Medicare Plan for Payments Irks Hospitals

By ROBERT PEAR

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — For the first time in its history, Medicare will soon track spending on millions of individual beneficiaries, reward hospitals that hold down costs and penalize those whose patients prove most expensive.

The administration plans to establish “Medicare spending per beneficiary” as a new measure of hospital performance, just like the mortality rate for heart attack patients and the infection rate for surgery patients.

Hospitals could be held accountable not only for the cost of the care they provide, but also for the cost of services performed by doctors and other health care providers in the 90 days after a Medicare patient leaves the hospital.

This plan has drawn fire from hospitals, which say they have little control over services provided after a patient’s discharge — and, in many cases, do not even know about them. More generally, they are apprehensive about Medicare’s plans to reward and penalize hospitals based on untested measures of efficiency that include spending per beneficiary.

A major goal of the new health care law, often overlooked, is to improve “the quality and efficiency of health care” by linking payments to the performance of health care providers. The new Medicare initiative, known as value-based purchasing, will redistribute money among more than 3,100 hospitals.

Medicare will begin computing performance scores in July, for monetary rewards and penalties that start in October 2012.

The desire to reward hospitals for high-quality care is not new or controversial. The idea can be traced back to a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress in 2005, when Democrats and Republicans were still working together on health care. However, adding in “efficiency” is entirely new and controversial, as no consensus exists on how to define or measure the efficiency of health care providers.

The new health care law directs the secretary of health and human services to develop “efficiency measures, including measures of Medicare spending per beneficiary.” Obama administration officials will decide how to calculate spending per beneficiary and how to use it in paying hospitals.

Administration officials hope such efforts will slow the growth of Medicare without risking the political firestorm that burned Republicans who tried to remake the program this year.

In calculating Medicare spending per beneficiary, the administration said, it wants to count costs generated during a hospital stay, the three days before it and the 90 days afterward. This, it said, will encourage hospitals to coordinate care “in an efficient manner over an extended time period.”

If, for example, an 83-year-old woman is admitted to a hospital with a broken hip, she might have hip replacement surgery and then be released to a nursing home or a rehabilitation hospital. When she recovers, she might return to her own home, but still visit doctors and physical therapists or receive care from a home health agency. If she develops a serious infection, she might go back to the hospital within 90 days.

The new measure of Medicare spending per beneficiary would include all these costs, which — federal officials say — could be reduced by better coordination of care and communication among providers.

Here, in simplified form, is an example offered by federal officials to show how the rewards might work. If Medicare spends an average of $9,125 per beneficiary at a particular hospital and if the comparable figure for all hospitals nationwide is $12,467, the hospital would receive high marks — 9 points out of a possible 10 awarded for efficiency. This measure, combined with measures of quality, would be used to compute an overall performance score for the hospital. Based on this score, Medicare would pay a higher or lower percentage of each claim filed by the hospital.

Federal officials are still working out details, including how to distribute the money.

Charles N. Kahn III, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents investor-owned companies, said he supported efforts to pay hospitals according to their performance. But he said the administration was “off track” in trying to hold hospitals accountable for what Medicare spends on patients two or three months after they leave the hospital.

“That’s unrealistic, beyond the pale,” Mr. Kahn said.

Since 2004, Medicare has provided financial incentives to hospitals to report on the quality of care, using widely accepted clinical measures.

Much of the information is posted on a government Web site (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov), but it has not been used as a basis for paying hospitals.

For years, federal health officials have emphasized the importance of higher-quality care, mentioning efficiency as an afterthought. Now, alarmed at the trajectory of Medicare costs, they emphasize efficiency as an equally important goal.

Under the new health law, Medicare will reduce payments to hospitals if too many patients are readmitted after treatment for heart attacks, heart failure or pneumonia. In addition, Medicare will cut payments to hospitals if they do not replace paper files with electronic health records, and it will further reduce payments to hospitals with high rates of preventable errors, injuries and infections.

Hospital payments account for the largest share of Medicare spending, and Medicare is the single largest payer for hospital services.

Senators Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, and Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, have led efforts to pay health care providers for their performance — for the quality of services, rather than the quantity. House members from Iowa, Minnesota, Washington and Wisconsin have pushed for measures of efficiency, saying Medicare should reward low-cost, high-quality care of the type they say is provided in their states.

Without opposing the change, lawmakers from higher-cost states like Massachusetts and New York say the payment formula needs more work.

Teaching hospitals worry that the new policy will penalize them because they treat sicker, more expensive patients. Medicare officials tried to allay this concern, saying they would adjust the data to take account of patients’ age and the severity of their illnesses, as well as geographic differences in hospital wages.

Still, Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said the formula “tends to discriminate against inner-city hospitals with large numbers of immigrant, poor and uninsured patients.”

By contrast, J. Kirk Norris, president of the Iowa Hospital Association, welcomed the new plan. “Medicare ought to pay for value,” he said.

Administration officials said they were aware of concerns that some hospitals might try to increase their performance scores by avoiding high-risk patients. The officials said they would watch closely for signs of such a problem.

Kosovo heads for ruin while its watchdog looks on

The Guardian

The fiscally irresponsible Kosovan government is messing up its IMF programme – but the International Civilian Office fails to act

Andrea Capussela

The IMF is expected to make an announcement later today in which it declares Kosovo's programme to be off-track. This would be a rare event, because governments seldom break their commitments to the IMF. 

Since its controversial declaration of independence in 2008, Kosovo has struggled to be accepted in the international community; recognized by fewer than half of the UN member states, its only success so far was to enter into the IMF and the World Bank. It wanted an IMF programme to strengthen its credibility and to satisfy conditions tied to large grants from the EU and the World Bank. Now, however, both money and credibility look to be lost, and the irresponsibility of its government is leading Kosovo towards a fiscal crisis.

How could this happen, in the world's most closely supervised nation? Kosovo is very poor. It exports almost nothing but its workers, and its economy still depend on their remittances and international aid. Widespread unemployment, poverty and corruption breed growing discontent. But its incompetent and often predatory elite is free from accountability: the judicial system is dysfunctional and subject to political interference, civil society weak and elections – regularly tainted by fraud – attract less than half of the voters.

