The Democratic Party dealt a blow to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's White House dreams on Saturday making it now more than likely that the end of the road is near for her campaign.

The Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee decided to restore Michigan and Florida to its presidential convention, with each getting a half-vote to penalise the states for moving their primaries earlier than the party had approved.

Clinton, who is trailing Senator Barack Obama in the bid for the presidential nomination in both delegates and superdelegates, had hung her hopes on the panel handing her delegates from Michigan and Florida.

The party stripped the two states of their delegates after they flouted party rules by holding early primary elections.

Clinton won the unsanctioned contests.No candidate campaigned in the states and Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan. Obama followed party rules by skipping the elections.

The panel's decision leaves Obama ahead of Clinton and on the verge of making history by becoming the first black presidential nominee in the USA.

A candidate must now win 2,118 delegates to win the party nomination.Clinton gained 24 delegates, while Obama is within roughly 66 delegates of the target.

Senator Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, have ended their two-decade-long association with a black Chicago church, an acknowledgment that racially divisive preachings from pastors there had become a liability for his presidential campaign.

The decision announced on Saturday came on the heels of fresh controversy over sermons at the Trinity United Church of Christ, when a guest preacher last week mocked Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton with racial rhetoric. Obama said the inflammatory preachings were hurting his campaign.

His former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, whipped up a firestorm of problems for the candidate when videos emerged of unsavoury remarks included in his preachings.

Among other things, Wright exhorted blacks to chant "God damn America" and insisted the US government had spread the AIDS virus to kill blacks.

At the time, Obama compared Wright to a cantankerous relative and said just as he could not disown a family member, he could not discard Wright who had got him and Michelle married, baptised their two daughters and whose sermon inspired the title of the senator's book, ”The Audacity of Hope”.

Wright promptly accused Obama of being a typical politician who, while outwardly distancing himself from the remarks, privately agreed with them.

Pakistan on Sunday moved clocks forward by an hour at midnight to utilise maximum daylight in the wake of current power crisis in the country.

The move is part of the government's power conservation plan for the next three months. Shopping centres across the country will be closed after 9 pm under the plan.

After the adjustment in the Pakistan Standard Time, sunrise in Islamabad was marked at 5:55 am on Sunday instead of 4:55 am and the sunset at about 8:15 pm instead of 7.15 pm.

Time differential between Pakistan and UAE will be two hours instead one but will remain half an hour with India, though clocks will be half an hour ahead instead of behind the Indian time.

Speaking at a press conference here, water and power minister Raja Pervez Ashraf appealed to the people to help the government conserve energy under its two-pronged strategy of saving energy and generating power simultaneously.

Similar moves to introduce daylight saving time in the country have failed twice in the past. But the minister said that this time things could be different if the nation cooperated for the sake of this national cause.

He said after three months people would see gradual decline in load shedding and by August 14 next year there would be no load shedding in the country.

The National Assembly will begin its budget session on Monday while the President has convened the upper house of Parliament, the senate, on June 4.

Budget will be presented on June 7. The government has, however, not announced the business schedule for both houses before that. The senate can debate the budget and make proposals but only the assembly has the authority to vote on it.

Meanwhile, privatisation minister Naved Qamar, who is currently overseeing the ministry of finance since the PML-N pulled out of the cabinet, has said this year's defence budget will be debated in Parliament for the first time in the country's history.

At present, no detail of the defence budget is disclosed in the budget documents and the Parliament has to take it or leave its total allocation.

Speaking at seminar, Qamar said the defence budget would be cut and development expenditures would be increased to meet the needs of the country.

He said this year's budget would focus on providing relief to the poor and addressing the welfare of low and fixed income groups.

The government will provide between Rs 40 billion and Rs 50 billion in subsidies to the low-income groups.

Developing the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, and the construction of water reservoirs in the country have been highlighted as priorities for sustainable economic development.

Qamar said the next fiscal year would be one for the consolidation of the economy, adding that the sharing of national resources would be on an equitable basis.

Journalism is fast becoming one of the most dangerous professions in Sri Lanka with one journalist killed, another abducted and beaten up and several others threatened by government officials within the past two weeks.

Most of the attacks on journalists have been related to the reporting on defence matters and many of the attacks have been blamed on those connected to the government.

