Insurance: Which Travel Policy is Right for You? | Chris Around The ...

What type of travel policy is best for your trip? A breakdown of things to consider, depending on what kind of vacation you?re taking.

I recently researched a piece for Bankrate.com about what type of travel policy you would consider for various trips. This is an abridged version. Remember, before you buy any policy, check to see if you?re already covered through your credit card or through your homeowners or renters insurance policy.

Photo by Jekkone, Flickr Creative Commons

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Visiting family:?Comprehensive travel insurance policies can cover common problems, such as lost baggage, trip cancellations or interruptions, travel delays from weather or illness, and medical care on the road.?While the costs vary, for most packages you?ll pay between 4 percent and 8 percent of the total trip cost, according to the U.S. Travel Insurance Association (UStiA). Rates are based on the length and cost of the trip, the age of the purchaser and where you?re going. More expensive trips cost more to insure and you?ll pay more if you?re older.

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video, Flickr Creative Commons

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Resort during hurricane season:?While most comprehensive travel insurance policies do cover weather problems and delays, the hurricane has to become more than a threat ? you aren?t covered if the storm doesn?t hit. Your best solution might be a?policy that allows you to cancel for any reason. These policies can cost up to 50 percent more than a regular policy, but they do give you more latitude over your plans and cover up to 75 percent of your costs. Act fast, though: usually you only buy these plans within two weeks after making your initial trip deposit.

Another reason to buy your insurance early: You get a waiver of the pre-existing medical condition clause that?s a part of most travel policies. If you delay and then become subject to this clause, your insurer will be able to look into your medical history and refuse to cover any claims related to a medical issue you had before the trip.

Photo by simon_music, Flickr Creative Commons

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International travel:?Besides helping with rebooking and refunds during unplanned weather delays or natural acts, travel insurance can protect you from the transportation delays and cancellations you might experience from national labor strikes. Some policies cover evacuation due to political unrest, and travel insurance also can help if you lose your passport.

Many people don?t realize that most U.S. health insurance plans do not cover you outside the country. If you?re looking for medical travel insurance, study comprehensive travel insurance plans to make sure they include medical treatment.?Those who are going to more remote locations may want to take the extra step of getting an air-medical transport membership from a company such as MedjetAssist. If a member is hospitalized more than 150 miles from home ? virtually anywhere in the world ? MedjetAssist?reviews his or her condition with the attending medical staff, and will arrange for a medically equipped and staffed aircraft to fly them free of charge to the hospital of their choice.

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Cruises:?If you?ve booked plane tickets to the port through the cruise line or a travel agent and have what?s known as a ?cruise fare,? the airline must get you to the next port of call if your flight arrives too late. But if you bought your tickets yourself, a travel insurance policy that covers flight delays could save your trip.

Assistance programs that some travel insurers provide can come in handy if your ship suffers a mechanical failure or if extreme weather forces you to be dropped off in a different location than expected. While the ships usually offer some compensation for these problems, people who have travel insurance can usually call a hotline to get rebooked ? and reimbursed ? sooner.

Photo by Zach Dischner, Flickr Creative Commons

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Extreme sports: Activities perceived as dangerous or risky, such as sky diving, cave exploring or rock climbing, aren?t covered in most policies. So if extreme sports are on your itinerary, you?ll need to buy rider that covers possible injuries. The?right kind of travel insurance also can help protect expensive gear.

This post was brought to you by World First Insurance.?

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Tagged as: travel insurance, Travel Tips

Source: http://caroundtheworld.com/2012/07/28/travel-insurance-which-travelpolicy-is-right-for-you/

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Universal Music considers sale of EMI's Parlophone label: sources

NEW YORK/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Universal Music Group is considering selling the bulk of EMI Music's most valuable record label, Parlophone, to ease EU regulators' concerns about its planned $1.9 billion buyout of the British music group, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The European Commission, which has been examining the proposed takeover of EMI since February, has warned Universal that its plan to buy EMI's recorded music business will significantly impede competition, and may veto the planned takeover unless there are major concessions.

Putting Parlophone with new artists on the table is a much bigger concession than previously mooted asset sales. New York-based Universal is trying to work out an asset sale plan with regulators and is racing to beat an August 1 final deadline.

One of the sources told Reuters that Universal, owned by Vivendi, is considering selling most of Parlophone, home to some of EMI's most high-profile musicians, but would retain its most-prized acts, including legendary band the Beatles.

