new photo of  Curiosity Rover

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation

* Prototype NASA landing vehicle goes up in smoke

* Engineers still looking into cause of fiery accident

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug 9 (Reuters) - A small NASA lander being tested for missions to the moon and other destinations beyond Earth crashed and burned after veering off course during a trial run at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, officials with the U.S. space agency said.

There were no injuries after the prototype, known as Morpheus, burst into flames near the runway formerly used by NASA's space shuttles.

The insect-like vehicle, designed and built by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, had made several flights attached to a crane before Thursday's attempted free-flight.

Morpheus' engines, which burn liquid oxygen and methane, appeared to ignite as planned, lifting the 1,750-pound (794 kg) vehicle into the air. But a few seconds later, Morpheus rolled over on its side and plummeted to the ground.

NASA video showed the vehicle engulfed in flames and then rocked by a spectacular explosion, presumably due to the fuel tanks rupturing.

“"Failures such as these were anticipated prior to the test, and are part of the development process for any complex spaceflight hardware," NASA said in a statement.

An investigation is under way, the statement added.

Project Morpheus began in partnership with privately owned Armadillo Aerospace, which is developing re-usable, suborbital vehicles that take off and land vertically.

NASA, which has spent about $7 million on the project over the past 2-1/2 years, is interested in developing technologies that could be used to fly cargo to the moon and other future missions beyond Earth orbit.

Project Morpheus was an example of what the former project manager called "“Home Depot engineering" - low-budget projects that use existing resources and partner with non-traditional aerospace companies.

“"The Morpheus lander is kind of our poster child. It's one of our first attempts to do these kinds of projects," former project manager Matt Ondler said in an interview with Reuters last year.

“"Instead of building some elaborate test structure, you go to Home Depot and build something very quickly that gets you 80 percent of the answer and allows you to keep moving forward," he said.

Morpheus arrived at Florida's seaside space center in July for three months of increasingly rigorous test flights, including automated landings in a mock moonscape, complete with craters and boulders.

The lander was designed to deliver about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) of cargo to the moon, NASA said on its Project Morpheus website.

Technologies being developed include a propulsion system that uses liquid oxygen and methane -- green fuels that could be manufactured on other planetary bodies, NASA said.

The accident happened as NASA scientists were still hailing the Mars rover Curiosity's descent and landing on the Red Planet earlier this week as a "“miracle of engineering."

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n" readability="105">Aug 9 (Reuters) - Early in 2012 President Barack Obama responded to critics of his multi-billion-dollar green technology initiative by saying he was "not going to cede the wind or the solar or the battery industry to China."

Six months later, he faces that very real possibility for the U.S. car battery industry, a once-high flying sector buttressed by generous federal grants, but struggling with a green car market that has fallen far short of expectations.

A123 Systems Inc on Wednesday became the second U.S. government-backed battery maker this year to go overseas for a lifeline - and it turned to China. Auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group will take a controlling interest and invest $450 million in the Massachusetts-based battery maker, which faced running out of cash by the year-end.

Earlier this year, Ener1 Inc, another battery maker that received a government green technology grant, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy under the control of Russian investor Boris Zingarevich. New York-based Ener1 is also a joint-venture partner in China with a Wanxiang subsidiary.

In the past three years, U.S. battery makers, anticipating consumer demand for green cars that never materialized, have over built production capacity, often with government funding.

Electric vehicle and hybrid sales for the first seven months of the year totaled 270,000, representing only 3 percent of total U.S. car sales, according to the green-car website Hybridcars.com.

As part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 's E lectric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative, A123 was awarded a grant of $249.1 million. Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel was awarded $118.5 million to manufacture advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles.

A123 promised to create 38,000 U.S. jobs, including 5,900 at its own plants. A123 said on Thursday it has 1,300 workers.

Theodore O'Neill, a former equities analyst with Wunderlich Securities, said A123 "built a factory that's big enough to meet demand that's probably not going to materialize until 2020 ... They built it much larger than the market turned out to need."

FINDING 'PARTNER' FOR U.S. JOBS

That kind of underperformance provides new fodder for Obama's opponents in the Republican Party with just three months until election day.

Obama has spent months battling critics of the administration's green-tech initiative in the wake of the high-profile bankruptcy of solar-panel maker Solyndra.

"It's not going to be a smooth, easy ride ... Some companies will fail," he said in his State of the Union speech in January.

