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Britney Spears‘ 16-year-old sister, who stars as a schoolgirl in Nickelodeon’s popular TV show “Zoey 101,” is pregnant.The cable channel confirmed a report in the forthcoming edition of celebrity gossip magazine OK! that Jamie Lynn Spears is expecting a child.

“We respect Jamie Lynn’s decision to take responsibility in this sensitive and personal situation. We know this is a very difficult time for her and her family, and our primary concern right now is for Jamie Lynn’s well being,” Nickelodeon said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.

A high school student who lives in Louisiana, Jamie Lynn Spears reportedly met the father, Casey Aldridge, the son of a Tennessee papermill worker, at church. Jamie Lynn Spears’ personal publicist was not available for comment.

Her big sister, Britney Spears, may not be the best source of parenting advice. The 26-year-old pop star lost primary custody of her two sons, aged 2 and 1, to ex-husband Kevin Federline after their divorce last year and is engaged in a bitter custody battle that has shone a harsh spotlight on her maternal shortcomings.

“Zoey 101,” which wrapped production on its fourth and final season in September, revolves around a headstrong student at a co-ed boarding school in California. Fresh episodes will air through 2008, a spokeswoman for the Viacom Inc-owned network said.

The economies of India and China are much smaller than previously thought, when measured by buying power in US dollars, according to data released on Monday, which could weaken their call for more clout at the IMF. The preliminary International Comparison Program report on purchasing power parity — or PPP — was coordinated by the World Bank and based on price data on goods and services in 146 countries, adjusted to reflect local cost and affordability, and converted to dollars.

The report has no bearing on the actual size of those economies, but rather looks at them with a different measuring tool — one that many emerging economies argue is a more accurate representation of their growing global influence since it takes their hefty buying power into account.

Many of those countries want the IMF to take PPP into consideration, when allocating voting rights, a contentious issue that is expected to be high on the agenda at the fund’s spring meetings in April 2008.

An IMF spokesman said there was “growing consensus” that PPP should play a role in determining voting quotas, which would raise the relative weight of developing countries.

“The impact on individual countries depends on the data for them and this new set of PPP data will ensure that any calculations done for PPP purposes will reflect the most up-to-date situation,” IMF’s William Murray said in an e-mailed response to questions.

PPP is designed to provide an apples-to-apples comparison for the buying power of countries around the world, and also gives insight into the cost of living, consumer spending and investment from country to country.

One of the best-known examples is the “Big Mac Index,” which compares the cost of the same McDonald’s sandwich in different countries.

The report takes data collected by the World Bank, Eurostat and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to calculate each country’s PPP for 2005. (http://www.worldbank.org/data/icp)

China’s share of the global economy in terms of PPP fell to 9.7 per cent from an estimated 14 per cent. This was the first time that China participated in the survey, so the prior figure was calculated last year by extrapolating from old data, using a model that has since proved to be faulty.

India’s share of the world economy based on PPP dropped to 4.3 per cent from a previous estimate of 6 per cent. This was the first time India had participated in the survey since 1985.

“These are changes in estimates, the previous ones having been based on very old and very limited data,” the ICP report noted. “The real outputs of their economies have not changed, only the way we measure them has.”

Political Ramifications

When measured by market exchange rates instead of PPP, China’s share of world GDP is just 5 per cent, and India’s is less than 2 per cent — about half of their size using PPP. That explains why the report may have political ramifications as fast-growing emerging markets fight for more say at the IMF.

Emerging markets argue that the big industrialized countries have too much influence over the fund, in part because voting rights do not take into account PPP — something they hope will change in the IMF’s revised quota system.

But because India and China are smaller than previously thought in PPP terms, they may have a harder time winning support for sizeable increases in their voting rights.

Some industrialized countries worry that China and other emerging markets will surpass them in voting power if PPP is taken into consideration. In PPP, China is the world’s second- biggest economy, behind only the United States. By market exchange rates, it trails countries such as Japan and Germany.

The report shows that 12 countries account for more than two-thirds of the world’s output, including five emerging economies: China, India, Russia, Brazil and Mexico.

Overall, the results show that the size of the world economy measured in PPP terms is smaller than previously estimated. Asia’s economies are one-third smaller than previously thought, largely because of the downgrades to India and China, while Africa’s are one-fourth smaller.

Source - Express India 

Russia said Monday it has begun fuel deliveries to an atomic power station in Iran that has been at the center of international concerns over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Atomstroiexport, Russia’s nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, completed the first stage of deliveries on Sunday, the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency said.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Reza Aghazadeh, was quoted by Iran’s Fars News Agency as telling Iranian state television that the shipment arrived Monday.

The United States, several European nations, and Israel suspect Tehran has been trying to acquire nuclear weapons, but Iran denies its nuclear program is for anything but peaceful purposes.

A recent U.S. intelligence summary concluded that, contrary to earlier suspicions, Iran halted its nuclear weapons development in 2003.

Atomstroiexport, the Russian monopoly, is building the $1 billion Bushehr plant under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency. The Russian foreign ministry and nuclear officials said the fuel delivery was under full IAEA safeguards.

“The Bushehr plant is 95 percent completed and I promise the Iranian nation that the electricity generated by this nuclear plant will enter the country’s electricity network next year,” Aghazadeh said, in comments carried by Fars.

A statement on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official Web site Monday said Iran had provided additional written guarantees that the fuel can only be used at and for the Bushehr plant, and that the spent fuel will be returned to Russia for utilization and storage.

“The nuclear fuel is being delivered to Iran about six months ahead of the time when it will be actually used for producing energy, as stipulated by technical requirements,” the statement read.

The fuel deliveries will be made in several stages over two months, Russian nuclear officials said. The first stage was completed, officials said, when IAEA-certified fuel containers were delivered to a special storage facility, inspected by the IAEA, at the plant.

The United States supports the Russian plan to enrich uranium on its soil, which is a compromise effort to alleviate Washington’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear intentions and Russia’s support for Iran’s right to a nuclear energy program.

President Bush said he voiced his support for the program in a phone call to President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

“One of the interesting tactical decisions that Russia has made — that the United States supports — is the notion that Iran has a sovereign right to have a civilian nuclear power program,” Bush said.

“What they don’t have is our confidence that they should be able to enrich uranium so that those plants would work. Why? Because they had a covert weapons program that they did not declare and have yet to declare.”

The U.N. Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran suspend enrichment of uranium and has imposed limited sanctions on Tehran for refusing to comply. Russia, France, and China — all permanent Security Council members — have voiced concerns about the proposed sanctions.

A recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate said Iran stopped work toward a nuclear weapon while under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed the report and declared that Iran is a “peaceful nuclear country.”

Aghazadeh expressed hope that with Iran-IAEA cooperation, there would no longer be any legal excuse for Iran’s nuclear case to remain at the Security Council and that it would be returned to the IAEA.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia wants to settle the situation.

“Certainly, we are interested in having all issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program finally settled as early as possible,” he said in Moscow after talks with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki.

This is possible “solely on the basis of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, IAEA rules and principles, and certainly, with Iran proving its right to a peaceful use of nuclear energy,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov said there had been some progress in the talks between Iran and the IAEA.

“We encourage further advancement which will allow us to finally take this issue off the international agenda,” Lavrov said.

Construction of the plant was expected to be completed in September, Interfax said, but was delayed because of lack of financing and delayed equipment deliveries from other countries.

Atomstroiexport hopes to announce a new date for completing the construction in late December, Interfax said.

Source - CNN