Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism revealed that Republican presidential nominee John McCain is getting more negative media coverage than his Democratic rival, Barack Obama - more than half the stories on McCain have been negative, compared to slightly less than one-third for Obama.

Tokyo - Sony Corp revised downward its expected earnings for the current fiscal year by 38 per cent on a strengthening yen and slowing demand for consumer electronics amid a sluggish global economy, the company said Thursday.

The second-largest maker of consumer electronics in the world now expected a net profit of 150 billion yen (1.51 billion dollars) for the year ending March 31, down from an initial projection of 240 billion yen announced in July.

Last year, Tokyo-based Sony made a net profit of 369.44 billion yen.

The 30-share index Sensex, which had suffered a heavy loss earlier this morning, recovered over 200 points from today’s lows, touching a high of 9,968.12.

Metal, realty, banking, oil & gas stocks led the declining charts.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index fell 2.52% and 2.26% respectively.

After opened the day negatively at 9,683.41, down 486.49 points, the Sensex crashed to 9681.28 following a massive sell-off in front line stocks.

At 10:59 a.m., Sensex stood at 9,926.09, down 243.81 points, after hitting a high of 9,928.11 and a low of 9,681.28.

London, Oct 23: Social networking site, Facebook, is responsible for ‘friendship addiction’ and is fuelling insecurity in users, according to psychologists.

With social networking sites becoming more of a substitute for families, it is the women who are most affected by it, as they derive their self worth from relationships with others and Facebook compels them to ‘acquire’ hundreds of friends, experts say.

According to David Smallwood, an addictions expert with the Priory clinic, at least 10 per cent of the population were vulnerable to ‘friendship addiction’.

Baghdad  - Nine people have been killed in an apparent suicide bomb attack on the convoy of Iraqi Minister of Labour Mahmoud al-Radi on Thursday.