WASHINGTON -- An agreement by a major Swiss bank to disclose the identities of thousands of Americans suspected of hiding assets has U.S. tax advisers bracing for a stampede of wealthy tax dodgers looking to come clean.

The U.S. and Switzerland finalized an agreement Wednesday in which the Internal Revenue Service will receive details on 4,450 UBS AG accounts suspected of holding undeclared assets from American customers.

The agreement pierces Switzerland's famed tradition of banking secrecy, and is expected to prod thousands more UBS clients in America to voluntarily disclose their financial details to the IRS, lest they be pursued later.

"What this does is creates an overwhelming incentive for virtually every one of those account holders to come forward," said Peter Zeidenberg, a litigation partner at the law firm DLA Piper in Washington. "If there had been a steady stream, there is now going to be an absolute flood."

The agreement is part of the Obama administration's stepped-up efforts to go after wealthy tax dodgers hiding assets in offshore accounts, an initiative that promises to yield many more prosecutions, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said.

UBS has an estimated 52,000 accounts held by U.S. customers. The IRS chief said the 4,450 accounts being identified were the ones most suspected of containing undeclared assets. Many of the rest are held by people who have complied with the law and paid their taxes, Shulman said.
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The IRS long has had a policy that certain tax evaders who come forward before they are contacted by the agency usually can avoid jail time as long as they agree to pay back taxes, interest and hefty penalties.

In March, the IRS began a six-month amnesty program that sweetened the offer with reduced penalties for people with undeclared assets. Shulman said the response has been unprecedented, though he declined to say how many people have applied.

Tax advisers at several U.S. firms said they already are seeing many more customers with undeclared assets seeking information about their legal options.

It is not illegal for Americans to have overseas accounts, but they must pay U.S. taxes on the money. Also, there are special reporting requirements for accounts of more than $10,000.

Robert McKenzie, a Chicago-based lawyer who represents dozens of American clients of Swiss banks, said some will still try to avoid the taxman.

"Some will say, 'Let's wait and see if I get a letter,'" said McKenzie. However, he said, waiting too long "is really playing a game with the devil."

Shulman said UBS customers are free to take advantage of the disclosure program as long as they come forward before the amnesty program expires Sept. 23 - and before the IRS receives their name from UBS.

"The letter they receive from the bank will not disqualify them from coming forward to the IRS under our voluntary disclosure program," Shulman said. "But once the Swiss government sends us the name, all bets are off."

The Swiss, known worldwide for keeping bank accounts secret, said UBS had no real choice in turning over the names.

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told a news conference in Bern that the deal lifts the threat of criminal prosecution against UBS, which not only would have endangered the bank's existence but would have dealt a severe blow to the Alpine nation's economy.

"There was no alternative to this solution," she said.

The agreement includes several measures favorable to the Swiss - and gives the clients a chance to get right with the IRS.

Instead of releasing the names directly to U.S. authorities, UBS will turn them over to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration. Account holders will then be able to appeal their release to the IRS before Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court.

However, U.S. authorities will be notified of the appeals, giving them access to information about account holders. It is expected to take several months for the first names reach the IRS, and court proceedings could prolong the process.

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Under the menacing threat of violence from the Taliban, Afghans headed to the polls on Thursday in the war-ravaged nation's second-ever national election.n parts of the capital Kabul, where recent calm was shattered by a series of bloody attacks leading up to election day, the streets were eerily empty early in the day, save extra security checkpoints. At midday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force reported "Kabul is calm."

The Taliban has vowed to disrupt the voting, and the risk may have been too high for some Afghans to venture out to vote.

The government ordered a ban on media coverage of incidents of violence in an effort to "ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people."

Thousands of NATO and Afghan soldiers provided security at the polls and more than 30 observer groups -- domestic and international -- were on hand to monitor the voting. But in other parts of Afghanistan that have been largely spared the daily drumbeat of car bombs, assassinations and whizzing rockets, voters lined up to cast their ballots.

Pajhwok, an independent Afghan news agency, reported brisk turnout in western Herat province, which borders Iran. In central Bamiyan province, where predominantly ethnic Hazaras suffered under Taliban rule, thousands of voters cast their ballots behind cardboard screens inside dust-caked tents. Police struggled to hold back and search the crowd and at one point, people pushed through, breaking off one of the gates to the polling center. Video Watch what ranks high among Afghan concerns »

Organizers from Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission said all 412 polling stations across Bamiyan will be open, whereas in neighboring Daikundi province to the south, 11 polling centers were closed because of security concerns. The southern provinces form the heartland of Taliban territory.

A few other polling stations in eastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces that did not open and others, including 100 in Ghor that opened without a security presence, Pajhwok reported.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion and in recent months has staged an increasingly bloody insurgency. Afghanistan observers and experts said a high turnout would help marginalize the radical Islamist group.

"We're at a moment of truth," said Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group, an independent advisory and analysis organization.

Incumbent President Hamid Karzai, dressed in his traditional purple and green striped robe, cast his vote shortly after the polls opened Thursday and had his finger stamped with indelible ink, a measure to thwart fraud.

"It's the second presidential and parliamentary elections in Afghanistan and I'm sure this will be for peace, for progress and for the well-being of the Afghan people," he said afterward. "And I request the Afghan people to come out and vote so that through their vote, Afghanistan can be a more secure, more peaceful and a better country."

Karzai's name appears on the ballot with 40 other candidates for president. His top rival is his former finance minister Abdullah Abdullah, who once served as a confidante of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the charismatic leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance killed by al Qaeda. The other candidate who gathered steam in the campaign is former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, a Western-educated man who served as a World Bank analyst. Who are the candidates? How does the voting work? Read here »

Karzai was named interim leader after the fall of the Taliban regime and won the 2004 election by a significant margin. His popularity, however, has waned in recent months as Afghanistan has been crippled by corruption and increasing bloodshed.

Both Abdullah and Ghani hailed anti-corruption measures and government transparency as centerpieces of their campaign platforms.

More than 3,000 candidates also are on the ballot vying for 420 provincial seats.

Women's votes were seen as crucial. Under Taliban rule, women were denied equal rights and hurtled backward in time. In some areas, however, women voters were greatly outnumbered by men.

Habiba Surobi, the female governor of Bamiyan, said one problem is that women who live in remote areas are still not aware of their rights.

"This is something to be concerned about," she said, adding that it was the responsibility of Afghanistan's women leaders to ensure better awareness and education.

Polls have opened in Afghanistan on Thursday hours after President Hamid Karzai called on Afghans to defy Taliban threats and vote. The poll will test Mr Karzai's own mandate and his nation's fragile democracy. It is also a significant political hurdle for US President Barack Obama, who has ordered a massive troop build-up this year as part of a strategy to reverse Taliban gains.

Streets in the Afghan capital were tense and police were out on round-the-clock shifts as voting began. A convoy of vehicles carrying EU election observers and journalists visiting an Afghan polling station was hit by a roadside bomb. A small improvised explosive device (IED) went off as an armoured car was driving past the governor's compound in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

At around the same time on Thursday, about 7.25am (3.55am British time), a mortar was fired near the British military headquarters in Lashkar Gah.

Sporadic attacks hit other Afghan towns as polls opened for the anxiously awaited presidential election that Taliban fighters have vowed to disrupt, but the United Nations said the turnout was encouraging.

"The vast majority of polling stations have been able to open and have received voting materials," said Aleem Siddique, spokesman for the UN mission in Kabul.

"There have been a number of attacks, particularly in the south and east of the country. But we are seeing queues forming at polling stations in the north, also in the capital, as well as, encouragingly, in the east."

Polls opened hours after Afghan tribal leaders accused Mr Karzai's officials of offering them large cash payments to support his campaign and help rig the vote in today's presidential election.

An official complaint seen by The Daily Telegraph alleges that a named government official gave elders up to $8,000 (£4,800) to organise militiamen to "protect" polling stations during voting and told them they were expected to support Mr Karzai.

According to Western diplomats, Mr Karzai's government has set aside $8 million to pay tribal leaders to patrol polling stations in areas under Taliban control. His opponents claim the money is part of a "slush fund" to buy votes and "steal the election". They have complained that tribal fighters, known as "auxiliary policemen", are being recruited by a relative of Mr Karzai, and their presence at polling stations will lead to intimidation and prevent independent monitoring.

Elders in Paktia and Nangahar in eastern Afghanistan have complained that government officials who came to recruit fighters at $160 (£100) each told them they would be expected to organise the vote for Mr Karzai.

The government has said it has already recruited 10,000 fighters, making the total cost $1.6 million. The alleged $8 million budget would allow more than 57,000 tribal fighters to be recruited.

