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Air Force: Test missile misses its Pacific target VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The Air Force says a missile-intercept test failed when a long-range missile launched from California missed a target missile launched from a Pacific island because of radar problems.
A statement posted on the Vandenberg Air Force Base Web site says the target missile was launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Sunday at about 3:40 p.m. and the long-range interceptor missile was launched from California's central coast shortly after.
The statement says both missiles launched and flew without trouble but the system's sea-based X-band radar did not perform as expected and the interceptor missed its target.
The statement says officials from the Missile Defense Agency that conducted the test will conduct an extensive investigation to determine the cause of the failure.

Child rescue bid raises tough questions in Haiti

AP – A boy, with a pink tape on his shirt that previously had his name written on it, and who was part of …

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The arrest of 10 Americans for trying to take children out of Haiti has raised an uncomfortable question in this brutally poor and earthquake-devastated country: could some children be better off abroad under the grim circumstances?
The Baptists from Idaho were waiting Monday to hear if they will be tried on child trafficking charges for attempting to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic without official authorization.
Child welfare groups expressed outrage over Friday's attempt, saying some of the children had parents who survived the Jan. 12 earthquake. Prime Minister Max Bellerive denounced the group's "illegal trafficking of children" in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.
But the reality is that some struggling Haitian parents see adoption as a last-ditch hope for their children.
"My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance," Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six living outside in a tent camp near the airport said Sunday. "My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn't affect my decision."
The Baptists' "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.
They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children's home.
Haiti's justice secretary, Amarick Louis, told The Associated Press that a commission would meet Monday to determine if the group would go before a judge. The group was being held at a building where government ministers are giving regular briefings — a maze of dingy concrete rooms but not traditional cells. Their living conditions were unclear.
Foreigners adopting children from the developing world have grabbed headlines recently — Madonna tried to adopt a girl from Malawi amid criticism from locals, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a burgeoning multicultural brood.
But in Haiti, a long tradition of foreign military intervention coupled with the earthquake that destroyed much of the capital and plunged it even deeper into poverty, have made this issue even more emotionally charged.
"Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners," said Adonis Helman, 44. "I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give."
Haiti's overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti.
Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, children could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.
"For UNICEF, what is important is that for children separated from their parents, we do everything possible to have their families traced and to reunite them," said Kent Page, a spokesman for the group in Haiti. "They have to be protected from traffickers or people who wish to exploit these children."
He said it was possible the Americans arrested may have had "good intentions but misguided execution."
The Idaho church group's spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told the AP from detention that the group was "just trying to do the right thing" amid the chaos. She conceded she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children.
The children were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children's Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived "very hungry, very thirsty." A 2- to 3-month-old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. Workers were searching for their families or close relatives.
"One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," Willeit said.
As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is in a difficult spot — it needs aid, but deeply resents foreign meddling. Many have mixed feelings toward Christian groups that funnel hundreds of millions into missions in Haiti.
Christian missionaries alone run or support an estimated 2,000 primary schools attended by some 600,000 students — a third of Haiti's school-aged population, according to government figures. Church groups also run vital hospitals, orphanages and food-distribution sites.
"There are many who come here with religious ideas that belong more in the time of the inquisition," said Max Beauvoir, head of Haiti's Voodoo Priest's Association, which represents thousands of priests and priestesses. "These types of people believe they need to save our souls and our bodies from ourselves. We need compassion, not proselytizing now, and we need aid — not just aid going to people of the Christian faith."
Two-thirds of Haiti's 9 million are said to practice Voodoo, a melange of beliefs combining animism from west Africa and Catholicism.
Many religious groups run legitimate adoption agencies and orphanages in Haiti.
The arrested Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.
The Idaho churches had elaborate plans before the earthquake to shelter up to 200 Haitian and Dominican boys and girls in the Magante beach resort, complete with a school and chapel as well as villas and a seaside cafe catering to adoptive U.S. parents.

