Column: Te'o, Smith, Barkley go pro a year late

The next time some college football fan gripes about his favorite player going to the NFL before his senior season, we'll have a ready reply.

Three of them, actually.

Manti Te'o. Geno Smith. Matt Barkley.

The trio returned for a fourth year of college football and look what it got them.

Heartache. Embarrassment. And, certainly in the case of Barkley, a much lighter wallet than he would've had a year ago.

The first round of the NFL draft came and went.

All three were left waiting by the phone. It never rang.

That's a harsh lesson every rising junior with pro aspirations should heed. Think only of yourself.

If there's a chance to dramatically improve your draft position, then stay in school. If you're already projected as a first-rounder, it's time to get started on your real job. Rest assured, the school will get along just fine without you. Sure, a college degree is great to have, but you can always finish up those last few classes in the offseason.

After getting passed over Thursday night, Te'o must've been having second thoughts.

We'll never know for sure if the Notre Dame linebacker would've been a first-round pick in 2012, as many projected, going on the assumption that he wouldn't done any better in the 40-yard dash than the painfully slow time he turned in at this year's combine. But at least he wouldn't have been lugging around all that off-the-field baggage ? a ruse of a relationship with a girlfriend that wasn't ? plus a stinker of a performance against Alabama in the national championship game.

Even if the whole sordid affair with the fake girlfriend had still occurred, chances are it wouldn't have been discovered until Te'o had already signed a pro contract. The money would've already been in the bank.

Instead, he's left to wonder how much money he left on the table by returning to the Fighting Irish for what seemed a dream season until it took an oh-so-wrong turn at the end.

Ditto for Smith, who blossomed as a junior in West Virginia's wide-open offense, throwing for more than 4,300 yards with 31 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. If he had decided to go pro at that point, the last bit of tape NFL scouts would've had on him was a 70-33 rout of Clemson in the Orange Bowl, when he threw for a record six touchdowns and 401 yards to earn the MVP award.

Smith kept it going through his first give games as a senior, when he was the hands-down favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and looked every bit like a guy who would be the top pick in the draft. He and the Mountaineers were unstoppable, averaging more than 50 points a game.

Unfortunately, the season still had eight games to go.

There was another side to the mountain, and it was all downhill.

Smith still put up some dazzling numbers ? 4,205 yards passing, 42 touchdowns, just six interceptions ? but West Virginia dropped six of its last eight, including a blowout loss to Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl. Suddenly, everyone was finding flaws in Smith's game. His confidence was shaky. He setup and delivery were faulty. He was too emotional, too loose with the ball.

Heck, some pointed out that he didn't play well in poor weather ? which comes off as the ultimate bit of nitpicking.

Even so, Smith still expected to go somewhere in the first round, maybe even among the top 10 picks. That's why he turned up at Radio City Music Hall in New York with all the other projected first-rounders. For most of them, their dreams came true. All Smith could do was look on glumly as one player after another went ahead of him ? even a teammate he helped look so good, receiver Tavon Austin, selected at No. 8 by the St. Louis Rams.

Te'o stayed away from New York, allowing him to sort out whatever anger or humiliation he was feeling in private. That was the right call, showing he does have the ability to make good decisions beyond the online dating world.

On Friday ? finally! ? both Te'o and Smith heard their names. Back to back, no less. The Notre Dame star went to San Diego in the second round with the 38th overall pick; Smith was selected next by the New York Jets.

Barkley was still waiting. Amazingly, he wasn't picked in the first three rounds ? passed over through a total of 97 selections. The last four rounds will be held Saturday.

The guess here is that Te'o will turn out to be a good, solid pro, while Smith has a shot at greatness. Certainly, no other rookies will have a bigger chip on their shoulders.

When asked to analyze Te'o, former NFL coach-turned-TV analyst Jon Gruden said, "He's got a real good football aptitude. He plays faster, I think, than people give him credit. I think he's a very good, instinctive, high-effort, well-coached inside linebacker that's got to prove he can play on every down. There is no question about that. But I'm really confident that he can do it."

As for Smith: "It's very underestimated what this kid can do from a football standpoint. He does a lot above the neck as well as making plays with his arm and his mobility."

Then there's Barkley, who was being mentioned in the same breath with Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III before last year's draft.

Not anymore.

Barkley, for some reason, returned to Southern Cal for one more year. Maybe he was counting on less competition at the quarterback position in the 2013 draft (and, indeed, only one QB was taken Thursday). Maybe he truly wanted to take another shot at a national championship with a team that was pegged as the preseason No. 1.

Whatever the case, Barkley couldn't have been more wrong in his decision, at least from a financial point of view. The Trojans didn't come close to living up to the hype, barely finishing with more wins than losses (7-6). He threw twice as many interceptions and wound up spraining his shoulder in a late-season game, which raised more doubts in the eyes of the scouts.

Barkley's stock dropped so severely that, frankly, it would've been a surprise if he had been picked in the first round.

"I think Barkley's going to be a starter in the league at some point," Gruden said, not sounding nearly as upbeat as he did about the other two. "He's going to be a guy that relies on his system, complete execution around him. I think his supporting cast is going to be important to him."

Now, Barkley will tell you that he has no regrets about his decision to return to USC. He'll tell you that getting the chance to be a leader during tough times will help him down the road.

Hogwash.

Barkley blew it.

So did Te'o and Smith.

All those juniors-to-be out there better not to make the same mistake.

___

Paul Newberry in a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/column-teo-smith-barkley-pro-221132848.html

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Israel fears end to 40-year peace on Syrian front

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli General, stands at an army outpost overlooking Syria and Jordan in the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli General, stands at an army outpost overlooking Syria and Jordan in the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, a worker builds a security fence along the border between Israel and Syrian on the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, an Israeli soldier looks through binoculars at a Syrian village from an army post on the border between Israel and Syrian on the Golan Heights. Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 24, 2013, Israeli soldiers stand next to a metal placard in the shape of an Israeli soldier, at an observation point on Mt. Bental in the Golan Heights, Against a breathtaking vista of green fields and a snowcapped mountain range, all is silent but for a strong gust of wind whipping across the landscape. The tranquility is suddenly interrupted by a burst of gunfire from beyond a newly built fortified fence: Jihadi rebels are battling with Bashar Assad's battered troops in a nearby Syrian village. Watching it all unfold are Israeli soldiers atop tanks - a sight unseen here in a generation - and the sounds of explosions from a large-scale Israeli drill are distinctly heard in the background. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

ALONEI HABASHAN, Golan Heights (AP) ? Against a vista of green fields and snowcapped mountains, all is silent but for a gusting wind. Then comes a burst of gunfire from the Syrian civil war raging next door, where jihadist rebels are battling Bashar Assad's troops in a village.

