United States

Ike starts to fulfil threats: "Galveston could disappear"

La Marque, Texas - It was still a half day before the eye of Hurricane Ike was due to make landfall, there was little more than a strong breeze and the sky seemed reluctant to turn from white to grey, but the picture Friday had elements to promote panic.

Many roads and streets in Galveston, Texas, were already under water. And high tide was still hours away.

"Galveston could disappear," said John Dennis.

He was not joking - his jeans, wet to his knees, spoke for themselves.

"I just picked up my wife, and now I have to return to pick up my in-laws," he added. "They don't want to go, but we are going to get them out whatever it takes."

Ban rides "Solartaxi" to highlight alternative energy

Ban Ki-MoonNew York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rode a Swiss-made, fully solar-powered vehicle to work at UN headquarters on Friday as part of his efforts to raise awareness of dangers of climate change.

He has already raised the thermostat by 3 degrees Celsius at UN headquarters during the summer to set an example of UN responsibility to save the climate by lowering emissions of carbon dioxide from the old UN structure built in the early 1950s.

Ban rode the so-called "Solartaxi" from his residence just a few blocks from his office on the 38th floor at the UN.

US targets Venezuelan officials after ambassador expulsion

United StatesWashington - The United States on Friday froze the assets of two high-ranking Venezuelan intelligence officials accused of arming rebels in neighbouring Colombia, amid a growing diplomatic standoff between Caracas and Washington.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday expelled the US ambassador to Venezuela and recalled his own from the United States. The move was out of solidarity with Bolivia, which has accused the US of fomenting unrest in the country and pulled its own ambassador from the US this week.

Lehman Brothers reportedly about to be sold

Lehman BrothersNew York  - Urgent moves were afoot Friday to sell embattled Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the fourth-biggest US investment bank which this week reported record losses, US media reports said.

Lehman was reported to be urgently shopping around for a possible takeover, while there were reports that the government had agreed to subsidize any takeover of the bank, one of many still reeling from the ongoing credit crisis in the United States.

The bank posted its largest-ever quarterly loss of 3.9 billion dollars on Wednesday. Lehman's own shares tumbled more than 40 per cent in Thursday's trading.

India, US need to tackle hard questions together: Wisner

India, USNew Delhi, Sept. 12 : Though Indo-US bilateral relations have come a long way in the last decade, there are many underlying issues that the two countries need to tackle together, said Ambassador Frank Wisner, Vice-Chairman, American International Group, at a session on ‘After US Elections: Next Steps in the US-India relationship’, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Aspen Institute India in New Delhi today.

Ancient figs excavated in Israel may be the world’s first cultivated crops

Human rights group: Israel forcibly expelling Gazans from West Bank Washington, September 12 : Archaeologists in Israel say that the figs they discovered while excavating at the sit of an 11,400-year-old house near the ancient city of Jericho may be the first cultivated crops.

The researchers say that the find provides evidence that cultivated crops came centuries before the first farmers planted cereal grains.

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