Palin case: Vetting in US under scan

A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Tuesday how thoroughly Mr McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket. On Monday morning, Ms Palin and her husband, Mr Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Ms Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

It was also learnt that Ms Palin has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

Dry Pack mixtures for modern construction

Modern construction industry is characterized by more wide application of dry pack mixes, accurately batched and mixed in plant conditions mortars and concrete mixes, with adding water at building site. At construction work effectiveness of dry pack mixes is demonstrated in high level of mechanization, significant reduction of construction terms, decreasing labour content and working costs, providing high quality.

Dry pack mixes are classified by:
- main purpose (type of work);
- type of binder in the mixture;
- modification level of the mixture by admixtures;
- the most significant feature in hardened state;
- conditions of application.

There are identified different mixes by purpose: masonry, facing, jointing, stopping, plastering, gluing, sealing mixes etc.; by type of basic binder –gypsum, anhydrate, lime, magnesium, cement, cement-lime, polymer etc.; by modification level – cost-effective, standard, high-quality; by characteristic feature in hardened state - adhesive, weather-proof, fast-hardening, waterproof, frostproof, high-strength, self-leveling, elastic etc.; by application conditions – hand and machine coating, for porous materials etc. The same mix can be often used at different construction. Adjustment of technological and performance properties of dry pack mixes is reached by adding different chemical admixtures Thickening, dispersing, foaming, defoaming, water-repelling, conservative agents etc. are included into the complex of special chemical admixtures.

Vikram in Dual Role

Director Mani Ratnam seems to be fascinated with ancient Indian epic stories. Mani Ratnam's only film with Rajinikanth 'Thalapathi' was based on the Duriyodhana – Karna episode in Mahabharatha. The character of Shakuntala was very evident in the female lead of 'Roja' and now Mani Ratnam seems to be inspired with Ramanyana for his next project that'll have two versions – Hindi and Tamil.

For the Hindi version the characters based on Rama and Seetha will be played by real life couple Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. Vikram would play the character based on Ravana.

However, for the Tamil version Vikram would replace Abhishek Bachchan and would pair up with Aishwarya Rai. Prithiviraj would play the baddie in this version.

Plying two different characters at one go would be something of a 'terrific exercise' in acting and would probably do a world of good for Vikram who is already a National Award winning actor.

'I am thrilled to be part of this film and to work with Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. I know them very well and we are good friends' said Vikram. Incidentally Vikram was introduced to filmdom by Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited in 1990.

Port City blocked by Russia

Russian military force fastened on positions on Thursday at the entryway to Georgia’s chief Black ocean port city, digging trenches and arranging howitzers confronting the city in spite of Soviet Russia's promise to back out troops from territory deep inside Georgia. Several armoured personnel carriers and troop trucks blocked the bridge that is the only land entrance to Poti and another group of APCs and trucks were positioned in a nearby wooded area.

Lost kin found in Nairobi

White House hopeful Barack Obama’s long lost brother has been tracked down for the first time living in a hut on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, reports claimed. George Hussein Onyango Obama, 26, the US Senator Obama’s long lost brother, was found living in a hut on the outskirts of Nairobi. The youngest of the presidential candidate’s half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender for the most powerful post in the world. “No-one knows who I am,” the younger brother of the White House hopeful was quoted as saying by the Vanity Fair magazine.

According to Italy’s Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack had a front page newspaper picture of his famous brother — born of the same father as him, Barack Hussein Obama, but to a different mother, named only as Jael. Embarrassed by his penury, he said, “If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed”. “I live here on less than a dollar a month,” he claimed, adding “I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist”. He has only met his older brother twice — once when he was just five and the last time in 2006 when Senator Obama was on a tour of East Africa and visited Nairobi, Daily Telegraph newspaper said.

US teacher had sex with her studewnt and jailed

Teachers should teach discipline and not violate them and if they does it damages not only their students but entire nation. A former gym teacher who had sex with a 14-year-old and sent him erotic text messages was sentenced to up to three years in prison, in part because she called the boy after she was charged, a judge ruled. The teenager's family had been willing to settle for a sentence less than prison until they found out Beth Ann chester had contacted him, prosecutor Laura Ditka told the judge on Wednesday. Chester, 27, pleaded guilty to statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor and criminal use of a cell phone.

Friday pullout: Russia

The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev has issued a fresh commitment to withdraw almost all Russian troops from Georgia before the weekend as NATO-Russia relations plunged to their lowest ebb in years. In New York, France submitted a new draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding full compliance with the Georgia ceasefire including a full Russian troop withdrawal, but Russia Tuesday said it was not acceptable.

In a telephone conversation with French counterpart and current European Union President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev vowed that all but 500 Russian troops would be pulled out of the former Soviet republic on Thursday and Friday. As Western criticism intensified over the further delay in the Russian withdrawal — it had promised that the pullback would start Monday — tensions between Russia and NATO began to boil over.