Watching it all unfold from a few kilometers (miles) away are Israeli soldiers atop tanks behind a newly fortified fence, while a large-scale Israeli drill sends off its own explosions in the background.

This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel's front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst ? a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country's large stockpile of chemical weapons.

In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.

Though Israel believes these have mostly been cases of errant fire, it has responded with firepower of its own on several occasions in the first round of hostilities since a long-term armistice took hold after the 1973 Mideast war.

"This area became a huge ungoverned area and inside an ungoverned area many, many players want to be inside and want to play their own role and to work for their own interests," said Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli brigadier general who is involved in the military's strategic planning and operations. "Syria became a place that we see as a big threat to Israel and that is why we started to work in the last two years on a strong obstacle, on our infrastructure, in order to make sure that we will be ready for the future. And the future is here already."

Officials say the military's present deployment on the plateau is its most robust since 1973, and its most obvious manifestation is the brand new border fence, 6 meters (20 feet) tall, topped with barbed wire and bristling with sophisticated anti-infiltration devices. The previous rundown fence was largely untested until it was trampled over last year by Syrians protesting on behalf of Palestinians.

The military would not detail other measures it is taking, but stressed it was actively defining the new border arrangement now, before it could be too late.

On the other side of the frontier, the village of Bir Ajam is in rebel hands and Israeli troops report watching them successfully deflect Syrian military pre-dawn raids almost daily. In a village nearby, Syrian intelligence and commando forces are based in concrete, windowless structures.

At the triangle where the borders of Israel, Syria and Jordan meet along the Yarmouk River, a lone jeep is seen crossing uninterrupted from Jordan into Syria. In March, rebels kidnapped 21 Filipino U.N peacekeepers nearby. Thousands of refugees have used the route to flee the carnage into Jordan.

A few injured refugees have trickled into the Golan, and the military runs a field clinic to treat them. But there's no guarantee the trickle won't become a flood if Jordan in the south or Turkey in the north become unreachable.

"Syria right now is a kind of self-evolving system," Hirsch said. "No one can control or predict everything."

Israel, which borders southwestern Syria, has thus far been careful to stay on the sidelines of a civil war that has already claimed the lives of more than 70,000.

Assad is a bitter enemy, an ally of Iran and a major backer of Lebanese Hezbollah guerilla attacks against Israel. But like his father whom he succeeded as president, he has faithfully observed U.S.-brokered accords that ended the 1973 war. Israel worries that whoever comes out on top in the civil war will be a much more dangerous adversary.

Chief among Israeli concerns is that Assad's advanced weaponry could reach the hands of either his ally, the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, or Islamic extremist groups among the rebels trying to oust him.

"Syria is not a regular place ... it is the biggest warehouse for weapons on earth," Hirsch warned.

In an interview with BBC TV last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the rebel groups among "the worst Islamist radicals in the world."

"So obviously we are concerned that weapons that are ground-breaking, that can change the balance of power in the Middle East, would fall into the hands of these terrorists," he said.

This week, a senior Israeli military intelligence official said Assad used chemical weapons last month. After initial denials, American and British officials confirmed the assessment of Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israeli military intelligence, that the lethal nerve agent sarin was probably used. U.S. President Barack Obama has warned that the introduction of chemical weapons by Assad would be a "game changer" that could usher in greater foreign intervention in the civil war.

For Israel, the specter of peace with Syria disintegrating adds to a growing sense of siege. It saw the Gaza Strip fall to the militant Hamas movement in an election in 2006. And Egypt, the most populous Arab country and the first to make peace with Israel, is now ruled by the fiercely anti-Israeli Muslim Brotherhood. All this against the backdrop of the Iranian nuclear program and its threats to destroy the Jewish state.

Israel has all but admitted that its warplanes destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles believed to be headed from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon in January, and on Thursday it shot down a drone which it said it suspects was operated by Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied launching it.

Hirsch, who commanded an Israeli division in a monthlong war with Hezbollah in 2006, said war regional roles have since then been reversed. While once Syria used Hezbollah in Lebanon as a proxy against Israel, Hezbollah is now deterred from acting on Lebanese soil for fear of Israeli retribution and is preparing to use the instability in Syria as its future staging ground.

"The fighting in Syria gives them an opportunity to open a new front against Israel," said Hirsch. "We must be ready for turbulence. We must be ready for the Iranian involvement inside Syria. We must be ready to be able to fight against radical fundamentalist activities that will come from Syria, and that is what we are doing here."

___

Follow Heller on Twitter (at)aronhellerap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-26-Israel-On%20Syria's%20Doorstep/id-cdaa5de61c694d4a960e6cafe8b54aba

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"Evidence" of Syrian chemical weapon use not up to U.N. standard

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Assertions of chemical weapon use in Syria by Western and Israeli officials citing photos, sporadic shelling and traces of toxins do not meet the standard of proof needed for a U.N. team of experts waiting to gather their own field evidence.

Weapons inspectors will only determine whether banned chemical agents were used in the two-year-old conflict if they are able to access sites and take soil, blood, urine or tissue samples and examine them in certified laboratories.

That type of evidence, needed to show definitively if banned chemicals were found, has not been presented by governments and intelligence agencies accusing Syria of using chemical weapons against insurgents.

"This is the only basis on which the OPCW would provide a formal assessment of whether chemical weapons have been used," Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said.

With Syria blocking the U.N. mission, it is unlikely they will gain that type of access any time soon.

The White House and Western diplomats at the U.N. said they believe Syria had "probably" fired chemical munitions, but failed to name the chemical in question.

The Israeli military this week suggested Syrian forces used sarin and showed reporters pictures of a body with symptoms indicating the nerve gas was the cause of death.

Ralf Trapp, an independent consultant on chemical and biological weapons control, said "there is a limit to what you can extract from photograph evidence alone. What you really need is to get information from on the ground, to gather physical evidence and to talk to witnesses as well as medical staff who treated victims."

The White House, which called the use of chemicals weapons in Syria a "red line" for possible military intervention, said its assessment was partly based on "physiological" samples. But a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity declined to detail the evidence. It is unclear who supplied it.

Even if samples were made available to the OPCW by those making the assertions, the organization could not use them.

"The OPCW would never get involved in testing samples that our own inspectors don't gather in the field, because we need to maintain chain of custody of samples from the field to the lab to ensure their integrity," said Luhan.

Established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use of toxic agents in warfare, the OPCW has exhaustive rules on how inspectors collect and handle evidence, starting with the sealing of a site like a crime scene.

Multiple samples must be taken and there need to be "blank" samples from unexposed matter and tissue, to set a baseline against which levels of contamination could be determined.

The samples would be split, sealed and flown in dark, cooled air transports to up to three certified laboratories, including one at the OPCW's headquarters in The Hague.

A team of 15 experts, put together in response to a request from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to investigate the claims, has been on standby in Cyprus for nearly three weeks.