Kosovo used to be a neglected province of Serbia. But after its secession the contrast became even starker: although Serbia still suffers from the legacy of the wars and isolation of the 1990s, the quality of its democracy is better, its economy stronger, and now – after the arrest on Thursday of Ratko Mladić, its hopes of EU membership took a leap forward.

To help Kosovo mature into a more open and stable society, its institutions were placed under the supervision of a watchdog – the International Civilian Office (ICO), whose economics office I led until last March – whose mandate covers anything between human rights, economic policy and trade in church candles. This mandate was backed by strong remedial powers for whose exercise, however, the ICO had to rely on the political power of its European and American masters. And these masters have diverging interests.

Kosovo owes its independence to the US, and the US continues to exercise huge influence; yet, an ocean away, Washington can afford to be uninterested in the long-term development of Kosovo, and uses its influence to serve its own bilateral interests and ensure short-term political stability. Conversely, to European eyes Kosovo is the most problematic corner of a still unstable enclave – the western Balkans – locked within the EU's borders, and a source of increasingly unpopular migration. Europe, unlike the US, has a stake in its development and provides most of the aid, but lacks influence (mainly because the EU is divided: five member states do not recognise Kosovo).

These differences are highlighted by the episode that felled the IMF programme. On the eve of national elections the government promised civil servants a pay rise of 30% to 50% (by way of comparison, a week into the protests that brought him down, Egypt's president Mubarak promised a 15% salary increase). This fundamentally wrong measure opens a large gap in a budget already strained by the construction of an expensive and relatively unnecessary highway (this controversial tender was won by US's Bechtel, in consortium with a smaller Turkish company; the contract, unusually negotiated after the tender, uses a cost-plus formula which could push the final price well above current estimates, which exceed 20% of GDP: in Albania, the final price of a highway built by the same consortium with a similar contract was more than twice the initial estimate).

The European commission, the IMF and others sharply criticized the pay rise. Alone, the US defended it. With US support, and (astonishingly) the praise of the ICO's head, the government implemented it. In the following weeks the elite gladly allowed the US ambassador to micromanage the formation of a new government and the election of two consecutive presidents (one election was illegal).

It would be pointless to criticize these policies, or contrast them with President Obama's recent speeches on reform in the Middle East: Washington has little interest in Kosovo, except that of keeping it friendly, and acts accordingly. The problem, rather, is that the EU allowed itself to be sidelined and the ICO remained silent.

Under US influence, the ICO lately seems interested only in preserving the appearance of a multi-ethnic society; so that now the Serbian Orthodox monasteries (still under NATO protection) can buy their candles tax-free, but corruption grows, the economy stagnates and the elite is extending its influence across Kosovo's institutions, economy and society, in what looks increasingly like a form of state capture. The ICO's silent presence is damaging Kosovo: it should either act or leave.

The ICO failed also as an experiment of a joint EU/US mission, and rather became yet another example of how the US used Balkan crises to assert and strengthen its influence over Europe.

If a form of international supervision is foreseen for a possible post-Gaddafi Libya, this precedent ought to be borne in mind. The supervisor should be given a narrower mandate, focused on governance. Economic policy should be left to specialist institutions, with the supervisor lending them its muscle. And, crucially, the supervisor should be placed under the political guidance of powers that have influence and the incentive to make good use of it.

If faced by a fiscal crisis, Kosovo will ask to be bailed out by donors. This would reward irresponsibility, protect the government from accountability to its citizens and merely postpone the crisis. Regrettably, though, donors might oblige.

Serbia Says Jailed Mladic Will Face War Crimes Trial

The New York Times

By DAN BILEFSKY and DOREEN CARVAJAL

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general held responsible for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested on Thursday, signaling Serbia’s intention of finally escaping the isolation it brought on itself during the Balkan wars, the bloodiest in Europe since World War II.

The capture of the former general removes a major obstacle to Serbia’s becoming a member of the European Union, which had insisted that Mr. Mladic be apprehended and turned over for trial in an international court before the country could get on track to join the 27-nation union.

President Boris Tadic of Serbia gave few details in announcing the arrest but promised that Mr. Mladic would be turned over for trial at The Hague within days. “I think today we finished a difficult period in our recent history,” he said. For Europeans, buffeted by financial crises, the arrest of their most wanted war crime suspect has a resonance on the magnitude of the killing of Osama bin Laden for Americans. It also amounts to a significant diplomatic victory, suggesting that the incentive of membership in the world’s biggest trading bloc remains a crucial foreign policy tool in the post-cold war world.

Mr. Mladic had been at large for 15 years, and many European diplomats argued that Serbian officials could have arrested him long ago if they felt that the benefits of opening the door wider to the West outweighed appeals to virulent nationalism among some Serbs, who still regard Mr. Mladic as a hero.

Mr. Mladic was captured in the farming town of Lazarevo north of Belgrade after the authorities received a tip that a man resembling him was residing there. Serbia’s interior minister, Ivica Dacic, said that Mr. Mladic had been found with his own expired identification card and an old military book. Some Serbian news reports said he had been living under the name of Milorad Komadic and had labored as a construction worker. But the Interior Ministry said Thursday that it did not have evidence suggesting he had taken on a false identity.

The massacre at Srebrenica was the worst ethnically motivated mass murder on the European continent since World War II. Mr. Mladic was also accused of war crimes for the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, in which 10,000 people died, including 3,500 children.

While close associates had predicted that Mr. Mladic would sooner kill himself than face capture, Serbian news media reported that he was alone at the time of his arrest and had two pistols with him that he made no attempt to use. The police said he did not resist arrest. Witnesses said he appeared disoriented and tired, and that one of his hands appeared to be paralyzed, possibly because of a stroke.

Many of the 27 members of the European Union had been in favor of rewarding Belgrade for its recent tilt toward Europe and the United States by advancing its move toward membership in the bloc. But some, especially the Netherlands, had insisted that as long as Mr. Mladic remained free, Serbia could not join the union.

Mr. Mladic’s crimes remained an emotional issue for the Dutch, whose peacekeepers were overrun at Srebrenica, allowing Mr. Mladic’s soldiers to mow down men and boys, their hands tied behind their backs.

