North Korea threatens war with South over U.N. sanctions

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea threatened to attack rival South Korea if Seoul joined a new round of tightened U.N. sanctions, as Washington unveiled more of its own economic restrictions following Pyongyang's rocket launch last month.

In a third straight day of fiery rhetoric, the North directed its verbal onslaught at its neighbor on Friday, saying: "'Sanctions' mean a war and a declaration of war against us."

The reclusive North this week declared a boycott of all dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear program and vowed to conduct more rocket and nuclear tests after the U.N. Security Council censured it for a December long-range missile launch.

"If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the U.N. 'sanctions,' the DPRK will take strong physical counter-measures against it," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said, referring to the South.

The committee is the North's front for dealings with the South. The North's official name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Speaking in Beijing, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies said he found North Korea's rhetoric "troubling and counterproductive," and that he and his Chinese counterparts had agreed a new nuclear test would be harmful.

"We will judge North Korea by its actions, not its words. These types of inflammatory statements by North Korea do nothing to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," he said.

"What North Korea has done through its actions, in particular through the launch on December 12 of a rocket in contravention of Security Council resolutions, is they have made it that much more difficult to contemplate getting back to a diplomatic process."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland urged North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-un to choose a different path, rather than "continue to waste what little money the country has on missile technologies and things while his people go hungry."

The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch on Tuesday and expanded existing U.N. sanctions.

On Thursday, the United States slapped economic sanctions on two North Korean bank officials and a Hong Kong trading company that it accused of supporting Pyongyang's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The company, Leader (Hong Kong) International Trading Ltd, was separately blacklisted by the United Nations on Wednesday.

Seoul has said it will look at whether there are any further sanctions that it can implement alongside the United States, but said the focus for now is to follow Security Council resolutions.

The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and from importing materials and technology for those programs. It does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.

The United States had wanted to punish North Korea for the rocket launch with a Security Council resolution that imposed entirely new sanctions against Pyongyang, but Beijing rejected that option. China agreed to U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang after North Korea's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

Nuland declined to speculate whether the United States thinks the U.N. steps would change North Korea's behavior.

"What's been important to us is strong unity among the six-party talks countries; strong unity in the region about a positive course forward; and the fact that there will be consequences if they keep making bad choices," she said.

Long-dormant six-nation talks brought together the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas in negotiations to try to induce Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arms quest in exchange for economic aid and diplomatic normalization.

NUCLEAR TEST WORRY

North Korea's rhetoric this week amounted to some of the angriest outbursts against the outside world coming under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, who took over after the death of his father Kim Jong-il in late 2011.

On Thursday, the North said it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test, directing its ire at the United States, a country it called its "sworn enemy".

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the comments were worrying.

"We are very concerned with North Korea's continuing provocative behavior," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

"We are fully prepared ... to deal with any kind of provocation from the North Koreans. But I hope in the end that they determine that it is better to make a choice to become part of the international family."

North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

South Korea and others who have been closely observing activities at the North's known nuclear test grounds believe Pyongyang is technically ready to go ahead with its third atomic test and awaiting the political decision of its leader.

The North's committee also declared on Friday that a landmark agreement it signed with the South in 1992 on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula was invalid, repeating its long-standing accusation that Seoul was colluding with Washington.

The foreign ministry of China, the North's sole remaining major diplomatic and economic benefactor, repeated its call for calm on the Korean peninsula at its daily briefing earlier on Friday.

"The current situation on the Korea peninsula is complicated and sensitive," spokesman Hong Lei said.

"We hope all relevant parties can see the big picture, maintain calm and restraint, further maintain contact and dialogue, and improve relations, while not taking actions to further complicate and escalate the situation," Hong said.

But unusually prickly comments in Chinese state media on Friday hinted at Beijing's exasperation.

"It seems that North Korea does not appreciate China's efforts," said the Global Times in an editorial, a sister publication of the official People's Daily.

"Just let North Korea be 'angry' ... China hopes for a stable peninsula, but it's not the end of the world if there's trouble there. This should be the baseline of China's position."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina, Sui-Lee Wee and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Arshad Mohammed and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Editing by Jonathan Standing, Myra MacDonald and Jackie Frank)

Read More..

Apple loses world's most valuable company crown

NEW YORK: Apple shares extended their losses Friday, ending a miserable week for the California tech giant as it surrendered its position as the world's biggest company based on market value.

