U.S. has a long list of actions
in many foreign countries


If the United States launches missile attacks on Syria in retaliation for its suspected use of the nerve agent sarin against anti-government rebels, it will be just the latest in a long series of U.S. foreign military operations. What would be unusual is that
President Barack Obama is seeking congressional approval ahead of the attack.
 
Previous presidents have gone to Congress for declarations of war after the country was directly attacked, such as by Japan at the start of World War II.  But more often, American presidents have acted on their own, using their authority as the country's constitutionally designated commander in chief. In that capacity, they have acted without congressional approval to send troops abroad, engage in bombing attacks, or dispatch U.S. military personnel to work with international allies.
 
By some counts, the U.S. has been involved in more than 50 significant military actions in the last half century,-an average of more than one a year, ranging from significant fighting in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to lesser incursions in such far-flung countries as Kuwait, Bosnia, Pakistan, Libya, Grenada, Haiti and Panamá.
 
That total does not count more limited U.S. actions, such as drone strikes it now is carrying out against suspected Taliban insurgents in the Middle East.
 
In its 237-year history, the U.S. has often deployed its troops. History has recorded the U.S. as the victor in two world wars, but its overseas military ventures have not always been as successful.
 
U.S. forces fighting under the U.N. flag in Korea in the early 1950s left with the peninsula split into a Communist North and a democratic Korea, a tense outcome that endures to this day. In Vietnam, the U.S. withdrew its last troops in 1975 after more than a decade of military involvement, allowing a Communist government to seize control.
 
History has yet to cast a verdict on this century's U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
U.S. troops ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011, but allied forces never found the weapons of mass destruction they believed he was harboring. U.S. and allied forces are still fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, but Obama plans to withdraw American military personnel by the end of 2014 even as the country remains in turmoil.
 
Various studies show that U.S. military and security spending dwarfs that of other countries, but has fluctuated in recent decades depending on the priorities of individual presidents and the extent of U.S. fighting overseas.
 
Defense spending rose during the Vietnam War, during the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and in the last decade as the U.S. initiated its global war on terror in the aftermath of the 2001 al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people. At other times, U.S. defense spending has been curtailed.
 
Here are some of the significant U.S. military operations since the 1960s:
 
1961 to 1975 -- The Vietnam War, a conflict that resulted in more than 58,000 U.S. battle deaths and let Communists in control of the country.
 
1961 - A U.S. Central Intelligence Agency-led invasion of Cuba failed to overthrow Fidel Castro. He ruled the country for decades, with his brother Raúl Castro taking over in 2008.
 
1962 - In the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. deployed a military blockade in the waters around Cuba to keep the Soviet Union from installing missiles on the island nation, prompting fears of nuclear warfare.
 
1973 - A CIA-backed coup ousted the democratically elected Marxist president in Chile, Salvador Allende.
 
1980 - A U.S. commando raid inside Iran failed to rescue 52 American hostages being held by Tehran, although they were subsequently freed as Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in early 1981.
 
1981 to 1990 - The CIA directed exile invasions in Nicaragua in an unsuccessful effort to undermine the Sandinista government.
 
1990 to 1991 - The U.S. confronted Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in a fight over oil riches.  American troops forced Iraq to withdraw after a short ground war.
 
1992 to 1995 - U.S. troops joined NATO forces in fighting in the Balkans, a lengthy battle that resulted from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and widespread ethnic confrontations.
 
2001 - U.S. launched war in Afghanistan to fight Islamic insurgents in response to the al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11 that year.
 
2003 - U.S. invaded Iraq on the premise that it had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the U.S.

 

One in four deaths are said
to be preventable with care


About one in four U.S. deaths from heart disease could be avoided with better prevention efforts and treatment, a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
 
The first-of-its-kind report estimated that preventable deaths from heart disease in 2010 amounted to as many as 200,000 individuals who might have been spared an early death from a heart attack or stroke.
 
Centers officials said that the launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law in 2014, which is expected to provide better access to treatment for millions of uninsured Americans and routine coverage of preventive screenings, could help bring those numbers down.
 
“Beginning in October, the health insurance marketplaces will provide a new way for people to get health insurance so more patients have access to quality health insurance and coverage beginning as early as January 2014,” Centers Director Tom Frieden said in a conference call with reporters.
 
Overall, the rate of preventable deaths from heart disease and stroke, those that could have been avoided by treating high blood pressure and cholesterol and by discouraging smoking, fell nearly 30 percent between 2001 and 2010.
 
But there were widespread differences in rates by age, location, race and gender.
 
“While those who are age 65 to 74 still have the greatest rate of heart attack and stroke, more than half of the preventable deaths, about 6 in 10, happen in people under the age of 65,” Frieden said.
 
Frieden said preventable deaths declined much faster in people aged 65 to 74, which “may well be because they have access to health insurance through their Medicare coverage,” the U.S. health insurance program for the elderly.
 
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for nearly 800,000 deaths a year, or about 30 percent of all U.S. deaths.
 
The report looked at preventable deaths from heart disease and stroke defined as those that occurred in people under age 75 that could have been prevented by more effective public health measures, lifestyle changes or medical care.
 
It found that the state in which a person lives plays a major role in the rate of avoidable deaths from heart disease. This rate ranged from 36.3 deaths per 100,000 population in Minnesota to 99.6 deaths per 100,000 in the District of Columbia.
 
By U.S. county, the highest rates of avoidable deaths in 2010 were mostly in southern Appalachian region and much of Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
 
The lowest rates of such deaths were in the West, Midwest, and Northeastern regions of the United States.
 
