Obama backs South Korean president's response to North's torpedo attack

The White House says President Obama “fully supports” the South Korean president and his response to the torpedo attack by North Korea that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

In a statement released early Monday, the White House said Seoul could continue to count on the support of the United States.

The White House said the Obama administration endorsed President Lee Myung-bak's demand that North Korea immediately apologize and punish those responsible for the sinking of the warship Cheonan and stop its belligerent and threatening behavior.

The March sinking of the Cheonan was the South's worst military disaster since the Korean War.

Lee said in a televised address that his nation would no longer tolerate North Korea's “brutality,” and that the regime would pay for the surprise torpedo attack.

He vowed to take Pyongyang to the U.N. Security Council for punishment, and said Seoul would cut all trade with the impoverished nation.

Lee, addressing the nation from the War Memorial, called it a “military provocation” that was part of an “incessant” pattern of attacks by communist North Korea, including the downing of an airliner in 1987 that killed 115 people.

“We have always tolerated North Korea's brutality, time and again. We did so because we have always had a genuine longing for peace on the Korean peninsula,” Lee said.

“But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts,” he said. “I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North accountable.”

The truce signed in 1953 prevents South Korea from taking unilateral military action. However, Lee said South Korea was prepared to defend itself from further provocations.

The U.N. Armistice Commission was investigating whether the sinking of the ship violated the armistice.

North Korea has steadfastly denied responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan. Naval spokesman Col. Pak In Ho warned last week in comments to broadcaster APTN that any move to retaliate or punish Pyongyang would mean war.

As Lee spoke Monday, North Korea's main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, called the investigation an “intolerable, grave provocation” tantamount to a declaration of war.

“The traitor's group will not avoid our merciless punishment,” the paper said in commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea routinely denies involvement in attacks blamed on Pyongyang, including a 1983 bombing in Burma targeting a South Korean presidential delegation and the 1987 downing of the airliner over the Andaman Sea.

The two Koreas' militaries have clashed in the waters off the west coast.

North Korea disputes the maritime border unilaterally drawn by U.N. forces at the close of the Korean War, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes since 1999 — most recently in November, when a gunfight killed one North Korean, according to the South Korean military.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said the military would hold drills with the U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea. He said Seoul would also resume psychological warfare against the North that had been suspended in 2004 during a period of warming relations.

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, laying out measures aimed at punishing North Korea economically, said South Korea would cut off all trade with North Korea and ban its cargo ships from plying South Korean waters. Seoul has been North Korea's No. 2 trading partner.

However, a joint factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong where 110 South Korean firms employ about 42,000 North Koreans, will stay open. Seoul will also continue providing humanitarian help for infants, children and the weak, Hyun said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/05/obama-backs-skorean-presidents-response-to-nkorea-torpedo-attack.html

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Moving deeper into Arizona's shadows

Maria, a U.S. citizen, and Salvador, an illegal immigrant, have learned to take precautions every day: No driving at night, staying at home more and speaking English.

By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times

May 24, 2010

Reporting from Phoenix —

The day Arizona's governor signed the strictest immigration law in the country — tasking police with checking the immigration status of those they stop and suspect to be in the country illegally — Maria thought it might be the last straw for her family.

For six years Maria, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, Salvador, who is in the country illegally, have tried to make sure he isn't caught up in a raid or sweep or traffic enforcement operation. To avoid his deportation, the couple takes precautions that, when synthesized, go something like this:

Avoid driving at night. Avoid unnecessary trips — grocery shopping once a week is best.

Stay home. Stay and care for the garden. Enjoy the blueberry bushes and the apricot trees, and mow the lawn. Keep it nice. Try to deflect, as much as possible, their 4-year-old daughter's questions about going to Disneyland.

As a citizen, Maria, 24, doesn't worry about being stopped when she's alone or with her daughter Carina. But her concern for Salvador, 29, has grown over the years, especially after Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio began using his department to enforce federal immigration laws. When the program was essentially adopted on a statewide level, one of Maria's aunts considered canceling her daughter's 8th birthday party to avoid attracting attention.

Other friends and relatives — often mixed families of citizens and illegal immigrants — decided to put off repairs to their homes to save money in case a family member got deported. Like many of them, Maria wondered: Is it time to leave Arizona?

Dreams vs. realities

Maria and Salvador met as teenagers. In the evenings Maria played basketball at the middle school where Salvador took English classes. (They asked that their full names not be used because of his status.) She never thought to ask about his legal situation when they started dating, and by the time she learned he'd crossed the border illegally when he was 17, they'd already made plans for a life together.

Maria, who came to the U.S. legally when she was 6, became a citizen at 18, thinking Salvador would easily obtain legal status once they were married. They wed that same year at a Phoenix courthouse, but set a date for a wedding a year later at El Santuario del Señor de La Piedad, a centuries-old Catholic church that towers over the couple's shared hometown in La Piedad, in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

But they never made it.

Soon after they were married, they met with an immigration attorney who told them Salvador would have to return to Mexico to apply for residency. If he did, the attorney said, it was possible he'd be barred from the U.S. for 10 years.

They decided they couldn't risk such a separation. Two years later, Carina was born. The two of them, newborn in tow, realized Salvador's legal status was probably not going to change, and they went about putting down roots.

Maria settled into her job as a teacher's assistant in a class for severely autistic preschoolers. Salvador worked maintenance at a golf course, and he got out early enough to pick up his daughter from day care. In January, they had a church wedding at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Parish in north Phoenix. Carina carried her mother's train.

In the meantime, Arizona began taking steps to make it an inhospitable state for those who came to the country illegally: the county sheriff dispatched his deputies to search for illegal immigrants, a law was passed to bar such immigrants from receiving government services and the state sought to shut down businesses that hired illegal workers.

Maria and Salvador learned to live, somewhat, with the worry.

When Salvador leaves for work in the morning, Maria gives him a clean set of clothes to change into for the drive home so he won't look like a laborer. When he has a weekend shift and can't travel with his usual carpool, Maria wakes up before he leaves at 4:30 a.m., and together they pray that he comes back.

The rules for driving are clear: Check the truck — make sure the signals and lights work. A friend was once pulled over by deputies for having a broken light on his license plate. He was deported shortly after.

Drive carefully: use turn signals, make complete stops. Don't put unnecessary adornments on the truck. Never exceed the speed limit.

In August, they bought their first home, a three-bedroom bank-owned fixer-upper. They spent much of their time mending it and caring for the huge yard, with its fruit trees and flowers. When Salvador's father died this year, Salvador couldn't attend the funeral. So they planted an apricot tree in his honor.

Maria became involved in a church group that advocates for a variety of causes, such as education and immigrant rights. The information she gets at immigrant rights sessions with the Valley Interfaith Project, she says, helps her when she is overwhelmed by anxiety.

Three months ago, Maria and Salvador learned she was pregnant. They are expecting a sister for Carina in July.

Along comes SB 1070

It was just after 1:30 on April 23, and Maria was at work when she got a text message from her mother: Gov. Jan Brewer had signed SB 1070 into law . She ran through scenarios in her mind: We'll move to California, she thought. We'll rent our house and get an apartment. My family in California can help Salvador get a job.

At home, she called an uncle, who lives in Armona, a tiny Central Valley town in Kings County. He'd heard the news, he said, and was prepared for her and her family to stay at his home until they were settled.