Toyota US unveils repairs plan after mass recall

AFP/Getty Images/File – Toyota vehicles at a manufacturing plant in the US. Toyota's US arm has said it would start fixing …

WASHINGTON – Toyota Motor Corp. is telling dealers that they should get parts to fix sticky gas pedals later this week. But the 4.2 million customers affected by a large recall may have to wait a while for repairs.
Toyota tells dealers in an e-mail sent early Monday that they will get shims to repair springs in the gas pedal systems that have been weakened. But repairs will have to wait until technicians are trained.
The e-mail was obtained by The Associated Press. The repair plan will be officially announced later Monday.
Toyota has recalled 4.2 million cars and trucks worldwide because gas pedal systems may stick. The company says the problem is rare.
Government regulators told Toyota last week that they were satisfied with the repair plan.

Iraqi police: Female suicide bomber kills 41

BAGHDAD – A female suicide bomber walking among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad detonated an explosives belt on Monday, killing at least 41 people and wounding more than 100, officials said.
It was the first major strike this year against pilgrims making their way to the southern city of Karbala to mark a Shiite holy day. It raised fears of an escalation of attacks when the pilgrimage culminates on Friday.
The bomber hid the explosives underneath an abaya — a women's black cloak that covers from head to toe — as she joined a group of pilgrims on the outskirts of the Shiite-dominated northern neighborhood of Shaab, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad's top military spokesman.
A police official and Baghdad hospital officials said 41 died, including a number of women and children, and 106 were wounded. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene in the minutes following the blast.
Raheem Kadhom, 35, was standing about 150 yards (138 meters) away when he says a huge fireball erupted among the pilgrims.
Pilgrims were "on the ground, covered in blood and crying for help," he said. "Banners were all over the ground and covered in blood."
The blast was so powerful it knocked some out of their slippers and shoes, which were scattered across the ground, Khadhom said.
Many ran to the aid of the pilgrims. Some put the wounded in cars, taking them to hospitals rather than wait from ambulances, Kadhom said.
Despite an overall decline in violence in Iraq, al-Qaida and other Sunni extremists have routinely targeted pilgrims in an attempt to stoke sectarian strife and weaken the Shiite-dominated government.
Security forces were put on alert shortly after the attack, al-Moussawi said.
"We informed all checkpoints to be careful and to intensify the search procedures," he said.
Iraqi authorities lack enough policewomen to conduct searches at most checkpoints, and security forces have been reluctant to use bomb-sniffing dogs against people because of cultural sensitivities.
During a pilgrimage last February, a female suicide bomber attacked a tent filled with women and children resting during the walk to Karbala, killing 40 people and wounding 60 others. A month before that, a suicide bomber dressed in women's clothing and hiding among Iranian pilgrims killed more than three dozen people outside a mosque in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.
This week, hundreds of thousands of Shiites make the pilgrimage to Karbala to mark the end of 40 days of mourning that follows Ashoura, the anniversary of the death Imam Hussein, one of two revered Shiite figures buried there.

