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This holiday season may have a dearth of options, and the current economic disaster is not be the only thing to blame. Right after an analyst decreed Apple’s iPod to be in short supply this season, Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader disappeared from shelves and will not be available until February of next year.

The Kindle has been out for a year, and has been enormously popular, so its vanishing makes a degree of sense. But one would figure Amazon understood the demand for its product and would stockpile appropriately.

Another theory is that Amazon might be making room for the updated Kindle 2.0, which was revealed in snippets earlier this year. Even though Amazon stated the Kindle 2.0 would not be released in 2008, the early photos and detailed specs made it clear that the company would have to vanquish its Kindle 1.0 stock to make room.

Meanwhile, shoppers for the eBook reader are out of luck. Unless, of course, you’re willing to brave eBay‘s price gouging.

A Taiwanese court ordered former President Chen Shui-bian held on corruption charges Wednesday, an ignominious decision for a man who won acclaim for standing up to China with pro-independence policies.

The ruling came at the end of a marathon 21-hour court hearing that began with lengthy interrogation Tuesday but was interrupted by a trip to the hospital and didn’t conclude until dawn Wednesday.

Chen, who has denied any wrongdoing, was ordered detained under an order that does not constitute an indictment. He can be held for four months before being formally charged.

As prosecutors prepare their case, he is expected to be held in the same jail in suburban Taipei where, as a dissident leader 21 years ago, he served eight months for defaming an official of the ruling Nationalist Party during the waning days of Taiwan’s infamous martial law regime.

The hearing was interrupted for several hours after the former leader complained that he had been injured while being transported from a prosecutors’ office to the nearby court building. He was returned to the court after doctors found he had sustained only a minor muscle tear, said court spokesman Huang Chun-ming.

Wednesday’s court order has implications beyond Taiwan, where he is reviled by millions for his apparent toleration for corruption. But he is also lionized by millions for his willingness to stand up to both Chinese threats and American opposition to his anti-China line.

China insists that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory and has threatened war if the island moves to make its 59-year break with the mainland permanent.

Chen was also criticized repeatedly by the United States, Taiwan’s most important foreign partner, over the China issue. During Chen’s recently concluded presidency, Chen was often seen by U.S. officials as a loose cannon who could provoke a Chinese invasion.

Chen denies any suggestion that his pro-independence policies are provocative.

He defiantly predicted his arrest and tried to link it to alleged attempts by his successor, President Ma Ying-jeou, to placate China. Ma has made reconciliation with China the centerpiece of his six-month-old administration.

“This is a political persecution,” Chen declared as he was led from the prosecutors’ office in handcuffs Tuesday afternoon. “Cheers for Taiwan.”

Li Yihu, a Taiwan expert at Peking University in Beijing said Chen’s prosecution is not related to China.

“It is a case involving a great amount of money and has had a negative influence, so it must be dealt with,” he said. “It is nothing to do with placating the mainland.”

Corruption allegations seriously undermined his authority during his last two years in office, and provoked mass demonstrations demanding his resignation.

Family and close advisers were imprisoned on a variety of graft charges, his wife went on trial for allegedly looting a special presidential fund, and Chen himself became the subject of a complex series of judicial probes.

His questioning Tuesday by a special team of prosecutors focused on allegations he laundered money and made illegal use of the special presidential fund during his eight years in office that ended in May.

In a dramatic television appearance in August Chen admitted that he broke the law by not fully disclosing campaign donations he had received, after a lawmaker from Ma’s Nationalist Party alleged that Chen’s son and daughter-in-law moved millions of dollars to Switzerland in 2007, and then forwarded the funds to the Cayman Islands.

At the time prosecutors said they wanted to determine whether the funds were indeed donations left over from political campaigns — as Chen insisted — or whether bribery might have been involved.

Under Taiwanese law, false declaration of donations is subject to a fine but money laundering carries a seven-year prison sentence.

India and the US are all set to seal their civil nuclear deal, bringing into reality the landmark accord envisioned by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush over three years ago.

