May 20, 2012 3:19 pm

China sentences ex-fugitive Lai Changxing to life in prison for leading $3B smuggling network

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The sentencing marked an end for what a decade ago had been one of China’s biggest political scandals. From Xiamen and through his company the Yuanhua Group, Lai ran an extensive smuggling network, using the amassed fortune to cultivate powerful political protectors. Tainted in the scandal were a deputy police minister, who was later given a suspended death sentence, and the one-time provincial party secretary who was politically untouched and became a member of the party’s ruling Politburo.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular news conference that the handling of the case showed China’s determination in fighting crime.

Lai’s network smuggled everything from cigarettes and cars to oil and textiles. The court’s verdict said the operation totaled $3.3 billion, evaded $1.7 billion in duties and other taxes and bribed 64 officials between 1996 and 1999, Xinhua reported.

The main office of the Xiamen court referred calls to its publicity department where the telephone rang unanswered.

After a broad corruption and anti-smuggling investigation unmasked Lai’s operation, he managed to flee the country, tipped off by local officials, and eventually reached Canada in 1999. He then became the focus of a 12-year extradition battle — with Chinese leaders often worried that Lai might implicate senior officials in public comments — until he was deported last year.

In the heyday of his power, Lai lived a life of luxury in China complete with a bulletproof Mercedes Benz. He is alleged to have run a mansion in which he plied officials with liquor and prostitutes.

At one point, state TV splashed pictures of the network’s allegedly ill-gotten gains: a tiger skin rug laid out on a conference table, confiscated cars belonging to corrupt bureaucrats, a sack of gold rings, and a picture of a young woman, said to be a lover kept for one official by Lai.

Scores of officials and executives involved have been imprisoned and at least two executed over the scandal. Aside from the deputy police minister, 10 others, from Xiamen’s deputy mayor to the city’s customs chief were given life sentences or had their death sentences commuted to life.

Also ensnared in the scandal was the wife of Jia Qinglin, the Fujian province party secretary until 1996 and then the party chief of Beijing and an ally of Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Politically connected Chinese said Jiang protected Jia, ordering investigators to curtail the probe.

After Lai fled to Canada, Jiang sent a diplomatic note in 2001 to then Prime Minister Jean Chretien, assuring Canadian authorities Lai would not be executed if returned — a key Canadian demand.

Still, Lai fought extradition until July when a federal court in Vancouver ruled Lai should not be considered a refugee and upheld his deportation.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-sentences-notorious-fugitive-lai-changxing-to-life-in-prison-for-smuggling/2012/05/17/gIQANthHXU_story.html

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3:19 pm

Blind Chinese dissident begins life in US

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Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng (C) speaks to members of the media after arriving in New York May 19, 2012. Chen arrived in the United States on Saturday after China allowed him to leave a hospital in Beijing in a move that could signal the end of a diplomatic rift between the two countries. REUTERS/Keith Bedford (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MEDIA)

Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng (C) speaks to members of the media after arriving in New York May 19, 2012. Chen arrived in the United States on Saturday after China allowed him to leave a hospital in Beijing in a move that could signal the end of a diplomatic rift between the two countries. — Photo by REUTERS

NEW YORK: Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng was to spend his first full day in the United States Sunday after praising Beijing’s “restraint and calm” as he sought to draw a line under a month-long tussle that tested China-US ties.

Chen asked to say a “few simple words” as he, his wife Yuan Weijing, and their two young children were greeted with cheers on arrival at the New York University apartment block in Manhattan Saturday that now becomes their home.

He expressed gratitude to the American embassy for ushering him to a new, free life in the United States but added: “I am gratified the Chinese government dealt with the situation with restraint and calm.”

Speaking through an interpreter, Chen said he believed the Chinese government’s promises were “sincere,” although friends of the dissident said he was clearly very worried about the fate of relatives left behind.

One of China’s best-known activists, Chen, a self-taught lawyer, won plaudits for investigating forced sterilizations and late-term abortions under China’s “one-child” family planning policy.

He and his family touched down at Newark-Liberty International Airport, outside New York, on a United Airlines flight from Beijing shortly before 2230 GMT, capping an astonishing odyssey.

Chen made a dramatic escape from his village in April after seven years spent mostly in prison or under house arrest, eventually securing sanctuary at the US embassy in Beijing.

In a gripping account of his escape, Chen told AFP earlier this month that after weeks of preparation to put his guards off the scent, his wife pushed him over a wall built around his small home.

