As Obama, Karzai meet, Afghan peace efforts show flickers of life

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will discuss matters of war, including future U.S. troop levels and Afghanistan's army, when they meet on Friday, but matters of peace may be the most delicate item on their long agenda.

After nearly 10 months in limbo, tentative reconciliation efforts involving Taliban insurgents, the Karzai government and other major Afghan factions have shown new signs of life, resurrecting tantalizing hopes for a negotiated end to decades of war.

Pakistan, which U.S. and Afghan officials have long accused of backing the insurgents and meddling in Afghanistan, has recently signaled an apparent policy shift toward promoting its neighbor's stability as most U.S. combat troops prepare to depart, top Pakistani and Afghan officials said.

In another potentially significant development, Taliban representatives met outside Paris last month with members of the Afghan High Peace Council - although not directly with members of the Karzai government, which they have long shunned.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the developments are promising - but that major challenges remain to opening negotiations, let alone reaching an agreement on the war-ravaged country's political future.

Hopes for Afghan peace talks have been raised before, only to be dashed. Last March, the Taliban suspended months of quiet discussions with Washington aimed at getting the insurgents and the Karzai government to the peace table.

Obama is expected to press the Afghan president to bless the formal opening of a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar as a way to jump-start inter-Afghan talks.

Karzai has been lukewarm to the idea, apparently fearing his government would be sidelined in any negotiations.

TRIP AT A TURNING POINT

Karzai's meeting with Obama, at the end of a three-day visit to Washington, is shaping up to be one of the most critical encounters between the two leaders, as the White House weighs how rapidly to remove most of the roughly 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and how large a residual force to leave after 2014.

Obama, about to begin his second term in office, appears determined to wrap up U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan. On Monday, he announced as his nominee for Pentagon chief former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who appears likely to favor a sizeable U.S. troop drawdown.

Other issues on the agenda have plenty of potential for causing friction: the future size and focus of the Afghan military; a festering dispute over control of the country's largest detention center; and the future of international aid after 2014.

Karzai's trip "is one of the most important ones because the discussions we are going to have with our counterparts will define the relations between (the) United States and Afghanistan," Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul told the lower house of parliament this month.

No final announcement on post-2014 U.S. troop levels is expected during Karzai's visit, and the issue is further complicated by Washington's insistence on legal immunity for American troops that remain.

General John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, recommended keeping between roughly 6,000 and 15,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but the White House is considering possibly leaving as few as 3,000 troops.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House had asked for options to be developed for keeping between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in the country.

PAST PEACE HOPES DASHED

Last year, the Obama administration hoped to kick-start peace talks with a deal that would have seen Washington transfer five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay prison. In return, the Taliban would renounce international terrorism and state a willingness to enter talks with Karzai's representatives.

That deal never came off, and the question now is whether it, or an alternative peace process, can get under way as the U.S. military presence rapidly winds down.

Looking at developments in the last few months, "you could see that there are things happening," said one U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak for the record.

At the end of 2012, Pakistan released four Afghan Taliban prisoners who were close to the movement's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. It appeared to be a step toward meeting Afghanistan's long-standing insistence that Islamabad free those who could help promote reconciliation. A senior Afghan official welcomed the release.

A member of Pakistan's parliament closely involved in Afghan policy-making said there are signs of a shift in the thinking of Pakistan's powerful military. Some in the military, which has long regarded Afghanistan as a battleground in its existential conflict with rival India, are now saying that the graver threat comes from Pakistan's own militants.

"Yes, there is skepticism. The hawks are there. But the fact is that previously there were absolutely no voices in the army with this kind of positive thinking," the parliamentarian said.

"Pakistan has also realized that there won't be a complete withdrawal of the U.S. from Afghanistan," the lawmaker said. "The security establishment realizes it has to compromise somewhere. Hence the Taliban releases. ... Hence the statements from even the most skeptical Afghan officials that there is a change in Pakistani thinking."

Ghairat Baheer, who represented the Hezb-e-Islami faction at last month's peace talks in the Paris suburb of Chantilly, rejected a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, but praised the Pakistan prisoner release as a sign of its good intentions.

WAITING FOR THE TALIBAN

After more than a year of frustration, Obama administration officials are skeptical about luring the Taliban to peace talks, citing what appears to be a deep fissure within the movement between moderates who favor entering the political process and hard-liners committed to ousting both NATO troops and Karzai.

The Taliban's lead negotiator, Tayeb Agha, whom the Obama administration regards as a reliable interlocutor, offered to resign last month in apparent frustration, the Daily Beast website reported.