“His arrest gives a strong signal to the world that anyone accused of the worst crimes can be brought to justice,” said Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor for the United Nations-based war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He said international pressure to block Serbia’s entry into the European Union was a vital prod that had precipitated the arrest. According to B92, the independent Serbian broadcasting company, residents in Lazarevo said that they were unaware that Mr. Mladic was living among them, but had spotted the police early Thursday at a house reportedly belonging to Mr. Mladic’s relatives. Serbian analysts said Lazarevo had had a large population of Bosnian Serbs since World War II, some of whom would have been sympathetic to Mr. Mladic. They said he had lived in the village for two months.

“Extradition is happening,” President Tadic said, referring to The Hague. “This is the end of the search for Mladic. It’s not the end of the search for all those who helped Mladic and others to hide and whether people from the government were involved.”

Early on Thursday evening, Mr. Mladic appeared in a court in Belgrade, where a judge must decide whether all conditions have been met for Serbia to surrender him to the tribunal. But Mr. Mladic’s lawyer, Milos Saljic, said the court halted its questioning of Mr. Mladic because of his poor health. Prosecutors said the court would continue to question Mr. Mladic on Friday and that he had three days to appeal an adverse ruling by the judge.

Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader and Mr. Mladic’s former boss, is being tried in The Hague on charges of genocide for his role in the Balkan bloodshed. Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist former president of Serbia and the architect of the war, died in 2006 while his trial was under way.

Mr. Tadic, considered strongly pro-Western in the Serbian context, stressed that the arrest of Mr. Mladic “is happening on the day Catherine Ashton is coming to Serbia,” referring to the European Union’s foreign policy chief. But it was not immediately clear how the Serbian public, which has been suspicious of the West’s demands for trials of Serbs in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, would react to news of the arrest.

As evening descended on Belgrade, witnesses said small clutches of Mladic supporters had arrived near Republic Square. About 500 people also took to the streets of Novi Sad, in northern Serbia, and tried to force their way to a radio and television station, but were held back by riot police. They chanted, “Knife, wire, Srebrenica” — a reference to the Srebrenica massacre — and called for an “uprising” in Serbia.

On Thursday, Ljiljana Smajlovic, president of the country’s Journalists’ Association, said she did not expect widespread unrest to break out as it did when aggressive Serbian nationalists and followers of Slobodan Milosevic held more sway. “The weight of evidence against Mladic is staggering,” Ms. Smajlovic said, “even if Serbs remain unconvinced that the Hague tribunal has been even-handed in its approach to war criminals in the former Yugoslavia.”

“I do not expect that Serbia, because of this arrest, will be destabilized,” Mr. Tadic said. “Whoever tries to make any trouble will end up in court.” He said that the last remaining Serbian fugitive wanted for war crimes, Goran Hadzic , will be arrested as well. Mr. Hadzic is sought in connection with massacres of Croats in Krajina, a majority-Serb section of Croatia that tried to break away in the 1990s.

Some Serbian officials also reacted with anger, illustrating that the country was still struggling to come to terms with the past. Boris Aleksic, a spokesman for the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, said: “Serb traitors have arrested a Serb hero. This shameful arrest of a Serb general is a blow to our national interests and the state.”

The arrest comes at a crucial moment. Serge Brammertz , the chief prosecutor of the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, was expected to release a report in the next few days saying that Serbia was not cooperating with the international effort to apprehend Mr. Mladic. Such a report would have further complicated Serbia’s attempt to become an official candidate for membership in the European Union. Ms. Smajlovic said that the fact that Ms. Ashton was in Serbia for meetings on Thursday would “lead to suspicion that the arrest was timed to honor her and also to underline Serbia now has high expectations of rapid E.U. integration.”

However, the European Union’s struggles to manage financial crises in Greece, Ireland, Spain and elsewhere may present a new obstacle to that goal, with the bloc’s drive to expand slowed in recent months. Some Serbian analysts fear a nationalist backlash if Serbia’s European Union hopes are not realized.

In hiding since 1995, sometimes in plain sight at soccer matches and funerals, and sometimes deep underground in Belgrade, Mr. Mladic was believed for years to be protected by allies in the Serbian military and intelligence services. But he appeared to have spent the last few years with no more than a handful of loyalists to help him, investigators said.

A senior Obama administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the administration had been quietly pushing for Mr. Mladic’s capture for years.

Mr. Mladic’s arrest was welcomed by world leaders, including those gathered in Deauville, France, for the Group of Eight summit meeting. President Obama said in Deauville that the arrest was important for the families of Mr. Mladic’s victims.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the host in Deauville, said the Serbian government had made a “courageous decision” that constituted “another step towards Serbia’s eventual integration into the European Union.”

The arrest was also praised, in more somber tones, by survivors of the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of Sarajevo. “I want to congratulate Europe and Tadic,” said Munira Subasic, head of the Association of Mothers of Srebrenica. “I’m sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day.”

Who shot bin Laden? Former SEALs fill in the blanks - The Washington Post

Who shot bin Laden? Former SEALs fill in the blanks

The Washington Post

By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Published: May 3

Who shot Osama?
He’s out there somewhere, an instant icon in the annals of American conflict,
the ultimate big-game hunter. But an enigma, too, his identity cloaked for now,
and maybe forever.
He is the unknown shooter. The nameless, faceless triggerman who put a bullet
in the head of the world’s most notorious terrorist.
Yet there are clues, and the beginnings of a portrait can be pieced together
from scraps gleaned from U.S. officials. A trio of former Navy SEALs — Eric
Greitens, Richard Marcinko and Stew Smith — helped us fill in the blanks,
drawing from their experiences to develop a kind of composite sketch of an
elusive historic figure in real time.

He’s likely between the ages of 26 and 33, says Marcinko, founder of the
elite “SEALs Team 6” — now known as DEVGRU — that many believe led the assault
on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He’ll be old enough to have had
time to hurdle the extra training tests required to join the elite
counter-terrorism unit, yet young enough to withstand the body-punishing rigors
of the job. The shooter’s a man, it’s safe to say, because there are no women in
the SEALs. And there’s a good chance he’s white, though the SEALs have stepped
up efforts to increase the number of minorities in their ranks, Marcinko and
Smith say. A “positive thinker” who “gets in trouble when he’s not challenged,”
Marcinko suspects, a man who “flunked vacation and flunked relaxing.”

