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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

8 die in Russian hydroelectric station accident

At least eight people died, 14 others were injured and 68 are still missing on Monday after a transformer
exploded at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant at Sayano-Shushenskaya in eastern Siberia, the government said.

The explosion caused the engine room of the hydroelectric plant to flood. Plant's dam was not damaged and the accident posed no threat to towns further south along the Yenisei river, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

However, thousands of residents near the plant were fleeing the area fearing the dam may collapse.

The accident caused an oil spill. Two of the plant's 10 turbines in the engine room were destroyed, and a third was seriously damaged, Vasily Zubakin, acting chief executive of the plant's owner, RusHydrop said.

Reacting to the accident, the Kremlin said the mishap was due to an unspecified "hydraulic impact" at the plant which forced the shutdown of all 10 of the station's power units.

President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko to rush to the accident site and supervise the rescue operations.

Andrei Klyuvev, an emergency situations ministry official at the site of the accident, 4,000 kilometres east of Moscow, said there were still dozens of people unaccounted for.

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Next stop Delhi, says Bolt after setting record


Lightning struck the athletics world on Sunday night when Usain Bolt slashed a mind-boggling 0.11 seconds off his own 100m record in
Usain Bolt
Berlin at the World championships to win in 9.58 secs.

The fastest man on earth then revealed what should make Indians start smacking their lips in anticipation. ( Watch Video )

The Jamaican superstar, when asked where his next big stop would be, said: "I think I will be going to the Commonwealth Games (2010, New Delhi)... my coach will decide."

Bolt, whose effortless running in the past one year or so has baffled sports medicine experts and biomechanists worldwide, then added to the excitement by sounding a seemingly casual warning for all those who dare to race against him.

Next target? "I said 9.4. I think it will stop at 9.4 but you never know. We'll just keep racing," the 22-year-old said after his mesmerizing run.

Bolt's latest record came exactly a year after he set the Bird's Nest in Beijing aflame with a sizzling 9.69-sec run, more than a hand-shaking distance away from his rivals.

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Shah Rukh Khan returns home



Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan
is back in India from his rocky visit to America where he was held up for questioning for two hours by the US immigration officials at the airport.

Shah Rukh Khan, who has recently finished shooting in the US for his film My Name is Khan, was detained and questioned for almost two hours at Newark Airport in America part of what the US calls "racial profiling" to weed out terror suspects.

After his detention at a US airport sparked a furore in India, Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan on Monday had asked his fans not to take the issue further, even as he said that America needed to offer "a little more warmth and speed in its processes".

In Houston, where he arrived from Chicago to attend a 'Meet and Greet' carnival, Khan who was "inspected" at the Newark airport on his arrival from India, said he respected the procedures the US required to follow, but maintained his experience was "not pleasant".

The actor, who had earlier told his fans that he did not feel like stepping on US soil again, said while everybody loves what America has to offer "but I think it needs to offer a little more warmth and speed in its processes".

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Judge okays Jackson deal, burial planned

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A judge on Monday approved a deal for the sale of Michael Jackson merchandise, but delayed making a decision on a traveling exhibition dedicated to the King of Pop, amid objections from the singer's mother.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff, who is overseeing matters related to Jackson's estate, approved the deal between the co-executors of Jackson's will and Bravado International Group, a division of Universal Music Group owned by Vivendi SA.

But Beckloff postponed until Friday a decision on whether to approve concert promoter AEG Live's plans for a traveling exhibition of Jackson memorabilia. He did so amid objections from attorneys for Jackson's mother, Katherine, who said the planned exhibition may not bring enough money to the estate.

On Aug. 7, Beckloff approved a deal between Jackson's estate, AEG Live and Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Corp, for a movie to be released Oct. 30 using footage from the pop star's final rehearsals.

The executors of Jackson's will, longtime attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain, have said the deals will generate millions of dollars for the estate.

Separately, Michael Jackson's father said his son's body will be buried at a Los Angeles cemetery on Aug. 29, which would have been his 51st birthday, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.

Joe Jackson told a Daily News reporter the plan was finalized in recent days.

Media reports last week said Jackson, who died June 25 of cardiac arrest, was buried in a private ceremony in early August. But those reports were based on unnamed sources and never confirmed by Jackson family representatives.

A Jackson family spokesman did not return calls seeking comment Monday, nor did a spokesman at Los Angeles' Forest Lawn cemetery, where Joe Jackson said his son would be buried

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India should share any attack information - Pakistan


ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has summoned a senior Indian diplomat and called for India to share information about any terrorist plots after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned of plans for attacks against his country being hatched in Pakistan.

Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals deteriorated sharply in November after militants launched attacks in Mumbai, killing 166 people.

Singh told a security conference in New Delhi on Monday there was "credible information" of plans by terrorist groups in Pakistan to carry out attacks on India.

Pakistan responded to the remarks by summoning India's deputy high commissioner in Islamabad, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued late on Monday.

"The Indian prime minister's remarks warrant serious and prompt attention," the ministry said.

"We would request India to share information that they have and for our part we stand ready to cooperate fully in pre-empting any act of terror."

India blamed the Mumbai attacks on Pakistan-based militants and broke off a five-year-long peace process.

Pakistan accepted that the assault on India's financial hub was partly planned on its soil and arrested five people who India said were behind the attack. Pakistan has repeatedly called on India to provide more information to act against the plotters.

Pakistan is keen to revive the peace talks but India has been insisting Pakistan must first dismantle terrorist infrastructure on its soil

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