Beichuan (China), May 16: Chinese President Hu Jintao said rescue efforts from this week’s powerful earthquake entered their "most crucial" phase on Friday, as the country braced for a death toll expected to rise above 50,000. Hu flew into the disaster area in central China to view the devastation and massive relief operation that included more than 130,000 troops.

Four days after the quake hit, Chinese soldiers and the police also finally reached all of the isolated mountain counties and townships at the epicentre that had been most damaged, state media said. Public criticism grew over the many children among the official death toll of 19,509, who were in class on Monday afternoon during the magnitude 7.9 quake.

Education and housing officials took the rare move of taking questions online from angry Chinese citizens. The government said it would investigate why so many school buildings collapsed — destroying about 6,900 classrooms, not including the hardest-hit counties — and severely punish anyone responsible for shoddy construction. But even a day past what experts say is the critical three-day window for finding buried earthquake survivors alive, rescuers pulled a student trapped for 80 hours from a school in Beichuan area and said they could hear weak cries for help from more.

The Earthquake and Disaster Relief Headquarters of the State Council, the country’s Cabinet, has said total deaths could rise above 50,000.  Tens of thousands could still be buried in collapsed buildings in Sichuan province, where the quake was centred, the province’s vice-governor told reporters.

"The challenge is still severe, the task is still arduous and the time is pressing," Mr Hu was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. "Quake relief work has entered into the most crucial phase. We must make every effort, race against time and overcome all difficulties to achieve the final victory of the relief efforts." In Mianzhu, close to where Mr Hu arrived, seven fallen schools buried 1,700 people, Xinhua said, and about 1,300 bodies had been recovered so far.

Weak signs of life were detected in five places amid the rubble of Dongqi Middle School in Mianzhu, Xinhua reported, and troops were continuing rescue work at the school where 100 students were missing. In the same area, 700 students were thought to have been buried in a school in Hanwang town. Further north in Beichuan, 360 students were rescued from the ruins of a school, but another 700 were still buried.

The police restricted the last couple kilometres of road into Beichuan to emergency vehicles, with military trucks and cranes still edging around huge boulders still blocking their path. Dozens of ordinary people were also trudging up the winding mountain road, carrying backpacks and bags of food and medical supplies, on a quest to find missing relatives. Liu Jingyong, a 43-year-old migrant worker searching for his cousin, had travelled two days by bus and now foot just to get near his relative’s home.

"I have not had any information from him," Mr Liu said. "This is so hard on me." The government said it had allocated $772 million for earthquake relief, according to the central bank’s website, up sharply from the figure of 159 million two days ago. Given the extend of destruction of roads, schools, homes, businesses and other infrastructure, AIR Worldwide, a catastrophe risk modelling firm, said it estimated that losses to both insured and uninsured property would likely exceed $20 billion.

The Sichuan government says the official death toll from this week’s powerful earthquake in the province has risen to 21,500 people. Vice-governor Li Chengyun announced the figure at a news conference on Friday in the provincial capital Chengdu. It is up about 3,000 from a day earlier.

Experts said the time for rescues was growing short. "Anyone buried in an earthquake can survive without water and food for three days," said Gu Linsheng, a researcher with Tsinghua University’s Emergency Management Research Center. "After that, it’s usually a miracle for anyone to survive." Nearly 70,000 injured people were being treated at hospitals in Sichuan, Dr. Shen Ji, director-general of the provincial health department, told reporters in Chengdu. He said there had not been an outbreak of any earthquake-related epidemics.

Washington, May 16: The Democratic-led House of Representatives on Thursday rejected more funds to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as many Republicans angry over the majority party’s tactics sat out the vote. It did approve more money for the jobless and an expansion of veterans’ education benefits. In a rapid series of votes on the war funding bill and accompanying components, Republicans withheld their votes in protest, leading to the defeat of the Iraq funding legislation by a 149-141 tally.

Nearly two-thirds of the House’s Democrats voted against continuing to fund the war.Democrats then forced through a nonbinding plan seeking an exit from Iraq by December of next year by a 224-196 vote that broke along party lines.

And 32 Republicans joined with Democrats on a 256-166 vote to sharply boost education benefits for Iraq-Afghanistan veterans under the an education — despite an accompanying tax surcharge on the wealthy and small businesses — and voted to provide a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits.

The White House weighed in again on Thursday with a promise to veto the bill over the non-war spending, the new tax surcharge and restrictions on President George W. Bush’s ability to conduct the war in Iraq. A total of 132 Republicans withheld their votes for the troops funding bill in protest, saying the strategy by Democrats to load the war funding measure with unrelated provisions would unnecessarily delay getting funding to troops in the field.

"We’re playing political games on the backs of our troops — you know it," said Republican minority leader John Boehner. "All this bill’s going to do is delay the process for weeks and weeks and weeks while we play political games." The Republican protest kills the war funding for now, but it will be revived next week in the Senate. House action on the bill was the first act in a complicated legislative dance that promises to spill over into June.

New York, May 16: US authorities have pressed hate crime charges against an American teenager accused of setting fire to the "patka" of a Sikh student. Garrett Green, 18, pleaded not guilty to changes of aggravated assault, bias intimidation, arson and criminal mischief slapped on him.

He was ordered by the Municipal Court Judge Gregory Williams to appear before him on May 21 to face the charges. The 16-year old Sikh boy, whose family do not wish him to be identified, did not suffer any major injury. Some of his hair were reported burnt after his headgear was allegedly set on fire by a cigarette lighter during a fire drill when he was talking to a friend. The incident occurred on May five and Green was arrested immediately after the incident.

The California Supreme Court, striking down two state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman, ruled on Thursday that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.  The 4-to-3 decision, drawing on a ruling 60 years ago that struck down a state ban on interracial marriage, would make California the second state, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex marriages.

The decision, which becomes effective in 30 days unless the court grants a stay, was greeted with celebrations at San Francisco City Hall, where thousands of same-sex marriages were thrown out by the courts four years ago.  It was denounced by religious and conservative groups that promised to support an initiative proposed for the November ballot that would amend the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages and overturn the decision.

Same-sex marriage has been a highly contentious issue in presidential and Congressional elections, but it was not immediately clear what role the ruling would have this year.  The Democratic and Republican candidates for President have all said they believe marriage should be between a man and a woman, but Republicans could use a surge in same-sex marriages in the most populous state to invigorate conservative voters.  Given the historic, cultural, symbolic and constitutional significance of marriage, Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote for the majority, the state cannot limit its availability to opposite-sex couples.

"In view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship," Chief Justice George wrote, "the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."