BMG, the music publishing joint venture between German media giant Bertelsmann and the private equity group KKR, has met Universal and expressed interest in Parlophone, said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because the discussions are confidential.

But a third source said Universal had not offered to sell Parlophone to BMG.

"BMG is one of many buyers interested in picking up any assets that come out from Universal but Parlophone in its entirety is not part of the package for sale at the moment," the source said.

BMG declined to comment. News of the Parlophone talks was first reported in the Financial Times.

The second source said Universal could present its final package of concessions to the Commission as early as Friday, ahead of the August 1 deadline.

This would then automatically trigger a 15 working day extension to the Commission's September 6 deadline for a decision on the deal.

Universal had been planning to sell three much smaller music labels belonging to EMI -- Virgin, Chrysalis and EMI Classics -- and is now offering Parlophone to help address EU reservations about the group's clout in the CD and digital music markets, said the source.

But Parlophone is one of EMI's most prized assets, with current stars like Coldplay and marquee acts like Queen calling the label home.

That Universal is considering selling Parlophone to satisfy regulators would raise new questions about the dangers of a deal that has run into firmer-than-expected regulatory resistance. It comes even as Universal's parent Vivendi is considering whether to sell off media assets that could include the music giant.

Regulators want to reduce a combined Universal-EMI market share to below 40 percent in several European countries and reduce its market power, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Market share is being estimated in terms of sales and distribution assets as well as licensing deals, one of the people said.

A combined Universal-EMI would include a vast library of current top-selling and legendary marquee artists including Jay-Z, Kanye West, U2, Katy Perry and Pink Floyd.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Mangan; editing by James Jukwey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/universal-music-considers-sale-emis-parlophone-label-sources-111957619--finance.html

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Tracing your Jewish Family Tree |

Shalom!

In this blog I want to share resources that I hope will help you build your Jewish family tree. Because many Jewish families? kinship links were fragmented by immigration and the Holocaust, it can be difficult to uncover Jewish ancestors. Moreover, obstacles such as name changes, towns that no longer exist, and shifting national boundaries have created barriers to tracing Jewish family history.

There is good news though! There are more resources available now than were in the past. Previously closed archives, such as some in the former Soviet Union, have recently made their holdings public. Many genealogical and historical societies whose interests are focused on Jewish history and family roots have indexed and posted historical documents online. Jewish genealogical resources have become more organized and available so more professional genealogists are knowledgeable about Jewish family history. Many family historians will now be able to take their trees back 2 or more generations than was possible five years ago. If you are a first time genealogy researcher, or stuck someplace on your family tree, these links will help you in your search for your Jewish roots.

JewishGen

JewishGen is one of the best all-around resources for tracing Jewish genealogy. It has multiple data bases and over 20 million records that can be accessed for free! In one of their data bases, Family Finder, there are over 90,000 researchers you can link with and 450,000 entries. There are also discussion forums where you can interact and with other family historians on specific topics. On this site almost everyone will find something relevant to their family genealogy. There is so much information on the JewishGen website that it can be overwhelming, but don?t worry, there is a Get Started menu where you can learn how to use the site to your best advantage.

Lithuanian-Jewish Family History Resources

There are several good resources for family historians whose family links trace back to Lithuanian. LitvakSIG has a free searchable database with over 1.1 million. You can take a membership out for $36.00/year and access considerably more information such as historical documents, archived materials, maps, an image library, and a digest and scholarly journal.

The Jewish Family History website focuses on Jewish families who lived in Poland-Lithuania during the 17th and 18th centuries. The research group translates documents and provides maps, photos, town lists, and surnames. One of the valuable features of this site you can determine what the names of towns were in the past and what the towns are now called. The same applies to surnames. Though not a lot of documents such as census, this website has valuable information that will help you identify your family roots in Lithuania.

The Lithuanian Jewish Family History Research Guide from the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute provides four pages of useful resource links. The LITHUANIA-JEWISH-L is a listserv and is another good resource for family historians tracing their 18^th century Jewish roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Yad Vashem

It is sad to think that most Jewish people living today had one or more relatives that died during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem is the main center for Holocaust education, remembrance, research, and documentation. Yad Vashem?s online site contains a list and biography of two-thirds of the six million Jews who died as a result of the Holocaust, a photo archive, exhibitions, untold stories section, and many other resources of interest to family historians.