He broke his foot when he landed on the other side, but undeterred, he scrambled in pain to a neighbor’s pig sty, where he hid until nightfall.

After a long and painful journey through fields and over walls, he eventually made his way to the home of a friend.

Chen, who had been held under house arrest since being released from a four-year jail term in September 2010, fled his home in the eastern province of Shandong on April 22 under the noses of plain-clothes security officers.

In a video address to China’s Premier Wen Jiabao posted online, Chen said he had suffered repeated beatings and expressed serious concerns for his wife and family.

He pitched up at the US embassy in Beijing less than a week before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to visit China for high-level talks.

Chinese and American diplomats scrambled to find a solution, and reached an initial agreement under which Chen would stay in China under more agreeable conditions.

Chen left the embassy but regretted it almost immediately, telling journalists that he wanted to go to the United States. China later relented, saying he could apply to go abroad like any other Chinese citizen.

After being holed up for more than two weeks at a Beijing hospital with his fate still uncertain, Chen was suddenly given notice earlier Saturday to pack up his belongings and prepare for departure.

Jiang Tianyong, a lawyer and close friend, said Chen had mixed feelings about leaving China.

“He seemed to be reluctant to leave and didn’t consider it the optimal solution, even though he agreed that it was the best he could do to ensure his personal safety,” Jiang said.

US politicians welcomed Chen’s arrival but many also expressed concern about his family and other dissidents who remain in China fearing repression.

“We remain deeply concerned, however, that Mr Chen’s supporters and family members who remain in China face the real threat of retaliation from Chinese officials,” read a statement from the Congressional Executive Commission on China, set up in 2001 to monitor human rights there.

“The Chinese government must guarantee their safety and well-being, and ensure that their fundamental rights to free expression, liberty of movement, and access to counsel are fully protected.”

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed Chen’s arrival in the United States as “a milestone in the cause for human rights in China.”

“The courage of Chen Guangcheng to risk his life and livelihood to advocate for disadvantaged people in China is an inspiration to freedom-seeking people around the world,” she said. “I am happy that Mr. Chen is now able to safely study in the US, and he and his family can now pursue their goals.”

Li Jinsong, a friend and lawyer, said Chen’s impact may lessen after the self-taught “barefoot lawyer,” famed for his grassroots work, reaches the US.

“But he and his family have been through much hardship over the past seven and eight years, and I’m happy that they can go abroad and enjoy a bit of safety and freedom,” he said.

As a research fellow at NYU, Chen is expected to work with other law school experts.

Article source: http://dawn.com/2012/05/20/blind-chinese-dissident-begins-life-in-us/

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3:19 pm

Deep-sea microbes live life in the extremely slow lane

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Had enough of life in the fast lane and looking to take it down a notch or two? You might seek guidance from a colony of deep-sea microbes harvested from the barren depths of the Pacific Ocean that are progressing so slowly, they almost appear to be dead.

Just how plodding are these ancient creatures, who are buried about 100 feet deep in the seabed? Some of them haven’t received any new food for 86 million years, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth. And they are using up oxygen at rates 10,000 times slower than their counterparts on the surface of the ocean floor.

“What they’re doing, they’re doing so slow that from our time perspective, it just looks like suspended animation,” said biologist Hans Roy, who reported on the creatures in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

The single-cell organisms live in such extreme conditions that they could help astrobiologists search for evidence of life on less hospitable planets, scientists said.

The ocean floor contains a wealth of microbial life — some experts estimate that nearly 90% of microorganisms on the planet live beneath the seabed.

“There’s an abundant biosphere below the surface skin where we live … and yet most of what is down there is living at a pace and in a mode that we don’t have represented in the world around us,” said Tori Hoehler, a biogeochemist at the NASA Ames Research Center’s exobiology branch near San Jose, who was not involved in the study. “Most of life lives in a mode we don’t understand at all.”

Chief among them are the slow-living microbes, which were discovered several years ago, said Roy, who is based at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Roy was part of a team of scientists that set out on a ship in 2009 to sample spots around the Galapagos Islands along the equator and up toward an area near Hawaii in the northern Pacific, where ocean currents block nutrient-rich sediments from falling to the ocean floor. That keeps microbes at the bottom from receiving fresh food.