When Salvador came home, Maria told him of her plans. His response was clear and unhesitant. He has a good job here, he said. Who knows if he could get one in California? What if they were stopped by sheriff's deputies on the way out of town? What if he were put in a detention facility far from home?

After a few days, Maria decided she agreed with her husband. Leaving would be like running away from her home, she said, and she doesn't want to do that.

They've decided to stay in Arizona and wait it out, taking precautions as always.

The aunt who was planning her daughter's birthday party canceled it. And though Maria knows the law isn't scheduled to go into effect until late July, she still finds herself switching to English when she and her husband walk past police officers. Salvador's English is limited, so he just nods as she speaks.

Mostly, they stay home more now, Maria says. And when the worry becomes overwhelming, she goes out to the garden and trims the hedges.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigrant-family-20100524,0,1582183,print.story

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Child mortality rates dropping, study finds, but U.S. lags

Childhood deaths are down 42% in the U.S., but nations such as Serbia and Malaysia, which were ranked behind the U.S. in 1990, cut their rates by nearly 70%.

By Noam N. Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau

May 24, 2010

Reporting from Washington

Underscoring historic recent gains in global health, the number of children younger than 5 who die this year will fall to 7.7 million, down from 11.9 million two decades ago, according to new estimates by population health experts.

But as much of the world makes strides in reducing child mortality, the U.S. is increasingly lagging and ranks 42nd globally, behind much of Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates, Cuba and Chile.

Twenty years ago, the U.S. ranked 29th in the child mortality rate, according to data analyzed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The estimates, derived from modeling based on international birth records and other sources, are being published Monday in the British medical journal the Lancet.

Singapore, the country with the lowest child mortality rate in the world at 2.5 deaths per 1,000 children, cut its rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2010. Serbia and Malaysia, which were ranked behind the U.S. in 1990, cut their rates by nearly 70% and now are ranked higher.

The U.S., which is projected to have 6.7 deaths per 1,000 children this year, saw a 42% decline in child mortality, a pace that is on par with Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Angola.

"There are an awful lot of people who think we have the best medical system in the world," said Dr. Christopher Murray, who directs the institute and is an author of the study. "The data is so contrary to that."

Even many countries that already had low child mortality rates, such as Sweden and France, were able to cut their rates more rapidly than the U.S. over the last two decades.

"It's really just hard to fathom," said Laura Beavers, national Kids Count coordinator for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, one of the nation's leading advocates for children's health.

The U.S. mortality rates defy traditional explanations, such as a nation's diversity, high number of immigrants and persistent pockets of poverty, Murray said.

Australia, another diverse country with a large immigrant population, cut its child mortality rate over the last two decades more than the U.S. Australia now ranks 26th in the world.

Murray said high child mortality rates were not limited to black and Latino populations in the U.S. In fact, researchers have found high rates among higher-income whites, a group that traditionally has better access to medical care.

The data instead suggest broader problems with the nation's fragmented, poorly planned healthcare system, Murray and other healthcare experts say.

Although the U.S. spends nearly twice as much per capita on healthcare as most other industrialized countries, researchers are finding substantially higher levels of preventable deaths from diseases such as diabetes and pneumonia.

Another recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found that the rate of deaths among women giving birth has actually increased in the U.S. over the last two decades.

"We certainly have outstanding medical science and centers of excellence that rival the best in the world," said Cathy Schoen, an expert on global health systems at the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. "But many other countries have been putting many more resources into thinking about how they can improve. … They have been far more strategic."

That is one of the main reasons the recently enacted healthcare law is so important, many healthcare experts say. The bill not only expands insurance coverage but gives providers incentives to improve quality and better coordinate care and makes it easier for Americans to get preventive medical care.

There is more encouraging data about progress elsewhere in the world.

Although child mortality remains extremely high in several regions — including sub-Saharan Africa, where in some countries 1 in 7 children die before their fifth birthday — mortality rates are falling at an accelerating rate, according to the institute's research.

That in part reflects efforts to expand vaccinations for diseases such as measles and to give antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women infected with HIV, said Dr. Mickey Chopra, chief of health and associate director of programs at UNICEF.

Chopra and others said initiatives to distribute mosquito netting to reduce malaria infections, provide Vitamin A supplements to children and encourage more breast-feeding are also having an effect.

Global public health advocates hope to be able to make more progress as efforts get underway to distribute antibiotics to combat pneumonia and dysentery in the developing world. "I am even more excited about the next five years," Chopra said, adding that such progress was almost inconceivable a few years ago.

Researchers found the fastest rates of decline over the last two decades in many countries in Latin America and North Africa.

Other countries with slow rates of decline include Britain, New Zealand and South Korea, which have all fallen in the international rankings since 1990. All three are still ahead of the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-child-mortality-20100524,0,205943,print.story

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Museums offer free admission to military families

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo and the Skirball Cultural Center on the Westside are among more than 600 museums across the country that will be offering free admission this summer to active-duty members of the military and their families.

Part of a National Endowment for the Arts program known as Blue Star Museums, the offer begins  Memorial Day and is open to spouses, siblings and children of active members in all four major branches of the military. Coast Guard members and active-duty National Guard and active duty Reserves are included.

Families of deployed members of the armed forces can take advantage of the offer by showing their military family identification. Up to five close relatives of the holder of the identification can be admitted free, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

Other participating museums in Southern California include the Zimmer Children's Museum and Hammer Museum, both in Los Angeles, as well as the California Surf Museum in Oceanside. Details and more information on the offer are available here.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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From the New York Times

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Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers

TUCSON — Able-bodied, outgoing and accustomed to working, Alexandria Wallace wants to earn a paycheck. But that requires someone to look after her 3-year-old daughter, and Ms. Wallace, a 22-year-old single mother, cannot afford child care.

Last month, she lost her job as a hair stylist after her improvised network of baby sitters frequently failed her, forcing her to miss shifts. She qualifies for a state-run subsidized child care program. But like many other states, Arizona has slashed that program over the last year, relegating Ms. Wallace's daughter, Alaya, to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible children.

Despite a substantial increase in federal support for subsidized child care, which has enabled some states to stave off cuts, others have trimmed support, and most have failed to keep pace with rising demand, according to poverty experts and federal officials.

That has left swelling numbers of low-income families struggling to reconcile the demands of work and parenting, just as they confront one of the toughest job markets in decades.

The cuts to subsidized child care challenge the central tenet of the welfare overhaul adopted in 1996, which imposed a five-year lifetime limit on cash assistance. Under the change, low-income parents were forced to give up welfare checks and instead seek paychecks, while being promised support — not least, subsidized child care — that would enable them to work.

Now, in this moment of painful budget cuts, with Arizona and more than a dozen other states placing children eligible for subsidized child care on waiting lists, only two kinds of families are reliably securing aid: those under the supervision of child protective services — which looks after abuse and neglect cases — and those receiving cash assistance.

Ms. Wallace abhors the thought of going on cash assistance, a station she associates with lazy people who con the system. Yet this has become the only practical route toward child care.

So, on a recent afternoon, she waited in a crush of beleaguered people to submit the necessary paperwork. Her effort to avoid welfare through work has brought her to welfare's door.

“It doesn't make sense to me,” she says. “I fall back to — I can't say ‘being a lowlife' — but being like the typical person living off the government. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to use this as a backbone, so I can develop my own backbone.”