Jewish Genealogical Society

The Jewish Genealogical Society is based in New York City but has members throughout the world that access its information and resources, much of which is online. There is a members fee but they do offer much in return: field trips, annual summer seminars held across the United States and worldwide, an annual conference, a library, archives, podcasts, access to more than 500,000 records, and exclusive databases. Additionally, members have free to access to the Jewishdata.org database.

Sephardicgen

Jeffrey Malka, an expert in Sephardic genealogy, has a website where he shares vital genealogical resources for those interested in Sephardic family history. His site at sephardicgen.com contains 27 databases and links to many offsite databases. You will also find on this site Sephardic history, archives, a gazetteer, family trees, and many other useful resources.

Yasher Ko?ach ? well done in tracing your family tree, stay the path because it is a good act of remembrance, a path to learning who you are and a family treasure!

Source: http://www.recordclick.com/tracing-your-jewish-family-tree/

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US report says Iraq 'rebuilders' died by hundreds

FILE - In a March 9, 2005 file photo a firefighter runs through the blast site after a garbage truck exploded near a hotel used by western contractors in central Baghdad, Iraq. In the first tally of its kind, a federal investigative agency has calculated that at least 719 people, nearly half of them Americans, were killed working on projects to rebuild Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban/file)

FILE - In a March 9, 2005 file photo a firefighter runs through the blast site after a garbage truck exploded near a hotel used by western contractors in central Baghdad, Iraq. In the first tally of its kind, a federal investigative agency has calculated that at least 719 people, nearly half of them Americans, were killed working on projects to rebuild Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban/file)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the first tally of its kind, a federal investigative agency has calculated that at least 719 people, nearly half of them Americans, were killed working on projects to rebuild Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The toll represents an aspect of the Iraq war that is rarely brought to public attention, overshadowed by the much higher number killed in combat as well as the billions of taxpayer dollars squandered on reconstruction.

There is no confirmed total number of Iraq war deaths. The U.S. military lost 4,488 in Iraq, and its allies a little over 300. The number of Iraq deaths has not been established but is thought to exceed 100,000.

Navy Cmdr. Duane G. Wolfe was among the 719. He was not fighting the insurgency, but it was fighting him.

He was among the army of lawyers, engineers, contractors and others who paid a heavy price trying to put a broken Iraq and its shattered economy back together. Their deaths were recorded among the war's combat fatalities, but until now no one has carved out the "rebuilder" deaths as a subset of the overall casualty list.

Wolfe was killed on May 25, 2009, in a roadside bombing while returning to Baghdad after inspecting a waste water treatment plant under construction near Fallujah in Iraq's western province of Anbar. The $100 million project endured long delays and large cost overruns, and a U.S. federal audit last fall concluded that it probably was not worth the cost. The audit said "many" people died getting it built, but it did not say how many.

The 54-year-old Wolfe, a Navy reservist, was running the Army Corps of Engineers' office in Anbar at the time of his death; in civilian life he worked at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Two other U.S. civilians ? Terry Barnich, 56, of the State Department, and Maged Hussein, 43, of the Army Corps ? died in the same bombing.

Wolfe's wife, Cindi, said in a telephone interview last week that he knew the dangers of working in Iraq but made a point of not talking about security or any close calls that he might have had in violent Anbar province.

"He was careful not to worry us with information like that," she said.

The actual number of people killed doing reconstruction work is probably much higher than 719 but cannot be reliably determined, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said in releasing its estimate Friday. The U.S. government has no central database for this category of war casualties, and even within the U.S. military, the records on hundreds of troop deaths are too imprecise to categorize, the report said.

"We know our number is understated," Glenn D. Furbish, the deputy inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in an interview.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the report a "reminder that attempting to build roads, schools and other infrastructure in the middle of a war zone not only carries with it an increased frequency of fraud and waste, but also a devastating price in human life."

The 719 include U.S. government civilians, private contractors, military members, Iraqi civilian workers and third-country nationals. They were trainers, inspectors, auditors, advisers, interpreters and others whose mission was directly tied to the largely ad hoc reconstruction effort that began early in the war. They helped restore Iraq's dilapidated electrical grid, improve its oil infrastructure, develop a justice system, modernize a banking system, set up town councils and reopen hospitals, training centers and schools.

They also helped recruit and train Iraqi police, and they advised the Iraqi army. These trainers and advisers, mostly U.S. military members,- were considered part of the reconstruction effort if their mission was development of the Iraqi security forces, which had been disbanded by the U.S. occupation authorities in May 2003.

None of the 719 was named in the report, but some of the Americans have been recognized publicly by the government.

