Tokyo - People in the small north-central and southern Japanese towns of Obama exuberantly celebrated Wednesday as the communities' namesake was elected US president.

The Obama Boys and Girls were dancing their hula in north-central Obama city when the news broke that Barack Obama defeated rival Republican candidate John McCain and was declared president-elect.

During Obama's victory speech at Grant Park, Chicago, his fans in the far-eastern fishing town also joined the Obama chants.

"Mr Obama proved to us that we can make our dreams come true by taking action," an Obama resident said after the results came in.

Beirut - Now that the US has chosen Barack Obam

Washington - By picking Senator Joe Biden, 65, as his runnin

Researchers say increasing wait times for hernia surgery for infants and toddlers under two, not only leads to more emergency visits, but could also potentially damage testicles or ovaries

Inguinal hernia, a bulging tissue in the groin area that could also be present at birth, is one of the most common surgical childhood disorders responsible for vomiting, lack of bowel movements and other symptoms, leading to increasing number of emergency room visits.

London, November 5: A new study suggests that super-productive modern chickens have, on average, lost over half the genes present in ancestral populations.

Bill Muir of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, even says that some modern chickens have lost 90 per cent of the genes that were present in ancestral populations.

The researcher said that the new findings indicated that chickens these days lack those characteristics that evolved when they lived in the wild, and might be useful again to help them face stress and disease as livestock.

Inbreeding is a concern with chickens, as the industry is dominated by a few big corporations that produce billions of birds from a handful of private breeding lines.

Prague - Eastern European leaders congratulated US president-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday, but some allies appeared cautious about America's shift to the left.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek invited Obama to Prague, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a deal in July to place part of a US missile defence radar in the ex-communist nation.

Obama's victory "does not change relations" between Washington and Prague, said Topolanek, a centre-right leader and one of President George W Bush's strongest allies in the former Warsaw Pact area.