But tempering expectations has done little to quiet the critics in Washington, who ramped up their attacks on Thursday with the added accusation of putting technology in Chinese hands.

"Once again it appears the Department of Energy and the Obama administration have failed to secure sensitive taxpayer-funded intellectual property from being transferred to a foreign adversary, which raises serious national security issues," said Rep. Cliff Stearns. Stearns is a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

A123 spokesman Dan Borgasano said on Thursday that, with Wanxiang's bid to take control of the battery company, "our intention is to continue to build in the United States and reach certain job levels. We think we found a partner to help us do that ... I don't think we'll necessarily be making hard and fast job projections."

After it received the DOE grant, Ener 1 said in early 2010 that it planned to create 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis battery plant. Today, the plant employs around 250. The plant was designed to produce battery packs for up to 600,000 hybrid vehicles.

The companies' struggles with over capacity are typical of an industry whose fortunes are tied directly to those of electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers.

"There was a bit of a rush to put in capacity that really wasn't justified by the events as they turned out," said Tom Gage, president of EV Grid, an infrastructure company based in Palo Alto, California. "In retrospect (the industry) was over-optimistic in terms of projecting the rate of growth for demand for car batteries."

Charles Ebinger, head of the energy security initiative at the Brookings Institution, said controversies surrounding government-backed companies such as A123 will make lawmakers hesitant to support expanded funding of clean energy, especially with federal budget battles looming.

"I think it's going to slow down," Ebinger said. "It's going to be increasingly difficult to argue for subsidies for any sector."

View the original article here

Thu Aug 9, 2012 7:49pm EDT

n">Aug 9 (Reuters) - Early in 2012 President Barack Obama responded to critics of his multi-billion-dollar green technology initiative by saying he was "not going to cede the wind or the solar or the battery industry to China."

Six months later, he faces that very real possibility for the U.S. car battery industry, a once-high flying sector buttressed by generous federal grants, but struggling with a green car market that has fallen far short of expectations.

A123 Systems Inc on Wednesday became the second U.S. government-backed battery maker this year to go overseas for a lifeline - and it turned to China. Auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group will take a controlling interest and invest $450 million in the Massachusetts-based battery maker, which faced running out of cash by the year-end.

Earlier this year, Ener1 Inc, another battery maker that received a government green technology grant, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy under the control of Russian investor Boris Zingarevich. New York-based Ener1 is also a joint-venture partner in China with a Wanxiang subsidiary.

In the past three years, U.S. battery makers, anticipating consumer demand for green cars that never materialized, have over built production capacity, often with government funding.

Electric vehicle and hybrid sales for the first seven months of the year totaled 270,000, representing only 3 percent of total U.S. car sales, according to the green-car website Hybridcars.com.

As part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 's E lectric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative, A123 was awarded a grant of $249.1 million. Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel was awarded $118.5 million to manufacture advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles.

A123 promised to create 38,000 U.S. jobs, including 5,900 at its own plants. A123 said on Thursday it has 1,300 workers.

Theodore O'Neill, a former equities analyst with Wunderlich Securities, said A123 "built a factory that's big enough to meet demand that's probably not going to materialize until 2020 ... They built it much larger than the market turned out to need."

FINDING 'PARTNER' FOR U.S. JOBS

That kind of underperformance provides new fodder for Obama's opponents in the Republican Party with just three months until election day.

Obama has spent months battling critics of the administration's green-tech initiative in the wake of the high-profile bankruptcy of solar-panel maker Solyndra.

"It's not going to be a smooth, easy ride ... Some companies will fail," he said in his State of the Union speech in January.

But tempering expectations has done little to quiet the critics in Washington, who ramped up their attacks on Thursday with the added accusation of putting technology in Chinese hands.

"Once again it appears the Department of Energy and the Obama administration have failed to secure sensitive taxpayer-funded intellectual property from being transferred to a foreign adversary, which raises serious national security issues," said Rep. Cliff Stearns. Stearns is a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

A123 spokesman Dan Borgasano said on Thursday that, with Wanxiang's bid to take control of the battery company, "our intention is to continue to build in the United States and reach certain job levels. We think we found a partner to help us do that ... I don't think we'll necessarily be making hard and fast job projections."

After it received the DOE grant, Ener 1 said in early 2010 that it planned to create 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis battery plant. Today, the plant employs around 250. The plant was designed to produce battery packs for up to 600,000 hybrid vehicles.