On Wednesday, Taliban fighters stormed a government-owned bank in the heart of Kabul. Police laid siege to the building and killed three militants during fierce fighting.

At least two people have been killed in a bicycle bombing in Baghdad, a day after a series of bombings left 101 people dead and 500 more wounded in the Iraqi capital.

Police and medical officials said at least 10 people were injured in Thursday's bombing, when an explosive attached to a bicycle went off in a market near the commercial Al-Rasheed street.

The blast followed the deadliest day of bombings in Iraq in more than a year when a string of explosions, including two lorry bombs, detonated near the government and diplomatic Green Zone in central Baghdad on Wednesday.

The relatives of people killed in Wednesday's attacks gathered outside a morgue in Baghdad on Thursday to collect the bodies of their loved ones for burial.

Mourners chanted "There is no God but God" as they carried the coffins out of the morgue, followed by weeping relatives.

Green Zone hit

Witnesses said Wednesday's attacks appeared to target the foreign and finance ministries.

Television footage showed that the force of the explosions had blown out some of the windows of Iraq's parliamentary building.

In depth


Video: Green Zone security in Iraq
Video: Wave of blasts rock Baghdad
Iraq public key to security
Iraq security situation 'tenuous'
Inside Iraq: US exit policy
Gallery: Baghdad attacks

Two mortars also landed inside the heavily protected Green Zone, while a third landed outside.

The area, the site of government ministries and foreign embassies, has frequently been targeted with rocket and mortar fire.

Major-General Qassim Atta, the spokesman for the Iraqi army's Baghdad operations, blamed Wednesday's attack on Baathist supporters, a reference to the political party of Saddam Hussein, the executed former president.

Iraqi authorities have said they are investigating, and Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has ordered a widespread review of security forces in Baghdad.

Authorities have also detained 10 army and police commanders who were responsible for overseeing security, traffic and intelligence services in the attacked areas.

The attacks came six years to the day after a lorry bomb exploded outside the UN offices at the Canal Hotel killing 22 people.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Saad Muttalibi, an adviser to Iraq's ministry of national dialogue and reconciliation, said: "This is the continuation of the evil plans of people who cannot see a stable, free Iraq and people with the intention of keeping American forces in Iraq after the agreement that was signed for the Americans to leave.

"I think that this escalation of violence in Iraq is totally unacceptable as it is affecting the ordinary citizens."

'Sectarian loyalties'

Larry Korb, a former US assistant secretary of defence who has advised US President Barack Obama on policy matters related to Iraq, said the attacks suggest that the country's security forces are still not wholly loyal to the central government.

"They [the Iraqi security forces] are still riven by partisan and sectarian loyalties. There are 600,000 [security personnel] - they should be able to provide the security that we had 150,000 Americans to do," he told Al Jazeera.

"It is really a question of whether [Iraqi leaders] have divided the power equitably and whether they have shared the economic resources in a way that people will not want to do [such attacks] in order to upset an order that they think excludes them."

Despite a reduction in violence in recent months, attacks on security forces and civilians remain common in Baghdad and the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.

The number of violent deaths fell by a third last month to 275 from 437 in June, following the pullout of US combat forces from urban areas at the end of the month.

WASHINGTON -- Publicly, President Barack Obama is still calling for a bipartisan bill to overhaul the nation's health care system. Privately, Democrats are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable.

Obama urged religious leaders Wednesday to back his proposals, and he prepared for a pep talk to a much larger audience of liberal activists, whose enthusiasm is in question. Polls continued to show slippage in support for the president's approach, although Americans expressed even less confidence in Republicans' handling of health care.

The administration said it still hopes for a bipartisan breakthrough on its goals of expanding health coverage, controlling costs and increasing competition among insurers. In private, however, top Democrats said a bipartisan accord seems less likely than ever when Congress reconvenes next month.

Obama was to promote his plans Thursday in a conference call and online address to supporters that could draw huge numbers of listeners. He also was to speak with Philadelphia-based radio talk show host Michael Smerconish, who will broadcast from the White House. Smerconish is generally seen as a conservative, although he endorsed Obama last year and supports abortion rights.

Vice President Joe Biden was meeting with health care professionals in Chicago on Thursday to push the administration's proposals. He also planned to announce nearly $1.2 billion in grants to help hospitals transition to electronic medical records. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was to join him.

Some Democrats said Democratic researchers have concluded lately that a strong-arm tactic on Senate health care legislation that would negate the need for any GOP votes might be more effective than previously thought.

The strategy, called "reconciliation," allows senators to get around a bill-killing filibuster without mustering the 60 votes usually needed. Democrats control 60 of the Senate's 100 seats, but some moderate Senate Democrats have expressed reservations about the Democratic-backed health care overhaul plan.

And two of their members - Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts - are seriously ill and often absent. Kennedy sent a letter Tuesday to Massachusetts leaders asking that they change state law to allow someone to be quickly appointed to his seat in Congress "should a vacancy occur."

While always contentious, reconciliation lets the Senate pass some measures with a simple majority vote. Non-budget-related items can be challenged, however, and some lawmakers say reconciliation would knock so many provisions from Obama's health care plan that the result would be "Swiss cheese."

Democratic aides say they increasingly believe those warnings are overblown.

On Wednesday, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned Republicans that reconciliation is a real option. The White House and Senate Democratic leaders still prefer a bipartisan bill, he said, but "patience is not unlimited and we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary."

In a conference call with liberal religious leaders Wednesday, Obama called health coverage for Americans a "core ethical and moral obligation." He disputed claims that Democratic bills would create government "death panels" for the elderly, offer health care for illegal immigrants or fund abortions.

As survivors of Typhoon Morakot berated Taiwan's president on Wednesday, two more senior lawmakers in Taipei offered to resign over the government's slow response to the storm.

The storm claimed at least 400 lives after it hit 12 days ago, causing more than $2 billion in property damage, and triggering landslides and widespread flooding that trapped thousands of people in remote mountain villages for days.

Angry relatives and friends of the more than 200 people who died in a massive mudslide in Shaio Lin confronted President Ma Ying-jeou when he visited the southern village for the first time Wednesday.

An unidentified woman screamed repeatedly in Ma's face, saying a government construction project had contributed to the disaster by weakening the foundations of several surrounding mountains.

Another Shiao Lin resident recalled comments Ma made on British television in which he appeared to blame the victims for their own fate, saying they did not flee storm-affected areas quickly enough.

Ma remained largely silent, but acknowledged "that the government could have done better in disaster prevention." He promised government aid to families of the victims, consoled grieving relatives and offered prayers for the dead.

Earlier Wednesday, Defence Minister Chen Chao-min and Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan submitted their resignations.

On Monday, Vice Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia offered his resignation because his ministry rejected material assistance and rescue teams from foreign countries in the first days after Morakot hit.

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said the resignations would be considered within the framework of an overall cabinet shuffle next month.

Nothing except the knots of grieving relatives mourning their dead, the red-clad rescue workers searching the ground for human remains and the tons of mud and rubble where once the village lay.

Shiao Lin was obliterated last weekend when rains spawned by Typhoon Morakot loosened the foundations of two nearby mountains and sent their facades tumbling down onto its 200 or so homes.

On Saturday morning, friends and relatives of the victims gathered at the site of the village, burning incense, carrying photos of their loved ones and weeping inconsolably under a gray and ominous sky.

Walking unsteadily near the remains of the Tai Tz Temple - one of only two buildings still standing - Liu Jin Fung shook his head repeatedly. He said the storm had changed his life beyond all recognition.

'My parents, my brothers, my uncles, altogether 40 of my family members were killed,' he said. 'How can I plan for the future? Everything is gone from my world.' Taiwanese President Ma Ying Jeou said on Friday that 380 of the southern village's about 600 residents died in the deluge.

He put the overall Morakot death toll at about 500, making it the island's deadliest weather disaster since 1959 when more than 600 perished, also in a typhoon. On Saturday, the president apologised amid mounting criticism that the government was too slow to provide rescue and relief services after the disaster.

Morakot dumped more than 2m of rain on Taiwan and stranded thousands in villages in the mountainous south. A total of 21,199 villagers have been ferried to safety and rescuers were working to save another 4,224 people.

The storm left 7,000 homeless and caused more than 50 billion New Taiwan dollars (S$2.16 billion) of agricultural and property damage, according to government estimates.

Shiao Lin is located in a narrow valley formed by the Nan Tz Hsien River, which burst its banks when torrential rains began falling before last weekend. Underfoot the soil is still sponge-like and mushy, and the sound from the dozens of rain-fed streams flowing over the ground - gently now, finally gently - is strangely soft.