He was probably a high school or college athlete, Smith says, a physical
specimen who combines strength, speed and agility. “They call themselves
‘tactical athletes,’ ” says Smith, who works with many prospective SEALs in his
Heroes of Tomorrow training program in Severna Park. “It’s getting very
scientific.”
Marcinko puts it in more conventional terms: “He’ll be ripped,” says the
author of the best-selling autobiography “ Rogue
Warrior .” “He’s got a lot of upper-body strength. Long arms. Thin
waist. Flat tummy.”
On this point, Greitens departs a bit. “You can’t make a lot of physical
assumptions,” says the author of “The
Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy
SEAL.” There are SEALs who are 5 feet 4 and SEALs who are 6 feet 5, Greitens
says. In his training group, he adds, there were college football studs who
couldn’t hack it; those who survived were most often men in good shape, but they
also had a willingness to subsume their concerns in favor of the mission.
The shooter’s probably not the crew-cut, neatly shaven ideal we’ve come to
expect from American fighting forces. “He’s bearded, rough-looking, like a
street urchin,” Marcinko supposes. “You don’t want to stick out.” Marcinko calls
it “modified grooming standards.”
His hands will be calloused, Smith says, or just plain “gnarled,” as Marcinko
puts it. And “he’s got frag in him somewhere,” Marcinko says, using the
battlefield shorthand for “fragments” of bullets or explosive devices. This will
not have been the shooter’s first adventure. Marcinko estimates that he might
have made a dozen or more deployments, tours when he was likely to have run
afoul of grenades, improvised explosive devices or bullets.
Chances are he’s keeping score. Smith, who served in the SEALs from 1991 to
1999, got together recently with five Navy SEALs, some of whom he’d served with
and others whom he’d trained. “They were responsible for 250 dead terrorists,”
Smith says. “They know their number.”
But there are terrorists, and then there are TERRORISTS. Bin Laden falls into
the latter category. It’s hard to imagine someone not wanting to take credit for
such a significant kill. Yet revealing SEALs’ identities would make them targets
for al-Qaeda sympathizers and would also make it difficult or impossible for
them to participate in future secret operations.
The identities of other key players in the war against terrorism remain
anonymous. No one has identified the troops who slapped cuffs on Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein or named the pilots who dropped the bombs that killed Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Times have certainly changed. Another
era’s military history-makers were frequently publicly identified — Paul
Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped a nuclear bomb on
Hiroshima, wasn’t a mystery. But this is a different kind of war — a kind of
perpetual, amorphous conflict — one much less likely to see a formal declaration
of peace. Also it’s likely the shooter’s superiors would forbid him and his
colleagues to reveal his identity.
“This is playing in the Super Bowl and getting the Oscar all in one breath.
He wants credit,” Marcinko supposes of the shooter who felled bin Laden. “But
only among his peers.” Many SEALs consider themselves “humble warriors,”
Greitens says.
But among his colleagues, the shooter’s identity will be well-known. And
right now, he’s probably in for some locker-room-style ribbing.
“They’re gonna hard-ass him,” Marcinko says. “It’ll be, ‘If I’d have been
there, it’d have been done in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes.’ ” Smith can
envision the shooter’s pals razzing him about the precise location of the shot.
But, in the culture of the SEALs, it’s not as if he won’t push back. He’ll come
back at them, Marcinko says, with something like: “Talk is cheap. I did it. I
left my mark in the sand.”
There are sure to be awards and honorifics, all done in private. But the
shooter is likely looking for some moments of peace, a way to completely remove
himself from the pressure cooker. “These guys can one day be killing on the
other side of the world and then mowing the grass 24 hours later,” Smith says.
But given the chance, he’ll almost certainly want to get right back into the
action, to feel the rev of adrenaline again. “He keeps going,” Marcinko
predicts. “He wants to prove that it wasn’t a fluke.” He’ll be thinking: “Let me
prove I really did know what I’m doing.”
When the next helicopter is fueled and ready to whirl away, Greitens says,
the Unknown Shooter will “be the first one running for the helo.”

Iran's largest lake turning to salt - Yahoo! News

Iran's largest lake turning to salt - Yahoo! News: "Iran's largest lake turning to salt"

Iran's largest lake turning to salt

AP/Vahid Salemi

An Iranian family walks on the solidified salts of Oroumieh Lake. More photos »

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Nasser Karimi, Associated Press– Wed May 25, 6:32 am ET

OROUMIEH LAKE, Iran – From a hillside, Kamal Saadat looked forlornly at hundreds of potential customers, knowing he could not take them for trips in his boat to enjoy a spring weekend on picturesque Oroumieh Lake, the third largest saltwater lake on earth.

"Look, the boat is stuck... It cannot move anymore," said Saadat, gesturing to where it lay encased by solidifying salt and lamenting that he could not understand why the lake was fading away.

The long popular lake, home to migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls, has shrunken by 60 percent and could disappear entirely in just a few years, experts say — drained by drought, misguided irrigation policies, development and the damming of rivers that feed it.

Until two years ago, Saadat supplemented his income from almond- and grape-growing by taking tourists on boat tours. But as the lake receded and its salinity rose, he found he had to stop the boat every 10 minutes to unfoul the propeller — and finally, he had to give up this second job that he'd used to support a five-member family.

"The visitors were not enjoying such a boring trip," he said, noting they had to cross hundreds of meters of salty lakebed just to reach the boat from the wharf.

Other boatmen, too, have parked their vessels by their houses, where they stand as sad reminders of the deep-water days. And the lake's ebbing affects an ever-widening circle.

Click image to see more photos of Oroumieh Lake

AP/Vahid Salemi

In April, authorities stopped activities at the nearby jetty in Golmankhaneh harbor, due to lack of water in the lake, now only two meters deep at its deepest. Jetties in Sharafkhaneh and Eslami harbors faced the same fate.

The receding water has also weakened hotel business and tourism activities in the area, and planned hotel projects remain idle since investors are reluctant to continue.