As the American social safety net absorbs its greatest challenge since the Great Depression , state budget cuts are weakening crucial components. Subsidized child care — financed by federal and state governments — is a conspicuous example.

When President Clinton signed into law the changes he declared would “end welfare as we know it,” he vowed that those losing government checks would gain enough support to enable their transition to the workplace.

“We will protect the guarantees of health care, nutrition and child care, all of which are critical to helping families move from welfare to work,” Mr. Clinton pledged in a radio address that year.

Now, with the jobless rate hovering near double digits and 6.7 million people unemployed for six months or longer, some states are rolling back child care.

“We're really reneging on a commitment and a promise that we made to families,” said Patty Siegel, executive director of the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, an advocacy organization. “You can't expect a family with young children to get on their feet and get jobs without child care.”

As part of last year's package of spending measures aimed at stimulating the economy, the Obama administration added $2 billion for subsidized child care programs for 2009 and 2010, on top of the expected $5 billion a year. The administration has proposed a $1.6 billion increase for 2011. But even as this extra money has limited cuts and enabled some states to expand programs, officials acknowledge that it has not kept pace with the need.

“To say that we are in a difficult environment in terms of state budgets would be the understatement of the century,” said Sharon Parrott, an adviser to Kathleen Sebelius , the secretary of health and human services, which administers federal grants to states for child care. “It's just not possible for the federal government to fill the entire hole, but the Recovery Act has provided critical help.”

Even some architects of the mid-1990s welfare overhaul now assert that low-income families are being denied resources required to enable them to work.

“We're going the wrong way,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a Republican Congressional aide and was instrumental in shaping welfare changes. “The direction public policy should move is to provide more of these mothers with subsidies. To tell people that the only way they can get day care is to go on welfare defeats the purpose of the whole thing.”

Here in Tucson — a city of roughly 500,000 people, sprawling across a parched valley dotted by cactus — Jamie Smith, a 23-year-old single mother, once had subsidized child care. That enabled her to work at Target, where she earned about $8 an hour. She paid $1.50 a day for her 3-year-old daughter, Wren, to stay at a child care center. The state picked up the rest.

She was aiming to resume college and then find a higher-paying job. But in December, she missed by a day the deadline to extend her subsidy. When she went to the state Department of Economic Security to submit new paperwork, she learned that all new applicants were landing on a waiting list.

Ms. Smith sought help from Wren's father to look after their daughter. But he had his own job delivering pizza, limiting his availability.

“Some days, I'd just have to call in sick,” she said.

By March, she had missed so many days that Target put her on a leave of absence, telling her to come back after securing stable child care, she said.

Without the state program, she sees no viable options.

She, too, is contemplating going on welfare.

“It's a blow to my own self-image and self-worth as a person who can take care of myself,” she says. “I'm totally able, physically and intellectually, to continue working. But I can't work without child care, and I can't afford child care without work.”

A Major Cost

In many low-income working families, child care is one of the largest expenditures after housing. Among families with working mothers and incomes below the poverty line — $18,310 for a family of three — child care absorbs nearly a third of total household budgets, according to census data.

Yet long before the recession assailed state budgets, subsidized child care was not reaching the vast majority of families in need.

In 2000, only one in seven children whose families met federal eligibility requirements received aid, according to an analysis by the Center for Law and Social Policy, which advocates for expanded programs. In 2003, the Bush administration found that in the smaller group of children eligible under more restrictive state criteria, only 30 percent received subsidized care.

Until the Obama administration increased financing last year, federal support for subsidized child care had been steady for a decade. From 2001 to 2008, direct federal spending for subsidized child care through the Child Care and Development Fund — the primary source — nudged up to $5 billion a year, from about $4.6 billion, according to the Department of Health and Human Services .

During the same years, the number of children receiving subsidized child care under the program fell to 1.6 million in 2008, from an average of 1.8 million a month in 2001.

Data for last year has yet to be compiled, but federal officials and poverty experts assume the number of families eligible for help has climbed, given broad cuts in working hours and other sources of income.

At least nine states, including Illinois and Indiana, used increased federal aid through the stimulus package to begin offering child care support to parents looking for work. Thus they expanded the case loads of such programs or lengthened the duration of the benefits, according to data compiled by the National Women's Law Center, an advocacy group in Washington.

But at least nine other states, including Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina, have cut access to subsidized child care programs or the amounts they pay.

New Hampshire, Nevada and New Mexico resorted to waiting lists. Ohio reduced its income eligibility from twice the poverty line to 150 percent — $33,075 annually for a family of four.

“The social safety net was always in patches, and now it's more frayed,” said Helen Blank, director of leadership and public policy at the National Women's Law Center. “For a single mom, it's a lottery in many states whether she gets child care or not.”

This year, California altered its welfare reform program, cutting $215 million from child care financing given to counties and allowing families with young children to draw aid without looking for work. But it also means that those who want to pursue careers may effectively be consigned to the old welfare system, receiving monthly checks without support like child care.

“These women desperately want to be off cash aid,” said Ms. Siegel, at the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network. “That door has essentially been shut.”

Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed scrapping California's entire welfare-to-work program, including child care and cash assistance, as the state grapples with a $19 billion budget shortfall — an action that would eliminate aid for roughly a million children.

In Arizona last year, stimulus funds prevented budget cuts that would have eliminated care for 15,000 eligible children. But as the budget crisis has ground on, the state has added names of eligible children to the wait list, a term that social service agencies deride as a euphemism.

“It's really a turn-away list,” says Bruce Liggett, executive director of the Arizona Child Care Association, a Phoenix-based advocacy group. “The program has been shut down.”

For Mr. Liggett, this amounts to a bitter turn. In the mid-1990s, he was a deputy director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, where he helped put in place the new welfare-to-work program.

“We've seen devastating cuts,” he says. “For those families working to stay off welfare, we're denying help. Welfare reform in Arizona is certainly a broken promise.”

Path to Welfare

Alexandria Wallace grew up in a middle-class home topped by Spanish tile, with a swimming pool out back and a view of jagged reddish mountains. Her decline from work to welfare began in the spring of 2009.

She was working three days a week at a call center for Verizon Wireless, earning about $9.50 an hour while attending beauty school at night to earn a license as a cosmetologist. She aimed to use earnings from that profession as a springboard to nursing school.

Alaya was enrolled at a child care center, with a state subsidy, and Ms. Wallace was pleased with the girl's experiences there — singing songs, learning to share. But when Ms. Wallace sent in the forms to extend the program, she received a rude surprise: a recent raise — less than 50 cents an hour — had bumped her above the income limit.

With no one to watch her daughter on a regular basis, she quit her job at the call center and began working at her mother's thrift store for $7.50 an hour while she finished beauty school.

Ms. Wallace reapplied for child care. Now she qualified, but she landed on the wait list.

She shared a two-bedroom apartment with a couple and their 5-year-old daughter, and she sometimes paid them $25 to look after Alaya. But the woman worked, and the man seemed more interested in his PlayStation than the children, Ms. Wallace said.

“I'd come home from work in the afternoon, and Alaya would still be in her pajamas,” she said. “It's so hard to find someone to really take care of your kid.”

Her younger brother sometimes helped, but reluctantly and irregularly.

A classmate at beauty school offered to watch Alaya during the day. In exchange, Ms. Wallace took care of her friend's 18-month-old boy every evening.