Headed by Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, it includes analytical chemists and World Health Organization experts on the medical effects of exposure to toxins.

(Reporting By Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/evidence-syrian-chemical-weapon-not-u-n-standard-151206262.html

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Cholesterol increases risk of Alzheimer's and heart disease

Apr. 15, 2013 ? Researchers at the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and the University of Colorado School of Medicine have found that a single mechanism may underlie the damaging effect of cholesterol on the brain and on blood vessels.

High levels of blood cholesterol increase the risk of both Alzheimer's disease and heart disease, but it has been unclear exactly how cholesterol damages the brain to promote Alzheimer's disease and blood vessels to promote atherosclerosis.

Using insights gained from studying two much rarer disorders, Down Syndrome and Niemann Pick-C disease, researchers at the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and the Department of Neurology of the University of Colorado School of Medicine found that cholesterol wreaks havoc on the orderly process of cell division, leading to defective daughter cells throughout the body.

In the new study published this week in the on-line journal PLOS ONE, Antoneta Granic, PhD, and Huntington Potter, PhD, show that cholesterol, particularly in the LDL form, called 'bad cholesterol', causes cells in both humans and mice to divide incorrectly and distribute their already-duplicated chromosomes unequally to the next generation. The result is an accumulation of defective daughter cells with the wrong number of chromosomes and therefore the wrong number of genes. Instead of the correct two copies of each chromosome, and thus two copies of each gene, some cells acquired three copies and some only one.

Granic and Potter's study of the effects of cholesterol on cell division included a prominent finding of cells carrying three copies of the chromosome (#21 in humans and #16 in mice) that encodes the amyloid peptide that is the key component of the neurotoxic amyloid filaments that accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer patients.

Human trisomy 21 cells are significant because people with Down syndrome have trisomy 21 in all of their cells from the moment of conception, and they all develop the brain pathology and many develop the dementia of Alzheimer's disease by age 50. Earlier studies by Granic, Potter and others have shown that as many as 10% of cells in an Alzheimer patient, including neurons in the brain, have three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the usual two. Thus, Alzheimer's disease is, in some ways, a form of acquired Down syndrome. Furthermore, mutant genes that cause inherited Alzheimer's disease cause the same defect in chromosome segregation as does cholesterol, thus indicating the presence of a common cell division problem in both familial and 'sporadic' (non-familial) Alzheimer's disease.

The new research also found trisomy 21 neurons in the brains of children with what, until now, was thought to be an unrelated neurodegenerative disease (Niemann Pick type C), caused by a mutation affecting cholesterol physiology. This result suggests that neurodegeneration itself might be linked to chromosome missegregation.

Such a model is supported by the finding of Thomas Arendt, MD, and colleagues at the University of Leipzig that 90% of the neuronal cell death observed at autopsy in Alzheimer patients is due to the creation and selective loss of neurons with the wrong number of chromosomes.

Identifying the specific problem caused by cholesterol will lead to completely new approaches to therapy for many human diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis and possibly cancer, all of which show signs of defective cell division. Granic and Potter already have found a potentially simple approach to preventing cholesterol from causing cells to distribute their chromosomes unequally into their new daughter cells. Specifically, when cells in culture were first treated with ethanol, the subsequent exposure to bad cholesterol was without effect on cell division: Each daughter cell received the correct number of chromosomes.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Colorado Denver, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Antoneta Granic, Huntington Potter. Mitotic Spindle Defects and Chromosome Mis-Segregation Induced by LDL/Cholesterol?Implications for Niemann-Pick C1, Alzheimer?s Disease, and Atherosclerosis. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e60718 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060718

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/YPCB7b6pu78/130415182507.htm

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Who's really behind 'I'm in love with Margaret Thatcher'?

Thatcher opponents have driven the song 'Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead' to the top of Britain's pop charts. Was the 'retaliatory' promotion of a 1979 punk song fanned by fans - or a good capitalist moment?

By Jason Walsh,?Correspondent / April 13, 2013

Two songs are battling to the top of the British music charts in memory of Margret Thatcher. One is, her supporters say, in bad taste, but the one adopted by fans of the late Conservative prime minister isn't quite what it seems, either.

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Ireland Correspondent

Jason Walsh has been the Monitor's Ireland correspondent since 2009, dividing his time primarily between Belfast, Northern Ireland and?Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. During that time he has reported on stumbling blocks in the peace process, the dissident republican threat,?pro-British unionist riots, demands for abortion legislation and Ireland's economic crash.

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Opponents of Thatcher have campaigned successfully to have "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead", a song from the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" composed by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, to reach the top spot Britain's official charts.

The response from Conservative Party supporters was swift, with newspapers including The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph demanding that the BBC refuse to play the song. The BBC has said it will play a five-second clip of the song along with a news item explaining why during its official chart rundown on Radio One, Sunday.

Equally irritated, though less outraged, Tories had another plan: counter Ding Dong with a song of their own. They chose the little-known 1979 punk number "I'm in Love with Margaret Thatcher" by the Notsensibles.

The British press loved it ? and why not? It's a good story, in a silly sort of way: a bit of political argy-bargy in a fun and digestible package.

The media didn't exactly work hard to uncover the truth of the story, such as it is. A phone call to the band's former frontman, Michael Hargreaves, was all it took to discover that the campaign predated the Tories' adoption of it.

Hargreaves himself started the campaign with a Facebook page on Wednesday that soon garnered 8,000 likes. Surprisingly, though, by Friday it had been adopted by Conservative Party supporters as a counter to "Ding Dong." Facebook, Twitter and Tory blogs lit-up with requests that people buy the song in order to keep the anti-Thatcher song from reaching the top spot in the hit parade.

Former Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch, now based in New York, was among those who urged her Twitter followers to buy the song twice: once from Amazon and once from Apple's iTunes.

Would Maggie be proud?

In some press interviews, Hargreaves has implied, rather unconvincingly, that he is a supporter of Mrs. Thatcher. But if the song is a hit, the royalty checks may represent some private enterprise Margaret Thatcher would approve of.

Hargreaves, an ex-punk rocker who now works with adults with learning disabilities, is an unlikely figure for adoption by Conservative Party members, though he did say "Ding Dong" was disrespectful. (Read a in-depth profile of Margaret Thatcher here.)

"My grandfather was [both] a Christian and a communist. I'm a fat, 50-year-old punk. You make your mind up about my political sensibilities," he says.

Hargreaves, who is due to perform with his old band on BBC television news in Manchester on Monday, says he doesn't really mind how high the song charts in the end, but that the experience has been fun.?"We dunked a pebble in the lake and there seems to be a few ripples."

Eighty-five seconds of the song were previously featured in the 2011 biopic movie "The Iron Lady," starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.

"I find it hilarious that Tories have adopted it," he says. "The song is a sort-of tribute and sort-of not."

