Angela Kegler McDowell thought she was doing everything right.

A 38-year-old small business owner, she had bought her own personal health insurance and kept paying her premiums, even as they rose from $293 a month to $804 a month.

The insurance company said it had to raise her premiums when her breast cancer came back and she was forced to undergo expensive chemotherapy.

“When the renewal came up in January, they told me I was a high risk to insure and they were dropping my insurance,” McDowell told Reuters in an interview. “Even if I had a million dollars a month to pay for insurance, I couldn’t get it.”  See her on video here in a related story, young adults.

McDowell has been lobbying her members of Congress to ask them to make sure the healthcare reform plan ensures that private insurance — sure to be part of any reform package –cannot drop patients if their coverage becomes too expensive.

Plans also need to be more affordable, says McDowell, who estimates she spent $42,000 out of pocket on her 20 percent co-pays and wiped out her family’s life savings even before her insurance company dumped her.

McDowell was struggling to hold her company together, battle cancer, and fight with her health insuance company– which she doesn’t want to name because she is still negotiating to be reinstated. “It was truly more than a medical battle. It was a financial battle,” she said.

Congress is considering ways to reform the U.S. healthcare system, which leaves 46 million people without health insurance at all but which also often fails people like McDowell, who did have health insurance and who was willing to pay even high premiums.

A national insurance plan for all, akin to the systems Britain, Canada and France have, is not even on the table — dismissed by conservatives as “socialized medicine”.

Studies have shown that these systems are cheaper per capita than the U.S. system, keep patients healthier by many measures and satisfy their customers.

But Congress is struggling to pay for reform with a budget already deep into deficit and an electorate unwilling to pay higher taxes. McDowell knows the precise language to use when lobbying. “We need an American solution,” she says.

Proponents of a market-based system say people would spend less if they knew, and had to pay, some of the costs.

McDowell has had to do this herself. She decides what follow-up care she needs to make sure her cancer has not returned based not on which test is best, but on how much it costs.

Positron emission tomography or PET scans are considered the best way to see if a tumor has reactivated. But McDowell has learned that a PET scan costs $7,000.

A CT scan - a computerized X-ray- costs $1,000 if you shop around. A mammogram costs $400 to $700. “It’s not as effective as a PET scan” at detecting cancer, McDowell said. “But I usually get the mammogram.”

She is unhappy with the choice.

“People shouldn’t have to choose between losing their house, losing their life savings, losing their business to save their life,” McDowell says.

        Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s accusation of genocide in describing the rioting which killed 184 people in China’s northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang should come as no surprise to those familiar with his outspoken, populist style.

    The incident recalls the furore that followed Erdogan’s haranguing of Israel’s president over Israel’s Gaza offensive at the Davos forum in January when he told Shimon Peres: “When it comes to killing you know very well how to kill”.

    That outburst attracted strong approval among Turks and in the Arab world, but was also seen as potentially damaging for predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey’s role as a Middle East mediator.

    His latest comments have drawn an indignant response in China, and Turkish commentators are now voicing concerns that his undiplomatic approach could harm the relations which Turkey
is trying to develop with the world’s third-biggest economy.

    The timing was unfortunate. President Abdullah Gul last month became the first Turkish president to visit China in 15 years, signing $1.5 billion worth of trade deals, according to Turkish media. He also visited Xinjiang during his trip.

    Veteran Turkish political commentator Sami Kohen said it was natural for the Turkish people to show their sensitivity and anger over developments concerning their Uighur ethnic kin.

    “But state policy must be more cautious and moderate. Speeches and reactions since the start of the Xinjiang crisis have created serious doubts on whether a harmonious and consistent policy has been set out,” Kohen said in Milliyet newspaper.

    “It was seen with different incidents in the past that over-the-top expressions have put Turkish diplomacy in a difficult position and did not have any practical results,” he said.

    The genocide label is particularly sensitive in Turkey, which strongly refutes Armenian claims that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One constituted genocide.

    The English-language China Daily has urged Erdogan to take back his remarks, describing them as interference in China’s internal affairs. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the accusation did not make sense.

    On July 5, Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in the regional capital Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China.

    Han Chinese launched revenge attacks two days later in what was Xinjiang’s worst ethnic violence in decades. The death toll included 46 Uighurs, a Turkic people who are largely Muslim and share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told his Turkish counterpart by telephone on Sunday the Urumqi riots were a grave crime orchestrated by the “three evil forces”, Xinhua news agency said, referring to extremism, separatism and terrorism.