Cure for back pain

Suffering from chronic back pain? Try out the Alexander Technique — a physical work-out with a focus on self-perception of movement. Researchers in Britain have carried out a study and found that the 100-year-old relaxation method, named after its founder Australian actor Frederick Matthias Alexander, can help ease chronic back pain. “This is a significant step forward in the long-term management of low back pain.” he added. The results of this study clearly revealed that the Alexander Technique can beat back pain. “It probably does this by limiting muscle spasm,” researchers added.

Bad inspiration from 'The Dark Knight'

Justin Colby Dirico and Bryan Eugene Stafford, two recent high-school graduates in Pembroke, Virginia, went to see The Dark Knigh t a few weeks ago, but little did they know how the latest Batman movie would alter their lives.

Inspired by Heath Ledger's wicked portrayal of the Joker, who left playing cards at the scenes of his crimes, the two 18-year-olds allegedly wrote threatening messages on cards and left them at a local Wal-Mart and Kmart and under car windshields outside a Dairy Queen and an auto parts store on the weekend of August 9-10

‘Blind drink’ all set for a new high

Buy a cocktail at Sydney’s Zeta Bar and you're likely to ascertain yourself whisked off to a secluded area, blindfolded and fitted with headphones as scented mists are sprayed in your face. Cocktail connoisseurs seeking to unwind can now experience drinking at a New York City bar, a Hawaiian beach, a Caribbean hot spot or a bustling Havana street bar without leaving the comfort of their luxurious barstool.

Fan-fare at Games

Liu Xianghui bicycled across 1,300 km or 800 miles to capital of Red China towing his 98-year-old grandma in a cycle rickshaw to fulfil her dream of attending the Olympics. Reports of Chinese sports fans going to extremes to support the Olympics have been popping up in Chinese newspapers and websites since the start of the Games on August 8.

They are indulging in stunts like shaving five Olympic rings into hair. But even these look old-fashioned. Wen Shengchu, 58, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, stuck 200 acupuncture pins bearing flags into his head. Huang Junde, 62, of Chongqing, used 1,860 badges of China’s former leader Mao Zedong to make Olympic symbols. Walking around Beijing and the Olympic venues, examples of fan fever are everywhere as Chinese people take the government’s message of fully supporting the Games to heart.

US clean waiver to India at NSG riles non-pro hawks

Non-proliferation advocates chafing at what they claim to be the Bush Administration's blanket exemption from standard nuclear trade restrictions being offered to India at the forthcoming meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group are still trying to rally support to impose punitive conditions.

A draft of the US proposal submitted on August 6 to Germany, the current chair of the NSG, shows that Washington has by and large acquiesced with India's reasoning that it should be treated as a special case nuclear power, effectively protecting it from the orthodoxy designed for non-nuclear weapon states.

The US proposal, published by the Washington DC-based Arms Control Association, will be taken up by the NSG on August 20-21 in Vienna for initial consideration. The NSG, which typically operates by consensus, is expected to convene again on September 2 for a final decision.

The word out of Vienna is that while some smaller NSG states are voicing their reservations on the India specific waivers and loose language of the proposals, the US has the situation under control with broad support from major NSG members.

But the hardline ACA, loosely referred to as comprising "non-proliferation ayatollahs," is fulminating about the Bush administration allowing India to circumvent provisions of the domestic Hyde Act with extraordinary generosity at the NSG, while trying to gain some traction among smaller NSG members.

Several NSG members have raised questions about rewarding India with greater opportunities to engage in international nuclear trade while India continues to refuse to constrain its nuclear weapons program, the ACA insisted in a lengthy analysis of the US proposal. Generally speaking, it argued, any India-specific exemption from NSG guidelines would erode the credibility of the NSG's efforts to ensure that access to peaceful nuclear trade and technology is available only to those states that meet global nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament standards.

Specific to the current US proposal, the ACA said, "one of the most notable and troublesome features is the weak and very ambiguous language" in section 2, which is ostensibly meant to outline what India has done that qualifies it for a special exemption from NSG guidelines. The proposal would simply "recognize" India's commitments and actions that were outlined in the July 2005 joint statement by President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Section 3 would allow individual NSG members to engage in a full range of nuclear trade with India without any legally or politically meaningful requirement that would link nuclear trade with India to implementation and compliance with the commitments and actions mentioned in section 2.

The proposal would only require that: "Participating Government shall maintain contact and consult through regular channels on matters connected with the implementation of the Guidelines, taking into account relevant international commitments and bilateral agreements with India."

