new "National Health Care Workforce Commission" will be "tasked with reviewing health care workforce and projected workforce needs." New funding will be available for a "demonstration program to improve immunization coverage" that would enable government busybodies to send reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or make home visits.

Who'll be looking out for you? The House bill creates a "public plan ombudsman" and a "special health insurance exchange inspector general" to police spending and guard against waste, fraud and abuse. Given the sad fate of aggressive watchdogs in the age of Obama, however, these positions will end up like every other new agency, commission, task force and office created to serve the federal health care beast: black holes.

Michelle Malkin is the author of the forthcoming "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2009). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM

UNIONTOWN, Ala. – Two-lane roads lined with weeds and trees seem to stretch forever in Perry County, where thousands of residents are poor even by Alabama standards and they don't produce much for the outside world besides timber and catfish.
What Perry County has, though, is vacant land — hundreds of square miles of it. And that provided more than enough space for a massive landfill that critics say has made the county a dumping ground for coal ash from the nation's largest public utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Perry County will be the final resting place for millions of tons of dredged coal ash from an environmental disaster 300 miles away. The first freight trains loaded with the gray muck, containing toxic elements such as arsenic and lead, are rumbling into the 976-acre municipal landfill that's allowed to take trash from 16 states.
Officials say the landfill will generate more than $3 million for the county by accepting coal ash from a Dec. 22 ash spill at a TVA plant in Kingston, Tenn.
The spill covered some 300 acres of Tennessee countryside with ash, and officials estimate it could take as many as 35,000 railroad car loads to transport the dredged waste to Alabama. The cleanup will cost about $1 billion.
Critics like farmer Robert Bamberg accuse local elected leaders of selling out an entire county for short-term gain.
"Where is it written that Perry County or Alabama in general is fair game for other states to dispose of their unmentionables?" said Bamberg, an organizer of Concerned Citizens of Perry County.
Perry County isn't the only poor Alabama county banking on projects more affluent places wouldn't touch. Others have welcomed state prisons for the jobs they brought, and Sumter County is home to a 2,800-acre hazardous waste landfill near the Mississippi line.
Elected leaders don't deny the county of about 11,860 people is desperate for jobs and cash. Unemployment is near 17 percent.
"We're not desperate to the point that we would endanger the health and safety of our people," said Commissioner Albert Turner Jr., who supported the landfill project. "But we are desperate enough to know we should take a golden opportunity when we see one."
Critics have accused TVA of environmental racism for sending the coal ash to a poor, mostly black county. But Turner, who is black, disagreed.
"It would be economic racism if they didn't send it here," he said. "This is economic survival for one of the poorest counties in the nation. Poor people sought this."
Kim Greer lives in a small wooden house on a dirt road near the landfill. She doesn't know much about coal ash but has noticed a lot more trucks and trains recently.
"I hope it's not dangerous and doesn't get in the water or air," said Greer, speaking through her screen door. "There's farm fields all over here."
There's little else in Perry County, about 80 miles west of Montgomery in Alabama's Black Belt, a region named for the shade of its rich soil. Once a prosperous farming region, the area has been among the nation's poorest for generations.
About 31 percent of the county's families live in poverty, more than three times the national average, according to U.S. Census figures. The county is almost 70 percent black. Some residents are descended from the slaves and sharecroppers who once worked its fields.
Jobs in the county are few, outside of a catfish processing plant, the hard-hit timber industry, some mom-and-pop businesses and 700-bed private prison.
Against this backdrop, construction began on Arrowhead Landfill in 2006, which has agreed to pay the county $1 for each ton of trash buried there.

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators approved TVA plans to ship the Kingston coal ash to Perry County. It contains a cocktail of 14 hazardous materials, but tests showed the concentrations weren't high enough to pose a health hazard, the agencies determined.

County records show the landfill paid the county $28,800 in dumping fees last year, plus another $53,373 in property taxes. The coal ash dumping fees will swell that by more than $3 million in a single year, commission chairman Fairest Cureton said.

The landfill operators declined comment. Documents show they have asked the state for permission to increase the daily intake to 15,000 tons and to use coal ash to cover other refuse. They also want to more than double the service area to 33 states.

Cureton isn't worried about the safety of the TVA coal ash; he scoops out a handful from a jar to show to a visitor. To him, the soggy lump looks like money.

"If we wait until something perfect comes in we will never have anything in Perry County," said Cureton. "We get what we can."

MARSEILLE, France – The Marseille hospital authority says a second person has died after the roof of a stage being built for a Madonna concert collapsed.
The hospital authority says the British worker died Friday from injuries suffered in the accident.
A French worker was killed immediately when the roof fell apart on top of several workers Thursday.
Eight others were injured, including an American who is in serious condition.
None of the victims' identities has been released.
Madonna canceled her scheduled performance Sunday in this Mediterranean port city after the accident.
The cause of the roof collapse was not clear. Police say a faulty power winch may have played a role.