Apple ended down 2.36 per cent at US$439.88, giving it a market capitalisation of $413 billion -- while oil giant ExxonMobil rose 0.36 per cent to US$91.68 with a market cap of US$418 billion, to edge into first place.

The shares of both firms zig-zagged during the session, with Apple at various points regaining the top spot before falling back.

Apple first overtook ExxonMobil in August 2011 as the most valuable company in the world based on the value of its stock.

A year later, Apple dethroned longtime rival Microsoft as the most valuable company in history based on the value of its stock at US$622 billion.

But the company took a bruising this week after Wednesday's gloomy forecast accompanying its record quarterly profit announcement prompted pessimism over the tech giant's slowing growth trajectory.

Apple's profit was US$13.1 billion on revenue of US$54.5 billion in the fiscal quarter that ended on December 29, with sales of iPhones and iPads setting quarterly highs.

But despite those figures, investors soured on Apple after it forecast that revenue for the current quarter would range from US$41-43 billion and that it would have a gross margin of 37.5 to 39.5 per cent, lower than expectations.

Analysts remained cautious about Apple, which had seen a meteoric rise last September to over US$700 a share but it has slid 37 per cent since then. The company shed some US$60 billion on Thursday and around US$10 billion more Friday.

Some express concern that Apple has lost its edge in innovation since the death of Steve Jobs, and is losing ground to rivals such as Samsung, which leads the mobile phone market, and to others using Google's Android operating system.

Jinho Cho at Mirae Asset Securities said Apple will likely increase carrier subsidies in 2013 and launch "an entry-level iPhone" to compete better in emerging markets.

"These moves by Apple should lead to stiffer competition for greater carrier subsidies among smartphone makers, thus driving down handset industry-wide operating margins," the analyst said.

Colin Gillis at BGC Financial said Apple is facing new challenges.

"While we are incrementally more positive on the stock, we also mention that competition is increasing for the company," he said in a research note.

"We see competitors are using price as a lever to get traction in the market. Apple may also run into difficulty posting both the volumes and maintaining its prices over the next several quarters."

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Backroom dilemma on rape law report

KOLKATA: She is one of the 15 young lawyers who worked tirelessly behind the scenes - analyzing and interpreting legal provisions that could be used to nail rapists and impose the maximum possible penalty on them.

Shwetasree Majumdar cherishes the experience with the JS Verma Commission report to help strengthen rape laws in the country. The 33-year-old Kolkata girl, now based in Bangalore, says she got passionately involved in framing the report as soon as she got a call from commission member Gopal Subramanium.

The National Law School graduate, who runs an intellectual property law firm, said working on the report took a lot from her emotionally and was one of the biggest challenges she has faced.

"It was very personal. Here was a chance to be part of a real, tangible comprehensive and legitimate exercise to bring change - it was imperative that the report be academically sound, just, fair and legally defensible. And when the civil society narratives started pouring in, many of which shaped how individual provisions in the law were ultimately crafted, it was hard to remain neutral and non-judgmental," she said.

"I felt shock, outrage and anger and every time I heard a narrative of systematic violence on women, children and the poor and I worked a little bit harder. I can say that I have not been this motivated and driven about any task in a very long time. I put my work, my family - everything on hold over these last few days," said Shwetasree, who worked for a fortnight on the report.

It was back to her law school days, burning the midnight oil and reading large volumes on comparative jurisprudence. "The high profile nature of the task meant we were under tremendous pressure. We were operating under strict rules of confidentiality and keeping our deliberations and work secret. We were also conscious that we could not let emotions cloud our sense of reason and approach each issue in a logical and balanced manner - not easy, given the recent events," said Shwetasree.

But in the end she was disappointed that the decision to turn down death penalty was all that got highlighted while none bothered to focus on the rationale for it. The team of lawyers and commission members did a good job, believes Shwetasree who worked on criminal law amendments, medical and psychiatric protocols.

"Taking a moral stand either way on the death penalty was the toughest challenge. On the one hand there was this overwhelming public outcry in its favour and on the other, there was voluminous literature and opinion on why it was not a deterrent. Whatever you chose you alienated someone and surely, as we expected, the rationale behind the decision was ignored," she said.

Personally, she isn't in favour of death penalty for rape since she doesn't believe that there is a link between death sentence and deterrence. A quick, effective and hard hitting punishment is far more important, she feels.

