Obama battles to hold his old Senate seat for Democrat

President Barack Obama, fighting to fend off a major political embarrassment, laboured in his adopted home state to build a fire of enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate who is running in a close race to take the president's old Senate seat from Illinois.

A loss for Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, now the Illinois state treasurer, would rub salt in what already was expected to be a deep political wound for the president in the Nov. 2 congressional election. Democrats are widely expected to lose their majority in the House of Representatives and, perhaps, the Senate.

"All my friends in the house!" Obama shouted to cheers at the Drake Hotel at the first of two campaign events expected to net more than $750,000 for Giannoulias and other Democratic Senate campaigns.

"I hope you're fired up in these last few weeks," he said. "It's up to you to defy the conventional wisdom once again."

French Constitutional Council validates burqa ban

rance’s top legal authority on Thursday approved a law banning full-face veils in public, the last hurdle for the ban, which aims to protect women’s rights but has been criticised as causing the stigma to Muslims.

The Constitutional Council, which had previously warned that banning the veil might be unconstitutional, said it approved the version of the bill, which has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, after a final review.

It judged however that the ban, due to enter force early next year, would be unenforceable in public places of worship, where it may violate religious freedoms.

US tries to calm Pak over airstrike on its border

The Obama administration scrambled to halt a sharp deterioration in its troubled relationship with Pakistan  on Wednesday, offering Pakistani officials multiple apologies for a helicopter strike on a border post that killed three Pakistani soldiers last week.

But even as the White House tried to mollify Pakistan, officials acknowledged that the uneasy allies faced looming tensions over a host of issues far larger than the airstrike and the subsequent closing of supply lines into Afghanistan.

American pressure to show progress in Afghanistan is translating into increased pressure on Pakistan to crack down on terrorist groups. It is also running up against Pakistan’s sensitivity about its sovereignty and its determination to play a crucial role in any reconciliation with the Taliban.

NRI jailed in UK

An Indian-origin man who joined a colleague to threaten and blackmail a wealthy businessman into paying them 1 million pounds in Leicester has been jailed for eight years.

The two blackmailers have been identified as Diljit Rana (33) and Lee Taberer (39).

They terrorised the unnamed businessman, threatening to kidnap his family if he did not hand over 1 million pounds.

Taberer masqueraded as a notorious gangster during a series of menacing calls, insisting that the owed him a massive debt.

Along with Rana, Taberer rang the victim at his luxury home, saying that they knew all about him and his property investment companies.

The two were found to have a dossier on the businessman, including aerial photographs of his house and a picture of his wife, reports from Leicester said.

They were jailed for eight years after admitting blackmail at the Leicester Crown Court.

Michelle Obama tops Forbes powerful women list

Boston: US First lady Michelle Obama tops the Forbes magazine’s list of ‘World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ beating corporate honchos like India-born Pepsi Co chief Indra Nooyi and heads of state like the Queen of England to occupy the top slot.

Michelle, 46, ranked number one in the overall list of 100 as well as in the political category.

Kraft Foods Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld ranked second followed by media mogul Oprah Winfrey who came in at the third spot.

Pepsi Co Chief Indra Nooyi ranked 6th on the list. In the business category, Nooyi is ranked two. Two Indian women, Axis bank Chief Executive Shikha Sharma and ICICI bank head Chanda Kocchar also made it to the list.
Sharma is ranked 89th in the list while Kocchar comes in at the 92nd spot.

Forbes divided the power women candidates into four groups: politics, business, media and lifestyle. It ranked the women in each group, and then group against group.

Australia: Missing Indian student found

An Indian engineering student, who went missing just months after arriving in Australia, has been found in northwest New South Wales.

Abhijeet Swami (22) was located by police in Tamworth on Wednesday night after a five-day hunt and was reunited with his family a few hours later.

Swami was last seen about 10 am on Friday last when he left the Seven Hills home he shares with an uncle and headed for Blacktown train station on a bicycle.

Swami arrived in Australia to study engineering at TAFE four months ago.