Obama unveils $3.83T budget with massive deficits
Obama

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.83 trillion budget on Monday that would pour more money into the fight against high unemployment, boost taxes on the wealthy and freeze spending for a wide swath of government programs.
The deficit for this year would surge to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion, topping last year's then unprecedented $1.41 trillion gap. The deficit would remain above $1 trillion in 2011 although the president proposed to institute a three-year budget freeze on a variety of programs outside of the military and homeland security as well as increasing taxes on energy producers and families making more than $250,000.
Echoing the pledge in his State of the Union address to make job creation his top priority, Obama put forward a budget that included a $100 billion jobs measure that would provide tax breaks to encourage businesses to boost hiring as well as increased government spending on infrastructure and energy projects. He called for fast congressional action to speed relief to millions left unemployed in the worst recession since the 1930s.
After a protracted battle on health care dominated his first year in office and led to a string of Democratic election defeats, the administration hopes its new budget will convince Americans the president is focused on fixing the economy.
Republicans complained about Obama's proposed tax increases and said the huge projected deficits showed he had failed to get government spending under control. But administration officials argued that Obama inherited a deficit that was already topping $1 trillion when he took office and given the severity of the downturn, the president had to spend billions of dollars stabilizing the financial system and jump-starting growth.
Obama's job proposals would push government spending in 2010 to $3.72 trillion, up 5.7 percent from last year. Obama's blueprint for the 2011 budget year, which begins Oct. 1, would increase spending further to $3.83 trillion, 3 percent higher than projected for this year.
Much of the spending surge over the past two years reflects the cost of the $787 billion economic stimulus measure that Congress passed in February 2009 to deal with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The surge in the deficits reflects not only the increased spending but also a big drop in tax revenues, reflecting the 7.2 million people who have lost jobs since the recession began and weaker corporate tax receipts.
"Having steered the economy back from the brink of a depression, the administration is committed to moving the nation from a recession to recovery by sparking job creation to get millions of Americans back to work," the administration said in a statement accompanying its budget.
The administration's $100 billion proposed jobs measure would be lower than a $174 billion bill passed by the House in December but far higher than a measure that the Senate could take up as early as this week.
Obama's new budget attempts to navigate between the opposing goals of pulling the country out of a deep recession and getting control of runaway budget deficits.
On the anti-recession front, Obama's new budget proposed extending the popular Making Work Pay middle-class tax breaks of $400 per individual and $800 per couple through 2011. They were due to expire after this year. The budget also proposes making $250 payments to Social Security recipients to bolster their finances in a year when they are not receiving the normal cost-of-living boost to their benefit checks because of low inflation. Obama will also seek a $25 billion increase in payments to help recession-battered states.
In a bow to worries over the soaring deficits, the administration proposed a three-year freeze on spending beginning in 2011 for many domestic government agencies. It would save $250 billion over the next decade by following the spending freeze with caps that would keep increases after 2013 from rising faster than inflation.
