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SAN FRANCISCO: Eighty computers have been lost, stolen or gone "missing" at a major US nuclear weapons lab, the nonprofit watchdog group Project On Government Oversight (POGO) said Friday. The group posted online a copy of what they said is an internal letter outlining what appear to be worrisome losses at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the state of New Mexico.The letter said that 13 lab computers were lost or stolen during the past year, three of the machines taken from an employee's home in January. Another 67 computers are deemed "missing."

BHUBANESWAR: Rescuers searched through the wreckage of smashed carriages Saturday after a train derailed in eastern India, leaving 16 people dead and almost 200 injured, rail officials said. The high-speed Coromandel Express, connecting the eastern metropolis of Kolkata and the southern city of Chennai, derailed Friday night while changing tracks at Jajpur, 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Orissa's state capital Bhubaneswar. "Its tragic. 16 passengers have died, while close to 200 got injured," Ajay Kumar Goel, general manager of Eastern Railways, told foreign news agency. Witnesses said 12 carriages had jumped the tracks while travelling at high speed.

BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...

KABUL: US envoy Richard Holbrooke was due to meet President Hamid Karzai Saturday on the second full day of a visit to Afghanistan to assess US-led efforts to tackle a Taliban-led insurgency.The meeting, due in the evening, comes as Afghanistan marks 20 years since the withdrawal of Soviet forces after a 10-year resistance that the Taliban claims has parallels with its own battle against US and other troops

BEIJING: A 13-year-old British boy has fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend, according to a British newspaper. Baby-faced Alfie Patton, became a dad when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to a baby girl Maisie Roxanne Monday. Alfie was just 12 when he impregnated Chantelle, then 14. The boy, who looks more like he's 8, not 13, vowed to be a good father. "I didn't think about how we would afford it. I don't really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me 10 pounds (21 U. S. dollars)," the innocent-eyed teenager from Eastbourne, south England, told the newspaper. "When my mum found out, I thought I was going to get in trouble ... I didn't know what it would be like to be a dad. I will be good, though, and care for it." Chantelle and the baby are living with Penny, Chantelle's jobless dad Steve, 43, and her five brothers in a rented council house in Eastbourne. The family live on benefits. Alfie, who lives on an estate acro...

WASHINGTON: US senator Dianne Feinstein’s spokesman Philip J. LaVelle denied senator’s statement on Saturday insisting her assertion, over US drone attacks into Pakistani soil being operated from bases in Islamabad, was based on previous news reports instead of Intelligence report.Philip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for the senator, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad."We strongly object to Sen. Feinstein's remarks being characterized as anything other than a reference" to an article that appeared last March in a US newspaper, LaVelle said and added, Feinstein did not refer to newspaper accounts during the hearing.

NEW YORK: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged Friday to deepen US bonds with Asia in order to tackle the global economic crisis and climate change as well as prevent nuclear proliferation. On the eve of her tour of Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China, her first foreign trip, Clinton said in a speech she is "ready to deliver a message about America's desire for more rigorous and persistent commitment and engagement." She added she is "ready to work with leaders in Asia to resolve the economic crisis and to strengthen our historic partnerships and alliances while developing deeper bonds with all nations." In her first foreign policy speech, which she delivered before the Asia Society, a non-profit educational institution, Clinton said she also is "ready to help prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia." Clinton added that North Korea's nuclear program remains "the most acute challenge to stability in northeast Asia....

KABUL: US President Barack Obama has accepted Kabul's request to be part of a major review of US strategy in the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai and a US envoy said Sunday.Karzai said he asked Obama by letter for Afghanistan to have a role in the review, which is under way amid concerns about worsening security in this country seven years after a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime. US envoy Richard Holbrooke brought the message to Karzai on Saturday that Obama had accepted, the Afghan leader told a joint press conference. A delegation from Afghanistan chaired by Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta would travel to Washington "and will be working jointly with the US government in the review of the strategy in the war on terrorism," he said. Holbrooke arrived late Thursday and met with a range of Afghan officials and politicians, international military commanders and diplomats before holding talks with Karzai late Saturday. He has h...

BEIJING: China and the United States will resume military consultations this month that were postponed last year when Washington announced a planned weapons sale to Taiwan, state press said Sunday.The defence consultations will be held in Beijing on February 27-28, the People's Daily reported on its website, citing an unnamed official with the US Department of Defence. "We want to continue exchanges with China and are seeking positive cooperative ties," the official was quoted as saying.The defence talks will resume only days after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes her first visit to China from February 20-22 as the top envoy of the new administration of US President Barack Obama, the report said. The talks will take place once a year and could include discussions on the fight against global terrorism, it said. China called off high-level military exchanges last October after the Pentagon notified Congress that it planned to sell 6.5 billion dollars of military ...

BERLIN: Peruvian director Claudia Llosa's Milk of Sorrow, the magic-realism-tinged story of women suffering the effects of the long battle between Peru's government and Shining Path terrorists, won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Argentinian director Adrian Biniez's debut Gigante (about a supermarket security guard obsessed with a late-night cleaner) shared the runner-up Silver Bear prize with German director Maren Ade's Everyone Else. The latter film's star, Birgit Minichmayr, won best actress honors, while Sotigui Kouyate took best actor for the British film London River (about the aftermath of the London terror bombings). American films were not completely shut out of the competition. Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon won the best script award for The Messenger, a film about two U.S. soldiers (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson) assigned to inform a young widow (Samantha Morton) that her husband has died in Iraq. In addition, the festival's Audience A...

KARBALA: Millions of mourners have gathered in Iraqi city of Karbala to observe the chehlum of Hazrat Imam Hussain.After dozens of people were killed in three successive attacks at the mourners during the last few days, the government has taken strict security measures and deployed 40,000 Iraqi army troops in Karbala where millions of mourners are taking part in the chehlum.They are expressing their feelings of sorrow and sadness through performing sozkhani and chestbeating over the martyrdom of Imam Hussain.Hazrat Hussain along with his sons and other family members and friends was martyred by Yazid’s army on Muharram 10, 0061 Hijrah.