Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.

Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.

"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."

In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.

"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."

As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.

Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.

"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.

Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.

The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.

The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.

"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."

He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.

But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.

For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.

Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.

Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.

"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.

When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.

"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."

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On the Internet:

http://www.trees4children.org/

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Why Obama is pushing for stimulus in 'fiscal cliff' deal

How about a little government economic stimulus?

That may sound incongruous considering the budget deficit and the push from Republicans to cut government spending.

But President Obama’s first offer to avoid going over the "fiscal cliff" holds out the hope of at least some stimulus. This would include extending the 2 percentage point Social Security payroll tax cut, boosting a tax incentive to businesses, establishing a $50 billion bank for long-term infrastructure projects, and extending unemployment benefits.

RECOMMENDED: 'Fiscal cliff' 101: 5 basic questions answered

The total bill: about $255 billion out of the federal government's pocket – an amount the GOP would likely say needs to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.

The argument in favor of such stimulus? The tax measures, at least, could minimize the drag on the economy from Mr. Obama's proposed tax increases on the wealthy.

“The increases in the top two income tax brackets would put a drag on consumption, so I think, from the Obama point of view, the spending or tax cuts are designed to offset that drag to consumption,” says Michael Brown, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C.

But to some budget experts, Obama’s list seems more like an opening round of negotiations, where he has asked for a lot more than he will get.

“It looks to me like these are bargaining chips,” says Pete Davis of Davis Capital Ideas, which advises Wall Street firms. “Even most Democrats had given up on the prospect of getting the payroll tax cut extended.”

Mr. Davis considers the odds of most of the stimulus proposals passing Congress “very low.”

What's needed most, say others, is just buckling down and negotiating an end to the fiscal cliff. “Cancelling the fiscal cliff is economic stimulus,” says Stan Collender, a budget expert and partner at Qorvis Communications in Washington.

If Obama's stimulus were passed, however, here is a look at the impact the four elements might have.

SOCIAL SECURITY PAYROLL TAX CUT

The largest chunk of the Obama plan is the extension of the payroll tax cut. This is the money that comes out of an individual’s paycheck as a contribution to Social Security. Two years ago, in an effort to stimulate the economy, Congress decreased the individual contribution from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. The employer’s contribution of 6.2 percent remained unchanged.

The Obama administration estimates extending the cuts would cost the government as much as $115 billion in revenue.

The argument for extending the tax cut is that it helps lower-income workers who live paycheck to paycheck. “The difference in the paycheck might be the ability to pay the electric bill for someone or the chance to go to a sit-down restaurant once a month,” says Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS in Lexington, Mass.

The argument against continuing the cut is that it is weakening the Social Security Trust Fund. In order to make up for the loss of contributions, the government taps the general tax revenues, says Pamela Tainter-Causey, a spokeswoman for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“It sets up Social Security to compete for funding from the general fund,” she says. “It’s a perfect set up for people who are gunning for the program and claim we can’t afford it now.”

BUSINESS TAX INCENTIVE

The second largest program proposed by Obama would be the extension of accelerated depreciation for business, which would cost the US Treasury about $65 billion in fiscal year 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Two years ago, business was allowed to accelerate the write-off of 100 percent of its spending on certain capital equipment. Capital spending on equipment and computer software soared by 18.3 percent in 2011.

Then, this year, the benefit to business was cut in half to 50 percent. Capital spending sank in the third quarter by 2.7 percent compared with the same quarter the prior year. With business interest in using the tax break diminishing, economist Gregory Daco of IHS says “it’s a goner.”

INFRASTRUCTURE BANK

Obama has also proposed a $50 billion infrastructure bank. The idea is to fund roads, bridges, tunnels and other large projects that last for a long period of time. “At the moment the funding is done on a cash basis – you have to pay for it as you build it,” says Mr. Collender.

Democrats have been trying to get Congress to fund the bank for the past 10 years, he says. “It does not have a chance of getting through the House," which is controlled by the Republicans, says Mr. Collender.

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

And, finally, Obama wants to extend unemployment benefits, which would cost about $30 billion.

