SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 16 (OneWorld) - A federal court in San Francisco has cleared the way for a major national class action lawsuit on behalf of veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The federal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had sought to dismiss the lawsuit claiming that the groups bringing the suit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, were simply "advocacy organizations" and did not have standing to sue on behalf of the estimated 320,000 to 800,000 service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with cases of PTSD.

"We won this round against VA. Veterans will have our day in court," the director of Veterans for Common Sense Paul Sullivan said in a statement. "The VA must now release documents under discovery about their deliberate attempts to deny and delay medical care and disability benefits for all veterans, especially our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans."

"The decision is vitally important," added Melissa Kasnitz, an attorney with the Berkeley, California based non-profit Disability Rights Advocates, which along with the law firm Morrison and Forrester is representing the veterans groups. "It allows the case to move forward toward trial."

"We want the government to ensure that veterans get prompt care and that the VA disability claims process is fair and run in a timely fashion," she added.

The complaint, filed in federal court in July, sought a Judge's order finding that VA's system of handling disability claims and appeals is so dysfunctional that it violates veterans' constitutional and statutory rights. The suit also calls for court orders requiring VA to provide immediate medical and psychological help to returning troops and to screen them for risk of suicide.

The VA now has a backlog of over 600,000 applications for claims, and a decision on a claim can take up to 12 years to be processed through appeals. According to data obtained in November by McClatchy Newspapers, veterans must wait an average of 183 days for a claim to be decided.

A CBS news investigation released last November found that 120 veterans kill themselves every week; or over 6,000 per year.

CBS asked all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records for veterans and non-veterans, and found that veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide.

In 2005, CBS found a total of at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. The Veterans groups suing the VA contend the long wait for health care and disability care through the government system contribute to the large number of suicides.

In his 42-page ruling allowing the class action suit to go forward, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti wrote that the federal system for weighing individual veterans' claims "does not provide an adequate alternative remedy for Plaintiffs' claims," but stopped short of ruling on the merits of the claims themselves.

The VA declined comment on the Conti decision, but issued a statement saying it is "dedicated to meeting the mental health care needs of all veterans." It noted an increase in its mental health care staff and creation of new programs to treat returning soldiers.

But veterans groups aren't convinced and will be back in court February 22.

"We are seeking an immediate order from the court to force the government to stop turning away veterans who are suicidal," attorney Kasnitz said. "Also, Congress has appropriated money to the VA to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans but the money hasn't been spent. We are asking the court to force the VA to stop impounding the money."

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WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows.

Assistant FBI Director John Miller said wiretaps were dropped only a few times because of the backed-up billing, which he said didn't significantly set back the investigations under way. He said the FBI "will not tolerate financial mismanagement, or worse," and is working to fix the problems.

"While in a few instances, late-payment of telephone bills resulted in interruptions of the timely delivery of surveillance results, these interruptions were temporary and in our assessment, none of those cases were significantly affected," Miller said in a statement Thursday evening.

The report released Thursday was a highly edited version of Fine's 87-page audit that the FBI deemed too sensitive to be viewed publicly. It focused on what the bureau admitted was an "antiquated" system to track money sent to its 56 field offices nationwide for undercover work. Generally, the money pays for rental cars, leases and surveillance, the audit noted.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on the FBI to release the entire, unedited audit. The group, which has been critical of some of the government's wiretapping programs, also took a swipe at telecommunication companies that allowed the eavesdropping — as long as they are getting paid.

"It seems the telecoms, who are claiming they were just being 'good patriots' when they allowed the government to spy on us without warrants, are more than willing to pull the plug on national security investigations when the government falls behind on its bills," said former FBI agent Michael German, the ACLU's national security policy counsel. "To put it bluntly, it sounds as though the telecoms believe it when the FBI says the warrant is in the mail but not when they say the check is in the mail."

The audit also found that some field offices paid for expenses on undercover cases that should have been financed by FBI headquarters. Out of 130 undercover payments examined, auditors found 14 cases of at least $6,000 each where field offices dipped into their own budgets to pay for work that should have been picked up by headquarters.

The faulty bookkeeping was blamed, in large part, for an FBI employee who pleaded guilty in June 2006 to stealing $25,000 for her own use, the audit noted.

"As demonstrated by the FBI employee who stole funds intended to support undercover activities, procedural controls by themselves have not ensured proper tracking and use of confidential case funds," it concluded.

Fine's report offered 16 recommendations to improve the FBI's tracking and management of the funding system, including its telecommunication costs. The FBI has agreed to follow 11 of the suggestions and one additional recommendation was found unnecessary. But it said that four "would be either unfeasible or too cost prohibitive." The recommendations were not specifically outlined in the edited version of the report.

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On the Web: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0803/final.pdf

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday.

