Siku, a baby polar bear born in early December at a park in Denmark, is a YouTube sensation after videos of the tiny bear were posted online. NBC?s Michelle Kosinski reports.
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WASHINGTON ? Americans probably won't be seeing a huge ticker-tape parade anytime soon for troops returning from Iraq, and it's not clear if veterans of the nine-year campaign will ever enjoy the grand, flag-waving, red-white-and-blue homecoming that the nation's fighting men and women received after World War II and the Gulf War.
Officials in New York and Washington say they would be happy to help stage a big celebration, but Pentagon officials say they haven't been asked to plan one.
Most welcome-homes have been smaller-scale: hugs from families at military posts across the country, a somber commemoration by President Barack Obama at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
With tens of thousands of U.S. troops still fighting a bloody war in Afghanistan, anything that looks like a big victory celebration could be seen as unseemly and premature, some say.
"It's going to be a bit awkward to be celebrating too much, given how much there is going on and how much there will be going on in Afghanistan," said Don Mrozek, a military history professor at Kansas State University.
Two New York City councilmen, Republicans Vincent Ignizio and James Oddo, have called for a ticker-tape parade down the stretch of Broadway known as the Canyon of Heroes. A similar celebration after the Gulf War was paid for with more than $5.2 million in private donations, a model the councilmen would like to follow.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week that he was open to the idea but added, "It's a federal thing that we really don't want to do without talking to Washington, and we'll be doing that."
A spokesman for the mayor declined to elaborate on the city's reasons for consulting with Washington. Ignizio said he had been told by the mayor's office that Pentagon officials were concerned that a celebration could spark violence overseas and were evaluating the risk.
Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said that he has not heard that issue raised and that New York has yet to make a formal proposal. He also said officials are grateful communities around the country are finding ways to recognize the sacrifices of troops and their families.
The last combat troops in Iraq pulled out more than a week ago. About 91,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are in Afghanistan, battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency and struggling to train Afghan forces so that they eventually can take over security. Many U.S. troops who fought in the Iraq War could end up being sent to Afghanistan.
A parade might invite criticism from those who believe the U.S. left Iraq too soon, as well as from those who feel the war was unjustified. It could also trigger questions about assertions of victory.
Mrozek noted that President George W. Bush's administration referred to military action in the Middle East as part of a global war on terror, a conflict that's hard to define by conventional measures of success.
"This is not a war on a particular place or a particular force," he said.
Bush himself illustrated the perils of celebrating milestones in the war, Mrozek said, when he landed on an aircraft carrier and hailed the end of major combat operations in Iraq behind a "Mission Accomplished" banner in May 2003. U.S. troops remained in Iraq for 8 1/2 more years, and Bush was criticized over the banner.
The benchmarks were clearer in previous wars. After World War II, parades marked Japan's surrender. After the Gulf War, celebrations marked the troops' return after Iraqi forces were driven out of Kuwait.
The only mass celebrations of U.S. military activities since Sept. 11, 2001, were largely spontaneous: Large crowds gathered in Times Square and outside the White House in April after Osama bin Laden was killed.
At the same time, Iraq veterans aren't coming home to the hostility many Vietnam veterans encountered. The first large-scale event honoring Vietnam veterans was not held until 1982, when thousands marched in Washington for the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Parades were later held in New York in 1985 ? 10 years after the war ended ? and in Chicago the next year.
"I think we've seen recent history in Vietnam, where that wasn't done appropriately, and we want to make sure we do the appropriate thing by those that made the ultimate sacrifice and risked their lives for us to say thanks," Ignizio said.
At Fort Hood in Texas, troops have returned to welcome-home ceremonies at the post that were attended mostly by soldiers' families. Soldiers in uniform run to hug their loved ones after an announcer yells, "Charge!"
Col. Douglas Crissman, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, said Saturday after one such ceremony that that is as large-scale a welcome as the troops need.
"This is just the right size because it's quick and meaningful and it gets them home to their families," Crissman said.
Staff Sgt. Troy Rudolph was among the first troops to arrive in Iraq in March 2003 and was in the last combat brigade to leave. Rudolph said that a large-scale ceremony would be nice but that he feels appreciated even without confetti falling from the sky.
"I've had people buy me lunch at airports just because I was in uniform," said Rudolph, who lives at Fort Hood with his wife and 9-year-old stepdaughter. "It's emotional because you don't realize what kind of impact you have on people across the country."