Under current law, if Congress does nothing, the maximum number of weeks in which an individual could receive jobless will drop to 26 from the current 73 weeks for states with unemployment over 9 percent and 63 weeks for states with unemployment over 7 percent.

If Congress does nothing about the program during the lame-duck session, some 2.1 million jobless will lose their benefits in the first week of January, says Judy Conti, a federal advocacy coordinator at the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in Washington. By the end of the March, she says, another 900,000 people will lose their benefits.

“Forty percent of the unemployed are long term unemployed,” she says. “They have been out of the workforce for over six months.”

RECOMMENDED: 'Fiscal cliff' 101: 5 basic questions answered

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AP Exclusive: Myanmar verifying Muslim citizenship

SIN THET MAW, Myanmar (AP) — Guarded by rifle-toting police, immigration authorities in western Myanmar have launched a major operation aimed at settling an explosive question at the heart of the biggest crisis the government has faced since beginning its nascent transition to democracy last year.

It's a question that has helped fuel two bloody spasms of sectarian unrest between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims since June, and it comes down to one simple thing: Who has the right to be a citizen of Myanmar, and who does not?

A team of Associated Press journalists that traveled recently to the remote island village of Sin Thet Maw, a maze of bamboo huts without electricity in Myanmar's volatile west, found government immigration officials in the midst of a painstaking, census-like operation aimed at verifying the citizenship of Muslims living there, one family at a time.

Armed with pens, stacks of paper and hand-drawn maps, they worked around low wooden tables that sat in the dirt, collecting information about birth dates and places, parents and grandparents — vital details of life and death spanning three generations.

The operation began quietly with no public announcement on Nov. 8 in the township of Pauktaw, of which the village of Sin Thet Maw is a part. It will eventually be carried out across all of Rakhine state, the coastal territory where nearly 200 people have died in the last five months, and 110,000 more, mostly Muslims, have fled.

The Thailand-based advocacy group, the Arakan Project, warns the results could be used to definitively rule out citizenship for the Rohingya, who have suffered discrimination for decades and are widely viewed as foreigners from Bangladesh. Muslims in Sin Thet Maw echoed those concerns, and said they had not been told what the operation was for.

"What we know is that they don't want us here," said one 34-year-old Muslim named Zaw Win, who said his family had lived in Sin Thet Maw since 1918.

So far, more than 2,000 Muslim families have gone through the process, but no "illegal settlers have been found," said state spokesman Win Myaing.

It was not immediately clear, however, what would happen to anyone deemed to be illegal. Win Myaing declined to say whether they could deported or not. Bangladesh has regularly turned back Rohingya refugees, as have other countries, including Thailand.

Few issues in Myanmar are as sensitive as this.

The conflict has galvanized an almost nationalistic furor against the Rohingya, who majority Buddhists believe are trying to steal scarce land and forcibly spread the Islamic faith. Myanmar's recent transition to democratic rule has opened the way for monks to stage anti-Rohingya protests as an exercise in freedom of expression, and for vicious anti-Rohingya rants to swamp Internet forums.

In the nearby town of Pauktaw, where all that remains of a once-significant Muslim community are the ashes of charred homes and blackened palm trees, the hatred is clear. Graffiti scrawled inside a destroyed mosque ominously warns that the "Rakhine will drink Kalar blood." Kalar is a derogatory epithet commonly used to refer to Muslims here.

Myanmar's reformist leader, President Thein Sein, had set a harsh tone over the summer, saying that "it is impossible to accept those Rohingya who are not our ethnic nationals."

But this month, he appeared to change course, penning an unprecedented and politically risky letter to the U.N. promising to consider new rights for the Rohingya for the first time.

In the letter, Thein Sein said his government would address contentious issues "ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship," but he gave no timeline and stopped short of fully committing to naturalize them.

The operation observed by the AP in Sin Thet Maw appeared to be part of an effort to resolve the issue.

By law, anyone whose forefathers lived in Myanmar prior to independence in 1948 has the right to apply for citizenship. But in practice, most Rohingya have been unable to. They must typically obtain permission to travel, and sometimes even to marry.