The researchers drilled deep into the ocean floor and extracted a core sample that was about 100 feet long. Among other things, they examined the oxygen levels in the successive layers of thick, grayish mud using needle-like sensors.

When the researchers measured the rate of oxygen respiration, they found that there were still microbes eking out a meager existence in the deepest layers.

The age of these microbes is unclear. Estimates range from a few centuries to many millions of years, researchers said.

Nor is it clear that they’re growing. The creatures could simply be repairing normal cellular wear and tear.

As Hoehler put it in an email, they “are ‘breathing’ at a rate about 2 million times slower than a typical human cell (which is admittedly quite a bit larger).”

Without nature’s help, such slow progress would have taken centuries to track in a lab experiment, Roy said.

Understanding how these microbes survive in such extreme low-nutrient environments could provide pointers for scientists looking for life on other planets, such as Mars. In the search for extraterrestrial life, Hoehler said, such slow-life communities below the bottom of the sea “may be a much better point of reference for us than what’s up here.”

SCIENCE NOW: Discoveries from the world of science and medicine

amina.khan@latimes.com

Article source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-slow-life-20120519,0,3414731.story

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3:19 pm

Fashion agenda: Fashion Rio, 20th Vienna Life Ball

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As the glitz continues at the Cannes Film Festival, other glamorous events taking place across the globe include Brazil‘s Fashion Rio event and the 20th Vienna Life Ball, which will feature a special anniversary fashion show presenting some of the most extravagant Life Ball designs of years gone by. Read about this and other important upcoming fashion events here.

Cannes Film Festival
Ongoing until May 27
Cannes, France

With the star-studded Cannes Film Festival underway, fashionistas are preparing for a host of glamorous soirees, with one of the biggest social highlights being the Cinema Against AIDS charity black tie event, which attracts some of the biggest names from fashion, music, business, and international society. It is scheduled for May 24, with Milla Jovovich, Kylie Minogue, Karl Lagerfeld, Carine Roitfeld and Aishwarya Rai among this year’s event chairs.
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html

20th Vienna Life Ball
May 19
Vienna, Austria

This year’s Life Ball has the theme “Fight the Flames of Ignorance” and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this annual AIDS charity event this year will see a special anniversary fashion show. Organized by Vogue Italia magazine, some of the most extravagant Life Ball designs of years gone by, from creators such as Roberto Cavalli and Vivienne Westwood, will be showcased — with top models including Alek Wek and Karolina Kurkova taking to the runway.
http://www.lifeball.org/?lang=en

Timeless Beauty
May 20-July 15
Shanghai, China

Following on from Italian luxury goods label Bvlgari’s 125 Years of Italian Magnificence expo in Shanghai, luxury jewelry maison Van Cleef Arpels will take its Timeless Beauty exhibition to the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The house presents a guide to its legacy, showcasing some 370 pieces of jewelry, watches and accessories and celebrating more than 100 years of high-end jewels.
http://www.mocashanghai.org/index.php?_function=exhibition

Fashion Rio
May 22-26
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

While Brazil‘s status as a key fashion destination continues to rise – fashion houses including Fendi, Bottega Veneta and Yves Saint Laurent will begin working on expansion in the country this year – Fashion Rio kicks off May 22 and precedes the larger-scale São Paulo Fashion Week, which takes place in June. Transgender model Lea T., who recently made her first post-op runway appearance, has already been confirmed to walk in a series of shows.
http://ffw.com.br/fashionrio/

2012 CFDA Fashion Awards
June 4
New York, USA

Ashley Olsen Mary-Kate Olsen for The Row, Jack McCollough Lazaro Hernandez for Proenza Schouler and Marc Jacobs will compete for the coveted Womenswear Designer of the Year Award at the prestigious annual ceremony, organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Hollywood actor Johnny Depp will receive the Fashion Icon Award this year due to his “personal and eclectic sense of style.” This in fact signals the first time a male will receive the gong, which last year went to pop star Lady Gaga.
http://www.cfda.com/category/fashion-awards/

 

 

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/fashion-agenda-fashion-rio-20th-vienna-life-ball-160920206.html

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3:19 pm

Consumer 12.0: Friends Life Care, a long-term alternative

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No one knows what tomorrow holds. But if biology is destiny, or even a major piece of it, Michael and Linda Dzuba had good reason to ponder a long future as they neared their 60th birthdays. And perhaps reason to worry just a bit.