In Washington, federal agencies take the lead on planning parades, and so far nothing is in the works. A spokesman for Mayor Vincent Gray said the city would be honored to host a parade but said local officials wouldn't take the lead in staging one.
In recent years, most of the ticker-tape parades in New York have been held for the city's championship sports teams.
"The sports celebrations that we've had in New York for the Yankees and the Mets were amazing," Oddo said. "But these are the real heroes."
___
Gross reported from New York. Associated Press writers Angela K. Brown in Fort Hood, Texas, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter at http://twitter.com/APBenNuckols.
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With a practice scheduled for this morning in preparation for Thursday's Champs Sports Bowl, Florida State's football players and coaches didn't have the luxury of spending Christmas at home with family and friends.
Well, most of them didn't.
A handful of Florida State players from Central Florida admitted they were ecstatic when they learned they would be spending the holidays in Orlando.
Junior linebacker Vince Williams, who grew up in nearby Davenport, said the only better destination would have been a BCS bowl. But once that was out of the question, Williams said he started rooting openly for the Champs ? even when the more prestigious Chick-fil-A Bowl was still in play.
If Virginia Tech had defeated Clemson in the ACC Championship game, there was a chance FSU could have been sent to Atlanta for the second consecutive year.
"I was like, 'Man, I hope Clemson kills Virginia Tech. I do not want to be in Atlanta,'?" Williams said, laughing. "It's cold up there."
Of course, the Chick-fil-A Bowl is played indoors at the Georgia Dome, but Williams had bad memories of practicing in the elements.
"I'm like, 'I want to go home and see my family and play in this warm weather,'?" Williams said. "When we were in Atlanta last year, it was snowing at practice. I'm a Florida boy. I don't even like snow. I was like, 'I don't want to do that no more.' It's like Miami or bust, now."
Williams got his wish, of course. Clemson beat Virginia Tech, and the Seminoles got shipped to Orlando, where the temperatures will be in the 70s this week.
Florida State's players reported to the Orlando Hilton for a team meeting Saturday, and they will practice today, Monday and Tuesday to simulate their normal Tuesday-through-Thursday game preparation.
Because Orlando is centrally located for most of Florida State's players, FSU coach Jimbo Fisher allowed them to make their own travel arrangements.
"We've got so many guys (from Florida), it's easier," Fisher said. "If we were (in a bowl game) farther off, I like going as a team."
That suited many of the Seminoles, such as Tampa's Christian Green, just fine.
"That's definitely good ? spend time with some of my family and stuff like that," said Green, a redshirt freshman receiver. "And some of my family will be able to come to the game. That's always good, to be close to home."
Source: http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20111225/FSU03/112250330/1103/RSS18
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Washington ? One of the most comprehensive studies of women?s changing role in the US military has found that they are a more racially diverse group than American men in uniform.
They are also less likely to be married and more critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The study was released this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
IN PICTURES: Military women of the world
Though officially banned from jobs that would put them directly in combat, female troops have seen their fair share of fighting. And they return back from war as deeply affected by it as their male comrades in arms.
The ranks of women overall in the military have increased dramatically since 1973, when the United States first established an all-volunteer force. During that time, the number of enlisted women has quadrupled from some 42,000 to 167,000.
What???s more, as the size of the US military began to shrink post-Vietnam, the share of women in the force increased from 2 percent to 14 percent.
Nearly one-third of active-duty women are black. That proportion is far higher than among males, where 16 percent of the troops are black, according to the Pew study. Moreover, only about half of active-duty women are white, compared with 71 percent of active-duty men.
Troops, whether male or female, seem to join the armed forces largely for the same reasons. More than 80 percent of both groups said they signed up to serve their country or to receive education benefits. Some 70 percent said they simply wanted to see the world.
However, the Pew study found one key difference among the groups, which points to the more precarious economic situation of women in America. Roughly 40 percent of female veterans say they joined the military ?because jobs were hard to find,? compared with only one-quarter of men. While 12 percent of military women are single mothers, just 4 percent of men are single fathers.
When it comes to marriage, active-duty women tend to be less likely to have spouses than their male counterparts (46 percent of women are married, versus 58 percent of men).
The choice of spouses differs between men and women. While almost half of those women who are married selected spouses who are also in the armed forces, only 7 percent of married men are paired with military women.