In one of the most prominent case, the associate editor of a leading English Sunday newspaper, Keith Noyhar, was abducted from near his house last week, beaten and dumped back near his home in a Colombo suburb several hours later.

His newspaper alleges that he was attacked for a column he wrote a few weeks earlier which was highly critical of the Commander of the Sri Lanka army.

The government has not hidden its intolerance for criticism of its handling of the war with Tamil Tigers with its official defence ministry website being used regularly to slander journalists who take on the defence establishment.

Defence secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, brother of President Mahidna Rajapaksa - a onetime army officer, last week summoned two journalists from a state-run newspaper that participated in a protest against the attack on Noyhar and told them if they continue to criticise the military, they would have to face the consequences.

Media organisations have been up in arms against the attacks on journalists with a coalition of five such organisations asking the President to take measurers to stop such attacks on the media.

One of the main concerns raised by the international community is also with regard to media freedom.

But other than issuing statements condemning attacks and ordering investigations into them, there has been no real progress in many of the cases which have ended with the culprits being brought to book.

New York, June 1
American space shuttle Discovery with a crew of seven astronauts has blasted in orbit for a 14-day mission, carrying a giant Japanese science laboratory and a toilet pump for the International Space Station (ISS).

The launch took place from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida into a clear blue sky. The shuttle will reach the space station in two days where its crew will install the $ 1 billion lab "Kibo", which means hope in Japanese.

Three space walks are also planned during the trip. The installation of the laboratory, the biggest single piece so far, will mark the completion of three quarters of the ISS. The 37-feet long lab weighs more than 32,000 pounds.

This was the second part of "Kibo" and the third and final part will be sent next year. Seven astronauts flew Discovery into space led by Commander Mark Kelly. The pilot for the mission is Ken Ham.

The group will spend most of its time in space installing the Japanese Pressurized Module to the ISS and then outfitting it for its work as a space science laboratory.

The section is the largest habitable module for the station and is equipped with its own robotic arm. — PTI

Silicon Valley (US), June 1
A key member of presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s foreign policy team said it was unlikely that the Indo-US civil nuclear deal would go through this year.

“You have elections in this country in November. It is also thought that with a new Congress that will perhaps be more heavily Democratic than this, the likelihood of that deal getting approved might be decreasing to a certain degree,” Kenneth Juster, also a former US under secretary of state, said at a panel discussion on “the future of US-India relations”.

Juster, one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) initiative, said the NSSP had provided the basis for expanding bilateral activities and commerce in space, civil-nuclear energy and dual-use technology between the US and India.

“There is also the sense that if the Democratic administration came to power next year, they might be less inclined to move forward with the deal than a Republic administration,” he said.

However, Juster disagreed with many observers, who had expressed the concern that the delay and perhaps the indefinite delay in finalising the civil nuclear cooperation deal would actually be a major setback for the relationship.

“It would be a mistake to think that. I think even without the deal...there has been enormous transformation that has occurred over the last decade in our relationship... Whether we have nuclear deal or we don’t, it shouldn’t overshadow the progress that we have made. And it shouldn’t even overshadow all progress we have made on the nuclear deal itself,” he said. — PTI

Dubai, June 1
Two Indian workers have approached the Indian Embassy here for protection, alleging they were being physically abused by their sponsor.

"Salary, food and other things were provided to us without any problem. But he used to beat us badly," Nissar Ahmed, told an open forum organised by the Indian Embassy in Qatar.

His colleague, Musthafa M M, a domestic help working for the same sponsor, claimed that he too had to undergo similar treatment.

Both of them came to Qatar last year. They declined to return to the sponsor when advised by the embassy to do so, since it could not provide them shelter.

The case was immediately referred to an official at the ministry of interior and they were sent to a hospital for a medical check-up, the Peninsula daily said.

"A follow-up will be done and we will do all we can to help them", Indian Ambassador George Joseph said.

The embassy receives hundreds of complaints of ill-treatment from sponsors and
it is difficult to provide shelter to many who do not want to return to their sponsor. — PTI

London, June 1
An Indian restaurateur in Scotland has been banned from managing any restaurant after his premises was found to be operating in "unhygienic conditions" during an unannounced inspection.

Jaipur-born Herman Rodrigues (47) owned the Suruchi Indian restaurant in Edinburgh, and pleaded guilty to 5 of 10 charges of failure to comply with the Food Hygiene (Scotland) Regulations, 2006.

