Washington  - Rahm Emanuel, the new chief of staff under president-elect Barack Obama, is a long-time Washington insider known for a hard-nosed but successful style.

Emanuel, 48, served as a senior advisor in the administration of former president Bill Clinton, distinguishing himself during Clinton's unlikely rise to power in 1992.

After being elected to the House of Representatives in 2002 from a district in his home town of Chicago, Emanuel rose quickly through the ranks in Congress.

Washington - Chief executives of the ailing "Big Three" US automakers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - met Thursday with two top Congressional leaders to discuss a further bail-out package and the future of the loss-making industry.

The meeting came ahead of the scheduled releases by General Motors and Ford of their third-quarter results, which are expected to report huge losses and more cost-cutting measures.

Nagpur, Nov 7: Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) gave farewell honours to four cricket greats of the country.

Leg spinner Anil Kumble quit as skipper this week while former skipper and batsman Saurav Ganguly will hang up his boots at the end of the ongoing fourth Test against Australia.

The BCCI felicitated Sachin Tendulkar and V. V. S. Laxman for their milestones of becoming highest run getter in Test cricket and for having completed playing of 100 Tests respectively.

The BCCI felicitated them at a function in Nagpur on Thursday.

Sinsheim, Germany - The working day was not over for Vedad Ibisevic after he had scored twice in the 4-1 rout of Karlsruhe to take his goal tally for the season to 13.

First he had to acknowledge the ovation given to him from Hoffenheim fans and to sign his first autographs. Then the Bosnian - fluent in English, German and French - was on hand to translate into German for his team-mates Demba Ba and Chinedu Obasi in an interview with the pay-TV channel Premiere.

For the Bundesliga's leading scorer, the goals are doing all the talking.

Hong Kong - India and Indonesia have Asia's highest levels of consumer confidence in the face of the global economic slump, according to a survey published Friday.

India ranked first in the global survey of consumer confidence conducted in September and October while Indonesia finished third behind Denmark, the South China Morning Post reported.

Australia ranked fifth in the survey of 52 countries and territories while New Zealand was joint eighth, Vietnam ninth and mainland China joint 10th.