Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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NATO says Syrian Scuds hit "near" Turkey

BEIRUT (Reuters) - NATO accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces of firing Scud missiles that landed near to the Turkish border, in explaining why it was sending anti-missile batteries and troops to the bloc's frontier.

The Syrian government, which finds itself under attack from rebels in the capital Damascus and by a diplomatic alliance of Arab and Western powers, denies firing such long-range, Soviet-built rockets and had no immediate comment on the latest charge.

Admiral James Stavridis, the American who is NATO's military commander, wrote in a blog on Friday: "Over the past few days, a handful of Scud missiles were launched inside Syria, directed by the regime against opposition targets. Several landed fairly close to the Turkish border, which is very worrisome."

It was not clear how close they came. NATO member Turkey, once friendly toward Assad but now among the main allies of the rebels, has complained of occasional bullets and artillery fire, some of which has been fatal, for many months. It sought the installation of missile defenses on its border some weeks ago.

"Syria is clearly a chaotic and dangerous situation; but we have an absolute obligation to defend the borders of the alliance from any threat emanating from that troubled state," Stavridis wrote.

Batteries of U.S.-made Patriot missiles, designed to shoot down the likes of the Scuds popularly associated with Iraq's wars under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, are about to be deployed by the U.S., German and Dutch armies, each of which is sending up to 400 troops to operate and protect the rocket systems.

The Syrian government has accused Western powers of backing what it portrays as a Sunni Islamist "terrorist" attack on it and says Washington and Europe have publicly voiced concerns of late that Assad's forces might resort to chemical weapons solely as a pretext for preparing a possible military intervention.

In contrast to NATO's air campaign in support of Libya's successful revolt last year against Muammar Gaddafi, Western powers have fought shy of intervention in Syria. They have cited the greater size and ethnic and religious complexity of a major Arab state at the heart of the Middle East - but have also lacked U.N. approval due to Russia's support for Assad.

Moscow reacted angrily on Friday to the way U.S. officials seized on comments by a top Kremlin envoy for the Middle East as evidence that Russia was giving up on Assad. Comments by Mikhail Bogdanov on Thursday in which he conceded Assad might be ousted did not reflect a change in policy, the Foreign Ministry said.

Assad's diplomatic isolation remains acute, however, as Arab and Western powers this week recognized a new, united coalition of opposition groups as Syria's legitimate leadership. Large parts of the country are no longer under the government's control and fighting has been raging around Damascus itself.

European Union leaders who met in Brussels on Friday said all options were on the table to support the Syrian opposition, raising the possibility that non-lethal military equipment or even arms could eventually be supplied.

In their strongest statement of support for the Syrian opposition since the uprising began 20 months ago, EU leaders instructed their foreign ministers to assess all possibilities to increase the pressure on Assad.

With rebels edging into the capital, a senior NATO official said that Assad is likely to fall and the Western military alliance should make plans to protect against the threat of his chemical arsenal falling into the wrong hands.

HUNGER SPREADS

Desperation for food is growing in parts of Syria and residents of the northern city of Aleppo say fist fights and dashes across the civil war front lines have become part of the daily struggle to secure a loaf of bread.

"I went out yesterday and could not get any bread. If only the problem was just lack of food - there is also a huge shortage of fuel, which the bakeries need to run," said Ahmed, a resident of the battle-scarred Salaheddine district.

He said people get into fist fights over flour and rebels regularly have to break up fights by firing into the air.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says as many as a million people may go hungry this winter, as worsening security conditions make it harder to reach conflict zones.

Forty thousand people have now been killed in the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts. The government severely limits press and humanitarian access to the country.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said on Friday the United Nations is committed to maintaining aid operations in Syria.

"NOTHING OFF THE TABLE"

At the EU summit, Britain's David Cameron pushed for an early review of the arms embargo against Syria to possibly open the way to supply equipment to rebels in the coming months. Germany and others were more reluctant and blocked any quick move. But there was widespread agreement that whatever action can be taken under current legislation should be pursued, and the arms embargo would still be reviewed at a later stage.

"I want a very clear message to go to President Assad that nothing is off the table," Cameron told reporters at the end of a two-day summit. "I want us to work with the opposition ... so that we can see the speediest possible transition in Syria.

"There is no single simple answer, but inaction and indifference are not options."

Among factors holding Western powers back from arming the rebels is the presence in their ranks of anti-Western Islamist radicals. Following a U.S. decision this week to blacklist one such group, Jabhat al-Nusra, a "terrorist" group, thousands of Syrians demonstrated on Friday against ostracizing the movement.