Shiao Lin's two remaining structures stand broken and fractured amid a pair of tall palm trees - a dun coloured house that survived the disaster because it was located on relatively high ground, and the adjacent Tai Dz Taoist temple, its walls falling apart.

On either side of the valley, the mountains that buried the village were visible through a thin mist, the northern peak's once verdant face stripped clean away, and 260m of its original mass lying below on the ground. -- AP

The longtime dissident, who survived three assassination attempts and spent years in prison, was 85. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for engaging North Korea.Kim Dae-jung, a former dissident who survived three assassination attempts, one death sentence and six years in prison to become South Korea's president and its first Nobel laureate, died today in Seoul after a long bout of pneumonia.

He was 85.

South Korea's president from 1998 to 2003, Kim is best known for the moment on June 13, 2000, when he stepped onto the tarmac at Pyongyang's airport with arms outstretched to embrace North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

That landmark meeting, which was supposed to end 50 years of enmity between the Koreas, won Kim the Nobel Peace Prize. But Kim lived just long enough to see his "sunshine policy" unraveling as a result of North Korea's continued nuclear ambitions and the installation last year of a conservative president in South Korea.

The meeting in Pyongyang was only one of many dramatic moments in a most eventful life.

There was the time in 1973 that Kim found himself on a boat -- blindfolded and manacled, his limbs encased in concrete -- about to be tossed overboard by assassins presumably working for South Korea's military dictatorship. And then there was his return from exile in the United States in 1985, when he arrived at Seoul's airport flanked by U.S. congressmen, only to be immediately seized and placed under house arrest.

After four decades as the country's most famous dissident, Kim (often known by his nickname D.J. to distinguish him from other Kims in public life) became its president in 1998. By daring to meet with Kim Jong Il, he established what many think is an irreversible course of rapprochement between the estranged Koreas. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his "sunshine policy" of engaging North Korea and his lifelong struggle for democratization.

But his final years were spent in frustration. He was disappointed by Kim Jong Il's failure to reciprocate for the Pyongyang summit with a visit to Seoul, as well as by the George W. Bush administration's skeptical attitude toward his efforts.

Just five months after winning the Nobel Prize, Kim was humiliated during a White House visit when newly inaugurated President Bush was publicly dismissive of the idea that one could negotiate with the North Koreans.

"Although I understand fully why the North Korean leadership is not very likable, it is in the interests of global peace to pursue the policy of dialogue," Kim later recalled, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, telling Bush.

Kim also had to spend his later years fending off a series of political scandals. His youngest son was arrested on charges of taking bribes from a lobbyist. The revelation that Kim's aides had secretly ordered the transfer of $500 million to North Korea shortly before the meeting with Kim Jong Il led to charges that he had bought the summit and hence the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2005, investigators made the ironic discovery that this icon of democracy and human rights had allowed illegal wiretapping during his presidency at a pace unmatched even by South Korea's former military dictators.

Like former dissidents who became president -- Lech Walesa of Poland or Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic -- Kim's image abroad was always better than at home. He was often likened to a prophet scorned in his own land.

"The Koreans forgot that he was a champion of democracy and saw him just as another political boss. He was always more highly rated overseas than domestically," said Michael Breen, a Seoul-based biographer of Kim Jong Il who has been researching a biography of Kim Dae-jung as well.

In his later years, with his hair dyed the artificial dark black of many aging Asian politicians and his skin powdered white, Kim appeared as a distant and forbidding figure. He gave only occasional interviews, pleading for continued dialogue with North Korea.

Kim was succeeded as South Korea's president by Roh Moo-hyun, a similarly left-leaning politician who tried to continue the rapprochement with Pyongyang. But 2007 elections brought conservatives back in power.

A much-heralded resort run by South Korea's Hyundai Asan group near North Korea's Mt. Kumgang closed last year, and many businesses pulled out of an industrial park in Kaesong, north of the DMZ. North Korea's two nuclear tests, one in 2006 and a more recent one in May, have been viewed by many in South Korea as proof that Kim's policies of conciliation were a failure.

Hahm Sung-deuk, a presidential scholar at Korea University in Seoul, predicts that South Koreans will come to appreciate Kim more, especially when his presidency is stacked up next to the disappointing terms of his successors.

"His legacy will grow with time. Even if he made some mistakes, people appreciate his contributions to democracy and his handling of the economy," Hahm said today.

Kim was born on tiny Haui island off the southwestern coast of South Korea, in Cholla province, renowned for the anti-authoritarian streak of its people. He has said that his date of birth was Jan. 6, 1924, although various later dates are often cited in official records -- discrepancies that his opponents used against him later to claim he was dishonest. (The most likely explanation for the confusion over his birth date was that his family was trying to keep him out of the draft during the 1910-1945 occupation period.)

WASHINGTON - A collection of little-known insurance cooperatives around the country is winning attention as being key to a possible health reform compromise in Washington, but while some of their practices have cut costs and serve as models for change, big questions remain about their ability to transform American health care.
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Specialists, including advocates for cooperatives, said in interviews that their patient-controlled structure and nonprofit status are not what will ultimately prove most useful. Rather, it is the way they pay doctors and care for patients that holds the most potential for savings.

The possibility of cooperatives taking a central role in the health care overhaul being written by Congress gained strength over the weekend, when the Obama administration signaled its willingness to compromise and drop a public health plan from the equation. Instead, under a plan favored by some moderate Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, cooperatives would be formed to compete with big insurance companies and hold down costs.

There are only a few large health cooperatives in the country. They typically combine a health insurance plan with networks of doctors and hospitals. Unlike most private insurance plans or HMOs, they are mutual plans, owned and overseen by patients through a board of trustees. They maintain slim margins, using leftover funds to expand treatment or lower premiums.

Dr. Barbara Detering, a family physician at Seattle’s Group Health insurance cooperative, perhaps the best-known cooperative in the country with 580,000 patients, said her organization’s governing structure is only one part of its success. A major reason for its achievements is that Group Health’s doctors rely on a holistic, more conservative approach to medicine, she said.

They work closely with patients to explore alternatives before rushing into costly tests and surgery.

“It is not as much about an insurance co-op as it is about the integrated nature of the care and the strong emphasis on primary care,’’ said Detering.

Another key feature: Detering and other Group Health doctors are paid salaries instead of getting compensated for every service or procedure they provide. That eliminates the financial incentive - common throughout US health care - to provide lots of expensive care.

“My incentives are to try to meet the [patient’s] medical needs in the most efficient way possible, because I’m not going to make more or less money depending on how many tests I order, or how many procedures I do,’’ Detering said.

When Detering meets with patients, she will discuss options before ordering expensive tests or surgeries, but she stressed that such procedures are approved when necessary and done at a rate comparable to other organizations. For example, she said she might suggest that a person with a sprained knee wait before having an MRI, and she might discuss options other than surgery for certain conditions.Continued...

“I really never say no - it is more ‘Let’s talk about this,’ ’’ she said, adding, “If you are a gung ho orthopedic surgeon and want to make $2 million, this is not the place for you.’’

That integrated approach, combined with a heavy use of electronic records and follow-up communication, has led to big savings, according to Group Health’s executives.

Group Health has been a key factor in helping Washington state maintain some of nation’s lowest insurance rates. Massachusetts insurance rates are among the nation’s highest.

While Group Health is widely viewed as a success, it is not clear whether other co-ops could emulate it. There are only a handful of health co-ops across the country, with a number having gone out of business over the years, making them only a tiny player in a field dominated by huge insurance companies.

Even advocates said it would be difficult for new co-ops to be established and acquire the necessary 500,000 or so members to create financial leverage. As a result, proponents in Congress have suggested providing billions of dollars of government support to start up new co-ops, a process that could take years.

While Massachusetts does not have a similar co-op, almost all of its hospitals are nonprofit. It has a variety of integrated care systems, and one-fifth of the state’s physicians are salaried, according to Dr. Mario Motto, the president of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

A state commission has suggested that health insurance organizations move in the direction of integrated care, similar to that practiced by Group Health.

Motto said he agrees with Group Health’s approach to integrated care and said that the emphasis on the co-op structure is a distraction. In any case, he doubted whether there would be enough people to join co-ops in order to create groups large enough to put pressure on insurance companies.

“If you have a tightly controlled system where effective care is given, that is where cost savings will be,’’ Motto said. “It is not so much that the co-ops are panaceas. You’ve got to attack the underlying problems.’’

Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor of economics who specializes in health issues and helped Massachusetts write its landmark health overhaul in 2006, said there is no evidence that it matters whether there is a public option or co-op plan. The real question is whether government uses its regulatory power to mandate lower rates and whether there are changes in how care is administered, he said.

“Both sides have latched onto this theoretical symbolic power as opposed to real relevance,’’ Gruber said of the debate about the public option versus the co-op plans. “It would be an enormous crime if health care didn’t happen because of a fight over a public option.’’

