Rejected by Hong Kong, Glitter arrives in Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand �

Thai police aforesaid disgraced rock 'n' roll musician Gary Glitter agreed Thursday to leave Thailand for London, possibly ending a two-day odyssey that began when he was released from a Vietnamese prison house after portion time for molesting children.

However, Police Maj. Gen. Phongdej Chaiprawat could not say when the 64-year-old rocker would leave Bangkok nor which flight he would be taking. Glitter has twice been refused entry into Thailand and once turned away from Hong Kong after his acquittance Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Thai Airways, world Health Organization refused to be identified because she was non authorized to speak to the press, confirmed Glitter was scheduled to leave late Thursday on one of its flight. But she refused to provide the divergence time.

Glitter, a British citizen, flew to Hong Kong on Wednesday night after Thai authorities barred him from entering the land. Hong Kong immigration officials then refused him entrance after interviewing him, a British Foreign Office spokesman said.

Police Col. Worawat Amornwiwat said Glitter arrived back in Bangkok on Thursday and would again be denied ingress. He aforementioned Glitter's airline, Thai Airways, should insure he continues on his originally planned journey to England.

"Thailand is not allowing him to enter the country and Hong Kong is turning him plunk for so on that point is no choice for him now,' Worawat said. "It is the responsibility of Thai Airways to acquire him out of the country."

On Tuesday night, Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was taken from his prison house cell to a Thai Airways flight out of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. He had been engaged to change planes in Bangkok en route to London, merely refused to board the flight to Britain, complaining of an earache.

Lt. Gen. Chatchawal Suksomchit, chief of Thailand's in-migration police, said Glitter was denied entry because under Thai immigration laws those convicted of child sex abuse in a foreign country behind be barred.

Another officer said his department received a note from Vietnam and Interpol requesting that Glitter not be allowed entry into Thailand. The official spoke on condition of anonymity since he was not authorised to speak to the press.

Glitter, 64, was convicted in March 2006 of committing "repulsive acts with children." He served iI years and nine months of a three-year sentence, which was reduced for good behavior.

The incidents involved two girls, ages 10 and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau. The finding of fact said he molested the girls repeatedly at his seaside villa in Vung Tau and in nearby hotels. Glitter proclaimed his innocence.

Glitter's fall from state of grace began in 1997, when he took his figurer to a repair grass and an employee there discovered he had downloaded thousands of hardcore adult images of children. Two years after, British regime convicted him of self-control of minor pornography, and Glitter served half of a four-month jail term.

Glitter hit the front pages of Britain's newspapers Wednesday.

In an editorial headlined "Who'd want him?" the conservative Daily Mail said "no country in its right mind would want this pervert at large on its soil."

The news hit as British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced a raft of new measures to tighten controls on people convicted of sexual offenses against children.

If Glitter returns to Britain, he will be met at the aerodrome by police force officers and be set on a sex offenders' registry, which already lists about 30,000 people.

In his 1970s heyday, Glitter performed in shiny jumpsuits, silver political program shoes and bouffant wigs. He sold 18 billion records and recorded a string of British top-10 hits.

His to the highest degree successful song, the crowd-pleasing anthem "Rock and Roll Part 2," cracked the top 10 in the United States.

---

Associated Press writers Watcharaporn Taithongchai in Bangkok, Thailand, and Raphael G. Satter and Jennifer Quinn in London contributed to this report.

More info

• Download High Tone
• Mp3 music: Nivea
• Download Will Haven
• Download Cellador
• Britain’s Singing Sensation Connie Talbot Comes to America

Democratic Party Approves Set Of Principles That Includes Commitment To Ensure All U.S. Residents Have 'Guaranteed' Access To Affordable Health Care

�
The 186-member platform commission of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday in Pittsburgh voted to okay a 51-page platform that includes "guaranteed" access to affordable wellness care, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports (O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/9). The platform does not mention an individual health insurance mandate but acknowledges that "there are different approaches within the Democratic Party about how best to achieve the commitment of universal coverage" (Nicholas, Los Angeles Times, 8/10).

According to the platform, Democrats ar "united behind a commitment that every American man, woman and child be guaranteed to have low-priced, comprehensive health care" (Woodward, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 8/10). The chopine also states, "Coverage should be made affordable for all Americans with train financial assistance through tax credits and other means," adding, "As affordable coverage is made available, individuals should purchase health indemnity and take steps to lead healthy lives." In addition, the platform calls for a tax credit to help oneself small businesses provide wellness insurance for employees (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/9).

Final approval of the platform will go on later this month at the Democratic National Convention in Denver (Los Angeles Times, 8/10). Party platforms "are typically given little attention subsequently they are adopted," simply the "party's decision to embrace guaranteed health guardianship is destined to suit a ahead yardstick by which [Illinois Sen. Barak] Obama's (D) presidency will be metrical if he wins in November," according to the AP/San Francisco Chronicle (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 8/10).

