Clinton Sees New Race; Obama Talks Tough

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Wednesday that her primary victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island had reordered the Democratic presidential race in her favor. A resilient Barack Obama countered with fresh pledges of support from superdelegates and said his lead remained intact.
One day after his worst showing in a month, Obama blamed negative attacks by the former first lady for his defeats and quickly made good on a promise to sharpen his criticism of her.But there was no disputing he had missed a chance to drive her from the race. Or that in contrast to the Republicans, who have settled on Arizona Sen. John McCain as their nominee, the Democrats face the prospect of a potentially divisive campaign lasting deep into spring."I'm concerned about unity.
That's the major reason I've stayed out of this," said Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who is neutral. "The longer this campaign goes on, the more difficult it will be to unify and heal."Returns from Texas caucuses showed Obama reclaiming some of the ground in the delegate competition that he lost Tuesday night as Clinton's victories piled up.
Overall, she showed a gain of 12 delegates for the contests on the ballot, according to The Associated Press count, with another dozen to be awarded. In all 370 were at stake. Texas Democrats were still counting ballots from the Tuesday night caucuses.In addition, Obama gained endorsements from superdelegates in Georgia, Vermont, Ohio, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Clinton picked up two superdelegates during the day but lost one, for a gain of one.Obama's overall delegate lead stood at 1,567 to 1,462 as the rivals looked ahead to the final dozen contests on the calendar. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination.
That left weeks for public campaigning, millions more to be spent on television ads, probably one more debate and plenty of private cajoling of party leaders, the superdelegates who attend the convention but are not chosen in primaries or caucuses.About 350 of them remain uncommitted, enough to swing the nomination in the unlikely event they decide to line up behind one candidate or the other."We are vigorously talking to the uncommitted automatic delegates.
The Obama campaign is doing the same thing," Harold Ickes, a Clinton adviser, told reporters.There also was talk of arranging for makeup primaries or caucuses in Michigan and Florida, two states that were stripped of delegates by the Democratic National Committee for holding elections early in defiance of party rules.The two states' governors, Republican Charlie Crist in Florida and Democrat Jennifer Granholm in Michigan, issued a joint statement calling on party officials "to resolve this matter and to ensure that the voters ... are full participants in the formal selection of their parties' nominees."While the Democratic Party stripped the two states of their delegates, Republicans cut the two delegations in half.
Of more immediate concern for Clinton and Obama are the Wyoming caucuses, scheduled for Saturday, with 12 delegates at stake, and the Mississippi primary next Tuesday, with 33 more.Obama has plans to campaign in both states, but it appeared Clinton would focus her energy on the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. It boasts 158 delegates, the largest prize remaining on the calendar.Both Clinton and Obama made a round of morning interview programs as their campaign entered a new phase.The former first lady said McCain's ascension meant Democratic primary voters were looking at the race through a new lens. "It is now about who is strongest against the Republican nominee, John McCain," she said on CNN. "You know, people who voted a month ago didn't know who the Republican nominee was going to be."They didn't perhaps factor in that it will be about national security," she said of the fall campaign.
McCain is a former Vietnam War prisoner, a veteran of more than two decades in the Senate, with long experience on the Armed Services Committee. One of the hallmarks of his campaign has been his support for the Iraq War, and he frequently tells audiences he supported an increase in troop strength before President Bush announced one a little over a year ago.Clinton forcefully injected national security issues into the Democratic campaign in Texas with a television ad that did not mention Obama, yet questioned whether he was prepared to handle a crisis if the phone rang in the White House at 3 a.m.Obama, on a long flight home to Chicago from Texas, told reporters he believed criticism like that helped send him to defeat."What exactly is this foreign policy experience," he asked mockingly. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."Obama also attributed his defeats in part to more skeptical news coverage. "Many of you in the press corps had been persuaded that you had been too hard on her and too soft on me," he said.His aides signaled a more aggressive tone ahead when they distributed a memo saying Clinton was trying to avoid answering potentially embarrassing questions by keeping her and her husband's tax returns for the past several years private.
Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, rebutted quickly, saying returns for the years since the Clintons left the White House would be released around April 15."Instead of making false attacks, we urge Senator Obama to release all relevant financial and other information related to indicted political fixer Tony Rezko," Wolfson added, referring to a former fundraiser for the Illinois senator who is on trial for corruption.

Mani’s film sans Ranbir

story doing the rounds. We had informed you a few days back that ace director from South India, Mani Rathnam, is getting his next project ready. The film will be a love story and will feature the real life love jodi Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
Now the rumor mills are churning with one more story, which says Ranbir will also feature in this project. But insiders who are close to the project have no clue as to where this one started from. It is true that the story demands one more male character but that will have to be someone older than the junior Bachchan.
So now it is clear that it will surely not be Ranbir who will do the role. So who will it be? Maybe another favorite of the director, Madhavan who has done a handful of films with Mani, or will it be Aravind Swamy one more favorite actor of the director who had starred in ‘Roja’ and ‘Bombay’ and both were super-duper hits.
With speculations going around and the director still on the look out for this other character all we can do is just wait till more news emerges on this front.