Discrimination has made it hard to obtain key documents like birth certificates, according to rights groups. Many Rohingya, having migrated here during the era of British colonial rule, speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, with darker skin than other ethnic groups in Myanmar.

The road to naturalization grew more difficult with a 1982 citizenship law that excluded the Rohingya from a list of the nation's 135 recognized ethnicities. Since Bangladesh also rejects them, the move effectively rendered the Rohingya living in Myanmar stateless — a population the U.N. estimates at 800,000.

The issue is so fraught that even the word "Rohingya" itself is widely disputed. Buddhists say the term was made up to obscure the Muslim population's South Asian heritage; they do not accept the Rohingya as a separate ethnic group, and instead call them "Bengali" — a reference to the belief they are in fact Bangladeshis who entered illegally.

While some Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations and have documents to prove it, others arrived more recently. There is little distinction between these two groups, though. During the last official census in 1983, the Rohingya were excluded.

In places like Sit Thet Maw, Rakhine Buddhist elders believe they are on the front line of a population explosion, and they are worried.

Some 70 years ago, there were about 1,000 Buddhist and 100 Muslim inhabitants here, according to Said Thar Tun Maung, a 59-year-old Rakhine who works as a local government administrator. Today, the Buddhists are a minority: They number just 1,900, compared to 4,000 Rohingya residents.

Tun Maung blamed the demographic changes on higher birth rates among Muslim families, and the illegal arrival of new migrants hunting for fertile farmland and good fishing. Several thousand more Muslims arrived in October after Rakhine mobs burned their homes in the town of Kyaukphyu, swelling the Muslim population here even further. The refugees' presence is considered temporary — they are currently camped along the beach beside their ships.

"This is our land," Tun Maung said. But "it's slowly being taken away from us, and nobody is doing anything to stop it."

The AP team that visited Sin Thet Maw observed four-man government teams conducting interviews with dozens of Muslim families. The Rohingya live in a separate part of Sin Thet Maw that is completely segregated from the Buddhist side of the village by a wide field running hundreds of meters (yards) inland.

Most of those interviewed had temporary national registration cards that were issued by authorities ahead of elections in 2010 in an apparent effort to secure their support. The cards granted the Rohingya the right to vote, but they were stamped with a major caveat that read: "Not proof of citizenship." Most also showed government-issued forms on which their family members had been registered.

There was one question, though, that the officers did not ask — the one that mattered above all the rest. It was represented on the forms by a blank line beside the entry: "Race/Nationality."

After each interview, the officers filled in the empty space with the words: "Bengali," or, "Bengali/Islam."

The consequence of such answers is unclear. One officer, Kyi San, said only: "We're collecting data, not making decisions on nationality."

But several Muslims interviewed by the AP complained that officers refused to classify them as Rohingya, declaring that "the Rohingya do not exist." One man said he was beaten after refusing to sign a form identifying himself as Bengali.

Chris Lewa, of the Arakan Project, said the use of the word Rohingya was common among Muslims in some parts of Rakhine state, but rarely used in others like the capital, Sittwe.

But since the latest unrest began in June, Muslims from packed refugee camps to the remotest island villages are almost uniformly calling themselves Rohingya.

"Being Bengali means we can be arrested and deported. It means we aren't part of this country," said Zaw Win, one of the Muslims who had been interrogated. "We are not Bengali. We are Rohingya."

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Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win and Yadana Htun contributed to this report.

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Glen Campbell considering more live shows in 2013

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Glen Campbell may be wrapping up a goodbye tour but that doesn't mean he's done with the stage.

Campbell is considering scheduling more shows next year after playing more than 120 dates in 2012.

The 76-year-old singer has Alzheimer's disease and has begun to lose his memory. He put out his final studio album, "Ghost on the Canvas," in 2011 and embarked on the tour with family members and close friends serving in his band and staffing the tour.

