Korea Talks Crumble As Northern Delegates Walk Out

North Korean military officers abruptly walked out of the first official talks with rival South Korea in months Wednesday, dashing hopes for eased tensions after a deadly artillery attack in November increased war rhetoric on the peninsula.

The cause of the rupture wasn't immediately explained. Seoul's Defense Ministry said the North Korean delegation got up and walked out on the second day of talks in Panmunjom inside the heavily fortified buffer zone dividing the Koreas.

Hopes had been high that the Koreas would agree on details for holding their first high-level defense talks in more than three years.

However, they failed to set a date for the next meeting, a Defense Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

During Tuesday's talks, South Korea argued the high-level talks must focus on two attacks against it last year, while the North Koreans demanded the talks discuss other military issues as well, South Korea's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

South Korea blames the North for a warship sinking last March that killed 46 sailors, though North Korea flatly denies its involvement. The tensions sharply escalated further in November when the North launched an artillery barrage on a front-line South Korean island, killing four people.

In recent weeks, however, the North had pushed for talks with the South, including a military meeting.

At Tuesday's talks, South Korea demanded the high-level talks involve defense chiefs or joint chiefs of staff chairmen while the North wants a vice ministerial-level meeting, the Defense Ministry said.

One area of agreement was reuniting families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

"The government has sufficiently shared the view on the urgency and importance of humanitarian issues, including the reunions of separated families," Unificiation Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo told reporters in Seoul.

The talks came amid concerns about North Korea's expanded nuclear capability. South Korea says the North's newly disclosed uranium enrichment program violates disarmament pacts and U.N. resolutions.

On Wednesday, North Korean state media accused South Korea of trying to take the uranium issue to the U.N. Security Council, which it said would only damage relations.

"This would only end up obstructing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and escalating the prevailing confrontation," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133614981/korea-talks-crumble-as-northern-delegates-walk-out?ft=1&f=1004

harry reid john mccain al gore bill clinton newt gingrich

'Spider-Man,' The Spectacle: Can We Move Beyond Rubbernecking At A Calamity?

Critics have run out of patience with Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and the tough reviews are coming in. But we're all responsible for the increasing focus on finding extravagant disasters to watch.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/02/09/133593885/spider-man-the-spectacle-can-we-move-beyond-rubbernecking-at-a-calamity?ft=1&f=1057

george w bush nancy pelosi harry reid john mccain al gore

Proposed Ohio Abortion Ban Hinges on Heartbeat

An unborn child's heartbeat can be detected as soon as 18 days after conception, and supporters of a bill slated to be unveiled in the Ohio Legislature Wednesday say that women should be prohibited from ending pregnancies beyond that milestone. 

State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann is planning to unveil the "Heartbeat Bill" and a legislative aide for the Republican tells Fox News that 42 of the 99 representatives in the Ohio state House have signed on to the bill, which would make an exception to the heartbeat rule only in emergency medical situations. 

According to 2009 data from the Ohio Department of Health, 56.6 percent of abortions in that state occur in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. And since the fetal heartbeat appears on monitors by six weeks into gestation in most cases, supporters of the bill believe that it could prevent thousands of abortions. 

"When the Heartbeat Bill passes, it will be the most protective law in the nation," Janet Folger Porter, president of conservative advocacy group Faith2Action, said in a release. Porter helped craft the bill, and was also instrumental in passing the nation's first ban in partial-birth abortion when she was legislative director of Ohio Right to Life. 

While the legislation must still be proposed in the state Senate and a court challenge could derail the plan, advocates for the bill hope that if the Ohio measure is successful, other states will follow suit with similar laws. A website created to tout the bill urges supporters to send heart-shaped balloons to the governor and state representatives by Valentine's Day. A music video on the site features babies dancing to the tune of Nena's "99 Red Balloons" -- retooled with pro-life lyrics. 

But pro-choice group NARAL has equated the bill to "political interference" into a private medical issue. 

"Our state is facing crushing budget deficits and talking about slashing Medicaid funding for thousands of Ohio women, yet these politicians are focusing on an extreme and unconstitutional bill that, if passed, would entangle our state in a costly legal battle," Kelly Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, told Fox News. 

And though Porter and former Ohio Right to Life president Linda Theis vocally support the Heartbeat Bill, the pro-life organization's current executive director says the legislation is destined for failure. 

"Unfortunately, the Heartbeat Bill will not survive a court challenge, and therefore not save one life," Ohio Right to Life executive director Michael Gonidakis told Fox News, arguing that state courts and the Supreme Court would slap down the heartbeat cut-off in the same way they would reject a full abortion ban. "Because the Supreme Court, unfortunately, has ruled on countless occasions that any restrictions on abortion pre-viability are unconstitutional," he says. 

Gonidakis instead supports a late-term abortion ban that has passed the state House and is slated to be introduced in the Ohio Senate Wednesday. As for the Heartbeat Bill, Wachtmann's office says there has also been talk of introducing a companion bill in the Senate, and is optimistic that it, too, will move to the upper chamber for consideration. 

Fox News' Megan Dumpe contributed to this report.

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/kn913B_wka0/

barak obama hillary clinton george w bush nancy pelosi harry reid

Why The Former Planet Pluto Got Demoted

In 2006 the former ninth planet in the solar system, Pluto, got demoted to a mere Kuiper Belt object. The man who was in large part responsible for that demotion, Caltech planetary scientist Mike Brown, discusses the status of Pluto and why it doesn't qualify as a planet.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133498152/why-the-former-planet-pluto-got-demoted?ft=1&f=1007

barak obama hillary clinton george w bush nancy pelosi harry reid