"Even if it could have a marginal deterrent effect, the effect could be felt only if you had high rates of execution, that were mandatory as well as being speedily enforced, which is fraught with its own problems. Also, in reality, although it is possible to award the death penalty for murder in 'rarest of rare' cases in India we are well aware that such cases are few and far between," she argued.

Shwetasree studied at St Teresa's Secondary School in Kidderpore before moving to Bangalore to study law. A regular visitor to Kolkata - her parents still live in their ancestral house in New Alipore - the lawyer said she was worried that free-thinking individuals were being suppressed by "misogynistic politicos" in the liberal city.

"When I first moved to Delhi and would listen wide-eyed to friends talking about the North Indian obsession with male children and was met with surprise whenever I said I was an only child and a girl, I felt proud. Some of my best friends from school were also only children and girls and not being boys was inconsequential," she said.

"The Kolkata I lived in was safe, it respected its women and Bengali women were known for their spirit and for being free thinkers. They still are. But what has changed is the environment in which they live in now. I hang my head in shame every time I read a misogynistic remark from a politician or any other person in a position of influence in Bengal. This is not the city I knew. And it disturbs me deeply," the lawyer sighed.

Read More..

CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

___

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..

Mars Rover Celebrates Milestone on Red Planet

It was never supposed to last this long. When the Mars rover Opportunity settled on the Martian surface nine years ago today, mission managers at NASA said they would be pleased if it lasted for 90 days.

Instead, it's been 3,201 days, and still counting. The rover has driven 22.03 miles, mostly at a snail's pace, from one crater to another, stopping for months at a time in the frigid Martian winters. The six motorized wheels, rated to turn 2.5 million times, have lasted 70 million, and are all still working.

"Opportunity is still in very good health, especially considering what it's gone through," said John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project. The surface of Mars is a pretty tough place; there can be temperature fluctuations of a hundred degrees each day. That's pretty hard on the hardware."

Video: '7 Minutes of Terror: A Landing on Mars

When Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, reached Mars in January 2004, there was a fair bit of sniping that NASA, with all that 90-day talk, was playing down expectations. It escalated when Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the principal investigator for the missions, said things like, "We're on Sol 300 of a 90-Sol mission." (A Sol is a day on Mars, and lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes.) Callas and others have insisted that the prediction was based on engineering, not a nod to public relations.

"There was an expectation that airfall dust would accumulate on the rover, so that its solar panels would be able to gather less electricity," said Callas. "We saw that on Pathfinder," a small rover that landed on Mars in 1997." The cold climate was also expected to be hard on the rovers' batteries, and changes in temperature from night to day would probably pop a circuit or two.

Instead, the temperatures weren't quite as tough as engineers had expected, and the rovers proved tougher. They did become filthy as the red Martian dust settled on them, reducing the sunlight on the solar panels -- but every now and then a healthy gust came along, surprising everyone on Earth by cleaning the ships off.

Click Here for Pictures: Postcards From Mars

Spirit, in hilly territory on the other side of the planet, finally got stuck in crusty soil in 2009, and its radio went silent the next year. But Opportunity, though it's had some close calls, is -- well, you remember those commercials about the Energizer bunny.

So what do you do with an aging rover on a faraway planet? You keep using it. In its first weeks, NASA said Opportunity found chemical proof that there had once been standing water on the surface of Mars -- good news if you're looking for signs that the planet could once have been friendly to life. Since then, it's been sent to other places, with rocks and soil that are probably older, and with clay that may have been left by ancient rivers.

About 20 NASA staff members still work full-time on Opportunity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Another 60 split their time between Opportunity and other projects, such as the Curiosity rover that landed last August. About 100 scientists, doing research on Mars, pop in and out.

In a few months, Callas said, Opportunity will head to an area nicknamed Cape Tribulation. The clay there could be rich in the minerals suggestive of past life.

They haven't done much to mark the ninth anniversary or the 3,200th Martian day, just a get-together earlier this week during a previously scheduled science conference. After that, Callas said, it was back to work.

"It's like keeping your car going," he said, "without ever having a chance to change the oil."

Read More..

North Korea to target U.S. with nuclear, rocket tests

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy".

The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules.

North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.

North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un, who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.

China, the one major diplomatic ally of the isolated and impoverished North, agreed to the U.S.-backed resolution and it also supported resolutions in 2006 and 2009 after Pyongyang's two earlier nuclear tests.

Thursday's statement by North Korea represents a huge challenge to Beijing as it undergoes a leadership transition, with Xi Jinping due to take office in March.

