Mackenzie Phillips is discovering what many who claim they are victims of incest have learned when they come forward — their families don’t always believe them.

Mackenzie Phillips is discovering what many victims of incest have learned when they come

The former child star of “One Day at a Time” returned to the Oprah Winfrey Show today to defend her decision to write her bombshell book “High on Arrival,” in which she confessed to engaging in a 10-year consensual sexual relationship with her father, rock star John Phillips, the lead singer for the ’60s group the Mamas and the Papas.

“It’s been heartening and heartbreaking at the same time …with the way my family’s reacting,” she said about the response to her appearance on Wednesday.

Director Roman Polanski has been taken into custody on a 31-year-old US arrest warrant, Swiss police have confirmed.

The film-maker, 76, was detained on Saturday as he travelled to Switzerland to collect a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival.

Mr Polanski admitted unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in the US in 1977, but fled to France before sentencing.

In recent years, he has tried to have the rape case dismissed, but a US judge formally rejected his requests in May.

Mr Polanski was initially indicted on six felony counts and faced up to life in prison.

He claims the original judge, who is now dead, arranged a plea bargain but later reneged.

Earlier this year, Judge Peter Espinoza agreed there was misconduct by the judge in the original case, but said Mr Polanski must return to the US to apply for dismissal.

Mr Polanski’s lawyers said he would not return to the US because he would be immediately arrested as a fugitive.

The victim at the centre of the case, Samantha Geimer, has also asked for the charges to be dropped, saying the continued publication of details “causes harm to me, my husband and children”.

She has also called the court’s insistence that Mr Polanski appear in person “a cruel joke”.

The Polish-born filmmaker has not set foot in the US for more than 30 years. He has even avoided making films in the UK for fear of extradition.

His Oscar for directing the 2002 The Pianist was collected by Harrison Ford, who had previously starred in his 1988 thriller, Frantic.

The organisers of the Zurich Film Festival said Polanski’s detention had caused “shock and dismay,” but that they would go ahead with a planned retrospective of the director’s work.

A special ceremony is planned for Sunday night “to allow everyone to express their solidarity for Roman Polanski and their admiration for his work,” festival managers said in a statement.

Switzerland has an extradition treaty with the US.

When Iraq war veteran Angela Peacock is in the shower, she sometimes closes her eyes and can’t help reliving the day in Baghdad in 2003 that pushed her closer to the edge.

Sgt. Angela Peacock is seen in 2004, after she returned to the United States from duty in Iraq.

While pulling security detail for an Army convoy stuck in gridlocked traffic, Peacock’s vehicle came alongside a van full of Iraqi men who “began shouting that they were going to kill us,” she said.

One man in the vehicle was particularly threatening. “I can remember his eyes looking at me,” she said. “I put my finger on the trigger and aimed my weapon at the guy, and my driver is screaming at me to stop.”

“I was really close to shooting at them, but I didn’t.”

Now back home in Missouri, Peacock, 30, is unemployed — squatting without a lease in a tiny house in a North St. Louis County neighborhood.

She points to the Baghdad confrontation as a major contributor to her struggles with drug abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. She says she’s one step away from living on the street.

Shortly after her discharge in 2004, Peacock said, she developed an addiction to pain pills. After her husband left her, she was evicted from her apartment, which she said made it impossible for her to obtain a lease or a mortgage.

She spent the next few years “couch surfing” from friend to friend, relative to relative.

Experts say that Peacock’s profile is similar to that of many female veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the rate of female homeless vets is increasing in the United States, according to the federal government and groups that advocate for homeless people.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs defines PTSD as a type of anxiety that affects people who’ve experienced a particularly traumatic event that creates intense fear, helplessness or horror.

“You’re sitting on your couch and you hear a car go down the street, and you think it’s going to come through your house — so you kind of catastrophize things automatically,” Peacock said. “That’s stuff normal people don’t do, but if you’re in a combat zone on convoys all the time, you can’t help but do that.”

People in Peacock’s life “just don’t get it,” she said, “so you just isolate.”

PTSD can trigger depression, experts say, leading to job loss and a rapid downward spiral toward homelessness. Many times, these newly homeless women also have children to care for, advocates say.

Making matters worse, Peacock and other returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan have been hammered by a struggling economy and skyrocketing unemployment rates.

The jobless rate for post-9/11 veterans is higher than the overall U.S. rate and has nearly doubled in the past year to 11.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In addition, about 1.5 million veterans — 6.3 percent — had incomes below the federal poverty line, according to a 2005 congressional analysis of census figures.

With the U.S. Army now at 15 percent female, and more women providing supporting roles in combat zones, female vets are becoming homeless at a faster rate than men, said Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Pete Dougherty.

Conservative estimates count about 131,000 homeless veterans in the United States, most of them from the Vietnam War era. The VA has pinpointed 3,717 homeless veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the nationwide total could be as many as twice that — about 7,400, he said.

The VA estimates about 10 percent of all homeless veterans are women, making the estimated number of homeless Iraq-Afghanistan female veterans about 740. Dougherty said that number is rising.

Peacock blames her PTSD on many incidents during her time in the military, including “a bunch of small near misses, like sniper fire on a convoy, and waiting for somebody to throw an IED over, and the constant fear that I’m going to die.”

She also says she was raped by a noncommissioned officer while deployed in South Korea in 2001.

