Daily Kos: Anti-teachers union movie sets near-record as box office ...

"Won't Back Down," the movie that paints teachers unions as the main culprit in low student achievement, has achieved a record of sorts. ?According to boxofficemojo, it had the second all-time-worst debut of any movie with a wide opening since 1982 (as far back as the site goes).

The only movie to have done worse is a 2008 film called "The Rocker," which opened in 2,784 theaters to a dismal $2,636,048.

"Won't Back Down" made an estimated $2,700,000 in 2,515 theaters.

I guess American audiences were just not that into a movie that lays the blame for the state of education at the feet of hard-working teachers.

Originally posted to Rolandz on Sun Sep 30, 2012 at 10:41 PM PDT.

Also republished by In Support of Labor and Unions.

(Load) (Load) (Load) (Load) (Load) (Load) (Load)

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/01/1138339/-Anti-teachers-union-movie-sets-near-record-as-box-office-bomb

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Omega-3 supplements may slow a biological effect of aging

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2012) ? Taking enough omega-3 fatty acid supplements to change the balance of oils in the diet could slow a key biological process linked to aging, new research suggests.

The study showed that most overweight but healthy middle-aged and older adults who took omega-3 supplements for four months altered a ratio of their fatty acid consumption in a way that helped preserve tiny segments of DNA in their white blood cells.

These segments, called telomeres, are known to shorten over time in many types of cells as a consequence of aging. In the study, lengthening of telomeres in immune system cells was more prevalent in people who substantially improved the ratio of omega-3s to other fatty acids in their diet.

Omega-3 supplementation also reduced oxidative stress, caused by excessive free radicals in the blood, by about 15 percent compared to effects seen in the placebo group.

"The telomere finding is provocative in that it suggests the possibility that a nutritional supplement might actually make a difference in aging," said Jan Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and psychology at Ohio State and lead author of the study.

In another recent publication from this study, Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues reported that omega-3 fatty acid supplements lowered inflammation in this same group of adults.

"Inflammation in particular is at the heart of so many health problems. Anything that reduces inflammation has a lot of potentially good spinoffs among older adults," she said.

Study participants took either 2.5 grams or 1.25 grams of active omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are considered "good fats" that, when consumed in proper quantities, are associated with a variety of health benefits. Participants on the placebo took pills containing a mix of oils representing a typical American's daily intake.

The researchers say this combination of effects suggests that omega-3 supplements could represent a rare single nutritional intervention that has potential to lower the risk for a host of diseases associated with aging, such as coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease.

The study is published online and scheduled for later print publication in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

Participants received either the placebo or one of the two different doses of omega-3 fatty acids. The supplements were calibrated to contain a ratio of the two cold-water fish oil fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), of seven to one. Previous research has suggested that EPA has more anti-inflammatory properties than DHA.

In the case of fatty acids, omega-3 supplementation alone doesn't tell the whole story of how this dietary change can affect health, explained Martha Belury, professor of human nutrition at Ohio State and a co-author of the study. Also important is the ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids that are present in a person's blood.

Omega-6 fatty acids come from vegetable oils, and since the 1960s, research has suggested that these oils, too, can help protect the cardiovascular system. However, the typical American diet tends to be heavy on omega-6 fatty acids and comparatively low in omega-3s that are naturally found in cold-water fish such as salmon and tuna. While the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids averages about 15-to-1, researchers tend to agree that for maximum benefit, this ratio should be lowered to 4-to-1, or even 2-to-1.

The long chains -- or bigger molecules -- that make up EPA and DHA fatty acids are believed to be the secret to their effectiveness, Belury said.

Both groups of participants who took omega-3 supplements showed, on average, lengthening of telomeres compared to overall telomere effects in the placebo group, but the relationship could have been attributed to chance. However, when the researchers analyzed the participants' omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in relationship to telomere lengthening, a lower ratio was clearly associated with lengthened telomeres.

"The idea we were looking at with the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids was an increase in the denominator to make the ratio smaller. In the United States, we need to focus on the omega-3 part because we don't get enough of those," Belury said.

The researchers also measured levels of compounds called F2-isoprostanes to determine levels of oxidative stress, which is linked to a number of conditions that include heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Both omega-3 groups together showed an average overall 15 percent reduction in oxidative stress compared to effects seen in the placebo group.

