Cotabato City, Philippines - At least nine Muslim rebels were killed in two days of fighting in the southern Philippines, a regional army operations officer said Monday.

Captain Louie Aguinaldo said the fighting erupted Sunday afternoon and lasted until Monday morning in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province, 960 kilometres south of Manila.

Aguinaldo said Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels attempted to return to their camp that was occupied by soldiers, triggering an intense firefight.

"There were many bloodstains in the MILF position, which was hit by our cannons," he said. "We got reports that at least nine MILF rebels were killed in the fighting."

Johannesburg - The new party of breakaway African National Congress members that is generating huge excitement in South Africa in the run-up to elections has finally been given a name.

One of the party's founders, the former premier of the richest province, Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa, confirmed Monday that supporters of the new party attending a weekend convention had decided on South African Democratic Congress (SADC).

A new and innovative technique has been developed by the security researchers, with which they can copy house keys just by using its picture as reference.

This technique has been developed by computer scientists at UC San Diego, and it needs no physical access to keys and only a fairly low resolution picture for the software to work. The scientist say that this technique has been developed by team with the aim to reveal to everyone that keys are not that secure as they are thought to be.

The preview version of Microsoft’s Windows 7 was presented at PDC in Los Angeles earlier this week. Basically, Windows 7 by Microsoft is an upgrade or extension to Vista. Theoretically speaking, Windows 7 is the result of amendments and improvements done in Vista, which could not impress the users due to its dysfunctions.

Let us now focus on the features of Windows 7. The users would notice the changes done in the interface design that are mostly concentrated on functionality. Other than this, a new taskbar for one has also been added, which has been created by the maker of the Office Ribbon in Office 2007, Steven Sinofski.

Melbourne, November 3: A new horoscope book predicts trouble for Hollywood’s star couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in
2009, legal problems for Nicole Kidman, a break from romance for Madonna, and “unusual behaviour” from Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The 2009 Horoscope book has been written by Astrology. com. au’s Dadhichi Toth.

The author said that astrology charts for 2009 showed that many of the rich and famous personalities might have to face everyday problems like the rest of the people.