That fight, however, appears to be continuing.

Obama said on Saturday the public option was only a “sliver’’ of his health care proposal, feeding the perception that he is backing off his prior commitment that such a plan must be part of the package. Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who is playing a key role in health care legislation, said on Sunday the public option is dead and that Obama instead should embrace a proposal for health co-ops.

Conrad has cited the Group Health co-op in Seattle as a model. He said his proposal could gain bipartisan support because, unlike the public option plan, co-ops would not be government-run.

But many liberal Democrats are skeptical of the co-op model, questioning whether they would have enough leverage to compete against private insurance companies.

The office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs one of the committees writing health legislation, said in a statement to the Globe that he still backs the public option plan, calling it “an important tool for reducing health costs and keeping insurance companies honest.’’ Yesterday, the White House said Obama still prefers the public option.

Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

President Barack Obama's administration has signalled that its healthcare reforms may be diluted, amid pressure from opponents.

Mr Obama has been pressing for a government-run scheme to extend healthcare insurance to some 46 million people in the US.

But Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that this had never been Mr Obama's top priority.

She hinted that he may accept the idea of non-profit insurance co-operatives.

In an interview with CNN, Ms Sebelius said that Mr Obama's government-run insurance plan - a so-called "public option" - was "not the essential element" of the administration reforms.

"I think what's important is choice and competition. And I'm convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those," she said.

Separately, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also refused to say that the "public option" was a make-or-break choice.

Mr Gibbs said Mr Obama's administration would consider an alternative proposal of consumer-owned, non-profit co-operatives that would sell insurance in competition with private industry.

The proposal is currently being fine-tuned in the Senate Finance Committee.

The comments of Mr Obama's senior officials come in contrast to the president's remarks at a "town-hall" speech in Colorado on Saturday that his faith in a public option was strong.

If the administration makes this concession it would probably enrage many of its liberal supporters, correspondents say.

But they say it could also deliver the president a much-needed win on his top domestic priority for 2009.

There has been some progress in the House of Representatives on agreeing a deal on the issue but negotiations in the Senate have stalled.

Both chambers need to agree on a bill before it can become law.

US MEDIA REACTION

Without a robust public option, what the Obama administration and compromised Democrats in the House and Senate are talking about is not "healthcare reform." It's "healthcare deform" that does not begin to address the crisis created by insurance industry profiteering - and that could well make the "cure" worse than the disease.

The Nation magazine's John Nichols sums up the liberal left's anger at the prospect of losing the public option.

Obviously, I disagree as a matter of both policy and negotiating strategy. But, the public option isn't the main part of the bill, and it's not the hill that health coverage reform should die on.

"Publius", blogging at Obsidian Wings, advises the left to choose its battles carefully, for fear of losing the entire healthcare reform bill.

My understanding is that the White House's position has always been that it favours a public option, thinks a public option is a good idea, wants to see a public option in a bill, and also wants to sign a health reform bill that passes congress, covers the uninsured, and reduces long-run health cost inflation relative to current baseline projections. I haven't heard anything new from the White House. They never said the president would refuse to sign a bill that doesn't include a public option, and they're not saying now that they don't favour a public option.

The Centre for American Progress's Matthew Yglesias argues that the administration has not actually changed its position.

The question has never been whether the White House supports the public option. It's whether Congress - and, in particular, the Senate - has the votes to pass it. Sebelius's statement this week does not change the administration's position. But it is being widely reported because it comes in context of the sagging popularity of health-care reform, and the changing conventional wisdom on the legislative politics. Namely, many think it increasingly likely that the White House will have to compromise on the public option because it will not be able to find sufficient votes in the Senate and is growing more desperate for a deal. That may or may not be true, but that's the actual story here.

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein agrees that this is nothing new, and explains why it is being reported as something new.

The White House - and Democrats - messed this up. Maybe it was inevitable. Somehow... the idea of the public plan became the sine qua non of meaningful reform for a very vocal portion of the Democratic intellectual elite. House Democrats embraced the idea. If you equate health care reform with a public option, then, well, health care reform is dead to you. There are a lot of angry liberals tonight. They are within their rights to feel aggrieved.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder thinks the administration has played its hand badly.

The Obama administration is signaling that the "public option" may not be needed in the healthcare plan. They are retreating to "co-ops". Friends, a cooperative healthcare device is the public option just with a better poll tested name... Do not believe that the public option is going away. Do not believe that the Democrats are going to give up on universal healthcare. They are not. They are going to change the language and keep the same goal and plan. It may take them longer, but they will continue pushing forward.

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson, of Red State, starts mobilising against the Democrats' proposed alternative to the public option.

Robert D. Novak, 78, an influential columnist and panelist on TV news-discussion shows who called himself a "stirrer up of strife" on behalf of conservative causes, died today at his home in Washington of a brain tumor first diagnosed in July 2008.

Steve Huntley, retired columnist, former editorial page editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and editor for Novak's syndicated column, was online Tuesday, Aug. 18, at 3:15 p.m. ET to discuss the reporter/journalist's life and work.

____________________

Steve Huntley: Hi,

I'm Steve Huntley, a columnist and former editorial page editor and assistant managing editor for the Chicago Sun-Times. I worked with Bob Novak for 18 years. As editorial page editor, I was the Sun-Times editor for his syndicated column. As editorial page editor and assistant managing editor, I would call on Bob to do extra columns for the Sun-Times, which he unfailingly did. His only question was: What's the deadline? He always got his work in before that deadline -- something sure to warm the heart of an editor. Bob was one of the best journalists I ever knew and I look forward to answering your questions about him.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Did you edit the Valerie Plame article and if so, can you talk about that whole story?

Steve Huntley: I was one of the editors. I subsequently became one of Bob's defenders in media interviews. Before publication, Bob was never told that using her name would put anyone in any danger. Every word he wrote was subsequently shown to be true. This is a long and complicated story. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions about it.

_______________________

Fairfax, Va.: He called himself a "stirrer up of strife." You agree with that?

Steve Huntley: Absolutely. It's now mostly forgotten that Bob was a dissenter from President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. That got him labeled an "unpatriotic conservative" in a cover story in National Review.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: What made Novak such a sleuth? Did he do his own research or did he have anyone helping him uncover Washington stories?

Steve Huntley: Bob was first and foremost a reporter. He had assistants and for years he co-wrote the column with Roland Evans. But Bob made calls, develop and kept up contacts. It was that reporting that he brought to his work that separated his columns from the typical opinion writers.

_______________________

washingtonpost.com: Steve Huntley had to leave for a quick TV interview with a station in Chicago about Bob Novak. He will be back to resume the chat shortly. Please stay with us. D.C.: For his autobiography, Novak revealed that Tom Eagleton was the source of the "amnesty, abortion, and acid" quote after Eagleton had died. What are your thoughts on what obligation you owe to sources and does that obligation end when they die, even if they didn't give permission to reveal their identities?

Steve Huntley: That's a tough call. That quote was very controversial and there's obviously a justification for doing it on the grounds of history should know the source.

_______________________

Boston, Mass.: What was his greatest professional regret?

Steve Huntley: He never expressed one to me. The only regret he had about the Plame column was calling her an operative. That was a term he used for political hacks but in this case it offered ammunition for the wrong suggestion that he knew she was some kind of agent, which she wasn't at the time.

_______________________

Boston, Mass.: Has the National Review revisited calling Novak an unpatriotic conservative for his opposition to the Iraq war?

Steve Huntley: Not to my knowledge. But I think Bob once said Bill Buckley regretted it.

_______________________

Annapolis, Md.: Did he refer to himself as "The Prince of Darkness" and was he known as that or was it just the name of the book/memoir? Was there someone who gave him that moniker?

Steve Huntley: A writer friend bestowed that name on Bob, not because of his hard conservative views, but because of his pessimistic demeanor

_______________________

Annandale, Va.: The Washington Post said in their story that Mr. Novak "lamented that the Plame story would 'forever be part of my public identity' despite having written columns he said were more important." What do you think some of those other columns might be?

Steve Huntley: His column dissenting from the Bush decision to go to war in Iraq. A column he wrote in the early 1970s about an interview with Chinese leaders that has been credited by some with laying the ground work for Nixon's historic reopening of relations with China.

_______________________

Columbia, Md.: I'm sorry...if someone reveals the name of a covert agent, I have no sympathy for them, regardless of whether or not the agent's life is in danger. I hold Robert Novak in much higher contempt for this than Scooter Libby. Novak could have refused to reveal this information. I think he should have lost his employment immediately for this offense.

