MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's strategic bombers have resumed Cold War-style long-haul missions to areas patrolled by NATO and the United States, top generals said on Thursday.

A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. naval base on the Pacific island of Guam on Wednesday and "exchanged smiles" with U.S. pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Major-General Pavel Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force.

"It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet (U.S.) aircraft carriers and greet (U.S. pilots) visually," Androsov told a news conference.

"Yesterday we revived this tradition, and two of our young crews paid a visit to the area of the (U.S. Pacific Naval Activities) base of Guam," he said.

President Vladimir Putin has sought to make Russia more assertive in the world. Putin has boosted defense spending and sought to raise morale in the armed forces, which were starved of funding following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Androsov said the sortie by the two turboprop Tu-95MS bombers, from a base near Blagoveshchenskin the Far East, had lasted for 13 hours. The Tu-95, codenamed "Bear" by NATO, is Russia's Cold War icon and may stay in service until 2040.

"I think the result was good. We met our colleagues -- fighter jet pilots from (U.S.) aircraft carriers. We exchanged smiles and returned home," Androsov said.

Ivan Safranchuk, Moscow office director of the Washington-based World Security Institute, said he saw nothing extraordinary in Moscow sending its bombers around the globe.

"This practice as such never stopped, it was only scaled down because there was less cash available for that," he said.

"It doesn't cost much to flex your muscles ... You can burn fuel flying over your own land or you can do it flying somewhere like Guam, in which case political dividends will be higher."

COLD WAR CAT-AND-MOUSE

The bombers give Russia the capability of launching a devastating nuclear strike even if the nuclear arsenals on its own territory are wiped out.

During the Cold War, they played elaborate airborne games of cat-and-mouse with Western air forces.

Lieutenant-General Igor Khvorov, air forces chief of staff, said the West would have to come to terms with Russia asserting its geopolitical presence. "But I don't see anything unusual, this is business as usual," he said.

The generals said under Putin long-range aviation was no longer in need of fuel, enjoyed better maintenance and much higher wages, a far cry from the 1990s when many pilots were practically grounded because there was no money to buy fuel.

The generals quipped that part of the funding boost was thanks to a five-hour sortie Putin once flew as part of a crew on a supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber, known as the "White Swan" in Russia and codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO.

The current state of Russia's economy, which is booming for the eighth year in a row, has allowed Russia to finance such flights, said Safranchuk from the World Security Institute.

"Maintenance and training are not the most expensive budget items of modern armies. Purchases of new weapons really are."

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's indigenous tribes are being surrounded and cut off from food supplies by criminal gangs made up of right-wing paramilitaries that disbanded under a government peace plan, rights experts said on Wednesday.

To control lucrative cocaine-smuggling routes, new gangs with names like the Black Eagles are blocking access to and from indigenous communities around the country, tribal leaders told a United Nationsforum.

More than 31,000 paramilitaries have turned in their guns over the last three years, but the government admits that thousands of former militia fighters have regrouped into drug and extortion gangs.

"The Black Eagles are a paramilitary army that is refining itself as an organized crime group," said Luis Andrade, president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia.

He said that about 12,000 tribe members throughout the country have been hemmed into their villages by new and old paramilitary groups as well as soldiers enforcing President Alvaro Uribe's hard-line security policies.

"They can't leave to fish or hunt, which has caused hundreds to starve," Andrade said. "This confinement is causing more victims than direct actions such as assassinations."

Indigenous people who do try to leave their villages risk being shot as rebel collaborators, he said.

Urban violence associated with Colombia's four-decade-old guerrilla war has declined under Uribe, who was re-elected last year. But wide swathes of countryside are still controlled by left-wing rebels, paramilitaries and other criminal bands.

The government has never controlled all of the Andean country, which is the world's biggest producer of cocaine. The "paras" were formed in the 1980s to help cattle ranchers, drug lords and other rich Colombians beat back the rebels.

'WILDER, YOUNGER'

The United Nations says the new crime gangs are less disciplined and more dangerous than their paramilitary predecessors.

"They are wilder, younger and not as well organized as they were before. They do not have a political agenda at all. It is pure narco-trafficking," said Roberto Meier, Colombia's representative for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.

"They run over everything in front of them," Meier said.