The latest, weekly Friday protests in rebel-held areas were held under the slogan: "The only terrorism in Syria is Assad's".

Inspired by Arab uprisings across the region, Syrian protesters were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces in March 2011. Armed revolt overtook the movement, which has become increasingly sectarian - waged by majority Sunni Muslims against forces loyal to Assad, who is from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of the Shi'ite Islam practiced in Assad's ally Iran.

A video posted on the Internet showed dozens of Sunni rebels dressed in camouflage gear congratulating and kissing each other outside a burning Shi'ite shrine.

A fighter holding a rifle said the group was destroying the "dens of the Shi'ites". Reuters could not independently verify the video, which was posted on YouTube on Wednesday and purports to be filmed in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughur.

(Writing by Oliver Holmes and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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US Dollar falls as fiscal cliff worries grow

NEW YORK: The US dollar dropped to its lowest level against the euro in three months Friday, the euro going above US$1.31 as politicians in Washington appeared no closer to averting the economy-crunching fiscal cliff.

With just over two weeks to go before the deadline, markets began to show strains from worries that US leaders will not be able to carve out a compromise deal to beat the year-end deadline to skirt the cliff's harsh mandatory budget cuts and tax hikes.

At 2200 GMT, the euro was at US$1.3161, compared to US$1.3073 late Thursday.

The US dollar has slipped steadily for a week amid cliff fears and the Federal Reserve's extension of its bond-buying easy monetary accommodation, aimed at sparking more growth in the sluggish US economy.

The yen was mixed ahead of Sunday's Japanese general election: the euro gained to 109.94 yen from 109.38 yen, while the US dollar slipped to 83.52 yen from 83.64.

"According to most reports out of Japan, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is well ahead in polls and his coalition government should easily take more than 60 per cent of the seats in Parliament, leading to Abe's return to the PM seat," said Neal Gilbert of GFT.

"Abe has made many declarations that he wants to become more aggressive with monetary policy by lowering interest rates to 0 per cent, increasing the inflation target to 3 per cent, and increasing the amount of QE (quantitative easing)."

Gilbert added that if Abe regains the premiership, the yen's weakness "may be much more long lasting."

The US dollar slipped against the Swiss franc to 0.9172 francs, while the British pound edged higher to US$1.6173.

- AFP/jc

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Captain Amarinder Singh gets reprieve in Amritsar Improvement Trust case

CHANDIGARH: The trial against former Punjab chief minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, in Amritsar Improvement Trust case would now be conducted by another court in Mohali. Justice K C Puri of the Punjab and Haryana high court passed these orders on Friday, while disposing off a petition filed by the Congress leader.

Justice Puri ordered that the trial against former CM would be conducted before senior most judge of the district court Mohali.

In his petition, Amarinder had sought the transfer of case trial from Mohali court to any other outside Punjab, alleging that the trial could not be held in a fair manner in the state as the public prosecutor could not be presumed to be impartial. However, later he pressed for transfer of the case to any other court of district court Mohali. Even the state government had filed its no objection on the shifting of case trial.

While apprehending pressure on Punjab vigilance bureau during the trial of cases against him, Capt had contended that the public prosecutor was under administrative control of the home department of the state government, headed by deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal.

Amarinder was booked by the Punjab vigilance bureau on September 11, 2008 at the police station, vigilance bureau, Mohali, under sections 420, 458, 467, 471, 120-B of IPC and sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The matter pertains to land excluded from the Amritsar Improvement Trust scheme, which was later taken by a builder. The bureau has already filed a charge sheet against Capt in this case before special court Mohali.

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Conn. Shooter Adam Lanza; 'Obviously Not Well'

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut this morning, was "obviously not well," a relative told ABC News.

Family friends in Newtown also described the young man as troubled and described his mother Nancy as very rigid. "[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said one friend.

Late today, police said Nancy Lanza's body was found in the family home. According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left the house armed with at least two semi-automatic handguns and a semi-automatic rifle.

State and federal authorities believe his mother may have once worked at the elementary school where Adam went on his deadly rampage, although she was not a teacher, according to relatives, perhaps a volunteer.

As part of the investigation authorities searched the New Jersey apartment of Adam's older brother Ryan in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Police had initially identified Ryan as the killer, until he sent out a series of Facebook posts saying it wasn't him and that he was at work all day.

Sources told ABC News that Ryan, 24, works as a senior person in Ernst and Young's tax practice in Manhattan.

"He's a tax guy and he is clean as a whistle," a source familiar with his work said.