Steve Huntley: No factual evidence supports any allegation that she was a covert agent at the time or that the CIA ever warned Bob that using her name would endanger anyone.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Was he out on a mission to expose official Washington all the time? He knew the inner workings of the nation's capital and it seemed he relished going after the bad guys. Would you agree?

Steve Huntley: Bob's great strength as a Washington journalist was reporting the story behind the story. He relished revealing information that would help readers understand how Washington works and how important decisions made. And he never hesitated to take on the powerful and, yes, he liked going after the bad guys.

_______________________

Chantilly, Va.: I read that Novak converted from Judaism to Catholicism because of "spiritual hunger." What prompted that?

Steve Huntley: I never had a conversation with Bob about his religious experience. I would suggest you read his memoir, The Prince of Darkness, for his feelings about that.

_______________________

D.C.: I am young, so I do not know much of Novak's contributions to the earlier years of political journalism. However, his later years seemed to be marked by insider gossip (Plame), artificial discord (Crossfire), and generally increasing the volume and decreasing the level of political discourse.

He clearly had quite a hand in creating modern political journalism. Is that something to be celebrated?

Steve Huntley: I think the shows Bob did -- Capitol Gang and Crossfire -- offered up lively and, yes sometimes fierce, debate on important issue between people who had completely opposite views. A Democratic republic profits from lively, even noisy debate. That some who followed Bob didn't do the kind of job he did reflects on them, not on Bob's pioneering work.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: He sounded like a feisty devil and said he'd do it all again re the Plame incident. Did he have the respect of fellow print journalists? Did he lose his TV job at CNN because of the column?

Steve Huntley: Most journalists respected Bob. Journalists who are more propagandists for one cause or another didn't like him because he called the shots as he saw them. Some liberals attacked him for the Plame case, some conservatives attacked him for opposing the war in Iraq. Bob did what a journalist is supposed to do and all legitimate journalists understand that.

_______________________

New York: Steve, why did Novak reveal Valerie Plame's name after being explicitly asked not to by the CIA? Did he not agree with their reasons? Thanks.

Steve Huntley: It's not unusual for a journalist to be asked not to publish a name or not to write a story. The CIA never said that publishing Palme's name would endanger anyone. If journalists don't write stories because someone powerful asks them not to, our country and democracy will suffer.

_______________________

Queenstown, Md.: What was the source of the intense dislike Mr. Novak had for John McLaughlin, a dislike that was reciprocated?

Steve Huntley: I don't know.

_______________________

Fairfax, Va.: Steve, you seem to be coming on to be the Novak apologist, which as a peer -- I am sure you respected him. The Plame deal was wrong, regardless of whether what he wrote was right or not. Anyway, what do you make of the fact that about 90 percent of the comments posted to the story of Bob's passing are basically negative? Why do you think that is? Aside from the obvious -- Bob had views that most people found (fill in the blank).

Steve Huntley: A lot of people think the New York Times was wrong for revealing the Bush surveillance policies. Sometimes being a journalist means writing stories other people think are wrong.

_______________________

Sun Prairie, Wisc.: I remember Robert Novak as a pioneer, if that is the word, of televised quickie punditry on The McLaughlin Group. He didn't seem to care for it much -- there was a rote, mechanical quality to the arguments he made about issues that did not involve cutting taxes, lowering interest rates or sticking it to the Soviets -- but he made that show and most of the others he was on. Very often, he was the only person with anything to say.

How much of his involvement with this kind of television was due to the fact that he needed the money?

Steve Huntley: I don't know about Bob's finances. I suspect he was doing pretty well with his syndicated column and a subscription newsletter he published. I think he was looking to expand the outlets for his journalism and, as you point out, he became a pioneer in the combative cable television panel shows. I think Capitol Gang was one of the best and the CNN decision to cancel it was one of the worst decisions that network ever made.

_______________________

Dallas, Tex.: Was he happy? On TV, he always cut such an unpleasant figure. In writing, he always seemed angry and critical. From his nickname 'Prince of Darkness' to the not-so- whispered rumors of public rudeness with his wife, he seemed like a professional grinch. Was he?

Steve Huntley: Personally, he was a pleasant, engaging man. I always found him to be generous in dealings with other people. He loved his wife and family.

_______________________

Anonymous: Mr. Huntley, why didn't Novak investigate Valerie Plame before outing her?

Steve Huntley: He did, calling the CIA about her. He even found her name in Who's Who.

_______________________

Silver Spring, Md.: Depending on the outlet, Mr. Novak is being described as a columnist or conservative columnist. Would he have had a preference?

Steve Huntley: I think he would have most liked being called a columnist who didn't just give opinions but who did shoe-leather-type reporting to inform his columns.

_______________________

Dallas, Tex. : "...reporting the story behind the story." yet "Bob was never told that using her name would put anyone in any danger." How does that speak to investigative work? Isn't it possible that Novak was simply doing Bush/Cheney's bidding? There was too much Bush/Cheney spin/lies/propaganda for most folks to accept unquestionably.

Steve Huntley: If Bob had been doing Bush/Cheney's bidding, he would have wrote columns backing the decision to invade Iraq. Instead, he dissented from that, earning him the allegation of an "unpatriotic conservative" in National Review.

_______________________

Steve Huntley: I see our time is up. Thanks for the questions. I enjoyed conversing about Bob. For those of you who want to get a fuller picture of the man and the journalist, I'd recommend his memoir "The Prince of Darkness: 50 years reporting in Washington."

_______________________

Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.

Nget Louns rickety old thatched house is typical of Cambodias impoverished countryside, but it holds a surprise inside: a state of the art, environment-friendly gas stove.

Off the grid as far as most utilities are concerned, her household and 29 others in the village of Tamoung get a steady supply of clean energy from human and animal waste, using a device that not only makes cooking less of a chore, but also keeps their gardens flourishing and helps save the forests.

At the centre of the experiment is a device called a biological gas digester or biodigester which converts a by-product of manure into cooking gas. The technology has taken hold in other countries as a way to generate gas or electricity, and now an independent development group is hoping to spread it to Cambodias poor rural people.

Brendan Boucher, the Australian co-ordinator for the non-profit Cambodian Rural Development Team, which is financed by donations from abroad, introduced the project last year in Tamoung, a village in Takeo province 70km south of the capital Phnom Penh.

Boucher says biogas stoves can help improve food security for villagers and reduce the pressures on Cambodias fast-disappearing forests, which are relied on for firewood.

Som Chhear, 57, says he used to trek 10km from home to find firewood to store for use during the rainy season. When his supply ran low, he had to spend 10,000 riel a month on buying firewood or charcoal from a nearby market.

Now, his biodigester not only provides him with free cooking gas, but also with nutrient-rich effluent organic fertiliser that keeps my vegetable garden green for all seasons. “Sometimes, we even use the power from the generator to operate our karaoke machine and sing for fun,” he says.Nget Loun, 25, says the biogas stove makes cooking an easier chore. The cooking pots and my hands are no longer dirtied with black smoke from burning wood, she says. And it has absolutely no smell, she adds while opening the gas valve and firing up the stove with a lighter.

Boucher notes an additional benefit: the introduction of toilets, a hygienic convenience absent from most rural Cambodian homes. Human and animal waste is flushed through the toilet into a plastic digester tube 10m long and 1.5m in diameter that sits in a ditch under a thatched roof. At the far end, a knee-deep trench collects liquid residue for use as fertiliser.

A PVC pipe attached to the tubes midsection channels methane gas emitted by the manure mix into a plastic storage bag in the house, from which it is fed into the stove. Each unit cost about 400,000 riel (RM380) to set up.

Boucher says biogas units are part of an integrated development package of water wells, fish ponds, vegetable gardens and training in farming methods, all meant to bolster food security. About half of Cambodias 13 million people live on less than 4,000 riel (RM3.8) a day, so many families are at the mercy of nature for their sustenance. The entire package for Tamoung village cost 540,440,000 riel (RM513,418), which was paid by the Australian government.

Twenty-five biodigesters were installed, serving 30 of the villages 130 families. Ownership of at least three cows was a prerequisite making 100 families eligible and a random drawing selected those who got the systems.

Previous efforts to promote biogas technology in Cambodia more than a decade ago met with limited success. About 500 biogas units were installed but most were abandoned by users within one or two years, says San Thy, a researcher at the Centre for Livestock and Agriculture Development, another non-profit group.

One reason was that peasants failed to keep a suitable number of livestock. Sometimes, needing money, they just sold their entire stock. Without supplies of manure, the digesters simply dont work,San Thy says.

Boucher says that providing villages with integrated systems that include components for sustainable development such as fish ponds and vegetable gardens can generate income to pay for maintenance of the biodigesters.

