Baby number three for Julia Roberts
Los Angeles, June 19
Hollywood screen idol Julia Roberts has given birth to her third child, the actress's representatives have said. The Oscar-winning star of "Pretty Woman" and "Erin Brockovich" gave birth to a baby boy, Henry Daniel Moder, at a Los Angeles hospital yesterday, New York-based publicists Engelman and Company said.

‘Sir’ Rushdie not right, Pak tells UK envoy
Islamabad, June 19
Pakistan today summoned the British envoy to the Foreign Office to convey its resentment over the honour bestowed on the author whose "offensive and insulting writings" have hurt Muslims. British High Commissioner Robert Brinkley was told that it was not expected from the government of the UK, which has a large Muslim population, to honour Rushdie. — PTI In Video(56k)

78 killed in bombing at Baghdad mosque
Baghdad, June 19
A suspected al-Qaida bomber killed 78 persons when he rammed a truck into a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad on Tuesday, just hours after 10,000 US troops began an offensive against the Sunni Islamist group north of the capital.

Missile attack kills 32 in Pak
Miranshah, June 19
A missile attack, probably launched by US forces in Afghanistan, killed at least 32 pro-Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal region near the border today, Pakistani officials said.

Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama has admitted his campaign made a "dumb mistake" when it put out a paper criticising New York Democrat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's ties with India and the Indian American community. Both Senators are presidential candidates.

Days after the Obama campaign ignited a firestorm in the Indian American community by calling Hillary Clinton a Democrat from Punjab who favours outsourcing of jobs to India, Obama said the community's concerns were justified.

"It was a screw-up on the part of our research team," Obama told editors and reporters with The Des Moines Register, according to the paper's Web site. "It wasn't anything I had seen or my senior staff had seen."

Later on Monday, he sent a statement to South Asians for Obama, a group of South Asians committed to getting him elected President in 2008. In that, he said the memo "did not reflect my own views on the importance of America's relationship with India."

He admitted the memo's "caustic tone, and its focus on contributions by Indian-Americans to the Clinton campaign, was potentially hurtful, and as such, unacceptable."

The memo, Obama said, "ignored my own long-standing relationship to - and support from - the Indian-American community. In sum, our campaign made a mistake."

He said that although he was not aware of the contents of the memo prior to its distribution, he considered his campaign "and in particular myself - responsible for the mistake."

The memo was critical of Mrs. Clinton's support for outsourcing. "Bill Clinton has invested tens of thousands of dollars in an Indian bill payment company, while Hillary Clinton has taken tens of thousands from companies that outsource jobs to India.

Workers who have been laid off in upstate New York might not think that her recent joke that she could be elected to the Senate seat in Punjab is that funny," the three-page leaked paper said.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Obama said, "The issue of outsourcing is a genuine and important issue but to refer to one particular country was, I think, an error and I let all of us know that we've got to be more careful about how we communicate."

In his statement to SAFO, he said he has "long believed that the best way to promote the U.S. economic growth and opportunity for American workers is to continually improve the skills of our own workforce and invest in our own scientific research, technological capacity and infrastructure, rather than to try to insulate ourselves from the global economy."

The senator assured South Asians for Obama that the campaign had taken appropriate action to prevent errors like this from happening in the future.

The USA on Monday ended an economic embargo on the Palestinian Authority to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas and isolate the militant Hamas.

U.S. financial aid to the Palestinians was frozen after Hamas came to power in legitimate elections in January 2006.

President George W. Bush spoke with Abbas yesterday and expressed support for "his legitimate decision to form an emergency government of responsible Palestinians," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Bush welcomed Abbas' decision to appoint Salam Fayyad as Prime Minister. As fighting escalated between his Fatah group and Hamas, leading to a rout of Fatah in the Gaza Strip, Abbas last week dissolved the Hamas-led Cabinet in which Ismail Haniyeh served as Prime Minister.

"The President pledged full support of the USA for the new Palestinian government," Ms Rice said of the new government that sidelines Hamas.

"A fundamental choice confronts the Palestinians, and all people in West Asia, more clearly now, than ever. It is a choice between violent extremism on the one hand and tolerance and responsibility on the other," Rice said.