She said that on the advice of a soldier who outranked her, she never officially reported the rape. “He said if you tell, they’re going to put you on trial and make you look like a party girl,” she said.

Peacock said the Army reached out to her to investigate the rape accusation, but she refused to cooperate because she didn’t think the investigation would do any good. CNN.com contacted the Army about Peacock’s story and has not yet received an official response to her allegations.

Known in the ranks as MST, military sexual trauma is another factor homeless advocates point to as a possible cause for PTSD.

The leaders of Libya and Venezuela have called on Africa and South America to create a new alliance to counter Western dominance.

They were speaking at the second South America-Africa (ASA) summit held in the Venezuelan island of Margarita, attended by nearly 30 leaders.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez called on the two continents to unite to secure prosperity for future generations.

Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi said he was in favour of a military-style pact.

The summit agenda covers hunger in Africa, the global economic crisis, energy, and the creation of a joint investment fund between Africa and South America.

The leaders agreed to launch a new development bank for South America, the Banco del Sur, with an initial start up investment of $20bn.

Nato of the South

President Chavez also offered to create a “South-South bank” with African nations in the future.

During his address at the summit, Col Gaddafi said Western countries wanted to hold on their to power.

“When they had the chance to help us, they treated us like animals, destroyed our land. Now we have to fight to build our own power.”

Col Gaddafi proposed a defence alliance of South American and African nations, calling it “a Nato of the South”.

The political crisis in Honduras is expected to figure prominently at the meeting, especially in bilateral talks between the Latin American leaders.

Other attending leaders include Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

A massive rescue operation is under way in the Philippines, where at least 72 people are feared to have died following torrential rains.

Tropical Storm Ketsana triggered the worst flooding in decades in the capital Manila and nearby provinces.

Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said troops, police and civilian volunteers had rescued more than 4,000 people - many clinging to each other on roofs.

More than 250,000 have been driven from their homes, officials say.

Military chief Gen Victor Ibrado flew by helicopter over suburbs of Manila on Sunday to see for himself drenched survivors marooned on top of half-submerged buses and on rooftops.

TV footage showed some survivors clinging to high-voltage power lines.

Correspondents say the rescue effort is intensifying as the weather cleared on Sunday.

But some reports estimate that 80% of the capital is still under water.

The government has declared a “calamity” in Manila and 25 provinces, allowing access to emergency funds.

Officials said that 51 people had been confirmed dead and at least 21 others were missing.

In pictures: Philippines floods Philippines floods: Your comments

Manila bus driver George Andrada said he had lost everything in the floods.

“It happened very fast. All of a sudden everything was under water. I was not able to save anything except the shirt I am wearing,” he said.

Some residents have emailed the BBC with their experiences. Lovely Lansang in Marikina, near Manila, says: “I am currently seeking refuge in a shopping centre. Many people are stuck either on their roofs or in the second storey of their houses.

“The city is also without clean water and electricity. Right now, I am still in the shopping centre because the roads here are impassable,” the email adds.

The equivalent of a whole month’s rain fell in six hours as Ketsana, also known as Ondoy, lashed the northern island of Luzon.

On Saturday, TV images showed gushing water turning roads into rivers, with floods chest-deep and rising.

Appeal for calm

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo appealed for donations and called for calm.

“I am calling on our countrymen, especially residents of metro Manila and other provinces in the path of the typhoon, to please stay calm, follow the instructions of local officials and civil defence authorities,” she said in a TV message on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, Mayor Mon Ilagan of the town of Cainta, in Rizal province east of Manila, told local media his town was “almost 100% under water”.

Rizal Governor Casimiro Ynares was quoted by local media as saying other towns were completely inundated.

Roads leading into Manila were rendered impassable by stalled vehicles, and some ferry services were cancelled.

The Philippines chief weather forecaster has blamed climate change for the downpours that saw 40cm (16in) of rain fall on Manila in a single day.

Thousands of passengers were stranded as international and domestic airports were shut down.

Ketsana, with winds of up to 100km/h, is expected to head out over the South China Sea on Sunday and Monday.

A NATO armored vehicle escorts a convoy of supply trucks Friday in Kabul, Afghanistan.

August had the most fatalities this year for civilians in Afghanistan because of the country’s disputed election, and violence could rise again when the final results are released, a U.N. report warns.

A NATO armored vehicle escorts a convoy of supply trucks Friday in Kabul, Afghanistan.

About 1,500 people died in Afghanistan from the beginning of the year to August, according to the U.N. report released this week.

The report did not say what the death toll was for August.

“August (was) the deadliest month since the beginning of 2009,” the report said. “These figures reflect an increasing trend in insecurity over recent months and in elections-related violence.”

Almost 70 percent of the civilian deaths this year were blamed on what the report called anti-government elements. More than 20 percent of the civilian deaths were attributed to pro-government forces, the report said.

The winner of Afghanistan’s presidential election has been in dispute since the August 20 election. Results of the completed count, announced September 16, gave incumbent Hamid Karzai 54 percent of the vote, but the numbers won’t be certified until authorities investigate allegations of irregularities.

More than 200,000 of the nearly 5.7 million votes cast have been thrown out because of these allegations.

Meanwhile, four U.S. service members, not five as previously reported, were killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan earlier this week, military officials said Saturday.

The fifth death was an interpreter who was working with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and died of wounds incurred in an insurgent attack, the military said in a statement.

No other details were immediately available.

So far this month, 34 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan, according to CNN figures compiled from military reports