The official chart will be announced on Sunday afternoon, but by today it had already reached No. 6 in the iTunes chart.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/i67ay5w_EFM/Who-s-really-behind-I-m-in-love-with-Margaret-Thatcher

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Mubarak appears in Egyptian court for retrial

CAIRO (AP) ? The judge in Hosni Mubarak's retrial recused himself at the start of the first session on Saturday, citing a conflict of interest as the former Egyptian president appeared in court for the first time in 10 months grinning and waving to supporters.

The recusal threw the case deeper into disarray after an appeals court in January overturned a life sentence for Mubarak on a conviction for failing to prevent the killings of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ousted him.

The appeals court granted Mubarak a retrial after ruling that in the first trial, the prosecution's case lacked concrete evidence and failed to prove that protesters were killed by the police during the bloodiest days of the revolt. Some 900 people were killed in the 18-day uprising, most of them in the initial days.

Hoda Nasrallah, a rights lawyer representing 65 victims' families in the case, said there is no certainty that the prosecution will provide new evidence this time around to back up the charges.

The judge in the first trial criticized the prosecution for failing to provide evidence that police killed protesters. Protesters accused attorney general's office of shoddy work in collecting evidence. The attorney general at the time was a Mubarak-appointee who has since been replaced.

"The investigations took place in just one month, which is not enough time to review all the cases of killings across Egypt," Nasrallah said. "There are reports in the media that there will be new evidence submitted, but we're waiting to see if that is true."

Mubarak's first trial took place in a charged atmosphere that eclipsed the legal nuances of the case and led to what many saw as a politically motivated verdict aimed at calming a public outcry for justice after nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.

Rumors had swirled several times in the past year that Mubarak was near death. However, the 84-year-old appeared upbeat in his first court appearance since his conviction in June 2012.

After being wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital gurney, he sat upright and grinned and waved to his supporters from inside the metal defendant's cage. His eyes were shaded behind brown-tinted glasses.

Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, and his former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly were in the cage with him. They are currently imprisoned in separate cases. El-Adly, who was in charge of police during the uprising, was convicted of the same charges as Mubarak in his first trial and also sentenced to life in prison. His sentence was also overturned by the appeals court.

Mubarak was airlifted by a military helicopter to the court while his two sons and el-Adly were driven from Tora prison in the outskirts of Cairo.

The session lasted only a few minutes, ending after Judge Mostafa Hassan recused himself and referred the case to an appeals court to appoint another judge. He did not explain the conflict of interest behind the decision.

As he took the bench, some lawyers shouted, demanding that he remove himself from the case.

"Sit until you hear what the court's decision is," the judge responded.

Immediately after, he announced that the case would be sent to an appeals court. Some lawyers began chanting: "The people demand the execution of the ousted president!"

Local media reports had suggested Hassan might transfer the case to another judge. In October, he caused an uproar among political activists when he acquitted 25 Mubarak loyalists accused of organizing a deadly Camel Battle attack during the uprising. In the attack, assailants on horses and camels stormed downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests.

If convicted again, the life sentences for Mubarak and el-Adly could be upheld or their sentences could be reduced. They could also be acquitted but is considered unlikely that they would draw a heavier sentence, such as the death penalty.

In addition to the charges related to deaths of protesters, Mubarak and his sons face corruption charges in the trial along with longtime business associate, Hussein Salem, who is currently on the run in Spain. Five police generals face the same charges as Mubarak with relation to the killing of protesters while a sixth is accused of gross negligence.

Mubarak's two sons and the six police generals are being retried after prosecutors filed an appeal against their acquittals.

The outcome of Mubarak's first trial prompted mass protests against the mixed verdict, which sentenced the former president to life in prison but did not offer anything close to full accountability for wrongdoing under his three decades in power.

The scene outside of the courthouse on Saturday reflected the change in the political atmosphere since the emotional outbursts that surrounded Mubarak's first trial in August 2011.

Hundreds flocked to the courtroom for his first trial and Egyptians and others in the region were glued to televisions in near-disbelief at seeing the former autocrat in a courtroom defendant's cage ? something that symbolized to many the people's triumph over dictatorship.

The retrial drew only a few dozen Mubarak opponents and supporters, who briefly threw stones at each other before police intervened.

More than two years after his ouster, Egyptians are reeling from myriad problems that include fuel shortages, growing unemployment and political polarization. The strains occasionally erupt into deadly street battles.

Mubarak has remained in custody since his conviction, spending some time in a prison hospital before being transferred to a military one on grounds that he needed better medical care. Prosecutors are requesting he be transferred back to a regular prison.

A high-level inquiry into the deaths of the nearly 900 protesters killed in the uprising, parts of which were released exclusively to The Associated Press last month, could weigh heavily in the retrial. It found that police were behind nearly all the killings, using snipers on rooftops overlooking Tahrir Square to shoot into huge crowds.

The inquiry determined that such deadly force could only have been authorized by security chief el-Adly with Mubarak's full knowledge. It determined that Mubarak watched the uprising against him unfold through a live TV feed at his palace, despite his later denial that he knew the extent of the protests and crackdown against them.

The judge in the retrial will have the discretion to decide whether to accept the fact-finding committee's report, which must first be sent to the prosecutor's office. The prosecution is tasked with further investigating its findings, and then deciding if it wants to include the report in its case file to the court.

The fact-finding commission was created by Mubarak's successor, Mohammed Morsi, who made a campaign promise to bring former officials to justice.

Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters, though, have spoken out in support of so-called reconciliation talks with former officials, many of whom have been acquitted and released from prison in recent months.

Additionally, nearly 100 police officers have faced trial over the killing of protests during the revolt. All except two were acquitted.

Mubarak is the first Arab president to be tried and serve a prison sentence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mubarak-appears-egyptian-court-retrial-140601681.html

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Raymond Sean Clark, Homeless Man, Arrested For Allegedly Setting Someone On Fire

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- A man who was set on fire while sitting in his SUV outside a convenience store remained hospitalized in critical condition on Saturday as investigators tried to determine what would have motivated a homeless man suspected in the attack, police said.

The 63-year-old Long Beach man was badly burned on the upper torso in Friday evening. His name was not immediately released.

The man was inside his Toyota SUV in front of a 7-Eleven shortly after 5 p.m. when a homeless man threw a flammable substance inside the car. The car's interior and the man went up in flames in seconds, police Sgt. Aaron Eaton said.

The scene was terrifying, said Shannon Flynn, 16, of Long Beach.

"He was engulfed in flames," she told the Long Beach Press-Telegram (http://bit.ly/154YZuu). "The fire was so big, people were screaming. I just can't believe this happened here."

Robert Linkroum said he was buying a newspaper at the store when he looked up and saw a man "walking on a mission" toward the car and throwing what appeared to be a bottle inside.