Campbell's longtime manager Stan Schneider said in a phone interview from Napa, Calif., where the tour wrapped for the year Friday night, that recent West Coast shows have been some of the singer's strongest. Campbell will break for the holidays and if he still feels strong he'll begin scheduling more shows.

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Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

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UN vote recognizes state of Palestine; US objects

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly to recognize a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians still face enormous limitations: They don't control their borders, airspace or trade, they have separate and competing governments in Gaza and the West Bank, and they have no unified army or police.

In an extraordinary lineup of international support, more than two-thirds of the world body's 193 member states approved the resolution upgrading the Palestinians' status from an observer to a nonmember observer state on Thursday. It passed 138-9, with 41 abstentions.

The vote was a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States.

The vote grants Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation, after an electronic screen lit up with the final vote.

Real independence, however, remains an elusive dream until the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal with the Israelis, who warned that the General Assembly action will only delay a lasting solution. Israel still controls the West Bank, east Jerusalem and access to Gaza, and it accused the Palestinians of bypassing negotiations with the campaign to upgrade their U.N. status.

The U.N. action also could help Abbas restore some of his standing, which has been eroded by years of stalemate in peace efforts. His rival, the Hamas militant group, deeply entrenched in Gaza, has seen its popularity rise after it responded with a barrage of rocket fire to an Israeli offensive earlier this month on targets linked to the militants.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, jubilant Palestinians crowded into the main square, waving Palestinian flags and chanting "God is great!" Hundreds had watched the vote on outdoor screens and televisions, and they hugged, honked their horns and set off fireworks as the final vote was cast.

The tally came after a speech by Abbas in which he called the moment a "last chance" to save the two-state solution.

"The General Assembly is being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine," the Palestinian leader declared.

The United States and Israel immediately criticized the vote.

"Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path of peace," U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said. "Today's grand pronouncements will soon fade and the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded."

Calling the vote "meaningless," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of spreading "mendacious propaganda" against Israel in a speech he rejected as "defamatory and venomous."

"The resolution in the U.N. today won't change anything on the ground," Netanyahu said. "It won't advance the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather, put it further off."

With most U.N. members sympathetic to the Palestinians, there had been no doubt the resolution would be approved. A state of Palestine has already been recognized by 132 countries, and the Palestinians have 80 embassies and 40 representative offices around the world, according to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

Still, the Palestinians lobbied hard for Western support, winning over key European countries including France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland, as well as Japan and New Zealand. Germany and Britain were among the many Western nations that abstained.

Joining the United States and Israel in voting "no" were Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

In a departure from its previous opposition, Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, said it wouldn't interfere with the U.N. bid for statehood, and its supporters joined some of the celebrations Thursday.

With its newly enhanced status, the Palestinians can now gain access to U.N. agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

However, in the run-up to the U.N. vote, Abbas signaled that he wants recognition to give him leverage in future talks with Israel, and not as a tool for confronting or delegitimizing Israel, as Israeli leaders have claimed.

Speaking stridently at times Thursday, Abbas accused the Israelis of "colonial occupation" that institutionalizes racism and charged that the Jewish state is continuing to perpetuate "war crimes."

Still, he said the Palestinians did not come to terminate "what remains of the negotiations process" but to try "to breathe new life into the negotiations" and achieve an independent state.

"We will act responsibly and positively in our next steps," he said.

The Palestinians turned to the General Assembly after being stymied for full membership last year, when the United States announced it would veto their bid for full U.N. membership until there is a peace deal with Israel. Abbas made clear that this remains the Palestinians' ultimate goal — hopefully soon.

Full membership requires Security Council approval, with no vetoes. The non-member observer state status only required a majority vote of the General Assembly.

The vote granted the Palestinians the same status at the U.N. as the Vatican, and they will keep their seat next to the Holy See in the General Assembly chamber.

The historic vote came 65 years to the day after the U.N. General Assembly voted in 1947 to divide Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. Israel became a state but the Palestinians rejected the partition plan, and decades of tension and violence have followed.