This, the ACA complained, is a much weaker formulation than the already weak March 2006 US draft proposal, which stated that: "Participating Governments may transfer trigger list items and/or related technology to the safeguarded civil nuclear facilities in India...as long as the participating Government intending to make the transfer is satisfied that India continues to fully meet all of the aforementioned nonproliferation and safeguards commitments, and all other requirements of the NSG Guidelines."

Furthermore, the ACA said, the current US proposal would leave it up to each individual NSG participant to decide whether India is or is not meeting these weak standards and loose commitments before they sell nuclear technology and materials (possibly including technologies the U.S would not be willing to sell) to India.

US court gives Saudi royals immunity in 9/11 case

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, four princes and other Saudi entities are immune from a lawsuit filed by victims of the September 11 attacks and their families alleging they gave material support to al-Qaida, a federal appeals court in United States ruled on Thursday.

The ruling by the second circuit court of appeals in Manhattan upheld a 2006 ruling by United States district judge Richard Casey dismissing a claim against Saudi Arabia, a Saudi charity, four princes and a Saudi banker of providing material support to al-Qaida before the September 11 attacks.

The victims and their families argued that because the defendants gave money to Muslim charities that in turn gave money to al-Qaida, they should be held responsible for helping to finance the attacks.

The appeals court found that the defendants are protected under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The federal court also noted that exceptions to the immunity rule do not apply because Saudi Arabia has not been designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the US state department.

Bush says Russia's actions in Georgia unacceptable

US President George W Bush said Russia's actions were "completely unacceptable" in Georgia and that Moscow must end the crisis.

"The world has watched with alarm as Russia invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatened a democratic government elected by its people," Bush said in his weekly Saturday radio address, which the White House released on Friday.

"This act is completely unacceptable to the free nations of the world," Bush said.

It was Bush's second statement on the Georgia crisis on Friday, a sign of US concern about Russia's intentions.

Moscow sent troops into Georgia in response to Tbilisi sending forces to retake South Ossetia, a pro-Russian province, last week.

Bush said he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Brussels next week to meet with NATO foreign ministers and European Union officials.

Rice visited Tbilisi and France, which brokered a ceasefire, this week and was headed to Crawford, Texas, to meet with Bush at his ranch this weekend.

"To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must act to end this crisis," Bush said.

Ukraine bar on watercrafts

Ukraine admonished Russia on Sunday it dismissed Navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia’s coast. The statement could affect Russian-Ukrainian relations, already strained by energy disputes and Ukraine’s plans to join Nato. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the Russian naval deployment to Georgia’s Black Sea coast has the potential to draw Ukraine into the Russian-Georgian conflict over the separatist province of South Ossetia. Georgia launched an offensive on Friday to regain control over the inland province and Russia responded by sending in tanks and troops and bombing Georgian territory. Russia has deployed a naval squadron off the coast of another of Georgia’s separatist regions, Abkhazia. The ships are part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in the port in Sevastopol, which Russia leases from Ukraine.

US prods NSG for waiver

Facing a “tight timetable”, the US on Friday pushed a reluctant Japan and other members of the NSG to agree to a waiver for India “expeditiously” for enabling the Indo-US nuclear deal, saying the accord will be a “practical way” of engaging New Delhi on non-proliferation. “The question we’re dealing with now is what’s the best way to get more convergence between what we do within the non-proliferation treaty and what India does outside,” US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher told reporters here, adding that India has made it “very clear” that signing NPT “is not on the cards”. Asked about the possibility of the deal taking effect before President George W. Bush’s term ends in January, he said: “It is a tight timetable. We are asking... the NSG to move expeditiously.”

He also dismissed concerns the agreement with India may open up a window for Pakistan to seek a similar deal. “India has a solid record of non-proliferation, controlling exports, and a responsible international behaviour in that regard,” he said. “So it was considered as an arrangement that worked with regard to India, not as some kind of model for other countries.” He pushed Japan, which wants India to sign the NPT.

Afghan Army revamp

Defence secretary Robert M. Gates will endorse a $20 billion plan to substantially increase the size of Afghanistan’s Army and will also restructure the military command of American and Nato forces in response to the growing Taliban threat, senior Pentagon and military officials said on Thursday.

Taken together, the two decisions are an acknowledgement of shortcomings that continue to hinder Nato and American-led operations in Afghanistan. With the war in Iraq still an obstacle to any immediate American troop increase in Afghanistan, the plan was described by officials as an attempt to increase allied and Afghan capabilities in advance of deploying the additional American brigades that Mr Gates and his commanders agree are necessary. The additional American troops are unlikely to be available until next year.

Russia sends forces to counter Georgian attack

Russia sent columns of tanks and reportedly bombed Georgian air bases on Friday after Georgia launched a major military offensive Friday to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia, threatening to ignite a broader conflict. Hundreds of civilians were reported dead in the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won defacto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992.

Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali was devastated. "I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars," said Mr Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, who had fled with her family to Dzhava, a village near the border with Russia. "It’s impossible to count them now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged."