McCain No Longer Supports Cigarette Tax Increase
In other election news, the political campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has decided not to accompaniment a bill he proposed in 1998 that would have increased the federal cigarette task, allowed FDA to modulate tobacco products, and needful the tobacco industry to finance anti-smoking programs and settle a lawsuit filed by states, Roll Call reports. The legislation, which died on the Senate floor, would have provided the union government with an extra $516 gazillion in tax revenue over 25 long time. According to Roll Call, McCain, "whose credentials as a assess cutter are suspect among many on the veracious, was the author and driver of the account," but "leading conservatives today are in general willing to forgive the Arizona senator for what they view as his transgression on the tobacco measure."

McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin last week declined to input directly on whether the senator still supports the legislation simply said that he does not favor an increase in the federal coffin nail tax. The bill "was multidimensional," Holtz-Eakin said, adding, "We can't turn back the clock" and "take a bill from that era and put it in modern times" (Koffler, Roll Call, 8/11).

Editorial, Opinion Pieces
Summaries of an editorial and several opinion pieces related to to health care in the presidential election come out below.

Michael Kinsley, New York Times: "The purpose of a party platform is pandering ... to the faithful, under the assumption that only they will read it," and the Democratic Party chopine includes a large measure of "code" language on health care and former issues, Time columnist Kinsley writes in a Times opinion piece. According to Kinsley, the plank on health caution contains "mystery phrases that suggest a triumph for one side in some obscure policy battle." Kinsley writes that, amid a "frenzy of health maintenance promises -- basically, after the plan is fully implemented in 2050, no one will be permitted to get sick -- the Democrats advocate 'creating a generic pathway for biologic drugs.'" He adds, "Whether this is a rejoice for health and mutual sense or the miserable handiwork of a drug industry lobbyist (or both!), I have no idea." In addition, although "normally it is not possible to overutilisation the word 'American' or to overpraise this great country and its glorious people ... the Democrats crataegus oxycantha have set up a way in hopeful a health care system that is 'uniquely American,'" Kinsley writes, adding, "A uniquely American health maintenance system is what we've got" (Kinsley, New York Times, 8/10).


Paul Krugman, New York Times: The platform states that Democrats supporting access to health care for all U.S. residents, but whether Democrats canful "deliver on that commitment" remains undetermined, Times columnist Krugman writes. In "rule, it should be easy," Krugman writes, adding, "In practice, supporters of health care reform, myself included, will be hanging on by their fingernails until legislation is actually passed." According to Krugman, the "easy" division about "guaranteed health care for all" is that "we know that it's economically practicable," as "every wealthy country except the United States already has some form of guaranteed health precaution." He adds that the "politics of guaranteed fear are also easy, at least in one sense: if the Democrats do manage to establish a system of universal coverage, the country will love it." However, Krugman writes, "it's concentrated to get universal care established in the first-class honours degree place" because of "terzetto big hurdling." Democrats must win the election, "get the better of the public's fear of change" and maintain focus on health care amid the "many problems crying out for solutions," according to Krugman (Krugman, New York Times, 8/11).



Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Both of the major presidential candidates will "move toward the political center" as the election nears, but, "on health care, the contrasts are stark and indicate the difference between the two candidates -- Obama is all about mandates, while McCain relies more on market forces," according to a Post-Gazette editorial. The editorial states, "How the two major parties view health care points to a difference in basic ism," as "Democratic plans distressed providing increased, preferably universal proposition, access to health precaution, while GOP proposals addressed costs, believing more Americans could aim health insurance if health care was more low-priced." The Obama health care proposal has a number of problems, the editorial states. "Employer mandates also would do little to address the cost of health care" and "likely would boost the prices charged by insurance companies and health care providers," according to the editorial. In improver, "government mandates to require health coverage is mission creep," the editorial states, adding, "That's when bureaucrats and politicians see their meddling isn't producing the desired results (usually because it can't), so they pile on more mandates requiring more than comprehensive reporting." The editorial states that Obama as well "demonstrates bad judgment with his ideas on pharmaceutical pricing." The editorial concludes, "The path health caution is provided in this country doesn't work well for everyone," but "up it for those on the lour end of the economical ladder doesn't have to come at the toll of qualification it worse for everyone else" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/10).


Timothy Noah, Washington Post: The U.S. health care system will alteration during the next quaternary years because the "current patchwork is coming apart at the seams," Noah, a aged writer at Slate, writes in a Post thought piece. According to Noah, the conclusion by some observers that the "federal government -- which already provides taxpayer-funded health insurance to the elderly, the destitute and increasingly to minors -- should extend health care coverage to everyone" is "bulletproof" (Noah, Washington Post, 8/10).

Reprinted with kind license rom hTTP://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the integral Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or polarity up for email delivery at hTTP://www.kaisernetwork.

Giving 'Meaning' To Measurement In Prostate Cancer

� Can scores of patient-reported resultant (PRO) measures be made more meaningful to patients and physicians?




For days patients, physicians, and policy makers possess questioned the usefulness of scores generated by PRO measures. Unlike 'objective' biological markers, loads of 'subjective' assessments such as