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New York, Aug 21 (IANS) Hollywood actress Kirsten Dunst has ruled out a career on Broadway because she is terrified of singing live.

The actress showed off her singing talent for her role in the third Spider-Man franchise but pre-recorded a song for fear of performing in front of the cast and crew on-set, reports Contactmusic.com.

She insists it is her apprehension over her singing abilities that keep her from starring in musical theatre.

&#39Singing in the movie was fun because I got to record the song, and then I lip-synched it to my own voice because I&#39m scared to sing in front of people in real life,&#39 Kirsten said.

&#39I don&#39t have it in me. I would do it but not professionally or anything like that. I mean, not on a Broadway stage, that is for sure,&#39 she added.

Chennai, Aug 21 (IANS) A day after the ruling DMK attacked its erstwhile Left allies, the communists hit back Thursday saying the DMK is &#39doomed to be defeated&#39 in the polls if it continues to align with the Congress.

&#39The DMK&#39s political polices have only helped rightist communal forces gain the upper hand in several states. If the chief minister continues the alliance with the Congress which is not sure of its stand on the Ram Sethu issue - one of the main projects of the state - it is doomed to be defeated in the (forthcoming) polls,&#39 N. Varadarajan, state secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, said in a statement here.

&#39It is amusing to note that the DMK, which had aligned itself with the NDA (National Democratic ALliance) in 1999, is talking about a principled party like ours facing rout in the ensuing elections,&#39 Varadarajan added.

He was reacting to Wednesday&#39s comments of DMK treasurer and Electricity Minister Arcot N. Veerasamy, who indicated rout for the Left at the hustings.

Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi countered the Left, saying: &#39It must be remembered that the DMK had quit the NDA cabinet when the Bharatiya Janata Party violated the common minimum programme inked by all its members. But, some parties say one thing, pursue an altogether different industrial policy where they are in power and question routine law and order situations in states ruled by allies.&#39

He was making an apparent reference to the Nandigram problem in Left-ruled West Bengal and the CPI-M criticism of police firing in rural Tamil Nadu a few days ago.

Chennai, Aug 21 (IANS) The city was hit by diesel shortage Thursday after local fuel stations as well as those in neighbouring Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts shut shop due to lack of supplies.

Truck owners complained they were not able to transport essential food items to the city due to fuel shortage.

Transporters associations and foodstuff producers complained of daily revenue losses over Rs.250 million all over the state.

State Chief Secretary L.K. Tripathy said late Thursday evening that diesel supplies were adequate despite increased demand.

&#39Our talks with fuel companies revealed that intake during the last few days has increased by over 35 percent following demands from the IT sector, which run generators to combat the electricity shortage. We have been assured of enough diesel supplies and the situation is bound to improve,&#39 Tripathy said.

London, Aug 21 (IANS) British singer-turned-reality TV star Kerry Katona has been declared bankrupt.

The order was given Thursday after the diva failed to pay the final $164,000 of a $834,000 tax bill due on her, reports contactmusic.com.

The high court in London allowed her legal team an extra hour to produce the final balance, but they failed to resolve the matter.

Her representative, Luke Harris, previously declared that the funds were available but cheques had not been cleared in time and said he was &#39not in a position to assist further&#39 when called back into court.

The petition against the star was issued in January this year but Katona, who was not present in court, failed to reduce the outstanding bill.

Katona, a mother-of-four, left pop band Atomic Kitten in 2001 and went on to win TV reality show &#39I&#39m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here&#39 in 2004.

She was awarded substantial damages in July this year after a newspaper claimed she had worked as a prostitute prior to finding fame.

Mumbai, Aug 21 (IANS) Gurgaon-based low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd announced Thursday that freestyle wrestling champion Sushil Kumar, who won a bronze at the Beijing Olympics, can travel free on the airlines all his life.

Sushil, who bagged the bronze in the 66 kg category, has been accorded with the &#39Flying for Life&#39 recognition after winning the bronze medal at the Olympics, a company release said Thursday.

SpiceJet Ltd chief commercial officer Samyukth Sridharan said: &#39We are delighted that Indians are making their mark in various disciplines in the ongoing Olympics.&#39

Sushil Kumar&#39s feat is also remarkable as he is the second Indian wrestler to win a medal after Kashabha Jadhav, who won it in the 1952 Helsinki Games.

&#39Sportsmen like Sushil Kumar and Abhinav Bindra (Olympics gold medal winner for air rifle shooting) have paved the path for more success to follow,&#39 he added.

Bindra, who won a gold medal in the men&#39s 10m air rifle, was the first to be given the special honour of Flying for Life by SpiceJet.