The companies' struggles with over capacity are typical of an industry whose fortunes are tied directly to those of electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers.

"There was a bit of a rush to put in capacity that really wasn't justified by the events as they turned out," said Tom Gage, president of EV Grid, an infrastructure company based in Palo Alto, California. "In retrospect (the industry) was over-optimistic in terms of projecting the rate of growth for demand for car batteries."

Charles Ebinger, head of the energy security initiative at the Brookings Institution, said controversies surrounding government-backed companies such as A123 will make lawmakers hesitant to support expanded funding of clean energy, especially with federal budget battles looming.

"I think it's going to slow down," Ebinger said. "It's going to be increasingly difficult to argue for subsidies for any sector."

View the original article here

An exterior view of the Standard Chartered headquarters is seen in London August 7, 2012.

NEW YORK | Thu Aug 9, 2012 11:43pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York state case against Standard Chartered Plc is more about whether the British bank carried out an old-fashioned cover-up using allegedly false records and less about the role the bank played in the alleged money-laundering of funds tied to Iran, according to people familiar with the situation and court documents.

The New York Department of Financial Services on Monday ordered the bank to send representatives to a meeting next Wednesday to explain why its alleged breaches of records laws should not mean the loss of its state banking license. A source close to the case said on Thursday it was possible the meeting will be postponed to allow time for discussions about the case between regulators - both state and federal - and the bank.

By using the run-of-the-mill laws, the New York regulator has been able to put more immediate pressure on Standard Chartered and given backbone to its threat to revoke the London-based bank's New York license - a potentially devastating blow to a global bank.

There are fewer gray areas in a records case than there would be in a case involving more complicated, and harder to prove, federal laws that have restricted or prohibited dollar transactions with sanctioned countries such as Iran.

Experts say they eventually expect a settlement to be agreed between federal and state authorities and Standard Chartered that would allow it to keep its license as that would avoid a protracted and potentially damaging legal battle for both sides and remove a cloud hanging over the bank.

The state inquiry is not only expected to increase scrutiny of records the bank gave to state examiners but also the work of top consulting firm Deloitte LLP, which analyzed Standard Chartered's transactions for the bank.

The New York regulator and the federal agencies concerned all declined to comment, as did Standard Chartered.

"ROGUE" ACCUSATION

The bank had been in discussions with federal authorities - the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney - to settle the case until the New York regulator published its explosive order, which included the release of embarrassing communications and its description of Standard Chartered as a "rogue institution."

The head of the New York regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, alleged Standard Chartered hid from regulators some 60,000 "secret transactions, involving at least $250 billion" tied to Iran. A lot of attention has been focused on the gulf between that number and the $14 million of transactions that the bank says flouted U.S. regulations.

But a review of Lawsky's order shows that the state regulator is more intent on showing the bank violated the so-called "books and records" laws.

The order cites seven alleged violations of state law. Five of them effectively allege that Standard Chartered didn't maintain proper records, failed to alert examiners to false records, and provided false information. The first violation, for example, cites the bank for "failure to maintain accurate books and records."

Lawsky "is taking the path of least resistance," said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia University, noting that a books and records allegation is an easier charge to bring and the tactics "may well produce a settlement."

LAPSES

Standard Chartered's problems date back to 2004, when New York regulators and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued an enforcement action against the bank because of anti-money laundering lapses.

Deloitte was hired to review transactions and report the findings to regulators. Standard Chartered (SCB) subsequently asked Deloitte to "delete references to certain kinds of payments that might reveal ties to Iranian dealings," the New York regulator alleged this week.

A Deloitte partner "agreed" to the request, saying in an email to a bank compliance official, "This is too much and too politically sensitive for both SCB and Deloitte. That is why I drafted the watered-down version." According to a person familiar with the report, the Deloitte partner was Michael Zeldin, a top anti-money laundering compliance consultant.

In a statement on Thursday, Deloitte said "contrary to the allegation in the Order," it "absolutely did not delete any reference to certain types of payments" from a final report. Deloitte said the report didn't include a recommendation that had been included in a prior draft.

Deloitte "did so in favor of in-person discussions" with regulators regarding the issue and it included the facts relating to this issue in the final written report.

It declined to say what the recommendation was.

Deloitte said that Zeldin was unavailable for comment.

In 2006, New York regulators asked Standard Chartered for data on Iranian transactions, including the number and dollar amount. An initial review conducted internally by the bank uncovered 2,626 transactions totaling $16 billion in 2005-06, according to the New York regulator's order this week.

