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CALLICOON, New York (AFP) –
After a lifetime struggling to make money from the land, New York farmer Bill Graby has discovered he's sitting on treasure -- possibly the biggest natural gas deposit in America.

"It's like winning the lottery," says the 6.6-foot (two-meter) dairy farmer from the picturesque town of Callicoon in the Catskills hills.

The deposit, called the Marcellus shale, stretches all the way from New York to Tennessee, containing 168 to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation.

That dwarfs the previous big daddy, the Barnett shale in Texas, and by industry estimates could meet all US gas needs for years.

"The size is potentially tremendous for the nation as a whole," John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, told a Pennsylvania College of Technology conference last month.

Environmentalists fear intense drilling could bring ecological disaster to the same pristine Catskills that also contain New York City's entire drinking water supply.

Many others, though, foresee an economic miracle that could turn an impoverished section of New York into "a Little Texas," as 56-year-old Graby puts it.

These are early days. Extraction is underway in Pennsylvania, but New York's authorities are still debating regulatory approval, with a decision expected in 2010.

Yet already energy companies are swarming across the countryside, offering to make millionaires of cash-strapped farmers like Graby in exchange for drilling rights on their land.

The economics are self-evident. There's not only gas, but a huge market nearby in New York and New Jersey, and a transport network that includes a big new pipeline opened a year ago to bring gas from Canada.

In a region blighted by bankrupt farms and a struggling tourist industry, the excitement is palpable.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity that can change this region," Graby said at Callicoon's old-fashioned cafe/petrol station by the snow-lined Delaware River.

Geologists long knew about the Marcellus Shale, which formed about 385 million years ago and extends more than 7,000 feet (2,133 meters) underground, mostly under New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

But development was unprofitable until recent improvements in horizontal, rather than ordinary vertical drills, and in an extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

"Nobody cared much about shales. They were all around us, but then the price of gas rose and there were some techniques that were quite useful... that made shales much more attractive," said Gary Lash, a geosciences professor at SUNY Fredonia university and an expert on the Marcellus.

In southern New York, the result is what the state's Department of Environmental Conservation likens to a "modern-day gold rush."

Graby and former teacher Noel van Swol have formed a landowners' association to bargain collectively with the gas companies.

A couple years ago, drilling rights were being sold to fast-talking company reps, or landmen, for a pittance. Now, they trade for small fortunes: about 5,000 dollars an acre for a five-year drilling lease and a whopping 20 percent of royalties on gas extracted, van Swol said.

That means a farmer leasing 200 acres would collect a million dollars upfront -- and the same again for an extension -- plus potentially astronomical royalties.

"It's the big play. This changes lives," says van Swol, sporting a solid gold ring decorated with an American Indian chief that he says brings him gambler's luck. "This is game changing."

Natural gas is a relatively clean-burning fuel, but the extraction process needed in the Marcellus is not pretty

Fracking involves shooting enormous quantities of water, mixed with chemicals and sand, at extreme pressure into the subterranean rock, smashing shale and forcing out gas. The process is often likened to an earthquake.

Ramsay Adams, executive director at Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental group, says the biggest worry is what happens next, when the poisonous mix is locked underground in the same hills as New York's drinking water aquifers.

"Thirty percent of these millions of millions of gallons of water are left down there," Adams said.

"Ultimately it will migrate up and go downstream. You could find the contamination downstream. No one knows. The gas companies don't know."

The gas industry says fracking is safe because gas wells are sealed from the water table, which is closer to the Earth's surface.

"Environmental extremists have poisoned the natural gas debate by implying that drilling operators will pollute our water and air," said Brad Gill, director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York. "They have used bad science and twisted facts to oppose natural gas exploration."

New York's environmental body also says that "no known instances of groundwater contamination have occurred from previous horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing projects" during previous projects in the state.

But Adams and other environmentalists are lobbying for swaths of countryside to be off-limits, especially anywhere near to what Adams considers New York's true treasure -- water.

"They think they have found the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," Adams said, "but we are the Saudi Arabia of fresh water."

Many opposing the gas rush are second home owners from New York aghast at the idea of drilling rigs scarring the landscape.

Yet holdouts also include the Diehl family, which has been farming the same river valley outside Callicoon for six generations.

