The U.S. Congress appears headed for a final battle over health-care reform legislation in the next several days, and the political stakes for President Barack Obama, his Democratic allies and opposition Republicans are enormous.

Health-care reform has been President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, and the president is making an energetic final push for support, including a recent visit to Ohio.

"I do not know about the politics, but I know what is the right thing to do," Obama said.  "And so I am calling on Congress to pass these reforms and I am going to sign them into law.  I want some courage!  I want us to do the right thing, Ohio, and with your help we are going to make it happen!"

Public support for the Democratic health-care plan has eroded during the past several months, and Mr. Obama must now rely on Democrats alone to get the legislation through Congress.

U.S. federal officials say corruption among some law enforcement officers is jeopardizing anti-drug and security patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border. Officials say drug dealers have infiltrated their agencies, often through huge payoffs.

Mexico is winning American praise for its war against illegal drug trafficking. A recent U.S. State Department report cites Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels, and several high-profile arrests.

But U.S. officials say many of those cartels have infiltrated American law enforcement agencies assigned to combat the drug trade.

In Washington March 11, U.S. Senate lawmakers on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee
heard testimony about the problem from top law enforcement officials. 

President Barack Obama traveled to St. Louis, Missouri on Wednesday, continuing his outreach to Americans to support approval by the U.S. Congress of legislation to reform the U.S. health care system. The president is intensifying his efforts to ensure support from Democratic lawmakers for legislation he hopes at least one chamber of Congress will approve before he departs on an overseas trip next week:

The president has used appearances in St. Louis, and earlier this week in Philadelphia, to appeal for public support in advance of a hoped for vote in the House of Representatives, a crucial step in the final stage of his push for a health care bill.

The strategy includes an effort to draw attention to recent rate increases imposed on Americans by major health insurance companies, and the impact this has had on people the president has heard from directly in letters he reads each day.

The US Department of Education has announced an investigation into the teaching of English-language learners in Los Angeles public schools.  These students, who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, make up one-third of the LA school population.  The investigation is the first of a number of civil rights actions planned for local school systems around the United States.

Just days ago US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went to Selma, Alabama, to announce that his department would step up enforcement of federal civil rights laws to ensure that students of all backgrounds have equal access to a good education.  The location of the announcement, in the Southern city of Selma, was symbolic.  It was the site of a clash between police and civil rights activists in March, 1965, when hundreds of marchers were beaten by police.

Wednesday, Duncan's assistant secretary for civil rights, Russlynn Ali, launched the first of a series of actions in Los Angeles as she announced a probe into the treatment of English language learners in the city's public schools.

She says the investigation of the Los Angeles Unified School District will reveal reasons for their low academic performance.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has met with members of Hollywood's creative community, to enlist their help in promoting the objectives of the international body.  Mr. Ban later spoke with students at the University of California, Los Angeles, on how they can pursue such goals as global development and environmental protection.

The secretary-general met with the Hollywood movers and shakers on Monday, including studio executives and stars like Michael Douglas.  He told them the work of the UN is sometimes more dramatic than Hollywood movies.

Speaking Tuesday at UCLA, the United Nations official said he hoped to promote such global goals as peace and stability, balanced development and the rights of women.

"… promote gender empowerment, protect women and girls from sexual abuse, sexual exploitation - those are very serious issues and message which I really wanted to use Hollywood technologies and their capabilities and their reach," said Ban Ki-moon. "And I got very positive responses from them."

A Muslim chaplain has delivered the opening prayer for the U.S. House of Representatives, an honor few Muslim clergy get.

Abdullah Antepli of Duke University in North Carolina served as a guest chaplain Wednesday, at the invitation of Representative David Price, a North Carolina Democrat.

He prayed for God to guide members of Congress and enable them to serve citizens of the country and all humanity, regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion.

Duke University says Antepli, who was born in Turkey, is only one of a few full-time Muslim chaplains at U.S. colleges and universities. It says his work focuses on religious leadership for Duke's Muslim community, pastoral care and counseling for people of any faith or belief, and intra- and interfaith work. 

A new study released by Freedom House shows that women in the Middle East and North Africa have made modest progress in winning more rights and opportunities over the past five years, despite ongoing resistance. But, violence against women remains widespread in the region, along with impunity for spousal abuse and so-called honor killings.

Sanja Kelly, a senior researcher and managing editor at the independent watchdog organization Freedom House, summed up the bad news concerning women in the Middle East and North Africa at a news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

"Women in the Middle East are being discriminated in all aspects of lives," said Sanja Kelly. "And the Middle East still remains probably the most repressive region in the world when it comes to these issues."

Police arrest five Italians and two Iranians, says anti-terrorism prosecutor Armando Spataro

Seven people were arrested in Italy Wednesday on suspicion of trafficking arms to Iran, despite an international arms embargo against Tehran.  Two of the men arrested are Iranians and are believed to be Iranian secret service agents.  Police say two other Iranian suspects have likely fled the country.  The five others arrested are Italians.  