"The vehicle went up in flames immediately, just totally engulfed. It was all flames," he said. "It became so hot in 7-Eleven that I moved towards the back of the store because I thought the windows were going to blow."

Eaton said bystanders helped the burning man by trying to pour water on him to douse the flames.

Police arrested Raymond Sean Clark, 38, about a block away. Clark, who is homeless, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and for two misdemeanor warrants for failing to appear on other charges. He remained jailed Saturday on more than $500,000 bail.

Witnesses said Clark is a panhandler who asked people for change and cigarettes outside the store.

Eaton said the motive for the attack was unclear. There was no indication that the victim and attacker knew each other, he said.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/14/raymond-sean-clark-man-on-fire_n_3078386.html

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Rebel Wilson's MTV Movie Awards Gig Approaches As Actress Readies Show

CULVER CITY, Calif. ? Rebel Wilson sings, dances and summons laughs ? and that's just in the opening moments of this weekend's MTV Movie Awards.

The Australian actress is hosting the show, and she's set to start the ceremony by singing solo.

Wilson and her co-stars from "Pitch Perfect" rehearsed a multi-genre opening medley Friday that features Wilson spoofing last year's films and spinning nunchucks.

Brittany Snow, Anna Camp and Skylar Astin, along with a troupe of gymnastic dancers, joined the first-time host at Sony Pictures Studios to run through four songs not featured in the film. MTV insists on keeping the titles a surprise until Sunday's show.

When the group finished rehearsing, Wilson thrust her fist toward the sky and shouted, "`Pitch Perfect' two!"

A sequel to the musical comedy has not been announced.

Wilson will be joined at the MTV Movie Awards by presenters such as Brad Pitt, Melissa McCarthy, Seth Rogen and Kerry Washington and performers including Selena Gomez. Jamie Foxx, Will Ferrell and Emma Watson will receive special awards at the ceremony, which will be broadcast live Sunday on MTV from 9-11 p.m. EDT.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at . http://www.twitter.com/APSandy

___

Online:

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2013/

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/13/rebel-wilson-mtv-movie-awards_n_3076135.html

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Three-alarm Bronx fire leaves 37 injured, 5 critical

By Katherine Creag, NBCNewYork.com

A three-alarm fire in New York City's the Bronx Saturday morning left 37 people injured, including one child and four adults who were in critical condition, fire department officials said.

The fire broke out in an apartment on the fifth floor of a building on East 149th Street in Melrose at around 7:45 a.m. Authorities said smoke from the fire quickly spread throughout the 27-story high-rise.

"When we opened the door to put the fire out, it just fills the building up -- the hallways, the stairs -- up with smoke," said FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Jack Mooney.

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Residents said the heavy smoke darkened their hallways and made breathing extremely difficult. At least 12 people had to be carried down by firefighters, authorities said.

"Smoke was so thick on 22 and the fire started on five," said building resident, Dolores Carter, an asthma sufferer who had to be helped down by firefighters and needed to use a ventilator afterward. "It was a trying time."

Officials said most of the injuries were minor, but four adults and a child were being treated for smoke inhalation in hyperbaric chambers at Jacobi Medical Center.

Red Cross workers were on the scene assisting evacuated residents.

There is no word yet on what caused the fire.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2aaf435d/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C130C17737750A0Ethree0Ealarm0Ebronx0Efire0Eleaves0E370Einjured0E50Ecritical0Dlite/story01.htm

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Abnormal Is the New Normal

Asperger's syndrome, which will be redefined into the broader category of autism spectrum disorders in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is one of several changes to the "psychiatry bible." Above, Matthew Kolen was diagnosed at age 8 with Asperger's.

Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Beware the DSM-5, the soon-to-be-released fifth edition of the ?psychiatric bible,? the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The odds will probably be greater than 50 percent, according to the new manual, that you?ll have a mental disorder in your lifetime.

Although fewer than 6 percent of American adults will have a severe mental illness in a given year, according to a 2005 study, many more?more than a quarter each year?will have some diagnosable mental disorder. That?s a lot of people. Almost 50 percent of Americans (46.4 percent to be exact) will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, based on the previous edition, the DSM-IV. And the new manual will likely make it even "easier" to get a diagnosis.

If we think of having a diagnosable mental illness as being under a tent, the tent seems pretty big. Huge, in fact. How did it happen that half of us will develop a mental illness? Has this always been true and we just didn?t realize how sick we were?we didn?t realize we were under the tent? Or are we mentally less healthy than we were a generation ago? What about a third explanation?that we are labeling as mental illness psychological states that were previously considered normal, albeit unusual, making the tent bigger. The answer appears to be all three.

First, we?ve gotten better at detecting mental illness and doing so earlier in the course of the illness. For decades, mental health clinicians, physicians, the U.S. surgeon general?s office, and various state and local agencies have been advocating for better detection of mental illness. If we are better at spotting it, we can treat it. And if we detect it earlier, we can, hopefully, intervene to reduce the intensity and/or frequency of symptoms. For instance, people who decades ago may have had undiagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, or substance abuse are now more likely to have their problems recognized and diagnosed. But the increased awareness and detection translates into a higher rate of mental illness.

Second, we really are getting ?sicker.? The high prevalence of mental illness in the United States isn?t only because we?ve gotten better at detecting mental illness. More of us are mentally ill than in previous generations, and our mental illness is manifesting at earlier points in our lives. One study supporting this explanation took the scores on a measure of anxiety of children with psychological problems in 1957 and compared them with the scores of today?s average child. Today?s children?not specifically those identified as having psychological problems, as were the 1957 children?are more anxious than those in previous generations.

Another study compared cohorts of American adults on the personality trait of neuroticism, which indicates emotional reactivity and is associated with anxiety. Americans scored higher on neuroticism in 1993 than they did in 1963, suggesting that as a population we are becoming more anxious. Another study compared the level of narcissism among cohorts of American college students between 1982 and 2006 and found that more recent cohorts are more narcissistic.

An additional study supports the explanation that more people are diagnosed with mental illness because more of us have mental illness: The more recently an American is born, the more likely he or she is to develop a psychological disorder. Collectively, this line of research indicates that more is going on than simply better detection of mental illness.

Here?s a third explanation for the increased prevalence of mental illness, one that implies something important about our culture: What was once considered psychological healthy (or at least not unhealthy) is now considered to be mental illness. Some of the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that were within the then-normal range of human experience are now deemed to be in the pathological part of the continuum. Thus, the actual definition of mental illness has broadened, creating a bigger tent with more people under it. This explanation implies that we, as a culture, are more willing to see mental illness in ourselves and in others.