Among U.S. adviser casualties was Master Sgt. Anthony Davis, 43, who was shot to death Nov. 25, 2008, by an Iraqi soldier while delivering relief supplies. The shooter was in the battalion that Davis was advising as part of a military transition team. Davis's team also assessed schools' needs and planned renovations and organized deliveries. The special inspector general's report did not calculate how many U.S. troops were victims of insider attacks, a problem that has drawn wider attention in Afghanistan in recent months.

Insurgent attacks posed one of the biggest, and least anticipated, obstacles to the reconstruction effort in Iraq, which cost American taxpayers about $62 billion. Sabotage, waste and fraud took their own toll. The human cost, however, was far greater than foreseen when the invaders swiftly toppled Saddam Hussein.

"A completely exact calculation is not possible," the report said, One reason is that the U.S. military's reports on 1,009 casualties were so thin on detail that the type of mission could not be determined. As a result, the investigators could not count any of those in the reconstruction death total.

The 719 killed include 318 Americans, of which 264 were military members and 54 were civilians. The total also includes an estimated 271 Iraqi civilians and 111 third-country nationals, as well as 19 people of unknown nationality. The figures were compiled by combing through a range of documents, including classified data on roadside bomb attacks, according to Craig A. Collier, who directed the project as a senior adviser to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Although the 719 killed represent a relatively small percentage of total war deaths, it far exceeds the 172 U.S. and coalition troops killed in the initial invasion, before President George W. Bush's declaration on May 1, 2003, that combat operations had ended. At that point it was mistakenly thought that the war was largely over.

Another of the 719 was Paul Converse, who died March 24, 2008 of wounds suffered in a rocket attack on the heavily protected International Zone in Baghdad that housed the U.S. Embassy and some Iraqi government offices. Converse, 56, was an auditor with the same office that did the death tally released Friday.

___

Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-07-27-Iraq's%20Rebuilding-Human%20Toll/id-d513786d041645919a322ec1b8cb738f

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France's Socialists take aim with new budget

PARIS (AP) ? President Francois Hollande's new Socialist administration is starting to shake up French policy on whom to tax and how to spend ?changes that would effectively roll back much of what ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy and his center-right government accomplished.

Under an amended 2012 budget being pushed through Parliament, wealthy people and large companies are likely to see more of their earnings taxed, while government spending has remained largely untouched. The budget is a clear contrast with the rest of Europe, where austerity cuts are being introduced to reduce deficits. The budget also contains provisions that would sweep away efforts by the previous administration to shake up labor market rules that favor workers over businesses.

Business leaders are worried that the first major act as France's new leader will set the tone for the rest of his time in office.

Among the measures in the revised budget, which the lower house passed on Friday and the upper house is currently debating, are:

? scrapping of tax breaks on overtime

? a one-time extra wealth tax on people with more than ?800,000 in assets

? scrapping of a law that would have raised the sales tax while decreasing employer contributions to the state benefit system

? a new tax on company dividends

? a new tax on stocks of petroleum products

? new taxes on some financial institutions and an increase in the financial transaction tax

Debate over the budget in the parliament last week was fierce as members of previous President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party fought in vain against a roll-back of much of what they had accomplished over the past five years. At one point, the session was even suspended so the deputies could cool down. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the budget on Friday; both houses are expected to approve a final version next week.

The new government claims the budget measures show that it is serious about reducing the country's deficit. It has already pledged to balance the country's budget by 2017. However, it did not back up the tax hikes with any significant cuts in government spending.

Companies say that the new taxes send out the wrong message: that France is closed for business.

A major part of the France's problem is that its $2.4 trillion economy is stagnant ? the government expects just a 0.3 percent increase in gross domestic product this year. Growth is expected to pick up a bit next year ? the government has predicted 1.2 percent growth, though others say that's optimistic. As growth has slowed, France's debt-to-GDP ratio has exploded, rising 30 percent since the crisis began to 89.2 percent this year.

So far, Hollande's push to cut the deficit appears to have been received well. Earlier this month, the country borrowed ?6 billion in short-term debt at negative interest rates for the first time. Last week, a long-term debt auction also saw borrowing costs fall.

But analysts and business leaders say that chipping away at France's deficit by raising taxes is not a long-term plan. Creating incentives for businesses is going to have to be part of any strategy to restart growth. And new or higher taxes could have the opposite effect.

Guillaume de Fondaumiere, the co-CEO of video game company Quantic Dream which has 170 employees, said he and his fellow businessmen were growing weary of being France's boogeymen.