Once they leave the service, women veterans tend to be considerably more critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than their male counterparts. When asked whether they thought the wars were ?worth fighting,? 63 percent of female veterans say Iraq was not, versus 47 percent of male veterans. Ditto the war in Afghanistan, at 54 percent versus 39 percent.
This is a gender gap, the Pew study notes, that is not particularly apparent among the general public.
Though they see less combat, women suffer from post-traumatic stress in numbers similar to their male colleagues, according to the Pew researchers. Some 45 percent of female veterans say they frequently feel irritable or angry, and 50 percent say they have experienced strains in their family relationships (versus 47 percent and 48 percent of men, respectively).
Yet when it comes to views of their own service, male and female troops tend to agree: They value the experience that accompanied their service. More than 90 percent of women say their military service was useful in helping them ?grow and mature as a person.? Three-quarters of both groups say they would advise a young person close to them to join the military.
IN PICTURES: Military women of the world
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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111223/ts_csm/441710
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Source: topics.nytimes.com --- Thursday, December 22, 2011
Among teams with local ties, undersize but feisty Marquette looks to be the horse to ride come tournament time. ...
>>> there is the candidate who as former governor of massachusetts is the frontrunner in the next contest. in his part-time home state of new hampshire . nbc's chuck todd talked to mitt romney today one on one and is with us tonight from ashland, new hampshire. part of the news is you got to talk to mitt romney who had been pursuing a strategy of not talking to the media largely.
>> reporter: yeah. we were able to sit down with him a couple of times today. he's been the off and on frontrunner all year long but there is no state that's more make or break than new hampshire. this three-day bus trip is part of a strategy to make romney more available to voters and the press including two interviews with nbc news today. he's no less cautious and wouldn't take sides on the payroll tax cut. he was dismissive of its effect on the economy.
>> this is not going to turn the economy around. it's a very helpful feature for families.
>> reporter: romney struggled to persuade republican primary voters that he's conservative enough.
>> coming from massachusetts people begin with an assumption that perhaps you are not as conservative as they are. as they get to know me and look at my record they will recognize, no, i'm conservative.
>> reporter: there is a health care mandate in massachusetts is a conservative situation.
>> there were oh two options in my state. one was to continue to allow people without insurance to go to the homt and get free care. the alternative to that was to say people who can afford to buy insurance themselves should do so at personal responsibility. it's more conservative in my view than something given out for free by government.
>> reporter: he says his opponents are wrong when they accuse him of being a persistent flip-flopper.
>> obviously the change was most significant with regard to abortion. have i become more conservative in 20 years? absolutely.
>> reporter: he said republicans need to be clear about wall street reform.
>> we talk about deregulation. people assume we mean getting rid of all regulation. that's not the case.
>> reporter: when walking into romney 's part of the bus first you notice a campaign banner for his dad george.
>> my dad was a man of unquestioned integrity. he said exactly what he believed regardless of the consequences. i want that to with be my model.
>> reporter: he acknowledges the mormon faith he learned from his father could be a liability.
>> i don't know the reasons i lost iowa. for some my faith is an issue.
>> reporter: of course, brian, i did ask him about the gingrich complaints about all these negative ads and the super pacs. he said the heat from obama's kitchen will be hotter. gingrich responded harshly saying, quote, i'll tell you what, if he wants to test the heat i'll meet him in iowa next week, one on one, 90 minutes , no moderator. and so it goes.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45758450/
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? Women treated for severe psychiatric conditions including major depression shortly after giving birth were more likely to be diagnosed as bipolar later in life compared to those whose first psychiatric episode happened at any other time, in a new study from Denmark.
Researchers said they didn't know if some postpartum depression or schizophrenia-like episodes were actually misdiagnosed bipolar disorder -- or if more women with those initial diagnoses developed bipolar disorder over time.
"We're looking at severe psychiatric episodes," said study author Trine Munk-Olsen, from Aarhus University. She noted that while "postpartum blues" are relatively common, severe depression and other acute psychiatric episodes requiring inpatient or outpatient clinic care only occur in about one in 1,000 new moms.
"The severe episodes are rare, but they are serious episodes and of course they should be taken seriously. You want these women to get help, no doubt," she told Reuters Health.
Bipolar disorder is characterized by alternating swings between severe depression and "mania," when a person is overly excited, happy and energized. It can be treated with medications including mood stabilizers and talk therapy.
The condition most often manifests in early adulthood, and the National Institute of Mental Health estimates six percent of the U.S. population has the disorder at some point in life.