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Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Haitham Hamad and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, Robert Burns and Bradley Klapper in Washington and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Myanmar cracks down on mine protest; dozens hurt

MONYWA, Myanmar (AP) — Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is urging a negotiated resolution to protests over a military-backed copper mine in northwestern Myanmar after the government's biggest crackdown on demonstrators since reformist President Thein Sein took office last year.

Riot police used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to break up the 11-day occupation of the Letpadaung copper mine, wounding dozens of villagers and Buddhist monks early Thursday. The move risks becoming a public relations and political fiasco for Thein Sein's government, which has touted Myanmar's transition to democracy after almost five decades of repressive military rule.

In a visit scheduled before the crackdown, Suu Kyi met Thursday with company officials and protesters and was scheduled to meet with local officials and others Friday.

The mine is jointly operated by a Chinese company and a holding company controlled by Myanmar's military, and activists say as the project expands, villagers have been forced from their land with little compensation.

Through state television, the government initially acknowledged using the riot-control measures but denied using excessive force against the protesters. In an unusual move, it later retracted the statement without explanation.

Protesters suffered serious burns after the crackdown near the town of Monywa. It was unclear if people were burned by the weapons themselves or because the weapons ignited fires in shelters at the protest camps.

"I didn't expect to be treated like this, as we were peacefully protesting," Aung Myint Htway, a peanut farmer whose face and body were covered with black patches of burned skin, said.

Another protester, Ottama Thara, said: "This kind of violence should not happen under a government that says it is committed to democratic reforms."

Still writhing from pain hours after the early morning crackdown, Aung Myint Htway said police fired water cannons first and then shot what he and others called flare guns.

"They fired black balls that exploded into fire sparks. They shot about six times. People ran away and they followed us," he said. "It's very hot."

Suu Kyi's visit to nearby Kan-Kone village had been scheduled before the crackdown. The Nobel Peace laureate, elected to parliament after spending most of the last two decades under house arrest, unexpectedly went to the mine to meet with its operators before making her speech.

"I already met one side. I met with mine operators. I want to meet with villagers and protesters," she said. "I want to negotiate hearing from both sides."

She asked the crowd to be patient. "I haven't made any decision yet. I want to meet with both sides and negotiate," she said in a speech that lasted less than 15 minutes. "Will you agree with my negotiating?" The crowd shouted its assent.

Some of Suu Kyi's comments suggested that she may not fully embrace the tactics of the protesters. "When dealing with people, I don't always follow what people like. I only tell the truth," she said. "I will work for the long-term benefit of the country."

After her speech she went to the hospital where many of the injured were being treated, and met with protest leaders at the hotel in Monywa where she is staying. A protest leader, Thwe Thwe Win, said afterward: "We will wait for Aung San Suu Kyi to negotiate with the companies. But we will not stop the protest until we achieve our demands, though I cannot tell you how we will proceed at this point."

Ohn Kyaing, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said she told the mine's executives that force should not have been used. He said the executives said they did not direct the action, and that it had been the work of the state security forces. Ohn Kyaing said Suu Kyi on Friday would meet with officials in charge of the crackdown, as well as local villagers and their representatives.

Government officials have publicly stated that the protest risked scaring off foreign investment in Myanmar's long-neglected economy. Villagers affected by the mine claim they did not receive satisfactory compensation and demand a more comprehensive environmental impact assessment.

The mine is a joint venture between China's Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd. and the military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd., and most people here remain suspicious of the military and see China as an aggressive and exploitive investor that helped support its rule.

The protesters' concerns about the mine do not yet appear to be widely shared by the broader public. But hurting monks — as admired for their social activism as they are revered for their spiritual beliefs — is sure to antagonize many.

Aung Myint Htway said he didn't care that police treated him badly but added, "I won't forgive them for what they did to our monks."

According to a nurse at a Monywa hospital, 27 monks and one other person were admitted with burns caused by some sort of projectile that released sparks or embers. Two monks with serious injuries were sent for treatment in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-biggest city, a 2½ hour drive away.

Other evicted protesters gathered at a Buddhist temple about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the mine's gates.