Taliban envoys have yet to meet officially with Karzai's government, and the insurgents demand a rewriting of the Afghan constitution.

"I don't think anyone knows where (reconciliation) stands. And I mean that because there are a lot of reconciliation talks and a lot of games that are being played in a lot of places," said Fred Kagan, a military analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"The likelihood of getting an acceptable deal that actually secures our interests is vanishingly small," he said. "But the probability that you could get the deal and have it implemented in time to make this drawdown timeline make sense is nonsense."

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander in Washington, and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul. Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Japan to buy Europe bonds to soothe debt crisis

TOKYO: Japan's new finance minister said that Tokyo would buy bonds issued by Europe's permanent bailout fund to help soothe the eurozone's debt problems and stabilise the yen.

Taro Aso told reporters the new government would tap foreign exchange reserves to pay for the bonds, but declined to say how much it planned to buy.

A finance ministry told AFP the bond buying could start as early as Tuesday, when the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) begins selling the paper, adding that Japan "will make a purchasing decision after seeing the terms of the issuance".

Japan, which counts Europe as a major export market, previously purchased billions of dollars in bonds issued by the ESM's predecessor, the European Financial Stability Facility.

"Stabilising Europe's financial crisis will eventually contribute to the stability of currency (prices) including the yen, and so we plan to keep purchasing ESM bonds using foreign reserves," Aso said Tuesday.

Europe's debt crisis has seen four countries ask for bailout cash to help pay their bills, while there were fears that others including Italy and Spain would follow suit as their borrowing costs surged.

However, those concerns have eased since September, when the European Central Bank promised to buy the bonds of struggling nations to keep rates down.

Also Tuesday, Japanese media reported that Tokyo was considering an extra budget worth about $150 billion to boost the limp economy, with about 40 percent of that figure directed toward public works projects.

The yen hit record highs around 75 against the dollar in late 2011, sparking panic among Japanese exporters whose goods are made more expensive by a strong currency.

However, the unit has since weakened and has seen a steep decline in recent weeks as the new government of Shinzo Abe, which took office last month after a landslide election win, vows to press the Bank of Japan for more aggressive monetary easing.

Reports Tuesday quoted Japanese executives expressing concern about the yen's recent tumble, saying the quick decline could pose a danger to the Japanese economy.

The business community, which had pressed officials for months to tame the surging yen, say a further plunge in the currency could shake investor confidence.

A weaker currency also makes fuel imports, which have risen steeply in the wake of Japan shutting down its nuclear plants, more expensive.

In Tokyo forex trading on Tuesday afternoon, the euro was up at 115.00 yen from 114.75 yen before Aso's comments, while the dollar bought 87.66 yen from 87.48 yen in morning deals.

Europe's permanent bailout fund was initially supposed to come online in July but only became operational in October after it was delayed by a challenge at the German Constitutional Court.

- AFP/de

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ED attaches Rs 143 crore assets in Jagan money laundering case

HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth Rs 143.74 crore in connection with its probe in the money laundering case against YSR Congress party chief Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The attachment order, under criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), is the third by the agency after it issued two separate attachment orders of Rs 51 crore and Rs 71 crore earlier, in this case.

The agency, according to sources, has few more similar orders in the pipeline as it plans to build a water tight case against Jagan and his associates.

"Immovable properties and movable assets worth Rs 143.74 crore under section 5(1) of PMLA are being attached. The properties attached are from Ms Ramky Pharma City (India) Limited are approximately 135.46 acres of land and deposit of Rs 3.20 crore in mutual funds and fixed deposits for Rs 10 Crore from Jagati Publications Private Limited (held by Jagan Reddy)," the attachment order said.

The agency is probing the case on the basis of the FIR filed by CBI to investigate alleged disproportionate assets amassed by Jagan especially during the tenure of his father-- the late Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy

An ED attachment is an enforcement action under anti-money laundering laws to restrict the accused from taking benefit out of the properties or assets they have created through illegal means.

The accused parties can appeal against the order at the Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA based here.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Meet Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee

President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretary of defense. To those who haven't followed the Senate closely in the past decade, he's probably not a household name.

Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran, but he wouldn't necessarily be a popular pick with Republicans in Congress.

At age 21, Hagel and his brother Tom became the next in the family to serve in the United States Army. They joined the masses of Americans fighting an unfamiliar enemy in Vietnam.

In his book, he describes finding himself "pinned down by Viet Cong rifle fire, badly burned, with my wounded brother in my arms."

