New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Thursday that a financial crisis sweeping across advanced economies would actually have its greatest effect on the poor.

Ban, launching a one-day conference on development at UN headquarters in New York, said the financial turmoil was only adding to food and energy crises already affecting developing countries.

"The current financial crisis threatens the well-being of billions of people, none more so than the poorest of the poor," Ban told the UN General Assembly.

Washington, Sept. 25 : Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.

In meetings during that period, the New York Times says that the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C. I. A. had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret C. I. A. prisons overseas, the documents show.

Washington, September 25 : A man has filed a lawsuit in Baltimore against a Maryland doctor for allegedly stapling his rectum shut during an operation, which caused him to go without defecating for 17 days.

Ronald Watkins, 64, of West Virginia, claims that the 2004 surgery Frederick County doctor Manuel Casiano carried out has left him with permanent bowel problems.

“The reason for suing Dr. Casiano is very simple: His rectum was stapled shut,” baltimoreexaminer. com quoted Julia Lodowski, who with attorney Emily Malarkey is representing Watkins and his wife, Brenda, as saying.

Washington, September 25 : The recent hacking of U. S. Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin''s Yahoo e-mail account has raised fresh concerns over how easy it is to break into any web account.

The hacker — said to be David Kernell, son of Democratic Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell — exploited a flaw in Yahoo''s webmail service that requires all its users to secure their accounts through easily obtainable information like a pet''s name, where you met your spouse, or what your high school mascot was.

New York - Washington Mutual Inc (WaMu), the largest savings and loan association in the United States, has approached a number of private equity firms to gauge their 
interest in a takeover to shore up its financial position, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The Seattle-based lender has lost more than 90 per cent of its share value in the past 12 months, suffering the effects of the credit crisis. Chairman Kerry Killinger stepped 
down in June 2008.

Vienna - Austrian crane manufacturer Palfinger AG announced Thursday it was taking over Omaha Standard Inc, a leading truck-body maker in the United States that was under pressure from the financial crisis.

Palfinger, the world 's biggest producer of truck-bound cranes, said it would take over 100 per cent of the Iowa-based maker of bodies for pick-up and service trucks.

Omaha Standard has expanded its production capacity in recent years, but has not been able to use it fully due to the economic and financial crisis in the US.

The Austrian company said in a statement that Omaha Standard would be able to benefit from Palfinger's distribution channels.