When the scientists revisited their earlier inflammation findings, they also found that decreases in an inflammatory marker in the blood called interleukin-6 (IL-6) were associated with telomere lengthening. In their earlier paper on omega-3s and inflammation, they reported that omega-3 supplements lowered IL-6 by 10 to 12 percent, depending on the dose. By comparison, those taking a placebo saw an overall 36 percent increase in IL-6 by the end of the study.

"This finding strongly suggests that inflammation is what's driving the changes in the telomeres," Kiecolt-Glaser said.

Telomeres are a hot topic in science, and their tendency to shorten is associated with such age-related problems as heart disease and early mortality. These short fragments of DNA act as caps at the end of chromosomes, and can be likened to the protective plastic at the end of a shoelace.

"If that plastic comes off, the shoelace unravels and it doesn't work anymore," said study co-author Ron Glaser, professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics and director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR) at Ohio State. "In the same way, every time a cell divides, it loses a little bit of its DNA at the ends, and over time, that can cause significant problems."

Kiecolt-Glaser noted that this population was disease-free and reported very little stress. The study included 106 adults, average age 51 years, who were either overweight or obese and lived sedentary lives. The researchers excluded people taking medications to control mood, cholesterol and blood pressure as well as vegetarians, patients with diabetes, smokers, those routinely taking fish oil, people who got more than two hours of vigorous exercise each week and those whose body mass index was either below 22.5 or above 40.

"People who are less healthy than this group, and especially those who experience chronic stress, may gain even more benefits from omega-3 supplementation," she said.

Co-authors of the study include Elissa Epel, Jue Lin and Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Rebecca Andridge and Beom Seuk Hwang of Ohio State's College of Public Health; and William Malarkey of the IBMR.

This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

OmegaBrite, a company based in Waltham, Mass., supplied the supplements as an unrestricted gift but did not participate in the study design, results or publication. Study co-authors Blackburn, Epel and Lin are co-founders of Telome Health Inc., a telomere measurement company.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ohio State University. The original article was written by Emily Caldwell.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser, Martha A. Belury, Rebecca Andridge, William B. Malarkey, Beom Seuk Hwang, Ronald Glaser. Omega-3 supplementation lowers inflammation in healthy middle-aged and older adults: A randomized controlled trial. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 2012; 26 (6): 988 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2012.05.011

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/most_popular/~3/O-V2GbteMoI/121001140957.htm

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Official: Man's NYC arrest in Lohan dispute voided

NEW YORK (AP) ? A 25-year-old man initially arrested Sunday on an assault charge after Lindsay Lohan claimed he grabbed her in her New York hotel room in an argument over cellphone images was freed hours later and his arrest voided when the charge could not be substantiated, law enforcement officials said.

Instead, Christian LaBella of Valley Village, Calif., and Lohan filed harassment complaints with police against each other after they were interviewed by police about their run-in, law enforcement officials said.

Afterward, Lohan publicist Steve Honig expressed outrage that police did not charge LaBella.

"We think it's both distressing and outrageous," he said in a telephone interview. "Lindsey was assaulted and there needs to be a consequence for that."

LaBella could not be reached for comment.

LaBella was taken into custody about 6 a.m. after a 911 call came from the swank W Hotel in Manhattan's Union Square where Lohan apparently pulled the fire alarm, the two officials said. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

A former congressional aide, LaBella was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge but released later Sunday. The charge could not be substantiated so the arrest will be voided, the officials said.

The paperwork was being completed on cross-harassment complaints, which are considered a violation, and no other legal action would be taken, the officials said.

Lohan and LaBella met hours earlier at a night club, though it was unclear whether they previously knew each other, the officials said. They went back to her room, when she noticed the cellphone photos of her on his phone and grabbed the device, the officials said.

She claimed LaBella grabbed her and threw her, but later he said she had forcefully taken his phone, the officials said. Lohan was injured but not hospitalized, Honig said in a statement.

"Lindsay has spoken with police and is fully cooperating with the investigation," he said after LaBella's arrest.