"Mr. President, I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve our country again," Hagel said after Obama announced his nomination Monday.

In 1971, Hagel took his first job in politics as chief of staff to Congressman John Y. McCollister, a position he held for six years. After that, he moved to Washington for the first time, where he went on to work for a tire company's government affairs office, the 1982 World's Fair and in 1981, as Ronald Reagan's Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.

Obama Taps Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary Watch Video

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Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video

He worked in the private sector for most of the 80s and 90s before his first election to the Senate in 1997.
Since the turn of the century, Hagel has followed a curvy path of political alliances that puts his endorsements all over the map. Hagel's record of picking politically unpopular positions could be a large part of why Obama is naming him for the job, as Slate's Fred Kaplan surmises the next Defense secretary will be faced with tough choices.

In 2000, he was one of few Republican senators to back Sen. John McCain over then-presidential-candidate George W. Bush.

After that election, Hagel fiercely criticized Bush for adding 30,000 surge troops to Iraq, in place of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's proposal of a draw-down and regional diplomacy, which Hagel preferred. When Bush instead announced that more troops would go to Iraq, Hagel co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution to oppose it, along with then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel told Esquire in June 2007. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."

Hagel's fierce opposition to America's involvement in Iraq – he called it one of the five monumental blunders of history, on par with the Trojan War – will be of substantial importance as the Obama administration charts our course out of Afghanistan, deciding how to withdraw the last of the troops in 2014 and how much of a presence to leave behind.

Hagel's support for McCain, which was substantial in his competition against Bush, disappeared in the 2008 election. Hagel toured Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama during his first campaign for the presidency.

In October 2008, Hagel's wife, Lillibet, announced her support for the Obama team, after the Washington Post reported on her donations to his campaign. She donated again in 2012.

Before the 2008 election, Hagel wrote: "The next president of the United States will face one of the most difficult national security decisions of modern times: what to do about an Iran that may be at the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons."

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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by foes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.

Although the speech was billed as the unveiling of a new peace plan, Assad offered no concessions and even appeared to harden many of his positions. He rallied Syrians for "a war to defend the nation" and disparaged the prospect of negotiations.

"We do not reject political dialogue ... but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don't believe in any language but killing and terrorism?" Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.

"Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?"

It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital's outskirts.

George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did "not even deserve to be called an initiative":

"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he said.

"The appropriate response is to continue to resist this unacceptable regime and for the Free Syrian Army to continue its work in liberating Syria until every inch of land is free."

The speech was seen by many as a response to U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been meeting U.S. and Russian officials to try to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow over a peace plan. Brahimi also met Assad in Syria late last month.

"Lakhdar Brahimi must feel foolish after that Assad speech, where his diplomacy is dismissed as intolerable intervention," said Rana Kabbani, a Syrian analyst who supports the opposition.

The United States, European Union, Turkey and most Arab states have called on Assad to quit. Russia, which sells arms to and leases a naval base from Syria, says it backs a transition of power but that Assad's departure should not be a precondition for any talks.

REPETITIONS

Assad's foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech. "His remarks are just repetitions of what he's said all along," said Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign minister of Syria's northern neighbor and former friend Turkey.

"It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."

The U.S. State Department said Assad's speech "is yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power and does nothing to advance the Syrian people's goal of a political transition".

"His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people," said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".

The 47-year-old Assad, tall and mustachioed, in a business suit and tie, spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!"

At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling president waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as "martyrs" of the conflict so far.

"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."

Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.

Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could be intended as a show of strength by a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.

Critics saw irony in the venue: "Assad speech appropriately made in Opera House!" tweeted Rami Khouri, a commentator for Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "It was operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building."

DEATHS

The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge in two years of revolts in Arab states.

Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.

But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.

Assad, an eye doctor, has ruled since 2000, succeeding his late father Hafez, who had seized power in a 1970 coup.

The rebels are drawn mainly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls.

The conflict has heightened confrontation in the Middle East between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab rulers, particularly those in the Gulf who are allied with the West against Tehran.

The plan unveiled in Sunday's speech could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.

Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist radicals. Washington has also labeled one of the main rebel groups a terrorist organization and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with Moscow vetoing U.N. resolutions against Assad.

U.N. mediator Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss his own peace proposal, which does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.

National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni said Assad's speech appeared timed to prevent a breakthrough in those talks, by taking a position that could not be reconciled with diplomacy.

"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Kevin Liffey)

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Karzai leaves Afghanistan for US talks

KABUL: President Hamid Karzai on Monday left Afghanistan for talks with Barack Obama in Washington to focus on security in his war-torn country after NATO combat troops withdraw in 2014, his office said.