With India’s concerns over the deal met, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee flew in Friday morning to sign the bilateral 123 pact with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to reopen nuclear commerce between the two countries after a hiatus of three decades.

The ‘Agreement for Cooperation between the Government of India and the Government of the United States of America concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy’ will be signed at the State Department at 4 p.m. (1:30 a.m. Saturday in India) in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the State Department, it was announced.

Rice could not sign the agreement when she visited New Delhi last weekend with India concerned over a couple of riders relating to fuel supply assurances and reprocessing in the legislation approving the deal and insisting that Bush first sign the enabling law.

The landmark accord envisioned by Manmohan Singh and Bush in a joint statement on July 18, 2005 will end the ban on nuclear trade imposed after India conducted its first ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ in May 1974.

Mukherjee has come to ink the bilateral agreement just two days after Bush signed a historic enabling law with an assertion that it does not change US commitments on nuclear fuel assurances and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

‘By undertaking new cooperation on civil nuclear energy, India will be able to count on a reliable fuel supply for its civilian reactors,’ said Bush as he signed the Congressional approval of what he called a ‘big deal’ at a White House ceremony Wednesday.

An accompanying presidential statement made it more explicit. ‘The legislation does not change the terms of the 123 Agreement as I submitted it to the Congress,’ said Bush. It simply enabled him to bring the bilateral agreement ‘into force and to accept on behalf of the United States the obligations contained in the Agreement.’

‘The Agreement grants India advance consent to reprocessing which will be brought into effect upon conclusion of arrangements and procedures for a dedicated reprocessing facility under IAEA safeguards,’ Bush said.

‘In addition, the legislation does not change the fuel assurance commitments that the US government has made to the government of India, as recorded in the 123 Agreement,’ Bush maintained.

India’s Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen told reporters after the signing that the presidential statement, with assurances on fuel supplies and ‘advanced consent’ for reprocessing ‘absolutely’ met India’s concerns.

‘I think the (Bush) statement speaks for itself… All concerns that have been expressed, who fear the implications of certain elements of the legislation, all those have been met,’ he said.

‘I am confident because we negotiated the 123 Agreement with great care and I was confident right from the beginning that many of the concerns that had been expressed would be met like they have been in the past,’ Sen maintained.

Meanwhile, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican member on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, hailed the agreement for paving the way for closer ties between the world’s two largest democracies.

‘Stronger economic, scientific, diplomatic, and military cooperation between the US and India is in the national interest of both countries and reflects our increasingly close relationship with this important democratic ally,’ she stated.

‘In addition to helping India provide energy to its rapidly growing population, this agreement will strengthen the emerging alliance between the countries,’ Ros-Lehtinen said, adding: ‘This is not an agreement which we would enter into with just any country.’

D.B. Cooper, the notorious hijacker who parachuted from a Boeing 727 in 1971 with 200,000 dollars in cash and vanished without a trace, has ties to the family of Abraham Lincoln, according to a new book.

Charles Lachman, executive producer of “Inside Edition”, claims in The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family that Cooper was actually Jack Coffelt, the chauffeur of Abe Lincoln’s great-grandson, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith.

The author writes that Coffelt had set his eyes on the Lincoln fortune, which is why he charmed his way into Beckwith’s life.

However, his failure to assume control of the Lincoln trust fund might have driven him to turn hijacker, the writer states.

Lachman writes that Coffelt was in Portland on the same day “Cooper” boarded the plane there, and was later seen sporting leg injuries that could have resulted form a rough parachute landing.

He claims that Coffelt, who died in 1975 at age 59, even made statements to a family friend that he was Cooper.

The book traces the checkered lives of Lincoln’s descendants.

“(A) dysfunctional family of alcoholics, eccentrics and spoiled brats,” the New York Post quoted Lachman as saying.

Indian inflation held steady above 12 percent in mid-September, and economists said volatile crude oil prices and the chance of a spike in some food costs would force the central bank to keep policy tight.