Her days tending to customers gave way to nights caring for a baby in a cramped apartment while cooking dinner and cleaning her house. Alaya was jealous and demanded extra attention. Ms. Wallace was perpetually exhausted.

Still, this arrangement provided enough stability that Ms. Wallace began cutting hair at a nearby salon. Her first month, she brought home about $500. She felt confident her clientele would grow.

Then, her friend canceled the swap, forcing Ms. Wallace to bring Alaya to the salon, where she tried to keep her occupied with cartoons in a back room.

Soon her car broke down, forcing her to rely on family and the public bus to get to work, which did not always happen.

Her boss had been kind, but patience wore thin.

“She was like, ‘Your baby sitter bailed on you, your car broke down. What do you have left?' ” Ms. Wallace said. “She said, ‘If you can't get something worked out, I'm going to have to let you go.' ”

Even after she lost that job, Ms. Wallace remained confident she could find another.

Then it dawned on her. Given the state of the social safety net, unemployment might provide the solution. She could qualify for cash assistance, which would require her to enroll in a state jobs program and would include help securing child care.

“It's something I have to do to get where I need to go,” she said.

She plans to stay on cash assistance long enough to gain child care, then find another job. She would then lose cash assistance, but could hang onto child care as long as her income stayed below the eligibility limit.

These were her thoughts as she stood in an airless office, amid the sounds of unhappy children in the arms of tired women, waiting to hand in the forms to receive welfare.

“Oh no,” she said, peeking inside a white envelope full of documents and spotting a brown smudge. “My kid got chocolate on her birth certificate.”

She ducked into the ladies room and dabbed the stain with wet paper towel.

When she stepped outside an hour later, beneath a pounding Arizona sun, $220 a month was headed her way. Her daughter was waiting at her parents' house. Her future — a working car, a steady job — was waiting out there, too, she told herself, though it had a way of coming in and out of focus.

“I'm just trying to get my life situated to where I can look beyond the day to day,” she said. “I hope it all falls together the way it all fell apart.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/economy/24childcare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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An Arsenal We Can All Live With

Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

THE Pentagon has now told the public, for the first time, precisely how many nuclear weapons the United States has in its arsenal: 5,113. That is exactly 4,802 more than we need.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the Senate to advocate approval of the so-called New Start treaty, signed by President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia last month. The treaty's ceiling of 1,550 warheads deployed on 700 missiles and bombers will leave us with fewer warheads than at any time since John F. Kennedy was president. Yet the United States could further reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons without sacrificing security. Indeed, we have calculated that the country could address its conceivable national defense and military concerns with only 311 strategic nuclear weapons. (While we are civilian Air Force employees, we speak only for ourselves and not the Pentagon.)

This may seem a trifling number compared with the arsenals built up in the cold war, but 311 warheads would provide the equivalent of 1,900 megatons of explosive power, or nine-and-a-half times the amount that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara argued in 1965 could incapacitate the Soviet Union by destroying “one-quarter to one-third of its population and about two-thirds of its industrial capacity.”

Considering that we face no threat today similar to that of the Soviet Union 45 years ago, this should be more than adequate firepower for any defensive measure or, if need be, an offensive strike. And this would be true even if, against all expectations, our capacity was halved by an enemy's surprise first strike. In addition, should we want to hit an enemy without destroying its society, the 311 weapons would be adequate for taking out a wide range of “hardened targets” like missile silos or command-and-control bunkers.

The key to shrinking our nuclear arsenal so radically would be dispersing the 311 weapons on land, at sea and on airplanes to get the maximum flexibility and survivability.

Ideally, 100 would be placed on single-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles, like the Minuteman III systems now in service. These missiles, which have pinpoint accuracy, are scattered around the country in such a way that only one potential enemy, Russia, would have any chance of rendering the arsenal impotent with a surprise strike. (And it is likely that our unilateral cuts would entice Moscow, which has been retiring its systems at a fast clip in recent years, to follow suit.) Equally important, these missile sites are easily detected and monitored, which would reassure our friends and provide a credible threat to our enemies.

The sea leg of the plan would involve placing 24 Trident D-5 missiles, each with a single nuclear warhead, on each of our Ohio-class submarines. Today's fleet of 14 can be cut to 12, with eight on patrol at a given time, together carrying 192 missiles ready to launch. The Tridents are extremely effective, as they can be moved around the globe on the submarines, cannot be easily detected, and present a risk to even hardened targets. And should any of our allies feel that our cuts in seaborne missiles are worrisome, we can remind them that the British and French will keep their complementary nuclear capabilities in the Atlantic.

Finally, for maximum flexibility in our nuclear arsenal, each of our B-2 stealth bombers could carry one air-launched nuclear cruise missile. While we have 20 such bombers, we assume that one would be undergoing repairs at any given time, giving us the final 19 warheads in our 331-missile plan. Our B-2 fleet is more than adequate for nuclear escalation control and political signaling, and giving it an exclusive role in our nuclear strategy would allow us to convert all our B-52H bombers to a conventional role, which is far more likely to be of use in our post-cold-war world.

While 311 is a radical cut from current levels, it is not the same as zero, nor is it a steppingstone to abandoning our nuclear deterrent. The idea of a nuclear-weapon-free world is not an option for the foreseeable future. Nuclear weapons make leaders vigilant and risk-averse. That their use is to be avoided does not render them useless. Quite the opposite: nuclear weapons might be the most politically useful weapons a state can possess. They deter adversaries from threatening with weapons of mass destruction the American homeland, United States forces abroad and our allies and friends. They also remove the incentive for our allies to acquire nuclear weapons for their own protection.

We need a nuclear arsenal. But we certainly don't need one that is as big, expensive and unnecessarily threatening to much of the world as the one we have now.

Gary Schaub Jr. is an assistant professor of strategy at the Air War College and James Forsyth Jr. is a professor of strategy at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24schaub.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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On North Korea, China Prefers Fence

BEIJING — In the best of times, Chinese foreign affairs scholars here say, Beijing grits its teeth while playing best friend to Kim Jong-il , North Korea 's ailing and erratic 68-year-old leader. South Korea 's charge last week that North Korea sank one of its warships , killing 46 crewmen, makes that role exponentially harder.

With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 200 other American officials here for high-level security and economic talks, Chinese leaders face two unpalatable options. One is to mollify North Korea, and risk undermining its efforts to convince the United States, South Korea and Japan that China is a stabilizing force in East Asia.

The other is to join those nations and the United Nations Security Council in condemning North Korea for the attack, which North Korea denies, and risk a wholly unpredictable response from a volatile neighbor.

So far, China has sought to straddle the two, saying only that both Koreas should show restraint in the midst of a brewing crisis. But Mrs. Clinton, who has publicly cited “overwhelming” evidence that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean corvette, the Cheonan , is pressing Chinese officials to take an unequivocal stance. South Korea, which China has assiduously courted as a major trading partner and diplomatic friend, is making the same case.

The sinking and its aftermath have reignited much the same debate that took place last year, after North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in April and conducted an underground nuclear test less than two months later. After balking at first, China eventually agreed to a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning the nuclear test and tightening existing sanctions.

The United States, Japan and South Korea are uniting behind a similarly strong response this time. South Korea is expected to ask the Security Council on Monday to condemn the sinking of the 1,200-ton warship, which it says caused one of the largest losses of military personnel since the end of the Korean War. Mrs. Clinton is pushing Beijing to back the effort.