Reports said he was not carrying a mobile phone when he went missing and had just USD 50 cash in his pocket and about USD 75 in his bank account.

Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

The Norwegian Nobel Committee says it has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace.

China's most prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo has been a thorn in the government's side since 1989 when he joined student protesters on a hunger strike days before the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.

The 54-year-old Liu was jailed for 11 years on Christmas Day last year for campaigning for political freedoms, with the stiff sentence on a subversion charge swiftly condemned by rights groups, Washington and many European governments.

Liu has been among the most combative critics of China's one-party rule, and his public comments have frequently riled the government, which insists China is a country with rule of law and which respects fundamental human rights.

India, Japan hold 2nd round of N talks ahead of PM visit

NEW DELHI: Signifying an important movement forward ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Tokyo, India and Japan today held the second round of talks for a civilian atomic cooperation pact that will pave the way for sale of advanced technology by Japanese majors. 

The latest round comes over three months after the launch of talks for civil nuclear cooperation and barely days before Singh's visit to Tokyo from October 24. 

Everyone hates the deficit — but likes the spending

It's the deficit — all $1.47 trillion of it — that has most people worried. Many of them angry.

That's the issue that gave birth to the tea party movement and compels thousands to show up at rallies across the country with signs saying such things as "I'm Not Your ATM."

That's what has put the Democrats' congressional majorities in jeopardy, and has left Republicans poised for big gains. Yet there's more than a little contradiction in the position politicians and voters alike seem to be taking. We invited Yahoo! readers to give their views on federal spending in Ask America, a nonscientific polling forum, and many expressed concern -- in some cases outrage -- about the deficit. At the same time, however, many also focused as much on what notto cut as they did on the hard choices that must be made.

133 charged in FBI anti-graft sweep in Puerto Rico

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US officials Wednesday unveiled the FBI's largest ever police corruption sweep saying 133 police, prison guardsand army officers have been charged in a huge anti-graft crackdown in Puerto Rico.

The suspects face charges relating to posessing and distributing cocaine, and using firearms during a drug trafficking offense, the USDepartment of Justice said in a statement.

The arrests "are the result of Operation Guard Shack, the largest police corruption investigation in the history of the FBI," the statement read.

US apologises for deadly helicopter strike in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – The United States apologised on Wednesday for a recent NATO helicopter cross-border strike that killed Pakistani soldiers.

The deadly attack triggered a row between the two allies and Pakistan shut the main land route for NATO supplies into Afghanistan soon afterwards.

Authorities in the northwest said two soldiers died, while a Pakistan military spokesman put the toll at three.

US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson said she was extending an apology on behalf of the American people over the "terrible accident". The statement said two Pakistani Frontier Scouts were killed and four injured.

The incident took place last Thursday in the Kurram district of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt, which Washington has branded an Al-Qaeda headquarters and a hub for militants fighting in Afghanistan.

The border region is being targeted by a record number of US drone strikes and was reportedly where Al-Qaeda hatched a plot to attack cities in Britain, France and Germany uncovered by Western intelligence agencies.

Patterson said "a joint investigation of the incident had established that the US helicopters had mistaken the Pakistani Frontier Scouts for insurgents they had been pursuing".

Fight for Congress could last past Election Day

WASHINGTON – The nation may be waiting well beyond Election Day this year to find out who won control of Congress.

It's a troubling ballot-box scenario that has hundreds of lawyers from both parties preparing for battles that could drag on days, weeks or even months past the Nov. 3 day-after.

Some states don't count substantial amounts of votes until after Election Day. Others require mail-in ballots to be postmarked — not received — by Nov. 2, leaving the tally until well afterward. And with polls showing many Republican and Democratic candidates in tight contests, there's plenty of opportunity for confusion, challenges and recounts that could delay the results and ultimately tip the balance of power on Capitol Hill.

Russian-born duo share Nobel Prize for Physics

Stockholm, Oct 5 : Russian-born scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov Tuesday shared the Nobel Prize for Physics, it was announced in Stockholm.