Rodrigues appeared at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday and is expected to be fined next month. He migrated to Edinburgh in 1990.

A spokesperson of the Edinburgh City Council said that during the inspection, there was evidence of mouse droppings in the kitchen, dry store and restaurant areas.

"Parts of the premises and equipment, especially in the kitchen, were found to be in dirty conditions affected by dirt, food debris and grease," he said.

“ (Mouse) droppings were particularly evident in the dry store where they were observed to be on a number of wall- mounted shelves, and also on the floor and a service trolley”.

"It was also in the dry store that a bag of flaked almonds, stored on the shelving, and a bag of flour, stored on the service trolley, appeared to have been gnawed open by mice," the spokesperson said. — PTI

London, June 1
British parents, who fail to stop their children binge-drinking or persistently possessing alcohol, can be jailed under a new law being planed to check underage drinking in the UK.

Under the Youth Alcohol Action plan, which is to be unveiled by the British government, parents and their teenagers could be hauled up by the police for “persistently possessing alcohol in public areas” and repeatedly creating disorder.

“Parents must play their role. I want to see greater use of parenting orders and contracts as well as anti-social behaviour orders where young are caught persistently drinking in public,” said British home secretary Jacqui Smith.

“Groups of under-18s drinking in public are an all too familiar sight. This type of drinking increases anti-social behaviour and crime and puts young people in vulnerable situations. And I want to stop it,” Smith said.

The new government crackdown will target parents, who fail to stop their teenage children binge-drinking or persistently possessing alcohol in town centres and streets.

Parents, who refuse to take action under an extension of existing parenting orders, would face heavy fines, community service orders and even jail.

According to home office sources, the new-style orders are designed “to be used on those parents of young people repeatedly caught drinking in public”.

The authorities are also planning to bring into effect a new regime of parenting contracts to tackle anti-social behaviour by particular families, although these will be voluntary. — PTI

London, June 1
Bollywood, India’s thriving movie business, is set to take on the West and will one day threaten Hollywood’s control, a report said today.

“We (Bollywood) are at the inflexion point - where Hollywood was in the 1930s and 1940s. In five years, there will be a lot of marriages that will shape the industry for the next 50 years,” Kishore Lulla, chief of Eros International, the AIM-listed filmmaker told The Sunday Times.

Lulla expected a spate of consolidation that would boil India’s 25 film producers, many of them regional players working in Tamil or Telugu, into five main Bollywood players. The report said India’s cinema scene, where 4 billion tickets were sold annually, had always been big business.

Since the government relaxed rules on banks and investors lending money to filmmakers, expansion has taken off both at home and abroad.

According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, the leading audit firm, domestic Indian film revenue would almost double from Rs 96 billion (1.14 billion pounds) in 2007 to Rs 176 billion in 2012.

In Britain, Bollywod accounted for just under 2 per cent of box-office takings last year - 3 million pounds.

“It’s a rising trend,” Mark Batey, chief executive of the film distributors'
association, said.

“Bollywood is a niche, but a significant niche. Over time, we are seeing wider releases and more of them,” he said.

That figure was driven by 1.3 million pounds grossed by ‘Om Shanti Om’, a 1970s spoof that did not take itself too seriously. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Transport chaos as Londoners party
LONDON: The London transport system was disrupted as thousands of revellers held an unauthorised "drinks party" on underground trains before an alcohol ban came into effect. The key Circle Line, which serves some of the capital's most exclusive districts was shut down on Saturday as thousands of people gathered for a booze-up on Tube trains after being rallied by social networking websites. — AFP

Relief work copter crashes in China
BEIJING: A military transport helicopter involved in relief work, which was carrying four crew members and 10 injured local residents on board, has crashed in the earthquake-devastated area in southwest China, military sources said. The fate of those on board was not known and the Chengdu Military Area Command is carrying out search and rescue operations, state-run Xinhua news agency said on Sunday quoting the military. — PTI

Al-Qaida trainer dies in US missile strike in Pak
LONDON: A leading Al-Qaida trainer and explosives expert involved in a range of European terrorist networks was killed in Pakistan in a missile strike by US-led forces in Afghanistan, a media report said here on Sunday. Abu Suleman al-Jazairi, an experienced Algerian militant, was killed in the last few days, The Observer reported, quoting intelligence sources in Pakistan and Western Europe. — PTI