0 Baby boomer breakups and the search for a perfect union, May 12, 2011 -- Updated 1602 GMT

 May 12, 2011 -- Updated 1602 GMT (0002 HKT)

(CNN) -- We have role models for everything. Not that Oscar-winning "Braveheart" director and "Lethal Weapon" actor Mel Gibson counts these days, but before 2009 he had a 28-year-marriage that produced seven children and some respectability. Then he turned his life around.

Then there were almost-president Al Gore, and his wife, Tipper, who had 40 years together and had even written a book on how groovy it was to be hitched and then, post-chad, post-Nobel 2010, they said, Oh, maybe not so much on "the death do us part" thing.
Now comes word that the deluxe combo pack of "Terminator" star/former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kennedy dynasty princess/ex-NBC anchor Maria Shriver are mulling a permanent split after four kids, two accents, multiple political personalities and 25 years of marriage in the high Hollywood-mixed doubles' trenches.
Gallery: Arnold and Maria: They way they were

Inside Schwarzenegger-Shriver marriage

What gives? Are we a nation now of Howzabouta Second Chancers, even for those who seem to have gotten a pretty good ride the first time around?
Maybe.
Truth is, they can't help their birth years. There is a national predilection of boomers to demand midlife happiness, even if it means they chuck a good portion of the first part of their sort-of eternally vowed adulthood.
When asked six months ago by the Pew Research Center, baby boomers even proved to be less enthusiastic about staying in an unhappy union than the adult children they passed their values on to -- by a 66% to 54% margin.
In fact, so predictable are boomers on this topic that, in a study done seven years ago, Xenia Montenegro, senior research adviser for the AARP, looked so hard at divorce in people over 50, she darn near "Nostradamused" that Shriver and Schwarzenegger, et. al, were headed for a split.
On Tuesday, she said boomers "are leading the way in rethinking of how we get older, just like they led the sexual revolution."
But which of the boomers are at risk? Let us be specific.
1) The college-educated-but-married-younger-and-in-the-1970s crowd
The Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project published reports in the last year showing that the college-educated are more likely to grow weary of their life partner than those with a high school education.
Also, people who marry young are more likely to divorce. And, oddly enough, while those who got married in the 1950s outlasted those in 1960s and those folks outlasted those who married in the 1980s, those who married in the 1970s had the hardest time getting to their 15th anniversary.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver split
2) The marginally unhappy couples who wanted happy kids
Montenegro, the author of the AARP's "The Divorce Experience: A Study of Divorce at Midlife and Beyond," said these couples have waited nicely until their kids were out of the house, saw an opportunity to separate and "have their me time."
3) Especially true for the couples in 2) that include Superwomen whose lives turned out differently than they were brought up to think they would be
Women initiated two-thirds of the divorces in Montenegro's study. Baby boomer women realize how different they are from their mothers and how much longer they are going to live and that they can support themselves. They felt more free to look after their own happiness.
"Even their children want their parents to be happy," Montenegro said. "It's a redefinition of retirement," she said, with the caveat that lower-income groups can less afford to seek divorces and are less able to weather divorces in separate households in financially difficult times.
4) The what-happened couple
Sandra Bonfiglio, a divorce attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said she's seen those who are anxious "to reconnect but had trouble doing it. They have nothing in common by then and can't find each other."
The surprise for those couples, she said, is that -- while it should be easy when there are no custody issues and for couples with two incomes, no real money issues -- "divorce is never easy."
5) The really old people
A marriage therapist in Hyannis, Massachusetts, told the story Tuesday about an old New Yorker cartoon depicting an extremely elderly couple seeking a divorce. The judge asks, "Why now?" The old woman answered: "We wanted to wait until the children died."
The therapist laughed at the joke and said, in reference to boomers that, maybe, there wasn't anything new here.
But there is. According to the Office for National Statistics, the rate of divorce is dropping in every age group, except the over-60s.
6) And there are the trophy hunters
Don't ask us to quantify or explain the need for a trophy wife. Life is just complicated sometimes.
Which brings us back to Shriver and Schwarzenegger.
Stuart Bloom, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Laguna Beach, California, warned not to think of those two as representative of an entire movement of baby boomer masses yearning to breathe free.
"They are unique," Bloom said. "Their circumstances, as individuals and a couple, are unlike anyone else's."
And yet Bloom said he worked his way through graduate school and an internship at the University of Southern California by being a waiter at the famous Café Figaro in Los Angeles. He often waited on Schwarzenegger in 1977 around the time of his breakthrough debut in "Pumping Iron."
"He was very kind to me," Bloom said, which unexpectedly prompted this remark: "People are people, and in this marriage, feelings are feelings. That is what is not different in this separation and that should be respected."