The move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion — together totaling more than 3,000 forces — to southern Afghanistan for a "one-time, seven-month deployment."

Gates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday.

"He will take it and consider it thoroughly before approving it," said Morrell. "I just want to get people away from the idea that this is going to be imminently approved by the secretary."

He said Gates "has some more thinking to do on this matter because it's a serious allocation of forces."

Morrell added that Gates' thinking on the issue has "progressed a bit" over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight.

"The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load," the spokesman said.

Morrell said the move, first reported Wednesday by ABC News, was aimed at beating back "another Taliban offensive" that is expected this spring — as has occurred in previous years.

When Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces.

Last year was the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The number of attacks has surged, including roadside bombings and suicide assaults.

Currently there are about 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 14,000 with the NATO-led coalition. The other 13,000 U.S. troops are training the Afghan forces and hunting al-Qaida terrorists.

Morrell said that while the Marine ground and air contingent would be put in place to prevent a spring Taliban offensive, the Marine battalion likely would be used to train Afghan forces.

The shift in U.S. thinking on sending more combat forces to Afghanistan has appeared inevitable in recent weeks, based on the political realities in many of the NATO nations.

In meeting after meeting during his Afghanistan visit in early December, Gates heard pleas from both Afghan and U.S. military leaders for up to 7,500 more forces, with about half needed for training.

About a week later, Gates was asked by a reporter after a NATO meeting in Scotland whether the Bush administration was considering sending more troops to Afghanistan, in the event that the shortfalls are not bridged by NATO allies. Gates replied, "Not in the short term."

But by Dec. 21, Gates acknowledged during a press briefing that the Pentagon would "be looking at the requirement ourselves."

Bush administration officials pressed NATO allies for months to fill gaps in troops levels in Afghanistan, but many allied governments face public opposition to deeper involvement there.

Gates said at the Scotland meeting that the administration had decided to tone down its appeals to allies, taking into account "political realities" faced by some European governments whose citizens may see less reason to intervene in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration has launched a wide-ranging review of its policy in Afghanistan to ensure that gains made since the radical Islamist Taliban regime was ousted in 2001 are not lost and to bolster Afghan President Hamid Karzai's nascent government.

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AP Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 3 (OneWorld) - Sixteen U.S. states have joined a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging its decision to stop California from implementing a landmark law limiting global warming pollution from new automobiles.

Five nonprofit groups -- the Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense, the International Center for Technology Assessment, Natural Resources Defense Counsel, and the Sierra Club -- also filed suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, the same court in which California filed its legal challenge.

Fifteen other states that had adopted California�s standard as their own filed a motion to intervene in support of California.

"While global warming marches onward, EPA continues to drag its feet," said Jim Tripp, general counsel for Environmental Defense. "The agency's decision defies the law, the science, and the will of states representing nearly half of the U.S. population."

At stake are historic California standards to lower global warming pollution from passenger cars and trucks. The California standards are scheduled to take effect in model year 2009 and secure a 30-percent fleet-wide reduction by 2016. The state program would be the first binding program in the nation to strictly limit global warming pollution.

According to scientists working with Environmental Defense, cars and light trucks are one of the United States' largest sources of global warming pollution -- accounting for 16 percent of the U.S. total -- and the fastest growing.

When he blocked California's program last month, EPA Administration Stephen Johnson said energy legislation signed by President Bush will raise fuel economy standards nationwide to an average of 35 mpg by 2020. He said that was a far more effective approach to reducing greenhouse gases than a patchwork of state regulations.

But environmentalists and California officials argue the state's greenhouse gas regulations will be much more effective than the energy bill signed into law by President Bush. The California law would require auto companies to begin cutting their emissions in 2009.

"Between 2009 and 2016 the California standards will prevent a cumulative total of 58 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is about three times the amount we will prevent if we only adopt the new federal standards," California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols told reporters Wednesday.

The Bush Administration's rejection of California's global warming standards marked the first time in decades the federal government had blocked the state's efforts to set tough pollution regulations.

Since the passage of the Clean Air Act 40 years ago, the EPA has granted more than 50 waivers allowing the state to pursue its own policies. That's because the federal law broadly guarantees California's right to adopt its own motor vehicle emission standards as long as they are more protective than the federal emission standards.

The 15 states and 5 nonprofit groups suing the EPA argue there are no federal greenhouse gas emission standards in place for any pollution source.

Environmentalists believe they will eventually prevail in court but that the delays brought on by the legal fight and the Bush Administration's denial could make global warming worse in the meantime.

Jim Tripp of Environmental Defense notes even if the federal courts ultimately rule in California's favor it will not automatically mean the state�s regulations will go into effect.

"In the normal course of events if the Court of Appeals found the EPA's decision arbitrary or capricious, they would then remand the state's waiver request back to the agency for further consideration," Tripp said. "So ultimately it will still be the EPA's decision."

