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Friday, September 11, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US Coast Guard, on high alert for the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, fired 10 rounds on a suspicious boat on the US capital's Potomac River, a US news channel reported Friday.It was not immediately clear if the boat posed any danger to Washington, as President Barack Obama for the first time led ceremonies to mark the eighth anniversary of the attacks.The vessel was challenged in a restricted part of the river, adjacent to the Pentagon where Obama was attending a ceremony to mark the 2001 attacks, the channel said.Contacted by a foreign news agency the coast guard said they could not immediately confirm the incident, and were checking the details. Police declined any comment saying they were not handling the situation.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 WASHINGTON: Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

, Tuesday, August 04, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military said it wants to speed up production plans for an enormous "bunker buster" bomb, amid international concern over underground nuclear sites in Iran and North Korea. The Pentagon has asked Congress for extra money to ensure the massive ordinance penetrator (MOP) would be ready by July 2010, spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. "The department has asked for reprogramming of about 68 million dollars to start production for some of these in 2009," Whitman said. "This will help it accelerate some if it's approved." The weapon, weighing in at 30,000 pounds (13,600 kilograms) and carrying 5,300 pounds (2,400 kilograms) of explosives, would be delivered by the radar-evading B-2 Stealth bomber.