Uribe's international standing has been damaged by a scandal in which some of his closest allies in Congress have been jailed while awaiting trial on charges of colluding with paramilitary drug gangs.

Human rights groups say the demobilization has not forced paramilitary chiefs to get out of the cocaine business.

The northern Sierra Nevada region remains filled with coca crops used to make cocaine as well as laboratories for processing the drug, said indigenous leader Leonor Zalabata.

"That illicit economic structure is not being dismantled," she said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour was due to blast off fromFlorida on Wednesday on its first mission in nearly five years, carrying a former teacher who trained with the ill-fated Challenger crew and gear for the International Space Station.

The mission will be the second of four that the U.S. space agency plans this year as it presses to finish construction of the $100 billion space station before the three remaining U.S. shuttles are retired in 2010.

Florida's weather, often marked by afternoon thunderstorms during the state's steamy summer, was expected to cooperate, with an 80 percent chance of clear skies for the 6:36 p.m. EDT launch,NASA said.

Endeavour has not flown since before the February 1, 2003, Columbia disaster, in which seven astronauts were killed when their spacecraft disintegrated on re-entry into the atmosphere.

NASA and Columbia's crew had not been aware that a falling chunk of insulation foam had knocked a hole in the ship's protective heat shield during launch. The agency now monitors liftoffs with dozens of cameras and shuttle crews scrutinize their ship's heat-resistant tiles when they reach space.

Endeavour has undergone an extensive overhaul since its last flight in 2002 and NASA managers say the spacecraft is virtually new. It has a new piece of equipment that can tap into the power grid of the space station and could allow the shuttle to extend its 11-day mission to 14 days.

The primary purpose of Endeavour's flight, which is the 119th in the shuttle program, is to deliver and install a new beam for the station's main support structure, replace a faulty gyroscope needed to keep the outpost positioned properly in orbit, and deliver supplies.

CIVILIANS WERE BANNED

But it is the crew that has fallen under the spotlight, partly because the five-man, two-woman team includes former elementary school teacher Barbara Morgan.

Morgan trained 22 years ago as the backup to Challenger crew member Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire social studies teacher who died along with six astronauts seconds after Challenger's liftoff on January 28, 1986, when a booster rocket blew up.

Civilian fliers were banned from shuttles after Challenger and Morgan joined the astronaut corps in 1998.

The astronaut corps itself is also under some scrutiny after allegations last month that a drunken astronaut was allowed to fly on a Russian spacecraft and another almost flew on a shuttle.

"To imply that my crew or I would ever consider launching on our mission in anything but the best possible condition is utterly ridiculous," Endeavour Commander Scott Kelly wrote in a letter to journalists, denouncing the panel that reported the allegations for posting unsubstantiated opinions.

NASA managers have launched an investigation and vowed to reinforce a 12-hour ban on alcohol before spaceflights.

Endeavour's mission was also clouded by the revelation that a component it is taking to the space station had been sabotaged by a worker at one of NASA's subcontractors. The computer has been fixed and an investigation is under way.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has started industrial-scale production of its first domestically manufactured fighter jet, state television reported Monday, part of the country's effort to be militarily self-sufficient.

The plane was first tested in 2006 and derived from re-engineered components of U.S. combat aircraft.

"The airplane, Azarakhsh, was made by Iranian experts, and it has already reached the industrial production stage," state TV quoted Iran's defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, as saying.

According to previous reports, the Azarakhsh, or Lightning, was designed for close air support.

After decades of relying on foreign weapons purchases, Iran has said it is increasingly self-sufficient, claiming annual military exports of more than $100 million to more than 50 countries.

WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (OneWorld) - In the history of warfare, nuclear weapons have been used twice, and though it has been 62 years since an atomic bomb has been employed in a conflict, the threat of a nuclear attack remains as present as ever, say arms control advocates.

Both nuclear attacks targeted Japan during the closing days of World War II. On August 6, 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Three days later, on August 9th, a second atomic weapon was dropped over Nagasaki.

This week marks the anniversary of these bombings.

Currently there are nine nuclear-weapons-wielding countries: the United States,Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. According to reports from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, these countries maintain approximately 27,000 nuclear weapons, 12,000 of which are currently deployed.

Although most of the world's nations are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an international agreement forged in 1968 to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, four key states that have since developed nuclear arsenals are not: Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

The NPT obligates the nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty to engage in good-faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice has interpreted this to mean that negotiations must be concluded ''leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.''