Munk-Olsen said that previous studies have suggested giving birth may act as a trigger for a first overt episode of bipolar disorder. But few women are actually diagnosed as bipolar in the weeks after having a baby.
The researchers theorized that a severe psychiatric episode shortly after giving birth could be a signal of underlying bipolar disorder.
So they tracked women in Denmark for 15 years after their first psychiatric episode to see whether the timing of that episode -- shortly after childbirth or not -- predicted who would later get a bipolar diagnosis.
Using Danish registries, they found 120,000 women treated in an inpatient hospital or outpatient clinic for their first bout of severe depression or another psychiatric condition starting around 1970. Of those, 2,900 had those episodes within a year after giving birth to their first child.
That didn't include women with an initial diagnosis of bipolar disorder, since the researchers were interested in women with other psychoses that later became bipolar.
Over the next decade and a half, close to 3,100 of all women initially given a different diagnosis were ultimately diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Of women who had their initial psychiatric episode in the first month after giving birth, 14 percent were eventually diagnosed as bipolar. That compared to between four and five percent of women who were first treated in the rest of the year after giving birth or at any other time.
"It is likely that some of the women were misdiagnosed -- we cannot rule that out -- but it is likely that some of the women develop bipolar over time," Munk-Olsen said.
The results translate to a four-fold increase in the probability that a severe psychiatric episode in the month after giving birth, versus one that happens at some other time, will ultimately lead to a bipolar diagnosis. Among those with such early postpartum episodes, the patients admitted for inpatient psychiatric treatment were also twice as likely as those treated as outpatients to later be diagnosed as bipolar.
"Clinically these findings make absolute sense," said Dr. Verinder Sharma, an obstetrician and gynecologist who studies bipolar disorder at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. "We have seen that childbirth is a potent and specific trigger of bipolar disorder."
Sharma, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health that hormone changes that occur during this time, as well as sleep loss, might trigger some women to develop bipolar symptoms, which could be misdiagnosed as depression or an anxiety disorder.
However, he said, there are still many questions about the role that having a baby plays in a woman's chance of becoming bipolar.
"We don't know whether these women have the illness because of childbirth, and if they didn't have children they would have gone without any episode of bipolar whatsoever," he said.
The findings also can't prove that postpartum depression, or giving birth itself, causes bipolar disorder, and the researchers didn't measure whether less severe, more common postpartum blues are linked to bipolar symptoms.
Still, they wrote Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry that severe psychiatric symptoms which first show up soon after a woman has a baby should be added to the list of features that could increase the risk of bipolar disorder.
Doctors, Munk-Olsen told Reuters Health, should "think about when women have their onset, and you might have an indication that there is an underlying bipolar disorder. We want these women to be diagnosed correctly, in order to help them in the best way."
In particular, Sharma added, doctors who are treating women with new psychiatric symptoms after childbirth should rule out bipolar disorder before they think about treating with antidepressants, which could make certain bipolar symptoms worse.
"It's really important to think about the diagnosis of not just depression but of severe depression and definitely bipolar disorder in new moms who present with a sudden onset of mood symptoms," agreed Dr. Dorothy Sit, who studies mood disorders in women, including postpartum psychoses, at the University of Pittsburgh and wasn't involved in the new report.
"What this study's confirming is in the first 14 days if we identify patients with any of these symptoms we really need to get our patients into a setting for emergency psychiatric evaluation (and) early treatment for the primary disorder that's causing the symptoms," she told Reuters Health.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/glOGRP Archives of General Psychiatry, online December 5, 2011.
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WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama and his Republican opponents are clashing over U.S. policy toward Israel as each side jockeys for support from Jewish voters, who could be critical in the 2012 election.
Aiming to cast Obama as unfairly harsh toward Israel and soft on the Palestinians, Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have called on the president to fire his ambassador to Belgium. The envoy, Howard Gutman, had said that some anti-Semitism stemmed from tensions between Israel and the Palestinians; Romney and Gingrich say his remarks unfairly blamed Israel.
The White House says Obama has a strong record on support for Israel, and quickly fired back with a statement condemning "anti-Semitism in all its forms." The State Department said Gutman would remain in his job.
Republicans also challenged Obama's assertion at a fundraiser last week that "this administration has done more in terms of the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration." Romney said Obama has "repeatedly thrown Israel under the bus" ? an accusation the Republican National Committee repeated Monday.