China's Foreign Ministry called for calm and restraint and a return to six-party talks, but effectively singled out North Korea, urging the "relevant party" not to take any steps that would raise tensions.

"We hope the relevant party can remain calm and act and speak in a cautious and prudent way and not take any steps which may further worsen the situation," ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular press briefing.

North Korea has rejected proposals to restart the talks aimed at reining in its nuclear capacity. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas are the six parties involved.

"After all these years and numerous rounds of six-party talks we can see that China's influence over North Korea is actually very limited. All China can do is try to persuade them not to carry out their threats," said Cai Jian, an expert on Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Analysts said the North could test as early as February as South Korea prepares to install a new, untested president or that it could choose to stage a nuclear explosion to coincide with former ruler Kim Jong-il's Feb 16 birthday.

"North Korea will have felt betrayed by China for agreeing to the latest U.N. resolution and they might be targeting (China) as well (with this statement)," said Lee Seung-yeol, senior research fellow at Ewha Institute of Unification Studies in Seoul.

U.S. URGES NO TEST

Washington urged North Korea not to proceed with a third test just as the North's statement was published on Thursday.

"Whether North Korea tests or not is up to North Korea," Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy for North Korean diplomacy, said in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

"We hope they don't do it. We call on them not to do it," Davies said after a meeting with South Korean officials. "This is not a moment to increase tensions on the Korean peninsula."

The North was banned from developing missile and nuclear technology under sanctions dating from its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

A South Korean military official said the concern now is that Pyongyang could undertake a third nuclear test using highly enriched uranium for the first time, opening a second path to a bomb.

North Korea's 2006 nuclear test using plutonium produced a puny yield equivalent to one kiloton of TNT - compared with 13-18 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb - and U.S. intelligence estimates put the 2009 test's yield at roughly two kilotons

North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for about a dozen plutonium warheads, although estimates vary, and intelligence reports suggest that it has been enriching uranium to supplement that stock and give it a second path to the bomb.

According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North Korea could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

North Korea has not yet mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough for an intercontinental missile, most observers say, and needs to develop the capacity to shield any warhead from re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.

North Korea gave no time-frame for the coming test and often employs harsh rhetoric in response to U.N. and U.S. actions that it sees as hostile.

The bellicose statement on Thursday appeared to dent any remaining hopes that Kim Jong-un, believed to be 30 years old, would pursue a different path from his father, Kim Jong-il, who oversaw the country's military and nuclear programs.

The older Kim died in December 2011.

"The UNSC (Security Council) resolution masterminded by the U.S. has brought its hostile policy towards the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) to its most dangerous stage," the commission was quoted as saying.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ron Popeski)

Read More..

Cooling-off Day for Punggol East by-election

SINGPORE: Friday is Cooling-off Day for the Punggol East by-election, which has seen nine days of vigorous campaigning by the four candidates contending in the polls.

The Elections Department has reminded political parties and candidates that Friday has been set aside for voters to reflect rationally on various issues raised during the campaigning before they go to the polls on Saturday.

The four candidates Channel NewsAsia spoke to say they intend to spend their time with their family, friends, and supporters after a gruelling election campaign that took form in walkabouts, morning visits to train stations to catch office-goers, as well as public and online rallies.

Campaigning is not allowed on Cooling-off Day. Election advertising cannot be published or displayed on Cooling-off Day as well.

Exceptions include reports in newspapers as well as on radio and television which relate to election matters.

Also allowed are approved posters and banners lawfully displayed before the start of Cooling-off Day. Other election advertising, such as internet election advertising lawfully displayed or published before the start of Cooling-off Day, is also allowed. Candidates can also continue to wear a replica of the symbol allotted to them.

Candidates and supporters have been advised to refrain from attending public events on Cooling-off Day and Polling Day. However they can attend religious ceremonies or worship services, or functions in the course of work or employment, but must be mindful of the rule prohibiting campaigning and election advertising.

On Saturday, some 31,600 voters from Punggol East SMC will go to the polls to elect their Parliamentary representative.

The by-election is being contested by four political parties.

Dr Koh Poh Koon from the People's Action Party, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam from the Reform Party, Mr Desmond Lim Bak Chuan from the Singapore Democratic Alliance and Ms Lee Li Lian from the Workers' Party.

This is Singapore's second by-election in eight months after the May 2012 Hougang by-election.

The Cooling-off Day provision in the Parliamentary Elections Act is now in force for the fourth time, after the 2011 General and Presidential Elections and the 2012 Hougang by-election.