    Commentator Cengiz Candar said the situation called for cool heads, given China’s permanent membership of the United Nation’s Security Council, which gives it veto powers in issues concerning Turkey such as the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, neighbouring Iraq and Iran.

    “Now is the time to overcome the ‘tension’ which has emerged between Turkey and China with a diplomacy which is cool, quiet and patient,” Candar said in the liberal daily Radikal.

    That diplomacy could face a fresh test in the near future after Erdogan said last week Turkey would grant a visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who is based in the United States.

     China has blamed the ethnic unrest on exiled Uighur separatists, especially Kadeer, who denies the charge.

By Niluksi Koswanage

Gay Austrian fashionista Bruno will not be making an appearance on Malaysia’s screens this summer for fear of corrupting this mostly-Muslim nation’s youth.

But Malaysia’s parents will still not have it easy as the country’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim  is again on trial for sodomy in a re-run of a 14-month case that in 1998 generated endless sexually explicit headlines and questions from curious children.

Photo: Anwar enters Kuala Lumpur courtoom with wife Wan Aziza Wasn Ismail for his sodomy trial on July 15/ Reuters (Zainal Abd Halim)

I was a teenager then when the former deputy prime minister was first found guilty of
sodomy and corruption in a marathon trial that featured graphic descriptions of anal
penetration, faithfully reported in lurid detail by this country’s government-owned press and on prime-time TV.

(Photo: Anwar arrives in court on July 15, Reuters/

On my way to school, I saw angry protesters take to the streets and heard parents and teachers raging about children getting exposed to gay and straight sex (Anwar was accused of having an affair with a woman as well), accompanied by the kind of graphic descriptions usually reserved for specialist magazines.
 
A columnist in the normally staid government-run New Straits Times suggested at the time that all Malaysians should study a book to be entitled “An intelligent parent’s guide to sodomy and other painful issues,” based on the explicit testimony of Anwar’s former driver who said he had been assaulted by Anwar and his adopted brother. Needless to say, he lost his column.
   
These were pre-YouTube days where sexual images were only available on illicit video recordings  and imported magazines. At the time, it was impossible to ignore the headlines as pro-government newspapers sought to tarnish Anwar’s image.

One of the many ironies of the case was that Anwar, a pious Muslim, had been an education minister who had fervently opposed sex education in schools on moral grounds.  And blushing teachers often skipped or skimmed over the reproductive system in classes.

But with the trial, a generation of school kids were confronted with a court parade of x-rated items from a semen-stained mattress, medical reports on anal tearing to pubic hair samples.

Malay-language newspapers had to invent new words to decribe sex acts and body parts as Arabic loan words were inadequate to explain everything. Slang Bahasa Malaysia words like “pondan”, a derogatory word for homosexual entered the formal lexicon via the courts and media.

The uncovering of Anwar’s alleged sexual crimes in court and in the media was seen by many as a demonisation of a popular Malay politician in a leadership struggle during the Asian financial crisis that rocked Malaysia.

Despite the press palaver, there was no real crackdown on homosexuals during the trial, apart from the Muslim morality police occasionally raiding private gay parties in hotels. They still do that but you can more likely be arrested by the religious police for being in “khalwat” or “close proximity” to a person of the opposite sex.  

What 1998 did bring was protest. For the first time in a country that has now been ruled by the same political party for 51 years, many university students and young professionals took part in daily demonstrations numbering in the tens of thousands.

It also gave birth to Malaysia’s political alternative media that have grown into the main source of news in a country where the printed press is heavily controlled. Websites like Malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) got their first breath of life. A widely read Reformasi (reform) diary (a precursor to the blog), which detailed the movement started by Anwar, made its rounds in cyberspace and Malaysian gay websites saw their best business in years with chatrooms like GayMalaysia and SayangAbang (darling brother) filled with inquisitive onlookers. 
  
If there were long lines to get into the courthouse to witness the downfall of one of the country’s best-known political figures, there were also long queues of straight patrons trying to get a feel of the drum and bass-thumping gay clubs like Liquid Room and the Blue Boy in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

The clubs, like Anwar, are still around today.
   
One young gay reporter even told Time Magazine his sex life had sizzled in 1998 as many people wanted to experiment, inspired by the trial.
   