As the internal report wound its way up Standard Chartered's executive ranks — from a CEO for the Americas to a group executive director in London - concern grew that the bank would become a major focus for a review of Iranian transactions by regulators.

The bank opted to turn over only four days of data, the New York bank regulator said in his order this week.

"This evidence shows that members of SCB's top management was involved in yet another staggering cover-up," the New York regulator alleged. The Deloitte report and "fraudulent data" helped the bank convince regulators to lift the enforcement action, Lawsky's order said.

(Reporting By Carrick Mollenkamp; Additional reporting by Jed Horowitz; Editing by Martin Howell and Ian Geoghegan)

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People enter the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. global headquarters, also known by its address as 200 West Street, in New York's lower Manhattan, April 19, 2010.

WASHINGTON | Thu Aug 9, 2012 9:45pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said it will not pursue criminal charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc or its employees related to accusations that the firm bet against the same subprime mortgage securities it was selling to clients.

The decision not to prosecute Goldman, a firm held up by critics as a symbol of Wall Street greed during the 2007-2009 financial crisis, highlights the difficulty in prosecuting crisis-related cases.

Few expected the bank to face criminal charges, but in April 2011, U.S. Senator Carl Levin asked for a criminal investigation after the subcommittee he leads spent more than a year looking into Goldman.

The accusations were aired in a heated 2010 Congressional hearing in which Levin grilled Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein for hours about whether it was morally correct for the firm to sell its clients products described internally as "crap".

"The department and investigative agencies ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time," the Justice Department said in a statement late on Thursday.

The DOJ does not typically make public statements when it concludes an investigation.

Neil Barofsky, a former watchdog for the U.S. government's financial system bailout in 2008, said the announcement was a stark reminder that no individual or institution had been held meaningfully accountable for their role in the financial crisis.

"Without such accountability, the unending parade of megabanks scandals will inevitably continue," said Barofsky, who has been an outspoken critic of the government's response to the financial crisis.

In a brief statement emailed to Reuters, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said: "We are pleased that this matter is behind us."

A Levin aide had no immediate comment.

In a related civil case, Goldman settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $550 million in July 2010, without admitting wrongdoing.

The SEC, in one of its premier financial crisis cases, said Goldman failed to tell investors the Paulson & Co hedge fund helped choose and bet against the subprime mortgage-backed securities underlying an investment product named Abacus.

The SEC is still pursuing a civil complaint against Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman vice president involved in the Abacus deal.

Separately on Thursday, Goldman said the SEC had dropped an investigation into the firm's role in selling a different $1.3 billion subprime mortgage-related deal arranged in 2006.

TARNISHED REPUTATION

The Abacus deal was a major focus of the televised hearings held by Levin's subcommittee in 2010. The hearings and a following report from Levin's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations weighed on Goldman's shares as the firm suffered a reputational hit from the unwelcome spotlight.

Goldman -- dubbed a "great vampire squid" in a 2009 article in Rolling Stone magazine -- has continued to be dogged by criticism, including from its own ranks.

A Goldman Sachs banker in March published a withering resignation letter in the New York Times, calling the Wall Street titan a "toxic" place.

In its release on Thursday, the Justice Department said there was "not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution" against Goldman. If new or additional evidence emerged, it could make a different determination, it said.

Prosecuting financial fraud would continue to be a top priority and it highlighted other investigations, including its probe into banks' alleged manipulation of Libor, a widely used benchmark for interest rates.

The SEC has brought a handful of high-profile cases related to the financial crisis, including against former Countrywide Financial Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo and its case against Goldman. But the Justice Department has struggled to bring criminal charges.

The frustration, in part, has been because such charges involve securing evidence that shows beyond a reasonable doubt a defendant intended to break the law.

For example, a federal jury in 2009 acquitted two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers accused of continuing to push souring investments as sound.

Jurors said prosecutors did not prove the case, which relied on e-mail evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt. Since then, the Justice Department has brought few major prosecutions tied to the subprime crisis.

In January, President Barack Obama announced a new task force to investigate misconduct that fueled the financial crisis, and the Justice Department has said it has issued more than a dozen civil subpoenas and has multiple inquiries underway.

So far, no cases have come out of that effort, and some critics have dismissed the task force as an election-year stunt.