- CNA/jc

Read More..

South India worst hit by diabetes

NEW DELHI: Diabetes and hypertension, traditionally seen as a rich man's disease, has made its way to the slums. Health ministry's fresh data shows one out of every four persons living in the urban slums of Chennai suffer from diabetes — which is three times higher than the national average of about 7%.

In the slums of Bangalore the prevalence rate of diabetes was reported to be 14.77%, followed by 13.37% in Ahmedabad. Delhi had among the lowest rates of 5.02%.

"The results of Chennai are shocking. I have asked the state health officials concerned to indentify all positive cases and refer them to the nearest centre for treatment," said Dr Jagdish Prasad, the Director General of Health Services ( DGHS).

He said the union health ministry started targeted screening in urban slums in June 2011. "So far we have screened about 10 lakh people in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Assam," said Prasad.

Medical experts say poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyle is the main reason for the rise in diabetes among the urban poor. "It is a false belief that only those eating burgers and pizzas can get obese and develop diabetes. High consumption of fried items such as kachori, samosa and gulab jamun can also led to the onset of diabetes," said Dr H P S Sachdev, senior consultant pediatrics at Sitaram Institute of Science and Research.

Sachdev said people living in urban slums generally did less physical activity than their rural counterparts.

Simply put, diabetes is a condition in which the body has trouble turning food into energy. All bodies break down digested food into a sugar called glucose, their main source of fuel. In a healthy person, the hormone insulin helps glucose enter the cells. But in a diabetic, the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin, or the body does not properly use it. Cells starve while glucose builds up in the blood.

There are two predominant types of diabetes. In Type 1, the immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. In Type 2, which accounts for an estimated 90% to 95% of all cases, either the body's cells are not sufficiently receptive to insulin or the pancreas makes too little of it, or both.

Read More..

Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.

For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.

Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.

Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.

Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.

Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.

"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty.

"We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.

Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions.

"If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."

Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.

First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.

Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.

And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.

Here's how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.

In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.

Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.

"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."

___

Online:

Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

Read More..

Exterminator Charged in Pa. Doctor's Murder

An exterminator named Joseph Smith was arrested and charged today in the strangling and burning death of Philadelphia pediatrician Melissa Ketunuti.

Smith, 36, had been sent to Ketunuti's home on a service call where the two got into "some kind of argument" in Ketunuti's basement on Monday, Capt. James Clark of the Philadelphia police department said this morning.

"At her home they got into an argument. It went terribly wrong. He struck her, and knocked her to the ground," Clark said. "Immediately he jumped on top of her, started strangling her. She passed out, and then he set her body on fire."

Clark said Smith burned the woman's body "to hide evidence like DNA." He said "at some point, he bound her up." The doctor was found with her hands and feet tied behind her back.

The captain said that before today's arrest Smith's record consisted of only "minor traffic offenses."

Pa. Doctor Killing: Person of Interest in Custody Watch Video

Philadelphia Doctor's Murder Leaves Police Baffled Watch Video

Police received a call from Ketunuti's dog-walker about the house fire around 12:30 p.m. Monday, and once inside found Ketunuti with her hands and feet bound. They believe Smith hit her and strangled her with a rope, causing her to pass out, and then bound her body and set fire to it in order to destroy evidence, including DNA evidence.

Ketunuti, 35, was fully clothed and police do not believe she was sexually assaulted.

She was a doctor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and had lived alone in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood of the city for about three years.

Clark said that homicide detectives scoured the neighborhood for surveillance videos from nearby stores and businesses, and through the video identified the suspect.

Smith was spotted on video getting out of the vehicle and following Ketunuti to her home. The man left her home after an hour and was seen on video circling her home.

Detectives drove to Clark's home in Levittown, Pa., outside of Philadelphia where he lives with a girlfriend and her child, on Wednesday night and brought him back to the Philadelphia police station.

A silver Ford truck was towed from Smith's home, which was the same truck spotted on surveillance video Monday in Ketunuti's neighborhood, sources told ABC News affiliate WPVI.

There, he gave statements that led police to charge him with the murders, Clark said.

Smith will face charges of murder, arson, and abuse of a corpse.

Ketunuti's hospital issued a statement Tuesday that she was "a warm, caring, earnest, bright young woman with her whole future ahead of her," adding that she will be deeply missed.

"[She was] super pleasant, really nice," one neighbor said. "Just super friendly."

Read More..