Washington - Thousands of residents along the Texas coast were evacuating on Thursday as Hurricane Ike took aim at the US mainland.

Ike, a category two storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, with 160 kilometre per hour winds could strengthen into a major category three hurricane before making landfall late Friday, the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said.

Thursday afternoon the storm was about 645 kilometres east- southeast of Galveston, Texas and was moving toward the coast at 17 kilometres per hour.

Washington  - The hard-fought presidential campaign was put on ice Thursday out of respect for the seventh anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

But the nominees were participating in some of the formal commemoration activities at the sites where 19 Islamic terrorists crashed hijacked passenger planes into the symbols of America's financial and military might on that September day.

Islamabad, Sep 11 : Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders don’t want to fight the war on terror as the United States want them to fight.

The new Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will not likely be able to solve the problems in near future, so the next US President will inherit the challenge of persuading the Pakistani leadership that it needs to continue prosecuting an unpopular, but necessary, war, The International Herald Tribune reported.

Stockholm  - Swedish public broadcaster SVT screened footage Thursday of US Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain leaving North Vietnam after his release from a prisoner-of-war camp.

Swedish writer Erik Eriksson, who covered the Vietnam War as a freelance and for SVT, made the discovery when researching a book on his wartime experience and compiling a 30-minute DVD that would be sold with the book.

Washington  - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to visit US President George W Bush September 25, the White House said Thursday.

The announcement came as the Bush administration prepared to submit the nuclear cooperation deal with India for congressional approval.

In a statement announcing Singh's visit, Bush said he was "pleased" to give formal approval to the US-India Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation and "looked forward" to working with Congress to ensure passage.

Washington, Sep 11 : US President George W Bush has invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington on September 25.

Sources have revealed that Bush hopes to get the nuclear deal through Congress by the time Manmohan Singh visits America and will then go on to sign the deal.