Washington - Republican donors were outraged over bills worth more than 150,000 dollars for Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's new wardrobe to outfit the vice-presidential candidate after her nomination, a US media report said.

"I want my money back," the online paper Politico quoted an anonymous donor as saying.

Running for the White House seemed to pay off, another donor said. "Even if you lose, you have a wardrobe full of new clothes."

On the opening day (Oct 20) at the Gitanjali sponsored ‘Lakme Fashion Week’, Prachi Desai and Sameer Dattani added glamour to the attracting colors of the desert as Krishna Mehta unleashed her line of vibrantly hued Spring/Summer 2009 collection called ‘Sunrise in the Desert Sands’.

Showcasing a men’s and women’s pret line in lively colors including poster red, cobalt blue, yellow, green, shimmering orange and tones of violet added magic to the new collection.

Hong Kong - The territory will have to pay about 2 billion Hong Kong dollars (256 million US dollars) more for the water it imports from China as a result of inflation and an appreciating Chinese currency, a media report said Thursday.

Beijing - German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in China on Thursday for talks that were expected to focus on the global financial crisis.

Merkel was scheduled to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao later in the day before the two leaders join some 40 other heads of state at the biannual Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) on Friday and Saturday.

German officials said the fact that Merkel was one of the few foreign leaders making a formal state visit to China for the ASEM summit showed the importance of ties between the two nations.

She is scheduled to meet President Hu Jintao on Friday.

Two rights groups appealed to Merkel to raise the situation of China's Tibetan and Uighur minorities during her meetings in Beijing.

Pasadena, California - In the last hours of her life last week, Wanda Dunn, 53, took the time to settle her affairs, taking two small plants to a neighbour as well as some cheap clothes that she asked him to give to charity.

Then she returned to the home she had lived in since childhood, set it on fire and shot herself in the head with a handgun.

Dunn's desperate actions came the day before she was to have been evicted from the stucco house first bought by her grandparents decades ago.