We dont profess what we do will alleviate poverty throughout Cambodia, but it certainly goes a huge way in improving food security, increasing incomes and the livelihoods of people, he says.

Cambodian villager Nget Loun stands in front of her gas stove in her house in Tamoung village, Takeo province, south of Phnom Penh.
It has been a boon for Chent Dejorith’s family, which raises pigs. He says his brother-in-law figured out how to use the methane gas to power a small generator, which pumps water from their well to sell to other villagers. His family has been using the new technology to generate power for four months.

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Viewers watching the final, tense moments of the Premiership relegation battle last May will have noticed that Phil Brown, manager of struggling Hull City, was sporting a freshly cultivated goatee beard. This facial tonsure was, he claimed, not a Borg-esque good-luck charm, but an accessory for the motorcycle holiday he was about to start. Phil was about to go on a buddy holiday – heading for the south of France astride a meaty 1000cc machine with a group of like-minded, like-bearded friends.

The jeweller Stephen Webster, a married man with two children, has a thing for a “buddy holiday”, too. In the past couple of years he has taken two driving trips across America with fellow jeweller Jeff Ferro: one coast-to-coast via the Blue Ridge Mountains; the other on the wilderness route from Boulder, Colorado, to Canada, taking in Yellowstone and Idaho. Their vehicle? A boat-sized 1959 Thunderbird.

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These two trips have been among well-travelled Webster’s greatest-ever adventures, galvanising his friendship with Ferro – and that is the very point of a buddy holiday. Keeping in touch with friends gets harder as you get older. Hence trying to organise a quality-time holiday with friends can be a nightmare.

But the benefits are obvious and are, no doubt, the reason GMTV’s Penny Smith has chosen to go white-water rafting in Colorado with a pal, rather than sit on a sunlounger in the Algarve this year. At a certain point in life, people who do the daily school run, have working lives dominated by PowerPoint presentations and who drink double espressos to get through the day need to get away for a bit.

It could be to a countryhouse rental nowhere more exotic than West Sussex, a self-piloted barge on the Kennet and Avon Canal, hiking in Snowdonia, or horse riding in southern Spain – the actual destination really isn’t as important as the idea of going off with a bunch of friends to reacquaint with each other, talk nonsense and have a laugh before retiring to a blamelessly unmade bed.

“The real appeal is getting away and spending time with people you don’t see very often,” says Lucy Buckley, a marketeer from London. “We’ve been to a house we found in Devon several times – this year there were 16 of us. It’s a beautiful place, near a lovely beach with cliff-top walks and an organic farm nearby where we buy food for the weekend. It’s cheap in winter, too – about £40 per person.”

Despite the location’s charm, getting that many people in the same place at the same time is not without its challenges, Buckley says.

“Someone has to pay for it upfront, and sorting out food can be tricky. But it works, because the person in charge takes the initiative and people are a lot more relaxed when they’re a bit older.

"There’s a bit of a race down the M5 on Friday night to get the best rooms – it’s first come, first served,” Buckley adds. “But it’s all fairly jovial. After all, you don’t go away for the weekend to spend time in your bedroom, it’s about doing stuff together.”

Going away with old friends is merely an excuse to unload, kick back and switch off for a while. The buddy holiday is, essentially, a holiday free from responsibility. When you are young, single and carefree this sort of thing is easy to arrange. As you get older it becomes increasingly problematic – there are the complications of a busy social calendar, work commitments and other buddy holidaymakers to chivvy along.

Do it right, however, and much of the fun is in the organisation: choosing the destination and accommodation, and making sure that someone brings the Trivial Pursuit.

“We have a real mix of clients from all over the country: extended family, groups of friends,” says Charles Millward, CEO of Rural Retreats, which rents out large cottages across the UK. “A lot of people book months ahead. Some come for a holiday to catch up with friends, some for a special occasion, but they all like to treat the property as their own.”

Tom Barber started off his business – Original Travel, a bespoke, adventure-centric outfit – by organising cricket tours for groups. He thinks that pre-planning is the key element in getting a buddy holiday off the ground. He does warn, however, that volunteering as amateur tour operator (or “point man” as he terms it) may also have the odd and annoying effect of infantilising the rest of the group.

Once you show that you are the one who is organised and in charge – pinging out group emails, drawing up an itinerary and holding a clipboard – other members of the group may start acting like needy children.

Barber’s sage advice for any budding buddy-holidaymakers hoping to organise something similar, is to commit only to doing all the necessary work right up until everybody has arrived safely at the destination.

By all means, he agrees, badger people by email and make sure they pay up in advance. “After that,” he says, “it’s everyone for themselves.”

What's your idea of a perfect weekend? Let us know how it went in the comments box below.

Travelling across Europe by river offers an insight that cannot easily be had by more conventional forms of transport. The leisurely pace allows you to enjoy the subtle changes of scenery, the contrasting styles of architecture and allows time to read and digest each region’s history. Embarking in Amsterdam we will have two weeks ahead of us as we make our way along the Rhine, passing some of Germany’s most scenic places, including the dramatic Rhine Gorge. Leaving the Rhine, we begin our journey along the River Main through the lovely Franconia countryside to the Main-Danube Canal. It was the opening of this canal that made this journey possible. A great feat of engineering, it allows our vessel to connect through to the Danube River. From here we will sail along the Danube through Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary to our final destination of Budapest. Join us on this river voyage through idyllic rolling landscapes of pastures and vines, past centuries old villages, towns and imperial cities which have witnessed the fascinating and turbulent history of Middle Europe.

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Arabian Odyssey – Save £500 per person
A cruise to the lands of Antiquity aboard the MS Island Sky
22nd November to 2nd December 2009

Come with us to a corner of the world that has fascinated travellers for centuries. Our unique cruise offers a comprehensive look at an area richly influenced by its ancient history and recent wealth. The diverse nature of the people, customs and the landscapes they inhabit, make for an enthralling experience as we venture through the mosaic of lands bordered by vast deserts, through green wadis and pass in the shadow of spectacular mountains. The contrast of old and new is staggering, from the ancient villages and souks of the old towns to the magnificent cities of glass and steel, which include some of the world’s most impressive buildings.

All this will be achieved with great ease aboard the MS Island Sky, an ideal vessel for serious exploration. The shimmering waters of the Gulf should make for a comfortable journey and the obvious bonus of having a ship for our base, rather than a sequence of hotels, leaves us free to relax and enjoy all the marvellous sights that surround us. Before embarking the MS Island Sky we have included a two night hotel stay in Muscat allowing us time to explore the interior of Oman with a full day excursion to the fascinating town of Nizwa.

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East of Bali – Save £400 per person
Venture to the little known islands of Nusa Tenggara aboard the MS Island Sky
6th to 21st January & 17th January to 1st February 2010

On our journey ever eastwards, the MS Island Sky will venture to the east of Bali to the islands known as Nusa Tenggara. To many seasoned travellers this chain of islands are the most fascinating in all the Indonesian archipelago. Certainly they are not on the mass tourism circuit and their beauty and customs are relatively unscathed by the modern world.

As we sail from one island to another we enter a timeless world that is blessed with pure white sandy deserted beaches that in turn give way to stunning, beautiful coral reefs in dazzlingly clear water. As we island hop we will encounter many diverse and splendid sights. The awesome Komodo dragons, vast crater lakes with surrealistic hues, lush spice growing islands contrasting with lunar like landscapes and extraordinary islanders. Come with us and be rewarded with the rich experiences that these most beautiful and unusual islands offer to all those who visit their faraway shores. As there are no direct flights from London to Bali our itinerary has been planned to include stops in both Hong Kong and Singapore, ideal places to break the flight, rest and enjoy the sights.

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Passage to Libya – Save £300 per person
A cruise of discovery from the Red Sea to Malta visiting Jordan, Egypt and Libya aboard the MS Island Sky
30th March to 15th April 2010

It is difficult to imagine a more culturally fascinating itinerary than this, which takes us through the ancient worlds of the Nabataeans, Egyptians and Greek and Roman Africa. Our journey will include the rose red city of Petra, the deeply spiritual St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai desert, the great temples of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, Cairo and the Pyramids of Giza, and in Libya, the Roman city of Leptis Magna. For many, the journey along the Libyan coast will be the highlight as we explore some superb examples of Islamic architecture, gilded Byzantine churches, Kasbahs and ancient sites which testify to the brilliance of the Greek and Roman empires.

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New Zealand Coastal Cruising – Complementary two night stopover in Hong Kong
An exploration of New Zealand’s North and South Islands aboard the MS Clipper Odyssey
17th January to 3rd February 2010

If you have promised yourself that one day you will tour New Zealand, but have not been enticed by the thought of touring by coach or self-drive car, then our coastal cruise could be the answer. After all, the islands of New Zealand are perfect for exploration by sea as most of the main scenic attractions are close to the coast.