Ryan has worked at the firm 4 years.

Today the NYPD and FBI went to Ernst & Young and removed Ryan's laptop and other possessions, which is part of the normal investigative process.

Officials were interviewing Ryan and his father, but neither person was under any suspicion, multiple sources said.

MORE: 27 Dead, Mostly Children, at Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

LIVE UPDATES: Newton, Conn. School Shooting

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

Read More..

U.S., rebels urge gloomy Moscow to help oust Assad

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's rebel leadership and the United States seized on Russian pessimism over President Bashar al-Assad's future to urge Moscow to help push its ally into ceding power and end the battles closing in around his capital.

"We want to commend the Russian government for finally waking up to the reality and acknowledging that the regime's days are numbered," the U.S. State Department spokeswoman said after a senior Kremlin envoy conceded publicly on Thursday that Assad's opponents could win the 20-month-old civil war.

"The question now is, will the Russian government join those of us in the international community who are working with the opposition to try to have a smooth democratic transition?" U.S. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland added in Washington.

In Marrakech, where his new coalition won recognition from other international powers as the legitimate leadership of Syria, rebel political leader Mouaz al-Khatib said he believed Russia, ally and arms supplier to the Assad dynasty since Soviet times, was looking for ways out of its support for a lost cause.

"I believe that the Russians have woken up and are sensing that they have implicated themselves with this regime, but they don't know how to get out," al-Khatib told Reuters. He held them "particularly responsible" for helping Assad with arms but said Moscow need not "lose everything" in Syria if it changed tack.

Under President Vladimir Putin, wary since last year's Libyan war of what Russia sees as a Western drive to use the United Nations to overthrow national leaders it dislikes, Russia has blocked U.N. efforts to squeeze Assad, who has also had strong support from his long-time sponsor Iran.

But Mikhail Bogdanov, a deputy foreign minister and the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, was quoted as saying in Moscow: "One must look the facts in the face."

"Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out." The Syrian government, he said, was "losing control of more and more territory" and Moscow was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

Nuland said Bogdanov's comments demonstrated that Moscow now "sees the writing on the wall" on Syria and said Russia should now rally behind U.N. efforts to prevent a wider bloodbath.

"They can withdraw any residual support for the Assad regime, whether it is material support (or) financial support," she said. "They can also help us to identify people who might be willing, inside of Syria, to work on a transitional structure."

DIPLOMACY

International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who has met Russian and U.S. officials twice in the past week, is seeking a solution based on an agreement reached in Geneva in June that called for the creation of a transitional government in Syria.

But Russia has repeated warnings that recognition of al-Khatib's coalition, notably by the United States, is undermining diplomacy, and rejected U.S. contentions that the Geneva agreement sent a clear message that Assad should step down.

Nuland said the Brahimi meetings could lay the framework for a political structure to follow Assad:

"We've said all along to the Russians that we are concerned that the longer that this goes on, and the longer it takes us to get to an alternative political path for Syria, the only path is going to be the military one and that is just going to bring more violence.

"We all ought to be working together."

Bogdanov, whose government has suggested that Assad himself should be allowed to see through a transition he has promised, suggested the rebels and their allies were set on a military solution and he gave little hint of detente with Washington.

"The fighting will become even more intense and (Syria) will lose tens of thousands and, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of civilians," Bogdanov was quoted as saying. "If such a price for the removal of the president seems acceptable to you, what can we do? We, of course, consider it absolutely unacceptable."

The head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said elsewhere: "I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse."

A U.S. official said: "Assad probably still believes that Syria is his and illusions can die hard. But Assad and those closest to him have got to be feeling the psychological strain of fighting a long war that is not going their way."

DAMASCUS BATTLES

But Al-Khatib, who played down Western concerns of sectarian Sunni Islamists in rebel ranks, warned that the fighting was far from over, even as it has begun to rattle the heart of Assad's power in Damascus. On Wednesday, a car bomb killed at least 16 people in a nearby town which is home to many military families.

"The noose is tightening around the regime," al-Khatib said.

"(But) the regime still has power. People think that the regime is finished, but it still has power left, but it is demoralized and however long it lasted its end is clear."

Day and night, Damascenes can hear the thunderous sound of bombardment aimed at rebel-held and contested neighborhoods.

The city's streets have now turned into a labyrinth of checkpoints and road blocks, with several major roads permanently closed off to traffic by concrete barriers.

"We escape from one place and trouble follows," said one grandmother, Um Hassan, as she described to Reuters her family's flight from one neighborhood to another as fighting seeps into the capital. "I don't know where we can keep running to."

