Washington, Sept. 9: Surveys have revealed that the presidential contest between John McCain and Barack Obama will be competitive in the key states of Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

According to Fox News, four of the five state polls show Obama and McCain within three percentage points of each other. In Ohio, however, McCain has a 51 to 44 percent advantage.

Citing the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll as a source for its conclusions, the Fox News report concludes the following:

London, Sept. 9: Following is the list of the world’s ten most decadent dictators

1. Kim Jong-il of North Korea: Has super-expensive tastes, with 17 palaces, and collections of hundreds of cars and about 20,000 videotapes. Loves to eat live lobsters and drinks 650,000 dollars worth of Hennessy VSOP cognac a year, besides having an entourage of young lovelies known as the "Pleasure Brigade"

2. Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines President from 1965 to 1986: Secreted billions of dollars in overseas accounts.

San Francisco - California's powerful prison guards union has launched a recall campaign aiming to oust Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a snap election.

The 30,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) on Monday charged that the former action movie star's "catastrophic leadership failings" had left the largest US state "in far worse shape" than before he was elected after a similar recall effort booted out his predecessor Democrat Gray Davis in 2003.

Tbilisi, Georgia/Moscow - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili early Tuesday called the latest Russian agreement to withdraw from Georgian territory a step forward."

Saakashvili held a joint press conference after midnight with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had arrived late Monday from Moscow after extracting a promise from Russian Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to withdraw and to return to a ceasefire agreement that ended the five-day Caucasus war in last month.

Los Angeles - Cable news channel MSNBC has ousted news hosts Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman from anchoring its election coverage after a series of on-air feuds plus complaints from Republicans that the duo were too left-leaning in their coverage.

The channel said Monday that it had promoted chief White House correspondent David Gregory to anchor its election coverage, though Matthews and Olberman will remain as analysts.

Singapore - The Singapore government is urging parents to play matchmaker to find appropriate spouses for their single sons and daughters, said The Strait Times Monday.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong floated the idea during his National Day Rally recently by telling parents to follow the lead of thousands of mainland Chinese who have secretly sought sons- and daughters-in-law in parks and outings and were successful.

Parents in Singapore will attend arranged events and bring their offsprings' CVs, business cards and photographs to swap with others, to identify suitable partners that they would approve of, the report said.