Firing back, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called Romney's comments "outrageous" and questioned his own policies. The White House cited military aid to Israel and support at the United Nations, and pointed to statements from Israeli officials backing up Obama's assertion.
The fiery debate will likely continue Wednesday when the GOP presidential candidates attend a Washington forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Obama campaign officials say they will be ready to respond. And the next day, Jewish leaders will be at the White House for briefings on Israel and a Hanukkah party, followed by an Obama speech next week to an expected audience of nearly 6,000 at a conference of the Union for Reform Judaism.
Such attention is all being paid in recognition that Jewish voters, though comprising only 2 percent of the electorate nationwide, are an important part of Obama's base and could make the difference in battleground states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada in a close election. Moreover, the Jewish community is an important source of donations, and Obama campaign supporters want to maintain that support as much as Republicans want to chip away at it.
"This campaign takes the Jewish vote very, very seriously," said Ira Forman, the Obama campaign Jewish outreach director. "I'm confident this will be the most comprehensive effort in presidential campaign history."
The White House outreach has increased since May when Obama caused a furor by calling for Israel's 1967 borders, with agreed-upon land swaps, as a basis for resuming negotiations toward a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the `67 borders as indefensible and largely disregarded Obama's emphasis on land swaps to account for current conditions.
Republicans seized on the dispute. And while Obama supporters say his argument was widely mischaracterized, damage was done. Now the Obama campaign and its backers say they are determined to respond rapidly to such criticism in future.
"We are trying to responsibly respond to all of these unsubstantiated or false allegations, but there are so many of them, and they are so frequently recited despite the fact that the people who are spreading them have to know that they're false, that it's hard to keep up with them," said Alan Solow, an Obama fundraiser and longtime associate.
The effort involves using surrogates including Vice President Joe Biden, and use of the president's own time in public appearances and private talks with donors and religious leaders, such as a conference call between Obama and rabbis ahead of the Jewish New Year this fall.
The Obama campaign also is going on the offense against Republicans. In conversations about the Jewish vote, Obama backers are quick to bring up comments by Romney, Gingrich and Rick Perry at a debate last month suggesting they would start foreign aid for all countries at zero. Obama supporters say would imperil funding for Israel, even though the candidates also sought to affirm their support for the Jewish state.
Democratic candidates typically enjoy a big electoral advantage among Jewish voters. Obama won 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, compared with 21 percent for Republican John McCain.
But Gallup has found that Obama's approval rating among Jews has fallen from 83 percent in January 2009 to 54 percent in late summer and early fall of this year. Still, that figure is much higher than his overall 41 percent approval rating, and the drop-off in support was about in line with other voter groups.
Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party in Florida, predicted that Obama would be limited to around 60 percent of the Jewish vote in 2012. Obama backers say that won't happen, but it could mean a potentially decisive difference of tens of thousands of votes in key states.
A candidate's position on Israel may not be the top issue for most Jewish voters, who like others are more motivated by jobs and the economy. But it's important to many, and Republicans see an opening, given the consternation over Obama's 1967 borders speech, his administration's rebukes of Israel for building settlements in disputed areas, and a recent incident in which Obama was overheard appearing to endorse criticism of Netanyahu from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"The reality is that the Jewish community understands that on a number of critical issues this administration has undermined not only the U.S.-Israel relationship, but has made Israel more vulnerable," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Brooks points to the recent upset in New York's special election to replace Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, in which Republican Bob Turner won in the heavily Jewish district. Brooks says this was a warning sign to Obama on his stance on Israel. Obama supporters say other factors were at play, including the heavily Orthodox and more conservative makeup of the district.
But even strong supporters are disappointed that Obama has not yet traveled to Israel in his capacity as president, after delivering a major speech in Cairo early in his administration. An Israel trip had been rumored to be in the works but seems unlikely to happen prior to the 2012 election.
Democratic Rep. Steve Rothman said he remains hopeful a trip will happen in the next year.
"No president has been perfect on every subject, though history will record that Obama has been the best president for Israel when it comes to military and intelligence support," said Rothman of New Jersey.
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NEW DELHI ? Hollywood star Tom Cruise says his visit to India this week follows a lifelong desire to see the country.
He said while touring the iconic, white-marble Taj Mahal mausoleum in Agra that he is "very excited" about being in the country for a fan screening of his latest action-thriller, "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," days ahead of its world premiere on Wednesday.
