In a unique way to rally support for Barack Obama, the actor-turned-director Ron Howard reprises his role on “The Andy Griffith Show,” in a video posted Thursday on Funnyordie.com.

The Web video features iconic North Carolina actor Andy Griffith praising Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Griffith, a resident of Manteo, N.C., has made numerous ads for Democratic candidates, but the video is his first endorsement in a national race, and the only one he has done in character as Mayberry’s Sheriff Taylor.

Hanoi - The world's biggest rice importing and exporting nations met in Vietnam on Friday and approved a plan targeting problems triggered during this year's rice price crisis.

Ministers of agriculture from the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi to endorse a seven-point action plan developed earlier this year when prices of rice shot up to a record high of 1,000 dollars a ton last April, triggering a world food crisis.

A complaint has been filed with the Federal Election Commission, by a watchdog group, against Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the Republican National Committee, Larson and other political operatives associated with the RNC, alleging that the Republican Party improperly spent $150,000 on clothing for Palin and her family.

According to the campaigns finance report for September, Jeff Larson, a Minnesota-based Republican consultant, made most or all of the purchases at high-end chain stores in Minneapolis.  

Ottawa, Oct 24 : After 15 months in sanctuary, paralysed would-be refugee claimant Laibar Singh has decided to leave an Abbotsford Sikh temple and return to India to be with his family.

Kalgidhar Darbar temple president Swarn Singh Gill said Singh is stressed and worn out by the struggle to remain in Canada and thinks it is better to go home.

“He is thinking the border services are going to put him in jail. He is thinking he will never be allowed to stay in Canada. All these things are running around in his mind all the time,” Gill said on Thursday.

So Singh, who has mounted a lengthy and controversial battle against the Canada Border Services Agency, has now informed his lawyer, Peter Edelmann, that he will leave Canada voluntarily.

The 30-share index, BSE Sensex, lost more than 700 points soon after the announcement of credit policy review by the central bank.

Metals, banks and realty stocks were hammered badly.

The central bank kept the Bank Rate unchanged at 6% in its mid-term review of the annual statement on monetary policy for the year 2008-09.

Meanwhile, repo rate was also kept steady at 8%, to judge the impact of a heavy, surprise cut earlier this week to suppress the financial system from the worldwide financial crisis.

Beijing - The prime ministers of China and Japan on Friday pledged to cooperate in maintaining stability in the face of the global financial crisis.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso held talks amid a series of bilateral meetings before a summit of Asian and European leaders in Beijing on Friday and Saturday.

Wen told Aso that the two nations should have "more policy dialogue and coordination to maintain stability in the financial markets," the Chinese foreign ministry reported.

Cooperation between China and Japan in the face of the international financial crisis was "vital for the stability of Asia," the ministry quoted Wen as saying.