W O R L D

Castro fighting a ‘battle for life’
Rio De Janeiro, January 20
Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is locked in a "battle for his life," his friend and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said. "He's back in (Cuba's) Sierra Maestra and locked in a battle for his life," he said referring to Castro's legendary guerrilla war that toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and ushered in his Cuban Revolution.

Jade booted out of  Big Brother house 
London, January 20
Jade Goody, the big mouthed tormentor of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house last night as millions of viewers turned the phone vote into an impromptu referendum on racism.
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Pak building new  N-facilities: Report
Islamabad, January 20
Pakistan could be in the advanced stage of building a new reactor at its Chashma nuclear site capable of separating weapons-grade plutonium from spent reactor fuel and it could go into operation soon, a US think tank has said.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee at Shwedagon Pagoda  in Yangon on Saturday. — PTI

White House, Democrats in ‘sound-bite war’ on Iraq
Washington, January 20
Intensifying a war of words over a US troop buildup in Iraq, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused President George W Bush of playing politics with soldiers' lives, a charge the White House called ''poisonous.''''The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way that we won't cut off the resources,'' Pelosi, head of the Democratic-led House, told ABC's ''Good Morning America.

Bird flu to be more acrid
Cairo, January 20
An Egyptian woman died from bird flu overnight, bringing the number to 11 of people in the country to have succumbed to the disease, the health ministry said today. The death comes only two days after the World Health Organisation in Geneva announced that a medication-resistant strain of the virus was responsible for the last two flu deaths in Egypt.The latest victim, Warda Eid Ahmed, 27, from Beni Sueif south of Cairo, was hospitalised on January 13 in the Egyptian capital before being diagnosed with H5N1 four days later.

Castro fighting a ‘battle for life’

Jade booted out of  Big Brother house 

London, January 20
Jade Goody, the big mouthed tormentor of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house last night as millions of viewers turned the phone vote into an impromptu referendum on racism.

Shilpa shining Melbourne: While Shilpa Shetty has been vindicated with the eviction of her tormentor from the British reality television show, the saga surrounding her 'mistreatment' has also made it to the front-page headlines Down Under.  The racism tinge to the controversy has found expression in screaming headlines. The news of the alleged racist treatment of Indian 'A-list star' has also been clogging Google News website. News articles and editorials are drawing attention to the Australian version of Big Brother and the racist attitude of some of the housemates appearing it in the past. — PTI, UNI

Sources suggested that more than five million viewers voted after Chancellor Gordon Brown, on a visit to India, broadly suggested that a call to oust 25-year-old Jade would be a vote "for tolerance".

The response was overwhelming, with 82 per cent of voters choosing to throw Goody out.

There was a late flurry of sympathy for Miss Goody after she wept on last night's show and made an impassioned plea that she was not racist.

Earlier Brown, stepping into the race row for the third day running during a visit to a Bollywood film studio in Mumbai, said that he regarded backing the Indian actress as a positive way of showing Britain was "a nation of tolerance and fairness."

The eviction marked the end of an extraordinary week which saw the apparent racism against Shetty. A tearful Goody who found fame after her appearance in Big Brother 3 in 2002, begged programme chiefs to let her avoid the eviction night crowd.

Racial jibes at Shilpa Shetty by Goody and fellow contestants Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara had caused a storm of controversy, with over 40,000 people making complaints.

Earlier it emerged that panicking Big Brother chiefs engineered a phoney rapproachement between Shilpa Shetty and Goody as a key sponsor pulled out and pressure grew to axe the show. — PTI

Pak building new  N-facilities: Report

Given New Delhi's intensified efforts to increase uranium enrichment capabilities at the Rare Materials Plant, the two neigbours could be engaged in expanding the size and quality of their nuclear arsenals, the ISIS report warned. — PTI

India-Pak panel to meet in Feb

The Pakistan-India Joint Commission will meet in New Delhi during the third week of February to discuss ways for promoting bilateral cooperation in diverse fields.

The Dawn newspaper reported that the one-day session of the commission, headed by the foreign ministers of the two countries, would be preceded by meetings of two technical-level groups on Information and Education, the only two working groups that have not met so  far. — UNI

White House, Democrats in ‘sound-bite war’ on Iraq  

The administration was scrambling to limit Republican defections.

“Twisting Arms”

''The White House has been working very aggressively, twisting arms, doing what they need to do to try to keep people away from our resolution, or any resolution,'' Sen Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican co-sponsor of the Senate resolution, said in an interview taped for C-SPAN's ''Newsmakers'' program.

Bush, faced with opinion polls showing Americans strongly opposed to a troop increase, is expected to defend his Iraq plan in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

The White House struck back at Pelosi for suggesting Bush had political motives for moving quickly on the troop increase.

''Those particular comments were poisonous,'' Perino said.— Reuters

Bird flu to be more acrid