(Reporting by David Ingram and Aruna Viswanatha, Writing by Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Gary Hill and Richard Pullin)

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Diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi speaks with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (not pictured) during a joint news conference in Khartoum May 27, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Thu Aug 9, 2012 7:23pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to replace Kofi Annan as the U.N.-Arab League joint special envoy for Syria barring a last-minute change, diplomats said on Thursday.

The former Algerian foreign minister, who has a long history as a diplomatic troubleshooter, will have his work cut out for him in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is using his security forces to try to crush a 17-month-old pro-democracy rebellion.

Annan, a former U.N. secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said last week he would step down as the special envoy because he was unable to do his job with the U.N. Security Council hopelessly deadlocked over Syria.

Brahimi's appointment could be announced as early as next week but the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there are sometimes last-minute changes if a key government has concerns about the choice or the candidate has misgivings.

Brahimi, 78, has served as a U.N. special envoy in a series of challenging circumstances, including in Iraq after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, in Afghanistan both before and after the end of Taliban rule and in South Africa as it emerged from the apartheid era.

Syria, however, may present an unusually vexing assignment, in part because international action to try to end the violence has been stymied by the disagreements between the five veto-holding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

While the council united in April to approve the deployment of 300 monitors to Syria to observe a failed ceasefire as part of Annan's peace plan, Russia and China vetoed three other resolutions that criticized Syria and threatened sanctions against Damascus.

In announcing his resignation, Annan explicitly blamed "finger-pointing and name-calling" at the Security Council for his decision to quit, but suggested his successor may have better luck.

Assad's forces have killed more than 15,000 people since March of 2011 in a sustained effort to end the anti-government rebellion, some Western leaders say. Damascus says the rebels have killed several thousand members of its security forces.

Assad has suffered a series of blows in recent weeks, including the defection of his prime minister, Riyad Hijab, on Monday and the assassination of four of his top security officials last month.

He named a new prime minister, Wael al-Halki, on Thursday as government forces pushed rebels back from a strategic district in Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub and largest city.

In accepting Annan's resignation, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked him for having taken on "this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments."

A spokesman for Ban, who is expected to formally name Annan's successor, was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations. Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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1 of 4. Medical assistant Maria Cortez (R) checks the blood pressure of a patient at the La Clinica Del Pueblo community health clinic in Washington August 2, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Thu Aug 9, 2012 9:29am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As she was ushered into surgery eight years ago, Paula was confident that doctors at Washington's Howard University Hospital would find the cancer that had been growing in her right breast for months. She was less certain about where she would wake up the next day.

"I felt scared because of the stories in other states ... It was always in the back of my mind that a doctor, or an immigration officer dressed as a doctor, could take me," said Paula, 60, of the fear that she would be exposed as an undocumented immigrant and deported.

Still cancer-free, Paula, who asked to have her last name withheld, waits in the tiny chapel of La Clinica Del Pueblo, a community health clinic in Washington, DC, where she receives routine care.

She and other illegal immigrants worry that their ability to access healthcare at facilities like La Clinica will become even more risky once President Barack Obama's healthcare law takes effect. The reform requires all U.S. citizens and permanent residents to obtain health insurance, either through the government-run Medicaid program for the poor or by purchasing private insurance via state exchanges starting in 2014.

It also bars undocumented immigrants from participating. As more low-income citizens receive insurance, the fear is that many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants will be easier to identify just because they lack coverage.

"It's my 3 a.m. nightmare," said Alicia Wilson, La Clinica's executive director. "While we do not collect information about the immigration status of our patients, the fact that they will be uninsured could be taken as ‘code' for also being undocumented."

Paula is one of thousands of undocumented immigrants who benefit from the DC Health Care Alliance, one of the most generous taxpayer-funded health plans in the country for patients regardless of income or immigration status. Looking out at La Clinica's crowded waiting room, she firmly clasps the card that gives her membership in the program.

"This is the card that opens a lot of doors ... This clinic has protected us and it is helping us to get the help we need regardless of the risks," said Paula, who entered the United States from Mexico on foot nearly 10 years ago.

In recent years, funding for both the clinic and the healthcare alliance has come under fire from conservative groups who oppose using tax dollars to pay for the care of illegal immigrants, as local governments already struggle with budget cuts in a weak economy.

Wilson and other advocates see that opposition gaining momentum once the healthcare law takes effect, particularly in states where anti-immigration sentiment runs high.