Will the trial shock as much this time round or are Malaysians just too exposed to sex through MTV, YouTube and MySpace and numerous blogs?

More than 10 years on and two prime ministers later, Malaysia’s conservatism appears to have grown deeper. Its rising political force is an Islamist party, one of Anwar’s staunchest allies.

Will the new trial and publicity damage Anwar or the government? Finally released from imprisonment in 2004 and after a bar on holding office ended, the 61-year old was catapulted back into parliament in 2008 by-election with a huge majority, so it seems not.

And those pesky promiscuous viruses. More insight into the 1918 pandemic - the kind everyone fears may happen again - shows it circulated for a little while before it got bad. And as Tan Ee Lyn reports from Hong Kong, it was a swine flu as well:

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE56C64720090713

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the consummate campaigner. No matter where he finds himself, the indefatigable 72-year-old always makes sure the cameras are squarely on him.

Although he is quick to flash a smile to his supporters, Berlusconi can be just as fast in delivering barbed words to his critics. And when he does not have the time to do it, his supporters are more than happy to oblige.

The newspaper Il Libero, for instance, uses its front page to wage war against his adversaries, old and new.

When his wife called for a divorce after criticising his party for considering former actresses and TV showgirls to run in the European elections, it lashed out. It published old photos of her baring her breasts on a theatrical stage and ran a headline telling her that she was of the same ilk.

Il Libero also uses inserts to great effect. Last week, it started publishing a serial recounting the life of Berlusconi.

Reminiscent of the booklet about his life that Berlusconi sent to voters’ homes ahead of the 2006 election, the serial highlights in glowing terms his transformation from cruise ship crooner to real estate mogul to media magnate to prime minister.

“He is not a common man,” Vittorio Feltri, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, tells Reuters.

The timing of its publication could not be better.

Not only does it come ahead of the European elections in June, but also at a time when Italy’s left-wing press is focusing on one of the reasons for his wife wanting a divorce: her accusation that he had an affair with a teenaged girl, something which Berlusconi denies.

Entitled “Berlusconi, as he is: (The) life, conquests, battles and passions of a political man unique in the world,” the serial is replete with photos of Berlusconi as well as articles illustrating every aspect of his life. There is one about him choosing the flowers for the garden at his villa, especially the crocus, which he cherishes for its “delicate colours and particular scent”.

One of the 16 inserts in the serial speaks of his admiration for Barack Obama despite the “privileged” relationship he enjoyed with former U.S. President George W. Bush. It nevertheless publishes his joke about Obama being “suntanned”, dismissing the outrage that it caused by criticising the scandalised “radical chic” for not being able to take a joke.

Il Giornale is even more fervent in its defence of Berlusconi, especially since the newspaper is owned by his brother, Paolo.

In its latest issue, it dedicates two pages to criticising foreign journalists for giving just as much attention to the wife’s accusation as the left-wing press.

As for the serial on Berlusconi, Il Libero’s Feltri says the newspaper decided to produce it because the upcoming European elections had heightened its readers’ interest in politics.

Its publication had already led to a 17 percent jump in sales, he says.

“Silvio is one of the biggest sellers,” he says.

Although the divorce from his wife has taken a few points away from his popularity, Berlusconi still finds favour among 53 percent of Italians surveyed in the latest independent poll.

Feltri says he would be willing to put out a serial about a left-wing politician but he had difficulty finding someone as compelling as Berlusconi.

“They don’t sell,” he says.

PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi smiles to photographers after meeting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow May 16, 2009. REUTERS/Maxim Shipenikov

Cubans indulge baseball mania at Havana’s “Hot Corner”

For all the shouting and nose-to-nose confrontations, visitors to Havana’s Parque Central might think they had walked into a brawl or counter-revolution … but here in the park’s Hot Corner,  the topic almost always under discussion is baseball, Cuba’s national obsession.

Iraq’s orphans battle to outgrow abuse

At night, Salah Abbas Hisham wakes up screaming. Sometimes, in the dark, he silently attacks the boy next to him in a tiny Baghdad orphanage where 33 boys sleep on cots or on the floor. Salah, who saw both his parents blown apart in a car bomb, can never be left alone at night.

Colombian soccer club tries to forget cocaine past

Colombian soccer champions America de Cali are first to admit cocaine dollars had a hand in their sporting heyday. But after years of paying the price, they’re trying to wipe the slate clean … Cali’s mayor is leading a campaign to have the team removed from a U.S. anti-drugs blacklist.