Environmentalists believe change will most likely come 13 months from now when a new president replaces George W. Bush and appoints a new EPA Administrator. Until then, they say, global warming will continue to accelerate, in part because California's tough new standards are not being enforced.

The other states that have adopted or committed to adopt the California standards include: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.

Collectively, California and the other states account for nearly one half of the U.S. population and about 45 percent of all new vehicle sales nationwide.

OTTUMWA, Iowa (Reuters) - In the snowswept American heartland, discussion of foreign policy often boils down to one word: security.

As the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates vie for support in Iowa, which on Thursday kicks off the nominating races, the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has thrust foreign policy into the campaign.

"We have to have good diplomatic relations with other countries to keep ours safe and sound," said Constance Cavanaugh, 43, an evangelical Christian who home-schools her children and supports Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.

"There's a relationship between how we interact with others and how they react to us," she said Friday while waiting for Huckabee to deliver a speech before a packed auditorium in the south Iowa town of Ottumwa.

Democrats also expressed concern, with some audience members quizzing Sen. Barack Obama about his views how to best handle the upheaval in Pakistan, while others wanted to discuss trade with China and diplomacy in the Middle East.

Herb Harmison, a retired professor from Ames, said the United States needs a leader capable of improving America's image abroad. "The impact on the world of having a guy like Obama elected would be immeasurable," he said.

All the candidates sweeping through Iowa this week seized on Bhutto's assassination to emphasize what they presented as their particular strengths.

Huckabee, an ordained Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor, said America must be vigilant about Pakistanis illegally entering the country, including through the porous border with Mexico.

Such comments resonate with Iowans who fear that a lack of strict border controls leaves the United States vulnerable.

"The No. 1 foreign policy issue is the border," said 36-year-old John Spaulding of Muscatine, Iowa.

Beth Stelle Jones, 53, a pre-school Iowa teacher who supports Republican candidate John McCain, said she was impressed with the Arizona Senator's grasp of the political situation in Pakistan, which he discussed on Thursday at a campaign rally in Des Moines shortly after Bhutto's slaying.

"In this environment of international uncertainty his experience is overwhelming ... We're scared by what happened in Pakistan," she said.

Concern about the Iraq war is another foreign policy issue that worries many in this heavily rural state.

Ardyce O'Neill, 65, a cattle breeder from Beebeetown, Iowa, said Iraq was a huge concern to her.

"I'm not opposed to the war, but I've got a granddaughter that's a brand new United States marine, and the war has just come closer. It would be my choice not to have her go over there, but I am proud of her and she's ready to go," she said.

But for David Benson who supports former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican contest, diplomacy is a foreign concept.

"I'm voting for Mike Huckabee because I think he's the most godly of the candidates. I know foreign policy is important but I know little about it," he said when asked for his views on the subject.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda is the chief suspect in the murder of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, standing to gain by preserving its remote stronghold, undermining President Pervez Musharraf and destabilizing the country, U.S. government and private analysts said.

The militant group, which has rebuilt its command structure on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was blamed for a previous attempt on Bhutto and it has denounced her as an instrument of U.S. policy in Pakistan.

Bush administration officials said it was too early to identify a clear suspect in Thursday's assassination.

But one U.S. official said: "There are a number of extremist groups within Pakistan that could have carried out the attack ... Al Qaeda has got to be one of the groups at the top of this list."

Al Qaeda's Taliban ally, which has publicly threatened Bhutto, was another potential suspect, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One analyst said al Qaeda supporters in Pakistan's security services may have also played a role, but it was unlikely Musharraf himself was involved.

Killing Bhutto undermines Musharraf, viewed by the United States as an essential ally against terrorism, by eliminating the prospect of a power-sharing agreement between the two that could shore up his deteriorating political standing and stabilize the country, the analysts said.

That in turn reduces chances that Musharraf can revive efforts to drive al Qaeda and the Taliban out of the remote Waziristan tribal areas. It also fans popular suspicions against Musharraf and sows general confusion.

"Their (al Qaeda's) motivation for doing this is entirely clear," said David Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "They have the most to gain."

Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, a two weeks before national elections meant to return Pakistan to a civilian-led democracy.

Her death follows a failed assassination attempt in October as she returned from exile to Pakistan. She blamed that attempt on four groups including al Qaeda and the Taliban.

AL QAEDA DENOUNCES

Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, this month denounced Bhutto's return as a U.S.-orchestrated maneuver.

"Everything that is going on in Pakistan, from the arrangement for the return of Benazir to the declaration of the state of emergency ... to repressive measures, is a desperate American attempt to remedy the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Zawahri said in an interview with al Qaeda's media arm.

Shortly before Bhutto's return in October, Taliban commander Haji Omar had pledged to attack her.