Kareena Kapoor-The workaholic

What do we say? Kareena has emerged as the most wanted actress of Bollywood, and with that comes a myriad of other responsibilities. One thing is to literally live out of her vanity bag for rest of the year. Kareena has committed for around four films this year.
It is reported that Kareena will be shooting for different films at different locales across the globe. Bebo who is right now shooting from India for the comedy ‘Golmaal Returns’ with Tushar Kapoor will soon leave for Melbourne come mid-March for filming with Salmaan Khan for ‘Main Aur Mrs. Khanna’. This film will be produced by Sohail Khan.
Once the shooting of this film is done she will next be seen on location for a two-month shoot for ‘Kambaqth Ishq’. Bebo will share screen space with Akshay Kumar in this flick that is produced by Sajid Nadiadwala. Towards the end of this year Kareena will be off to London where she along with her boy friend Saif will shoot for a Karan Johar film that is yet-to-be-titled.
With such a busy schedule and flying from one country to another Bebo will hardly have anytime for her own. But the thrill lies in getting to see so many places in such a short span!

US starts evacuation from Serbia

The US embassy in Serbia has begun pulling out non-essential staff following the storming of the building on Thursday.


Around 1,000 protesters set fire to the embassy in Belgrade in protest at Washington's support for Kosovo's declaration of independence.
A convoy of around 40 cars carrying American staff and family members has now left Belgrade.
They are expected to remain abroad for up to 10 days, the US embassy said.
"We are not sufficiently confident that they are safe here," said US Ambassador Cameron Munter.
The embassy also offered private US citizens the chance to join the convoy to Croatia.

Body identified
Repairs are being carried out to the embassy building, which remains closed.

Repairs are being carried out to the US embassy building
Several other embassies of countries seen by the protesters as supporting Kosovo were also targeted, but they have not announced plans to withdraw staff.
One person was killed and more than 100 injured in the violence, which also saw shops looted.
Serbian media say the authorities have identified a charred body found in the grounds of the American embassy after the riots as that of a young Serb man originally from Kosovo.
He is said to have fled to Serbia after the Nato-led invasion of the territory in 1999.
Police are believed to have arrested 200 people during the riots and the authorities are vowing the bring those responsible to justice.
"We are collecting evidence and are identifying the culprits," said Serbia's senior state prosecutor, Slobodan Radovanovic, in a statement.

US to blame
The situation is calm today, says the BBC's Bethany Bell in Belgrade, but Serb opposition to Kosovo's declaration of independence last Sunday remains as strong as ever.
The minister responsible for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said the US was to blame for the violence.
"The root of violence is the violation of international law", he said.
"The Serbian government will continue to call on the US to take responsibility for violating international law and taking away a piece of territory from Serbia".
There have been calls in Serbia to boycott the products of those countries, many from the European Union, that recognised Kosovo.
An email campaign suggests closing accounts with some foreign banks.

Sri Lanka bus bombing injures 18

At least 18 people are injured by a blast on a bus in the outskirts of the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, officials say.

he International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says that the number of civilians killed and injured in Sri Lanka has reached "appalling levels".

New figures released by the organisation show that 180 civilians died in the first six weeks of 2008, and nearly 270 more were injured.
In one bombing, more than half the members of a school baseball team died.
Violence on the island has increased since the government formally withdrew from a 2002 ceasefire last month.

Intensive fighting
"Sadly, many of the victims have been children on their way to or from school," ICRC delegation head Toon Vandenhove said in a statement.

Violence has increased since the ceasefire ended
Fighting has been intensive around Tamil Tiger controlled areas in the north - with the government accusing the rebels of retaliating against their offensive with attacks against civilian and military targets in the south.
A series of skirmishes on Wednesday in the northern Mannar and Vavuniya districts killed 15 Tamil Tiger rebels, the defence ministry said.
Correspondents say that the casualty figures provided by both sides are usually impossible to verify and each tends to downplay its own losses while exaggerating those of the other.
The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for Tamils, who they say have been discriminated against by successive Sri Lankan governments.
Correspondents say that fighting between the two sides since then has killed more than 70,000 people.
More than 1,000 people have been killed since the government withdrew from the ceasefire, according to the military.

Will India fall for Mills and Boon?

The famed publishers of romantic fiction, Mills and Boon, launched in India recently.

The company hopes that its amorous storylines will eventually seduce the country and become their biggest market.
So what does an all-female reading group in Delhi think of romantic novels where the dark and brooding hero almost invariably ends up wooing and winning the fair maiden?
The women of a reading group I met at a cafe in the capital have a common passion for romance.
For Seema Monhot, the main appeal is the "feel good factor" of a romantic novel.