Each of their fathers had lived to nearly 90, and Michael’s mother was still going strong in her late 80s. Linda’s mother died after giving birth to her, but she was raised largely by an aunt who lived to 102.

It wasn’t basic finances that worried them. Linda had worked for decades as a dental hygienist and educator in the Philadelphia schools, and Michael had a healthy practice as a clinical social worker. They still lived in the house they bought in 1973 in West Mount Airy. On the strength of some smart and lucky investments, they had put two children through Germantown Friends School and Brown and Northwestern Universities — without any debt, amazingly enough, except a refinanced mortgage.

Their concern — shared by many aging boomers even as they jest that “60 is the new 40” — was about the inevitable: Near the end of even the best-lived lives, bad and costly things can happen. And some of them, including long stays in nursing facilities or similar help at home, aren’t covered by Medicare or private health insurance. Only Medicaid offers significant government assistance as a provider of last resort for the impoverished.

This is a large and complex problem that has challenged academics, advocates, and policymakers for decades, but I’ll spare you most of the bigger issues today. The Dzubas recently offered to share their thoughts about the solution they chose seven years ago: following Michael’s parents into Friends Life Care, a “continuing care community without walls” — a concept the Quaker-run nonprofit pioneered three decades ago. If you haven’t weighed the issue yourself, their story may be a good place to start.

Because they provide both care and financial protection, programs like Friends Life Care offer an alternative to traditional continuing-care facilities and to conventional long-term-care insurance. They’ve been growing in popularity recently, driven partly by the widespread desire to “age in place,” and perhaps also by fallout from the recession and the housing bubble’s collapse. For many people, it’s no longer so easy or attractive to sell a home and move, say, someplace warm or nearer the kids.

Michael and Linda Dzuba have no desire to move anywhere. Their hope is to stay in their stone-and-brick twin, lovingly restored and upgraded over the last 40 years, as long as they’re able.

If the dozen steps leading to the front door become impossible to navigate, they’ll have to install a ramp. But for now, “our theory is, steps keep us young,” says Michael, who has been religious about exercise since his days as a high school wrestler.

“Michael wants to die in this house,” says Linda, who goes to the gym, too, and who has kept active lately by fostering a Labrador retriever puppy for a program that trains service dogs.

The Dzubas got their first exposure to Friends Life Care thanks to Michael’s parents, Albert and Selma, who lived in a condo on Washington Square and had no desire to leave home behind, either. Concerned about the costs of care, Selma Dzuba found Friends Life Care in the mid-1990s. And after Albert developed dementia, the couple made good use of it.

Though classified as a provider rather than an insurer, the program covers needs such as nursing and home health aides on much the same basis: When the need arises, it pays for whatever care a person requires, up to a preset daily maximum and for as many years as the member elected.

After he developed dementia, Albert Dzuba eventually required costly round-the-clock care, and then a move to a facility. Michael says Friends Life Care didn’t pay all the costs, but “it took out a lot of the sting.”

Carol Barbour, president of Friends Life Care, says the program currently has about 2,200 members, with fewer than 50 in care facilities. The nonsectarian program, developed with help from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, began taking members in 1990.

“People join Friends Life Care because they really want to stay in their homes as long as possible,” Barbour says. “They are embedded in their communities, and they really want to maintain those ties.”

Barbour says the program’s costs are roughly comparable with long-term-care insurance, which now typically offers similar coverage for home-based care. As with insurance, you pick a daily benefit maximum, an inflation formula, and how many years you want covered. Costs and eligibility depend partly on your medical condition and history, and premiums rise based on your age when you enroll.

The Dzubas chose $125 per day, with 5 percent compound annual interest and no limit on the number of years of coverage. Their combined annual premium started at $3,649, and in seven years has risen to $4,014.

“The variables can be mind-boggling,” says Michael, who says the couple also considered similar coverage from a long-term-care agent.

Above all, what prompts them to praise Friends Life Care is its holistic approach to keeping them well, including annual calls from a “care coordinator” and access to programs that have taught them about topics such as nutrition and meditation.

The Dzubas believe the program’s dual role gives it the right incentive: to help them stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible, so that they don’t need more expensive care.

Contact Jeff Gelles at 215-854-2776 or jgelles@phillynews.com.