"It's all about the water. It's what we drink, it's what our animals drink. And once the aquifers are breached, you can't fix them," Alice Diehl, 58, said in the cozy kitchen of her hilltop house.

To compensate for a collapse in milk prices, the Diehls are working overtime on everything from making maple syrup and honey to selling Christmas trees.

They say nothing can persuade them to risk contaminating their beloved land, where Diehl ancestors lie buried among a copse of trees in a broad field.

"Money isn't everything," said Alice's husband Peter, a wiry, bearded man of 65. He looked out over the snow-covered valley. "They can pay you a lot, but if they ruin the land, you have nothing."

Alice Diehl smiled as she recalled a gas company landman coming to the house last summer and promising to make them "multi-millionaires."

"Pete just ran him off," she said.

As New York's authorities get closer to ruling, tensions are running high.

Van Swol compares environmentalists to Soviet dictators and Adams acknowledges that people like van Swol "probably see me as the devil. I'm standing between them and that money."

Peter Diehl even finds himself arguing with his own brothers, who farm other parts of the family's valley. All their signatures would be needed to deal with a gas company.

"It makes things a little tense at Christmas," as Alice Diehl said.

In the Callicoon cafe, the air was full of expectation.

"I want to see those drilling rigs coming into town!" exclaimed one local as he greeted van Swol and Graby.

"You and me both," van Swol answered.

Later, van Swol said: "When those permits get approved here, all hell's going to break loose."

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Fire Department has responded to a 911 call from the home of actress Brittany Murphy's husband.
Fire Department spokesman Devon Gale says the call was made at 8 a.m. Sunday from a home in Los Angeles that is listed as belonging to British screenwriter Simon Monjack, who is married to Murphy. Gale says one person was transported to a hospital.
Messages left for Murphy's manager, agent and publicist weren't immediately returned.
The 32-year-old actress starred in such films as "Clueless," "8 Mile," and "Don't Say a Word."

