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KHOST: Seven suicide bombers tried to storm state targets in a city in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing one civilian in the third Taliban commando raid in a week, authorities said.Part of a worsening Taliban insurgency, the attacks underscored the vulnerability of the Western-backed government less than four weeks before landmark elections and raised concerns for the security of the polls.Officials said most of the attackers blew themselves up before reaching their targets in different parts of the eastern city of Khost, close to the border with Pakistan, where Islamist militants have carved out safe havens."All of the bombers who had suicide vests on their bodies were identified and fired at by our brave police before they reached their targets," it said.The ministry said that one group of militants approached the city police headquarters, while other individuals tried to storm a police post, a police rapid reaction unit in an old hospital, and another location near

Sunday, July 26, 2009 WASHINGTON: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Israel on Sunday for talks covering missile defense, Israel's plan to acquire the multinational F-35 fighter jet and efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions.During a visit that will last about six hours on Monday, Gates is to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to discuss those and other bilateral defense issues, a senior U.S. defense official said."We're talking about the threats and challenges that we see in the region," the official told a small group of reporters on Friday. He said the Israelis were "antsy" about Iran but were not leaning on the Obama administration to halt its effort at expanded direct diplomatic engagement with Tehran.After Israel, Gates will visit Jordan for talks with King Abdullah and his defense chief that will focus on coordinating efforts to leave a stable Iraq after U.S. forces complete their scheduled pullout

Sunday, July 26, 2009 TEHRAN: Iran has the capability to strike Israel's nuclear sites firmly and will do so if it comes under attack, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said yesterday."If the Zionist regime attacks Iran, we will surely strike its nuclear facilities with our missile capabilities," Mohammad Ali Jafari told an Iranian television."We are not responsible for this regime and other enemies' foolishness ... If they strike Iran, our answer will be firm and precise," he said.Jafari said Israel was entirely within the reach of Iran."Our missile capability puts the Zionist regime within reach to attack," he said."The regime is too small to threaten Iran."Israel believes that a multi-level missile shield underwritten by the US would protect the country against possible missile attacks.But Jafari said such a shield could only protect Israel in a limited way. "They will have no answer when Iran bombards them (and) sends a

Sunday, July 26, 2009 AMSTERDAM: Demonstrators in cities around the globe joined protests Saturday denouncing human rights abuses in Iran and showing support for opponents of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad.Some of the biggest rallies took place in Amsterdam, London and Stockholm, with more than 4,000 alone taking to the streets of the Swedish capital.Among the 1,000 people in Amsterdam was Iran's Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi who led the crowd in chanting: "We want to live in peace. Long live peace"."We are here to show our solidarity with the people of Iran and to urge the Iranian government to respect human rights," said Tom van den Brand, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Amsterdam.In London, where more than a thousand gathered outside the Iranian embassy, organisers also spoke of supporting Iranians protesting Ahmandinejad's disputed re-election."This is symbolic, it's a global day of solidarity," said Potkin Azarmehr,

Saturday, July 25, 2009 NEW YORK: According to a local magazine, Michael Jackson wore a prosthetic nose and witnesses at a Los Angeles morgue report that it was missing from the King of Pop’s body. Instead, left behind was a small, dark hole.The magazine, which hit newstands Friday, reports that Jackson wore a prosthetic nose to hide the effects of numerous plastic surgeries.According to the Mirror, Jackson’s former housekeeper, Adrian McManus said, “His nose was a problem. He wore plasters around the side to cover or support it. It was severely cave in. In his closet he had a jar of fake noses and stage glue, which he told me he used of disguises. But some were similar to his real nose, just without the hole.”Jackson may have had at least six nose jobs, and reports indicate it was because he believed he looked too much like his father.In a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jackson spoke about the emotional and physical abuse he claims to have suffered at the hands of his father, Joe

WASHINGTON: A top US military official said that al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership are trying to gain access to nuclear weapons."Terrorist organisations, al Qaeda in particular, have been very open and direct about their desire to get a nuclear device and continue to terrorise people in accordance with their strategic approach, killing as many Americans and westerners as they possibly can with a device like that," said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. "So it is a very dangerous time. Those are very dangerous weapons. And we would like to contain them and see them over time reduced as much as possible," Mullen said in his address to the Junior Statesman Summer School Programme. "It becomes all the more important to make sure no new countries are able to acquire it," he said.

Saturday, July 25, 2009 VIENNA: Michael Jackson would have made more important achievements as a musician and philanthropist had his life not been cut short, his brother Jermaine said Friday, who was in Vienna to receive a posthumous award on behalf of the US pop star. At the Save the World Awards, which are given out for the first time this year, Michael Jackson was selected because of his charity work, the organizers said. Jermaine and his musical siblings were raised in the spirit of helping others, he said at a press conference: "Our message was to try to heal the world, to change the world."Michael Jackson's three children would now also brought up with a humanitarian philosophy in mind, and would not be pushed towards any specific career, Michael's older brother indicated. "We feel that it is more important for them to be raised in the right way" so that they would become "great human beings," he said. Their grandmother Katherine has tempora

Saturday, July 25, 2009 RIYADH: Saudi beauty queen Aya Ali al-Mulla trounced 274 rivals to win a crown, jewellery, cash and a trip to Malaysia, and all without showing her face, Saudi media reported on Friday.With her face and body completely covered by the black head-to-toe abaya mandatory in the conservative Muslim kingdom, 18-year-old Mullah was named "Queen of Beautiful Morals" late on Thursday, newspapers said.There was none of the swimsuit and evening gown competitions and heavy media coverage of beauty pageants elsewhere when the contest was decided in the eastern city of Safwa.Instead, the winner and the two runner-up princesses had to undergo a three-month test of their dutifulness to their parents and family, and their service to society.This included a battery of personal, cultural, social and psychological tests, Al-Watan reported.It was unclear exactly what Mullah did to pip her rivals in the huge field, but Al-Watan reported that the high school graduate had go

Saturday, July 25, 2009 WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said his remarks about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. should have been “calibrated” differently as he sought to tamp down a growing controversy overshadowing his agenda. Obama, making an unscheduled appearance at the daily White House news briefing, said he spoke by telephone today with the officer involved in the case, Sergeant James Crowley. The president also spoke by phone with Gates and invited him, along with Crowley, to the White House, administration officials said later. “In my choice of words I unfortunately, I think, gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said at the briefing. The president was referring to his assertion at a July 22 White House news conference that the police “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates. Obama’s comments today stopped short of the apology called for by police union officials in Cambridge, Massac

Saturday, July 25, 2009 TEHRAN: At least 30 people were killed when a passenger plane caught fire during its landing in northeastern Iran on Friday, the state news agency reported. The plane from Iran's Aria Air airline with 153 passengers on board caught fire and skidded into walls near the runway during its landing in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, said the report. The accident, which happened at 18:10 local time (1340 GMT), also injured another 19 people, agency said. All survivors in the plane had been evacuated from the crash scene and the fire had been completely under control. Video aired by Iran's English-language satellite channel showed that the cockpit of the Russian-made Il-62 plane, which was travelling from Tehran to Mashhad, was totally damaged. It was the second deadly air accident involving an Iranian airliner within 10 days. On July 15, a Caspian Airlines plane crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin, killing all 168 people on board.