Beyond tourism, the salt-saturated lake threatens agriculture nearby in northwest Iran, as storms sometimes carry the salt far afield. Many farmers worry about the future of their lands, which for centuries have been famous for apples, grapes, walnuts, almonds, onions, potatoes, as well as aromatic herbal drinks, candies and tasty sweet pastes.

"The salty winds not only will affect surrounding areas but also can damage farming in remote areas," said Masoud Mohammadian, an agriculture official in the eastern part of the lake, some 370 miles (600 kilometers) northwest of the capital Tehran.

Other officials echoed the dire forecast.

Salman Zaker, a parliament member for Oroumieh warned last month that, "with the current trend, the risk of a salt tsunami is increasing." Warning that the lake would dry out within three to five years — an assessment agreed to by the local environment department director, Hasan Abbasnejad — Zaker said eight to 10 billion tons of salt would jeopardize life for millions of people.

Masoud Pezeshkian, another lawmaker and representative for city of Tabriz in the eastern part of the lake said, "The lake has been drying but neither government nor local officials took any step, so far."

How did this disaster develop, and what can be done now?

Official reports blame the drying mainly on a decade-long drought, and peripherally on consumption of water of the feeding rivers for farming. They put 5 percent of the blame on construction of dams and 3 percent on other factors. Others disagree about the relative blame.

The first alarm over the lake's shrinking came in late 1990s amid a nagging drought.

Nonetheless, the government continued construction of 35 dams on the rivers which feed the lake; 10 more dams are on the drawing boards for the next few years.

Also completed was a lake-crossing roadway between Oroumieh and Tabriz, cities on the west and east of the lake. No environmental feasibility study was done in the planning for the road, and environmentalists believe the project worsened the lake's health by acting as a barrier to water circulation.

Nasser Agh, who teaches at Tabriz Sahand University, suggested miscalculations led to late reaction to save the lake. "Experts believed it would be a 10-year rotating drought, at first," he said. But long afterward, the drought still persists, with devastating effects.

In the early 2000s, academic research concluded that the lake could face the same destiny as the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which has been steadily shrinking since rivers that feed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects in 1960s. It is now less than one-tenth of its original size.

In April, the Iranian government announced a three-prong effort to save the lake: a cloud-seeding program to increase rainfall in the area, a lowering of water consumption by irrigation systems, and supplying the lake with remote sources of water.

Mohammad Javad Mohammadizadeh, vice-president to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in charge of environmental affairs, said the government approved the three-part approach.

Some experts termed the weather control portion of the program as only a "symbolic action" by government, saying the best answer would be to release more water currently being held back by dams. The evaporation rate has been three times the rainfall rate, making the rivers' historic role vital to sustaining the lake.

"The lake is in such a misery because of the dams," Ismail Kahram, a professor in Tehran Azad University and a prominent environmentalist, told The Associated Press. Three-fifths of the lake has dried up and salt saturation has reached some 350 milligrams per liter from 80 milligrams in 1970s, he said.

Kahram said the government should allow 20 percent of the water from the dams to reach the lake.

Mostafa Ghanbari, secretary of the Society for Savior of the Lake Oroumieh, believes transferring water from the Caspian Sea may be "the only way to save" the lake. But such a project would be ambitious, requiring the pumping of water some 430 miles (700 kilometers), from a body of water at considerably lower elevation.

In the green and beautiful city of Oroumieh, famous for peaceful coexistence between Azeri people, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians as well as Muslims and Christians, talk about the fate of the lake is common among ordinary people in teahouses and on the streets.

Many express happiness with the government decision to manipulate clouds in hopes of increasing rainfall.

"It is a good decision. Every evening I look at the dark clouds that are coming and I tell my family soon there will be rain," and on some nights there have been showers, said Masoud Ranjbar, a taxi driver.

However, Eskandar Khanjari, a local journalist in Oroumieh, called the cloud-seeding plan "a show." He said recent rainfall was only seasonal, as predicted by meteorologists.

Scoffing at the promises of officials and what he called "non-expert views," he said of efforts to save the lake: "It seems that people have only one way; to pray for rain."

Beyond the debates by national and local authorities some folks here suggest another way Oroumieh could be saved.

A local legend says wild purple gladiolas have had a miraculous role in doing just that. The flowers have grown every year for a thousand years in the spot where a princess of Oroumieh was killed as she warned the people of the city about an invading enemy.

As a recent sunset turned the lake golden, Kamal the boatman tried to find some hope in the returning blossoms.

"You see, still wild purple gladiolas are appearing in the spring," he said. "The city and its lake can eventually survive."

Kosova’s presence in the summit pushes Serbia, Slovakia and Romania to boycott it

The summit of Presidents from Central and South-East Europe will be held in Warsaw this year. Polish authorities have invited Kosova President Atifete Jahjaga to attend the summit. The summit of Presidents is held yearly and Kosova is represented for the first time. The ceremony will be held in Warsaw on Friday and Saturday.

Kosova’s President Atifete Jahjaga is the only female president form the Balkan Region taking place at this summit.

Roman Kuzniar, advisor to the Polish President, told media “there is no reason not to invite a representative or the president of Kosovo”. He also said that Slovakia might still change its mind and attend the summit.

“Serbian President Boris Tadic will not attend the Warsaw Summit because Kosovo is represented symmetrically as other participants,” a spokeswoman for Tadic was quoted as saying.

Serbian President Boris Tadic will join leaders from Slovakia and Romania in refusing to participate at the summit with U.S. President this week because Kosova is invited too. Recently Kosova and Serbia started negotiations and analysts in Kosova think that this will not help the negotiations process. Kosovo newspapers state that Serbia rejects Kosovo’s independence and boycotts high-level conferences where Kosovo is represented. This time however Tadic will miss out on a rare opportunity to directly meet American President Obama.

Doomsday prophet, followers ‘flabbergasted’ world didn’t end - Yahoo! News

Doomsday prophet, followers ‘flabbergasted’ world didn’t end - Yahoo! News: "Doomsday prophet, followers ‘flabbergasted’ world didn’t end

By Liz Goodwin

It's hard to feel bad for someone whose doomsday predictions caused so much anxiety, but 89-year-old Harold Camping's recent admission that he's "flabbergasted" the world didn't end last weekend sounds somewhat pitiful.