When Edmund Ho, Macau's first chief executive, assumed office on December 20, 1999, the former Portuguese colony near Hong Kong was a very different place. Hong Kong business mogul Stanley Ho had a monopoly on the region's sleepy gambling industry. The Triads, southern China's organized crime conglomerates, killed openly in the streets, and the economy was shrinking fast.
But on Sunday, when his successor Fernando Chui officially takes over on the 10th anniversary of Portugal's handover of its tiny holding to China, Ho will be leaving behind a place that's been transformed into the world's must lucrative gambling hub. Macau attracted nearly 18 million tourists and raked in over $12 billion in gambling revenue in the first 10 months of 2009 - not bad for a local population of only 560,000. In terms of gambling revenue, Macau first surpassed Las Vegas Strip in 2006, and the city hasn't looked back, increasing the number of casinos from 24 in 2006 to 33 today. (Watch TIME's video "Poker Comes to China.")
Though Stanley Ho (who has no relation to Edmund) is still a major player in the gambling scene, his 40-year monopoly ended in 2002, bringing in stiff competition from the likes of Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands. The resulting casino and hotel boom helped Macau average double-digit GDP growth over the last seven years. The Portuguese may have first legalized gambling back in 1847, but Macau's economy has never before grown so fast or relied so heavily on the industry. Macau has bet the house on gambling and so far it's paid off, but can Macau's hot streak continue? (Watch TIME's video "Macau's Winners and Losers.")
To a certain extent, that will always depend on Beijing. Like Hong Kong, Macau is officially part of China but has a separate system of government. Unlike its neighbor, however, Macau is fully dependent on mainland China for its steady stream of tourists. Macau is the only place in China where casino gambling is legal. In June 2008, when Beijing clamped down on the number of times mainlanders could visit Macau, the number of visitors coming into Macau fell for the first time in five and half years. With China's travel restrictions in place, year on year, gambling revenues fell by 30% in January 2009, and Sands stopped construction of several casino projects, laying off thousands of workers. Since then, China has eased its visa policy to Macau, and by November this year, the baccarat and blackjack tables were once again filled with Chinese mainlanders. Gambling revenues jumped 59% compared to the previous November. (Read "Macau: Is the Casino Boom Back?.")
Despite a rough start to the year, Macau has not hedged its bets and has gone all in on casinos. Antonio Ng, a pro-democracy Macau legislator, says so long as Macau "keeps very good relations with the central government, then growth will be maintained," but, he says Macau's "main problem" is that this "is taken for granted."
But the region's focus on casinos doesn't just leave it financially vulnerable to the fickleness of the gambling industry or the whims of Beijing politicians. According to some residents, it has also shifted the government's focus away from topics essential to Macau's cultural identity. The unique artistic and cultural offerings of Macau's mulit-cultural past have not been properly supported by the government or casinos, says Miguel Senna de Fernandes, a Macanese lawyer. These days "everything starts from the casino's point of view," says Fernandes. Macau may be able to bring in Beyonce or the Black Eyed Peas to town, he says, but "that doesn't say anything about Macau." Fernandes and others see Macau's unique background as a Portuguese trading port as an asset that could help attract visitors who might be more interested in the area's rich history than in striking it rich. If the casinos don't help Macanese culture, Fernandes says, "Macau will become just another common city with casinos - nothing more than that." (See pictures of the gambler's paradise.)
With few democratically elected positions, Antonio Ng, one of 12 of the 29 legislators who was directly elected, says many of Macau's politicians aren't responding to the needs of Fernandes or other Macau residents. Instead of watching out for the public interest, he says, the "ruling class" is transferring money and influence to private companies. "This is not illegal," he says, because "the chief executive approves these decisions." Chui, the new chief executive of Macau who takes over on Sunday, was chosen by a 300-member committee, and at the moment, he does not appear to have popular support. Though reliable polling data does not exist, in an informal online election, Chui came in a distant third, pulling in just over 10% of the vote. Ng says that right now Macau has an "authority problem," but he expects Chui will try and maintain status quo rather than go out of his way to institute democratic reform.
Still, the current political structure has allowed many of the casinos to succeed, a benefit that has managed to trickle down to Macau's poor. Davis Fong, the director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau, says before the handover, there were over 7,000 families living under Macau's poverty line. Today, that number has dropped to about 3,000, a decline widely attributed to the jobs the casinos have created. The government hasn't ignored the people, says Fong, it's just that "the efficiency of the government is not so good." Though no one can predict how Chui will react to calls for electoral reform, Fong says there will be "some pressure from the public pushing the government to give more rights or more political power to the local residents."
Macau can't rely on gambling alone if it's going to continue its economic growth, Fong and others acknowledge, but Fong is optimistic that the success of Macau's casinos has literally helped pave the way to its future. With Macau becoming the world's biggest gambling moneymaker, China has planned ambitious transportation projects like an improved railway system and the world's longest cross-sea bridge connecting Macau to Hong Kong to draw visitors. What happens when they get there remains to be seen: The city still has only about 18,000 hotel rooms, still over 100,000 fewer rooms than Las Vegas and not yet enough to hold major conventions. But with good deals available for rooms and improved infrastructure, Fong is optimistic that Macau will grab a share of the lucrative convention market when the number of rooms increases by more than 10,000 in the next two to three years. This will, in turn, lead to the development of a larger retail and entertainment sectors.
In the end, no one knows what cards Macau will be dealt over the next ten years. China could intentionally slow Macau's growth to allow the infrastructure to catch up with the casino boom. The world could dip into another recession, or China's growing number of millionaires and billionaires could keep streaming into Macau, keeping the region flush with cash. After a decade of unprecedented growth, Macau's skyline is nearly unrecognizable, and the next decade will surely bring more changes to the once quiet colonial town. Fernandes just hopes Chui, as its new leader, will face some of the region's growing pains with new ideas and ensure that Macau turns into something more than just another generic cluster of gambling dens. "There are still a lot of problems to be solved," says Fernandes, "and in order to solve them, you have to be different."
Read "Fortunes Fade for Macau's Casino Kings."
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NEW YORK – The latest winner of NBC's "The Biggest Loser" is the biggest loser in the show's history.
Danny Cahill, a 40-year-old land surveyor and musician from Broken Arrow, Okla., lost 239 pounds to win the $250,000 grand prize.
Cahill went from 430 pounds to 191 pounds, losing 55.58 percent of his body weight in six months and three weeks — and breaking the record for the most weight lost by any contestant.
The Nielsen Co. said that with 13.4 million viewers, the season eight finale of "The Biggest Loser" on Tuesday night had the show's biggest audience in four years.
Erik Chopin, who won in 2006, held the previous record, dropping 214 pounds. He went from 407 pounds to 193 pounds.
In an interview Wednesday on the "Today" show, Cahill said his family motivated him to change his lifestyle.
NBC said season nine will premiere Jan. 5.
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WASHINGTON – A 29-year-old homeless woman has given birth to a baby girl after, police said, she was befriended by a Maryland woman who held her captive for several days and tried to cut the baby from her womb.
Officer Michelle Reedy, a spokeswoman for Prince George's County police, said 40-year-old Veronica Deramous of Suitland, Md., has been charged with attempted first-degree murder, false imprisonment and other related charges. Police said Deramous befriended Teka Adams at a southeast Washington homeless shelter and persuaded her to come to her apartment on Dec. 1 with a promise of baby clothes and other items for the unborn child.
Once there, Reedy said, Deramous bound the woman, who was in her third trimester. Days later, the woman escaped after Deramous tried to cut the unborn baby from her body, Reedy said.
"She bound the victim's hands and proceeded to try to cut the victim's abdomen to try to get the baby out," she said. "They believe she wanted the victim's baby."
Police said Deramous told some people she was pregnant even though she was not.
Police said Adams is expected to recover. Her daughter — named Miracle Sky — was delivered by emergency Cesarean section.
When police found Adams her "abdomen was cut and her intestines, stomach and placenta were exposed," according a police report. In the apartment, officers found bloody towels and a bowl with water and washcloths on a bedroom floor. They also found a box cutter and some razor blades, which they believe Deramous used to cut Adams, Reedy said.
According to the police report, Deramous had her 17-year-old son hold Adams' hands behind her back as she bound her with duct tape and then held her in a bedroom for several days. Her son has not been charged.
On Saturday, Deramous told Adams: "You're strong, you can handle what I'm going to do to you," the report said. She then turned up the volume of the TV in the bedroom, gagged Adams and began to cut her abdomen open. Adams moaned in pain and Deramous stopped, police said.
While Deramous slept early Sunday, Adams freed herself and fled the apartment. She went upstairs and knocked on doors before a neighbor called police. Deramous' son told police after his mother saw Adams outside, the two women began fighting and neighbors came out, the report said. Deramous and her son then left before police arrived.
Deramous was later arrested in Virginia's Arlington County. She remained in Virginia on Tuesday while she awaits being transported to Maryland to face the charges. There was no attorney listed for Deramous on online court records and prosecutors did not know of one.
A nun who answered the phone at the Queen of Peace, Missionaries of Charity shelter for pregnant women in southeast Washington told The Associated Press that the victim had stayed there for at least one month and left the shelter last week, but did not know Deramous.
The county Department of Social Services said it is accepting donations on behalf of the family, including clothing and money, after receiving several calls on Tuesday from those wanting to help.
Deramous was expected to appear in court on Wednesday.
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Associated Press Writer Sarah Karush contributed to this report.