Military, veterans, homeland security and big benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare would not feel the pinch. Federal support for elementary and high school education would get a big increase as would the Pell Grant college tuition program which would see an increase of $17 billion to just under $35 billion, helping an additional 1 million students.
The administration said it was proposing the largest funding increase in the history of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a $3 billion increase to $28 billion plus an additional $1 billion if Congress agrees to some major changes in the law.
The administration would also provide an additional $1.35 billion for the president's Race to the Top challenge, a federal grant program in which 40 states are competing for $4 billion in education money included in last year's stimulus bill. Obama hailed the results of this effort in his State of the Union speech.
The New York Times reported Monday the administration was seeking a sweeping overhaul of the No Child Left Behind law that will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing.
In Obama's new budget, the Department of Homeland Security would get an additional $734 million to support the deployment of up to 1,000 advanced imaging airport screening machines and new baggage screening equipment to detect explosives. Those increases represented a response to the Christmas Day bombing attempt on an airliner landing in Detroit.
The president's budget seeks a $33 billion increase in a supplemental appropriation this year for the military and $159.3 billion in 2011 to support Obama's boost strategy to deal with the terrorist threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
NASA's mission to return astronauts to the moon would be grounded with the space agency instead getting an additional $5.9 billion over five years to encourage private companies to build, launch and operate their own spacecraft for the benefit of NASA and others. NASA would pay the private companies to carry U.S. astronauts.
Obama's budget repeats his recommendations for an overhaul of the nation's health care system even though prospects for passage of a final bill have darkened given the loss of a Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts in a recent special election, depriving Obama's party of the votes needed to break a Republican filibuster.
Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs insisted Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that the push for health care was "still inside the 5-yard line" but Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the public was overwhelmingly against the bill and the administration should "put it on the shelf, go back and start over."
In addition to the freeze on discretionary nonsecurity spending, Obama is proposing to boost revenues by allowing the Bush administration tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire at the end of this year for families making more than $250,000 annually, which the administration projects would raise $678 billion over the next decade. Tax relief for those less well-off would be extended.
The new Obama budget will also include a proposal to levy a fee on the country's biggest banks to raise an estimated $90 billion to recover losses from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund. Those losses are expected to come not from the bank bailouts but from the support extended to General Motors and Chrysler and insurance giant American International Group as well as help provided to homeowners struggling to avoid foreclosures.
Also on the deficit front, the president has endorsed a pay-as-you-go proposal that passed the Senate last week. It would require any new tax cuts or entitlement spending increases to be paid for, and he has promised to create a commission to recommend by year's end ways to trim the deficits. Administration officials briefing reporters on Sunday declined to say when the commission would be appointed.