This is Lohan's second run-in with law enforcement in as many weeks in New York City. The 26-year-old was accused last week of clipping a pedestrian with her car outside a nightclub and driving away. She was given a ticket and was scheduled to appear in court Oct. 23. Honig has said he expects those allegations to be proven false.

The actress was also involved in a car accident in California this summer that sent her and an assistant to a hospital, but didn't result in serious injuries for anyone. The accident remains under investigation.

In May, she was cleared of allegations that she struck a Hollywood nightclub manager with her car.

Lohan remains on informal probation for taking a necklace from a jewelry store without permission last year. That means she doesn't have to check in with a judge or probation officer but could face a jail term if arrested again.

Lohan recently filmed "The Canyons," an indie film written by "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" author Bret Easton Ellis.

Steve Tomaszewski, a spokesman for Illinois Rep. John Shimkus, confirmed Sunday afternoon that LaBella has worked for the congressman in his Washington office. Tomaszewski said no one from the Republican's office had been contacted by LaBella.

Source: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/official-mans-nyc-arrest-lohan-dispute-voided-225652983.html

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Anglican church deadlocked over new leader - report

LONDON | Sun Sep 30, 2012 2:06pm BST

LONDON

(Reuters) - A Church of England panel meeting in secret to choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to reach agreement on who should be the new leader of the world's 80 million Anglicans, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

After three days of talks behind closed doors in an undisclosed location, officials narrowed the field to three candidates, but will need to meet again to finish the job, the Sunday Times said, citing an unnamed senior cleric.

The choice of a replacement for Rowan Williams, who steps down in December, is critical for a church in danger of splitting over divisive issues such as gay marriage and senior women clergy, and facing a rising threat from secularism.

The Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), a church panel with 16 members whose chairman is appointed by the prime minister, had been expected to pick a preferred candidate and a second choice on Friday, a church source said last week.

The names were then due to be passed to Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth, supreme governor of the Church of England, before an official announcement within days, possibly on Wednesday.

In a brief statement, the church said a decision would be reached during the autumn. Officials had previously signalled that it could come as early as next week.

"The work of the Commission continues. There will be no comment on any speculation about candidates or about the CNC's deliberations," it said.

According to the Sunday Times, the panel has a three name shortlist:

* Bishop of Norwich Graham James, 61, a keen amateur actor and cricketer who said last week he would "hope and pray" someone else gets the job.

* Archbishop of York John Sentamu, 63, a Ugandan-born traditionalist who holds the second most senior post in the Church of England and writes a column for the Sun newspaper.

* Bishop of Durham Justin Welby, 56, a former oil industry executive who has been a bishop for less than a year.

The 105th Archbishop of Canterbury will take over at a painful time for a church divided by long-running debates over sexuality and senior roles for women clergy. Liberal attitudes among some clerics in Britain and the United States have infuriated conservatives in places with growing congregations, such as Nigeria.

Williams, 62, who takes up a position at Cambridge University, said in March that his successor would need the "constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros".

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, expressed sympathy for the winning candidate.

"They all get hammered, you know, the Archbishops of Canterbury," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. "I have sympathy. Everybody's saying it's an impossible job."

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/UKTopNews/~3/SGBMqny7Q1U/uk-britain-archbishop-idUKBRE88T05Q20120930

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The World's Best Countries in Science (preview)

Image: Graphic by Arno Ghelfi; SOURCES: DIGITAL SCIENCE (research papers); U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE (patents); OECD SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY SCOREBOARD, 2011 (R&D and doctorates)

What makes one country better than another in science? It's not an easy thing to measure. Publishing research papers is a good way to get a bead on basic research, but it doesn't say much about whether a nation is taking advantage of those good ideas. For this, other metrics come into play. Patents give a clue as to how well a country is exploiting its ideas for commercial gain. What a nation spends on R&D captures not only what universities and government research programs do but also the contribution from industry. How many students a nation educates in science and technology disciplines is a key metric, but little data are available.


This article was originally published with the title Scorecard: The World's Best Countries in Science.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=5abdaa4ea4780170ec267ed8cf498742

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Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite is the new king of e-readers

14 hrs.