"It has been a really tough weekend," Camping said Sunday, after emerging from his Alameda, California home for the first time to talk to a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. "I'm looking for answers...But now I have nothing else to say," he said, adding that he would make a fuller statement today.

Camping's PR aide, Tom Evans, told the LA Timesthat the group is "disappointed" that 200,000 true believers weren't lifted up to heaven on Saturday while everyone else suffered and eventually died as a series of earthquakes and famine destroyed the Earth. "You can imagine we're pretty disappointed, but the word of God is still true," Evans said. "We obviously went too far, and that's something we need to learn from." The group posted 2,000 billboards around the country warning of the Rapture, while Camping--an uncertified fundamentalist minister--spread the word on his radio show.

Camping's Family Radio, which airs on 66 U.S. stations, has apparently rebranded itself quickly. Business Insider notes that the station's web site has scrubbed all mentions of the Judgment Day. The site previously featured a countdown clock to the May 21 Rapture on its homepage.

But the false prediction might not be so easily effaced from the lives of Camping's followers. The LATimeswrites that Keith Bauer, a 38-year-old tractor trailer driver, took a road trip with his family to see the world's sights before it ended.

"With maxed-out credit cards and a growing mountain of bills, he said, the rapture would have been a relief," the paper writes.

But Bauer is not angry at Camping for his false prediction. "Worst-case scenario for me, I got to see the country," he told the paper. "If I should be angry at anybody, it should be me."

Robert Fitzpatrick, who spent $140,000 of his life savings to advertise the Rapture in New York, said he was dumbfounded when life went on as usual Saturday.

"I do not understand why ...," he told Reuters while awaiting the event in Times Square. "I do not understand why nothing has happened."

An NPR reporter talked to two Camping followers on Sunday. "One man, his voice quavering, said he was still holding out hope that they were one day off. Another believer asserted that their prayers worked: God delayed judgment so that more people could be saved, but the end is 'imminent,' " she reported.

Evans, Camping's PR aide, told NPR he hopes Family Radio will reimburse followers who spent their savings in anticipation of the Rapture, but that he can't guarantee it.

Protesters gathered outside Camping's radio headquarters to mock the false prophecy over the weekend. Some of them set aloft a toy cow with balloons to lampoon the idea that a select elite would ascend to heaven. Meanwhile, other religious groups tried to recruit disappointed Camping followers.

Obama: '67 borders reflects long-standing policy - Yahoo! News

Obama: '67 borders reflects long-standi

By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press Bradley Klapper, Associated Press– 42 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama defended his endorsement of Israel's 1967 boundaries as the basis for a future Palestine, telling America's pro-Israel lobby Sunday that his views reflected long-standing U.S. policy that needed to be stated clearly

Play VideoNews 8 San Diego – President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister

He also said the Jewish state will face growing isolation without "a credible peace process."

Obama tried to alleviate concerns that his administration was veering in a pro-Palestinian direction, placing his Mideast policy speech Thursday in the context of Israel's security. He told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that those border lines must be subject to negotiated land swaps and said these principles reflected U.S. thinking dating to President Bill Clinton's mediation efforts.

"If there's a controversy, then it's not based in substance," Obama said in a well-received speech. "What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately. I have done so because we cannot afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades, to achieve peace."

The event was eagerly anticipated after Obama outlined his vision for the changing Middle East at the State Department on Thursday and then clashed in a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day later.

The speech came ahead of a weeklong trip for the president to Europe, where he'll tend to old friends in the Western alliance and look to secure their help with the political upheaval across the Arab world and the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan.

Netanyahu said in a statement after Obama's remarks that he supported president's desire to advance peace and resolved to work with him to find ways to renew the negotiations. "Peace is a vital need for us all," Netanyahu said.

The Israeli leader's tone was far more reserved than last week, when he issued an impassioned rejection of the 1967 borders as "indefensible" and even appeared to publicly admonish Obama after their White House meeting.

Netanyahu was to address the pro-Israel lobby Monday night and Congress on Tuesday.

Obama didn't retreat from his remarks on what it would take to reach a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. Repeating a large section of his Thursday speech, he said the result must come through negotiation, and that Israeli border security and protections from acts of terrorism must be ensured. An Israeli withdrawal from territory should be followed by Palestinians' responsibility for security in a nonmilitarized state.

"By definition, it means that the parties themselves - Israelis and Palestinians - will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967," Obama said. That was before Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and a half-million Israelis settled on war-won lands.

"It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation," the president said. "It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides."

Obama's emphasis on what is meant by "mutually agreed land swaps" reflected a part of the equation Netanyahu largely disregarded when he vociferously rejected the 1967 borders as a basis for peace.

Palestinians have expressed willingness to let Israel annex some of the largest settlements closest to the demarcation, as long as they are compensated with Israeli land equal in size and quality. In the last serious negotiations in 2008, the sides split over how much West Bank land Israel would keep in the trade.

Leading Republicans seized on Obama's Mideast remarks, insisting that he was imperiling Israel's security.

"This is the very worst time to be pushing Israel into making a deal," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told "Fox News Sunday," citing the uncertainty in neighboring Egypt and Syria.

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said the U.S. shouldn't apply any pressure on Israel in light of the recent reconciliation agreement between President Mahmoud Abbas' U.S.-backed government and the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza.

"How do you have peace with a Hamas organization whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and driving every Israeli out of the country?" Gingrich asked on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Obama acknowledged that he had touched nerves by outlining his principles for peace and that "the easy thing to do, particularly for a president preparing for re-election, is to avoid any controversy." But he said peace efforts needed to gain ground quickly.

"The march to isolate Israel internationally — and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations — will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process," he said.

Obama flatly opposed a Palestinian drive to win U.N. recognition for an independent state, even without a peace deal with Israel. He did note increased international impatience with what he termed the "absence" of a peace process. Arab, Latin American, European and Asian countries may be inclined to back the Palestinian bid.

"For us to have leverage with the Palestinians, with the Arab states, and with the international community, the basis for negotiations has to hold out the prospect of success," Obama said.

