Hillary Clinton appeared to be losing turf to frontrunner Barack Obama in delegate-rich Ohio and Texas states where her star campaigner and husband Bill Clinton said a defeat would cost her the Democratic presidential nomination.
Democratic US Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has joined party rival Barak Obama in promising an end to tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, playing to the gallery on the hot-button issue of outsourcing as she tries to resuscitate her White House bid.
Amid reports that it will prefer an administration which will work with Pervez Musharraf, the US on Thursday said it was not go into the business of "shaping" the decision of the people of Pakistan and was ready to cooperate with the president and "whatever government emerges" there.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has asked all sides to refrain from any actions or statement that could endanger peace and incite violence in Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia.
"Whether it is foreign aid, technical assistance or responding to global challenges, none of the three have pursued mercantilist approaches. This determines in many ways the agenda for developing the trilateral relationship," Sen told the Japan Society in New York on Friday, adding that the trilateral interaction did not emerge from a decision to forge a new grouping or alliance.
"We would say about this election what we would say about virtually any other election around the globe, and that is you want to see the candidates have access to media. You want to see people be able to freely express themselves in a peaceful manner, free from threat of violence or intimidation," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement ahead of the February 18 polls in Pakistan.
Kazmierczak shot dead five students, mostly women, and injured 23 others in Northern Illinois University before turning the weapon on himself on the Valentine's Day, but no Indian casualty has been reported. A senior Indian Embassy official told PTI that both the Mission in Washington and the Consulate in Chicago were following the tragic incident closely. "At this time, there have been no reports of any Indian students killed or seriously injured," the official said.
As the one-time frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination Hillary Clinton fumbles through the primaries, there are clear indications that the showdown she hoped to have with dark horse Barack Obama at the Denver Convention in August may turn out to be a damp squib.
"Does it make sense to spend hundreds of millions on P-3 naval surveillance aircraft specifically designed to hunt submarines? So far as I know, al-Qaeda has not yet developed a submarine navy," the Delaware Democrat added. "The White House claims that weapons systems like these are indeed counter-terrorism tools, but such a claim is an insult to common sense," said Senator Joseph Biden.
"I think the mistake that I made is to think that I was a spouse like any other spouse who could defend his candidate. I think I can promote Hillary but not defend her because I was president," Clinton said. Clinton's comments while campaigning for his wife, including comparing Obama's bid to the unsuccessful campaign of an earlier black presidential hopeful, Jesse Jackson, resulted in a bitter war of words between the two top Democratic contenders.
"Are we reaching a tipping point to witness the decline of this radical behaviour? We don't know the answer to that yet, but we're watching it very closely," National Intelligence Director Admiral Mike McConnell told the House Select Committee on Intelligence. "Brutal attacks unleashed by the al-Qaeda and its affiliates against Muslim civilians have tarnished al-Qaeda's self-styled image as the extremist vanguard," he said.
"It is a very good plane and is very widely used. It is a workhorse and it has been used for 40 years...it can really take off on a much shorter runway and India basically lacks this kind of an airplane," James Clad, the deputy assistant secretary of defence, said. India and the US will soon sign a major arms deal, with the government finally giving the nod for the purchase of the six C-130J aircraft at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore.
The issue of aid for Pakistan, including reimbursements under the Coalition Support Funds, came up during a hearing of the Senate panel on the fiscal 2009 Pentagon budget. There are also reports that they're concerned that a lot of the money that we're giving, that's supposed to be going to Waziristan (tribal region), is just simply being used to build up the military strength of the Pakistan military on the border of India," Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson asked.
"I think the most significant thing in the recent situation is the threat has moved into Pakistan proper to threaten the very existence of the (state). Pakistan has now recognised that this is an existential threat to their very survival," director of US national intelligence Admiral Michael McConnell said.
The US intelligence believes that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Kashmir-focused insurgent groups will continue to plan and execute "attacks" in India.
As Americans queued up at polling stations across the nation, leading Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fought a see-saw battle while the main Republican frontrunner John McCain sought to bury his rivals at the Super Tuesday primaries, a 24-state showdown.
According to IMF, India is safe from global financial crises as of now. But since it is part of the global economy it is difficult to de-couple it with the rest of the world.
Terming the India-United States civil nuclear agreement as the most outstanding symbol of India's new standing in the world, Indian ambassador to America Ronen Sen has said that civil nuclear cooperation with New Delhi was an issue on which there was complete agreement among Russia, European and other countries.
"An absolutely clear imperative is that developed countries walk the talk on green house gas reductions. Developing countries are playing a part in the international action on mitigation, especially through the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol," the top Indian delegate said.
India on Thursday said though its understanding with the United States at the political front is good, there is a need to expedite the process of moving forward on the issues of space cooperation and space commerce.