Pakistan's investigation of the killing will be a major test of Musharraf's credibility, said P.J. Crowley, a former National Security Council official.

In particular, he said, the probe must make a thorough effort to identify any elements in the government who may be complicit in the attack.

The United States offered FBI assistance in investigating Bhutto's assassination, but Pakistan has not yet made a request, FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said.

Bhutto, in an October letter to an acquaintance read on CNN on Wednesday, said she would hold Musharraf responsible if she were killed, for a failure to authorize adequate security.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said: "We don't know who is responsible for this attack. ... But it is clear that whoever is responsible is someone who opposes peaceful, democratic development and change in Pakistan." (Additional reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Doina Chiacu)

LONDON (Reuters) - Plans to build a road tunnel under Stonehenge have been scrapped, the government said on Thursday, raising fears that nearby traffic could damage the ancient World Heritage Site.

After years of argument over how to ease congestion around the stone circle in Wiltshire, ministers said they had decided that a tunnel would cost too much.

Environmental campaigners, road groups, archaeologists and druids who worship at the site have argued for decades over how best to protect it from the thousands of cars that pass each day on two busy roads.

Built between 3,000 and 1,600 BC as a temple, burial ground, astronomical calendar or all three, the stone circle has been described as "Britain's pyramids."

Thousands of revelers and druids converge there on the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere -- to watch the sun rise.

Transport Minister Tom Harris said he could not justify spending 540 million pounds on a 1.3 mile tunnel, adding: "(It) would not represent best use of taxpayers' money."

The Liberal Democrats said the decision not to divert traffic was made after a "decade of dither and delay" by the government and could damage Stonehenge.

"It puts a UNESCO World Heritage site at risk of damage from the ever-increasing volume of traffic," said the party's Arts and Culture spokesman Dan Rogerson.

English Heritage, the public body which looks after the site, said the decision not to build a tunnel was a "huge disappointment."

David Holmes, chairman of the RAC Foundation, a motoring charity, said: "The government has condemned Stonehenge to further environmental damage and the A303 (road) to chronic congestion."

But campaign group Save Stonehenge, which opposes the tunnel, welcomed the decision, saying: "Christmas has come early."

"No one with any sense wanted a tunnel, a flyover, a dual-carriageway, and two whacking great interchanges here," its spokesman Chris Woodford said. "It's just not acceptable to build 1950s-style motorways in places like this any more."

(Editing by Steve Addison)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solar wind, which whips off the sun and blows past Earth and through the solar system, is unleashed by powerful magnetic waves in electrically charged gas around the sun, scientists said on Thursday.

The mechanisms that cause the solar wind had baffled scientists for decades, but were revealed in observations by a Japanese satellite called Hinode orbiting Earth, the scientists said in research published in the journal Science.

"The magnificent thing about the success of Hinode is its unprecedented view of the dynamics of the sun," Jonathan Cirtain, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, who helped in the research, said in a telephone interview.

The research was conducted by Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.

The solar wind is a stream of electrically charged gas -- mostly hydrogen -- blown outward from the sun in all directions at a speed of about a million mph (1.6 million kph).

It buffets planetary atmospheres. On Earth, it can disrupt satellites, power grids and communications, under certain circumstances. Earth's magnetic field protects against the solar wind, creating a bubble around which the wind must flow.

Driving the solar wind are so-called Alfven waves -- strong magnetic waves -- that ripple through the plasma of the sun's atmosphere, or corona, transferring energy from the star's surface and into the solar wind, the researchers said.

The waves are named after Swedish physicist Hannes Alfven, whose prediction of their existence helped earn him a Nobel prize in physics 1970. He died in 1995.

Hinode (pronounced hin-OH-day and named for the Japanese word for "sunrise") showed that two mechanisms appear to power the solar wind, Cirtain said.

The first involves the way the sun's magnetic field undergoes rapid changes in its shape, the researchers said. As the magnetic field changes shape, it generates these Alfven waves along its length that accelerate the charged gas and blow it into space, they said.

'IMPOSSIBLE TO OBSERVE'

Another mechanism powering the solar wind involves the sun's chromosphere, the region sandwiched between the solar surface and its corona. Images from Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope found that the chromosphere is filled with Alfven waves, which when they leak into the corona are strong enough to trigger the solar wind.

"Until now, Alfven waves have been impossible to observe because of limited resolution of available instruments," Alexei Pevtsov, Hinode program scientist for NASA, said in a statement.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency leads the mission, with cooperation from NASA and the European Space Agency.

Hinode has three key pieces of equipment -- the largest optical telescope to observe the sun from orbit, an X-ray telescope and an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, making continuous observations of the sun.

The existence of the solar wind was first theorized about a half century ago. It existence was confirmed in the 1970s.

(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and David Wiessler)