Article source: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20120520_Consumer_12_0__Friends_Life_Care__a_long-term_alternative.html

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3:19 pm

Tens of thousands attend 20th Vienna Life Ball

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A popular antibiotic used for treating bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections and sexually transmitted diseases may boost the risk of death, a US study said Wednesday.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/tens-thousands-attend-20th-vienna-life-ball-120223087.html

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May 19, 2012 2:03 pm

Work-Life Balance: A Challenge for Both Genders in Asia

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By Megha Bahree


Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Among those surveyed, 64% said their current work-life emphasis was on their job, 23% said it was both.

Women and men across Asia have a common focus: to climb up the corporate ladder.

In a study of 1,834 so-called “high-potential” employees at multinational firms across Asia, Catalyst, a nonprofit research firm that focuses on women in the work place, found that furthering their career is a top priority for both men and women – even as they want to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

The people surveyed by Catalyst were 44% women and 56% men in China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Catalyst says these high-potential employees had been tapped by their companies as promising future leaders.

The report described these women and men as among the best and brightest of their lot, making important contributions to organizations based in some of the fastest-growing global economies.

Even though the study found its respondents to be ambitious and career-focused, it noted that both men and women said they would not aim for the post of chief executive officer – citing the pressure, stress and long hours those roles came with.

A majority of those surveyed—82% across genders – said their companies needed to do more to help them manage work and personal life demands.

Among those surveyed, 64% said their current work-life emphasis was on their job, 23% said it was both, and 15% said their current emphasis was on their family.

Getting ahead was a clear goal, with 89% of respondents saying they wanted to move to a higher level position within the next five years and 56% — many of them from India – saying they were aiming for top executive positions.

The survey found that in addition to valuing their jobs and careers, high-potential employees in Asia appreciated work-life fit and workplace flexibility. About half the respondents—both men and women—said they were having a tough time managing work and other aspects of their lives.

Unsurprisingly, women find less flexibility at the work place to create that balance than men do. While evaluating how effective the workplace was in providing services to get that balance, the survey examined three elements: being able to arrange alternative schedules for family needs, having the flexibility to manage family and personal responsibilities, and not having to work on too many tasks at the same time.

For these people the struggle came because of their long work hours more than because of their families.

Respondents who said it was a challenge to balance work and personal life—51% women and 48% men—found themselves frequently prioritizing their jobs over their personal lives.

Regardless of gender or country, working in a flexible organization meant better employee well-being. But more women (38%) than men (32%) said that their companies were not flexible enough for them to manage work and personal lives. One reason behind that, the survey found, was that there was a gap between what employees needed and what was available.

The Catalyst survey did a deep dive of China, India and Singapore, predominantly because of their high level of economic impact and their roles in the global market place. It found employees in China (75%) were the most focused on their jobs, followed by India at 65% and Singapore at 57%.

Respondents from India (27%) and Singapore (26%) were more likely than other countries to report a dual (work-family) focus, while Singapore (17%) had the highest percentages of respondents with family focus, followed by India at 8% and China at 7%.

Indians turned out to be the most ambitious: 98% of those surveyed were interested in moving to a higher-level position within the next five years, followed by China (91%) and Singapore (86 %). Respondents from China and Singapore were more likely than those from India to say they were planning to remain at the same level.

But across the three countries, the majority agreed that their companies did not provide enough flexibility and support to help balance the dual demands.

Hope the managers are listening. Or at least reading this post.

Article source: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/05/17/work-life-balance-a-challenge-for-both-genders-in-asia/

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2:03 pm

China Sentences Fugitive Smuggler To Life Term

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The man once considered China’s most-wanted fugitive was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling and bribery in a lurid corruption case that reached into the highest echelons of the Communist Party and involved a decade-long extradition fight.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that Lai Changxing was convicted and sentenced Friday morning by the Intermediate People’s Court in Xiamen, the port city which was his base. On top of the life sentence for smuggling and a concurrent 15-year sentence for bribery, the court ordered all of Lai’s personal property seized, Xinhua said.

The sentencing marked an end for what a decade ago had been one of China’s biggest political scandals. From Xiamen and through his company the Yuanhua Group, Lai ran an extensive smuggling network, using the amassed fortune to cultivate powerful political protectors. Tainted in the scandal were a deputy police minister, who was later given a suspended death sentence, and the one-time provincial party secretary who was politically untouched and became a member of the party’s ruling Politburo.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular news conference that the handling of the case showed China’s determination in fighting crime.