“The North Koreans will be more easily dissuaded from further attacks like this if they don't get cover from China, “ said Michael J. Green, an Asia specialist with the Center for International Studies in Washington. “So it's absolutely critical to Korea and the United States that China send that signal.”

But in discussions that began Sunday, China was resisting, and it has been skeptical of the claim that the North was responsible for sinking the ship. Scholars say such misgivings are typical when China is asked to side against North Korea.

“There's not much more that can be done to sanction North Korea,” said Shen Jiru, a strategic studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “China basically feels that sanctions or other tough measures only serve to escalate conflict with North Korea, and others tend to agree.”

Still, a small but influential group of Chinese scholars insist that accommodating North Korea has not worked, and China needs to take a new and tougher tack.

“The Chinese government so far has done too much to protect North Korea,” said Chu Shulong, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “Why should we protect them? Why should we treat them so specially? I think China needs to change its approach.”

Wei Zhijiang, a visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Tokyo who specializes in North Korea, said that if China decides not to support a Security Council resolution, it should push for some other punishment. “Certainly North Korea must pay the price somehow,” he said. “Maybe apologize, pay compensation and promise this will not happen again.”

China's reluctance to censure the North is not rooted in affection for its policies. In private discussions, one American analyst said Sunday, Chinese officials express frustration with North Korea's growing belligerence. But like their Washington counterparts, they say, they have no good option to deal with it.

Officials here worry that more pressure on North Korea will prove counterproductive, and some recent history backs them: after China joined other nations last year in protesting the missile launch, Mr. Kim reacted by pulling out of the six-nation talks, chaired by China, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program. This time, the North Korean government has threatened “all-out war” if it is punished for the Cheonan sinking.

“China remembers this lesson,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “I think this time our leaders are a little bit afraid of Kim Jong-il.”

China's other worry is strategic: if relations with the North sour because its leaders fear China is aligning with the West against it, China could face an unstable and now nuclear-armed adversary on its border. And if international pressure leads to the collapse of the North's government and eventually a unified, democratic Korea allied with the United States, China's power in the region would be weakened.

A collapse could also unleash a flood of refugees across the Chinese border, a phenomenon China experienced in the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of North Koreans, if not more, fled widespread famine in their homeland.

So Beijing has tried to support North Korea while gently edging it toward economic reform and nuclear disarmament. To keep the North's government afloat, China provides food, fuel and, by some estimates, 90 percent of North Korea's industrial goods.

It also continues to invest there, positioning itself, some analysts say, for a post-Kim Jong-il period. In recent years, China has bought rights to several North Korean coal and mineral mines.

In February, China and North Korea announced a deal to build a four-lane bridge across the Yalu River that marks the border. North Korea also recently agreed to lease its Rajin Port, giving inland northeast China long-sought access to the Sea of Japan.

Yet despite North Korea's growing dependence on China, officials in Beijing complain that they have very little leverage over Mr. Kim's behavior. Mr. Wei, the China scholar at Tokyo University, said China considered it a victory when Mr. Kim agreed this month in Beijing to more communication and cooperation with China on regional and international issues.

The past few weeks have shown just how awkward it can be for China to walk the line between courting the South and propping up the North. On April 27, as his nation's forensic investigation drew to a close, President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea flew to Shanghai to try to persuade President Hu Jintao of China that North Korea had sunk the Cheonan and should be rebuked.

The following week, President Hu hosted the reclusive Mr. Kim in Beijing. Some Chinese scholars said the visit, Mr. Kim's first to China in four years, showed their government's desire to keep trying to push the North in the right direction.

But South Koreans saw it as a slap in the face to their president — who one analyst said had asked President Hu to postpone or cancel the visit — and a reassuring nod to North Korea at precisely the wrong time.

This weekend, perhaps as a conciliatory gesture, China announced that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao would travel to Seoul, the South Korean capital, at the end of the month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24china.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Jamaica Declares Emergency Amid Unrest

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico — The Jamaican government declared a state of emergency in portions of Kingston, the capital, on Sunday after supporters of a gang leader who is wanted in the United States on gun and drug charges attacked three police stations in an attempt to pressure the government to let him remain free, officials said.

In the western Kingston neighborhood where the gang leader, Christopher Coke, is holed up, residents set up barricades and exchanged gunfire with the police. The Daily Gleaner reported that gunmen allied with Mr. Coke, who is commonly known as Dudus, were roaming the streets with high-powered rifles.

Amid growing unrest, the government met in an emergency session to try to keep the lawlessness from spinning out of control. The authorities, who said other gangs appeared to be coming to Mr. Coke's aid, called on him to turn himself in for a hearing on extradition to the United States.

“The police are publicly calling on Christopher Coke, otherwise called ‘Dudus,' ‘Short Man' and ‘President,' to hand himself over,” a police statement said. “The security forces wish to make it very clear that they view the barricading as an act of cowardice on the part of selfish criminal elements, mainly Mr. Coke.”

Mr. Coke is accused by federal prosecutors in the United States of running a major cocaine and marijuana trafficking operation from Tivoli Gardens, the neighborhood in Kingston that he controls. The State Department sought his extradition last August to New York, where he is accused in United States District Court of trafficking drugs and using the proceeds to buy guns in the United States and send them back to his allies in Jamaica.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who represents Tivoli Gardens in the Jamaican Parliament, initially balked at sending him to the United States . He argued that results of the wiretapping conducted by Jamaican law enforcement officials that led to Mr. Coke's indictment were illegally obtained by American prosecutors.

After protests from the Obama administration and from opposition politicians, Mr. Golding agreed to comply with the extradition request . It was then that Mr. Coke's neighbors in Tivoli Gardens, who say he keeps the peace in the neighborhood, began striking out at the government.

American prosecutors say that Mr. Coke is the leader of the Shower Posse, a drug gang that his father, Lester Coke, used to lead. The gang is accused of hundreds of drug-related killings in the United States in the 1980s. Federal officials sought to extradite Lester Coke to face narcotics and murder charges, but he died in a mysterious fire in his prison cell in 1992 before he could be turned over to the United States.

“It's kind of like déjà vu,” said Curtis Scoon, a movie producer working on a film about the Shower Posse. “His father was in the same situation.”

Both of Jamaica's major political parties have fostered ties with neighborhood gangs, which turn out the vote in exchange for political favors.

Christopher Coke, who runs a consulting firm that receives sizable contracts from the government, is linked to the Jamaican Labor Party led by Mr. Golding. Until recently, Mr. Coke was represented by a prominent senator chosen by the ruling party, Tom Tavares-Finson, a criminal defense lawyer. In an interview, he had described his client as a legitimate businessman, not the monstrous criminal described by American prosecutors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/americas/24jamaica.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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U.S.-Born Cleric Justifies the Killing of Civilians

WASHINGTON — In a newly released video, Anwar al-Awlaki , the Muslim cleric believed to be an inspiration for a series of recent terrorism plots, justifies the mass killing of American civilians and taunts the authorities to come find him in Yemen.

Terrorism experts said on Sunday that the full video interview, excerpts of which had previously been released, shows an increasing radicalization by Mr. Awlaki, an American-born imam who this year became the first United States citizen to be placed on a Central Intelligence Agency list of terrorists approved as a target for killing.

