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Saturday, December 26, 2009 WASHINGTON: A senior U.S. counter terror official says a passenger aboard a Delta Air Lines flight in Detroit was planning to blow up the plane but the explosive device failed. The official said the passenger was being questioned Friday evening. It was not immediately clear why the passenger wanted to attack the flight that was arriving from Amsterdam. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. Authorities initially believed the passenger had set off firecrackers that caused some minor injuries. A Delta spokeswoman said the passenger was immediately subdued. She had no details on the injuries.

NEW YORK: State police say a daylong standoff at a small-town post office has ended with three hostages being released and a suspect in custody. Authorities late Wednesday ordered the suspect to let the hostages go and come out with his hands up.Soon after, the four left the building in Virginia, including a man in a wheelchair. State police Sgt. Michael Conroy says that man is the suspect.Earlier, state police said the man holding the hostages had entered the building pushing a wheelchair. Conroy says authorities believe all the hostages are out. Officers are still checking the building in western Virginia.

Monday, December 14, 2009 WASHINGTON: Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson died Sunday at the age of 94, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.Samuelson became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1970, and is credited with creating the mathematical analysis on which modern economics is based."Paul Samuelson transformed everything he touched: the theoretical foundations of his field, the way economics was taught around the world, the ethos and stature of his department, the investment practices of MIT, and the lives of his colleagues and students," said MIT President Susan Hockfield.Samuelson's best-selling economics text, "Economics: An Introductory Analysis," has been translated into 40 languages and has sold nearly four million copies over a span of 60 years, MIT said.He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Risha Samuelson, six children from his first marriage and a stepdaughter, as well as 15 grandchildren.

Monday, December 14, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives has approved $1.459 billion in assistance for Pakistan for the fiscal year 2010 as it passed a massive American $1.1 trillion appropriations bill, Geo news reported on Monday The aid will be spent under the Kerry-Lugar legislation passed by the US Congress earlier this year and is part of the FY 2010 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. Under the measure, $1.035 billion will be allocated as economic support fund for Pakistan while other expenditure heads include health, law enforcement and security. The US Senate is expected to okay the bill this weekend.The US will also spend $268 million on foreign military financing for Pakistan next year. Washington has already endorsed $1.6 billion for Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) for the fiscal year 2010. The CSF provides for reimbursement of expenditure that Pakistan incurs in providing infrastructural facilities to the coalition.Besides, the U...

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 SEOUL: The United States and North Korea have agreed to hold two rounds of bilateral meetings before the North returns to multilateral nuclear disarmament talks, a US news report said. The agreement was reached at last month's meetings in New York and San Diego between officials from the two sides, Foreign Policy magazine said on its website, in a report seen Wednesday. The communist state, putting further pressure on the United States to start direct talks, announced Tuesday it has completed reprocessing spent fuel rods to produce more plutonium for its atomic weapons programme. The US State Department responded that the plutonium production "runs counter" to the North's disarmament commitments and violates UN Security Council resolutions. It said it has not decided when and where to hold bilateral talks involving the US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth. Foreign Policy, quoting an administration official, said "substant...

Friday, September 11, 2009 WASHINGTON: The United States on Sept 24 will host a summit of UN Security Council member states on nuclear non-proliferation, the White House confirmed on Thursday. President Barack Obama is to chair the meeting, which will be held alongside the UN General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York. It will be the first time a US president leads such a summit and just the fifth in UN history that such a summit is being held, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. 'We did ask for it, and are heading it,' Mr Gibbs said. The summit was first announced by the US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice last month. Ms Rice said at the time that the session would 'be focused on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly and not on any specific countries.' She said Mr Obama would preside over the special meeting a day after he is due to address the UN General Assembly session.

Saturday, August 29, 2009 CAPE CANAVERAL: The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center here late Friday on a mission to the International Space Station. Discovery roared into the dark nighttime Florida sky at 11:59 pm Friday (0359 GMT Saturday), as scheduled, and reached orbit just a few minutes later. The shuttle and its crew of seven astronauts -- including one Swede -- is to deliver to the ISS equipment for a new bedroom, a treadmill, a freezer, food and other supplies. It will also be dropping off the newest member of the ISS team -- US astronaut Nicole Stott. Stott will be taking over from engineer and fellow American Tim Kopra, who has been aboard the ISS since July and is returning to Earth with the Discovery. The launch had been delayed three times. A first attempt on Tuesday was cancelled shortly before liftoff when weather conditions were deemed too dangerous, and two subsequent attempts were thwarted by problems with a liquid hydrogen fill-and-drain ...