Until now, I was convinced the e-reader was a goner. After all, that black-on-gray "e-ink" display technology has peaked and cheap tablets are eating up what's left of buyer interest. Then I fell in love with Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite. It solves two of e-ink's biggest problems ? lousy contrast and lack of integrated lighting ??while preserving the e-reader's core advantages: readability, affordability and insanely long battery life.

E-ink is opaque ??unlike see-through?LCD ? and because of that, it's a lot harder to light it.?There's no way to "back light" the thing;?you have to light it from the side. When Sony tried to do this in 2008, it destroyed the value of the e-ink screen with oppressive glare, even when the light was off. Nobody bought that product, and Sony doesn't sell a light-up e-reader now. This past April, Barnes & Noble introduced its Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight, and while that reader does a far better job of preserving the e-ink's readability, the lighting looks uneven.

Amazon stayed away from e-ink?lighting tricks until this fall, and the wait has paid off. The technology used to light-up the new Kindle is more advanced than anything I've seen previously: Despite the limitation of an LED array ? in this case, four tiny?lights?buried at the bottom of the screen ? the entire screen glows with near-perfect evenness, no matter how bright or dim you set it.

What surprised me about the Paperwhite wasn't that Amazon finally cracked the lighting problem. It's that the lighting actually solves the other big e-ink?problem: contrast. E-readers have long suffered the criticism that their pictures aren't really black-on-white, but black-on-gray. The reading experience falls short of greatness, no matter how "easy on the eyes" the technology is supposed to be.

By some color-temperature trickery, the Paperwhite's light system turns gray into white. Not only do you leave the light on all the time, but it is ideally kept?at its brightest in all but direct sunlight (where you can't see the lighting). And speaking of direct sunlight, let me assure you that the Paperwhite retains the?outdoor virtue of e-ink?despite the lighting system and the capacitive touch sensor layer.

The other thing e-readers will continue to lord over tablets is battery life. Amazon says the Paperwhite gets up to eight weeks on a single charge, but that's only under certain conditions: that the wireless is turned off, the light intensity is set to 10 (max is 24) and you read just half an hour each day. Odds are, your habits won't align with this perfectly, so you may have to charge it more than every two months. But I will say that since I do most of my leisure reading at night after we turn the lights out, I have had the lighting set near the bottom.?

So, do I have any gripes? Sure. On the technical side, it's a little annoying that there's no ambient light sensor ? you have to mess with the lighting yourself every time you change environments. But it's easy to do it, so that's not a true concern.

In the box you find a USB cable but no charger, nothing you can plug in the wall. Chances are, you already have something like this from a phone, iPad or previous Kindle, but if you need one, it's $10 extra. Alternatively, you can just charge it every so often by plugging it into your computer.

Previous Kindles have had speakers, and advanced functions like MP3 playback and text-to-speech narration ? this Kindle is more streamlined, though it does have the "experimental browser" that we've seen on Kindles from the start.?

A much more serious nuisance is that, for the starting price of $119, you have to put up with ads on the lock screen and at the bottom of the home screen. Even when you pay the $20 bounty to opt out of Amazon's "special offers," you still get a stream of recommended titles on your home screen, and those never go away. (Seriously, Amazon, how is that not an ad?)

Barnes & Noble has retaliated, dropping the price of its ad-free (and incredibly long-named) Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight from $139 to $119. And Barnes & Noble wants to ensure that shoppers know that the Nook does in fact come with a wall charger. If all things were equal, this would be a compelling proposal, but things are not equal. If you don't live inside a Barnes & Noble, the Nook's advantages fall short of the Paperwhite's superior technology.?

If you are a frequent Amazon shopper with a $79-per-year Prime membership, then a Kindle gets you one additional benefit: One free "lending library" book per month, including the Harry Potter series, "Hunger Games" and a ton of other bestsellers.

So if you don't care about ads, then the Paperwhite's $119 starting price is a bargain. Eliminate the ads and buy a charger and you get to about $150, still not bad. If you don't have Wi-Fi, you'll have to get the 3G version, which is $179 with ads, $199 without ? a bit more steep, perhaps, but not a terrible one-time payment, especially for someone who doesn't have home broadband.

Amazon's growing less abashed about trying to get you to spend more money ? and I think there'll be a point where it backfires. But for now, the Paperwhite's virtues outweigh any of the tacky marketing, and it can be declared hands down the best e-reader yet, without any need for qualifiers.

Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/amazons-kindle-paperwhite-new-king-e-readers-6191170

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Crowley in the Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald & Vancouver Sun: CEOs only have eyes for China

September 29, 2012 ? In his latest column published in the Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald and Vancouver Sun, MLI?s Brian Lee Crowley cautions Canadian CEOs to not only have eyes for China. An excerpt below:

It is time for them, and us, to do what the CEOs professed to admire so much about the Chinese: to think about our interests in terms of centuries, not quarters. If we do, we will follow the sage advice of another speaker: not to act as supplicants grateful for crumbs, but to maintain the leverage that our coveted natural resources and other advantages give us.

?

CEOs only have eyes for China

By Brian Lee Crowley, Ottawa Citizen, September 29, 2012

East is east and west is west, wrote Rudyard Kipling, and never the twain shall meet.

Clearly dear old Rudyard was never exposed to the Canadian business class hot on the scent of Chinese profits.

The twain appeared to meet with a vengeance at an Ottawa conference put on several days ago by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives on Canada in the Asian century. Clearly Canada?s CEOs never met a Chinese business opportunity they did not want to embrace. And yet these titans of our business world weren?t listening to what was being said at their own conference.

Speaker after speaker sounded important qualifications and dangers about the opportunities offered by Asia.

One of the most important was the observation that Asia was not a single thing, country, opportunity, or danger. India and Indonesia, Vietnam and even Japan were only some of the Asian economies and societies repeatedly singled out, for instance, for the opportunities they offered.

The CEOs in the room only had eyes for China.

Speakers told them the U.S. business class, five years ago equally bedazzled by China, is increasingly disillusioned. ?Nobody makes money in China? is now their mantra, and while you are struggling to establish yourself in their market, your Chinese partners are often helping themselves to your intellectual property and showing you the door when they?re done.

Our business leaders clearly thought that nothing like that would happen to us nice Canadians. One of them assured the audience that if only we came to know the Chinese as he has, we too would learn to trust them.

Hmmm.

Are we talking about the same Chinese with thousands of missiles pointed at Taiwan, who turn out large, militantly chauvinistic mobs at the drop of a hat to denounce neighbours whose behaviour the regime disapproves of, and who have been repeatedly exposed as engaged in military and industrial espionage on a large scale, including in Canada?

Is this the same China whose ambassador to Canada threatened us recently that if we didn?t approve of a Chinese state-owned company?s bid for Nexen, a Canadian energy company, that we ?wouldn?t be able to do business together?? The same China that ruthlessly and insouciantly throws peasants off land they have been farming for generations with little or no compensation because their presence has become inconvenient for Communist Party apparatchiks?

The same China whose belligerent behaviour in Asia has driven most small and medium-sized Asian countries to beg the United States to increase its military and other commitments in the region to counter-balance this overweening behemoth? The China that executes more people every year than any other country in the world?

I feel more warm and fuzzy already.

Speaking of the United States, our business leaders were also reminded that China and the United States, while clearly sharing many interests, are also locked in a power struggle. This is not the first time, after all, that a dominant world power has faced a resurgent nation bitter at its treatment by a world adjudged hostile and exploitative. China has lots to complain about regarding its treatment by western powers and their allies over the last two centuries. But one of the reasons that such rises frequently end in tears is that the rising power is wont to cast aside the ?corrupt? system that ?kept us down.?

That system would include, say, the regime of collective security that for decades has guaranteed the peace and freedom of western nations and their allies against external threats; America?s role as the guarantor of freedom of the seas; the rule of law and much more. China thinks these institutions are hostile to its interests. Canada and the U.S., in common with the vast bulk of responsible nations, see them as bulwarks of international order and prosperity. Out of this will arise unavoidable and repeated conflicts. Best to think now about how to limit the damage. Hint: not by heedlessly throwing in our lot with the Chinese.

The CEOs spent most of their time whistling past the graveyard. To the warning of one of the conference?s distinguished speakers that Canada needs at all costs to avoid being caught between the U.S. and China, between our largest market and the fastest growing, most appeared to feel the correct response was to hope they had misheard.