Operation Sniper was the result of a continuing investigation that was launched last June and involved Italian, British, Swiss and Romanian authorities.

Norway has expelled an Iranian diplomat in a dispute that comes a week after Iran ordered a Norwegian diplomat to leave Tehran.

In a statement Wednesday, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry did not identify the diplomat, but characterized the expulsion as a strong reaction to a similar move by Tehran several weeks ago.

The dispute erupted last month, when Oslo granted asylum to Iran's former counsel-general, Mohammed Reza Heydari.  The Iranian quit his post in January to protest Iran's deadly crackdown on opposition demonstrators in the Islamic republic a month earlier.

Heydari went into hiding immediately after his resignation, saying he feared for his life. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki insists his country is only interested in nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.  And, he says Tehran does not rule out a uranium enrichment swap with western powers.  Mottaki spoke to journalists in Geneva after addressing the UN Human Rights Council.

He says his country only wants to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and that Tehran is not averse to exchanging some of its low-enriched uranium for higher-grade fuel that can be used in a reactor producing medical isotopes.

In fact, he notes the Americans established a nuclear reactor in Iran for producing medicines 50 years ago.  He says Iran is now using this same reactor to provide medicines for 850,000 patients.

He says Tehran has cooperated in working with the western powers on possibly handing over 3.5 percent low-enriched uranium in return for 20 percent of a higher-grade enriched uranium to be used in its reactor.  He speaks through an interpreter.

"We agreed on the swap of the low-enriched uranium [for] the 20 percent enriched uranium.  Because of that, we began and still are running and holding negotiations and talks with different parties.  And, if we have some points regarding the form of the swap and agreed on the form of the swap, the issue of swap is possible to be carried out," Mottaki said.

It was another day of bullhorn diplomacy by Iran's top nuclear officials, who appear to be struggling to halt momentum for a new round of international sanctions.  The head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, began the day by calling IAEA chief Yukiya Amano "biased."

Salehi added that Iran hopes that Amano will change his approach.  

The remarks coincide with a meeting of the IAEA board in Vienna, which began Monday, in which Amano complained that Tehran "has not provided the agency with the necessary cooperation," and that he could "not confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is [being used] in peaceful activities."

Amano's report to the IAEA board also stressed that Tehran may be working to develop a nuclear warhead, and its recent decision to enrich uranium to the 20-percent level could, in theory, give it the material needed to produce an atomic bomb.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says his country is ready to consider new sanctions against Iran if persuasion fails to stop it from enriching uranium.

Mr. Medvedev says international efforts to influence Iran to suspend its sensitive nuclear work have been ineffective, but that Russia is hoping a deal can still be reached with Tehran.

He says new sanctions should be "smart" and should not hurt civilians.

Western nations have been pushing for a fourth set of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program.  Russia has long been reluctant to support tougher sanctions.

Agency's new chief, Yukiya Amano, says Iran's insistence that nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only cannot be confirmed

The International Atomic Energy Agency's new chief says it is impossible to verify whether Iran's nuclear program is entirely peaceful, since the country is not fully cooperating with the U.N. panel.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's Yukiya Amano said Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only cannot be confirmed.  Those remarks were part the new chief's first address to the IAEA's 35-member board of governors, which is meeting this week in Vienna.

"We cannot confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is for peaceful purposes because Iran has not provided the agency with the necessary cooperation," Amano said.

An IAEA report last month for the first time suggested Iran could be trying to make a nuclear bomb.  Tehran denies this and says all its nuclear activities are for peaceful civilian purposes.

In U.S. politics, 2010 is shaping up to be a good year to be a conservative.  Poll ratings for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are down, and opposition Republicans are hoping that energized conservatives will carry the party to victory in the November congressional elections.  But the conservative movement is not monolithic.

Grass roots conservatives were early and vocal opponents of President Obama's health care reform plan.  That grass roots anger against big government evolved into what is known as the tea party movement, a loosely-organized nationwide activist group that was inspired by the anti-tax tea protests just prior to the American Revolution.

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the featured speaker at a national tea party convention last month.

"The tea party movement is not a top-down operation," said Sarah Palin. "It is a ground-up call to action that is forcing both parties to change the way that they are doing business, and that is beautiful!".

President Barack Obama is urging Congress to vote in the next few weeks on his proposal to reform the U.S. health care system. The president is indicating that he is ready to try to pass the plan with no Republican Party support.

After about a year of debate, President Obama says lawmakers owe the American people a final vote on health care reform. "So that is our proposal.  This is where we have ended up.  It is an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year.  It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans," he said.

The president is rejecting Republicans' demands that he start over on the issue, and has asked leaders in both houses of Congress to schedule a vote in the next few weeks. "For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade or even more.  The American people and the U.S. economy just cannot wait that long," he said.

With no Republican support for the bill, Senate Democrats will need to use a legislative procedure called reconciliation, which would require almost unanimous Democratic support