Paris  - The financial crisis is having a deep impact on the global demand for oil, as the economies of the industrial nations teeter on the brink of a recession, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Friday in its Monthly Oil Report.

London, Oct. 10 : The British Ministry of Defence has reportedly lost a portable hard drive with details of about 100,000 servicemen and women and 800,000 applicants wanting to join the Armed Services.

According to The Times, sensitive details of the family members of personnel were also among the data stored, including bank details and passport numbers.

Seoul - North Korea and the United States are closer to a compromise in a last-ditch effort to salvage a nuclear disarmament deal, South Korean media said Friday.

Both sides were ready for concessions in the disputed question of verification and inspection procedures of Pyongyang's nuclear facilities, the Chosun Ilbo newspapers said, quoting a high-ranking South Korean government official.

Beijing, Oct. 10: The United States'' decision to sell arms to Taiwan has been strongly condemned by the Chinese defence ministry.

Huang Xueping, a spokesman of the Chinese Defense Ministry, reacting to Pentagon spokesman Stuart Upton''s remarks on Monday that Washington''s arms sales were consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, said: "We are strongly dissatisfied and opposed to the Pentagon spokesman''s remarks. The so-called ''Taiwan Relations Act'' severely ran counter to the principles of the three Sino-U. S. joint communiqués and the fundamental norms governing international relations."

He added the United States had no right to place domestic law above international ones, or use it as an excuse to sell weapons to Taiwan.

Khost, Afghanistan - Less than six hours after a helicopter drops a combined US and Afghan army patrol by the mountain border with Pakistan, Islamic insurgents surround and pound the unit into disarray.

The surprise attack from forested slopes around the troops' positions lasts 20 minutes, during which they are pinned down and barely able to hit back, such is the intensity of the barrage of fire. Then abrupt silence replaces the crash and rattle of rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

"They know to pull back before air support can arrive," said Sergeant Ryan Hendricks of the 2-506 Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, as he positions the two dozen soldiers against any attempt to directly storm the hilltop they are holding.

Washington, Oct. 10: Pakistan is alarmingly teetering towards becoming a failed state and is still the most dangerous place in the world, says an Indian-American expert in an article for the Washington Post.

According to Sumit Ganguly, Director of Research at the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University and an Adjunct Fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy, Pakistan is in even scarier shape than most of the so-called experts are willing to admit.