New York, Sept. 5 : The presidential race between Senators’Barack Obama and John McCain is now even at 42 percent, according to a new CBS News poll conducted Monday-Wednesday of this week.

According to the poll, twelve percent are undecided and one percent said they wouldn''t vote.

This is in contrast to a poll conducted last weekend, where the Obama-Biden ticket led McCain-Palin by eight points, 48 percent to 40 percent.

McCain has also closed the enthusiasm gap some with Obama, but it still exists.

New York  - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that development aid would have to increase to 18 billion dollars a year if the world was to remain on track to achieving a set of anti-poverty goals by 2015.

Countries have committed to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, and Ban's comments came ahead of a high-level meeting on stepping up global efforts to reach the MDGs in New York on September 25.

New York, Sept. 4 : Even after Senator John McCain named her as his running mate on Friday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin remained an unknown quantity to most Americans.

Sixty-six percent had no opinion of her in a CBS News poll conducted over the weekend?

In polling completed on Monday and Tuesday, sixty percent still had no opinion about her.

But of those who did have opinions, 26 percent of the most recently polled were favorable, while only 13 percent were not favorable.

New York, Sep 4 : The racy, historical novel about the Prophet Mohammad and his child bride, will be released next month by its new publisher Gibson Square after Random House fearing that the book could “incite acts of violence” and anger Muslims refused to publish it.

Sherry Jones’ controversial work, “The Jewel of Medina,” will be released in Great Britain next month by Gibson Square, said company’s director Martin Rynja.

New York  - A 50-square-kilometre chunk of the Canadian Arctic ice shelf has broken off and is floating freely in the Arctic Ocean, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported Wednesday.

The ice from the northern coast of Ellesmere Island about 800 kilometres south of the North Pole broke off in early August. It could be up to 4,500 years old and 40-metres thick, making its disappearance more worrisome than the sea ice that typically forms ice bergs, researchers said.

New York, Sept 3 : The US court trying Pakistani-American doctor Aafia Siddiqui has held her guilty on charges to attack US army in Afghanistan as a member of international terror organization Al-Qaeda.

According to a statement released from the US court, Aafia has also been charged with attempt to murder, triggering terrorism, armed attacks on US forces in Afghanistan and keeping illegal armaments.