However, in a deal finalized last week, the United States government agreed to transfer nuclear technology to India. Although India has assured the world community that the imported technology would be used only for non-military purposes, critics fear the agreement could result in the escalation of a nuclear arms race in a politically volatile region of the world.

Critics have described the U.S. acceptance of India's nuclear weapons program as amounting to ''a major concession'' for a country that has refused to join the NPT.

''As the world's only remaining superpower, the United States can lead the way" in promoting nuclear disarmament, David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said last week. ''[But] it has failed to do so.''

''It is perhaps the least talked about and most worrying irony of our time. The United States has a massive defense budget, but spends relatively little addressing the most immediate danger to humanity,'' Krieger said, referring nuclear weapons.

''U.S. nuclear policy undermines the security of its people,'' Krieger added. ''The more the U.S. relies on nuclear weapons, the more other countries will do so.''

The non-profit group Citizens for Global Solutions agrees. "We've told the world that we will reduce our stockpiles of nuclear weapons and not develop new ones. Doing our part will help us convince others to do theirs," the group said in a message to its 35,000 members and supporters last week, adding that U.S. leaders should work with other governments to "revitalize and strengthen" the NPT, which it called "outdated."

But as U.S. voters prepare to choose a new president next year, there are indications that George W. Bush's successor may stay the course set by the current U.S. president on nuclear weapons. Indeed, four Republican presidential candidates have so far been unwilling to take the nuclear weapons option off the table against Iran.

And Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently objected to Senator Barack Obama's statement that the use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan or Pakistan would be a "profound mistake."

"Presidents should be careful at all times in discussing the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons,"Senator Clinton remarked.

Leonor Tomero from the Washington, DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation called Clinton's approach ''reckless.''

"The United States should not recklessly threaten to use nuclear weapons, particularly against states that do not have these weapons....There is currently no justification for lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," Tomero said.

The blast, heat, fire and radiation from the first atomic bomb to hit Hiroshima killed an estimated 90,000 people immediately and 145,000 by the end of 1945. In Nagasaki, some 40,000 were killed immediately, with another 30,000 dying by the end of the year. In each instance the majority of those killed were civilians.

Sixty-two years later the effects of these nuclear explosions are still felt.

In Hiroshima in 1955, Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year-old girl, was diagnosed with leukemia 10 years after being exposed to radiation from the nuclear attack. Sadako's intimate knowledge of the cost of war and nuclear attack motivated her to try and spread peace, say those who remember her efforts today.

Sadako began folding origami paper cranes after a friend reminded her of a legend: if one folds 1,000 cranes, one will live to be very old.

Sadako was only able to fold 644 cranes before succumbing to her illness, each one crafted with the words: "I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world."

Inspired by the young girl's message of hope, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria dedicated a peace garden in Santa Barbara, California to Sadako in 1995.

This year, on August 9, these organizations will celebrate their thirteenth annual Sadako Peace Day, and they have invited individuals to submit their own messages for peace to be sent to the White House.

In a statement commemorating the world's only nuclear attacks to date, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's David Krieger said: "The anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are reminders of the continued peril that humanity faces. This peril is far too serious to be left only in the hands of government leaders."

"Citizens must demand more of their governments," he added. "Their very lives and those of their children could depend upon ending the delusions that nuclear weapons protect us and that nuclear double standards will hold indefinitely."

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Congress yielded to President George W. Bush on Saturday and approved legislation to temporarily expand the government's power to conduct electronic surveillance without a court order in tracking foreign suspects.

Civil liberties groups charged the measure would create a broad net that would sweep up law-abiding U.S. citizens. But the House of Representatives gave its concurrence to the bill, 227-183, a day after it won Senate approval, 60-28.

"After months of prodding by House Republicans, Congress has finally closed the terrorist loophole in our surveillance law -- and America will be the safer for it," declared House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

"We think it is not the bill that ought to pass," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. But Hoyer conceded he and fellow Democrats were unable to stop the measure after a showdown with the White House amid warnings of possible attacks on the United States.

With lawmakers set to begin a month-long recess this weekend, Bush had called on them to stay until they passed the legislation.

"Protecting America is our most solemn obligation," Bush said earlier in the day in urging Congress to send him the bill so he could sign it into law.

