Los Angeles - With the oldest ever candidate and the first black nominee the upcoming US election already has a lot of firsts. Now add another: drive-through voting.

For a few hours Tuesday night voters in car-crazy Orange County can perform their civic duty without leaving the comfort of their automobiles at eight electronic booths set up in a southern Californian parking lot. The booths are also available for voters to register on the last permitted day before the November 4 election.

Beirut - Lebanon's anti-Syrian Druze leader and head of the progressive Socialist Progressive party, Walid Jumblatt, insists that the conflict between the Lebanese rival factions is based on political, not confessional, grounds.

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa, Jumblatt accused what he described as some "Western states and Israel of transforming Lebanon's conflict into a confessional one to benefit from it and thus enhance it like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Islamabad - At least 19 people, including three soldiers and 14 Islamic militants, were killed Tuesday in fresh clashes in restive north-west Pakistan, security officials said.

A roadside bomb targeted a security convoy in Kabal area of troubled valley of Swat in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), leaving at least three law enforcers dead and numerous injured, a local official said.

The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said three vehicles of the security forces were also destroyed in the attack.