The increasing prevalence is in part because each edition of the DSM has increased the overall number of disorders. The DSM-I, from 1952, listed 106; the DSM-III, from 1980, listed 265, and the current DSM-IV has 297. (Complaints about this ever-increasing total led the chair of the DSM-5 task force, David Kupfer, to announce that the total number of disorders in DSM-5 will not increase. One way to add new diagnoses?and DSM-5 will?but not increase the total is to make a disorder in a previous edition into a ?subtype? of another disorder in the new edition, thereby keeping two diagnostic entities, but with one subsumed under another.)

The increasing number of disorders comes about because some ?problems? that were not previously considered to be mental illness were reclassified as such by their inclusion in the DSM?and it is the DSM that functionally defines mental illness in the United States.

As an example, prior to the DSM-IV, there was no diagnosis of Asperger?s syndrome; rather, people with what is now called Asperger?s would have been diagnosed with autism (?high functioning? autism) or not diagnosed at all. This syndrome was added as a separate disorder to highlight the different forms that autism symptoms may take and to focus research on the most effective treatments for Asperger?s. Others, however, claimed that the diagnostic label pathologized quirkiness. (In DSM-5, Asperger?s is classified as a subtype of a newly consolidated single diagnosis ?autism spectrum disorder.?)

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=1c9f9bbb0eb69a398d9e45b70bab1a86

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Population boom poses interconnected challenges of energy, food, water

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Mention great challenges in feeding a soaring world population, and thoughts turn to providing a bare subsistence diet for poverty-stricken people in developing countries. But an expert speaking in New Orleans on April 8 at the 245^th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, described a parallel and often-overlooked challenge.

"The global population will rise from 7 billion today to almost 9 billion people by 2040," Ganesh Kishore, Ph.D., said at the meeting. "Providing enough food to prevent starvation and famine certainly will be a daunting problem. But we also have to meet the rising expectations of huge numbers of people who will be moving up into the middle class. We will have a New York City-sized population added to the middle class every second month. Their purchasing power is projected to be more than $60 trillion by 2040. Most of this growth will be in Asia. The expanding middle class will demand food that doesn't just fill the belly, but food that's appetizing, safe and nourishing, convenient to prepare and available in unlimited quantities at reasonable prices. Producing food for a middle class that will number more than 5 billion within 30 years will strain existing technology for clean water, sustainable energy and other resources."

Kishore spoke at a symposium, "The Interconnected World of Energy, Food and Water," that focused on approaches to prepare for the population boom. Kishore is a co-organizer of the symposium, along with John Finley, Ph.D., of Louisiana State University and Hessy Taft, Ph.D., of St. John's University.

"We want to foster greater awareness among scientists, the public and policy-makers about the interconnections between these three challenges," said Kishore. "Water, food and energy must be understood together -- it's not just one or the other, so we have speakers addressing all of these topics. And the reason for this interconnection is that we need water to produce both energy and food -- whether it is about harvesting fossil-fuel energy, producing biobased renewable energy or producing food, we need fresh water! In addition, we are competing with other demands for fresh water. It is not just about developing technology -- we have to move the technology from the bench to the real world so that solutions see the light of day, which the industry speakers in the session can address. Regulatory policies have to keep pace with technology development, not just in places where the technology is developed but where the technology is deployed, and that requires science-based risk assessment capability and the creation of consumer confidence in the process."

He described how the addition of one billion people every 12-13 years itself poses challenges that require innovations, rather than simply scaling up existing technologies. And he said that opportunities go hand-in-hand with the challenges.

They include using plant biotechnology and tools of synthetic biology to expand the food supply and providing new sources of energy, developing more efficient ways to convert sunlight into chemical energy and applying information technology to the production of food and chemical energy more efficiently. Kishore cited specific examples of progress being made in those areas. As CEO of the Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, Kishore and colleagues are promoting some of these strategies by investing in companies working in these areas. One company in which they invest, for instance, improves agricultural crops by enhancing plant breeding and genetic technologies. Another is developing ways to transform waste gases into fuels.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/OLHh-Odg8Nw/130408142632.htm

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O2 customers get free pass on Virgin Media's tube WiFi, last 12 stations go online this week

Unless you're an EE or Vodafone customer, you've either been shelling out for subterranean internet, or bid the London Underground's WiFi network a solemn farewell when free access ended in January. If you're with O2, however, your free pass has now been reinstated, as the bubble-loving carrier has become the latest passenger riding on Virgin Media's tube hotspots. Better yet, all O2 clientele have been automatically registered, so jumping online should be pretty simple once your device has found the source. Also, the underground network will shortly be meeting its 120-station target, as Virgin will be flipping switches at the final 12 locations throughout this week (the station list is available at the source link). So, should you start seeing more people in more places frantically hammering their smartphones during those 30-second pauses on the platform, you'll know why.

Filed under: Wireless, Internet, Mobile

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Source: Virgin Media

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/08/o2-virgin-media-tube-wifi/

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Tomas Young Explains Decision To End His Life: 'I Was No Longer Going To Watch Myself Deteriorate'

Just over nine years ago, a sniper's bullet turned Tomas Young's life upside down .

It was 2004, and Young, who had enlisted in the Army after Sept. 11 out of a sense of duty, was serving on a tour in Iraq. He wasn't sure why his service had brought him there and not to Afghanistan, where the Sept. 11 plotters had been harbored. But his skepticism made little difference when his convoy came under attack, ultimately leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

His recovery, chronicled in the documentary "Body of War" and by Chris Hedges in a recent Truth Dig article, has since been marked by a series of ups and downs. But lately, Young, now 33, says it's been mostly downs. The pain and decline of his health and bodily function have led Young to decide that he'll stop receiving treatment later this year, a move that will eventually allow him to, as he put it in February according to the Ridgefield Press, "one day go away."

In an interview with KCUR's Frank Morris broadcast on NPR over the weekend, Young and his family spoke more about his deliberations.

"I decided that I was no longer going to watch myself deteriorate," Young told Morris.

While Young made some progress toward recovery in the years after the incident -- some of which was documented in 2009's "Body of War" -- in 2008 he suffered a pulmonary embolism and an anoxic brain injury that impaired his speech and left him with limited use of his arms. He's since undergone numerous painful surgeries and treatments to deal with emerging medical problems.

Young's mother, Cathy Smith, told NPR that the setbacks have been both emotionally and physically crushing to her son.

"To be a paraplegic, deal with that, and then wake up and you're a quadriplegic and you can't use your voice, which is what you were learning to use," she says. "So many people wanted him to speak, and he couldn't speak anymore."

Young had emerged as one of the more outspoken anti-war activists throughout his recovery, and his story and words have served as a powerful reminder of the human costs of the war in Iraq.

For the 10th anniversary of the war, Young penned a scathing open letter to former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, accusing them of "egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans -- my fellow veterans -- whose future you stole." The letter quickly went viral, and he eventually read the letter live on Democracy Now! alongside his wife, Claudia Cuellar, where they gave insight into their activism and struggle.

