San Francisco - Democratic candidate Barack Obama was rushing to the bedside of his ailing grandmother in Hawaii Thursday, taking a break from intense campaigning to make sure he saw her before she died.

Madelyn Dunham, 85, was a formative figure in the life of the White House frontrunner, helping Obama's single mother raise him during his teenage years when his own mother was working abroad.

Washington - A large and growing, but underestimated, voter bloc of Asian and Latino immigrants could play a pivotal role in the presidential elections, which are often decided by very small voting margins, a report released Thursday said.

This increasingly influential group, who were 8.6 per cent of all registered voters in 2006, are described in the report as New Americans, comprised of naturalized Americans or those immigrants who have become US citizens, as well as immigrants' children born in the US after 1965.

New York - The country's third largest auto maker Chrysler Thursday reported losses of more than 1 billion dollars in the year's first half, with second-quarter losses of 565 million dollars.

Chrysler is in the midst of merger talks with General Motors after Germany's Daimler firm sold 80 per cent majority share to Cerberus investment company earlier this year.

Brussels/Havana - After a five-year cold spell, the European Union and Cuba have started warming up relations again, with the pledge of a 25-million-euro 
(32-million-dollar) EU contribution from its fund for environment, technology, trade, culture and catastrophic protections.

EU Commissioner Louis Michel made the announcement as part of a declaration signed Thursday in Havana.

Cognizant technologies, a leading provider of global consulting, technology and business process services, has entered into a five-year agreement with UK-based AstraZeneca, a leading pharmaceutical major, to provide application maintenance services in the business-critical areas of research, clinical development, and sales and marketing.

Under the extended agreement, Cognizant will work with AstraZeneca's Global Shared Services organization and implement world class, end-to-end application maintenance services. 

HDFC Bank, India’s second biggest lender by market value, has opened its first full-fledged overseas commercial branch at a new financial district in Bahrain. 

The bank stated that it has chosen Bahrain due to its excellent location, clean, open and transparent regulations, cost-effectiveness, and good bilateral relations between India and Bahrain.