Big French press find brand power helps online

In a grimy part of eastern Paris an editorial conference is underway, similar to planning meetings in newsrooms everywhere, except this is being blogged live and readers can join in … The meeting is at Rue89 … one of the interactive  sites to have appeared as a global crisis in the press squeezes French newspapers.

Shy teen spotlights battle over failing schools

A shy 14-year-old girl plucked from obscurity by the White House has come to symbolize a battle over how to fix dilapidated U.S. schools. Ty’Sheoma Bethea’s story proves that one small act — in this case writing to President Barack Obama — can have a big impact. It also highlights a battle over how far the federal government should fund U.S. education.

Toxic jatropha shrub fuels Mexico’s biodiesel push

All his life elderly Mexican farmer Gonzalo Cardenas has planted a stalky weed that grows wild in southern Mexico to form a sturdy live fence around his tropical fruit trees. Now it turns out the weed, jatropha, could be used to fuel jet planes.

Malaysia Christians battle with Muslims over Allah

The congregation at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral on Borneo island intones in Malay: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of Allah”. Now the government in this mostly Muslim Southeast Asian nation wants to prevent “Allah” being used by Christians.

Rape inquiry sheds light on racism in Italy

When police arrested two Romanians for the rape of an Italian teenager in Rome, a paper owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, reported: “The Romanian beasts have been caught.” Three weeks later, prosecutors admitted the “beasts” could not be guilty — DNA tests had ruled them out .

China’s last eunuch spills sex, castration secrets

Only two memories brought tears to Sun Yaoting’s eyes in old age — the day his father cut off his genitals, and the day his family threw away the pickled remains that should have made him a whole man again at death. China’s last eunuch was tormented and impoverished in youth, punished in revolutionary China for his role as the “Emperor’s slave”.

The Red Sea might save the Dead Sea

Abundant water from the Red Sea could replenish the shrinking Dead Sea if Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians decide to commission a tunnel north through the Jordanian desert from the Gulf of Aqaba. The Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance project would supply the biggest desalination plant in the world.

Development takes toll on Chesapeake crabs

It doesn’t look like a disaster area. Crab boats dart back and forth on this inlet of the Chesapeake Bay as they have for generations … But watermen aren’t pulling blue crabs out of the Bay … the U.S. Commerce Department declared the fishery a federal disaster last September.

U.S. energy future hits snag in rural Pennsylvania

When her children started missing school because of persistent diarrhea and vomiting, Pat Farnelli began to wonder if she and her family were suffering from more than a classroom bug. After trying several remedies, she stopped using the water drawn from her well in this rural corner of northeastern Pennsylvania, the forefront of a drilling boom in what may be the biggest U.S. reserve of natural gas.

Exotic animals trapped in net of Mexican drug trade - From the live snakes that smugglers stuff with packets of cocaine to the white tigers drug lords keep as exotic pets, rare animals are being increasingly sucked into Mexico’s deadly narcotics trade.

End of an era for the Amazon’s turbulent priests - They avoid taking buses, make sure friends know their schedules, and rarely go out when it’s dark. For the three foreign-born Roman Catholic bishops under death threat in Brazil’s northeastern state of Para, speaking out against social ills that plague this often-lawless area at the Amazon River’s mouth has come at a price.

West risks repeating Soviet mistakes in Afghanistan - The foreign warplanes swooped in just as the Afghan village of Ali Mardan was celebrating a wedding. Bombs slammed into the crowded village square, killing 30 men, women and children. After the smoke cleared and the dead were buried, all the able-bodied men left alive took up arms against the invaders. That was 1982…

Drought starts to bite in northern Kenya - Clouds of dust rising above the harsh scrub herald the arrival of more livestock at a borehole in northeastern Kenya, the end for some of a 45 km (28 mile) trek for water that must be repeated every few days. Drought is starting to bite into east Africa’s biggest economy and the government says 10 million people may face hunger and starvation.

World’s largest wetland threatened in Brazil - Jaguars still roam the world’s largest wetland Hyacinth Macaws nest in its trees, but advancing farms and industries are destroying Brazil’s Pantanal region at an alarming rate. “It’s a type of Noah’s Ark but it risks running aground,” biologist and tourist guide Elder Brandao de Oliveira says of the Pantanal.

