Detroit, Michigan  - The mood was sombre at Detroit's annual auto show, which is usually a glitzy affair and time of celebration for the US car industry. But 2008 was a year like no other and saw car sales plummet to their lowest level in decades.

The North American International Auto Show, which opened for a three-day media preview Sunday, had domestic and foreign carmakers unveil their latest US models amid an uncertain future for the world's most lucrative car market.

Jerusalem, Jan 11 : UN experts have said the US abstention on Thursday night’s Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza should be viewed as a warning to Israeli leaders that Washington’s patience may be running thin. 

Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who spent three days in New York shuttling between conference chambers to help broker a deal between Arab nations and Western powers, told reporters on Friday that the abstention was meant as an endorsement of the multilateral peace talks taking place in Cairo. 

“It was simply believed that this might have been a little premature,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Rice as saying at a briefing. 

Washington, Jan 11 : About 14 percent of U. S. adults can''t read because they’re illiterate, according to a new study.

Some 32 million U. S. adults lack basic prose literacy skill, which means that they can''t read a newspaper or the instruction on a bottle of pills.

The figures are for 2003, the latest year available. 

"The crisis of adult literacy is getting worse, and investment in education and support programs is critical," Live Science quoted said David C. Harvey, president and CEO of ProLiteracy, in response to the finding, as saying.

Harvey said that education is critical to jobs and the economy. 

New York, Jan 11 : Us President George W Bush revealed to the Israelis that he already had authorized a covert US effort to sabotage Iran’s nuclear capabilities, according to unnamed American and foreign officials. 

A secret Israeli plan for airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facility was scuttled last year when the United States rebuffed Israel in its request to fly through Iraqi airspace, the New York Times reported on a covert US programme.

The story cites unnamed American and foreign officials in reporting that President Bush also turned away an Israeli request for bunker-busting bombs for use in its planned attack on the Iranian nuclear complex. 

Detroit, Michigan - Ailing US carmaker Chrysler is confident of receiving a further 3 billion dollars in order to survive, the firm's head said Sunday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan.

Chief Executive Officer Robert Nardelli said he was confident the company would receive the second part of a 7-billion-dollar bail-out that is dependent on a restructuring of the third largest carmaker in the United States.

Chrysler received 4 billion dollars of government aid in January, which it used to pay employees and suppliers and to incentivize car dealers.

Nardelli said the company was not "hibernating" while it waited for a buy-out, Bloomberg News reported.

Detroit, Michigan  - The Hyundai Genesis was named 2009 North American Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Sunday.