Nonetheless, al-Khatib played down demands for their allies to provide heavier weaponry - a request long resisted by governments wary of anti-aircraft missiles and other hardware reaching Islamist rebels who might turn them against the West.

"The Syrian people ... no longer need international forces to protect them," he said, not specifying whether he meant a no-fly zone, arms supplies or other military support.

The opposition chief said he was willing to listen to proposals for Assad to escape with his life - "The best thing is that he steps down and stops drinking the blood of the Syrian people" - and outlined three scenarios for a change of power:

Al-Khatib ruled out the Russian proposal suggesting Assad hand over power to a transitional government while remaining president, saying it was "disgraceful for a slaughtered nation to accept to have a killer and criminal at its head".

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes bombed rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

Syria has relied on war planes and helicopters to bombard rebel districts but Damascus denied accusations by U.S. and NATO officials that it had fired Scud missiles in recent days. The foreign ministry said the long-range missiles were not used against "terrorist groups," a term it uses for the rebels.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy) For an interactive look at the uprising in Syria, please click on http://link.reuters.com/rut37s

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EU leaders upbeat on euro future after deal on banks, Greece

BRUSSELS: EU leaders debated the euro's future in a bullish mood Thursday after deals on banks and Greece, despite fears that political uncertainty in Italy could cause new worries for the single currency.

As video showed the bloc's 27 leaders smiling and joking with each other at the beginning of a two-day summit, EU President Herman Van Rompuy said leaders should aim to cap a triumphant week that began with the European Union picking up the Nobel Peace Prize.

"We started the week well in Oslo. Let's finish it well here in Brussels with a further positive outcome," Van Rompuy said.

"The worst is now behind us, but of course much still needs to be done," he added as the leaders began deliberations on how to make the 17-nation eurozone more stable after a crippling three-year crisis.

The hero of the day was Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti, hailed for tough reforms that have brought Italy back from the brink of financial collapse but who announced last weekend he would be stepping down.

"Confidence has been returning in Italy's capacity to solve problems," said European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. "Let me praise Mario Monti and his government for this."

Jitters over Italy's political situation loomed over the summit, after Monti said he would soon step down and former leader Silvio Berlusconi indicated he might run for a fourth term.

But on the sidelines of the talks, Berlusconi hinted he might not put himself forward, telling Belgian television channel VRT that he had "so much to do" outside politics.

At the talks, leaders will debate a report drawn up by Van Rompuy that proposes steps towards greater economic integration in the eurozone, eventually with a common "fiscal capacity" and binding reform commitments.

Following on the heels of a summit only last month that collapsed over the EU's seven-year budget, the atmosphere was noticeably brighter after ministers sealed much-heralded agreements on supervising big banks and aid to Greece.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras exclaimed that "Grexit is dead", meaning the prospect of Greece leaving the euro currency area was no longer possible after ministers released bailout funds to avert bankruptcy.

After a buy-back programme designed to reduce Greece's debt mountain, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker said a first payment of 34.3 billion euros ($44.7 billion) would be flowing to Athens "as early as next week."

This instalment would go to help recapitalise Greece's crisis-wracked banks, to be followed by another 14.8 billion euros in the first quarter of next year.

An ecstatic Samaras, who has pushed through painful reforms demanded by creditors often in the face of violent protest, told reporters: "Greece is back on its feet. The sacrifices of the Greek people have not been in vain."

"Today is not only a new day for Greece, it is indeed a new day for Europe," he added.

"It is flying. It is happening"

Hours before the Greece deal, ministers charged the European Central Bank with monitoring banks with assets of more than 30 billion euros, or equal to 20 percent of a state's economic output from March 2014.

The agreement, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "cannot be valued highly enough", is the first step on the path towards a banking union and clears the way for EU bailout funds to recapitalise struggling banks directly.

Merkel called the move a "big step towards more reliability and trust in the eurozone."

The new Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for the eurozone -- which Britain and Sweden will not take part in -- will mean the ECB directly supervising some 200 of the biggest banks out of the estimated 6,000 eurozone lenders.

ECB chief Mario Draghi hailed the accord as "an important step towards a stable economic and monetary union, and towards further European integration".

More excitedly, Barroso said: "You remember, when we spoke about this some time ago, people said it will not fly. It is flying. It is happening."

Merkel voiced some satisfaction as she looked back on a year of seemingly endless crisis summits, damaging market volatility and, at times, near break-up of the eurozone bloc.

