London, April 1 : Madonna has reportedly been told that her application filed for the adoption of second African orphan will succeed.

The Queen of Pop, who adopted three-year-old David Banda from the country in 2006, recently appeared in Malawi's High Court to request judges to let her take home four-year-old Mercy James, whose teenage mum died three years ago.

The singer allegedly told Judge Esmie Chombo that she would be a "deeply loving mother" and would care for Mercy as her own child.

Washington, Apr. 1: While the Obama Administration is mulling plans to dispatch at least 1.5 billion dollars in aid to Pakistan, Democrat Senator Carl Levin has said that Pakistan must be made accountable for all the help it receives, and that it should prove its willingness to curb the increasing extremism inside its territory.

Talking to reporters here, Levin said stability could not be bought in the region unless Pakistan acts sincerely against terror camps based on its soil.

Kabul - Four suicide bombers equipped with automatic rifles attacked a provincial council office in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing one policeman and seven civilians, an interior ministry spokesman said.

One attacker detonated his explosive-laden vehicle in front of the provincial council office in southern Kandahar city, capital of the Kandahar province, Wednesday morning. A policeman guarding the compound died, spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

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

Yangon - The US government donated 16,000 tons of rice to typhoon-ravaged Irrawaddy delta Wednesday, prompting the normally hostile state-run media to the cover the news, an official of the US embassy in Yangon confirmed.

"There were five journalists from Ministry of Information who joined our trip for the first time," the official said.

The trip was led Larry Dinger, the deputy chief of mission, and included officials from the World Food Programme. The donated rice was imported from the US, sources said.

Washington, Apr 1: People who have gone partially blind after suffering a stroke can regain some vision by doing a set of vigorous visual exercises on a computer every day for several months, according to a new study.

Dr. Krystel Huxlin, a neuroscientist and associate professor who led the study of seven patients at the University of Rochester Eye Institute, has developed a computer system that exercises the brain, forcing it to develop to compensate for the damage caused by stroke.