Long-time readers
"I like happy endings," she said.
"Romance, for a girl, is an ongoing thing until the day you die. It doesn't matter what age you are, you still want every bit of the romance that you experienced the first time you met your boyfriend, fiancé, or loved one. That's the way I look at it."
Although Mills and Boon - which has nearly three-quarters of the romantic market in its home country of the UK - is only now launching in India, their books are already popular in the country because they have been unofficially introduced from abroad.
Many in the reading group describe themselves as long-time readers.

Reading groups members acknowledge the stories are fanciful
Rachana Srivastava, for example, says that she grew up on a "staple diet" of the publisher's works, which have moulded her perception of the ideal man.
"I always imagined a knight in shining armour having vineyards and being tall, dark and handsome, coming and waking me up in my sleep and carrying me away somewhere," she said.
"It has always been like that for me."
I ask the women in the group who their ideal Indian romantic hero man would be.
They say he should be a combination of Bollywood actors Hrithik Roshan and Shahrukh Khan, businessman Anil Ambani and industrialist Sunil Mittal.
Interestingly, these are all modern Indian men - the women are not looking for age-old Maharajahs.

'Dark and handsome'
"Contemporary India likes contemporary men, men who are self-made and not of inherited wealth," says Savita Jain.
"That makes them more interesting."

It's a world where women are swept off their feet
Her friend chips in that this dream man would be "tall, dark, handsome, rich and have a private jet".
The women tell me that in real life, men have flaws as well as their plus points - but one of the joys of the men in romantic fiction is that these flaws do not exist.
Unfortunately perhaps for real Indian men, the women say that the plots of the novels have sometimes influenced their choices in real life.
"When you read the books, you relive those moments with your beloved when you meet them," says Savita Jain.
"What I feel is that these are just fiction stories. When you are reading them you are happy with them, but you don't actually come across such heroes in your life," adds Kiran Chaudari.
"It's very hard to get an ideal partner for yourself. Reading a Mills and Boon, you tend to fantasise - and you do get disheartened."
Indeed, this is one criticism frequently levelled at Mills and Boon - the sheer lack of realism, both in character and in plot.
But for another of the group, Meenakshi Jain, realism is the last thing she wants.
"The world we are living in, it is so tense," she says.
"This kind of book gives you respite from these tensions. You can fantasise yourself into the place of the heroine."

'NatWest Three' head for prison

David Bermingham, 44, Gary Mulgrew, 45, and Giles Darby, 44, the so-called NatWest Three, admitted one wire fraud charge after a plea bargain.
A Texas judge must approve the sentence agreed as part of the deal. The bankers had faced up to 35 years in prison.
They admitted conspiring with ex-Enron staff to defraud NatWest of $19m (£9m) and then split $7m between themselves.

The men they conspired with - Andrew Fastow and Michael Kopper - are already in jail.
According to the charges brought by prosecutors, the three men advised their former employer, NatWest, to sell part of a firm owned by Enron for less than it was worth.
The three men then left the bank and bought a stake in the Enron-owned company, before selling it on at a higher price for a profit.
NatWest payback
Mr Bermingham of Goring, Oxfordshire, Mr Mulgrew, a Glaswegian who now lives in Brighton, Sussex, and Mr Darby of Lower Wraxall, Wiltshire, will be sentenced on 22 February and hope to serve their jail term in the UK.
They had previously protested their innocence to seven charges.
"By changing their plea, Gary, Giles and David have fully accepted the responsibility for the significant lapse of judgement that led to the filing of these charges and which has caused them to be separated from their family in the UK for more than 17 months," lawyer Reid Figel said.
As part of the plea bargain, they are to pay $7.35m to the Royal Bank of Scotland, which now owns NatWest.
"Under the terms of the agreement... the three have agreed to immediately pay RBS $1.2m," RBS Group said in a statement.
"Judgement in favour of RBS is also being entered against them at the High Court, London for an additional $6m. This will be in full and final satisfaction of RBS' claims against them."

Turkey border tensions fuel confusion

The Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq has apparently turned out to be on a considerably lesser scale than initial reports had suggested.

Iraqi Kurdish officials and US-led coalition sources said only a few hundred Turkish troops at most took part in the cross-border operation.
The Iraqi Kurds - always on the look-out for any Turkish move that might be construed as an attempt against their own autonomous region - said the incursion took place in a remote, rugged and unpopulated sector of the border, where heavy snows hamper movement at this time of the year.
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces, who control the part of northern Iraq south of the Turkish border, had no contact with the Turkish troops and were only aware of the operation from monitoring military radio traffic.
No vehicles or tanks were involved in the move across the border, although helicopter gunships were in action as well as jets and artillery.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari - himself a Kurd - described the operation as "very, very limited".
But he added that the Turks had destroyed five bridges over the Blue River tributary - part of the Greater Zaab river complex - and said he had called in the Turkish charge d'affaires in Baghdad to deliver a protest note.