COPENHAGEN – Developing nations who face huge climate change burdens are demanding that wealthy nations shoulder more of the costs, as a leaked Danish document and fresh evidence of a hotter planet raised temperatures at the U.N. climate conference.
Negotiators on Wednesday were trying to bridge the difficult gaps among 192 nations and stem a growing chasm between rich and poor on the third day of the U.N. climate conference.
A key speaker will be U.S. Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson, whose agency just gave President Barack Obama a new way to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. Obama will join more than 100 national leaders converging on Copenhagen for the final days of bargaining late next week.
Jackson headlines a U.S.-sponsored meeting entitled "Taking Action at Home." The EPA determined Monday that scientific evidence clearly shows greenhouse gases are endangering Americans' health and must be regulated, either by Congress or by itself, the agency responsible for air pollution. That gave Obama a new way to regulate those gases without needing the approval of the U.S. Congress.
Meanwhile, small island nations, poor countries and those seeking money from the developed world to preserve their tropical forests were among those upset over competing draft texts attributed to Denmark and China outlining proposed outcomes for the historic Dec. 7-18 summit.
Some of the poorest nations feared too much of the burden to curb greenhouse gases is being hoisted onto their shoulders. They are seeking billions of dollars in aid from the wealthy countries to deal with climate change, which melts glaciers that raise sea levels worldwide, turns some regions drier and threatens food production.
Diplomats from developing countries and climate activists complained the Danish hosts pre-empted the negotiations with their draft proposal.
Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, the head of the 135-nation bloc of developing countries, said the $10 billion fast-track pledge from the U.S., European Union, Japan and other wealthy nations paled compared to the more than $1 trillion spent to rescue financial institutions.
"If this is the greatest risk that humanity faces, then how do you explain $10 billion — unless it is an inducement for some countries to accept the western-backed proposal?" he said. "Ten billion will not buy developing countries' citizens enough coffins."
The Danish draft proposal would allow rich countries to cut fewer emissions while poorer nations would face tougher limits on greenhouse gases and more conditions on money available to adapt.
"(It focuses) on pleasing the rich and powerful countries rather than serving the majority of states who are demanding a fair and ambitious solution," said Kim Carstensen of the environmental group WWF.
A sketchy counterproposal attributed to China would extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming by an average 5 percent by 2012, compared with 1990 levels.
The Chinese text would incorporate specific new, deeper targets for the industrialized world for a further five to eight years. Developing countries, on the other hand, including China, would be covered by a separate agreement that envisions their taking actions to control emissions, but not in the same legally binding way. No targets would be specified for them.
Poorer nations believe the two-track approach would best preserve the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" recognized by the Kyoto treaty.
Such draft ideas are the usual grist early in such long, difficult international talks. These two proposals were not yet even recorded as official conference documents.
"It has no validity," key European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said, speaking of the Danish proposal. "It's only a piece of paper. The only texts that have validity here are those which people negotiated."
Earlier Tuesday, the U.N.'s weather agency unveiled data showing that this decade is on track to become the hottest since records began in 1850, with 2009 the fifth-warmest year ever. The second warmest decade was the 1990s.
Only the United States and Canada experienced cooler conditions than average, the World Meteorological Organization said, though Alaska had the second-warmest July on record. In central Africa and southern Asia, this will probably be the warmest year, it said.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Find behind-the-scenes information, blog posts and discussion about the Copenhagen climate conference at http://www.facebook.com/theclimatepool, a Facebook page run by AP and an array of international news agencies. Follow coverage and blogging of the event on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/AP_ClimatePool.

