han rights groups said they fear thhmong will be persecuted in laos. the u.s.statdepartment asked thailand to stothe action. there was good newsoday for u.s. retlers. new data from master ca showed holiday spending was more than 3.5% over last yea and wall street gained todaas well. the dow jones industrl average was up nearly 27 pots to close at 10,547. the sdaq rose five points to close at 2291. those arsome of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the e of the prram with a preview of what you'll find tonighon the newshour'seb site. but for nowback to margaret. >> warner: now, weurn to the confntation in iran. the regime struck at its oppotion again today on the heels oyesterday's widespread bloodshe >at least seven leading reformctivists were rounded up today in iran. state sponsored press tv made he announcement. >> ports say several political fures have been arrested over sunday' unrest in iran. among the arrested are secretary-general of the freedom movemen ofiran. and the senior aid to defeated pesidential candidate mouavi. >> state tv aso reported eig

style football to youth and have a mel clinic where we were servicing world cities in -- outside of laos and the capital of nie jarya and it worked out well. >> they don't care about the football side. it is more like our sons are back. they are back from the united states and their long extended visit and they are back home and we get that kind of love and it is hard to explain, like a love that a mother has for their son and the whole country has it for us. >> our every day life, it doesn't matter who we are and where you are from and what you v you can all do little things to impact somebody's life. >> through football, wally and izzi can make an impact on countless fans but during the trip, there was one child who made a huge impact on them. a 4-year-old lady named shakier asman. her smile and behind that was a sick girl in desperate need of health. she was born with a life threatening defect, a whole in her heart. as words spread about her condition an organization called the heart gift foundation was is able help but there was a page snag. airfare to the united states was not part

in laos, cooperation is physical and welcome. the evolving relationship including establishment and exchange is very good for the u.s. laos bilateral relationship and pow measure mia in particular, something we fought for 12 years. they finally agreed, and it's now in place. a small increase in air lift funding in the case of laos would expedite the effort as well. i'm not in a position to suggest the number of additional personnel that would be required. i do know an agreement with these gentleman that j h pac funding is inadequate for the fy '09 budget. that doesn't even include operations for north korea if that happens to open up. so an increase of at least 1/3 or 20 plus million with a plus of forensic an throw poll gist and other staff as necessary. -- an an, our positions i know have to stop. our positions on all of the questions are in the full testimony that i provided. but i'd like to say that having admiral chris as head of j-pac has been a blessing. it has helped tremendously improve the quality and the situation for

style football to youth and have a mel clinic where we were servicing world cities in -- outside of laos and the capital of nie jarya and it worked out well. >> they don't care about the football side. it is more like our sons are back. they are back from the united states and their long extended visit and they are back home and we get that kind of love and it is hard to explain, like a love that a mother has for their son and the whole country has it for us. >> our every day life, it doesn't matter who we are and where you are from and what you v you can all do little things to impact somebody's life. >> through football, wally and izzi can make an impact on countless fans but during the trip, there was one child who made a huge impact on them. a 4-year-old lady named shakier asman. her smile and behind that was a sick girl in desperate need of health. she was born with a life threatening defect, a whole in her heart. as words spread about her condition an organization called the heart gift foundation was is able help but there was a page snag. airfare to the united states was not part

style football to youth and have a mel clinic where we were servicing world cities in -- outside of laosital of nie jarya and it worked out well. >> they don't care about the football side. it is more like our sons are back. they are back from the united states and their long extended visit and they are back home and we get that kind of love and it is hard to explain like a love that a mother has for their son and the whole country has it for us. >> our every day life, it doesn't matter who we are and where you are from and what you v you can all do little things to impact somebody's life. >> through football, wally and izzi can make an impact on countless fans but during the trip, there was one child who made a huge impact on them. a 4-year-old lady named shakier asman. her smile and behind that was a sick girl in desperate need of health. she was born with a life threatening defect, a whole in her heart. as words spread about her condition an organization called the heart gift foundation was is able help but there was a page snag. airfare to the united states was not part of the fundin

today there are five communist countries, china, vietnam, laos, north korea and cuba. the first three of them have been developing market economies and substantial private sector's. politically communist, economically not. china has even been described as an example of party state capitalism. ideologically it is a way over which bouncy tone rolled. when i was in beijing earlier this year, a professor of economics told me how puzzled yet been to read in a bbc poll, karl marx was the greatest philosopher of all time. it seemed to be much reassured when i told him this wasn't a scientific poll based on a representative sample. it was a kind of poll where people had to phone in or e-mail and if you had to take the initiative to register your vote at and the marxists were more motivated and rather better organized by the supporters of aristotle, harps or david hume. [laughter] to make communism has partly followed even in china with its population of 1.3 billion which is now a workshop of the world. it has fallen more completely in eastern europe and in the former soviet un

crisis is those who have fallen into homelessness as a result, whether through foreclosures, evictions, laos, or other financial problems. and this study revealed as did hud's own report was released in july, that the number of homeless families is on the rise. would increase in rural and suburban homeless as we found an increase of 56 percent in rural and suburban family homelessness. we see that homelessness is not simply an urban problem, but one in every community increasingly a struggling with in these economic times. as diverse as our homeless population is, there is one thing that ever who is homeless shares. and lack of housing that they can afford. and as this study finds high housing costs often lead them is to cut back on other necessities, like food. that's why today i want to reiterate very clearly what i've said before. that the federal government is backing the business of affordable rental housing. you need only look at the $14 billion hide is investing in our committees through the recovery act to see that we are from our 2 billion-dollar investment in full funding a project

if the -- if you needed to pursue the enemy, like during vietnam they had a sanctuary, laos, do you havethe green light to go across the border in hot pursuit? >> sir, we have the ability to protect our forces with fire across the border, artillery and airfire. and we do that in coordination with our pakistani partners. so we can pursue them to target them and do that fairly routinely. but again, we coordinate that and have a series of procedures in process, or in place that allow us to do that. >> mr. chairman, i would like to ask that in the future, from time to time, if possible, that we would have classified briefings with men like mr. mccrystal -- general mcchrystal, excuse me, and the ambassador. >> we, of course, have done that in the past. we will do our best in the future. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you so much. mr. andrews? >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, general, good morning, ambassador. thank you for your service. general, ambassador, do you agree with the statement that there is not a robust al qaeda presence in afghanistan today? >> in terms of numbers, there is