Thaksin also made a phone-in address last night. He thanked his supporters for backing the signature campaign and said he felt highly grateful to them.

"I want to return your favour by working for you, which I can't do now. If I can work to return your favour, I will be able to die peacefully," he said.

Veera Musigapong, an organiser of the red shirts' rally at Sanam Luang, said 4.19 million signatures had been collected from all over the country. His announcement led to loud cheers.

The red shirts also plan to hold a protest at the Interior Ministry on Monday against Interior Minister Chaovarat Chanweerakul, whose Bhum Jai Thai Party is campaigning against the signature drive.

The rally in Sanam Luang took place despite warnings from the government that a pardon could only be sought by Thaksin himself or his relatives.

The Metropolitan Police Bureau deployed about 1,800 anti-riot police to keep the peace at the rally site, said commissioner Lt-General Worapong Chewpreecha. About 600 policemen were on the ground, while the remainder were held back as potential |reinforcements.

Some 150 traffic policemen were responsible for ensuring a smooth traffic flow around the rally site.

Thaksin fled Thailand last August to escape a two-year jail term for conflict of interest.

His supporters aim to gather the signatures for forwarding to His Majesty the King in search of a royal pardon.

The red-shirted protesters launched the campaign last month following months of sometimes-violent street protests and political conflict between supporters and foes of the ex-premier, who was ousted from office nearly three years ago.

The government has launched a campaign to inform the public that the petition has no legal grounds and is inappropriate.

State-owned television ran a segment with a legal expert yesterday to remind the public it was improper to involve the monarchy in politics.

The country's National Council of Churches called on both President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga to resign.

"The cabinet is not listening to the feelings of the people who elected them," said Edward Karanja Kariuki of the National Council of Churches, after the government failed to reach a decision as to how to try those accuse of involvement in the violence.

He said people were "losing confidence with the parliament, losing confidence with the leadership of the country" and described the lack of decision after Thursday's meeting as "rather disappointing".

Kariuki described the cabinet as "highly polarised" and said this was the reason for the deadlock.

"The majority of them think they are culprits because they know the roles they played in the post-election violence. And so it is rather difficult for the cabinet to come up with a rational position," Kariuki said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, a leading force for U.S. healthcare reform, said on Friday he has prostate cancer but still plans to run for re-election next year.

"I'll be a little leaner and a little meaner but I'm running," Dodd, 65, told a televised news conference in his home state of Connecticut.

Dodd said he planned to undergo surgery during the August Senate recess, but that he was confident the cancer had been caught at an early stage and that he would recover fully.

Early stage prostate cancer typically is easily treated and cured, according to medical experts. Dodd had the choice of surgery, radiation or a type of radiation therapy that uses radioactive seeds planted near the prostate.

His choice of surgery will require what he called a brief period of recuperation.

"He is expected to return to full activity within a few weeks of the surgery," Howard Scher, head of the genitourinary service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, said in a statement.

Dodd, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, chairs the powerful Senate Banking Committee.

Recently he has taken charge of the healthcare debate in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, filling in for Senator Edward Kennedy, who has was diagnosed with brain cancer last year.

President Barack Obama has made healthcare reform his top priority but Democrats in Congress have battled to sell the plan to both Republicans and to fiscal conservatives in their own party.

Dodd said he received his cancer diagnosis six weeks ago but had not revealed it during early stages of the Senate's debate on healthcare reform. "This is not about me," he said.

Dodd is now serving in his fifth six-year term in the Senate. Recent polls have shown he could face a tough re-election next year, following his central role a year ago in crafting a $700 billion Wall Street bailout that is unpopular among voters.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Maggie Fox; Editing by Bill Trott)

PHNOM PENH, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Council of Ministers on Friday approved a sub-decree of new co-ownership regulations, allowing legal ownership of individual apartments or condominium ownership, which paves the way for a law allowing foreign ownership of some property.