In his remarks, Mr. Awlaki praises the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest flight headed to Detroit.

“Those who could have been killed in that plane are a drop in the sea,” Mr. Awlaki said, in a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group , which monitors statements by jihadists. “And we should treat them the same way they treat us and attack them the same way they attack us.”

Mr. Awlaki has been on record defending attacks on American military targets, both overseas and within the United States. He has praised the Fort Hood , Tex., shootings, carried out in November by an Army psychiatrist with whom Mr. Awlaki had exchanged e-mail messages. But the new video shows that Mr. Awlaki is now urging his supporters not to distinguish between military and civilian targets, citing what he claims are “no less than a million women and children” who had been killed as a result of American military action in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Mr. Awlaki's sermons have drawn followers in spots around the world. A senior administration official said on Sunday that it had become clear that Mr. Awlaki “is not just someone who seeks to inspire others to undertake murderous acts, but has been and continues to be operational in plans against our interests and against the homeland.”

The interview also shows how tight the collaboration has become between Mr. Awlaki and the Yemen-based group known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said Richard Wachtel, a spokesman for the Middle East Media Research Institute , which also translated the remarks, which were released by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Qaeda leaders there recently released a statement defending Mr. Awlaki and offering him protection.

In the video, Mr. Awlaki said he had cut off telephone communications to avoid being detected.

“If the Americans want me, let them search for me,” he said. “Allah is the best protector.”

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, made it clear on Sunday that the search for Mr. Awlaki was very much underway. “We are actively trying to find him and many others throughout the world that seek to do our country and to do our interests great harm,” Mr. Gibbs said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/middleeast/24awlaki.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Tensions Rise as The Koreas Snarl At Each Other

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - The two Koreas raised their war-like rhetoric on Monday, threatening conflict if the other side pushes too far in escalating tension after Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing one of its naval ships.

The United States, which has 28,000 troops on the peninsula, threw its full support behind South Korea and said it was working hard to stop the escalation getting out of hand.

With U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Beijing, Washington pressed North Korea's only major ally, China, to rein in the hermit state.

The increasingly vitriolic comments across the heavily defended Cold War border are rattling investors and niggling at diplomatic relations in the economically powerful region.

Few analysts believe either Korea would dare go to war. The North's military is no match for the technically superior South Korean and U.S. forces. And for the South, conflict would send investors scurrying out of the country.

The mounting tension follows last week's findings by international investigators who accused North Korea of torpedoing the Cheonan corvette in March, killing 46 sailors in one of the deadliest clashes between the two since the 1950-53 Korean War.

"I solemnly urge the authorities of North Korea ... to apologise immediately to the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the international community," South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said in a nationally televised address.

Lee said he would take the issue to the U.N. Security Council , whose past sanctions are already sapping what little energy the ruined North Korean economy has left.

His government also banned all trade, investment and visits with North Korea.

The won fell more than two percent to an eight-month low in early trading, partly driven down by the North Korea concerns. It later recovered a little with traders seeing the rhetoric as falling well short of actual war.

WHITE HOUSE BACKING

The White House called South Korea's measures to punish the North entirely appropriate and told Pyongyang to stop its "belligerent and threatening behaviour" as tensions on the peninsula escalated to their highest in years.

Clinton laid the blame at North Korea's door and said the United States was working hard to avoid an escalation of the "highly precarious" situation on the Korean peninsula.

But she avoided answering a question on whether Washington would support additional U.N. sanctions against North Korea. China is very unlikely to support more U.N. sanctions.

Japan's prime minister instructed his cabinet to consider what form of sanctions could be taken against North Korea over the sinking.

An angry North Korea threatened to fire at equipment the South said it would put up to broadcast anti-Pyongyang messages and was ready to take stronger measures if the South escalated tension.

It also issued a statement repeating its position that it had the right to expand its nuclear deterrent.

"North Korea's goal is to instigate division and conflict," said Lee, speaking from the country's war memorial in the capital Seoul. "It is now time for the North Korean regime to change."

In what may alarm Pyongyang as much as anything, its wealthy neighbour said it plans to reduce the number of workers in a joint factory park just inside the North which has long been an important source of income for the North Korean leadership.

FOCUS ON CHINA

Much of the diplomatic focus will be on China, the only major power to support North Korea and which earlier this month -- to the annoyance of the South -- hosted a rare overseas visit by the North's sickly looking leader Kim Jong-il .

Beijing has so far avoided joining in the blame of Pyongyang, saying it will make its own assessment of why the ship sank.

Analysts say China's leaders are terrified of any action that might cause the already shaky North to collapse, sending chaos across into its territory and, perhaps even more worrying, leading to U.S. troops moving up the peninsula right to its border.

A South Korean government report said the North's foreign sanctions-hit trade fell 10 percent last year and could fall further this year, forcing it to depend even more on China to prop up its economy.

Lee said the South reserved the right to defend itself if Pyongyang wages aggression. The North said much the same to its neighbour last week when it denied involvement in the sinking.

Local financial markets took some relief from Lee's comments which steered clear of any suggestion of military retaliation.

"South, North tension is certainly not positive, but given historical trends, losses that markets suffer over this will be brief, unless a drastic situation takes hold. By drastic, I mean war. I do not think war is likely though," said Kwak Joong-bo, a market analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/05/24/world/international-uk-korea-north.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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From MSNBC

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U.S. military told to get ready in Korea standoff

WASHINGTON - The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama "fully supports" the South Korean president and his response to the torpedo attack by North Korea that sank a South Korean naval ship.

In a statement, the White House said Seoul can continue to count on the full backing of the United States and said U.S. military commanders had been told to work with their South Korean counterparts "to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression."

The administration said it endorsed President Lee Myung-bak's demand that "North Korea immediately apologize and punish those responsible for the attack, and, most importantly, stop its belligerent and threatening behavior."

Late last week, a team of international investigators accused North Korea of torpedoing the Cheonan corvette in March, killing 46 sailors in one of the deadliest clashes between the two since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The United States still has about 28,000 troops in South Korea to provide military support. The two Koreas, still technically at war, have more than 1 million troops near their border.

"U.S. support for South Korea's defense is unequivocal, and the President has directed his military commanders to coordinate closely with their Republic of Korea counterparts to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression," the statement said.

"We will build on an already strong foundation of excellent cooperation between our militaries and explore further enhancements to our joint posture on the Peninsula as part of our ongoing dialogue," it said.

"The U.S. will continue to work with the Republic of Korea and other allies and partners to reduce the threat that North Korea poses to regional stability," the statement added.

Lee said Monday that South Korea would no longer tolerate the North's "brutality" and said the repressive communist regime would pay for the surprise March 26 torpedo attack.

He also vowed to cut off all trade with the North and take Pyongyang to the U.N. Security Council for punishment over the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

Speaking earlier in Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the North must be held accountable and she is pushing to get the support of China, North Korea's top ally, for diplomatic action.

Obama and Lee have agreed to meet at the G20 summit in Canada next month, the statement said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37309788/ns/world_news-asiapacific/print/1/displaymode/1098/

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Agent Orange's catastrophic legacy still lingers

CAM TUYEN, Vietnam - Her children are 21 and 16 years old, but they still cry through the night, tossing and turning in pain, sucking their thumbs for comfort.

Tran Thi Gai, who rarely gets any sleep herself, sings them a mournful lullaby. "Can you feel my love for you? Can you feel my sorrow for you? Please don't cry."

