Washington, Dec. 9 : Viewership for President-elect Barack Obama''s weekly YouTube "fireside chats" has tanked, dropping more than 50 percent since his initial video three weeks ago.

"I''ve heard a lot of puffed-up rhetoric about how this is going to change the face of politics and how it''s going to be FDR''s fireside chats. The data doesn''t back it up," said David Burch, marketing manager for TubeMogul, which tracks YouTube video views.

Bratislava - Slovakia, which adopts the euro on January 1, slashed its borrowing costs Tuesday to match the European Central Bank's (ECB) latest cut, the country's central bank said.

The Slovak National Bank slashed the key two-week repo rate by three quarters of a percentage point to 2.5 per cent in line with the ECB's dramatic cut on December 4.

Slovakia's benchmark rate has stood at 4.25 per cent since April 2007 until October this year when the country began matching the ECB's cuts aimed at boosting the eurozone's sliding economy.

New Delhi, Dec 9 : The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, will inaugurate a two-day international conference of jurists on terrorism, role of law and human rights here on December 13.

London - The agent of Liverpool winger Ryan Babel claimed on Tuesday that he had had a request to be loaned to another club turned down.

The 21-year-old has started just 17 Premier League games since making the move from Ajax in July 2007, and is keen on a loan back to the Netherlands so he can maintain his match fitness.

"Ryan finds that he sits on the bench too much at Liverpool, he wants to play more and asked me to see if Ajax were interested in a temporary return," his agent Winnie Haatrecht told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

Madrid - Real Madrid are set to dismiss coach Bernd Schuster on Tuesday

New Delhi, Dec. 9 : Rajiv Mathur has been appointed as the new Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

He is currently Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau.

Mathur is an IPS officer of 1972 batch of Uttar Pradesh cadre.

He replaces P C Haldar on his superannuation on the 31st of this month.

Mathur has been appointed as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Intelligence Bureau with immediate effect.

"Mathur has been appointed as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the IB with immediate effect," an official spokesperson said