Gambling transactions offer the possibility of either a loss or a gain. Gambling creates losers and winners. Insurance transactions do not present the possibility of gain. Insurance offers financial support sufficient to replace loss, not to create pure gain.

* Expatriate insurance provides individuals and organizations operating outside of their home country with protection for automobiles, property, health, liability and business pursuits.

Health Insurance Quote

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama plans to announce on Tuesday that he will send about 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in a long-awaited war strategy shift that he hopes will defeat the Taliban and allow for a U.S. exit.

After three months of deliberations that some critics called dithering, Obama is to lay out his plan in a speech to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

The high-stakes televised address will take place at 8 p.m. EST/0100 GMT Wednesday.

The troop increase represents a major gamble by Obama. He came to office vowing a greater focus on Afghanistan but has faced skepticism from some key advisers about the wisdom of putting more American lives and money on the line for a government in Kabul widely seen as corrupt and inept.

In a nod to those concerns, Obama plans to devote part of his speech to stressing that the United States does not have an "open-ended commitment" in Afghanistan, but rather wants to hand over power to freshly trained Afghan forces and start withdrawing as soon as is practicable.

Obama's challenge is to reverse what U.S. military commanders call a deteriorating situation due to a resurgent Taliban. He also aims to persuade Afghan President Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption and improve governance in exchange for U.S. support.

Obama is also expected to stress the need for Pakistan to do more to fight militants who have crossed into Afghanistan. The administration has said getting the policy right in Islamabad is just as important as in Kabul.

The White House would not detail Obama's strategy, but other U.S. officials said he would announce that he has authorized sending about 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Currently there are roughly 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 allied forces there.

Obama is not expected to set a specific pullout date. The strategy envisages a phased troop buildup over the next 12 to 18 months followed by a gradual drawdown and handover to Afghan forces over three to five years, officials said.

A TOUGH SELL

The president may face a tough sell at home with many Americans weary of the war begun after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and wanting more focus on the weak U.S. economy.

James Monaghan of Watertown, New York, reflected this mood in talking about his 20-year-old daughter based at nearby Fort Drum and currently deployed in Iraq.

"She's got kids. She's got a husband ... in the military as well. And it's just, you know, I figure, it's my personal opinion, it's time for family to come home. Bring the kids home. You know, bring the kids home," he said.