Gai's children — both with twisted limbs and confined to wheelchairs — were born in a village that was drenched with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. She believes their health problems were caused by dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in the herbicide, which U.S. troops used to strip communist forces of ground cover and food.

Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, its most contentious remaining legacy is Agent Orange. Eighty-two percent of Vietnamese surveyed in a recent Associated Press-GfK Poll said the United States should be doing more to help people suffering from illnesses associated with the herbicide, including children born with birth defects.

After President George W. Bush pledged to work on the issue on a Hanoi visit in 2006, the U.S. Congress has approved $9 million mostly to address environmental cleanup of Agent Orange. But while the U.S. has provided assistance to Vietnamese with disabilities — regardless of their cause — it maintains that there is no clear link between Agent Orange and health problems.

Vietnamese officials say the U.S. needs to make a much bigger financial commitment — $6 million has been allocated so far — to adequately address the environmental and health problems unleashed by Agent Orange.

"Six million dollars is nothing compared to the consequences left behind by Agent Orange," said Le Ke Son, deputy general administrator of Vietnam's Environmental Administration. "How much does one Tomahawk missile cost?"

Desperate for help
Tran Van Tram and Tran Thi Dan are desperate for help. Their four grown children crawl around the family home on all fours, rumps in the air. They have trouble standing up straight and can take no more than a few steps at a time with a walker.

Each of his children appeared healthy at birth, said Tram, 61. But after a year or so, they could not roll over. They never learned to talk.

Tram remembers watching U.S. planes dump Agent Orange several times daily over his village in Quang Tri Province, near the former demilitarized zone that once divided North Vietnam and South Vietnam. He used to fish in nearby lakes and streams every day.

Now he and his aging wife spend virtually all their time caring for the children.

They shower the children outdoors, an ordeal for all concerned. Hoang, 26, sat on the patio recently after his father hosed him down, and waited for his mother to pull his pants on. His spine is bent and he has a large lump on his back.

"I have no time for myself," said Dan, 59. "Even when I die, I will have no peace. I will always be worried about my children. Who will take care of them when we are gone?"

Dan says she can't believe it's a coincidence that many of her neighbors started having children with birth defects after the war ended.

"It's not just my family," she said. "Many families here are suffering the same problems. I'd like to see the United States government do more to help ease the pain of the war."

Lingering effects

Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed roughly 11 million gallons of Agent Orange across large swaths of southern Vietnam. Dioxin stays in soil and the sediment at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations. It can enter the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.

Vietnam says as many as 4 million of its citizens were exposed to the herbicide and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses caused by it — including the children of people who were exposed during the war.

The U.S. government says the actual number of people affected is much lower and that Vietnamese are too quick to blame Agent Orange for birth defects that can be caused by malnutrition or other environmental factors.

"Scientists around the world have done a lot of research on dioxin and its possible health effects," said Michael Michalak, the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi. "There is disagreement as to what's real and what isn't, about what the possible connections are."

That position frustrates many Vietnamese, who point out that the U.S. government banned commercial use of the herbicide long ago and provides benefits to American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

The U.S. Veterans Administration covers the medical treatment of American servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange and subsequently developed one of 17 illnesses associated with dioxin. Children of exposed servicemen who were born with spina bifida also receive a medical benefit.

"American and Vietnamese Agent Orange victims haven't been treated the same way, and it's not fair," said Tran Xuan Thu, secretary general of the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association, whose suit against the U.S. manufacturers of Agent Orange in 2005 was rejected by a U.S. court. "It's not in keeping with the humanitarian traditions of the United States. I hope the American people will raise their voices and ask their government and the chemical companies to take responsibility."

U.S. officials point out that an "association" has been established between Agent Orange and the illnesses on the list, but that the scientific evidence has not been high enough to establish a causal relationship.

"We don't know if there's any linkage or not, but we believe in trying to do our best to take care of our veterans," Michalak said. "If Vietnam wants to take care of its veterans, then we think that is a very worthy cause."

Three main hotspots

The U.S. spends just a small sliver of its budget in Vietnam on Agent Orange. Last year, it allocated more than $80 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, where the epidemic is relatively mild, but just $3 million for Agent Orange work.

A coalition of nonprofit groups led by the Ford Foundation, which has been trying to draw attention to the herbicide's toxic legacy, spent more than the U.S. government.

Tests conducted by Hatfield Associates, a Canadian environmental firm, have shown that dioxin is within safe levels across most of Vietnam. But it is well beyond acceptable levels at a number of "hotspots" where U.S. soldiers used to mix, store and load Agent Orange onto planes.

According to one estimate, cleaning up the three biggest hotspots — at former airbases in Danang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa — could cost as much as $40 million.

Since 2006, at the request of the Vietnamese government, the United States has been focusing its Agent Orange work on Danang. Tests taken by Hatfield found extremely high levels of dioxin — up to 400 times accepted international limits — in soil samples taken near the site and in the blood of a few dozen people who lived near a contaminated lake on the old airbase, where they often went fishing.

Working with Vietnamese officials, the U.S. government has sealed off the site to prevent further leakage of dioxin. They are now seeking ways to decontaminate the site, which is likely to cost millions of dollars.

More than two-thirds of the U.S. money allocated so far has been devoted to cleaning up the Danang hotspot, with just $2 million set aside for health programs to serve disabled people in the area.

Since 1989, Michalak said, the United States has spent $46 million to help Vietnamese with disabilities, but it does not keep track of how many of the beneficiaries have illnesses associated with Agent Orange.

"We just think it's the humanitarian thing to do, it's the right thing, and it helps to improve relations between the two countries," Michalak said.

Effects of dioxin

The current U.S.-Vietnam efforts to enhance cooperation on the issue stand in marked contrast to their disagreements seven years ago, when the two sides attempted to conduct a study of birth defects in children whose mothers were exposed to Agent Orange.

The study fell apart amid bickering and finger-pointing. When the Vietnamese and American scientists failed to agree on how to design the $1 million project, the U.S. National Institute on Environmental and Health Sciences withdrew funding.

A leaked U.S. embassy memo written in 2003 captures the bitterness and suspicion that divided the two sides.

Vietnam's claims about Agent Orange were "grossly exaggerated and unsupported by any objective measure," the memo said, dismissing Vietnam's concerns as a "propaganda campaign" to morally indict the U.S. government and win financial compensation.

The memo, circulated in Hanoi by a former embassy staffer, was omitted from more than 100 pages of State Department documents released to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act request last year. Those documents, which were heavily edited, also show that the U.S. was deeply skeptical of Vietnam's assertions about Agent Orange.

The U.S. has shifted its tone sharply since the 2003 memo, but it has not changed its basic position: Current science does not support Vietnamese claims about Agent Orange. No exhaustive studies have been done in Vietnam, where available records on birth defects are incomplete, U.S. officials say, making comparisons of populations difficult.

Vietnam says its own studies show that the rate of birth defects in areas sprayed with Agent Orange is four times higher than in areas that weren't sprayed, and the incidence of certain cancers was 10 times as high.

Le Ke Son, one of Vietnam's top environmental officials, said countries around the world have concluded that dioxin is one the most toxic chemicals on earth.

"Not one of them would say dioxin is not harmful to people," Son said.