Cruise joins Bollywood star Anil Kapoor for the red-carpet screening Sunday in Mumbai. The film sees Cruise reprise his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt, while Kapoor plays an Indian business tycoon.
Cruise told Press Trust of India on Saturday, "I wanted to come to India my whole life, so I am very excited."
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Source: http://www.sportspyder.com/teams/washington-redskins/articles/5333466
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AMSTERDAM/KHARTOUM (Reuters) ? The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Sudan's defense minister on Friday as part of the court's investigation into atrocities in the Darfur conflict, a move that Khartoum dismissed as "political."
The ICC has already issued arrest warrants for Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of orchestrating genocide in Darfur, as well as for a former minister of state for the interior and a militia leader, who all remain at large.
Bashir has so far been able to travel widely without being arrested, to nearby Middle Eastern and African allies and as far afield as China.
The United Nations has said as many as 300,000 people died in the Darfur conflict. Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.
Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein is one of several senior officials that Human Rights Watch had asked the Hague-based war crimes court to investigate over the conflict.
He is one of Bashir's closest allies and is leading a campaign against rebels in the southern border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said Hussein was wanted for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur from August 2003 to March 2004, and that he was an important link in the chain of command.
"Hussein in 2003 was the minister of interior and the special representative of president Bashir, giving him all the power to rule Darfur," Moreno-Ocampo said.
He added that in those positions, Hussein had supervised the police and the army, and had appointed and supervised Ahmad Haroun, the former minister of state for the interior.
Haroun, now governor of Sudan's South Kordofan border state, is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"The evidence shows that directly and through Mr. Haroun, Mr. Hussein played a central role in coordinating the crimes, including in recruiting, mobilizing, funding, arming, training and the deployment of the militia/Janjaweed as part of the government of the Sudan forces, with the knowledge that these forces would commit the crimes," Moreno-Ocampo said.
As a result, 4 million people were displaced, he added.
"RIDICULOUS"
John Prendergast, a former U.S. State Department official and co-founder of Enough Project, a Washington-based anti-genocide group, said the arrest warrant would help focus responsibility for major war crimes more closely on the senior figures in the armed forces who he said have consistently targeted civilians in their military operations.
"President Bashir and Defense Minister Hussein are part of a small cabal making most of the decisions on war strategy, not just in Darfur but also in the current hot spots of South Kordofan and Blue Nile," he told Reuters.
"They are responsible for the forcible displacement of literally millions of Sudanese over the course of the last eight years, and countless others before that in the North-South war."
Darfur's rebel groups also welcomed the ICC's move.
"This request is a real victory for the Sudanese people ... and for international justice and the victims of the war in Darfur," said Gibreel Adam Bilal, spokesman for the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, an alliance of rebel groups formed last month to topple Bashir's government.
Sudan's foreign ministry said in a statement the prosecutor had timed his request to coincide with recent Sudanese government military victories over rebel forces, particularly in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.
"We have no doubt that the timing was intended to affect these victories and raise the rebels' flagging morale," it said.
Rabie Abdelati, senior member of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party, told Reuters the ICC decision was "ridiculous."
"We think that these accusations and allegations by the ICC are just something political."
Abdelati said he did not expect any changes in the Sudanese government's foreign or domestic policies because of the new warrant and pointed out that Bashir had been able to travel with relative ease since the warrant for his arrest was issued.
The ICC has been frustrated in its efforts to secure Bashir's arrest. It does not have its own police force and relies on member states to enforce warrants.
Bashir denies the charges and refuses to recognize the international court.
He visited the southern African state of Malawi in October for a regional trade summit, prompting the ICC to demand an explanation from Malawi, given that it is an ICC member state and therefore obliged to co-operate with the court. ID:nL5E7LJ3JB]
(Additional reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, Liza Jansen, and Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Peter Graff and Andrew Heavens)
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LONDON (AP) ? Prince William, his wife Kate Middleton and brother Prince Harry will be official ambassadors to the 2012 London Olympic Games, royal officials said Thursday.
St. James's Palace said that all three will play a leading role in "encouraging and inspiring the British public to rally behind the 900 Olympic and Paralympic athletes" competing for Britain.
They also will use their roles to encourage greater awareness of Olympic and Paralympic values, the palace said.
The royals join 27 British Olympians from previous games who were unveiled as 2012 ambassadors by the British Olympic Association earlier this year.
In a message released by the palace, William said he feels honored to have been chosen and that his entire family is looking forward to the games.