The fighting broke out as much of the world's attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia’s Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin and the US President, Mr George W. Bush, were in Beijing.

The timing suggests Georgian President, Mr Mikhail Saakashvili, may have been counting on surprise to fulfill his longtime pledge to wrest back control of South Ossetia — a key to his hold on power. Mr Saakashvili agreed the timing was not coincidental, but accused Russia of being the aggressor. "Most decision makers have gone for the holidays," he said in an interview with CNN. "Brilliant moment to attack a small country."

Diplomats called for another emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, its second since early Friday morning seeking to prevent an all-out war. The US was sending an envoy to the region on Friday to meet with the parties involved.

Infirmaries used homeless people to make money

An Infirmary chief executive officer was caught on Wednesday in what authorities said was a scheme to recruit homeless people as phony patients and bill authorities programmes for millions of dollars in unneeded health services. Federal agents raided three medical centres and the city of Los Angeles sued the hospitals, saying they used homeless people as “human pawns.” More charges are expected, a federal prosecutor said. Hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties submitted phony medicare and medical bills for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homeless patients, recruited from central Skid Row, state and federal authorities allege. While treating minor problems that did not require hospitalisation, such as dehydration, exhaustion or yeast infections, the hospitals allegedly kept homeless patients in beds for as long as three days and charged the government for the stays.

Soviet iconoclast passes away

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose stubborn, lonely and combative literary struggles gained the force of prophecy as he revealed the heavy afflictions of Soviet Communism in some of the most powerful works of the 20th century, died late on Sunday at the age of 89 in Moscow. His son Yermolai said the cause was a heart ailment.

Solzhenitsyn outlived by nearly 17 years the Soviet state and the system he had battled through years of imprisonment, ostracism and exile. Solzhenitsyn had been an obscure, middle-aged, unpublished high school science teacher in a provincial Russian town when he burst onto the literary stage in 1962 with A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

The book, a mould-breaking novel about a prison camp inmate, was a sensation. Suddenly he was being compared to the giants of Russian literature like Tolstoy, Dostoyevski and Chekhov. Over the next five decades, Mr Solzhenitsyn’s fame spread throughout the world as he drew upon his experiences of totalitarian duress to write evocative novels like The First Circle and The Cancer Ward and historical works like The Gulag Archipelago.

Gulag was a monumental account of the Soviet labour camp system, a chain of prisons that by Solzhenitsyn’s calculation some 60 million people had entered during the 20th century. The book led to his expulsion from his native land. George F. Kennan, the American diplomat, described it as "the greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be levelled in modern times."

Solzhenitsyn was heir to a morally focused and often prophetic Russian literary tradition, and he looked the part. He returned to Russia and deplored what he considered its spiritual decline, but in the last years of his life he embraced the former president, Mr Vladimir V. Putin as a restorer of Russia’s greatness. In almost half a century, more than 30 million of his books have been sold worldwide and translated into some 40 languages.

In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mr Solzhenitsyn owed his initial success to Khrushchev’s decision to allow Ivan Denisovich to be published in a popular journal. Khrushchev believed its publication would advance the liberal line he had promoted since his secret speech in 1956 on the crimes of Stalin.

But soon after the story appeared, Khrushchev was replaced by hard-liners, and they campaigned to silence its author. But their iron grip could not contain Mr Solzhenitsyn’s reach. By then his works were appearing outside the Soviet Union, in many languages, and he was being compared not only to Russia’s literary giants but also to Stalin’s literary victims.

At home, the Kremlin stepped up its campaign by expelling Mr Solzhenitsyn from the Writer’s Union. He fought back. He succeeded in having microfilms of his banned manuscripts smuggled out of the Soviet Union. He addressed petitions to government organs, wrote open letters, rallied support among friends and artists, and corresponded with people abroad.

They turned his struggles into one of the most celebrated cases of the cold war period.

That position was confirmed when he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in the face of Moscow’s protests. The Nobel jurists cited him for "the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature."

Solzhenitsyn dared not travel to Stockholm to accept the prize for fear that the Soviet authorities would prevent him from returning. But his acceptance address was circulated widely.

By this time, Solzhenitsyn had completed his own massive attempt at truthfulness, The Gulag Archipelago.

Omar operates from Pak

Taliban’s reclusive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is believed by Afghan and Western officials to be running the militant organisation from his base near Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in Pakistan. Mullah Omar runs a shadow government, complete with military, religious and cultural councils, and has appointed officials and commanders to virtually every Afghan province and district, just as he did when he ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban claim, the New York Times reported on Monday. He oversees his movement through a grand council of 10 members, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed told the Times in a telephone interview. Mullah Bradar, one of the most senior and ruthless commanders, serves as his first deputy. He makes all military decisions, including how fighters are deployed.