U.S Senate elections In crucial situation

Senator Barack Obama would like to begin shutting down the nominating contest with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday night as two more states — Kentucky and Oregon — hold their primaries. But he wants to do it subtly.Mr. Obama will deliver his primary night speech in Iowa — a symbolic return to the state in which he posted his first Democratic victory and which is shaping up as a big battleground state this fall.
But watch for a couple of things that could influence the pace and the tenor of the end game for Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. After Tuesday, there are only three Democratic contests left: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
If Mrs. Clinton wants to keep going to the end — and by every indication she does — she probably needs to post a convincing victory in Kentucky. And if Mrs. Clinton comes close to defeating Mr. Obama in Oregon (or beats him), that would certainly throw a shadow over Mr. Obama’s moment even if it did not stop him from reaching a majority of pledged delegates.

Myanmar victims of cyclone

Myanmar began three days of national mourning for cyclone victims Tuesday, one day after agreeing to let its Southeast Asian neighbors help coordinate foreign relief assistance following the devastating Cyclone Nargis more than two weeks ago.
The supply of aid and the entry of relief workers from countries outside the Southeast Asian bloc will continue to be limited, said Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo after an emergency meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, which includes Myanmar. But the move was taken as a signal that Myanmar’s reclusive military rulers had bowed somewhat to international pressure to allow more outside aid.
Since the cyclone, which struck Myanmar on May 3, Western nations and major relief groups have expressed alarm about Myanmar’s refusal to allow in large-scale shipments to the estimated 2.5 million victims in need of aid.
Myanmar has permitted a small flow of aid from several nations, including the United States. But relief officials say that this amounts to only 20 percent of the needed supplies. Without more aid, they say, many more people may yet die of disease and starvation.
In an echo of China’s public response to its earthquake disaster, Myanmar lowered flags on Tuesday to begin a three-day mourning period for the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives in the cyclone. China observed an official silence Monday for those who perished in the quake just one week earlier.

China Earth Quake-Full Coverage

• More than 200 relief workers in quake-hit southwestern China have been
  buried by mudflows over the past two days.


• Details of the accidents were not immediately available.


• It was unclear whether any of those buried had been pulled out alive.


• News of the mudflows came seven days after a 7.9 magnitude quake hit
  Sichuan province.


• There have been numerous rockslides from unstable mountain slopes and
  blocked rivers swollen by heavy rain have threatened to burst their
  banks.
  Meanwhile, China has started three days of national mourning for more
  than 30,000 victims of the earthquake.


• Public entertainment was suspended, flags were put at half-mast and a
  three-minute silence will be observed to mark exactly a week since the
  quake.


• The national flag in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing flew at half
  mast after a ceremony at dawn.


• The Olympic torch relay, currently on its domestic leg ahead of the 8
  August opening in Beijing, was also suspended for three days.
  Around the country air raid sirens and car, train and ship horns
  sounded to 'wail in grief' at 7.28am, the time the quake hit a week
  ago, the official Xinhua news agency said.


• The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and the futures exchanges in
  Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Dalian also halted trading for three minutes.
  In southwestern Sichuan province's Beichuan, hard hit by the
  earthquake, relatives continued to travel back into the disaster zone
  to look for family members and see the damage for themselves.
  The official death toll stands at nearly 32,500 from the original quake
  of 7.9 magnitude that rattled Sichuan province.


• Some 220,000 people are reported injured and a further 9,500 are
  thought to be still buried under the rubble in Sichuan.
  Most are feared dead, but some are still being pulled out alive.
  Rescuers saved at least two women this morning in a house near a coal
  mine, Xinhua said.


• Officials have tried to keep people from the area because of
  aftershocks and a build-up of water in blocked rivers.
  Xinhua said the most dangerous mass of water was only about 3 km
  upstream from Beichuan town where rescue workers saved a man yesterday
  from under the remains of a hospital.


• China says it expects the final death toll to exceed 50,000.
  About 4.8m people have lost their homes.
  

Pakistan suicide bomb Attack-13 were killed

A suicide bomber in Islamabad(Pakistan) on Sunday killed 13 people, including 4 troops, and wounded 24 others in an attack close to the gates of an army training centre in Mardan, police sources said.
The bomber was on foot and blew himself up outside the gates of the Punjab Regimental Centre, close to a bakery shop in the cantonment area, the sources added. The attack was the deadliest in more than two months. Talking to a private television channel, NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain condemned the attack, adding that it was the work of those who wanted to derail the peace process started by the Awami National Party (ANP) government with militants in the Malakand division. He said such tactics would not affect ongoing talks with militants.

Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP that four of the dead were soldiers guarding the gate, adding that the bomber blew himself up when he was stopped by one of the soldiers. He said that the regimental centre also ran the bakery, adding that soldiers routinely
guarded the commercial area.

A Taliban militant group claimed responsibility Monday for a suicide bombing that killed at least 11 people at the gate of an army base in Pakistan's volatile northwest.Security has been tightened in this Pakistani city in the wake of a suicide attack in the northwestern city of Mardan that killed 13 people, including four soldiers. Security measures at all entrance points of the city have been beefed up and vehicles coming from the North West Frontier Province, especially the provincial capital of Peshawar, are being checked by police.
All sub-divisional police officers and station house officers too have been directed to beef up patrolling in their areas, the Dawn newspaper reported on Monday. Patrolling in all sectors of Islamabad and around sensitive installations has been intensified. The number of pickets on different roads has been doubled.