Men were more than twice as likely as women to die from heart disease and strokes that could have been prevented by treating high blood pressure and cholesterol and through smoking prevention efforts. The rate of such deaths for U.S. men in 2010 was 83.7 per 100,000 in 2010 compared with 39.6 per 100,000 for  women.
 
The report found blacks were twice as likely as whites to die from preventable heart disease and strokes. In 2010, the rate of avoidable deaths from heart disease and stroke in black men was about 80 percent higher than that of white males and black females.


Nokia turns over its phones
to U.S. giant Microsoft


Two years after hitching its fate to Microsoft's Windows Phone software, Nokia collapsed into the arms of the U.S. software giant Tuesday, agreeing to sell its main handset business for 5.44 billion euros ($7.2 billion).

Nokia, once the world's dominant handset maker, has failed to close a yawning lead opened up by Apple and Samsung in the highly competitive market for smartphones and will now concentrate on its networking equipment unit, navigation business and technology patents.

Nokia's Canadian boss, Stephen Elop, who ran Microsoft's business software division before jumping to Nokia in 2010, will return to the U.S. firm as head of its mobile devices business, a Trojan horse, according to disgruntled Finnish media.

He is being discussed as a possible replacement for Microsoft's retiring CEO Steve Ballmer, who is trying to remake the U.S. firm into a gadget and services company like Apple before he departs, though it has fallen short so far in its attempts to compete in mobile devices.

“It's very clear to me that rationally this is the right step going forward,” Elop told reporters, though he added he also felt “a great deal of sadness” over the outcome.

“I feel sadness because inevitably we are changing Nokia and what it stands for,” he said.

In three years under Elop, Nokia saw its market share collapse and its share price shrivel.

In 2011, after writing a memo that said Nokia lacked the in-house technology and needed to jump off a burning platform, Elop made the controversial decision to use Microsoft's Windows Phone for smartphones, rather than Nokia's own software or Google's ubiquitous Android operating system.

Nokia, which had 40 percent of the handset market in 2007, now has just 15 percent, and only 3 percent in smartphones.

Shares in Nokia surged 39 percent to 4.10 euros on Tuesday. While up from their decade-low of 1.33 euros hit last year, they are still only a fraction of their 2000 peak of 65 euros.

After today's gains the whole company is worth about 15 billion euros, a far cry from its glory days when it peaked at over 200 billion euros.

Tuesday's deal includes an agreement to license Nokia's patent portfolio for 10 years. Without it, Nokia's devices and services business would have been worth about 3.7 billion euros, the companies said.

Microsoft shares in Frankfurt were down about 5 percent.


Eastman Kodak emerges
from bankruptcy leaner


Eastman Kodak Co, the photography pioneer which invented the digital camera, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, with plans to continue as a smaller digital imaging company.
 
The new Kodak will focus on commercial products such as high-speed digital printing technology and printing on flexible packaging for consumer goods.
 
“You can't imagine how much I have been waiting for this moment . . .  This is a totally new company,” Chief Executive Antonio Perez told reporters.
 
Kodak, founded in 1880 by George Eastman, was for years synonymous with household cameras and family snapshots. It filed a $6.75 billion bankruptcy in January 2012, weighed down by high pension costs and a years-long delay in embracing digital camera technology.
 
The new company expects to have $2.5 billion in revenue this year, Perez said.
 
Kodak once employed more than 60,000 people and was one of the largest employers in Rochester, New York, where it is based. Perez told reporters his most difficult task at the helm of the bankrupt company was dealing with hefty pension costs.
 
“I would not recommend anyone to file for Chapter 11, but if you have to deal with legacy costs, in my opinion, that's the only way you can do it,” Perez said.
 
The company in April resolved a crucial dispute with its British pension fund, which dropped a $2.8 billion claim against Kodak. The fund also bought the company's personalized imaging and document imaging businesses, to be named Kodak Alaris, for $650 million.
 
The company said it has repaid its debtor-in-possession lenders and will receive about $406 million in new financing.
 
Perez, in charge since 2005, had been trying to steer the company towards consumer and commercial printers but was unable to stem the cash drain. The company has not posted an annual profit since 2007.
 
Chief executives are commonly ousted through the bankruptcy process, but Perez remains top boss at Kodak, a result he attributed to his ability to do “what I needed to do” during the restructuring.
 
“When I came here, the previous board ... gave me three tasks - restructure the film business, create a completely new company that would have a future, and ... eliminate or settle the very large legacy costs that we had from the old company,” Perez said.
 
Kodak had hoped to fetch more than $2 billion through its bankruptcy process for about 1,100 patents related to digital imaging, but drew only $525 million for the portfolio, which experts said was a crucial reason it had to sell core businesses and reinvent itself.
 
“We're not the largest competitor in the market, but we're offering the biggest differentiation in the market,” Perez said.


Man who abducted women
found dead in his prison cell


Prison officials in the midwestern U.S. state of Ohio say the man who held three women captive for over a decade in his home has been found dead.

Ariel Castro was found hanging in his prison cell late Tuesday night. Officials say the 53-year-old Castro was taken to nearby hospital for emergency treatment, where he was pronounced dead.

The former school bus driver was arrested in May after one of his female captives escaped from his Cleveland home and ran to neighbors for help. Authorities say he kidnapped the women separately between 2002 and 2004, and raped them repeatedly during their captivity. One of the women, Amanda Berry, gave birth to Castro's daughter.

Castro pleaded guilty last month to over 900 criminal charges, including kidnapping and rape. The charges also included murder of an unborn child one of the women was carrying. He had severely beat the woman.

Castro was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 1,000 years, in exchange for prosecutors dropping the threat of a death sentence.