Palestinian reaction to Obama's speech was mixed.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat refused to address the government's reconciliation with Hamas or Obama's opposition to Palestinian efforts at the United Nations.

"I want to hear from Mr. Netanyahu," he said, calling for the Israeli leader to hold peace talks according to Obama's principles. "Before he says yes, it's a waste of time to talk about a peace process."

Hamas said it wouldn't recognize the Israeli "occupation" and that it, too, rejected Obama's reference to the 1967 borders. "It is a mistake to consider the U.S. as an honest sponsor for the so-called peace process," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Obama was to depart later Sunday for Ireland. He also will visit England, France and Poland this week.

The trip comes amid the continued NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya and a seemingly intractable conflict between Moammar Gadhafi's forces and Libyan rebels. Talks will also encompass economic concerns, as European countries make stark cuts in public spending and Obama and congressional Republicans try to hash out how to cut spending to bring U.S. debt under control.ng policy"

Jordan’s king: Palestinian-Israeli peace will succeed with US help - The Washington Post

Jordan’s king: Palestinian-Israeli peace will succeed with US help - The Washington Post: "Jordan’s king: Palestinian-Israeli peace will succeed with US help"By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, May 21, 12:51 PM

AMMAN, Jordan — Days after White House talks with President Barack Obama, Jordan’s king says that Palestinian-Israeli “peace will succeed” with America’s help.

Abdullah II did not provide an explanation for his optimism.

He also urged that visiting U.S. businessmen make bigger investments in Jordan, saying they should not be dissuaded by the “short-term” popular revolutions that have unseated two Arab leaders so far.

He says investing in Jordan allows them access to three world continents, 350 million Arab consumers and a cheap, bilingual and skilled Jordanian labor.

Tuesday, Abdullah and Obama discussed the Mideast uprisings as well as the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

Abdullah’s spoke Saturday to visiting U.S. businessmen from companies including Hilton Hotels, Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., General Electric Co., Citigroup Inc., Raytheon Co. and Boeing Co.

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Preacher Harold Camping Gets Doomsday Prediction Wrong Again - FoxNews.com

Preacher Harold Camping Gets Doomsday Prediction Wrong Again - FoxNews.com: "Preacher Harold Camping Gets Doomsday Prediction Wrong Again"

So it seems Harold Camping's latest prediction that the world will end Saturday, May 21, 2011, is proving to be false.

The deadline for the apocalypse passed in the Pacific islands, New Zealand and Australia without a bang.

According to the Christian broadcaster, Judgment Day was supposed to bring a massive earthquake, powerful enough to throw open graves, followed by a slow death for all non-believers over the next five months across the globe. He went on to say only 200 million people will be saved and those left behind will die in earthquakes, plagues, and other calamities until Earth is consumed by a fireball on October 21.

This wouldn't be the first time Camping was wrong.

In 1992, Camping wrote a book titled "1994?" about the world coming to an end that year.

He says his predictions are based on taking direct quotes and stories from the Bible and applying them to numerological formulas. May 21, 2011 is exactly 7,000 years since the flood in the biblical story of Noah's Ark.

The doomsday message has been sent far and wide via broadcasts and web sites by Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who has built a multi-million dollar nonprofit ministry based on his apocalyptic prediction.

Pope blesses astronauts in 1st papal call to space

Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI had a direct line to the heavens Saturday, with NASA's help.

Speaking from the Vatican, the pontiff bestowed a historic blessing upon the 12 astronauts circling Earth during the first-ever papal call to space, wishing a swift recovery for the shuttle commander's wounded congresswoman wife and condolences for a station astronaut mourning his mother's death.

The "extraordinary" conversation, as Benedict described it, occurred after the Endeavour astronauts inspected a small gash in the shuttle's belly, to ensure their safe return to Earth after departing the International Space Station in just over a week. It is the next-to-last flight in NASA's 30-year shuttle program.

Seated at a table before a television set tuned to NASA's live broadcast from orbit, Benedict told the space travelers that "you are our representatives spearheading humanity's exploration of new spaces and possibilities for our future." He said he admired their courage, discipline and commitment.

"It must be obvious to you how we all live together on one Earth and how absurd it is that we fight and kill each one," the pontiff said, reading from prepared remarks. "I know that Mark Kelly's wife was a victim of a serious attack, and I hope her health continues to improve."

Kelly, who's of Irish-Catholic descent, thanked the pope for his kind words. His wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had surgery to repair her skull Wednesday, four months after being shot in the head at a political event in Tucson, Ariz. She was nearly killed, yet managed to attend her husband's launch last Monday.

Kelly told the pope that borders cannot be seen from space and noted that down on Earth, people usually fight for resources. At the space station, solar power provides unlimited energy, "and if those technologies could be adapted more on Earth, we could possibly reduce some of that violence," he said.

Benedict asked about the future of the planet and the environmental risks it faces, and wanted to know what the astronauts' most important message would be for young people when they return home.

Space station astronaut Ronald Garan Jr. spoke of the paper-thin layer of atmosphere "that separates every living thing from the vacuum of space." And shuttle crewman Mike Fincke described how he and his colleagues "can look down and see our beautiful planet Earth that God has made."

"However, if we look up, we can see the rest of the universe, and the rest of the universe is out there for us to explore," Fincke said. "The International Space Station is just one symbol, one example, of what human beings can do when we work together constructively."

Near the end of the 18-minute conversation, Benedict expressed concern for astronaut Paolo Nespoli, whose 78-year-old mother died in northern Italy at the beginning of May while he was serving on the space station.

"How have you been living through this time of pain on the International Space Station?" the pope asked.

"Holy Father, I felt your prayers and everyone's prayers arriving up here where outside the world ... we have a vantage point to look at the Earth and we feel everything around us," Nespoli replied in Italian.

Nespoli will end his five-month space station mission Monday, returning to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.

He will bring back with him a silver medal that shuttle astronaut Roberto Vittori took up with him on Endeavour, that was provided by the pope. It depicts Michelangelo's "Creation of Man," the painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Vittori floated the commemorative coin in front of him, then gently tossed it to Nespoli, positioned on the opposite end of the front row of astronauts.

"I brought it with me to space, and he will take down on Earth to then give back to you," Vittori told the pontiff. The astronaut said he prays in space "for me, for our families, for our future."

