Washington - The US Federal Reserve Bank on Sunday approved the takeover of ailing Wachovia Corp by Wells Fargo & Co of San Francisco.

The Fed publicized the decision in an unusual Sunday afternoon announcement, in a move likely to be timed to ease fears on the global financial markets.

Wells Fargo, which battled New York-based Citigroup for ownership of the forth-largest US bank, will take ownership of Wachovia by a share swap deal worth 15 billion dollars, propelling itself to the top of the US market for non-corporate clients.

Washington, October 13 : A team of American researchers has developed some models that can help predict how many people will need food, how many food distribution facilities will be necessary, where should they be located, and how the resources should be allocated in the event of a flu pandemic.

“The models are flexible so that multiple scenarios can be investigated to see which options meet a certain goal,” said Pinar Keskinocak, an associate professor in Georgia Tech''s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE).

Multan, Oct 13 : Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that the US and its allies cannot win the war on terror without Pakistan’s help. He stressed on the need for a coordinated effort and a joint strategy to curb terrorism.

Vowing to protect his country’s sovereignty and security, he said the PPP-led government had inherited terrorism and was making efforts to wipe out the menace and restore peace in the country.

Washington, Oct 13 : The Pakistan Government’s declared ‘austerity’ programme, particularly initiated by President Asif Ali Zardari amid the prevailing economic crisis, has reportedly received a lot, as a 15-strong delegation of Pakistani parliamentarians gets ready to fly to the US to ‘study and witness’ the November 4 US presidential election.

The move assumes significance in the wake of the financial crunch worsening and Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves dwindling.

Khost, Afghanistan - The young Texan woman talking to the Afghan tribesman wears a US military uniform and carries an assault rifle, but she's not a soldier.

Her training is in anthropology, which is proving an effective tool for negotiating the complexities of Afghanistan's honeycomb tribal structure and, according to a senior US commander, significantly reducing the need for "kinetic," or combat, operations.

Washington - You might call it the fourth crisis.

While collapsing financial institutions plunge wealthy nations into recession and developing countries grapple with surging food and energy costs, the once urgent need to fight global warming seems to have taken a back seat.

Just last year, nearly every global and regional summit put climate change at the top of its agenda. Now it seems to have become an afterthought.