Washington, Nov 19: A former US Congress who has penned a “9/11 report” has said that the world could not afford to have Pakistan as a “failed state” replete with nuclear weapons, ethnic tensions, Taliban sympathisers and even Osama Bin Laden residing in its territory.

In an article published in the Indianapolis Star, Lee Hamilton writes that Pakistan’s underlying economic weaknesses and the global financial crisis had devastated the country.

Washington - US President George W Bush will participate in his last scheduled summit this weekend, bidding farewell to a group of East Asian and Latin American nations at a gathering in Peru.

Despite Bush's unpopularity abroad, he leaves office with some successes in relationships across the Pacific, including a period of stability and maintaining the status quo in China-Taiwan relations and of building ties with Vietnam.

Los Angeles - After four days of widespread devastation, California firefighters on Tuesday had three large fires under control, and evacuated residents returned to find hundreds of homes gutted by the flames.

Aided by lighter winds, firefighters in southern California were gaining the upper hand on three wildfires that have devastated the region. They were hopeful of containing the blazes by mid-week.

Washington  - Two NASA astronauts from the space shuttle Endeavour completed a spacewalk on Tuesday to replace a nitrogen tank on the International Space Station and begin repair of a joint on a key solar panel.

Heide Stefanyshyn-Pieper and Steve Bowen began the six-and-a-half hour walk at 1809 GMT. Ground controllers declared the spacewalk completed within the alloted time.

The nitrogen tank was installed with help from the station's robotic arm, and the device that moves coolant through the station was replaced.

Washington  - Buying a new computer usually involves comparing models. Comparisons are more difficult than they used to be, as the number of choices has grown and manufacturers have started marketing computers with specific uses in mind.

A little know-how, though, goes a long way toward making the task of sorting through the options a lot easier. Read on for some help.

Q: I'm looking at two computers, and the only difference appears to be the processor. One has an "Intel Core Quad 2400" processor and the other an "Intel Core 2 Quad -

San Francisco  - Has Google invented the killer app for the iPhone?

The software giant has long seen internet-savvy mobile phones as its next frontier, and now it seems to have invented the perfect way to get phone users to rely on Google's search system as easily as they do over more traditional internet connections.