They hadn?t. It is time for them, and us, to do what the CEOs professed to admire so much about the Chinese: to think about our interests in terms of centuries, not quarters. If we do, we will follow the sage advice of another speaker: not to act as supplicants grateful for crumbs, but to maintain the leverage that our coveted natural resources and other advantages give us.

China respects strength and resolve. So should we.

Brian Lee Crowley is managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa: macdonaldlaurier.ca. @MLInstitute

Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Source: http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/crowley-in-the-ottawa-citizen-calgary-herald-vancouver-sun-ceos-only-have-eyes-for-china/

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Kosovo PM: EU-led talks with Serbia must happen

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said Kosovo and Serbia must normalize relations soon to begin integrating with Europe, but he insisted that partition of his country's Serb-dominated northern enclave "will never happen."

Kosovo's flag does not fly at the United Nations, where Thaci met with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and U.S. officials on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly ministerial meeting.

The European Union is trying to broker talks next month between Kosovo and Serbia, which also wants to join the bloc. The EU is expected to push for a resolution on Kosovo's tense north, where the young country has little control over ethnic Serbs who suffered reprisal attacks after the province broke away from Serbia and reject the authority of the ethnic Albanian-dominated government in Pristina.

"Kosovo is determined for dialogue with Serbia, for normalization of relations," Thaci said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. "Kosovo will benefit, Serbia will benefit. It will mean an end to the era of conflicts in the region and a faster process of integration of all countries."

The nation of about 2 million people, predominantly ethnic Albanians of Muslim faith, belongs to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but cannot have its own telephone prefix because it does not belong to the United Nations. The International Olympic Committee rejected its bid to participate in this summer's London Olympics, but FIFA has ruled that its members can play soccer matches against Kosovo.

Over 90 countries have recognized Kosovo's independence, including much of Europe, and the number will soon top 100, Thaci said.

Serbia insists it will never recognize Kosovo, which it views as a national heartland, but the EU wants Belgrade to normalize ties with Pristina as a precondition for EU membership.

Thaci and Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic did not meet at the United Nations, though they both attended a reception for European leaders, where the newly-elected Serbian nationalist left without speaking to his counterpart.

Despite the snub, Thaci said he was eager for negotiations with Serbia.

"We need to start," he said. "The more delays we face, the more difficult this process will become. Therefore both Kosovo and Serbia should fight to catch up, in order to have a faster integration process."

Kosovo will soon find out if it is on the right track toward integration. The EU is slated to release a report Oct. 10 on Kosovo's progress on preparing for a Stabilization and Association Agreement, the first step in the long path to membership.

Earlier this month, in a sign of confidence that Kosovo has matured since its unilateral declaration of independence in 2008, a 25-nation group made up of the U.S., Turkey and EU countries formally ended supervision of the young country, which it had guided since the end of its bloody war with Serbia.

A massive international presence remains, however. About, 5,600 NATO-led peacekeepers are still in charge of security and a 3,000-strong EU mission has the final say in legal matters. Corruption, organized crime, smuggling and high unemployment remain huge problems.

"We have worked very hard, but I am aware that we need to do more," Thaci said. "We are now seen by the world as normal functioning country."

The world, however, has not allowed Kosovo into the United Nations. The Kosovars were on the outside looking in as Vuk Jeremic, the former Serbian foreign minister and new president of the General Assembly, presided over the U.N.'s annual gathering of world leaders.

Kosovo's membership at the U.N. is blocked by an ally of Serbia: Russia, a veto power-wielding member of the Security Council, which must approve any new members.

"After normalization of relations with Serbia the path to the U.N. will be opened," Thaci said.

There has been some progress. Kosovo citizens can now travel to Serbia with their own ID card, but not with Kosovo car plates. Serbia has agreed to accept Kosovo university diplomas, and will participate at regional meetings alongside Kosovo as long as there is an asterisk on Kosovo's name that refers to its international status.

The fate of Kosovo's Orthodox Christian Serbs and the firm grip that Serbia has on northern Kosovo are the main sticking points. Some Serbian officials have said that partition is the best solution, but Thaci said that redrawing any borders would set a dangerous precedent for the Balkans.