Washington, Aug 21 (IANS) As the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) Thursday met in Vienna to consider lifting a ban on trade with India to facilitate its civil nuclear deal with the US, critics stepped up efforts to derail the historic pact.

A US proposal to exempt India from restriction on nuclear trade &#39has aroused scepticism from several members of NSG&#39, the Washington Post said Thursday citing unnamed diplomats to suggest it was &#39increasingly unlikely that a deal will be reached&#39 at the two-day Vienna meetings.

&#39We&#39ve raised questions throughout the process, particularly in relation to the implications to the non-proliferation treaty,&#39 the Post quoted an &#39Irish diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivities&#39.

But he acknowledged &#39it is a very important document for the US and India&#39 and &#39we are actively engaged in ongoing discussions&#39, the daily said.

The Post also cited diplomats to the say the US &#39has won over some sceptical nations by arguing that increasing India&#39s access to nuclear power will help ease global warming&#39 and several undecided countries such as Canada, Japan and Australia have signalled in recent days that they will support the deal.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood has acknowledged, &#39A lot of people have raised questions, and many people think (the civil nuclear deal) does not fit into the non-proliferation framework. That is not our view.&#39

The Post article followed an op-ed piece in the New York Times Wednesday by two leading US lawmakers asking the NSG not to &#39loosen nuclear rules for India&#39 on the plea that it &#39threatens to rapidly accelerate New Delhi&#39s arms race with Pakistan&#39.

The rivalry had been made all the more precarious by Pervez Musharraf&#39s resignation as Pakistani president Tuesday, wrote Edward J. Markey, co-chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Non-proliferation, and Ellen O. Tauscher, chairperson of the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

The Arms Control Association (ACA) promptly commended the op-ed piece to the media. It had last week circulated a letter from &#39more than 150 non-governmental organisations and non-proliferation experts from 24 countries&#39 asking NSG members to place &#39significant conditions&#39 on India, including termination of trade if New Delhi resumed nuclear testing.

ACA also circulated another report Wednesday by &#39a respected nuclear journal&#39 to suggest &#39conflict of interest shadows Germany&#39, the current NSG chair, in the cartel&#39s &#39controversial India nuclear trade decision&#39.

It cited &#39Platts Nuclear News Flash&#39 to suggest that Germany&#39s position on the proposal to lift global nuclear trade restrictions on India might have been influenced by a private German firm&#39s joint venture with the French nuclear conglomerate Areva.

Previously, Germany had been more critical of the proposal, but now, under pressure from the United States and France, Berlin has agreed to support the exemption for India, the report said.

Earlier this month, Howard L. Berman, Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice a letter saying he found it &#39incomprehensible&#39 that the administration is seeking an NSG exemption for India with &#39few or none of the conditions&#39 contained in the Hyde Act, the enabling US law.

He warned that a failure to include such conditions in the NSG agreement would doom consideration of the US-India deal in the current Congress.

More than the NSG decision, Indian diplomats are worried about the nuclear deal&#39s ratification by the US Congress, which is set to adjourn for the year on Sep 26.

If NSG fails to reach an agreement this week and leaves a decision to a second meeting probably next month, it would leave little time for final approval by Congress as the Hyde Act requires that Congress be in 30 days of continuous session to consider the deal.

But then Congress can choose to waive its rules too

Kinathukadavu (Tamil Nadu), Aug 21 (IANS) Investigations into the unexplained deaths of over 50 chickens in a farm here Thursday landed a 26-year-old housewife in jail for attempting to murder her husband, police said.

This village in Coimbatore district, locate 600 km southwest of Chennai, is home to large poultry farms. One of the farms owners, K. Jayaraman, complained to police when he noticed several of his chickens suddenly dying.

His enquiries revealed that the chickens died after consuming rice fed by a neighbour, V. Chinnasamy.

This led to the uncovering of a bizarre plot by Chinnasamy&#39s wife V.C. Devi to kill her husband for allegedly torturing her suspecting her fidelity. She laced his rice with rat poison, but since her intended victim did not like the bitter taste of the rice he fed some of it to the birds.

Jayaraman called the police and they found Chinnasamy convulsing and admitted him to hospital. Devi was arrested. A court sent her to judicial remand in the nearby town of Pollachi, police sources told IANS.

Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Aug 21 (IANS) It was a pleasant surprise for the 900-odd families of flood affected villages of this Uttar Pradesh district when Congress MP Rahul Gandhi Thursday crossed the swollen Gomti river in a boat to reach them and assure them of all possible help.