Lai’s network smuggled everything from cigarettes and cars to oil and textiles. The court’s verdict said the operation totaled $3.3 billion, evaded $1.7 billion in duties and other taxes and bribed 64 officials between 1996 and 1999, Xinhua reported.

The main office of the Xiamen court referred calls to its publicity department where the telephone rang unanswered.

After a broad corruption and anti-smuggling investigation unmasked Lai’s operation, he managed to flee the country, tipped off by local officials, and eventually reached Canada in 1999. He then became the focus of a 12-year extradition battle — with Chinese leaders often worried that Lai might implicate senior officials in public comments — until he was deported last year.

In the heyday of his power, Lai lived a life of luxury in China complete with a bulletproof Mercedes Benz. He is alleged to have run a mansion in which he plied officials with liquor and prostitutes.

At one point, state TV splashed pictures of the network’s allegedly ill-gotten gains: a tiger skin rug laid out on a conference table, confiscated cars belonging to corrupt bureaucrats, a sack of gold rings, and a picture of a young woman, said to be a lover kept for one official by Lai.

Scores of officials and executives involved have been imprisoned and at least two executed over the scandal. Aside from the deputy police minister, 10 others, from Xiamen’s deputy mayor to the city’s customs chief were given life sentences or had their death sentences commuted to life.

Also ensnared in the scandal was the wife of Jia Qinglin, the Fujian province party secretary until 1996 and then the party chief of Beijing and an ally of Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Politically connected Chinese said Jiang protected Jia, ordering investigators to curtail the probe.

After Lai fled to Canada, Jiang sent a diplomatic note in 2001 to then Prime Minister Jean Chretien, assuring Canadian authorities Lai would not be executed if returned — a key Canadian demand.

Still, Lai fought extradition until July when a federal court in Vancouver ruled Lai should not be considered a refugee and upheld his deportation.

Article source: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/18/152988182/china-sentences-fugitive-smuggler-to-life-term

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2:03 pm

Life after life? This Wyoming surgeon says she believes

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JACKSON, WYO. — The way Mary C. Neal sees it, she has essentially lived two different lives: one before her “accident,” as she describes it, and one after.

“I would say that I have been profoundly changed in all aspects of my life,” said Neal, a respected orthopedic spinal surgeon in western Wyoming. “The details of my life, before and after, are similar. But the essence of my life — who I am, what I value, what drives me — is completely different.”

Which isn’t an unusual thing, especially when you consider that her “accident” included death by drowning, an all-too-brief visit with spiritual beings in the life after death, and a remarkable resuscitation after 14 minutes under water, bringing her back to life whole and complete.

But forever changed.

“Since then I’ve spoken to others who have had similar experiences,” she said during a recent telephone interview from her home in Jackson, Wyo. “Everyone comes back a profoundly changed person.”

She pauses, then adds softly: “I know I did.” Which is not to say that her life before her accident was in tremendous need of change.

“I think I was pretty typical,” she said as she outlined a life that included faithful church attendance as a child and “some spiritual experiences during my high school and college years.”

“I should have been more committed to my Christian faith,” she said, reflecting on adult years that were largely consumed by her work as a surgeon. “I was very busy, and like most people I experienced life on a daily basis. The details of my daily responsibilities sort of crowded out my responsibilities to my spiritual self.”

She was a believer, a person who believed in God and in the inspired words of the Bible. “But other than just trying to be a good person,” she said, “I don’t think I was particularly religious.”

That all changed in January 1999, when she and her husband, Bill, traveled to Chile for what was intended to be a fun, restful kayaking adventure with friends in the rivers and lakes of Chile’s southern Lake District.

As she explains in her new book, “To Heaven and Back: The True Story of a Doctor’s Extraordinary Walk With God,” she was going over a waterfall on their last day of boating on the Fuy River when her kayak became pinned in the rocks, trapping her under the deep surging water.

Despite her best efforts to free herself from the boat, she “quickly realized that I was not in control of my future.”

Article source: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765576971/Life-after-life-This-Wyoming-surgeon-says-she-believes.html

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2:03 pm

China sentences fugitive smuggler Lai to life term

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BRINDISI, Italy (Reuters) – A bomb exploded in front of a girls’ school in southern Italy on Saturday, killing a 16-year-old girl and wounding seven others, suspicion quickly falling on the local Mafia. The explosion, near the entrance of a school named after the wife of murdered anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, occurred …

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-sentences-fugitive-smuggler-lai-life-term-025425937.html

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