The measure would authorize the National Security Agency to intercept without a court order communications between people in the United States and foreign targets overseas.

The administration would have to submit to a secret court a description of the procedures they used to determine that warrantless surveillance only targeted people outside the United States.

The court, created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), would review the procedures and order changes, if needed. The administration could appeal.

MEASURE EXPIRES IN SIX MONTHS

FISA now requires the government to obtain orders from its court to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists in the United States.

But after the September 11 attacks, Bush authorized warrantless interception of communications between people in the United States and others overseas if one had suspected terrorist ties. Critics charged that program violated the law, but Bush argued he had wartime powers to do so.

In January, Bush put the program under the supervision of the FISA court, but the terms have not been made public. Congress has subpoenaed documents in an effort to determine Bush's legal justification for the warrantless surveillance.

The new bill was needed in part, aides said, because of restrictions recently imposed by the secret court on the ability of spy agencies to intercept communications.

Final passage of the bill came a day after Republicans rejected Democratic alternatives that would have provided greater court supervision.

The measure is to expire in six months. Lawmakers are to come up with permanent legislation in the meantime.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said he needed the measure "in order to protect the nation from attacks that are being planned today to inflict mass casualties on the United States."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, opposed the bill, saying, "Sadly, Congress has been stampeded by fear-mongering and deception into signing away our rights."

"With the President set to sign this bill into law, I do not believe we will soon be able to undo this damage," Nadler said. "Rights given away are not easily regained."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who broke ranks with many fellow Democrats to vote for the measure, said: "We are living in a period of heightened vulnerability and must give the intelligence community the tools they need."

NEW YORK - A black Labrador who became a national canine hero after burrowing through white-hot, smoking debris in search of survivors at the World Trade Center site died Wednesday after a battle with cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. He was in too much pain at the end, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn't been exposed to the smoky air at ground zero, but cancer in dogs Jake's age — he was 12 — is quite common.

Some rescue dog owners who worked at the World Trade Center site claim their animals have died because of their work at ground zero. But scientists who have spent years studying the health of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue have found no sign of major illness in the animals.

The results of an autopsy on Jake's cancer-riddled body will be part of a University of Pennsylvania medical study of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue dogs.

Flood had adopted Jake as a 10-month-old disabled puppy — abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

"But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog," said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, one of eight federal search-and-rescue teams that desperately looked for human remains at ground zero.

Anguished New Yorkers honored the dogs.

On the evening of his team's arrival, Jake walked into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and was promptly treated to a free steak dinner under a table.

Flood eventually trained Jake to become one of fewer than 200 U.S. government-certified rescue dogs — a muscular animal on 24-hour call to tackle disasters such as building collapses, earthquakes, hurricanes and avalanches.

After Hurricane Katrina, Flood and Jake drove 30 hours from Utah to Mississippi, where they searched through the rubble of flooded homes in search of survivors.

In recent years, Jake helped train younger dogs and their handlers across the country. Jake showed other dogs how to track scents, even in the snow, and how to look up if the scent was in a tree.

He also did therapy work with children at a Utah camp for burn victims and at senior homes and hospitals.

"He was a great morale booster wherever he went," says Flood. "He believed that his cup was always full, never half-full. He was always ready to work, eager to play — and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items."

Cynthia Otto of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, who is researching the health of Sept. 11 dogs, expects Jake and the other animals being analyzed will serve as sentinels on possible long-term consequences stemming from 9/11.

Jake's ashes will be scattered "in places that were important to him," says Flood, like his Utah training grounds, the rivers and hills near home where he swam and roamed.

WASHINGTON, Jul 22 (OneWorld) - Migration has become a major issue in many countries -- both rich and poor. In the second half of this OneWorld dialogue, an expert panel responds to readers' thoughts about global rights and responsibilities.

To share your own thoughts on these issues, click here or at the bottom of this page.

PANELISTS

Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development

Esther Nieves, American Friends Service Committee

Sandip Roy, New America Media

SENDING VS. RECEIVING

Zoe Sullivan: Although there is certainly a trend from poorer countries to wealthier ones, generally the developed parts of Europe, North America, and Asia, even within other continents people move. Brazil and Argentina, wealthier with respect to other Latin American countries, both have immigrant communities and deal with many of the same issues being addressed in the U.S.