The wholesale price index, India’s most widely watched price measure, rose 12.14 percent in the 12 months to Sept. 13, unchanged from the previous week and below a Reuters forecast for an annual rise of 12.23 percent.

“We are still seeing very strong price pressures from the primary articles group, and this week we have also seen very high volatility in global crude prices,” said Rupa Rege Nitsure, chief economist at Bank of Baroda in Mumbai.

“So going ahead, we will continue to see an upward tendency in inflation.”

Others analysts said a hefty revision, also released this week after a series of more modest amendments, showed price pressures were yet to ease.

The inflation rate for the 12 months to July 19 was revised upwards to 12.54 percent from the previously reported 11.98 percent.

Most economists expect inflation to stay in double digits for some months and lower output of some crops could push up food prices in the medium term.

Food prices dominate the primary articles group, and floods in some regions and forecasts of lower output of some crops could fuel inflation in the weeks ahead.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expects inflation to moderate as the steps taken by authorities take effect.

But on Thursday, statistics chief Pronab Sen said the headline inflation rate was likely to remain above 10 percent until the end of January due to a statistical base effect and higher prices of manufactured products.

The Reserve Bank of India lifted its main lending rate in both June and July to tame inflation, and it now stands at a seven-year high of 9 percent. It has also raised banks’ cash reserve requirements to trim demand and cool prices.

A Reuters poll earlier this month showed economists had scaled down expectations of further interest rate increases in 2008/09 as recent policy steps and lower oil prices were seen cooling double-digit inflation.

A rise in fuel prices in June pushed inflation into double digits, and in early August it soared to 12.63 percent, the highest reading since annual numbers in the current data series became available in April 1995.

Financial markets closed before the data was released.

The partially convertible rupee ended at 46.20/22 per dollar, 0.5 percent weaker than 45.95/96 on Wednesday.

The 10-year bond yield ended at 8.57 percent, six basis points lower from its close of 8.63 percent the previous day. The 30-share BSE index fell 1 percent.

The central bank is scheduled to review monetary policy under its new governor, Duvvuri Subbarao, on Oct. 24.

The recent US’ raids inside Pakistani territory aimed at eliminating suspected terrorists but killed innocent civilians in the action, led to Saturday’s hotel blast in Islamabad killing 60 people, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UK Wajid Shamsul Hassan, has said.”We hope the US will change policy because this is what is needed,” The Independent quoted Hassan as saying.

He added that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will plead with President George Bush today to change the policy of attacking Pakistani territory with drones because this is being blamed for one of his country’s worst terrorist atrocities.

He argued that the Bush administration’s decision to allow cross-border incursions from Afghanistan into Pakistan, including by ground forces on at least one occasion, had been counterproductive because “they are not killing high-value targets, they are killing civilians”.

Zardari’s talks with President Bush in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, have been scheduled amid heightened security fears in the wake of the bombing.

As a precautionary measure, the British Airways had cancelled all flights to Pakistan, although a spokesman said there was no direct threat against the airline which operates six flights each week.

Meanwhile, a number of foreign embassies and businesses in the country are also said to be re-examining the security situation, especially after Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan’s designated ambassador to Pakistan was kidnapped and his driver killed by unidentified gunmen

Cops were forced to use a Taser after a nude man walking his dog refused to abide by an officer’s orders.David McCranie of the Tallahassee Police Department in Florida said that an officer on patrol spotted the man shortly after 8pm on September 12.

When asked what he was doing, the man told the officer, “Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog,” reports News.com.au

McCranie said that using the Taser was the only way to subdue the man without having to hurt him.

The man was then sent for mental health evaluation and treatment.

Iraq’s parliamentary speaker has summoned the heads of political parties to a meeting on Wednesday to try to speed up passage of a stalled provincial elections law, officials said on Tuesday.The officials, speaking after parliament reconvened following a month-long recess, said Mahmoud al-Mashhadani wanted to break a deadlock over the law so the polls could go ahead.