THE PARADOX OF MIXED STATUS

The 4 million U.S.-born children of such immigrants are also vulnerable when policies on immigration and healthcare collide.

According to the Urban Institute, nearly 1 in 10 U.S. families with children are of "mixed status," with at least one parent who is undocumented and one child who is a citizen.

These children are likely to be eligible for insurance, including the government-sponsored Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But many remain out of the system because of their parents' dread that the undocumented spouse will be identified and deported, since U.S. immigration authorities, part of the Department of Homeland Security, must verify a child's residency status.

"You've got a community that's caught in the nexus, the crossroads of two different laws," said Jennifer Ng'andu, a lawyer and deputy health policy director at the National Council of La Raza - a national Latino civil rights and advocacy group.

According to Ng'andu, 8 percent of children from families where both parents are U.S. citizens don't have insurance, compared with 25 percent in households where children live with at least one undocumented parent.

Robert Rector, a senior researcher at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that making it easier for such families will set an unwelcome precedent that the country cannot afford, even if their children were born within its borders.

"These kids are very expensive. They are getting on average $10,000 a year in public education and welfare and other services that their parents are really going to never earn enough to pay for," Rector said. "If you say this child was born in the U.S. and therefore gets to stay and we're not going to do anything about it, you're kind of creating an unlimited open avenue for future illegal immigration."

FEAR OF EXPOSURE

Elisabeth, 26, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico City, is a single mother with three children, two of them U.S. citizens. Her worry that government authorities might split up her family is present each time she takes them to the doctor.

"I have a fear of hospitals, questions about my status and am always worried that the police will intervene, that my children will be taken away from me," she said. "I live in the fear with every document I fill out, that it all goes to immigration."

Elisabeth, who also asked for her full name to be withheld, said her own health has been compromised as a result. For two years she suffered in silence as a victim of domestic violence, enduring repeated beatings by her then partner and having her ribs broken while pregnant with her youngest child. The couple has since separated.

The healthcare she has received - such as giving birth to her children in the hospital - has been organized by Mary's Center, another community clinic in the Washington area, and through the DC Health Care Alliance.

While immigrants do have legal protections that allow them to receive care from hospitals and other providers without endangering their status, even the slightest chance of exposure can be terrifying. In the first half of 2011, 46,486 who claimed to have at least one U.S. citizen child were deported, U.S. Immigration and Customs reported.

SPREADING THE RISK

Ezekiel Emmanuel, a senior Obama healthcare advisor, acknowledges the concern that the law may expose immigrants.

"We were all aware of it," he says. "Is that a negative tradeoff for getting universal coverage? Yes ... It's a visible consequence that we couldn't do anything about given the politics of the situation."

As the political debate over healthcare becomes increasingly focused on cutting costs, experts expect more scrutiny on the fate of undocumented immigrants.

"We're in a time of fiscal austerity where you have 8 percent unemployment among predominantly legal citizens and yet you continue to have a system that openly invites illegal immigrants to come and stay," says the Heritage Foundation's Rector. "The first solution to the healthcare costs is to enforce the law (barring employment to illegal immigrants)."

Some health policy experts disagree, saying U.S. citizens would benefit even more if the health law included undocumented immigrants within its requirements.

Even when immigrants have insurance, their health costs amount to only half or two-thirds of the expenditures seen with U.S.-born citizens, according to a 2009 study by Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University.

"Many people think immigrants are overusing and overtaking emergency rooms, yet all the data shows they use emergency rooms less than citizens. They use everything less than citizens," he said.

Broadening the pool of insured people to include those who use less health care means a larger population can help shoulder the costs of sicker Americans. State health insurance exchanges, which will allow individuals to buy subsidized health plans starting in 2014, exclude illegal immigrants, leaving out millions of young, healthy people who could otherwise spread the risk.

Health insurers are seeking a way around the problem, according to a senior official at one of the largest U.S. insurance companies.

"Here you've got a law which says everybody has to have coverage, but you have classes of people without access to coverage," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "Washington makes it very difficult for us to do the right thing.

"Obviously, we're capitalistic and we want to make money, but at the same time we want the health system to work better, and the health system works better when people have access to coverage."

An estimated 600,000 undocumented workers have private insurance plans through employer-sponsored programs. But they may lose out if their employers can't manage those same plans within the state health insurance exchanges, or if premiums rise. The Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles, which provides affordable health coverage to 75,000 undocumented restaurant workers, is trying to figure that out.

