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.

Washington, Apr

Frankfurt - Orders for German machinery have slumped by nearly half compared to one year ago in the worst slump since industry-wide records began in 1958, the sector said Wednesday.

The data for February, as reported by members of the VDMA German machinery and plant engineering federation, showed both domestic and export orders sharply down. In real terms, the overall order tally was 49 per cent lower than in February 2008.