New York  - US stocks posed strong gains Wednesday on better- than-expected data from the US housing, manufacturing and auto sectors.

Sales of existing homes climbed 2.1 per cent in February from the month before, according to the National Association of Realtors, another small sign that the housing downturn that sparked the US economic crisis may be bottoming out.

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed on Wednesday the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, offering his cooperation to work for peace in the Middle East but also reminding him of the two-state solution backed by the international community.

Ban said he looks forward to working with Netanyahu "on the full range of peace and security issues in the region."

New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Wednesday the suicide bombing attacks on a government provincial office in Kandahar which killed at least two people and injured a large number of others, including a UN employee.

"Such attacks indiscriminately targeting people and institutions committed to building a better future for the country are morally repugnant and can only set back the efforts to foster peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan," Ban said in a statement.

New York, April 1 : Hugh Hefner''s former girlfriend Kendra Wilkinson has decided to launch her own line of stripper poles.

New York, Apr. 1 : US President Obama's strategy review for Afghanistan and Pakistan, unveiled last week, finally focuses the government's attention and resources where they are most needed, says an editorial in the New York Times.

According to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, after years, the president has recognized that the key to US national security is defeating Al Qaeda, and that to do so we must address both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

New York  - Major US stock indices posted strong gains Tuesday following Europe's lead, capping the US market's best month in nearly seven years.

Financial firms led the gains on signs that banks were starting to increase lending in the current recession. An index of financial companies jumped 6.7 per cent.

The rally comes ahead of an emergency summit of the Group of 20 major economies Thursday in London to help pull the world out of recession. US President Barack Obama and other world leaders began arriving Tuesday in London.