                                                The two were awarded for "groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material 

graphene," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Geim, a Dutch citizen, and Novoselov who has dual British-Russian citizenship, are both from the University of Manchester in Britain.

The physics prize was the second of the Nobel awards to be announced this year. The medicine prize was awarded Monday to British researcher Robert Edwards, a pioneer of in vitro fertilisation.

We did train militant groups to fight against India: Musharraf

London, Oct 5 : Pakistan had trained militant groups to fight against India and 'the government turned a blind eye because they wanted India to discuss Kashmir', former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has said in a candid admission.

In an interview to Der Spiegel, Musharraf said militant groups "were indeed formed" to fight India in Kashmir.

He said: "The government turned a blind eye because they wanted India to discuss Kashmir."

To a query on whether the Pakistani security forces trained the militants, Musharraf said: "The West was ignoring the resolution of the Kashmir issue, which is the core issue of Pakistan. We expected the West - especially the United States and important countries like Germany -- to resolve the Kashmir issue. Has Germany done that?"

The 67-year-old former Pakistan army chief, who masterminded a coup in October 1999 and overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government, pointed out that whenever Pakistan was in turmoil, "everybody looks to the army. But I would suggest that the times of military coups in Pakistan are over".

On the present government in Pakistan, he said that "everybody can see what they are doing".

"Pakistan is experiencing a deep economic decline -- in other areas, as well. Law and order are in jeopardy, extremism is on the rise and there is political turmoil. The non-performance of an elected government is the issue."

On present Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the man who succeeded Musharraf, the former president said: "I made him chief of the army, because I thought that he was the best man for the job."

To a query on his political future, Musharraf said: "No risk, no gain. We unfortunately have a culture of vendetta and vindictiveness in Pakistan. But there is no case of corruption or fraud or anything against me at the moment."

"My political opponents, especially Nawaz Sharif, would love to create a case against me - that I am corrupt or have committed fraud or some such. They do their best to achieve that, but they haven't succeeded. Even if they did, I would reply in court. Risks need to be taken."

He made it clear that he wasn't leading "a hermit's life" in Britain.

"I meet people here and in Dubai and receive accurate feedback. I launched my Facebook page eight months ago and today I have more than 315,000 fans. And hundreds of Pakistanis called into a TV show in which I collected money for the flood victims. They donated $3.5 million. Do you think they are doing this because they hate me?"

He lamented that the West blamed Pakistan "for everything".

"Everybody is interested in strategic deals with India, but Pakistan is always seen as the rogue".

He strongly criticised disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan and called him a "characterless man".

On Pakistan's nuclear weapons, he said: "This capability is our pride and it will never be compromised."

To a query on whether he might meet the same fate as that of Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated on her return to Pakistan, he said: "Yes, that is a risk, but it won't stop me. I am happy here in London. I am earning good money, but Pakistan is my country."

Iran warns US against military attacks

Tehran, Oct 5 : Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday warned the US against any military attacks on his country.

"The US first started a psychological war in the form of financial sanctions in order to weaken our country and is blatant enough even to threaten us that the military attack option was still on the agenda," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the northern Iranian city of Gorgan.

It was not clear why Ahmadinejad referred to a military threat by the US in the ongoing dispute over Iran's nuclear activities, in particular its controversial uranium enrichment process.

Ahmadinejad had earlier warned the US that in the event of a strike against its nuclear sites, Tehran's response would reach beyond national borders and spark a war with "no limits". He did not provide any further details.

"Whoever dares to endanger Iran, whoever dares to do anything at all against Iran, should raise its arm and the Iranian nation will instantly cut it off," Ahmadinejad said.

"We therefore advise the US to stop their inhuman crimes and leave the region. If they don't, then the regional people will eventually take care of that," the Iranian president warned.