Thursday, August 27, 2009 WASHINGTON: The United States has deplored the terrorist attack in Kandahar and expressed confidence that such acts would not deter Afghanistan's progress. "We deplore these acts of violence. We know that there was a great loss of life in the bombings, and our sympathies go out to the victims' families," the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters yesterday."We do not think that Afghanistan will be deterred from the path that it's on towards developing into a democratic society and a prosperous economy," Kelly said.Responding to a question, the spokesman said Afghanistan is a high priority for the Obama administration. Its aim is to help people of Afghanistan build its democratic process, and help it become an economically viable and prosperous society."We want to try and enable the Afghan Government to take responsibility not only for its reconstruction, but also for its own security," he said, adding ...

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 LOS ANGELES: An upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly will include what's being billed as the first video advertisements ever in a print magazine. According to a local news agency, a video player with a 2-inch screen will be embedded on heavy-stock paper -- similar to what's used by greeting cards that play bits of music -- and inserted into the magazine.And as in those cards, the video will start up as soon as the insert is opened. The first ads will be for CBS and Pepsi -- they'll appear in the magazine's mid-September TV preview issue -- but not in all copies. The magazine, which would not disclose the cost of the ads, said the insert will only be distributed in the Los Angeles and New York areas.The video player, made by the L.A. company Americhip, also includes a little speaker. The ads will open with the cast of the show "The Big Bang Theory" joking about the video and explaining how the reader can bring up clips from the net...

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 WASHINGTON: US Senator Ted Kennedy, a lion of the American left and the last of the brothers who ruled US politics for years, has died of brain cancer, his family said Wednesday. He was 77. "Edward M. Kennedy the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port," Massachusetts, the Kennedy family said in a statement."We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever."

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 WASHINGTON: Swine flu could infect as much as half of the US population this fall and winter and cause up to 90,000 deaths, President Barack Obama's science advisors warned Monday.Laying out a "plausible scenario" for the epidemic's impact in the United States, the report painted a grim picture of stress on the US health care system as it struggles to cope with a flood of flu patients. The epidemic's resurgence could "produce infection of 30-50 percent of the US population this fall and winter, with symptoms in approximately 20-40 percent of the population (60-120 million people), more than half of whom would seek medical attention," the report said.As many as 1.8 million people could be admitted to hospitals with up to 300,000 of them requiring treatment in intensive care units. "Importantly, these very ill patients could occupy 50-100 percent of all ICU beds in affected regions of the country at the peak of the epidemic an...

Sunday, August 23, 2009 MIAMI: Hurricane Bill, the first of the Atlantic storm season, barreled past Bermuda and churned toward the US and Canadian east coasts Saturday, sparking fears of life-threatening rip currents. Packing winds of 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour, with higher gusts, the storm was set to head close to the upscale island resort of Martha's Vineyard, where US President Barack Obama and his family are heading for vacation Sunday. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned Saturday "large swells generated by Hurricane Bill are still affecting the Bahamas and Bermuda and the southeast coast of the United States. "Large swells will begin to affect much of the remainder of the US east coast and the Atlantic maritimes of Canada later today and Sunday. These swells will likely cause extremely dangerous surf and life-threatening rip currents," it warned. Bill is a Category Two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, meaning the storm threatens to cause...

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that the United States was impartial in Afghanistan's upcoming election and was ready to work with whomever voters pick.Afghanistan on Thursday heads to the polls in its second-ever presidential election, which comes as the new US administration pours more troops in the country in hopes of bringing stability and rooting out Islamic extremists."The United States of America remains impartial in this election," Clinton said in a statement."Like the Afghan people we want to see credible, secure and inclusive elections that all will judge legitimate," she said, adding: "We look forward to working with whomever the Afghan people select as their leaders for the next five years."While predicting challenges ahead, she said: "The Afghan people should be commended for their courage in conducting this election despite the stresses of wartime, and we and the international commu...