Ultimately, people will go where they believe they have a possibility to create a better life, wherever that is. Regardless of where a person chooses to make her/his home, it should be possible to do that.

Sandip: I agree that the world is on the move. We can look for different reasons for this from globalization to climate change to growing wealth gaps. You are right ultimately people will go where they believe they can create a better life. However it is harder to say that regardless of where a person chooses to make her/his home, it should be possible to do that. Then the topsy-turvy world would just tip over. If polls show 46-7 percent of Mexicans want to move to the U.S., we wonder what that would mean for USA if they did. But on the flip side, if they were able to do so what would that mean for Mexico?

REMITTANCES

Jeffrey Allen: How much do remittances help developing countries develop? Are remittances better than aid for a poor country? Should receiving countries take that into consideration when forming their immigration policies?

Michael: Remittances are not aid, as I've written about and I'm sure you understand this, Jeffrey. Take a household anywhere in the world in which a spouse who works in the home buys groceries with money earned by a spouse who works outside the home. Now take the working spouse and put him/her in another country -- that, in broad strokes, is what a remittance is. The same money is changing hands for the same reason; it�s just that the earner is further away, earning more.

When a laborer gives money to his or her spouse in Managua, no one expects that act to "develop" Nicaragua, even if the laborer makes a high salary. But put the laborer in Dallas (and leave the spouse in Managua), and now it's expected that the transfer should develop Nicaragua. Why?

To me, economic development is the creation of systems of interaction that make people in a society better off. A system that allows Nicaraguans to work in Dallas and thereby contribute to their families' well-being in Nicaragua is, therefore, development. This remains true even if those families consume the money instead of investing it (which is what most households do with most intra-household transfers, even when the provider lives at home -- but no one questions it when you or I do it).

Now, are remittances better than aid? I don't think there is a single metric of "good" by which to judge this. Most remittances to poor countries go directly into the pockets of families, and thereby raise their incomes unequivocally. The same cannot be said of aid projects, which are inherently risky ventures that sometimes benefit people substantially and sometimes do not. At the same time, certain aid interventions -- like support for vaccination campaigns -- benefit a very broad cross-section of people in a way that a transfer to a single household does not. So you might say that remittances convey a benefit that is often larger and almost always more certain, whereas aid projects convey a benefit that is far more uncertain, diffuse, and often smaller in magnitude. Neither is strictly "better."

Is it good per se for remittances to a poor country to increase? For a remittance flow to occur, several things must be happening. One of those is that some people have been able to access high-paying jobs overseas, and they are supporting their families back home. Sounds like a good thing. But other things must be going on as well: It must be hard for people to get good jobs where they come from, and it must be the case that a large portion of the laborer's family was not able to go where the laborer is living. Both of those are, for many families, undesirable. I say this simply to point out that when people talk about the rising volume of remittances compared to aid flows, and trumpet how wonderful this is, think carefully. Remittances are a sign of people making money and helping out, certainly, but in some cases they are also a sign of economic stagnation in the sending area, and of split families.

Should rich countries take remittances into account in setting their migration policies? Absolutely. If you want families in Ecuador to be better off, and you're not willing to admit every person from Ecuador who wants to come, then a great compromise is to let Ecuadorian breadwinners come here for a short time and send a lot of money home. This unequivocally helps many families in Ecuador. And by the way, although a lot of attention has rightly been paid to making remittances cheaper, a 10% decrease in the cost of sending remittances only makes current-recipient families better off, and only to a small degree. If you want a big increase in the amount of money families in the countries of origin receive, and if you want more families to benefit than currently do, there is no alternative to simply letting in more people. This can be done in a way that imposes little to no cost on the country of destination, and temporary guest workers are a way to do it.

GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISIES

Prabhat Garg: The country/countries not in favour of migration and/or immigration should not permit the migrants to enter into their boundaries from Day One and if they are allowing the migrants to come in and using their skills or services for some value, knowing fully well that they do not possess the adequate "human capital resources" within and the incoming migrants will be there to help the people and support the economy of that country for getting their survival. Then afterwards, the contribution of migrants cannot be denied in the development of the economy and environment of that country. And that country has no moral, social, human or legal right to throw these migrants out while making excuses and blaming these migrants for one reason or the other.

