NEW DELHI: A government ally in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu will forge a new regional alliance in a blow to the ruling Congress party's attempts to secure a national coalition, weeks before the general election.The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) party said it would join Congress opponent the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). The main national vote battle is between a coalition led by Congress -- the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) -- and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an alliance led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The United Progressive Alliance put together by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in 2004 unravelled with the exit of the PMK on Thursday. The formal announcement sent shockwaves through the Congress. This could be a sign that in Tamil Nadu, which proved to be a decisive swing state in the 2004 elections, the ground is shifting from under Congress' feet.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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