New York, Oct. 21 : Democratic presidential nominee and White House frontrunner Barack Obama has announced that he will suspend his campaigning for 36 hours to visit his ailing grandmother Madelyn Dunham in Hawaii.

According to the New York Times, Dunham, 85, is gravely ill. Campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to specify the nature of her illness, other than to say it was quite serious. Dunham lives in Honolulu.

Yangon - Myanmar's state media on Tuesday blamed a bomb blast that killed a 26-year-old man over the weekend on the victim himself, described as a former Buddhist monk who had participated in the September 2007, "saffron revolution."

Thet Oo Win died in a bomb explosion at his home in Shwepyitha township in Yangon at 5:30 pm on Sunday.

A police investigation into the incident found various bomb-making paraphernalia including a 9-volt dry cell battery fastened with a wire, a damaged pieces of lithium battery, six electric detonators and ammonium nitrates at the victim's home, claimed The New Light of Myanmar, a military mouthpiece.

Bangkok - A Chinese-led consortium with a concession for oil exploration on Myanmar's Ramree Island has left hundreds of local islanders landless and unemployed and their environment befouled, a human rights group said Tuesday.

Blocking Freedom, a report compiled by the environmental and human rights group Arakan Oil Watch, said a consortium led by the China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd (CNOOC Ltd) left behind such a trail of abuses and environmental contamination on Ramree Island that outraged locals attacked their facilities last year.

The report was the first to be released on Chinese onshore oil exploration activities in Ramree Island, Myanmar's largest island, in Arakan State, now called Rakhine. 

London, Oct 21: Women office workers prefer spending more time with their computers than their husbands or boyfriends, reveals a new American research.

The study found that the ladies spend almost three times as much time with their computer than with their partners.

According to a poll of almost 3,000 Americans, women spend an average of 9.3 hours a day with their PC, compared with 3.6 hours with their other halves, reports the Telegraph.

Canada is set to be the first country to categorize BPA as risky, with the federal government adding it on the country’s list of toxic substances. This move will possibly lead to a ban on the sale of baby bottles which contain BPA and see reduced usage of BPA in canned infant formula.

The toxic classification, issued in the Canada Gazette, the official newspaper of the Government of Canada, makes Canada the first country to classify the organic compound used in many food and drink packaging applications, making plastic hard, as risky.

Latest sensation Shweta Kumar is having a wonderful 2008.
Shweta’s debut film ‘Karzzz’ is still rocking the movie theaters and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Shweta has become a heartthrob amongst the younger generation.

Shweta, who was pretty much covered from head to toe in most part of ‘Karzzz’, said that she doesn’t have any problem about getting into different attire if the character demands.