"We're not expecting medals but a minimum of consideration and help that would allow us to give our best," said de Fondaumiere.

One official from a CAC-40-listed company said the budget sent a message that the government doesn't like business and it doesn't like rich people. He would only speak candidly about the budget on condition of anonymity.

The French government hasn't been shy about saying that the budget bill is targeting the rich. This is an administration led by Hollande, who once famously said he did not like the rich.

Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici defended it in parliament as a law that "again puts justice at the heart of our tax system."

Justice is the watchword of Hollande's new team. His administration says it's committed to balancing the budget but that how they do it ? by making the rich pay more and maintaining programs for the poor ? will be just as important as that they're doing it.

Some had hoped Hollande would play on the Socialists' history of close connections with the country's powerful unions to reform a stagnant labor market ? where both hiring and firing are expensive. Instead, the new budget paints a picture of an administration more concerned with protecting benefits like early retirement and generous unemployment insurance ? measures that have defined French Socialism for decades.

"It's classic leftism," said Jean-Thomas Lesueur, a political analyst at the Institut Thomas More, a pro-market think tank based in Paris and Brussels.

There's one measure in particular ? the repeal in a law that cuts the amount employers pay into the social security system ? that has raised employers' hackles. The cost of hiring ? and firing ? in France is often blamed for the country's perennially high unemployment. In the past 20 years, the annual unemployment figure has never been less than 7.4 percent, according to national statistics. It has been over 10 percent, where it stands now, for most of the 1990s.

What was missing from the budget measures was any sign of real spending cuts. Such measures will have to wait until Hollande's administration writes the budget for 2013 this fall.

"This is a strong message to everyone ... that the government has not understood the urgency of reducing public expenditure," said Lesueur.

France has been spending more than it takes in revenue for a long time and the crisis over too much debt among the other members of the 17-country eurozone threatens to bring the problem to a head.

The country's borrowing rates have occasionally spiked sharply since last summer on fears that the country is not cutting its spending or reforming its labor market to encourage more growth.

"When the storm comes, I'm not sure if we'll have the means to react," Lesueur said.

While the government has yet to divulge its full strategy to right France's finances, it has promised to "reindustrialize" France ? part of a grand plan to restart growth and keep manufacturing jobs in the country. Hollande has even created a Ministry for Industrial Recovery. Its first act will be to set about renegotiating a cost-cutting plan that would eliminate 8,000 jobs at carmaker Peugeot Citroen.

Companies across France are closely watching those talks as they wonder if they might next be in the government's sights ? but also what kinds of incentives the government is offering to keep or create jobs. A grand plan to remake France as a center green vehicle production was unveiled on Wednesday as part of an effort to save the country's auto industry.

This highlights France's split personality: On the one hand, many companies will complain about a government threat to prevent profitable enterprises from laying off workers; on the other hand, they look to the state to prop them up in tough times.

"It's working less and less well," said Lesueur. "However, since we have made the French so accustomed to public spending, they're drugged."

___

Follow Sarah DiLorenzo at http://twitter.com/sdilorenzo .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/frances-socialists-aim-budget-092041199.html

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US report says Iraq 'rebuilders' died by hundreds

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the first tally of its kind, a federal investigative agency has calculated that at least 719 people, nearly half of them Americans, were killed working on projects to rebuild Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The toll represents an aspect of the Iraq war that is rarely brought to public attention, overshadowed by the much higher number killed in combat as well as the billions of taxpayer dollars squandered on reconstruction.

There is no confirmed total number of Iraq war deaths. The U.S. military lost 4,488 in Iraq, and its allies a little over 300. The number of Iraq deaths has not been established but is thought to exceed 100,000.

Navy Cmdr. Duane G. Wolfe was among the 719. He was not fighting the insurgency, but it was fighting him.

He was among the army of lawyers, engineers, contractors and others who paid a heavy price trying to put a broken Iraq and its shattered economy back together. Their deaths were recorded among the war's combat fatalities, but until now no one has carved out the "rebuilder" deaths as a subset of the overall casualty list.

Wolfe was killed on May 25, 2009, in a roadside bombing while returning to Baghdad after inspecting a waste water treatment plant under construction near Fallujah in Iraq's western province of Anbar. The $100 million project endured long delays and large cost overruns, and a U.S. federal audit last fall concluded that it probably was not worth the cost. The audit said "many" people died getting it built, but it did not say how many.