Indonesian city grapples with quake threat - Remember the name Padang. Geologists say this Indonesian city of 900,000 people may one day be destroyed by a huge earthquake. “Padang sits right in front of the area with the greatest potential for an 8.9 magnitude earthquake,” said Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a geologist at the Indonesian Science Institute.

‘Protest TV’ tries to bring down Georgian leader - It’s been dubbed “Protest TV”. A man in an improvised prison cell under the 24-hour gaze of television cameras, promising to stay put until Georgia’s president quits. Four cameras and a microphone on the ceiling capture his every shuffling move and political rant.  An edited version is broadcast in the evening, before Gachechiladze goes live all night, often with guests.

U.S. farmland fetches top dollar despite recession - On a chilly day in January, more than 200 investors gathered in west central Illinois to haggle over 4,000 acres of prime farmland called the Kilton Farm in the heart of U.S. Corn Belt. The auction came during the most depressing climate for the U.S. economy in decades. But when the hammer fell…

Sunken Green treasures at risk from scuba looters - A corroded mechanism recovered by sponge divers from a sunken wreck near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1902 changed the study of the ancient world.  Hundreds more wrecks beneath the eastern Mediterranean may contain treasures, but a new law opening Greece’s coastline to scuba diving has experts worried that priceless artifacts could disappear into the hands of treasure hunters.

In the north, Afghans fight hunger, not the Taliban - The United States’ decision to send more troops to Afghanistan will mean little to the people of northern Sang-i-Khel village, whose fight is not against Taliban insurgents but against hunger. “Life is not good. There was nothing last year. No water. No wheat. If there is no water this year, I will have to leave…”

Salim Adil is an author for Global Voices Online, a website that aggregates, curates, and translates news and views from the global blogosphere. The opinions expressed are his own and those of the bloggers he quotes.

Will this become one of those moments in history? In years to come will you recount to your grand children where you were when an Iraqi journalist, Montather Al-Zeidi, threw his shoes at the president of the United States? For me I was at home just getting my kids ready to sleep when my father called me insisting that I simply had to switch on the television immediately.

Iraqi bloggers reacted in much the same way with a number who wrote their first new post in months just to make their comment. Abbas Hawazin went as far to predict that shoe throwing will now be part of mainstream culture and has gone to look for a good-sized shoe to carry in his pocket, “in case I need to make any public expression of anger should the case arise.”

Last of Iraqis broke his once-a-week frequency to share his opinion on the incident. “In the Iraqi traditions or may I say Arabic traditions in general; it's the maximum insult a man can do…it's the maximum humiliation no word can accomplish”, he writes. And he gives his view of the Iraqi Street:

"Today I went to work as usual and all the people I saw were very very happy, it was like a national celebration…A female patient came to me for a filling and as we were waiting for the Anesthesia to take effect she said “do you know doc. That yesterday was an Eid to me; I haven't celebrated Eid for the past 3 years because the Americans “accidentally” killed my husband and son and Bush is the reason why they are here so yesterday some of my revenge has been taken” …all the staff said the same thing “A statue should be built for Muntathar” in fact many of them have used the photo of Muntathar as a background for their mobiles but the really beautiful thing that made me even happier was that no one referred to his sect or anything…they were all proud of him…"

One person who does not think so is Nibras Kazimi who stood alone among Iraqi bloggers to defend George Bush:

"Personally, I got angry. Very angry. I will make a public promise: should I ever run into a certain reporter called Muntather al-Zaidi, presently of Al-Baghdadia TV, I will seriously consider beating the crap out of him… See, I will forever remain indebted to President George W. Bush. He is my hero. He liberated Iraq, and that's how I will always see it. Had there been no President Bush, then Saddam would still be Saddam."

Baghdad Treasure is torn between professional pride and being an Iraqi:

"As a journalist myself, I found what the reporter did was extremely wrong. Journalists have their voices and pens (and now the internet) to express whatever they want to protest against. However, I was kind of relieved. As an Iraqi citizen, I believe Bush deserved this ending that the entire world will remember and cherish. I mean what wrong the man had done was huge. His failure to prepare for an invasion aftermath caused Iraqis and Americans hundreds of thousands of souls, not to mention the destruction of an entire country, the millions who have migrated and the creation of terrorism in Iraq."

For a longer version of this article, visit Global Voices