Our coastal voyage will introduce you to an unspoiled and unpolluted landscape of remarkable natural beauty. There are steep-sided glacial fjords, geysers and boiling mud, coastal rain forests, snowcapped mountains, rolling green pasture lands and enchanting sandy bays and coves. In the cities, towns and villages you will encounter that unique combination of New World and British heritage.

All this will be achieved with great ease. Our voyage around the North and South Islands will allow us to drop anchor in the remote bays, navigate channels, fjords and rivers and call into harbours both large and small. With our Zodiac landing craft we will be able to land in otherwise inaccessible places making the most of New Zealand’s extraordinary natural attractions.

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Music of the Danube – Save £300 per person
Celebrate Easter on a river cruise through the cultural Heart of Europe with Humphrey Burton and London Festival Opera aboard the MS Johann Strauss
1st to 8th April 2010

Much of the world’s greatest classical music has originated from a relatively small area in central Europe. Draw a 100 mile radius around Vienna and here you will find the origins of some of the greatest 18th and 19th century composers that have ever lived. Join us for a musical journey down the Danube as we sail from Vienna to Budapest. Enjoy some marvellous music ashore in the great opera houses as well as onboard as we are entertained by the singers of London Festival Opera.

The journey will include two full days in Budapest as well as a visit to the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. During your time in the Wachau Valley, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest we have included a number of guided excursions. There will also be the opportunity to attend a performance at the State Opera House in Vienna or the Volksoper. Other musical options ashore include the Budapest Opera House. At the time of going to press the programmes for the opera houses are not available and they are generally published three months prior to the performance.

One of the newest and most impressive resorts in Dubai, the Atlantis Palm is a five-star hotel set in an amazing location. It is located on its own peninsula and is famous for its connection with the water as you can enjoy one of the largest enclosed aquariums in the world. You can even sleep amongst the fish in the lost chambers suites which have walls backing on to this amazing underwater world.

With Dubai being relatively close you can enjoy three nights at this luxurious resort from £589 including flights from the UK and transfers. That’s saving a £400 per person or £800 per couple!

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Five-star Evason Resort – Thailand – save £500 per couple

Prices from £749 per person for seven nights including flights and transfers

The five star Evason Hua Hin & Six Senses Spa is located in the quiet area of Thailand with calming views of the Gulf of Siam. The hotel is set amongst 20-acres of landscaped lush tropical gardens including gorgeous lotus ponds. Perfect for a relaxing holiday.

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Five-star One & Only St Geran – Mauritius – save £690 per couple

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The luxurious resort of St Geran is based on a mile long, white sandy beach in Mauritius. It offers a high standard of service and facilities which can include your own personal chef and butler!

It is certainly a place for foodies as the gourmet restaurants include the 'Spoon de Iles' created by a famous Michelin-star chef.

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Five-star Cotton Bay Village – St Lucia – save up to 30%

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Cotton Bay Village is a brand new state of the art resort in St Lucia. Located in a small village on the east coast of the island this charming resort is just a stone’s throw away from shops and restaurants.

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Five-star Belle Mare Plage – Mauritius – save £360 per couple

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The Belle Mare Plage which is superbly positioned on the east coast of Mauritius. It is within 15 acres of exotic tropical gardens and it overlooks one of the finest beaches on Mauritius.

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The temple complex of Angkor and the nearby town of Siem Reap were very different places the last time I visited. That was in 1996 on assignment for The Sunday Telegraph to cover the kidnapping of a Briton by the Khmer Rouge, the murderous Maoist movement that had inflicted the horrors of the Killing Fields on Cambodia. Sadly but predictably, Christopher Howes, who had been working with a British organisation clearing landmines, was murdered by his captors.

Siem Reap in those days was a dusty backwater, its potholed streets best negotiated on the back of spluttering motorbike taxis that rarely got up enough speed to pose any danger of bodily harm.

Angkor was being rediscovered by the first intrepid visitors after nearly two decades in Khmer Rouge hands. By early 1996, the main cluster of temples was safe, but outlying sites remained off-limits unless one wanted to risk being blown up by mines or suffering the sad fate of Mr Howes.

In delightful solitude one early morning, I set off to explore the remarkable main temple of Angkor Wat, followed by the glorious bas-reliefs of Bayon and the barely touched remains of Ta Prohm, then the ultimate in Indiana Jones adventures.

How things change. Siem Reap is now a boisterous hive of activity, while the marvels of Angkor are thoroughly on the tourist track. The temples are still one of the wonders of the world, no less stunning for the crowds, but I hankered after the glorious loneliness of my previous visit.

So I headed 50 miles north, past paddy fields and villages of wooden huts on stilts little changed by the rapid development that has swept Siem Reap. Eleven years ago, this would have been a suicidal journey into Khmer Rouge territory, but my return offered new possibilities: outlying temples, cut off back then by minefields, were now accessible.

My destination was Beng Melea, a 12th-century temple built to the same design as Angkor Wat. For visitors disappointed by the busloads of camera-toting tourists at Ta Prohm, these largely undiscovered jungle ruins are a treat.

With the help of a young guide, I scrambled through the site to the chirupping chorus of cicadas in the same stunned reverie I felt when I first wandered around Angkor Wat.

First he showed me a sign on a mound next to the overgrown moat enumerating the 21,000-plus mines cleared from this site alone.

Inside the compound, thick, gnarled trunks and roots thrust through the masonry with such abandon that the stone and wood seemed indivisible; branches and vines stretched, embraced and bent around the ancient masonry like tentacles.

Back in Siem Reap, I found another compelling reason to embrace rather than bemoan the changes of the past 11 years - the award-winning glories of the chic new Hôtel de la Paix. Its art deco façade - think South Beach Miami transported to South-East Asia - graced the cover of Architectural Digest magazine last year.

The original hotel served as a rice storage depot during the era of genocidal communist purdah under Pol Pot. The elegant new structure is a mix of traditional Khmer, art deco and contemporary influences. The rooms have polished Makha-wood floors, woven rugs, platform beds and terrazzo tubs. Fountains and ponds fill the open spaces.

But although La Paix is an enticing oasis, the last thing the hotel wants is for you to insulate yourself from your surroundings.

It offers guests the chance to support community-based activities and good causes and the revival of Cambodian arts and culture. Options include a sewing training centre, rice sponsorship, educational support, hospitals and children's centres.

As the recipients of the book, bikes and other items from the hotel scheme can vouch, progress is not all bad.

* Kuoni Travel (01306 747 008; www.kuoni.co.uk) offers tailor-made trips across Indochina. Three nights at Hôtel de la Paix (www.hoteldelapaixangkor.com), in Siem Reap, Cambodia, two nights at the Shangri-La in Bangkok and four nights in Laos cost from £1,488 per person, including flights.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- One small slice Monday of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war on drug cartels: two shootouts on the streets of two cities; a man and a woman ambushed in their car; at least four people dead; three soldiers wounded, one of them gravely. The confrontations between unidentified gunmen and Mexican army and federal police took place in the communities of San Nicolas de los Garza and Escobedo, near the U.S. border in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, the state-run Notimex news agency said.

One of the firefights lasted 45 minutes. At one point, the suspects launched hand grenades at the soldiers. House-to-house searches took two hours and it would be another seven hours before the areas were secured.

According to Notimex and news reports from the newspapers Excelsior, El Porvenir, El Nuevo Leon and El Norte, here's what happened:

Around 6 a.m., a military convoy came across a group armed men in several late-model vehicles in San Nicolas de los Garza. Shooting broke out, and the gunplay continued for 45 minutes along several neighboring streets as the suspects tried to get away.

The armed men abandoned their cars, blocked one of the streets with a Suburban truck and fled aboard several other vehicles. The confrontation continued for another two hours as soldiers sealed off a city block and searched house-to-house.

"From early on, we could hear the shots and much shouting," Excelsior and El Nuevo Leon quoted an unidentified woman as saying. "We could hear footsteps on the roofs and soldiers yelling to them. There were several explosions; it seems like grenades went off, because we could hear it very loudly twice."

Around 7:45 a.m., the soldiers entered a house where the gunmen had holed up. A grenade went off upstairs. Three gunmen died there, though officials did not say if it was from bullet wounds or the grenade explosion.

At the same time, Mexican military and federal police were involved in a shootout with armed men in Escobedo. That confrontation left three soldiers wounded, with one of them clinging to life Monday afternoon.

Also nearby, a man and a woman riding in car were ambushed at an intersection by armed men in several cars who surrounded them and drilled their auto with bullets.

The woman died on the scene, her body sprawled on the street. The man was wounded but survived.