"It's not merely that they are not eligible for the subsidies, but that they cannot even get a policy from the health insurance exchanges even if they wanted to pay the full cost themselves," Ku said. "If you're an undocumented alien, we still let you go to the store and buy cereal or go to a car dealer and buy a car."

(Editing by Michele Gershberg and Prudence Crowther)

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Employees of Standard Chartered leave a branch of the bank in central Seoul August 9, 2012.

LONDON | Thu Aug 9, 2012 2:36pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Standard Chartered is failing to convince some shareholders of its defense against allegations it broke U.S. sanctions on Iran, leaving them worried about possible lawsuits, fines and the loss of top executives.

StanChart, which has cherished its image as one of the cleanest names in global finance, lost more than a quarter of its market value in 24 hours after New York's banking regulator accused it on Monday of assisting $250 billion of money-laundering transactions over nearly 10 years.

Despite StanChart's protests that just $14 million of deals flouted the U.S. rules, its shares are still around 15 percent below levels before the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) branded it a "rogue institution".

"Even if it is only $14 million, they have still committed a crime, and they are still guilty," one of the 10 biggest institutional investors in the bank told Reuters, explaining why the shares remained depressed.

"And if this is hot air and they are just bluffing, then they are playing a very dangerous game," the investor said, putting the risk of either chief executive Peter Sands or Chief Financial Officer Richard Meddings quitting the bank at "5-8 percent and rising".

The bank could face a huge fine and even its state banking license is under threat, a punishment that would paralyze its U.S. operations and relegate the London-listed institution to the second tier of global banks.

The accusations could end up harming StanChart's 'AA-' credit rating, Fitch Ratings said.

Speculation that StanChart could sue the New York regulator for injury to its reputation and stock price were adding to worries about the potential loss of U.S. business, one of the 25 biggest investors in the bank said.

"I think the phrase 'Don't fight the Fed' applies in more ways than just one. Who knows what else the regulator could unearth if they really wanted a fight?" he said.

"(StanChart) tend to have a chippy approach which doesn't always win friends, and they need to be careful ... I would rather see them settle and leave this whole sorry saga behind them."

London lawyers echoed the warning.

"It's very difficult to say whether Standard Chartered believe they have a case without knowing all the details ... but I think history tells us that it is extremely tough to take on the U.S. regulators and win," Tom Hibbert, head of the banking litigation group at City of London law firm RPC.

OVERVALUED?

Standard Chartered's stock was already ripe for a sell-off even before its high-profile tussle with U.S. regulators came to light, analysts at Canaccord Genuity said.

Low exposure to the euro zone's troubles, healthy capital reserves and a halo burnished by steering clear of the interest rate manipulation scandal tainting other banks have given it a trading premium so wide that returns could only be reached through "near flawless execution of ambitious consensus estimates".

"To our mind the stock is priced for everything to go right, and nothing to go wrong," the analysts said, maintaining their advice to sell the stock.

The bank's woes offer a timely reminder of the risks investors face by supporting lenders with deep roots in emerging markets, said Jeff Yeh, Chief Investment Officer at Capital Investment Trust in Taipei, with about $5 billion in assets.

"I think the events of the past few days really drove home that point, and I think a growing number of funds may not be as comfortable with these large banks as they used to be."

While quick to deny the money laundering allegations in the press, some say StanChart's lack of direct communication with shareholders is limiting its share price recovery.

"They haven't been in touch with us, which surprises me, because when they had rights issue one, two and three, they were in touch well in advance, but this time, not a tweet," the top 10 investor said.

"We have been proactive in reaching out to all our investors, both shareholders and debtholders, and the process is ongoing," a spokesman for Standard Chartered said.

It will not want to lose the goodwill of those such as Hugh Young, managing director of top-five StanChart shareholder Aberdeen Asset Management Asia, who is giving it the benefit of the doubt for now.

"It's something to worry about, although I noticed a lot of emotive and sensational language which slightly diminishes the allegation ... The StanChart we recognize is not the rogue bank portrayed in the allegation," he said.

(Reporting by Sinead Cruise, additional reporting by Sarah White, Sudip Kargupta, Kelvin Soh and Denny Thomas; Editing by Will Waterman and Matthew Tostevin)

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The Virgin Galactic SpaceShip2 (VSS Enterprise) glides toward Earth on its first test flight after being released from its WhiteKnight2 (VMS Eve) mothership over Mojave, California October 10, 2010.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Aug 1, 2012 8:20pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Commercial suborbital spaceflights should bring in between $600 million and $1.6 billion in revenue in their first decade of operations, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. and Florida governments and released on Wednesday.