Obama's announcement is likely set off a battle in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress over funding since his own Democrats oppose a big troop surge. The added cost could reach $20-40 billion. Some Democrats have talked of imposing a "war surtax" to pay for it.

Pentagon officials hope NATO member-states eventually will supplement the U.S. surge with up to 10,000 of their own troops and trainers, pushing the overall number of extra troops close to 40,000, the number recommended by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

Britain has said it expects countries to pledge only a further 5,000 troops on top of those sent by Obama.

The president worked the phones on Monday, talking to the leaders of Britain, France, Russia, Denmark and others. He planned to call Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday.

The new strategy will emphasize securing Afghan population centers and accelerating the training of Afghan security forces to gradually assume control.

At the same time, the United States will intensify counterterrorism operations, as advocated by Vice President Joe Biden, using unmanned aerial drones and special operations forces against Taliban and al Qaeda fighters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and possibly in Afghanistan's more sparsely populated areas.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Phil Stewart and Sue Pleming in Washington and Katharine Jackson in Watertown; Editing by Alan Elsner)

MUNICH, Germany (AFP) –
John Demjanjuk appeared an ill man on Monday as he faced the first day of his trial accused of herding tens of thousands of Jews to their death in the Nazi gas chambers during World War II.

Demjanjuk, 89, charged with helping to kill 27,900 people while a guard at the Sobibor death camp in 1943, appeared for the first session in a wheelchair, keeping his eyes mostly closed and moaning as he left the room.

In the second 90-minute session, Demjanjuk was carried in on a stretcher covered head-to-toe in a white blanket, writhing about and waving his arms before the judge suspended proceedings for close to half an hour.

Demjanjuk then returned for what remained of the session, this time with his face uncovered. But at the end of proceedings, after most reporters had left the room, an AFP reporter saw Demjanjuk laughing and joking. Profile: John Demjanjuk

Other journalists and lawyers representing Holocaust survivors had previously also witnessed an apparently much more active Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk than he had appeared in court.

Efraim Zuroff, head of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, was unmoved, saying: "It's a pathetic attempt to appear more crippled than he is. He belongs in Hollywood."

"People like Demjanjuk don't deserve any sympathy because he had no sympathy for his victims."

But his lawyer, Ulrich Busch, who filed a request to have the case scrapped because others higher up the Nazi chain of command had been acquitted previously, denied Demjanjuk was putting on an act.

"I don't judge it as a show. I think my client is very, very sick," Busch told AFP. "This trial should never happened, he should have ben left in America to die peacefully with his family."

Demjanjuk's family says he suffers from a litany of health complaints including leukaemia and that it is unlikely he will survive the trial.

But Christoph Nerl, a specialist in blood diseases, told the court that he was suffering from a lesser complaint "which is definitely not leukaemia" and that Demjanjuk was "in a low-risk group."

Demjanjuk denies being at Sobibor, one of a network of camps erected by Adolf Hitler's Germany in Eastern Europe with the sole purpose of mass extermination.

Prosecutors say they have an SS identity card bearing his name and transfer orders. He is accused of being at Sobibor from March to September 1943.

If convicted, the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk will almost certainly spend the rest of his days behind bars. If not, he will face an uncertain future as he is stateless, having been stripped of his US citizenship.

There are more than 30 plaintiffs in the case, most of whom lost family members at Sobibor. There are no living eyewitnesses who saw Demjanjuk there, so prosecutors will rely heavily on written testimony by people now dead.

Robert Cohen, a gaunt 83-year-old from Amsterdam whose parents and brother died at Sobibor, and who himself survived the Auschwitz death camp, was in no doubt that camp guards had blood on their hands.

"If he (Demjanjuk) was there, he killed more than 100 people per day -- per day! That would be the worst crime ever," Cohen told reporters.

Demjanjuk says he was a Red Army soldier captured in 1942 by the Germans and then moved around various prisoner-of-war camps, but Israeli and US courts have already established he was at Sobibor.

Busch has said that even if it could be proved his client was in Sobibor, he would have been there under duress and could not now be held responsible for the atrocities carried out.

Demjanjuk was sentenced to death in Israel in 1988 for being "Ivan the Terrible", a sadistic Nazi guard, but after five years on death row the conviction was overturned when Israel established this was another man.