Washington, July 26: Scientists have said that the major threats to the preservation of wetlands are critical food shortages and growing demand for bio-fuels and hydro-electricity due to high fossil fuel prices.

According to 700 leading world experts concluding a week-long meeting in Cuiaba, Brazil, resisting pressures to convert wetlands is vital to avoid destroying ecosystems that provide a suite of services essential to humanity, including safe, steady local water supplies, preserving biodiversity and the large-scale capture and storage of climate warming greenhouse gases.

Washington, July 26: In a breakthrough study, researchers from Princeton University have found a new way electrons behave in materials, thus opening up avenues for developing to new kinds of electronic devices.

The team led by N. Phuan Ong, a professor of physics at Princeton have discovered that electrons in common element bismuth, when exposed to powerful magnetic field at ultra-low temperatures, exhibit an unusual pattern of behaviour- something like a dance.

The study showed the electrons in the magnetized, supercold sample simultaneously assumed the identity of all three classes of electrons, following a strict choreography that could only stem from the strange rules of quantum physics.

Washington, July 26: Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain has accused his rival Democrat Senator Barack Obama of failing the Commander-in-Chief test on Iraq.

Speaking to war veterans in Denver, McCain criticised Obama for opposing President George W Bush’s troop surge in Iraq - one of the few issues where the GOP has gotten traction against Obama during his tour of Europe and US war zones.

Washington  - A congressional hearing Friday heard from legislators calling for the impeachment of US President George W Bush.

Though there is no chance of impeachment proceedings against Bush ever being brought to a vote, the House of Representatives debate was held in response to calls from a former Democratic presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich.

Washington - The United States welcomed the announcement Friday that the leaders of the Turkish and Greek communities in Cyprus have agreed to begin negotiations to reunify the Mediterranean island.

"We strongly support the stated goal of these negotiations to find a mutually-acceptable solution to the Cyprus problem that will safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots," said Gonzalo Gallegos, the State Department's acting deputy spokesman.

Washington  - US President George W Bush on Friday widened sanctions against Zimbabwean officials for using violence and intimidation to manipulate elections in the troubled country.

The sanctions freeze the assets in the United States of senior Zimbabwean officials designated by the US government as supporters of the violence by President Robert Mugabe's regime against the opposition ahead of the June 27 presidential election.

"Today I have signed a new executive order that expands our sanctions against the illegitimate government of Zimbabwe," Bush said in a statement.