The protest is the latest major example of increased activism by citizens since the elected government took over last year. Street demonstrations have been legalized, and are generally tolerated, though detentions have occurred in sensitive cases.

Political and economic liberalization under Thein Sein has won praise from Western governments, which have eased sanctions imposed on the previous military government because of its poor record on human and civil rights.

However, the military's position in Myanmar's government remains strong, and some critics fear that democratic gains could be temporary.

The government's surprise suspension last year of a Chinese-backed hydroelectric project, in response to similar concerns about social and economic consequences, was seen as a significant indicator of its commitment to democratic reform. But China was unhappy about the decision, and Thein Sein's ministers have warned about offending Myanmar's big neighbor to the north and scaring off other foreign investors.

China's foreign ministry has defended the mining venture as mutually beneficial and said that environmental remediation and compensation to relocate affected residents all conformed to Myanmar law.

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Taking a page from Louis C.K., Chill launches online store for films, comedy specials

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Chill, a social video platform with close to 20 million users, has launched Chill Direct, a new store for creatives like Maria Bamford and Michael Urie to sell their movies, specials and documentaries directly to fans.

Comedian Louis C.K. sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry this summer by selling a comedy special directly online rather than making a distribution deal with a television network or online service. He made millions, and various others have followed suit, including Jim Gaffigan and Aziz Ansari.

Chill sees an opportunity to enter this emerging market, empowering artists and offering them an opportunity to control the distribution and monetization of their ongoing projects.

“The community gives filmmakers and comedians the ability to distribute premium video directly to fans,” CEO Brian Norgard told TheWrap. “The common analogy is to Louis C.K. and his ‘Live at Beacon Theater.‘ That was a seminal moment in the entertainment business and a lot of things now allow direct-to-fan to become a viable model.”

Artists who choose to sell through Chill also can sell their videos elsewhere, but Chill Direct launches with eight videos exclusive to the site. That slate includes “Maria Bamford: the Special Special Special!,” an hour-long comedy special starring Bamford, “Thank You For Judging,” a documentary from “Ugly Betty” actor Urie about high school speech and debate and “Unknown Sender,” a suspense series from “48 Hrs” and “Die Hard” scribe Stephen E. de Souza.

Starting Thursday, any artist can create a page for a project and has complete creative control over the page, from information about the project to trailers to pricing. Meanwhile, Chill handles distribution across devices as well as payments.

Artists retain rights to their own intellectual property while Chill takes a 30 percent cut of any transaction.

“What Chill does is let anyone build out socially integrated marketing pages – we call them story pages – beautiful, high-resolution tantalizing receptacles of premium videos,” Norgard said.

Chill, funded by WME and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and others, has previously enabled frictionless uploading, consumption and sharing of the web’s most popular videos. This maintains a social layer, allowing for commenting and offering bundles that combine the video with other perks like merchandise or meeting the creator.

“The land of premium video is still a very closed marketplace,” Norgard said. “If you have tremendous business development skills or connections to sell a film to Netflix or Hulu, you’re lucky. The ad-supported model doesn’t fit every type of content. There is plenty of stuff out there like documentary films and comedy specials where creators are between a rock and a hard place and wan to get it out there, distribute it, own the right but not put it on a free streaming site like YouTube.”

Selling direct to fans also offers a new revenue stream to a company that until now was mostly luring people a few times a day for videos.

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Adkins explains Confederate flag earpiece

NEW YORK (AP) — Trace Adkins wore an earpiece decorated like the Confederate flag when he performed for the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting but says he meant no offense by it.

Adkins appeared with the earpiece on a nationally televised special for the lighting on Wednesday. Some regard the flag as a racist symbol and criticized Adkins in Twitter postings.

But in a statement released Thursday, the Louisiana native called himself a proud American who objects to any oppression and says the flag represents his Southern heritage.

He noted he's a descendant of Confederate soldiers and says he did not intend offense by wearing it.

Adkins — on a USO tour in Japan — also called for the preservation of America's battlefields and an "honest conversation about the country's history."

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Online:

http://www.traceadkins.com

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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