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        Outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he believes Sudan is set to approve the deployment of a joint UN-African Union force in Darfur. Until now, President Omar al-Bashir has consistently opposed any involvement of the UN in the western region. However, Sudanese officials say the government has now accepted the idea of a 'hybrid' force of peacekeepers, including UN personnel. Fighting in Darfur has killed some two lakh people since early 2003. More than two million have been displaced. The conflict began when a rebellion by local groups triggered a counter-offensive by the army and government-backed Arab militias. Last week, the US warned Sudan it would face unspecified sanctions if it did not agree to an international peacekeeping force for Darfur by January.

        With eight Marines charged in connection with the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians, the Marine Corps sent a clear message to its officers: They will be held accountable for the actions of their subordinates. In the biggest U S criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war, four of the Marines — all enlisted men — were charged Thursday with unpremeditated murder. But the remaining four Marines in the case are officers, the highest ranking among them a lieutenant colonel. They were charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report or properly investigate the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year. The case marks the largest number of US officers to be charged in an alleged crime since the start of the Iraq war, said John Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general.

        Saudi human rights lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem said he had been waiting years for a case like this: A woman and her daughter, both accused of promiscuity, were followed by the moral police as they left a private residence on the outskirts of the capital. The policemen, who enforce adherence to Saudi Arabia's strict religious laws, beat up the women's driver and drove off with them locked in the back of the car. When the car broke down half an hour later, the officers abandoned them in the stranded vehicle.

        The word ' Representative Bench' got a new meaning when the President cleared on Thursday the appointment of K G Balakrishnan (62), senior most judge of the Supreme Court, as the 37th Chief Justice of India with effect from 14 January next year. The formal notification on the appointment is likely to be issued on 26 December. He will be the first Chief Justice of India belonging to a Scheduled Caste and will have a tenure till May 2010. He will succeed Justice Y K Sabharwal, who retires on 13 January, 2007. At the beginning of his legal career in 1968 as advocate, Justice Balakrishnan pleaded both criminal and civil cases in the Ernakulam court. He was later appointed munsif in the Kerala Judicial Services in 1973. He later resigned and resumed practice in the Kerala High Court.

        Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Friday stressed the need for a political party, its leaders, workers and ideology to enjoy credibility. Speaking on the opening day of his party's three-day conclave here, Singh admitted that all parties and politicians were suffering from a credibility gap. The BJP chief, who will begin a three-year tenure when the national council session begins on Saturday, was seeking to drive home the point that the BJP could change the common man's perception that politics and politicians were not straight or clean. The one-day meeting on Friday was the last session of the outgoing national executive committee.

        Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United States President George W Bush have expressed 'happiness' over the initiative to change U S laws to enable civilian nuclear cooperation between New Delhi and Washington. An official statement on Thursday said Bush telephoned Singh. This was their first conversation after Bush signed into law a bill on Monday to facilitate civilian nuclear cooperation with India. 'The Prime Minister said India still has some concerns, though many have already been addressed in the President's signing statement. Both leaders expressed the hope that remaining concerns will be addressed in the next stage of negotiation,' the statement said.

        Pattali Makkal Katchi has urged Union Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao to take appropriate measures to regularise the services of over 18,000 contract labourers of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation. Recently, Union Minister for Health Anbumani Ramadoss, Chidambaram MP E Ponnuswami, Panruti MLA T Velmurugan and the PMK trade union leaders met Rao and NLC chairman-cum-managing director S Jayaraman in New Delhi and handed over a charter of nine demands. The PMK had stated that all those contract labourers who had put in 20 years of service must be made permanent and they should be given bonus for Pongal and Deepavali festivals.

        The State government has decided to encourage Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) concept for redesigning and relaying State Highways roads, according to M P Saminathan, Minister for Highways. He was speaking to reporters after attending a review meeting held in Sivaganga on Wednesday. The Minister for HR&CE K R Periakaruppan, secretary, Highways, Alaudeen, and the Collector M A Siddique, participated. Saminathan said the Central government had sent a model construction agreement to study the parameters laid by it to take up BOT method of road laying work on State Highways. Encouraging public-private partnership work will provide high standard roads to the users in the State Highways category also, he said.