Pakistan has been ranked the 12th most unstable country in the world - worse even than North Korea at 13th - in the 2007 Failed State Index issued on Monday by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace.

Sudan tops the index for the second year in a row largely because of the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur. Iraq now ranks as the second most unstable country with Afghanistan being at rank eight in the list.

The other seven countries in the top 10 are all in Africa. They include Somalia, Zimbabwe, the Ivory Coast and Congo. The index of 177 countries gives each country points out of 10 for 12 "social indicators of instability", with higher scores indicating greater instability.

Pakistan's highest scores were for 'security apparatus' (9.5), 'factionalised elites' (9.5) and 'group grievance' (9.0). Its best score was for the economy (5.8). Iraq fell from fourth place last year to second.

"The report tells us that Iraq is sinking fast," said Fund for Peace president Pauline Baker. "We believe it's reached the point of no return. We have recommended, on the basis of studies done every six months since the US invasion, that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up."

In a parallel series of reports, the Fund for Peace, a research and advocacy group, suggests a policy of managed partition for Iraq. The experiences of Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, show that billions of dollars in aid may be futile unless accompanied by a functioning government.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has upgraded state minister for information Senator Tariq Azeem as full minister replacing Mohammad Ali Durrani who incurred President Musharraf's displeasure over his inept handling of the judicial crisis.

Talking to The Tribune, Tariq Azim today confirmed he had already taken over his new responsibilities and a formal announcement was due any moment. It has been deferred briefly because of some adjustments being made regarding Durrani's new assignment.

PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had a long session with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz yesterday to discuss a mini shake up in the Cabinet ahead of the elections to suit his party's requirements. It was decided to change guards immediately in the information ministry because of the inept handling of the judicial crisis by Durrani.

Durrani has been offered to be take over tourism but insisted a slot in the Pakistan Muslim League. It has been suggested he may be named additional secretary of the PML. Shujaat said there was a proposal to create the office of chief organiser in the party and more than one person may be accommodated.

Expressing his dismay over his persistent silence on the judicial crisis, President Musharraf initially asked PML secretary general Sayed Mushahid Hussain to become information minister. But he declined while contending that very little time was left for the present government which had to be replaced by a neutral caretaker government.

Musharraf's bid to replace Mushahid with railway minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed as secretary general was strongly resisted by Shujaat who persuaded Musharraf this week to make such changes in the party. Rashid is almost a loner despite his being the most seasoned politician in the ruling outfit.

Sources said Sheikh Rashid Ahmed might be made in charge of the election cell of the PML. They said several changes in government were expected in the coming days.

London, June 19
A Sikh priest in Birmingham has come under attack for allegedly conducting an inter-religious marriage.

Three cars parked outside the Handsworth Wood home of Jarnail Singh Bhogal, president of the Ramgharia Sikh gurdwara in Hockley, were set on fire on Monday.

According to the information posted on an online Sikh forum, the marriage between a Sikh woman and a man of another religion conducted by Bhogal was a disgraceful act, the Birmingham Post reported.

It also demanded the priest’s resignation.

However, the gurdwara authorities said the man involved in the marriage had converted to Sikhism before the ceremony. — IANS

Houston, June 19
Space shuttle Atlantis today undocked from the International Space Station, setting the stage for return of Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, who created a record for the longest stay by a woman in space.

Overcoming a computer-meltdown and repairing the heat shield of the shuttle, Atlantis undocked from the space station at 8.10 p.m. IST carrying onboard six astronauts, besides Williams.

Atlantis might have stayed an extra day if engineers had not been happy with a test to see how well the Russian computers that crashed last week could control the orbiting outpost's orientation.

The shuttle and space station crew said their farewells yesterday before closing the hatches between the two spacecraft in preparation for departure.

Atlantis would remain in orbit for a day before landing at the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday.

“Have a good, safe landing. Until we see you again,” station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin said, before the hatches were closed.

Williams had set a new space endurance record for female astronauts last Saturday, moving past the 188-day four-hour record set by Shannon Lucid during a stay aboard the old Mir space station. — PTI