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0 Questions over Burma's democratic intentions

Last Updated: 10 hours 47 minutes ago

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Eva Sundari says the military continues to dominate Burma's parliament and shape the country's politics [AFP]

Burma is no closer to democracy despite electing a new parliament 100 days ago, according to the president of ASEAN's inter-parliamentary caucus on the country.

Burma held its first general elections in two decades last November and the country's military junta - which had ruled since 1962 - was officially dissolved in March.

But Eva Sundari has told Connect Asia if Burma doesn't show proof it's moving towards democracy, allowing it to chair Association of South East Asian Nations in 2014 could damage the organisation's reputation.

"If ASEAN is chaired by controversial figures, then I think the international community will also reject cooperation with ASEAN," she said.

"So that's why we must be critical about the support of ASEAN to allow Burma to [chair] ASEAN."

ASEAN members are reluctant to criticise Burma because of its important role in supplying energy to the region, she says.

Ms Sundari, who is also an Indonesian MP, says Burma's military is still shaping the country's politics.

"The parliament is dominated by [the] military, and one centre has recently calculated that 80 per cent of the seats actually went to the military."

Ms Sundari says Burma needs to demonstrate movement towards democracy between now and October, when ASEAN will meet to consider the 2014 chairmanship.

"We will wait until October to see whether they have shown good intentions and also proof, then we can agree.

"But then if they don't show any proof, then we must object to this idea, because it will be no good for ASEAN."

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0 Wikileaks cables show race to carve up Arctic, 12 May 2011

The depletion of polar ice is making Arctic reserves more accessible

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to "carve up" Arctic resources - oil, gas and even rubies - as the ice retreats.
They suggest that Arctic states, including the US and Russia, are all pushing to stake a claim.
The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic.
The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.
The cables were released by the Wikileaks whistleblower website as foreign ministers from the eight Arctic Council member states - Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland - met in Nuuk, Greenland on Thursday to sign a treaty on international search-and-rescue in the Arctic and discuss the region's future challenges.

READ THE CABLES Wiki Arctic cables [98.35KB] Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here

The cables claim the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller joked with the Americans saying "if you stay out, then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic".
Greenland is an autonomous Danish dependent territory with limited self-government however, the cables show that US diplomats believe Greenland "is on a clear track to independence" and see this as "a unique opportunity" for American gas and oil companies to get a foothold.
The then-US Ambassador to Denmark James P Cain said in the cables that he introduced Greenland's government to New York financiers "to help the Greenlanders secure the investments needed for such exploitation".
Territorial claims
The grab for the Arctic accelerated in 2007 when polar explorer Artur Chilingarov used a submarine to plant a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole.
The US cables reveal a senior Russian official told the Americans that this was a deliberate move by the Kremlin and that Chilingarov was "following orders from the ruling United Russia party".

In 2007 a Russian explorer planted a Russian flag under the North Pole

They also report comments by the Russian Ambassador Dmitriy Rogozin to Nato saying "the 21st Century will see a fight for resources and Russia should not be defeated in this fight".
The US embassy cables also expose US concerns about Canada's territorial claims to the North West passage and to "seabed resources that extend to the edge of the continental shelf".
They show that in 2008 the US embassy in Ottawa asked Washington to delay a new presidential directive requiring "the United States to assert a more active and influential national presence to protect its Arctic interests".
Officials were worried that if it was released before the Canadian federal election the Arctic would become a big election issue and "negatively impact US-Canadian relations". The directive was in fact delayed till after the Canadian election.
Rising tensions
The cables also report Canadian Premier Stephen Harper telling Nato to keep out of the Arctic - an issue where he is in agreement with Russia.

Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, oil companies like Cairn are rushing in to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place Environmental campaigner Ben Ayliffe

He is said to have claimed that some European countries without Arctic territories were trying to use Nato to give them "influence in an area 'where they don't belong'".
Tom Burke who advises mining company Rio Tinto and the UK Foreign Office on climate change and business told Newsnight that political tensions are rising because "the ice is declining much faster" than expected, so "everybody who thinks they've got a chance to get at those resources wants to get in there and stake their claim".
Since the 1970s, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University has made repeated trips under the North Pole in Royal Navy nuclear submarines to measure the thickness of the ice.
He told Newsnight the graph "has gone off a cliff" because the ice sheet has thinned as well as shrunk.
The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) which measures ice volume shows that last September there was only a quarter of the ice in the Arctic that there had been in 1979.
Prof Wadhams says in summer "it could easily happen that we'll have an ice free North Pole within a year or two".
New sea route
British oil company Cairn Energy are in the vanguard of the Arctic oil rush. The company's Commercial Director Simon Thomson told Newsnight "we're leading the charge".

The ice sheet is thinning as well as shrinking

Mr Thomson says Cairn Energy are "ahead of everybody else" in Greenland, but he knows the major oil companies are on alert saying "they're all watching and they're all waiting to see what we will find".
He says that there is an awareness that although "it's a substantial prize", one big spill could endanger the whole Arctic oil project, therefore "we need to do what we do with an absolute focus on safety".
However, the search for Arctic oil has been criticised by environmental campaigners, and Greenpeace protesters have already boarded a Cairn Energy rig currently heading for Greenland.
"Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, oil companies like Cairn are rushing in to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place," campaigner Ben Ayliffe, who is on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, told Newsnight.
Some experts think that what is happening in the Arctic is like the Scramble for Africa in the 19th Century when European nations raced to secure resources.
However, it is not just a race for oil and gas. Russia hopes that the Northern Sea Route will open up and allow northern European shipping to get to the Far East a third quicker than via the Suez Canal.
New fisheries are opening up and Greenland in particular has mineral resources including aluminium and rubies.
Watch Newsnight's investigation on Thursday 12 May 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two and then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

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0 Peace Corps apology for response to crimes on staff, 12 May 2011 Last updated at 01:15 GMT

Kate Puzey, from the US state of Georgia, was killed in Benin in 2009

The US Peace Corps has apologised for failing to respond adequately to the rapes of volunteers and the recent killing of another serving overseas.

Director Aaron Williams said the corps had "not always been sufficiently responsive, compassionate or sensitive to victims of crime".
The apology came as three rape victims testified to lawmakers that they were poorly trained to deal with attacks.
The corps sends volunteers to live and work in developing countries.
It is an agency of the US government.
Protecting future volunteers The victims of the attacks and the mother of a murdered volunteer told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that the Peace Corps - which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year - reacted insensitively and unhelpfully following the crimes.
Kate Puzey, from the US state of Georgia, was killed in 2009 in Benin. The three rape victims were attacked in Niger, Nepal and Bangladesh.
"I want the young women who go into the Peace Corps today to be protected," said Carol Marie Clark, who testified that she was raped and impregnated by the programme's director in Nepal after joining the agency in 1984.
Appearing at the same hearing, Mr Williams apologised for the lack of response by the agency, calling the health and safety of its volunteers the Peace Corp's top priority.
Mr Williams said the organisation had since taken steps to respond to the crimes, like writing guidelines about how to respond to rape and hiring a crime victims' advocate.
"The Peace Corps has not always been sufficiently responsive, compassionate or sensitive to victims of crime and their families," Mr Williams told lawmakers.
"It is heartbreaking to learn, and I apologize for any additional pain the agency has inflicted on our volunteers."
Members of the committee said the testimony could change the way the agency is run in the future.
The Peace Corps has sent over 200,000 Americans to serve in 139 countries since its founding in 1961.

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