Survey: Half of China's moms-to-be have C-sections, 1st Ld-Writethru

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) Nearly half of moms-to-be surveyed in China were delivering by cesarean sections, the world's highest rate recorded by the World Health Organization, which warned Tuesday that a boom in unnecessary surgeries is jeopardizing women's health. Rates of C-sections have reached "epidemic proportions" in many countries worldwide, the WHO said in a report surveying nine Asian nations.

After reviewing nearly 110,000 births across the region, it found 27 percent of women sampled were giving birth under the knife, partially motivated by hospitals eager to make more money. In China, a quarter of all C-sections recorded were not medically necessary, the report said.
"So many pregnant women ask for a cesarean birth in China, but we always suggest that they have a natural birth," said Dr. He Yuanhua, at Capital Antai Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital in Beijing, who did not participate in the study.
"It's bad to have so many cesarean births because natural birth is the ideal way." The survey, published online Tuesday in the medical journal Lancet, mirrors similar results reported by WHO in 2005 from Latin America, where 35 percent of pregnant women surveyed were delivering by C-section.
"The relative safety of the operation leads people to think it's as safe as vaginal birth," said Dr. A. Metin Gulmezoglu, from the WHO in Geneva who co-authored the Asia report.
"That's unlikely to be the case." Women undergoing C-sections that are not medically necessary are more likely to die or be admitted into intensive care units, require blood transfusions or encounter complications that lead to hysterectomies, the study found.
The procedure was shown to benefit babies during breech births. Reasons for elective C-sections vary globally, but increasing rates in many developing countries coincide with a rise in patients' wealth and improved medical facilities.
In Asia, some women opt for the abdominal surgery to choose their delivery day after consulting fortune tellers for "lucky" birthdays or times. Others fear painful natural births or worry their vaginas may be stretched or damaged by a normal delivery.
Some women also prefer the operation because they believe it is less risky. "I think it's safer for the mother and child to have C-sections, and the relatives feel more secure because it's very simple and very common now," said Trang Thanh Van, 25, just days away from giving birth to her first child in Vietnam.
"People worry that using tools to pull the baby out may affect their brains." She said she preferred to deliver naturally, but will let her doctor decide if a C-section is best.
In Latin America, C-section rates in all eight countries surveyed earlier by WHO were 30 percent or higher, with Equador posting 40 percent and Paraguay 42 percent. Some expectant mothers there scheduled elective surgeries to avoid giving birth during holidays or even so they could attend parties, said Dr.
Archana Shah, from the WHO in Geneva, who worked on that report and cautioned that data in both studies represent a sample that may not reflect overall national rates. In the U.S., where C-sections are at an all-time high of 31 percent, the surgery is often performed on older expectant mothers, during multiple births or simply because patients request it or doctors fear malpractice lawsuits.
A government panel warned against elective C-sections in 2006. Meanwhile, an earlier WHO survey of African countries found that C-sections occurred in about 9 percent of deliveries surveyed and that many medical facilities were ill equipped to perform emergency surgeries, leading to increased deaths.
The Asian survey examined deliveries in 122 randomly selected public and private hospitals in 2007 and 2008 across Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The hospitals were located in capital cities and two other regions or provinces within each country, all logging more than 1,000 births a year.
China's 46 percent C-section rate was followed by Vietnam and Thailand with 36 percent and 34 percent, respectively. Cambodia and India had the lowest rates of 15 percent and 18 percent, respectively.
The study did not discuss specific reasons for the high number of C-sections, but it noted that more than 60 percent of the hospitals studied were motivated by financial incentives to perform surgeries. At Vietnam's National Hospital of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Hanoi, about 40 percent of the 20,000 babies delivered there annually are via C-section, said Dr.
Le Anh Tuan, the hospital's vice director, who did not participate in the study. As the capital's largest maternity hospital, it receives the most complicated cases, with many women undergoing emergency surgery.
But he said another major driver is women with small frames whose babies are simply too large for them to deliver naturally. "The babies are bigger, even than in Western countries," he said.
"Vietnam was a country where we didn't have enough food to eat. Now we have a surplus of food.
The women think that if they eat a lot, their babies will be healthy." ___