These migrants be brought in the mainstream of that country and must be treated at par because now it is a global village and every one should have the right to move any where always subject to the well settled principles/ parameters of the Peace, Law & Justice.

Sandip: The U.S. has had a wink-and-nod response to immigration. Essayist Richard Rodriguez discussed those issues in an interview on the UpFront radio show from New America Media. Here's an excerpt of what Richard said: "Mexicans look at the United States and realize that Americans are saying one thing, that they are against illegal immigration, and doing another, they will hire you if you can get across the line." Here's the full interview.

REFUGEES IN SOUTH AFRICA

Miriam Mannak: This is not a question, but more a piece of my mind with regards to migration, as no one seems to be interested in this topic -- except for Perspectives. In 2004, I moved from Holland to South Africa to work here as a freelance journalist. Over the past years I have often come across issues that are related to refugees and asylum seekers.

South Africa is the prime country African refugees turn to when escaping the problems in their home country, whether they are political, social, or of economic nature. There are so many reasons to flee your home country. Malawians flee a life of absolute poverty and hunger. Zimbabweans escape their country because of political oppression and lack of chances. The Congolese are leaving the country because of the ongoing instability and political unrest, etc.

There are no exact figures of how many refugees and asylum seekers reside in South Africa, but estimates vary from 2 to 4 million. This puts tremendous strain on South Africa, which itself struggles with high unemployment rates, poverty, lack of housing, health problems, etc.

In the recent past, there have been quite a few riots by locals against migrants. Shops owned by refugees were demolished and they themselves were chased away from the townships. In Cape Town, in the past 12 months 36 Somalis were killed -- allegedly by angry locals.

The authorities don't make it easy on refugees either. I have written a series of articles for a Cape Town-based newspaper on the way asylum seekers are treated, and it is not pretty.

The point is that migration is a complicated issue, which has more than one side to it. But it needs to be addressed, but not just by shoving migrants aside and treating them as semi-criminals or numbers. Unlike what many people in the West tend to think: most migrants are not trying to take advantage of welfare or social programs, they don�t want to abuse the system. They are people who desperately want a life of dignity, stability and some form of prosperity for which they are willing to work hard. They are people, like you and I.

Esther: Thank you for humanizing this difficult issue.

MIGRATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION

Mohammad Ahsan: If all people who have migrated are given the right to live as a citizen anywhere in the world, then countries would be more economically sustainable. Freedom is poverty reduction and having the right to move freely.

Michael: Thanks, Mohammad. Your point is deep and many people miss it. Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen has gone as far as to say that development is freedom, "the process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy." International migration is not, like international flows of goods and capital, a means to increasing freedom, i.e. a means to development that may or may not work. International migration is a form of freedom, and therefore a form of development.

Esther: Thank you for your perspective.

MIGRANTS AND LANGUAGE

Janet McCullow: What is your view on whether migrants should learn and use the language of their adopted (new) country? Shall governments provide verbal and written translation aid to migrants? Should documents be available to migrants in their language of origin? Should migrants be required to work in the dominant language of the country they migrate to?

Sandip: I think few migrants will NOT want to learn the language of their adopted country since it will make life easier. I think the problem is people who feel that they need to give up one language in order to obtain facility in another. Instead documents should be available to migrants in their language of origin to help the process of adjustment and acculturation happen faster. Keep in mind that for an older person coming to the U.S. for the first time, it's not that easy to pick up a brand new language.

MIGRATION WORLDWIDE

Jeffrey Allen: In recent years, what has been the impact of migration (both immigration and emigration) on Africa? Asia? Latin America? Europe?

Michael: Jeffrey, this is a big question and I will only address a small sliver of it. I study the impact of health worker emigration on Africa. Many people simply assume that this must be a bad thing, since Africa needs doctors and nurses, so we should do what we can to stop these movements. I think this view embodies an oversimplified view of the complex forces that determine how many health workers a country has, what those people do, and how their work eventually translates into better health for ordinary Africans.

The first thing we have to keep in mind when thinking about any skilled-worker movements out of poor countries is that skilled workers are human beings. Not only do they make decisions, and do so for a reason, but they also have rights, ambitions, and dreams. So my starting point in thinking about these issues is that we should be very, very hesitant to take policy steps to make sure people live where 'we' want them to, if those people are demonstrating a clear desire to live somewhere else. Who am I to stand in Heathrow airport and inform a beleaguered Zimbabwean nurse that she must go live under Robert Mugabe, simply because she was born there (and I wasn't)? The benefits of that act to ordinary Africans, if we can contemplate such an act, should be extremely clear.