The long-distance papal audience was arranged by the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA provided technical support from Mission Control in Houston.

Inside the ancient frescoed halls of the Vatican — where email wasn't even in wide use until a few years ago — the call was received with visible awe.

The 84-year-old Benedict chuckled when one of the astronauts began floating up at the end of the transmission. He waved to the U.S., Italian and Russian crew at the beginning and end of the call.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the call was evidence of the pope's desire to communicate with people however possible, be it sending a text message with a prayer of the day or a YouTube channel playing church teachings.

Pope Paul VI sent a greeting to the moon with Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, but it was in a silicon disk that contained goodwill messages from numerous countries and was left on the Sea of Tranquility. "I look up at your heavens, made by your fingers, at the moon and stars you set in place," said Paul VI, quoting from Psalms 8.

Mission Control, meanwhile, was glowing. Flight controllers watched on monitors as the pope got set up for the interview.

"It was just an amazing event, really a beautiful event," said lead flight director Derek Hassmann.

Before gathering for the extra-special VIP call, the astronauts conducted an hourlong survey of the gouge in Endeavour's belly, using a 100-foot extension boom.

Mission managers ordered the inspection as a precaution, saying there was no reason to be alarmed by the damage generated by Monday's liftoff on Endeavour's final voyage. Experts on the ground immediately began analyzing the 3-D images beamed down.

The extra safety checks were put in place following the 2003 Columbia disaster.

The gouge — spanning two or three tiles — measures just 3.2 inches by 2.5 inches. Flight controllers hoped to ascertain the depth with Saturday's survey, to make certain no repairs were needed.

Similar damage was seen on a flight by Endeavour in 2007. That gash turned out to be just an inch deep, and no repair was necessary. By coincidence, that 2007 mission was commanded by Kelly's identical twin brother, Scott.

Still ahead for Kelly and his crew are three more spacewalks, the next one on Sunday. Landing is scheduled for June 1.

Palestinian State within the borders of 1967 states President Obama

Reuters

President Barack Obama on Thursday backed a key Palestinian demand on the borders of a future state with Israel as part of his vision for a Middle East peace deal and sought to shape political change convulsing the region.

Obama's proposal -- a policy shift that effectively calls for a negotiated Israeli pullback to 1967 borders that existed before it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem -- drew a swift rejection from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of his Washington visit.

The president's first public endorsement of the idea -- in laying out his most detailed framework yet for an elusive peace deal -- came in a much-anticipated "Arab spring" address aimed at recasting the U.S. response to upheaval sweeping the Arab world.

"At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent that ever," Obama told an audience of U.S. and foreign diplomats at the State Department.

Obama's bid to reset ties with a skeptical Arab world was aimed at countering criticism of an uneven response to the region's uprisings that threaten both U.S. friends and foes and his failure to advance Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

His blunt language toward U.S. ally Israel about the need to find an end to its occupation of Arab land could complicate his talks on Friday with Netanyahu while easing Arab doubts about his commitment to even-handed U.S. mediation.

Obama also had tough words for the Palestinians for what he described as efforts to "delegitimize" Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the region for decades.

But he urged Israel to act "boldly" and for both sides to revive long-stalled peace talks. "The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation," Obama said.

Most Detailed Peace Vision

Seizing on the decades-old conflict long seen as a catalyst for broader Mideast tensions, Obama went further than he has ever gone in offering principles for resolving the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians.

But he stopped short of presenting a formal U.S. peace plan -- an omission that could disappoint many in the Arab world -- after having failed to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front since taking office in 2009.

Among the parameters he laid down was that any agreement creating a state of Palestine must be based on borders that existed before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israel war but "with mutually agreed swaps" of land.

Netanyahu said Israel would object to any withdrawal to "indefensible" borders, adding he expected Washington to allow it to keep major settlement blocs in any peace deal.

Before heading to Washington, Netanyahu said in a statement that "the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of Israel's existence."

Obama's insistence on the borders issue -- plus his criticism of continued Israeli "settlement activity" -- sends a message to Netanyahu that Washington expects the Jewish state to make concessions.

Obama and Netanyahu have had a strained relationship, and prospects for their talks to yield any significant progress on peace moves have been viewed as dim.

Still, Obama reaffirmed an unshakable U.S. commitment to Israel's security and condemned what he called "symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations," referring to the Palestinians' plan to seek General Assembly recognition for statehood in September.

And he acknowledged that a new reconciliation deal between the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist group Hamas raised "legitimate questions" for Israel, which has condemned the accord as blocking any new peace talks.

Putting pressure on Netanyahu, who will address the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Monday and a joint session of Congress on Tuesday at the invitation of his Republican supporters, could be politically risky for the Democratic president as he seeks re-election in 2012.

"President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus," said likely Republican candidate Mitt Romney. "He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace."

Historic Opportunities

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Obama's efforts to renew talks with Israel that collapsed last year in a dispute over Israeli settlement building.

Robert Danin, a Middle East analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that for the first time the United States has "embraced the Palestinian position on borders."

Obama also hailed popular unrest sweeping the Middle East as a "historic opportunity" and said promoting reform was his administration's top priority for a region caught up in unprecedented upheaval. "The people have risen up to demand their basic human rights," he said. "Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow."

And he ratcheted up pressure on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, saying for the first time that he must stop a brutal crackdown or "get out of the way," and prodded U.S. allies Yemen and Bahrainas well for democratic transformation.

While throwing his weight behind the push for reform, Obama did not abandon his approach of balancing support for democratic aspirations with a desire to preserve long-time partnerships seen as crucial to fighting al Qaeda, containing Iran and securing vital oil supplies.

Struggling to regain the initiative in a week of intense Middle East diplomacy, Obama seized an opportunity to reach out to the Arab world following the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Navy SEAL commandos.

He announced billions of dollars in aid for Egypt and Tunisia to support and encourage their political transitions after revolts toppled autocratic leaders.

Obama has scrambled to keep pace with still-unfolding events that have ousted long-time leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, threatened those in Yemen and Bahrain and engulfed Libya in civil war where the United States and other powers have unleashed a bombing campaign.