On the first day of a three-day visit to his parliamentary constituency of Amethi, Gandhi, general secretary of the All India COngress Committee (AICC), paid a number of surprise visits to people.

Before attending a meeting of the newly-elected village panchayat members in Semrauta village, Gandhi stopped at a couple of primary schools and checked the newly constructed computer facilities there.

Though the Gandhi scion made it a point to keep a distance from the media, the participants of &#39confidential&#39 meetings revealed the contents and decisions later.

&#39Rahul admitted to the lack of proper communication with the rural and grass root level functionaries and workers of the Congress and promised to improve it. He also asked for suggestions to strengthen the rural vote bank,&#39 revealed Lal Pratap Singh, a senior office bearer of the Rae Bareli district Congress committee.

Gandhi blamed the Uttar Pradesh government for what he termed its lethargic approach in implementing central government schemes and promised around a dozen new schemes in the next eight to nine months, Singh added.

After his much-talked about two-hour visit to the flood affected villages, Gandhi visited the homes of a few boatmen.

The villagers requested him to make some arrangements to cross the river in order to arrange for food.

&#39I promise to get a pontoon bridge constructed on the river as soon as possible,&#39 he assured the boatmen.

Over two dozen villages have been hit by floods in the district, affecting over 3,000 people of 900 families, administrative officials informed mediapersons.

On Friday, the second day of his visit, Gandhi will attend a kabaddi match between the teams of two inter colleges of the district, and lay the foundation of a number of central government projects, Congress spokesperson A.P. Singh told IANS.

Thrissur (Kerala), Aug 21 (IANS) A man was killed and three others were injured as activists of two rival outfits clashed in Thrissur district of Kerala Thursday, the police said.

The district collector clamped prohibitory order in the area after the clashes between activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the National Democratic Front (NDF), a Muslim organisation.

&#39RSS activist Baiju was attacked at a petrol pump near the Pavaratty police station. He died this afternoon. A three-member gang carried out the attack,&#39 a police official said.

The condition of the three injured people was described as serious.

Sochi (Russia), Aug 21 (DPA) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Thursday and expressed support for Moscow in the Caucasus, amid mounting Western criticism of Moscow&#39s military push and continued occupation of Georgian territory.

In a meeting in Russia&#39s Black Sea resort of Sochi on the second day of his visit, the Syrian president said, &#39We understand the essence of the Russian position and its military response. We believe Russia was responding to the Georgian provocation.&#39

The Syrian leader likened the conflict in the Caucasus to the Mid East conflict, and noted that Russia supported the start of a dialogue with Israel.

International criticism has mounted with each new day that Moscow delays pulling its troops out of Georgian territory in accordance with a ceasefire that ended the 10-day conflict.

Syria &#39appreciates the Russian leadership&#39s brave decision to begin a withdrawal of troops from region … we are against any attempts to slander Russia or misrepresent its position,&#39 the Syrian president added.

Ahead of his two-day visit, Assad was bullish on expanding military ties, suggesting such an alliance could serve to counter balance Moscow current diplomatic isolation.

&#39Arms purchases are a priority,&#39 Assad said in an interview published in Kommersant daily on the eve of his trip, adding that Israel and the West&#39s joint pressure on Russia made this necessary.

Syria, a close ally of Iran and foe of the United States, has lashed out at Israel for fielding military consultants and supplying weapons to Georgia in the run-up to the war in South Ossetia.

But Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Thursday defended arms sales to Georgia, saying all exports to the Caucasus country had been checked by the Ministry of Defence.

She was speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem to warn Moscow off accepting Syria&#39s offer it deploy missiles on its territory, saying such a move could destabilize the Middle East.

&#39The deployment of long-range missiles is wrong,&#39 Livi told journalists Thursday.

She was reacting to reports that Russia could possibly supply Syria with two types of missiles - S-300 surface-to-air missiles and Iskander E-ballistic missiles, which have a range of of 280 km and can carry a a 480-kg warhead.

Syria, label a &#39rogue&#39 state by Washington, said the offer could help Russia develop adequate military response to what it sees as the threat of a planned US missile shield in Eastern Europe.

Washington says such a system is not directed at Russia, but to protect against &#39rogue&#39 states, like Iran.

Russia&#39s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready to consider Syria&#39s offer, but that stability in the middle east would take precedent.

&#39We are ready to consider Syria&#39s request to purchase new weapons,&#39 Lavrov told journalist in Sochi, but added, &#39We will deliver arms which have defensive character and do not upset the balance of power in the region.&#39

Moscow has come under severe criticism from the United States and Israel for reinvigorating Soviet-era weapons trade with Syria, a close ally of Iran.