The next thing to keep in mind is that the degree to which the mere presence of a very highly-trained health professional within the borders of an African country translates into better health for ordinary Africans is very, very complicated. In most African countries, physicians are highly concentrated in urban areas. Where there is any form of private sector, a large fraction of the physician workforce -- even many of those with public-sector jobs -- spends as large a fraction of its time as possible working in that much more profitable arena. In many African countries, large fractions of the best-educated nurses do not work in the health sector at all because conditions are so bad there. Common things like diarrhea and respiratory infections are still some of the top killers in Africa, and most physicians in most African countries simply do not spend a large fraction of their time out in remote, destitute villages or slums taking care of very poor children with diarrhea.

This is not to claim, by any stretch, that physicians and highly educated professional nurses (the ones who get recruited to work abroad) have no public health impact. Certainly they have some. But it is severely limited by several intervening factors, and conditions vary enormously from country to country (Kenya has thousands of unemployed Registered Nurses, Ghana does not). But focusing on the aggregate quantity of highly trained health workers, or counting up how many of them cross borders, ignores vast continents of possibility for how to improve health systems and health outcomes. What about the skill mix of the health workforce -- are the most elite highly-trained health professionals acquiring the skills that are relevant and necessary for the basic health needs of the large majority of the population? How much should a health system be devoted to primary health care, and how much to preventive, public health efforts that can often save far more people? How can incentives in the health workforce be structured to get people out into rural areas and slums at least a fraction of the time? How can we help parents get their sick children to the clinics, and see the clear need to do so? How should medical education be financed, and why should the state maintain a monopoly on it? Hermetically sealing borders does not even touch any of these issues, yet they are all crucial to developing a health system that helps Africans.

Focusing on who's crossing the border is like counting the leaves that are falling off a tree, and not noticing the chainsaw that's cutting the trunk. It distracts attention from the chainsaw, and to that degree it's harmful. I've only touched superficially on some of these issues here; if you're interested in this area I have a paper you might find thought-provoking.

Sandip: According to various sources less than 1 percent of the world's immigrants come to the U.S. Some 1,063,732 documented immigrants were admitted to the U.S. in 2002. Undocumented immigrants added another 300-400,000 per year. There are approximately 175 million migrants in the world. We have heard a fair amount about the impact of immigrants from North Africa in Europe but many other countries are also grappling with immigration-related problems caused by war, famine, economies -- for example Bangladeshis resettling in India have become political hot potatoes.

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NEW YORK - Joni Mitchell is following the lead of Paul McCartney in joining with the coffee giant Starbucks to release her comeback album.

Hear Music, a record label formed in partnership with Starbucks Corp. and the Concord Music Group, said Wednesday that Mitchell is its second signing. "Shine," her first album of new compositions since 1998, will be released on Sept. 25.

McCartney's album "Memory Almost Full" came out last month and was played relentlessly at Starbucks franchises, where listeners could purchase it with their coffee. The disc has sold 447,000 copies, 45 percent of them in Starbucks stores, the company said.

The new venture has attracted interest from veteran artists both because the music business is collapsing around them, and their fans are much more likely to be spending time in Starbucks these days than in music stores.

Mitchell worked with Hear Music two years ago as it released a disc of favorite Mitchell songs selected by various artists. She had essentially retired from making music and said this project was one of the things that rekindled her interest, said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment.

Mitchell wrote nine of the 10 songs on "Shine," the exception being an adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling poem "If."

She described it as "as serious a work as I've ever done" with some dark lyrics.

Earlier this year, Mitchell was co-director of "The Fiddle and the Drum," a ballet based on her music that debuted in Canada. She's also planning an exhibit of her paintings in New York this fall.

Hear Music expects to sign one more artist this year and eight in 2008, and is looking for a mixture of new and established artists, Lombard said.

One role model for a veteran artist adapting to rapidly changing times, Prince, recently gave away thousands of copies of his CD through a newspaper in England. Lombard said not to expect a Mitchell album offered for free to customers who buy a frozen latte.