WASHINGTON – Democrats' health care bills won't meet President Barack Obama's goal of slowing the ruinous rise of medical costs, Congress' budget umpire warned on Thursday, giving weight to critics who say the legislation could break the bank.
The sobering assessment from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf came as House Democrats pushed to pass a partisan bill through committees, while in the Senate a small group of lawmakers continued to seek a deal that could win support from both political parties.
With the pressure mounting on all sides, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed as "a waste of money" a television ad campaign by Obama's political organization aiming to nudge moderate Democrats off the fence. He called it "Democrats running ads against Democrats."
From the beginning of the health care debate, Obama has insisted that any overhaul must "bend the curve" of rapidly rising costs that threaten to swamp the budgets of government, businesses and families.
Asked by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., if the evolving legislation would bend the cost curve, the budget director responded that — as things stand now — "the curve is being raised."
Explained Elmendorf: "In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."
Even if the congressional legislation doesn't add to the federal deficit over the next years, Elmendorf said costs over the long run would keep rising at an unsustainable pace. Part of the reason is that Obama and most Democrats have refused to accept a tax on high-cost health insurance plans as part of the overhaul. There's wide agreement among economists that such a tax would give businesses and individuals an incentive to become thriftier consumers of health care.
White House spokesman Bill Burton responded that the health care legislation is a work in progress and the final shape of cost controls hasn't been worked out. Obama is committed to "finding different ways to save money and produce the revenue that we need for comprehensive health care reform," Burton said.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the budget director's warning should be "a wake-up call," adding, "instead of rushing through one expensive proposal after another, we should take the time we need to get things right."
Despite the flashing yellow light from the budget office, Congress pushed ahead Thursday.
On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to provide coverage to the uninsured, three House committees shifted into action on their version of the legislation. The Democratic bills also call for the creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan to compete with private coverage, although they differ on the details.
House Democrats won a coveted endorsement of their legislation from the American Medical Association, saying the bill "includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform. The insurance industry said it opposes key elements of the bill, saying a government plan "will cause millions of patients to lose their current coverage."
The House Education and Labor Committee passed an amendment to speed up access to health insurance for people with preexisting medical conditions. The bill as written would have stopped insurance companies from denying coverage because of such conditions, starting in 2013. The panel agreed Thursday to move up the date for group plans to six months after the bill takes effect.
The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee also was working on a piece of the legislation, which seeks to provide coverage to nearly all Americans by subsidizing the poor and penalizing individuals and employers who don't purchase health insurance. It would boost taxes on high-income people and slow Medicare and Medicaid payments to providers.
A third House committee, Energy and Commerce, also was considering the measure Thursday, but the road was expected to be rougher there. A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats called the Blue Dogs holds more than a half dozen seats on the committee — enough to block approval — and is opposing the bill over costs and other issues.
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., chairman of the Blue Dogs' health care task force, said the group would need to see significant changes to protect small businesses and rural providers and contain costs before it could sign on. "We cannot support the current bill," he said.
Obama was doing all he could to encourage Congress to act. He met Thursday morning with two potential Senate swing votes, Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. On Wednesday, he met with a group of Senate Republicans in the White House in search of a bipartisan compromise and appeared in the Rose Garden for the latest in a series of public appeals to Congress to move legislation this summer.
Obama also pushed his message in network television interviews, and his political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care aimed at wavering moderates, and criticized by Senate leader Reid.

In another ad campaign backing the president's goal, Harry and Louise — the television couple who helped sink a health care overhaul in the 1990s — are returning to the small screen, this time in support of revamping the health system.

___

Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Ben Feller and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) –
The trade union representing workers of Iraq's state-owned Southern Oil Company (SOC) threatened on Thursday to prevent exploitation of one of Iraq's biggest oil fields by energy giants BP and CNPC.

Baghdad last month accepted an offer from British energy firm BP and its Chinese counterpart CNPC to work in the giant Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq that has known reserves of 17.7 billion barrels.

"If those companies try to exploit the field, our first reaction will be to stage a sit-in and to strike," union president Ali Abbas told AFP.

"We are capable of mobilising people to confront these companies and prevent their work because it is against the law."

The union, which has 28,000 registered members, opposes exploitation of Rumaila, arguing the contracts awarded to BP and CNPC contravened Iraqi law. It also fears a wave of layoffs, despite government assurances to the contrary.

"The contracts that the ministry (of oil) wants are service contracts which allow only 10 to 15 percent of employees (on the fields) to be foreigners," oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP. "The remainder will be Iraqis."

According to Jihad, the ministry will punish employees who block exploitation of the Rumaila field, but he did not give any details.

Production from the field is currently 1.02 million barrels of oil per day. BP and CNPC will be paid two dollars for each barrel of oil that they extract in Rumaila as part of their service contracts with the Iraqi government.

In the aftermath of the June 30 auction for six giant oil fields and two major gas fields, the Iraqi government faced accusations that the sale had been a failure because the only deal struck was over the Rumaila field.

In the run-up to bidding, international companies had raised doubts over having to partner with state-owned firms and having to share management of the fields despite fully financing their development.

It was the first time Iraq's oil industry was opened up to foreign companies since its nationalisation four decades ago.