The violent scene in Nuevo Leon, which borders Texas, has become a near-daily experience in Mexico since Calderon took office in December 2006 and launched a war on drug cartels. More than 11,000 people have been killed during that time -- about 1,000 of them police and other authorities.

(CNN) -- The young man's call echoed throughout the remote village in northern Nigeria -- the marriage ceremony was about to begin. Under the dusty sun, the fathers of the bride and groom agreed to the marriage and this ancient Muslim tradition proceeded as it has for hundreds of years.

But unknown to the gathered villagers, the couple is hiding a modern secret.

Both bride and groom are HIV-positive and marrying with the support of a local government program that encourages such "HIV-marriages" in the hope of preventing the virus from spreading.

After the ceremony and away from the village, the husband agreed to speak with CNN as long as he was not identified.

"The woman I marry loves me -- I love her," he said. "And we promised that we can keep ourselves healthy and clean."

According to the United Nations, Nigeria has the third-largest HIV population in the world, with about 3.1 percent of its 148 million people infected.
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Officials working for the Bauchi State Agency for the Control of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, known as BACATMA, hope to put a dent in those numbers -- not just by treating HIV-positive people with free antiretroviral drugs but, they say, by helping more than 100 HIV-positive couples marry.

The agency offers to pay for the dowry, provide counseling and even employment within the agency. BACATMA officials hope that, by keeping HIV-positive couples together, they will keep AIDS from spreading to anyone not infected.

"If someone having HIV marries another HIV-AIDS person, that means there will be no HIV transmission to another negative person," said Rilwanu Mohammed, the BACATMA chairman.

However, UNAIDS, the UN agency tackling HIV and AIDS, has its doubts, arguing such marriages do not prevent the spread of AIDS.

"There are better methods to address the prevention of HIV and AIDS rather than encouraging that kind of union," said Warren Naamara, the UNAIDS Nigeria coordinator.

"We have made it very clear from UNAIDS that the best way to address HIV infection is universal access to prevention, treatment and care."

There is no evidence that such marriages stop the spread of AIDS. However, for many of the couples, the marriages support their personal fight against AIDS and the stigmatization it often brings from society, friends and family.

That stigmatization can lead HIV-positive people to become outcasts, discriminated against and sometimes physically abused.

Queuing for their antiretroviral drugs at a local hospital, Umar Ahmed and his wife said they married last year and have since had a child.

"Before, I was lonely," Umar said. "Being with my wife, I feel great -- because we stay together, we discuss different issues together."

For those couples who decide to have children, BACATMA tries to reduce the odds that the child will be born infected with HIV by ensuring that the parents have antiretroviral agents and medical advice.

Still, the decision to have a child is a controversial one when the parents who decide to do so are sick and unlikely to be able to raise the child.
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All About HIV and AIDS • Nigeria • United Nations

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- There was a smile, a quick wave hello, a brief chat. Yet, despite the exchange of pleasantries, the simmering tensions between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and one of the nation's most powerful clerics became quickly evident at a major ceremony in Tehran on Monday. Ahmadinejad and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani were attending the inauguration of Sadeq Larijani -- brother of Iran's prominent parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani -- who was tapped by Iran's supreme leader to be the new judiciary chief.

It was only the second time Ahmadinejad and his political rival Rafsanjani, a reformist who has been a vocal critic of the hard-line regime in place, sat under the same roof since the disputed June 12 elections drew a rift among Iran's Islamic leadership, Iranian media reported.

Photos from the scene show Ahmadinejad exchanging friendly waves with Rafsanjani and Sadeq Larijani, who was wedged between the rivals. The three appeared to be chatting amicably before Larijani made his acceptance speech.

Just minutes later, Ahmadinejad alluded to Rafsanjani, one of the richest men in Iran, in a searing address that called for the prosecution of "the power-holders and the wealthy," state-run Press TV reported.

But the president, who showed up more than an hour late for the ceremony, hustled out of the ceremony when Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts that is in charge of selecting the supreme leader, took the podium, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), which is aligned with Rafsanjani.

The bad blood between the two high-profile figures goes back to the 2005 presidential race, when Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani. This time around, Rafsanjani supported Ahmadinejad's chief rival, opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi, in the race.
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Iran's election authority declared Ahmadinejad the overwhelming winner of the race, sparking hundreds of thousands of Iranians to take to the streets in protest. While hundreds have been released, the Islamic government has been prosecuting opposition figures en masse.

Supporters of the trials have focused their rhetoric on Moussavi, fellow reformist Mehdi Karrubi and Rafsanjani, accusing the leaders of instigating post-election unrest and calling for charges against them.

During his speech at Sadeq Larijani's inauguration Monday, Rafsanjani warned against the consequences of "unjust" verdicts in the trials, saying poor treatment of the detainees will cause society to "descend into chaos," Press TV reported

"In the case of delivering fair verdicts, society will have a sense of security," Rafsanjani said, according to Press TV, "and no one will feel helpless in asserting his violated rights."

The treatment of detainees at Iran's prisons has increasingly become a divisive issue within Iran's Islamic leadership, as reformists continue to accuse the government of allowing abuse and torture in attempts to coerce false confessions.

The newly appointed judiciary chief admitted to deficiencies in the judicial system and pledged to prosecute those who "violated people's rights," Press TV reported.
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The Taliban leadership has redeployed some of its most hardline foot soldiers into areas of Afghanistan where local insurgents are reluctant to disrupt the country's elections on Thursday.

Details of the move emerged as a statement, said to carry the authority of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, reiterated that the movement would attempt to stop Afghans from voting.

It came hours before a rocket struck the presidential palace in Kabul early this morning and a second hit the Afghan capital's police headquarters. The first rocket caused some damage inside the heavily fortified palace compound in the city centre, but there were no injuries.

The insurgent leadership appears to be trying to harden resolve among its men on the ground and foil deals struck between the government and individual commanders designed to guarantee peace on polling day.

This morning Nato also said its forces in Afghanistan were suspending "offensive operations" during the election.

An official within the Afghan interior ministry said Taliban fighters had been moving from "hardline provinces" such as volatile Paktika and Paktia in the east into "less hardline" areas such as Wardak and Ghazni, south of Kabul.

On Sunday the country's intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, announced that commanders across the south had been paid off not to interfere with the elections. The interior ministry official said the government was receiving "mixed reports" about how much violence could be anticipated on election day: "Some commanders are still saying they will fight, while in other areas the threat is coming from outsiders."

For months now Taliban fighters have been dropping messages in villages – so-called "night letters" – threatening to punish anyone who attempts to vote on Thursday. One threat is that anyone found with indelible ink on their finger – given to anyone who casts a vote to prevent double voting – will have their finger cut off.

Haroun Mir, former special adviser to the anti-Soviet resistance fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud, said the mere threat of retributions could "undermine the legitimacy of the whole election".

"Even with these ceasefires no one living in areas of Taliban influence will want to take the risk of going out to vote," he said. "We could end up with the half of the country that lives in the north picking the next president, which could lead to some very big fights in the future."

The country will deploy all available security forces to try to ensure the election is as smooth as possible, with tens of thousands of extra foreign forces used to secure the outer security perimeter of polling stations.

Elections officials say around 10% of the approximately 7,000 polling centres may not be able to open because of insecurity, although the final number will not be known until just before polls open.

Today was the last day in which open campaigning is permitted by law, and the second-placed candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, attended a major rally in Kabul's main sports stadium.

A helicopter flew over the heads of the 10,000-strong crowd dropping leaflets calling for change, and Abdullah delivered a scathing attack on the record of the president, Hamid Karzai, which has been marred by allegations that he has ignored corruption in his own government.

Abdullah asked the crowd: "Do you want to vote for the president who releases killers from jail, who releases opium traders from jail?"

Meanwhile, Karzai played the final card of his more traditional strategy of gathering the support of ethnic, religious and regional powerbrokers, no matter how unsavoury they may be. The president, who already outraged the UN when he selected former warlord Mohammad Qasim Fahim as his running mate in May, gave the all-clear for notorious Uzbek militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostum to return on Sunday night from exile in Turkey.

The whisky-drinking strongman from northern Afghanistan flew back into the country on Sunday night despite the strong opposition of the US and the UN, who believe he is a human rights abuser.

The US embassy in Kabul released a strong statement, saying it had "serious concerns about the prospective role of Dostum in today's Afghanistan, and particularly during these historic elections ... Among other concerns, his reputed past actions raise questions of his culpability for massive human rights violations."

Dostum had been living in Ankara ever since he fled Kabul in February last year to avoid charges of assaulting one of his political arrivals. His supporters had threatened to withdraw their electoral support from Karzai if he was not allowed to return.