The 54-year-old Wolfe, a Navy reservist, was running the Army Corps of Engineers' office in Anbar at the time of his death; in civilian life he worked at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Two other U.S. civilians ? Terry Barnich, 56, of the State Department, and Maged Hussein, 43, of the Army Corps ? died in the same bombing.

Wolfe's wife, Cindi, said in a telephone interview last week that he knew the dangers of working in Iraq but made a point of not talking about security or any close calls that he might have had in violent Anbar province.

"He was careful not to worry us with information like that," she said.

The actual number of people killed doing reconstruction work is probably much higher than 719 but cannot be reliably determined, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said in releasing its estimate Friday. The U.S. government has no central database for this category of war casualties, and even within the U.S. military, the records on hundreds of troop deaths are too imprecise to categorize, the report said.

"We know our number is understated," Glenn D. Furbish, the deputy inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in an interview.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the report a "reminder that attempting to build roads, schools and other infrastructure in the middle of a war zone not only carries with it an increased frequency of fraud and waste, but also a devastating price in human life."

The 719 include U.S. government civilians, private contractors, military members, Iraqi civilian workers and third-country nationals. They were trainers, inspectors, auditors, advisers, interpreters and others whose mission was directly tied to the largely ad hoc reconstruction effort that began early in the war. They helped restore Iraq's dilapidated electrical grid, improve its oil infrastructure, develop a justice system, modernize a banking system, set up town councils and reopen hospitals, training centers and schools.

They also helped recruit and train Iraqi police, and they advised the Iraqi army. These trainers and advisers, mostly U.S. military members,- were considered part of the reconstruction effort if their mission was development of the Iraqi security forces, which had been disbanded by the U.S. occupation authorities in May 2003.

None of the 719 was named in the report, but some of the Americans have been recognized publicly by the government.

Among U.S. adviser casualties was Master Sgt. Anthony Davis, 43, who was shot to death Nov. 25, 2008, by an Iraqi soldier while delivering relief supplies. The shooter was in the battalion that Davis was advising as part of a military transition team. Davis's team also assessed schools' needs and planned renovations and organized deliveries. The special inspector general's report did not calculate how many U.S. troops were victims of insider attacks, a problem that has drawn wider attention in Afghanistan in recent months.

Insurgent attacks posed one of the biggest, and least anticipated, obstacles to the reconstruction effort in Iraq, which cost American taxpayers about $62 billion. Sabotage, waste and fraud took their own toll. The human cost, however, was far greater than foreseen when the invaders swiftly toppled Saddam Hussein.

"A completely exact calculation is not possible," the report said, One reason is that the U.S. military's reports on 1,009 casualties were so thin on detail that the type of mission could not be determined. As a result, the investigators could not count any of those in the reconstruction death total.

The 719 killed include 318 Americans, of which 264 were military members and 54 were civilians. The total also includes an estimated 271 Iraqi civilians and 111 third-country nationals, as well as 19 people of unknown nationality. The figures were compiled by combing through a range of documents, including classified data on roadside bomb attacks, according to Craig A. Collier, who directed the project as a senior adviser to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Although the 719 killed represent a relatively small percentage of total war deaths, it far exceeds the 172 U.S. and coalition troops killed in the initial invasion, before President George W. Bush's declaration on May 1, 2003, that combat operations had ended. At that point it was mistakenly thought that the war was largely over.

Another of the 719 was Paul Converse, who died March 24, 2008 of wounds suffered in a rocket attack on the heavily protected International Zone in Baghdad that housed the U.S. Embassy and some Iraqi government offices. Converse, 56, was an auditor with the same office that did the death tally released Friday.

___

Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-report-says-iraq-rebuilders-died-hundreds-040227456.html

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Bookies stop taking bets on Sir Roger Bannister ... - BBC World News

Bookmakers have stopped taking bets on who will light the Olympic cauldron after a ?monster gamble? was placed with William Hill on Sir Roger Bannister. Sir Roger Bannister has emerged as the late favourite to light the Olympic cauldron (Picture: Getty Images) The 83-year-old has emerged as a late strong favourite to light the Olympic cauldron ahead of previous front runners Sir Steve Redgrave, Lord Sebastian Coe and Daley Thompson. Bannister is a sporting legend after becoming the first athlete to run the sub four-minute mile in 1953. The majority of bookmakers have now suspended all bets on who will light the cauldron on Friday night, with only SkyBet and PaddyPower still taking wagers. Bannister is odds on favourite while the Queen is second choice at 6/4, closely followed by Redgrave at marginally a better price of 13/8.