        The MDMK is heading towards a vertical split with party supremo Vaiko removing two senior leaders, L Ganesan and Gingee N Ramachandran, both MPs, from the posts of party presidium chairman and deputy general secretary with immediate effect. However, both leaders have challenged Vaiko's authority in removing them from their posts. The MDMK has four members in the Lok Sabha. Two other members, C Krishnan and V Ravichandran have cast their lot with Vaiko, causing a vertical split. An emergency meeting of MDMK district secretaries, summoned by Vaiko at Cumbum in Theni district, in the midst of his padayatra to Mullaiperiyar dam, today recommended that the leaders be removed from their posts for 'anti-party activities'. However, they would continue to be primary members of the MDMK, he said in a statement. Vaiko said they were being removed from the posts and barred from attending any party meetings, including the one called by him here on 25 December to take stock of the political situation in the state. Rebels in for trouble.

        The government indicated that some big concessions could be given to highly employment generating sectors for exports in the forthcoming budget. 'Some bold steps could be taken for the highly employment generating sectors,' Finance Minister P Chidambaram said when asked if tax concessions could be given to exporters in the Budget for 2007-08. When asked about what those concessions could be, he said: 'Wait for the presentation of the budget.' Although he did not say specifiy the sectors, officials said textiles and garments, gems and jewellery, and leather among others could benefit. The government was alive to the exporters' demands, many of which have been accomodated in the past and some of them have been internalised in the system, Chidambaram said after a meeting with various Export Promotion Councils here.

        Shane Warne, the most successful bowler in Test history, will retire after the final match of the Ashes series in Sydney.

        Warne said at the MCG last Wednesday that he was ready to end his 15-year international career, but not before a push for a 5-0 result against England.

        'I sit here a very happy man getting that urn back and I'm going to announce my retirement from international cricket, domestic cricket for Victoria and St Kilda as well,' he said.

        'It's been unbelievable. I think my journey and my ride in international cricket has been phenomenal. To have that opportunity to walk off in Sydney, where it all began a long time ago, where the ride began, then I think that's a great opportunity and something to celebrate with the team.

        It's been on my chest for a while. I probably would have retired at the end of 2005 Ashes series if we had won but it wasn't to be. I feel like I'm still bowling well enough to keep playing. It's about knowing the right time and I'd like to go out on top'

        The silver medal winner in the Asian Games S Santhi, who failed the gender verification test, was honoured along with three other sportspersons by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi in Chennai on Monday. Unperturbed by reports that the Olympic Council of Asia had decided to withdraw the medal she had won in the women's 800 metres, Karunanidhi handed over a cheque for Rs 15 lakh and a huge plasma television set to Santhi, daughter of a brick kiln worker. When Santhi, along with her parents, met him in his chamber on invitation, Karunanidhi asked her not to worry as long as she was true to her conscience. He also enquired about her performance in the Asian and the South Asian sports events in Korea and Sri Lanka.

        Rejecting the contention that the Assembly Speaker's actions were above judicial scrutiny, the Madras High Court has admitted a petition from former AIADMK Minister O Panneerselvam against the rejection of a no-confidence motion against the Speaker on 3 August. Justice K Suguna, admitting the writ plea, also ordered notices to the Tamilnadu Assembly Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the Secretary. 'The argument of Advocate-General that the actions of the Speaker of a Legislature are above judicial scrutiny, and hence this court does not have any power to entertain the writ petition, cannot stand in view of the judgment of the Supreme Court,' she said.

        The State-level Sanctioning Committee of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, headed by Local Administration Minister M K Stalin, has recommended that the Centre approve six urban renewal projects relating to sanitation, roads and solid waste management in Chennai and Madurai worth Rs 263 crore. The projects, once approved by the Centre, will be financed under the JNNURM. The Mission aims to encourage reforms and fast-track planned development of identified cities. The Rs 35-crore Chennai sewage treatment plant improvement and expansion at Perungudi and the Rs 48-crore development of scientific landfill at Venkatamangalam for Alandur, Pallavaram and Tambaram municipalities are the two projects recommended for the Greater Chennai area.