WHO survey: Half of China's births are C-sections, 4th Ld-Writethru,

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) Nearly half of all births in China are delivered by cesarean section, the world's highest rate, according to a survey by the World Health Organization a shift toward modernization that isn't necessarily a good thing. The boom in unnecessary surgeries is jeopardizing women's health, the U.N. health agency warned in the report published online Tuesday in the medical journal The Lancet.

Unnecessary C-sections are costlier than natural births and raise the risk of complications for the mother, said the report surveying nine Asian nations. It noted C-sections have reached "epidemic proportions" in many countries worldwide.
The most dramatic findings were in China, where 46 percent of births reviewed were C-sections a quarter of them not medically necessary, the report said. "So many pregnant women ask for a cesarean birth in China, but we always suggest that they have a natural birth," said Dr.
He Yuanhua, at Capital Antai Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital in Beijing, who did not participate in the study. "It's bad to have so many cesarean births because natural birth is the ideal way.
" The WHO, which reviewed nearly 110,000 births across Asia in 2007-2008, found 27 percent were done under the knife, partially motivated by hospitals eager to make more money. That mirrors similar results reported by WHO in 2005 from Latin America, where 35 percent of pregnant women surveyed were delivering by C-section.
In the U.S., where C-sections are at an all-time high of 31 percent, the surgery is often performed on older expectant mothers, during multiple births or simply because patients request it or doctors fear malpractice lawsuits. A government panel warned against elective C-sections in 2006.
"The relative safety of the operation leads people to think it's as safe as vaginal birth," said Dr. A. Metin Gulmezoglu, who co-authored the Asia report.
"That's unlikely to be the case." Women undergoing C-sections that are not medically necessary are more likely to die or be admitted into intensive care units, require blood transfusions or encounter complications that lead to hysterectomies, the WHO study found.
U.S. studies have shown babies born by cesarean have a greater chance for respiratory problems. The Asia survey found the procedure benefits babies during breech births.
Reasons for elective C-sections vary globally, but increasing rates in many developing countries coincide with a rise in patients' wealth and improved medical facilities. In Asia, some women opt for the surgery to choose their delivery day after consulting fortune tellers for "lucky" birthdays or times.
Others fear painful natural births or worry their vaginas may be stretched or damaged by a normal delivery. Some women also prefer the operation because they mistakenly believe it is less risky.
"I think it's safer for the mother and child to have C-sections, and the relatives feel more secure because it's very simple and very common now," said a Vietnamese woman, Trang Thanh Van, 25, just days away from giving birth to her first child. "People worry that using tools to pull the baby out (in a vaginal birth) may affect their brains.
" The Asian survey examined deliveries in 122 randomly selected public and private hospitals in 2007 and 2008 across Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The hospitals were located in capital cities and two other regions or provinces within each country, all logging more than 1,000 births a year.
China's 46 percent C-section rate was followed by Vietnam and Thailand with 36 percent and 34 percent, respectively. The lowest rates were in Cambodia, with 15 percent, and India, with 18 percent.
The study did not discuss specific reasons for the high number of C-sections, but it noted that more than 60 percent of the hospitals studied were motivated by financial incentives to perform surgeries. At Vietnam's National Hospital of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Hanoi, about 40 percent of the 20,000 babies delivered there annually are by C-section, said Dr.
Le Anh Tuan, the hospital's vice director, who did not participate in the study. As the capital's largest maternity hospital, it receives the most complicated cases, with many women undergoing emergency surgery.
But he said another reason is women with small frames whose babies are simply too large for them to deliver naturally. "The babies are bigger, even than in Western countries," he said.
"Vietnam was a country where we didn't have enough food to eat. Now we have a surplus of food.
The women think that if they eat a lot, their babies will be healthy." In Latin America, C-section rates in all eight countries surveyed earlier by WHO were 30 percent or higher similar to the U.S. rate.
In Paraguay, 42 percent of deliveries were by cesarean, and in Ecuador 40 percent. Some expectant mothers in Latin America scheduled elective surgeries to avoid giving birth during holidays or even so they could attend parties, said Dr.
Archana Shah, from the WHO in Geneva, who worked on that report and cautioned that data in both studies represent a sample that may not reflect overall national rates. That compares to an earlier WHO survey of African countries, where C-sections were performed in only about 9 percent of deliveries surveyed and where many medical centers were ill-equipped to perform emergency surgeries, leading to increased deaths.

