President George W. Bush has no qualms about attending a political fundraiser for a Virginia Senator who recently used a racial slur against a young American of Indian ethnicity.

At a rally in southwest Virginia on August 11, Republican Senator George Allen belittled S.R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old campaign volunteer for the Senator’s Democratic opponent James Webb.

Mr Sidarth was in the crowd filming the event when Mr Allen pointed him out. “This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is ... He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great,” Mr. Allen said to laughter.

Macaca is a genus of monkey found widely in Asia. It is also a racial slur in French — macaque, meaning monkey — that racists and white colonialists in Africa use to refer to Africans. Mr Allen’s mother emigrated from French Tunisia and he is fluent in French.

“Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” Mr Allen said. Mr Sidarth was born in the United States.

The traumatised campaign volunteer told the Washington Post he thought Mr Allen picked on him “because he could, and I was the only person of colour there, and it was useful for him in inciting his audience… I was annoyed he would use my race in a political context.”

Mr Allen, who may run for President in 2008, later said the name was “just made up” and that he had no idea that macaca is a genus of monkeys. His spokesman Dick Wadhams said the name “macaca” was a variation of “mohawk,” the nickname Allen campaign staffers gave Mr Sidarth for his unusual haircut.

In a statement, Mr Allen said, “In singling out the Webb campaign’s cameraman, I was trying to make the point that Jim Webb had never been to that part of Virginia — and I encouraged him to bring the tape back to Jim and welcome him to the real world of Virginia and America, outside the Beltway, where he has rarely visited.

“I also made up a nickname for the cameraman, which was in no way intended to be racially derogatory. Any insinuations to the contrary are completely false.”

Mr Bush’s spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on board Air Force One on August 22 that Mr Allen “apologised and I think it’s in everyone’s best interest in this day of … politics when everyone is trying to improve the tone and discourse to accept apologises when they’re offered.”

Political pundits say Mr Allen’s racist remark may have a detrimental effect on his re-election and eventually his presidential ambitions in 2008.

In an editorial headlined “The Un-American Senator,” the Los Angeles Times wrote: “There is no room for that kind of racism in American politics. We’re not in the habit of telling Virginians how to vote, but an Allen defeat this November would send the right message to race-baiting politicians: Welcome to America. Now go home.”

Mr Allen’s gaffe is not the first time American lawmakers have let slip ethnic slurs. In July, Delaware Democratic Sen. Joe Biden said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” In 2004, New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton joked that Mahatma Gandhi “ran a gas station down in St Louis for a couple of years. Mr Gandhi, do you still go to the gas station?”

Islamabad, August 24
A Hindu man accused of attempting to “hijack” a railway engine in Karachi for ramming it into a passenger train was not an Indian as alleged by the police and belonged to Pakistan’s Sindh province where he was undergoing treatment for being mentally ill, his family said.

As pictures of Madan Lal were shown on private TV channels yesterday, his son Ramesh and wife Jubbi Kolhi said he was mentally ill for which he was undergoing treatment and demanded his immediate release.

Ms Jubbi told mediapersons in front of the Press Club in Sindh’s Hyderabad city where she protested her husband’s arrest, that Lal was innocent and had nothing to do with the hijacking of the railway engine.

Madan Lal is a resident of Gulshan-e-Hali locality of Sindh’s Hyderabad city, The News daily quoted the family members as saying.

Pakistan Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad declined to reveal details of the incident, saying that investigations were on.

While private TV networks and international agencies played up claims by some police officials that Lal hailed from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, the official media ignored the story.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam too declined to comment saying she was not aware of the details. — PTI

Prague (Czech Republic), August 24
Leading astronomers today approved historic new guidelines under which distant Pluto is no longer defined as a planet.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Asronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. It is the first time that scientists have had a formal definition of what is - and is not - a planet.

Today’s decision by the prestigious international group spells out that the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight “classical” planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn’t make the grade under the new rules for a planet: “A celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s.

Instead, it will be reclassed in a new category of “dwarf planets,” similar to what have long been termed “minor planets.”

The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun - “small solar system bodies,” a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites. — AP