Young has said publicly that he'll stop talking to the press on April 20, the anniversary of his marriage, and shortly thereafter, will remove his feeding tube and stop receiving the daily regimen of medical treatment that keeps him alive. His announcement has sparked a debate about whether Young should be allowed to intentionally end his life. NPR followed up with Sandra Silva, vice president of education at the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, who said Young's decision was acceptable under both legal and medical laws.

For more on Young's story, click over to NPR.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/tomas-young-veteran_n_3038346.html

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Insight: The backroom battle delaying reform of China's one-child policy

By Sui-Lee Wee and Hui Li

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two retired senior Chinese officials are engaged in a battle with one another to sway Beijing's new leadership over the future of the one-child policy, exposing divisions that have impeded progress in a crucial area of reform.

The policy, introduced in the late 1970s to prevent population growth spiraling out of control, has long been opposed by human rights and religious groups but is also now regarded by many experts as outdated and harmful to the economy.

Former State Councilors Song Jian and Peng Peiyun, who once ranked above cabinet ministers and remain influential, have been lobbying China's top leaders, mainly behind closed doors: Song wants them to keep the policy while Peng urges them to phase it out, people familiar with the matter said.

Their unresolved clash could suggest the leadership remains torn over one of China's most divisive social issues, said a recently retired family planning official. How quickly it is settled may shed light on whether new President Xi Jinping will ease family-planning controls on a nation of 1.3 billion people.

"The government needs to take care of the various voices," the former family planning official said.

For decades, Peng and Song - both octogenarians - have helped shape China's family planning policy, which has seen only gradual change in the face of a rapidly ageing population that now bears little resemblance to the youthful China of the 1970s.

They have starkly different views of China's demographics.

From 1988 to 1998 Peng, 83, was in charge of implementing the one-child policy as head of the Family Planning Commission. In the mid 1990s she became Beijing's highest ranking woman, serving as state councilor, a position superior to a minister.

Like many scholars, she now believes it is time to relax the one-child policy. She first revealed publicly that her views had shifted at an academic conference in Beijing less than a year ago, a change rooted partly in economic concerns.

Many analysts say the one-child policy has shrunk China's pool of labor, hurting economic growth. For the first time in decades the working age population fell in 2012.

By contrast, Song, 81, whose population projections formed the basis of the one-child policy, argues that China has limited resources and still needs a low birth rate to continue economic development. Otherwise, he has written, China's population would skyrocket, triggering food and other resource shortages.

It is not unusual in China for retired senior officials to influence highly sensitive political issues. Last year former President Jiang Zemin, now 86, played a key role in selecting the new members of the politburo's standing committee.

A source close to Peng quoted her as saying that she recently wrote a letter to top officials in the new government, including Premier Li Keqiang, expressing her views. She sent the letter around the same time that Song had sent one of his own to the senior leadership, just before the 18th Communist Party Congress last November, the source added.

Reuters has not seen copies of the letters, but has been told of their contents by the recently retired official from the Family Planning Commission.

Peng declined to be interviewed for this article. Song also declined, but mailed a previously published essay to Reuters that gave his stance on China's population situation.

HISTORIC RETHINK UNDERWAY

There are signs that China may loosen the one-child policy.

Former leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao both dropped the phrase "maintain a low birth rate" in their work reports to the party Congress in November - the first time in a decade that major speeches by top leaders had omitted such a reference.

Last month, Beijing merged the Family Planning Commission with the health ministry and shifted population policymaking to its powerful economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission - for the first time putting demographics at the heart of economic policy-making.

If the government scraps the one-child policy, it would affect the lives of millions of Chinese and affect policy-making across society and the economy - from housing, education and health care to the labor market, pensions and state investment.

The policy, which went into effect in 1980, was meant to last only 30 years and there are now numerous exceptions to it. But it still applies to about 63 percent of the population.

Peng's push for reform is buttressed by evidence from two-child pilot programs in four regions of the country. In none of them has there been a surge in births.

Numerous studies have shown the detrimental effects of the one-child policy. China's labor force, at about 930 million, will start declining in 2025 at a rate of about 10 million a year, projections show. Meanwhile, its elderly population will hit 360 million by 2030, from about 200 million today.

A skewed gender ratio is another consequence.

Like most Asian nations, China has a traditional bias for sons. Many families abort female fetuses or abandon baby girls to ensure their only child is a son. About 118 boys are born for every 100 girls, against a global average of 103 to 107.

Family planning officials have been known to compel women to have abortions to meet birth-rate targets. Some cases have sparked national fury, such as when a woman in inland Shaanxi province was forced to abort her 7-month pregnancy last year.

STUDYING MALTHUS

Song became interested in the issue of population control during his years as a Moscow-trained missile scientist.

"When I was thinking about this, I took Malthus's book to research the study of population," Song said in a 2005 interview with China Youth Magazine, referring to the English writer Thomas Malthus, who predicted in the 18th century that population growth would outstrip food production.

Song was a prot?g? of Qian Xuesen, a science advisor to former Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Song was among scientists sent by Zhou to a remote northwest province for their protection.

Those ties to the party's founding members give Song clout with today's leaders that few scholars or bureaucrats can match.

"His influence comes from the more direct and open channels of communication (he has) with the central government," said Li Jianmin, a population professor in Nankai University.

In 2011, in an essay prepared for the Chinese Journal of Population Science but never published, Song described concerns over China's ageing population as "an unfounded worry".

He forecast that China's population, unchecked, would balloon to 2.2 billion in a century, according to a copy of the essay obtained by Reuters. He concluded that zero population growth was "the ultimate goal of human society".

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank which publishes the journal, did not publish the essay after academics criticized it, according to a scholar familiar with the discussions surrounding the decision not to publish. A representative of the journal could not be reached for comment.

In the copy of a published essay Song mailed to Reuters, he said that abandoning the one-child policy would result in grain shortages of 150 million metric tons a year.

OPPOSITION FROM THE PROVINCES

It is far from clear that radical reform of the one-child policy will win the ideological battle in Beijing, despite Song now representing a minority view among demographers in China.

A policy miscalculation in the world's most populous nation carries enormous risks.

During his career, President Xi has stressed that the population should be controlled. And many officials in China's most heavily populated provinces - such as Henan and Shandong - believe the one-child policy is still necessary.

A senior Family Planning Commission official said he did not expect any decision before June due to the restructuring of the commission.

Many scholars and former family planning officials believe Xi will have no choice but to move to a two-child policy.

The possibility of such a move is already under discussion now in Beijing, said Tian Xueyuan, a retired family planning scholar who worked with Song more than 30 years ago to draft the original one-child policy but who now supports reform.

"This situation cannot remain unchanged," Tian said. "As such there's reason, a need and a possibility that there will be an appropriate adjustment to the policy."

(Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom, Editing by Bill Powell and Mark Bendeich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-backroom-battle-delaying-reform-chinas-one-child-224712519.html

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Despite threats, risks temper Korea war tensions

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2013 file photo, an unidentified U.S. Marine from 3-Marine Expeditionary Force 1st Battalion from Kaneho Bay, Hawaii, aims his gun during a joint military winter exercise with their South Korean counterparts in Pyeongchang, east of Seoul, South Korea. As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2013 file photo, an unidentified U.S. Marine from 3-Marine Expeditionary Force 1st Battalion from Kaneho Bay, Hawaii, aims his gun during a joint military winter exercise with their South Korean counterparts in Pyeongchang, east of Seoul, South Korea. As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

A North Korean man walks past propaganda posters in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Tuesday, March 26, 2013, that threaten punishment to the "U.S. imperialists and their allies." The U.S. recently tightened sanctions against North Korea after Pyongyang tested a nuclear device in February in defiance of international bans against atomic activity. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

FILE - In this April 4, 2013 file photo, soldiers of the U.S. Army 23rd chemical battalion carry a U.S. and South Korean flag during a ceremony to recognize the battalion's official return to the 2nd Infantry Division based in South Korea at Camp Stanley in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul. As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

FILE - In this April 5, 2013 file photo, South Korean army reservists salute while denouncing North Korea for their escalating threat of war, during their Foundation Day ceremony at a gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea. As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

TOKYO (AP) ? As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people.

North Korea's leaders know that war would be suicidal. In the long run, they cannot expect to defeat the United States and successfully overrun South Korea. War would be horrific for the other side as well. South Korea could suffer staggering casualties. The U.S. would face a destabilized major ally, possible but unlikely nuclear or chemical weapons attacks on its forward-positioned bases, and dramatically increased tensions with North Korea's neighbor and Korean War ally, China.

Here's a look at the precarious balance of power that has kept the Korean Peninsula so close to conflict since the three-year war ended in 1953, and some of the strategic calculus behind why, despite the shrill rhetoric and seemingly reckless saber-rattling, leaders on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone have carefully avoided going back over the brink.

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THE SEA OF FIRE

Even without nuclear weapons, North Korea has an ace in the hole. Most experts believe its claims to have enough conventional firepower from its artillery units to devastate the greater Seoul area, South Korea's bustling capital of 24 million. Such an attack would cause severe casualties ? often estimated in the hundreds of thousands ? in a very short period of time.

Many of these artillery batteries are already in place, dug in and very effectively camouflaged, which means that U.S. and South Korean forces cannot count on being able to take them out before they strike. Experts believe about 60 percent of North Korea's military assets are positioned relatively close to the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries.

North Korea's most threatening weapons are its 170 mm Koksan artillery guns, which are 14 meters long and can shoot conventional mortar ammunition 40 kilometers (25 miles). That's not quite enough to reach Seoul, which is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the DMZ. But if they use rocket-assisted projectiles, the range increases to about 60 kilometers (37 miles). Chemical weapons fired from these guns could cause even greater mayhem.

North Korea experts Victor Cha and David Kang posted on the website of Foreign Policy magazine late last month that the North can fire 500,000 rounds of artillery on Seoul in the first hour of a conflict.

Even so, not everyone believes North Korea could make good on its "sea of fire" threats. Security expert Roger Cavazos, a former U.S. Army officer, wrote in a report for the Nautilus Institute last year that, among other things, North Korea's big guns have a high rate of firing duds, pose more of a threat to Seoul's less populated outer suburbs, and would be vulnerable to counterattack as soon as they start firing and reveal their location.

"North Korea occasionally threatens to "turn Seoul into a Sea of Fire," he wrote. "But can North Korea really do this? ... The short answer is they can't; but they can kill many tens of thousands of people, start a larger war and cause a tremendous amount of damage before ultimately losing their regime."

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FIRST STRIKES, PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES

This is what both sides say concerns them the most.

North Korea says it is developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles as a deterrent to keep the United States or South Korea from attacking it first. The reasoning is that Washington will not launch a pre-emptive strike if North Korea has a good chance of getting off an immediate ? and devastating ? response of its own.

Along with its artillery aimed at Seoul and other targets in South Korea, North Korea is developing the capacity to deploy missiles that are mobile, thus easier to move or hide. North Korea already has Rodong missiles that have ? on paper at least ? a range of about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles), enough to reach several U.S. military bases in Japan. Along with 28,000 troops in South Korea, the U.S. has 50,000 troops based in Japan.

North Korea is not believed to be capable of making a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on a long-range missile capable of hitting the United States. But physicist David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, believes it may be capable of mounting nuclear warheads on Rodongs. In any case, Pyongyang is continuing to pursue advancements, apparently out of the belief that it needs nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S. to have a credible deterrent.

The United States rejects the North's claim that such a deterrent is necessary, saying it does not intend to launch pre-emptive strikes against North Korea. At the same time, Washington has made it clear that it could.

During ongoing Foal Eagle military maneuvers in South Korea, two U.S. B-2 strategic stealth bombers, flying from their base in Missouri, conducted a mock bombing run on a South Korean range. The B-2 is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, precision bombs that could take out specific targets such as North Korean government buildings, and massive conventional bombs designed to penetrate deep into the ground to destroy North Korean tunnels and dug-in military positions. One big problem, however, is determining where the targets are.

Amid heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program in 1994, President Bill Clinton reportedly considered a pre-emptive strike, but decided the risks were too high.

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CHINA'S DILEMMA

Without China, North Korea wouldn't exist. The Chinese fought alongside the North Koreans in the Korean War and have propped up Pyongyang with economic aid ever since.

Beijing has grown frustrated with Pyongyang, especially over its nuclear program. China and the U.S. worked together in drafting a U.N. resolution punishing the North for its Feb. 12 nuclear test.

But China still has valid reasons not to want the regime to suddenly collapse.

War in Korea would likely spark a massive exodus of North Korean civilians along its porous 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border, which in turn could lead to a humanitarian crisis or unrest that the Chinese government would have to deal with. The fall of North Korea could pave the way for the United States to establish military bases closer to Chinese territory, or the creation of a unified Korea over which Beijing might have less influence.

China, the world's second-largest economy, also has significant trade with South Korea and the United States. Turmoil on the Korean Peninsula would harm the economies of all three countries.

Patrick Cronin, an Asia expert at the Center for a New American Security and a senior State Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said Beijing is helping set up back-channel negotiations with North Korea to ease the tensions. But he warned that the U.S. isn't likely to win China over as a reliable partner against North Korea beyond the current flare-up.

"There are limits to how far China and the U.S. have coincidental interests with regard to North Korea," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-07-AS-NKorea-The-War-Calculus/id-820dd95e12884c5ea02ebdcbce3caebb

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