US vets return to see grim legacy of Vietnam War

DONG HA, Vietnam (AP) A piece of shrapnel sliced Jerry Maroney's right leg. A bullet pierced Peter Holt's neck.

Les Newell took a shot in the rump. These old American soldiers recovered from the physical scars of combat long ago.
But last week, they visited a place where people still have fresh wounds from the Vietnam War, which ended nearly 35 years ago. They came to Quang Tri Province, which still is littered with land mines and unexploded ordinance that routinely kill and maim people trying to scratch out a living in the rice fields.
Their visit was organized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the Washington, D.C., monument that commemorates the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam. VVMF sponsors Project RENEW, a nonprofit organization that helps Quang Tri residents like Pham Quy Tuan, 41, whose left hand and right arm were blown off by a leftover American projectile he found in a rice paddy four months ago.
"When I realized I'd lost my hands, all I could think about was how much I love my wife and kids, and how I would become a big burden to them," said Tuan, who also suffered severe burns and remains in chronic pain. The VVMF delegation was led by Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired U.S. Army general who served as former President Bill Clinton's anti-drug chief and now appears as a military analyst on NBC news.
Also participating were family members of fallen soldiers and Vietnam veterans making their first trips back to Vietnam, several of whom had personal missions. Thomas J. Whitehouse a former Army captain, wanted to return some medals taken from the body of a Vietnamese soldier four decades ago.
Sam Metters, who has three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart, hoped to find a school that he and several Army comrades designed for Vietnamese orphans while they were stationed near Saigon. Judy Campbell planned to visit the spot in Bien Hoa where her brother, Keith Campbell, was killed during a pitched battle on Feb.
8, 1967, three weeks before his 21st birthday. Keith Campbell, a medic, was killed by a sniper just 19 days after he arrived in Vietnam, while saving two injured soldiers during a fierce fire fight.
"He was a medic, and medics save lives," said Judy, who was 17 when her brother died. "That's what Keith did, at the cost of his own.
" The delegation began its weeklong tour of Vietnam in Hanoi. They were impressed by the economic boom unleashed by the market overhaul the communist country has implemented over the past two decades.
They also were heartened by the warm welcome they received from the people, including those in a Quang Tri district where they dedicated a new elementary school funded by VVMF. "I feel like a rock star," said Maroney, 62, a Marine who recently retired from his job as a detective in Long Island, New York. "Look at how well everyone is treating us!" Maroney was apprehensive before he arrived.
"I hated these guys. They killed my friends.
We killed them. It was war.
" For the Vietnamese in Quang Tri, the war has not ended completely. "It's still a daily part of their lives," said Jan Scruggs, founder and president of VVMF, who decided to start Project RENEW during a visit to Vietnam in 2000.
"Some of them are missing limbs, some have been blinded. It tears your heart out.
" According to VVMF, more than 350,000 tons of land mines and explosives remain scattered across the country. Much of the ordnance is in Quang Tri, near the former Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, which once divided North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
The province was the most heavily bombed and shelled during the war, and 92 percent of it remains contaminated with explosives. Since 1975, when troops from the communist north triumphed, more than 100,000 Vietnamese people have been killed or injured by land mines or unexploded ordinance, more than 7,000 of them in Quang Tri, according to the Vietnamese government.
Project RENEW focuses on three districts in the province, where it educates people about the dangers of land mines and clears the land of explosives. It also assists the injured, providing them with artificial limbs, small loans and job training.
The program operates a hot line and has trained two teams to respond quickly when residents spot explosives. On Thursday, the delegation watched a team detonate explosives that had been found near two homes in the Cam Lo district, including a cluster bomb and a grenade launcher in the yard of 75-year-old Nguyen Thi Yen Thi.
Thi was relieved to see them go. "You never know when those things might explode," said Thi, who has found a half-dozen explosives in her yard over the years.
One combusted spontaneously on a hot summer day; another blew up when someone was burning trash in her yard. The others were removed without incident.
Two of Thi's nephews have been injured by land mines; a third was killed. Many victims are children who play with the explosives, unaware of the danger.
But many are adults like Tuan, who, before his injury, made a living collecting scrap metal and selling it to junk dealers. When he discovered the projectile in the rice paddy, Tuan took it home and decided to remove a piece of copper wrapped around the device.
Copper is twice as valuable as the metals he usually collects, for which he typically receives a dollar or two a day. When the bomb exploded, his wife was out collecting trash, which she recycles for a living.
His 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter found him in the backyard. When his wounds are more fully healed, the Project RENEW staff will see if he can be fitted with a pair of prosthetic limbs.
"Nothing would make me happier than a pair of artificial hands," Tuan said. "I'm helpless.

More melamine-tainted milk products found in China, 2nd Ld-Writethru, AS

BEIJING (AP) Melamine-tainted dairy products were pulled from convenience store shelves in southern China more than a year after hundreds of thousands of children had been sickened in a massive milk safety scandal, a government spokeswoman said Monday. The announcement calls into question the effectiveness of a crackdown launched by Chinese officials to improve product safety after a number of scandals, including the contamination of baby formula in 2008 and the recent discovery of the toxic metal cadmium in cheap jewelry.