Saturday, August 15, 2009 ::WASHINGTON: The US military on Friday said it will launch a training mission in Georgia to help a battalion prepare for deployment to Afghanistan, a move that risks aggravating relations with Russia. A team of US Marines will leave in the next few days to begin training a 750-strong infantry battalion that heads to Afghanistan in 2010, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman toldreporters. The training, which formally starts next month, will be designed "to get them ready for their spring 2010 deployment and to ensure they're able to operate alongside ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) partners," said Whitman. The NATO-led ISAF coalition comprises more than 100,000 troops, with about 62,000 forces from the United States. The number of Marines in the training contingent will fluctuate but will number as many as 60-70 instructors, Whitman said. The first influx of Marines will arrive in Georgia beginning on August 15th, said State Departmen...

WASHINGTON: President Obama's promise to close down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in some six months has drawn intense criticism from the right. Now human rights groups are taking aim at another U.S.-operated detention center: Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. Some activists and legal analysts have begun to ask whether Bagram is "the new Guantanamo." The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday asked the Obama administration to release some documents about the more than 600 prisoners at Bagram. Melissa Goodman, the lead ACLU attorney on the case, describes the request as "basic information about who they're detaining, how long they've been there, where they were actually captured, and what their nationalities are." That list is almost identical to the information human rights groups demanded from the Bush administration about detainees at Guantanamo seven years ago. In addition, the ACLU's Bagram lawsuit seeks details about the admin...

Friday, August 14, 2009 WASHINGTON: Michigan State Police are investigating a fiery crash that began in Taylor and ended in front of a southwest side restaurant, leaving one man dead. Taylor police were chasing the vehicle about 7 a.m. this morning because it was reported stolen, Taylor police officials said in a press release. Troopers were not involved in the chase but are helping with the investigation and recreating the crash for the probe, Taylor police and Michigan State Police officials said. A Taylor resident called police about 6 a.m. to report the theft, Taylor police said. A patrol unit spotted the vehicle a short time later on Interstate 75 and attempted to stop it. The driver sped away and the officers chased the truck into Detroit, where "our officers eventually terminated the pursuit," according to the release. "The defendant then slowed the vehicle down and officers continued monitoring the vehicle at a safe distance," the release stated. After drivi...

Thursday, August 13, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has placed India on its "Watch List" for New Delhi's largely inadequate response in protecting its religious minorities.In a statement, USCIRF said India earned the "Watch List" designation due to the "disturbing increase" in communal violence against religious minorities, specifically Christians in eastern Indian state Orissa in 2008 and Muslims in western Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 and the largely inadequate response from the Indian government to protect the rights of religious minorities."It is extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious communities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege," said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair.USCIRF's India chapter was released this week to mark the first anniversary of the start of the anti-Christian violence in Orissa.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 KABUL: U.S. Marines have mounted a helicopter assault to seize the Taliban-held town of Dahaneh in southern Afghanistan and are fighting gain control of the area ahead of next week's presidential elections. The assault began before dawn Wednesday, with Marines entering the town as others battled militants in the surrounding mountains. A foreign news agency reported that Marines were met with small arms, mortar and rocket propelled grenade fire. Fighting is still under way hours later, with U.S. Marine Harrier jets streaking over the town and dropping flares in a show of force. Marines have captured several suspects and seized about 66 pounds (30 kilos) of opium.

Friday, August 07, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US budget deficit reached 1.3 trillion dollars for the current fiscal year in July, official data showed Thursday, news set to fuel opposition to US President Barack Obama's ambitious health care and climate change proposals. The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2009, which began October 1, reached 1.3 trillion dollars, close to 880 billion dollars greater than the deficit recorded through July 2008, said the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Outlays rose by almost 530 billion dollars, or 21 percent, and revenues fell by more than 350 billion dollars, or 17 percent, compared with the amounts recorded during the same period last year, the non-partisan CBO said. The new data was likely to stoke Republican opposition to Obama's plans to remake the US health care system and enact sweeping legislation to battle climate change, as well as fuel criticism of his handling of the economy. Republicans have charged that the nearly ...

Wednesday, August 05, 2009 SEOUL: Former president Bill Clinton Wednesday secured the release of two female US journalists jailed in North Korea after a surprise mercy dash to meet veteran communist leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang. North Korea said Clinton delivered a special message to Kim from US President Barack Obama during his historic trip, which followed acute tensions over the North's nuclear and missile tests, but the White House denied this. Kim agreed to pardon TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee after Clinton "expressed words of sincere apology" for their "hostile acts", the official News Agency reported. After Kim issued his pardon, Clinton "courteously conveyed a verbal message of US President Barack Obama expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries". "The measure taken to release the American journalists is a manifestation of the DPRK's (North Korea'...