He said Serbs in northern Kosovo must integrate into Kosovar society, but that task has been made more difficult because they "have been deceived now for 12 years by Belgrade that there will be partition. That will never happen. Partition implies changing the borders for a minimum six countries."

Another source of division is a 2010 Council of Europe report by Swiss politician Dick Marty that alleges the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, including Thaci, killed Serbian civilian captives during the 1990s and sold their organs. Albania and Kosovo have repeatedly denied the claims.

Earlier this month, a Serbian prosecutor said that a witness came forward and testified "in detail" about the allegations, which the European Union is now investigating.

Thaci dismissed the claims as "science fiction," though he acknowledged "they have harmed my image, and the image of Kosovo."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kosovo-pm-eu-led-talks-serbia-must-happen-044526820.html

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U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000

  • ** FILE ** U.S. military personnel pray during a memorial service for their fallen comrades in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in March 2003. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? U.S. military deaths in the Afghan war have reached 2,000, a cold reminder of the human cost of an 11-year-old conflict that now garners little public interest at home as the United States prepares to withdraw most of its combat forces by the end of 2014.

The toll has climbed steadily in recent months with a spate of attacks by Afghan army and police ? supposed allies ? against American and NATO troops. That situation has raised troubling questions about whether countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan will achieve their aim of helping the government in Kabul and its forces stand on their own after most foreign troops depart in little more than two years.

On Sunday, a U.S. official confirmed the latest death, saying that an international service member killed in an apparent insider attack by Afghan forces in the east of the country late Saturday was American. A civilian contractor with NATO and at least two Afghan soldiers also died in the attack, according to a coalition statement and Afghan provincial officials. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of those killed had not been formally released. Names of the dead are usually released after their families or next of kin are notified, a process that can take several days. The nationality of the civilian also was not disclosed.

In addition to the 2,000 Americans killed since the Afghan war began on Oct. 7, 2001, at least 1,190 more coalition troops from other countries also have died, according to iCasualties.org, an independent organization that tracks the deaths.

According to the Afghanistan index kept by the Washington-based research center Brookings Institution, about 40 percent of the American deaths were caused by improvised explosive devices. The majority of those were after 2009, when President Obama ordered a surge that sent in 33,000 additional troops to combat heightened Taliban activity. The surge brought the total number of American troops to 101,000, the peak for the entire war.

According to Brookings, hostile fire was the second-most-common cause of death, accounting for nearly 31 percent of Americans killed.

Tracking deaths of Afghan civilians is much more difficult. According to the U.N., 13,431 civilians were killed in the Afghan conflict between 2007, when the U.N. began keeping statistics, and the end of August. Going back to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, most estimates put the number of Afghan civilian deaths in the war at more than 20,000.

The number of American dead reflects an Associated Press count of those members of the armed services killed inside Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion began. Some other news organizations use a count that also includes those killed outside Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the global anti-terror campaign led by then-President George W. Bush.

The 2001 invasion targeted al Qaeda and its Taliban allies shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

Victory in Afghanistan seemed to come quickly. Kabul fell within weeks, and the hard-line Taliban regime was toppled with few U.S. casualties.

But the Bush administration?s shift toward war with Iraq left the Western powers without enough resources on the ground, so by 2006 the Taliban had regrouped into a serious military threat.

Mr. Obama deployed more troops to Afghanistan, and casualties increased sharply in the past several years. But the American public grew weary of having its military in a perpetual state of conflict, especially after the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq at the end of last year. That war, which began with a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of nearly 4,500 U.S. troops, more than twice as many as have died in Afghanistan so far.

?The tally is modest by the standards of war historically, but every fatality is a tragedy and 11 years is too long,? said Michael O?Hanlon, a fellow at the Brookings. ?All that is internalized, however, in an American public that has been watching this campaign for a long time. More newsworthy right now are the insider attacks and the sense of hopelessness they convey to many. ?

Attacks by Afghan soldiers or police ? or insurgents disguised in their uniforms ? have killed 52 American and other NATO troops so far this year.

The so-called insider attacks are considered one of the most serious threats to the U.S. exit strategy from the country. In its latest incarnation, that strategy has focused on training Afghan forces to take over security nationwide ? allowing most foreign troops to go home by the end of 2014.

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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/30/us-military-deaths-afghanistan-hit-2000/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

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