David Carpenter, the U.S. scientist who won funding for the ill-fated 2003 study, agreed with that assessment. He planned to test 800 Vietnamese children to see if Agent Orange exposure in mothers increased their chances of being born with one of three kinds of birth defects.

Many of the birth defects Vietnamese have attributed to Agent Orange may have other causes, Carpenter said, but there is little doubt that the herbicide is to blame for some.

"Dioxin is just a horrible chemical," Carpenter said. "There are a variety of factors that contribute to birth defects, and dioxin is certainly one of them. One need not be a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion."

‘White clouds coming'

Gai and her husband, Nguyen Van Bong, remember watching American planes dump their poisonous cargo on the jungles near their home in Cam Tuyen, where they scratch out a living from their tiny family farm.

"We used to see white clouds coming from the planes," Bong said. "We ate fish and drank water from nearby rivers and streams."

The couple is convinced that dioxin is to blame for the fact that their two daughters now have curved limbs, spines and fingers. Thuyet, 16, shrieks day and night, her screams reverberating through the family's two-room home.

"I barely sleep at night," Gai said. "I have to keep an eye on them all the time."

The girls are usually up by 3 a.m., when Gai boils water to bathe them.

Then the 51-year-old mother dresses her daughters and lifts them into wheelchairs. They watch while she washes their clothes in a stream.

Three times a day, she performs physical therapy on the girls for 20 minutes, stretching and massaging their misshapen limbs to ease their pain.

"If I don't do the therapy, Thuyet would scream even more," Gai said. "I sing to them each time before I massage them. It calms them."

Once a month, a village volunteer comes to help for a half hour. Other than that, Gai and Bong are on their own.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37263424/ns/health-more_health_news/print/1/displaymode/1098/

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From Parade Magazine

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		How We're Living With HIV by Drs. Francis S. Collins and Anthony S. Fauci 05/23/2010 Parade Magazine If someone like 23-year-old Erik H. had walked through the doors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in the 1980s and asked how long he had to live, the answer would have been grim. We'd have told the recent college graduate that he probably had less than a year. Today, the future is far brighter for Erik and millions of others infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV--the retrovirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS.
Because of the development of truly transformative drugs by researchers in government, at universities and hospitals, and in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, HIV-positive people can now look forward to decades of life. Someone like Erik can expect to survive until age 70 or even beyond. In 2009, Erik became extremely ill with severe weight loss and chronic diarrhea. After tests revealed that the Maryland resident was HIV-positive, a hospital social worker steered him into NIH's Partnership for Access to Clinical Trials (PACT) program,  which brings together community-based health-care providers, patients, and NIH research clinicians. The Search for an AIDS Vaccine "If it wasn't for the people at PACT, I'd probably have died," says Erik, who takes a combination of three antiretroviral drugs every morning. He now leads an active, healthy life that includes playing tennis and is planning a future in hotel management. The United Nations estimates that more than 33 million people globally--including about 2 million children and 15 million women--are currently infected with HIV. If untreated, HIV destroys the immune system, rendering the body vulnerable to life-threatening infections and cancer. More than two dozen drugs to suppress HIV infection are now available, usually used in combinations known as HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy), or more commonly as AIDS "cocktails." Because HIV mutates rapidly and because some people can't tolerate certain drugs, doctors sometimes need to switch patients to different combinations of drugs over time to keep their infections under control. NIH supported much of the research to develop these drugs and is helping to determine the best way to use them in different populations. This information will be key in implementing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other programs that provide greater global access to HIV therapies. More than 4 million people in the developing world now get antiretroviral drugs thanks to this outreach. A Team of Doctors Will See You Now But much more remains to be done. Each year, about 2 million people worldwide die of AIDS. An additional 2.7 million--56,000 in the U.S.--become newly infected with HIV. Unless we stop these new infections, it will be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to provide appropriate therapy for all HIV-positive people. Prevention is the key to defeating this terrible disease. And that is where medical research's biggest challenges lie as we prepare to enter the fourth decade of the AIDS pandemic. HIV can be transmitted by sex, sharing needles and syringes, and from mother to child at birth or through breast milk. HIV also can be spread by blood. However, since 1985, all donated blood in the U.S. is tested for HIV, making transmission through transfusion extremely unlikely. A major obstacle to reducing HIV transmission is that many people--one in five in the U.S. alone--don't know they're infected and may inadvertently be spreading the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone between ages 13 and 64 be tested for HIV. The benefits of more frequent testing, perhaps every year, for high-risk groups such as those who have unprotected sex with multiple partners or use injected drugs, are also being studied. Earlier detection would not only curb HIV transmission but might help those already infected, since there's evidence that patients who get early treatment tend to live longer than those treated later on. Revealing the Body's Deepest Secrets Another new preventive approach, pre-exposure prophylaxis, involves encouraging uninfected people who continue high-risk activities to take antiviral drugs in advance. The idea is that the drugs might lower the odds of an HIV infection taking hold if the person were exposed. No current drug or combination of drugs can currently cure HIV infection--that is, totally eradicate the virus from an HIV-positive person's body. Some researchers are pursuing that goal. Others are aiming for a "functional cure," in which antiretroviral drugs would so lower levels of HIV that the patient's own immune system would keep the virus in check once drugs were discontinued. Some rare individuals have a genetic variation that almost always protects them from HIV infection, even if they are repeatedly exposed to the virus. By studying their genetic makeup, researchers hope to design new therapies that confer the same resistance to those who didn't win the genetic lottery. Other individuals have immune systems that control the virus exceptionally well after infection. Studying these "elite controllers" may help create an HIV vaccine. An effective vaccine remains the ultimate goal in HIV prevention. After more than 20 years of research, there is finally a glimmer of hope. A large study in Thailand recently provided the first signs that a vaccine could actually prevent HIV infection, albeit in a relatively small percentage of those vaccinated. Much more research is needed to understand how this vaccine regimen works and how its efficacy might be increased. Until an effective vaccine is available, the best defense against HIV is to avoid injection-drug use and needle-sharing and not engage in unprotected sex in a relationship in which there's any doubt about a partner's HIV status. Erik encourages others, particularly other young people, to take these preventive messages to heart. "You can live a normal life and be happy if you are HIV-positive," he says. "But it's better not to be infected at all." Dr. Francis S. Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

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		PARADE Survivors 22 Years Later by Christine Wicker 05/23/2010 Parade Magazine In 1988, PARADE began following 16 Americans living with AIDS. All had been leading active lives for three years or more, which classified them as long-term survivors. At that time, the probability of surviving the disease for even one year was 50-50. Today, people who get effective treatment can live healthy, normal lives. At 57, George Melton is the last known survivor in the group that was diagnosed with AIDS. Retired, healthy, and living in Palm Springs with his partner of 19 years,
Melton has just finished his third book, an account of an 18-month cross-country trip he and his then-partner, Wil Garcia--who was also HIV-positive--made in 1988 in a 27-foot Winnebago. They set out to talk about the disease at every church, AIDS organization, and broadcast station they could find. Garcia died in 1989. "AIDS was a wake-up call for me," Melton says. "It was live or die. It was going to be the agent of my enlightenment or my destruction." He laughs, adding, "My enlightenment has been a long process." Melton didn't require drugs until 1995. He now takes two, with moderate side effects. "I was lucky," he says. "By the time I needed them, the drugs had gotten better." http://www.parade.com/health/2010/05/23-AIDS-living-with-hiv.html

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