The polls are a test for Iraq’s democracy, and Washington hopes they will help reconcile rival groups, especially minority Sunni Arabs who boycotted the last local polls in 2005 and feel marginalised in areas where they are numerically dominant.

“The speaker has called heads of blocs and parties to meet tomorrow to discuss the elections law … It is an attempt to narrow the gap and reach a mutual stance that can be accepted by all,” an official in Mashhadani’s office said.

The bill was not discussed at Tuesday’s session.

MPs failed to approve the bill before parliament broke for its recess in early August, delaying elections that had been scheduled for Oct. 1 and which the United States and the United Nations have pushed to be held as soon as possible.

The law has foundered over how to treat the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, a melting pot of Kurds, Arabs and ethnic Turkmen that sits on rich oil fields.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, in July rejected an earlier version of the election law passed by parliament which would have divided council seats equally between Kirkuk’s ethnic groups. Kurd lawmakers had boycotted that hearing in protest.

“This is definitely something we reject. This is against democracy, the constitution and the will of the people,” Kurdish lawmaker Ala Talabani said, adding Kurds would push for parliament to accept U.N. proposals to end the impasse.

Kurds believe they are numerically superior in Kirkuk, which they consider their ancient capital and want to fold into their largely autonomous northern region.

Kirkuk’s Arabs and ethnic Turkmen want the city to remain under central government authority.

POLITICAL SOLUTION

The United Nations has said provincial elections should not be held hostage to the Kirkuk dispute, and proposed that voting be postponed there until a political solution is found.

“Everybody is hoping the U.N. will narrow the gap between the parties,” said senior Shi’ite lawmaker Ali al-Adeeb.

The delay in passing the law could force the vote into early 2009, although Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said last week that, if the bill is not passed, an old law could be used to allow the polls to go ahead at the end of the year.

U.S. officials want Iraq to match dramatic gains in security in the past year with more political progress.

In a speech on Tuesday, President George W. Bush said a drop in violence would allow the Pentagon to cut troop levels in Iraq by 8,000 by February and shift more forces to Afghanistan, where attacks by Islamist militants have soared.

The cuts will be modest, leaving 138,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq — still more than before Bush ordered a “surge” of forces in 2007 at a time when Iraq was on the brink of civil war.

All of the five additional combat brigades Bush sent to Iraq in 2007 have departed.

Some of the beggars detained during a crackdown on begging in the emirate of Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates (UAE) were found to be staying at five-star hotels, WAM news agency reported Sunday.The Abu Dhabi police have stepped up the campaign against begging since the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

‘There are professional beggars who have made Ramadan an investment season,’ said Colonel Mohammed Saleh Badah, deputy director of the department of public relations and morale guidance at the ministry of interior.

He added that some of the detained beggars were found residing in furnished expensive hotel apartments and some were even staying at five-star hotels.

Interior Minister Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan has instructed the detained beggars to be referred to social support centres.

Badah said that the initial investigations have attributed the increase in begging phenomenon during Ramadan to ‘wrong belief among beggars that security and governmental control is loose in Ramadan due to compassion and faith, as well as sympathy of people with beggars.’

After meeting with animal rights activists, the British military said Tuesday that it will study alternative materials to replace the bearskin hats worn by the soldiers who guard Buckingham Palace.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, supported by some members of Parliament, says killing Canadian black bears to make the headgear is cruel. PETA says it will ask clothes designers to draw up a new hat using synthetic materials.

Although Canadian black bears are not an endangered species, sentiment has grown in Britain against using the fur for headgear that has no military purpose other than as a ceremonial adornment.

The Defense Ministry has said it is open to using synthetics but has yet to find a high-quality, weather-resistant replacement for the fur. It said Tuesday it will discuss the issue further in October.

Five army regiments — the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Welsh and Irish Guards — wear the 18-inch-high black hats during ceremonial duties at London’s Buckingham Palace and other royal sites around the country.

The Defense Ministry buys 50 to 100 bearskin pelts a year to make and repair hats, which can last up to 40 years. A single hat costs about $1,100.