The new co-ownership regulations will make it possible to own units within a larger building without having title to the land it's on, according to the press release from the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers which was presided over by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

"Its objects will guarantee to protect rights of legal holders in apartments or condominiums for co-ownership," it said, adding that it will facilitate to management work of co-ownership of apartments and co-owners who live in the apartments or condominiums.

On Tuesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new budget to solve his state's deficit. But spending cuts in the eighty-five billion dollar budget might still not be enough to solve long-term problems.

This was what Governor Schwarzenegger said last week when he proudly announced a deal with lawmakers.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: "The budget that would have no tax increases, a budget that is cutting spending -- we deal with the entire twenty-six billion dollar deficit, around fifteen billion dollars in cuts that we are making."

That was in addition to fifteen billion in cuts passed in February.

But the Republican governor angered some Democrats when he vetoed several additional spending items before he signed the budget. The money will be held as an emergency reserve. The governor himself compared the budget to the old Western movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

Education faces the biggest reductions. Prisons and health care also face big cuts.

California's finances have become so bad, this month the state began to buy goods and services with promises to pay later. Now, California has a budget. The state can seek loans to pay its bills until more tax money comes in later this year.

But California also has the lowest credit rating of any state. All of the rating agencies still rate California as worthy of investment. However, downgrades have increased its borrowing costs.

Some people blame Californians themselves for the current troubles of the Golden State. There is debate over "budget by ballot" -- putting tax questions to popular votes. Voters in the last few years, and most recently in May, have rejected several ballot measures that would have raised taxes.

California may rewrite its tax system. The state depends heavily on income tax. But those revenues fall sharply in bad economic times.

Critics say even with the budget agreement, California is still in trouble. They say some of the cost cuts are simply accounting tricks that cannot be repeated next year.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

By Parisa Hafezi

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama played bartender-in-chief on Thursday at a "beer summit" of the main players in a racially charged case that he hoped would be a "positive lesson" in a national dialogue on race.

Obama, the first black U.S. president, said it was a "friendly, thoughtful" conversation over beer at the White House with prominent Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, and police Sergeant James Crowley, who is white.

Crowley arrested Gates, a well-known documentary filmmaker, for disorderly conduct on July 16 after a confrontation at the professor's home, sparking a media frenzy as Gates, 58, accused the policeman of racial profiling. Crowley, who had taught courses against racial profiling, denied that.

Obama inflamed the situation by saying he thought police "acted stupidly" in arresting his friend.

"I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart," Obama said in a statement after the meeting in a garden outside the Oval Office.

"I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode."

Race remains a prominent and sensitive issue in the United States, which has struggled to overcome a legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination.

Crowley said it was a private and frank discussion, adding he and Gates have different perspectives.

"I think what you had today was two gentlemen who agreed to disagree on a particular issue," Crowley told reporters. "I don't think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future."

Asked about the president's contribution to the meeting, Crowley said: "He provided the beer."

Gates said he and Crowley had been cast together "through an accident of time and place" and must use the opportunity "to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand."

Obama's job approval rating has fallen from 61 percent in mid-June to 54 percent now, in part due to his handling of the Gates-Crowley situation, a Pew Research Center poll found.

Obama and the White House had tried to lower expectations for the gathering, saying there would be no big announcements and portraying it as just three guys having a beer.

NATIONAL DEBATE

The menu for the meeting round an outside table in the warm Washington afternoon featured each man's preferred brew: Bud Light for Obama, Blue Moon for Crowley and Sam Adams Light for Gates. Vice President Joe Biden, also at the table, had a Buckler nonalcoholic beer.

Thursday, 30 July 2009
Georgia Wilkins and Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

Controversial footage filmed by Vietnamese troops after the Khmer Rouge fled the capital will not be permitted as evidence.

JUDGES at Cambodia's war crimes court on Wednesday decided against allowing the use of footage of Tuol Sleng prison shot by Vietnamese troops in 1979 as evidence in the trial of the prison's former chief, Kaing Guek Eav, citing time restrictions and concerns that the footage would be repetitive.

Defence lawyers for the accused had previously argued that the authenticity of the footage, which was donated in December by the Vietnamese government, has never been verified.