During his three-day official visit, a decision could be made on how many US troops will stay in Afghanistan after 2014, officials have said.

"President Karzai will hold separate meetings with President Barack Obama and other high-ranking US officials to discuss various key issues," Karzai's office said after his departure.

Talks will focus on security, economic and political transition, equipping and strengthening Afghan forces, efforts to negotiate peace with Taliban-led insurgents and a security agreement with the United States, it said.

Karzai has expressed support for keeping US troops in Afghanistan but sensitive details -- including immunity for American soldiers and the transfer of detainees into Afghan custody -- are still under negotiation.

The US Defense Department has reportedly prepared plans to leave roughly 3,000, 6,000 or 9,000 US troops in Afghanistan.

General John Allen, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had earlier suggested leaving 6,000 to 20,000 US troops, US media reported.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the force would focus on preventing Al-Qaeda, which was sheltered by the 1996-2001 Taliban government, from regaining a foothold in Afghanistan.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a smaller US troop presence would force the State Department to cut plans for large-scale diplomatic outposts across Afghanistan.

-AFP/ac

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Low intensity earthquake felt in Arunachal Pradesh

NEW DELHI: A slight intensity earthquake shook Arunachal Pradesh on Monday.

The quake, which hit the state at 11:03am, measured 4.5 on the Richter scale, the MeT department said.

The epicentre of the quake was located at Latitude 28.1 degrees North and Longitude 94.3 degrees, it said.

A slight intensity quake had jolted Churachandpur region of Manipur on Thursday last.

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.

Wait, what?

If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.

Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.

Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.

"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.

He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.

It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.

Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.

Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."

She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.

Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.

She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.

Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."

Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.

A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.

Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.

"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.

NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.

Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.

Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."

Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.

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Online:

Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Pastor Accused of Killing Wives Faces Trial

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for Pastor Arthur Schirmer, who is accused of killing his second wife and then staging a car accident to hide it.

Schirmer, 64, also faces a second trial at a later date for the death of his first wife. He has said he is innocent of all charges.

In 2008, the pastor and his wife, Betty, were involved in what appeared at the time to be a car crash. Schirmer told police at the time that he had been driving 55 mph and swerved to miss a deer, causing him to drive off the road, according to a police affidavit obtained by ABC News.

Schirmer also said at the time that his wife's head had come forward and struck the windshield, according to the affidavit. Betty died a day later and her body was cremated at the request of Schirmer.

It wasn't until a grisly suicide in 2010 inside Schirmer's office that authorities decided to revisit the case of Betty Schirmer's death and arrest the pastor.

The man who broke in and shot himself at the desk in Schirmer's office at the Reeders United Methodist Church, Joseph Mustante, was the husband of the pastor's secretary, Cynthia Mustante, Poconos Township Police Detective James Wagner said.

Pocono Record, David Kidwell/AP Photo

Mustante's suicide was prompted by the discovery that his wife and the pastor had apparently been having an affair, Wagner said. He was alone at the time of his death.

Investigators looking into the suicide say that several church parishioners had concerns about the deaths of Schirmer's two wives.

"That suicide eventually exposed the affair publicly and subsequent to that, questions arose about the loss of [Schirmer's] wives and his character became questionable," Wagner said.

Relaunching the investigation into the two deaths, Wagner said he quickly suspected that "foul play existed, and the car crash was staged," allegedly, by Schirmer. Wagner said investigators also believed there was something "suspicious" about the first wife's death, a marriage that investigators had not known about prior to the suicide.

Investigators Look Into Deaths of Rev. Arthur Schirmer's Wives

Schirmer's first wife, Jewel, died in April 1999 from a traumatic brain injury after she purportedly fell down a flight of stairs in Lebanon, Pa., Wagner said.

Lebanon is about 100 miles southwest of Reeders, where Schrimer later moved with his second wife.

At the time of Jewel's death, Wagner said, a relative told police that he suspected Schirmer may have had a hand in his wife's death but that the investigation was "never completed."

On Dec. 11, 2012 -- more than 13 years after Jewel died, a Lebanon County judge ruled Schirmer would be tried for her murder.

When investigators looked at the death of Betty Schirmer, they saw inconsistencies, Wagner said.

"There was no airbag deployment and it simply looked like a car that had driven off the road at a very low speed," Wagner said. "It didn't match the injuries to [Betty's head].

"I know there are people out there who probably know him and feel like there is absolutely no way he would be capable of doing this," Wagner of Schirmer. "But they clearly don't know him."

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