Ahmadinejad said that the US had started a full-scale war in the region on the pretext of the Sep 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"While some 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 incident, in the military invasions following the incident more than 100,000 people were killed in Afghanistan and over 350,000 in Iraq, including civilians and children, and nobody in the US cares about them," the Iranian president said.

He said the war against global terrorism would have been settled by now if the US had allocated part of its huge war budget for development projects in Afghanistan rather than chasing terrorists.

Al-Qaeda has 'strong links' with North Caucasus militants : Russia

Moscow, Oct 5 : Russia today said radical militants active in the country's North Caucasus Muslim-dominated republics have strong links to the Al-Qaeda international terrorist network.

''Al-Qaeda has evolved into a movement uniting cells across the world on an ideological footing. It has sustained contacts with regional extremist organisations: Jamia Islamia in Maghreb and in Southeast Asia, and Imarat Kavkaz in Russia," Russia's Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev Patrushev said in the Black Sea resort of Sochi today at an international meeting of high-level security officials from over 44 countries.

This is the first time the meeting is being held on Russia‘s initiative, the Security Council said.

''Among the meeting participants will be Security Council secretaries, presidential and prime ministers’ aides on national security, ministers from 44 countries, UN representatives, and representatives of the Russian executive bodies,'' the Security Council officials told Interfax news agency.

The Russian Security Council said the two-day conference will discuss the issues relating to cooperation on meeting common challenges and threats, specifically, prevention and liquidation of the consequences of natural and man-made disasters, transnational crime, interrelation between its most dangerous types, including terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal migration, illegal weapons and radioactive materials turnover, and also piracy and threats to international information security

Afghanistan denies asking UN not to publish rights report

KABUL: Afghanistan denied Sunday that it asked theUnited Nations not to publish a report into rights violations in the country between 1978 and 2001. 

It came after a Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, said that the UN had buried a report that accused Soviets, Islamists and US forces of "atrocities". 

But Waheed Omer, spokesman for Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai, said: "The United Nations has not contacted the Afghan government regarding any such report." 

"If the United Nations wants to publish a report from its headquarters and the (Afghan) government is able to prevent it, I think that is sort of an insult to the United Nations," he said. 

The paper said the UN report "was deliberately suppressed by the United Nations for political reasons". 

"The famous 'mapping report', which was finalised in December 2004 after a year of work, was supposed to be published in January 2005," the newspaper said Saturday. 

"It was not and, after a succession of other reports, was forgotten." 

The report covered the tumultuous period from the military coup in April 1978, through the Soviet invasion and the rise and fall of the Taliban up against the US-led coalition force. 

It accused "Soviets, communist chiefs, Islamist militants and even American forces" of having "taken part to varying degrees in atrocities", the newspaper said, citing torture, summary executions, mass rape and the use of child warriors. 

One of the report's three authors, American Barnett Rubin, said that the UN must have decided not to publish it "at the request of Karzai because it mentioned people still in the Afghan government", the newspaper said. 

But in an email to AFP on Saturday, Rubin said that the report contained previously published material and denied that any "secrets" were being hidden from the public. 

"The report was a compilation of previously published reports. It contained no revelations based on new research. Every statement in the report is already part of the public record," Rubin wrote. 

"No 'secrets' are being suppressed. The report has been freely available on the Internet for over a year." 

Google signs content deals for Google TV

Bangalore: Google Inc has signed new content partnership deals with media and internet companies, including NBC Universal’s CNBC, Time Warner’s HBO and Amazon, for its proposed Google TV service.

Turner Broadcasting is working to optimise some of its websites for viewing on Google TV, including CNN and Cartoon Network, Google said on Monday.

NBC Universal will bring access to financial news television CNBC, while HBO will also provide programming.
“Amazon Video On Demand offers access to over 75,000 titles for rental or purchase, and Netflix will offer the ability to instantly watch unlimited movies and TV shows.”

Google said it was also working with news websites like The New York Times and micro-blogging service Twitter.

Devices powered by Google TV will be launched this month and more information will be available later from Sony on its Internet TV and Logitech on its companion box, Google said.