Tourism drives about 80 percent of the demand for suborbital flights, which reach about 63 miles above the planet's surface before plunging back through the atmosphere.

The thrill ride gives fliers a few minutes to float in microgravity and a view of the Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, is one of six firms developing reusable suborbital spaceships, an analysis by The Tauri Group of Alexandria, Virginia, found.

Prices currently range from $200,000 for a ride on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle currently undergoing testing, to $95,000 for a flight on privately held XCOR Aerospace's planned two-seater Lynx vehicle.

Virgin Galactic, which is aiming to begin commercial service around 2014, already has $70 million in deposits from 536 people, Chief Executive George Whitesides said at a related congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The Tauri Group believes there are about another 7,500 wealthy people waiting in the wings.

"?Our analysis indicates that about 8,000 high-net-worth individuals from across the globe are sufficiently interested and have spending patterns likely to result in the purchase of a suborbital flight - one-third from the United States," the report said.

"?We estimate that about 40 percent of the interested, high-net-worth population, or 3,600 individuals, will fly within the 10-year forecast," it added.

The study, which included surveys of 200 people with a net worth of least $5 million, valued the fledgling industry at $600 million in its first decade, based on current market conditions and interest.

The market could be worth nearly three times that if marketing and consumer interest grows in the wake of successful flights, the study said.

"?Further potential could be realized through price reductions and unpredictable achievements such as major research discoveries, the identification of new commercial applications, the emergence of global brand value, and new government (especially military) uses for suborbital reusable vehicles," the study said.

After tourists, the next biggest group of potential users are in the research community. Other potential markets include technology flight demonstrations, media and public relations, education, satellite launching, remote sensing and suborbital travel from one destination to another, a technology that is likely beyond the study's 10-year time frame.

The $277,000 study, titled ?"Suborbital Reusable Vehicles: A Ten-Year Forecast of Market Demand," was paid for by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial spaceflight, and the state of Florida, which is home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman)

View the original article here

* Tourism is driving demand for suborbital thrill flights

* First commercial suborbital flights could start by 2014

* Advance fares range from $95,000 to $200,000 per seat

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug 1 (Reuters) - Commercial suborbital spaceflights should bring in between $600 million and $1.6 billion in revenue in their first decade of operations, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. and Florida governments and released on Wednesday.

Tourism drives about 80 percent of the demand for suborbital flights, which reach about 63 miles (100 km) above the planet's surface before plunging back through the atmosphere.

The thrill ride gives fliers a few minutes to float in microgravity and a view of the Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, is one of six firms developing reusable suborbital spaceships, an analysis by The Tauri Group of Alexandria, Virginia, found.

Prices currently range from $200,000 for a ride on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle currently undergoing testing, to $95,000 for a flight on privately held XCOR Aerospace's planned two-seater Lynx vehicle.

Virgin Galactic, which is aiming to begin commercial service around 2014, already has $70 million in deposits from 536 people, Chief Executive George Whitesides said at a related congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The Tauri Group believes there are about another 7,500 wealthy people waiting in the wings.

"“Our analysis indicates that about 8,000 high-net-worth individuals from across the globe are sufficiently interested and have spending patterns likely to result in the purchase of a suborbital flight - one-third from the United States," the report said.

"“We estimate that about 40 percent of the interested, high-net-worth population, or 3,600 individuals, will fly within the 10-year forecast," it added.

The study, which included surveys of 200 people with a net worth of least $5 million, valued the fledgling industry at $600 million in its first decade, based on current market conditions and interest.

The market could be worth nearly three times that if marketing and consumer interest grows in the wake of successful flights, the study said.

"“Further potential could be realized through price reductions and unpredictable achievements such as major research discoveries, the identification of new commercial applications, the emergence of global brand value, and new government (especially military) uses for suborbital reusable vehicles," the study said.

After tourists, the next biggest group of potential users are in the research community. Other potential markets include technology flight demonstrations, media and public relations, education, satellite launching, remote sensing and suborbital travel from one destination to another, a technology that is likely beyond the study's 10-year time frame.

The $277,000 study, titled “"Suborbital Reusable Vehicles: A Ten-Year Forecast of Market Demand," was paid for by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial spaceflight, and the state of Florida, which is home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. (Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman)

View the original article here