Frozen milk products and cartons of milk dating from early 2009 were taken off the shelves after health inspectors tested them and found melamine, said Ling Hu, a Guizhou provincial government spokeswoman. She said the provincial health bureau was checking to see why the products were not pulled from the shelves earlier.
Calls to the Guizhou health bureau ran unanswered Monday. Tainted products from three companies Shandong Zibo Lusaier Dairy, Liaoning Tieling Wuzhou Food, and Laoting Kaida Refrigeration were discovered in more than a dozen convenience stores around the province, Ling said.
Laoting Kaida Refrigeration was among companies named in the original melamine scandal in 2008, when six children died and 300,000 were sickened after drinking baby formula with melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics and fertilizer. The official China Daily newspaper quoted Wang Dingmian, former chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Dairy Association, as saying tainted milk products recalled at the time somehow made their way back onto the market.
He said the latest discoveries of contaminated dairy exposed weak government regulation. Melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure, was added to watered-down milk to fool inspectors testing for protein and stretch profits.
Both melamine and protein are high in nitrogen. Dozens of officials, dairy executives and farmers were punished.
Since the scandal broke, China vowed to implement stricter safety measures and step up inspections on the dairy industry. Ling said health officials have continued to target distributors who sell melamine-tainted milk to stores, but some distributors, wrongly assuming the government scaled back its crackdown, continue to sell it.
Ling said distributors arrested for selling tainted milk likely led authorities to the convenience stores where the contaminated product was found. She had no other details and said the investigation was still under way.
Earlier this month, government officials said the Shanghai Panda Dairy Co. had been under a secret investigation for nearly a year before announcing it produced melamine-tainted milk.
China's troubles in cleaning up its food supply chain reflect problems it has had coupling its rapid growth with product safety in other areas. Earlier this month, an investigation by The Associated Press found 12 of 103 pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry bought in U.S. stores contained at least 10 percent cadmium, some in the 80 percent to 90 percent range.
Cadmium, like lead, can hinder brain development in young children, according to recent research, and also causes cancer. China has not commented on reports of the cadmium problem.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warned parents to "safely dispose" of any cheaply made jewelry or trinkets, most of which are imported from China.

After Padma Shri, Saif thanks all his directors An overwhelmed Saif Ali Khan thanked all his directors for his successful film career that fetched him his Padma Shri national honour Monday.
'I am very proud and honoured to have received this honour. I would like to thank my family and loved ones who have been there for me and the industry for supporting me,' Saif, who is in Mumbai, said in an e-mail message.
'I would particularly like to thank Imtiaz Ali, Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar, Ramesh Taurani, Farhan Akhtar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Siddharth Anand, Kunal Kohli and Vishal Bhardwaj for having faith in me and making me who I am today,' he added.
After debuting with 'Aashiq Awara' in 1992, Saif had to struggle a lot till 'Dil Chahta Hai' happened in 2001. Directed by Farhan Akhtar, the film marked a turning point in his career. There was no looking back for the actor after that as he delivered hits after hits like 'Kal Ho Naa Ho', 'Ek Hasina Thi', 'Hum Tum', 'Parineeta', 'Salaam Namaste', 'Omkara' and 'Love Aaj Kal'.

Meryl Streep clueless about 'Mamma Mia 2' Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep insists she hasn't been approached by film bosses about appearing in the part two of the musical hit 'Mamam Mia'.
'I heard that they were talking about it, but I am not sure it's real, it's not anything I'm on the inside track of. No one has told me anything yet Meryl said reports femalefirst.co.uk.
Meryl played the lead role of Donna Sheridan in 'Mamma Mia'.
'I try to live right now anyway. And right now I feel the need to stop for a moment and breathe because I've worked very hard in the last two and a half years, seven films - it's a more than I've ever done.
'I'm very grateful. I have so many friends who are sick or gone, and I'm here. It's incredible - I'm 60 and I'm playing the romantic lead in romantic comedies,' she said.

Earth and beyond: Shah Rukh on moon now! Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has transcended his popularity on earth and is literally over the moon with a lunar crater named after him by the International Lunar Geographic Society.
According to the official website of the Society, the decision to rename the crater, earlier known as Arago B, after the famed actor came following overwhelming petitions from his passionate fans in India and around the world.
The crater is located on the Moon's Mare Tranquillitatis ('Sea of Tranquility) district and was given the designation as the Crater S.R. Khan on Shah Rukh's 44th birthday, Nov 2 last year.
It is located at 3.4 degree North (latitude) and 20.8 degree East (longitude) on the so-called Earthside of the Moon and measures approximately seven kilometres in diameter.
The official designation of a Lunar crater is a singular honour bestowed upon only a select few luminaries like Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Columbus, Sir Isaac Newton, Julius Caesar and Jules Verne.
The International Lunar Geographic Society, previously known as the Lunar Republic Society, is the world's largest group advocating privatised exploration, settlement and development of Earth's moon Luna.

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