"London hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will inspire so many people ? particularly the young ? to be the best they can be," he said.
The young royals will be opening the latest chapter in the monarchy's longstanding ties to the games.
Queen Elizabeth II is patron of the British Olympic Association while Princess Anne ? who competed in the 1976 Montreal games as an equestrian ? is its president, a member of the International Olympic Committee and a member of the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.
Anne's daughter, Zara Phillips, is a world-class equestrian who hopes to compete in the London 2012 games.
The London Olympics begin July 27 and end Aug. 12.
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MONDAY, Nov. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Heart function improved in obese people with type 2 diabetes who ate a very low-calorie diet, a small new study says.
Researchers measured body-mass index (BMI) and used MRI to analyze heart function and pericardial fat in 15 obese people (seven men and eight women) with type 2 diabetes before and four months after they started consuming a 500-calorie-per-day diet.
Pericardial fat collects around the heart and can harm cardiac function.
Their diabetes improved immediately after cutting calories, according to the study.
Four months after the participants began the low-calorie diet, average BMI fell from 35.3 to 27.5 (statistical obesity begins at a BMI of 30), and pericardial fat decreased from 39 milliliters (ml) to 31 ml.
A key measure of diastolic heart function fell to healthier levels, as well, the study found. Diastolic heart function involves that period of the heart beat when the ventricles are filling up with blood. Poor diastolic heart function can lead to congestive heart failure.
After another 14 months of follow-up when the participants ate a regular diet, average BMI increased to 31.7, but pericardial fat only rose slightly to 32 ml and E/A ratio was 1.06.
The study was to be presented Monday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
"Our results show that 16 weeks of caloric restriction improved heart function in these patients," lead author Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer, of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, said in an RSNA news release. "More importantly, despite regain of weight, these beneficial cardiovascular effects were persistent over the long term."
While the results are promising and showed that lifestyle interventions appeared to provide more significant heart benefits than medication in these patients, obese people should not try to go on a very low-calorie diet on their own. It has to be done under medical supervision, Hammer noted.
Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about diabetes treatments.
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AMSTERDAM ? A lawyer for a Dutch man wanted by the U.S. on suspicion of trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and for allegedly aiding al-Qaida said Friday he has appealed to the Netherlands' Supreme Court to prevent his client's extradition.
The 24-year-old suspect, identified under Dutch privacy laws only as "Sabir K.," was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on June 22. But his extradition case was held behind closed doors in the Netherlands and no information about it was released until his lawyer Andre Seebregts sought publicity.
He said Sabir K. is invoking his right to remain silent about his guilt or innocence.
"He's not talking. He may if it ever gets that far," Seebregts said.
Sabir K., a citizen of both the Netherlands and Pakistan, claims he was tortured for months in Pakistan before being deported to the Netherlands in April. He was arrested upon arrival and has been held in a high-security detention center since then.
Seebregts' Supreme Court appeal points to rulings by Canadian courts in a case he says is similar. The courts ruled that suspect Abdullah Khadr cannot be extradited to face charges in the U.S. because the most important evidence against him was a confession obtained under torture in Pakistan.
Seebregts said he is attempting to gather evidence to back Sabir K.'s assertions. The court won't rule until sometime next year.
In an unusual move, the Dutch Foreign Ministry has released a statement saying that the Dutch consul in Pakistan visited Sabir K. twice while he was in detention and saw no signs of abuse, though it noted he was blindfolded coming and going to the visits.
The foreign ministry rejected claims by Sabir K. that the Dutch government assisted U.S. authorities by luring him to the Netherlands with false promises he would be freed once he left Pakistani soil. A Dutch consular worker accompanied him to the airplane.
"Warning people who are suspected of criminal acts that they may be prosecuted is not part of consular assistance," the ministry said in a statement.
The actual charges against Sabir K. are summarized in Dutch in an Oct. 3 ruling by the Rotterdam District Court that was made available to The Associated Press upon request. A spokeswoman for the court could not say why the ruling was not published on the court's website, as is standard practice.
According to the Dutch summary, the indictment issued by U.S. attorney Loretta E. Lynch of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York said Sabir K. worked for and with al-Qaida between 2004 and 2010. It says he tried to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, including planning a suicide attack on a U.S. military base in Kunar province in 2010. He was also charged with possession and use of guns and "destructive material," presumably explosives, during attacks on U.S. troops.
The summarized indictment does not say whether any of Sabir K.'s alleged attacks actually succeeded.
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