"All in all, I want to state at the end of 2012 that we have achieved a lot. It was a very heavy year in terms of work but it was also a year in which we managed to make big progress," said the leader of Europe's biggest economy.

The head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, however complained that workers' rights had not been taken sufficiently into account.

"As the representatives of the people, we are annoyed that the social pact that we asked for has not been included in the report drawn up by Mr Van Rompuy," Schulz told reporters.

-AFP/ac

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At 100 plus, they keep 65-year-old India healthy

SURAT/BHARUCH: From East India Company to Nano, they have seen it all. They may not have had formal education, but these centurions in Gujarat set an example for those shying away from voting.

In Surat's Hirabaug polling booth, all eyes were glued on 110-year-old Ujiben Kakadia, the oldest voter in the city. She came in her grandson's car to cast her vote on Thursday morning and was accompanied by her 78-year-old daughter Laduben Borda.

Ujiben refused to say whom she voted for. For her grandson Tulsi Borda , it was a surprise on Wednesday night when Ujiben expressed her wish to exercise her franchise for the second time in the past 15 years.

It was in 1995 that Ujiben had cast her vote in Surat. A native of Panchpipla village in Palitana taluka of Bhavnagar district , she has been living in the city for the past 35 years. Borda (40) said, "Since 10 years she has not been keeping well. At present she is fine."

Voting is nothing less than festival in Rozghat village of Narmada district. And, the most excited person to reach the polling booth is none other than 117-year-old Kathudia Dada. The Election Commission had actually made him its icon to promote voting in the state.

Kathudia Dada woke up at the break of the dawn and ensured that 65 members of his family exercise their franchise.

T he 117-year-old walked for almost a kilometre from his house to reach the polling booth at a primary school. And, the scene was nothing less than a procession. They walked in two separate lines of males and females. Kathudia Dada has a family of 80 out of which 65 are registered voters. He has five sons and two daughters.

"Voting day is nothing less than a family festival for us. I have cast my vote in all post-Independence elections," he said.

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NASA Debunks Mayan Doom, 10 Days Early

Dec 13, 2012 2:57pm

Kukulkan pyramid, Yucatan, Mexico. Jeremy Woodhouse/Getty.

We’ll never know if they were wrong.

NASA has quietly published a web video explaining why the world did not come to an end “yesterday,” Dec. 21, 2012.

The date of its release, December 11, was no mistake, even if doomsayers would likely call it one last act of earthly hubris. NASA uploaded the four-minute “ScienceCasts” explainer, titled “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday,” in an effort to answer hundreds of calls and emails they receive daily. It also has a dedicated website that’s received at least 4.6 million visitors — people asking if the Maya prophecy is coming true and what they should do about it.

“If there was anything out there, like a planet headed for Earth, said NASA Astrobiologist David Morrison, it would already be one of the brightest objects in the sky,” the narrator explains in a cheerfully pedantic voice. “Everybody on Earth could see it. You don’t need to ask the government, just go out and look. It’s not there.”

(Note: Still not convinced? Consider this: Even if the Maya, a declining Mesoamerican civilization wiped almost entirely off the map by 17^th century Spanish conquistadors, are to be trusted with this kind of high-stakes stuff, scientists agree that reports concerning their prediction of our collective demise have been greatly exaggerated, if not fabricated. Anthropologists say the Mayan calendar was cyclical, and frequently restarted without ending.)

As for rumors about solar flares and reports the sun is reaching the “max of its 11-year solar cycle,” well, that’s all true. But NASA calls is it the “wimpiest cycle” of the past 50 years.

Anyway, “the sun has been flaring for billions of years and it has never, once, destroyed the world.”

Dwayne Brown, a senior public affair officer at NASA, said the space agency felt a sense of duty as the date neared. People have been calling in to headquarters “who want to do harm to their families” in an effort to protect them from the unknown horrors expected to arrive with the Maya apocalypse, he said.

“As the attention on the issue is growing,” the video’s producer and director Michael Brody said, “we didn’t want the rumors growing…. The idea is to take a straight, stoic, standard [scientific] look… and give it a hook.”

“You’re the smart guys, you know what’s up in space,” Brown said, his way of distilling public sentiment toward NASA.  “Well, we do!”

READ: Apocalypse Believers Flocking Here: Why?

And what they know is quite simple. The world might end on a Friday, but it won’t be tomorrow or the one after. Most scientists agree we have about five billion years of battery life, in the form of the sun, to go before the time comes to get nervous.

Brown’s best advice: “Let’s take it day-by-day.”

SHOWS: World News

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