New York, Jan 15 : UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he plans to visit Haiti "very soon" for a first-hand assessment of the situation and will seek $550 million in emergency money to assist the quake-ravaged country.

Most of the money urgently needed will go to provide food, water and medical supplies to help the quake victims immediately. (DPA)

New York, Jan 15 : Alaska’s former governor Sarah Palin has helped boost the ratings of Fox News Channel when she debuted on “The O’Reilly Factor” on January 12.

Palin, 45, drew 3.954 million viewers, more than everything else on other cable new shows combined in the 8 p. m. hour, in her first appearance as an analyst, reports the New York Post.

CNN’s “Campbell Brown” placed second with 999,000 total viewers, MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” placed third with 906,000 total viewers and HLN’s “Nancy Grace” brought up the rear with 704,000.

Compared to host Bill O’Reilly’s ratings the night before, the Palin push was worth a 22 percent rise in ratings, or more than 1 million more viewers including the repeat of O’Reilly’s show at 11 p. m.

New York, Jan 15 : Two teenagers from South Korea have been crowed as the fastest texters in the world in the LG Mobile World Cup.

The team of Bae Yeong Ho, 17, and Ha Mok Min, 18, went against competitors from a dozen countries in the competition held in New York City on January 14, and took home 100,000 dollars as prize.

The second team, comprising of Kate Moore, 16, of Des Moines, Iowa, who is the 2009, U. S. National Texting Champion, and Morgan Dynda, 14, of Pooler, Ga., the 2009 runner-up, took home
20,000 dollars.

An Argentinean team came in third and the Brazilians took fourth.

With many languages at play, English was the texting language of the U. S. competitors and those from Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

New York, Jan. 15 : The Doomsday Clock, which symbolically represents the time remaining until civilization is destroyed in a nuclear war, has been moved a minute back because of a more "hopeful state of world affairs".

The barometer of nuclear danger for the past 55 years, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) now stands at six minutes to the "midnight hour".

"By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization," BBC quoted the BAS board, as saying at a news conference here.

New York, Jan 15 - Citing increased international cooperation to curb nuclear weapons and global warming, scientists Thursday moved the so-called Doomsday Clock back by one minute.

The clock was created by nuclear scientists in 1947 to symbolise the world's proximity to planetary catastrophe with midnight signalling the apocalypse. Following Thursday's move the clock now reads six minutes to midnight.

"For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material," said the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which includes 19 Nobel laureates.

New York, Jan 14 : A United Nations (U. N.) report has said that more Afghans were killed in their country''s bloody insurgency in 2009, the most since the U. S.-led invasion eight years ago, largely due to the Taliban''s use of indiscriminate roadside bombs and suicide attackers.

The report by the human rights division of the U. N. mission in Afghanistan was released on Wednesday and came as at least six civilians were shot dead in Helmand and a series of bomb attacks around the country killed or wounded bystanders.

According to the U. N., at least 2,412 civilians were killed last year and 3,566 others were wounded as a direct result of the war between Taliban-led insurgents and the Government.

New York, January 14 : A German musical based on US President Barack Obama’s journey to the White House is set to open in Frankfurt.

“Hope — the Obama Musical Story” will feature love songs sung by ‘the President’ to his wife Michelle and include duets with Hillary Clinton.

The production, in a bilingual mix of English and German, will also showcase tunes by Republican losers Sarah Palin and John McCain, reports the New York Daily News.

As many as 30 singers, actors and dancers will take to the stage for the premiere, tickets for which are priced between 58 and 215 dollars, at the Jahrhunderthalle concert hall.

American writer Randall Hitchins said the 2008 presidential campaign worked as magic and inspiration for the musical.

New York, Jan 13 : The death toll among United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti in a massive earthquake could be the largest number ever killed during a mission once formal casualty figures are established.

The mission chief, Hedi Annabi, his deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa, and at least another 100 UN personnel were unaccounted for Wednesday, a day after an earthquake with magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale struck the impoverished Caribbean nation.

UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Alain LeRoy said in New York that the UN still had no information about the fate of those unaccounted for.

"It's a profound concern for us," LeRoy said.

New York, Jan 13 : UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday "hundreds" of people may have been killed by a strong earthquake and its aftershocks that hit Haiti a day earlier, while more than 100 UN staff in the poor Caribbean remained unaccounted for.

Senior UN officials said the unaccounted staff members were in the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince and fewer than five staffers had been confirmed dead. Other UN staff were living in hotels, which collapsed, he said.

New York, Dec 1- Sudan's warring parties have begun a new round of talks, but they lack conviction for an agreement in the six-year conflict, a UN official said.

The talks in Doha were attended by representatives from all communities in Darfur, the belligerents and the Khartoum government, said Djibril Bassole Monday, the UN envoy to the talks.

"Unfortunately, the belligerents' current lack of confidence in each other makes for slow progress in the peace talks and for an end to military hostilities," Bassole said.

The talks, supported by the Emir of Qatar, the League of Arab States as well as the African Union, were designed to allow the various armed groups to talk to each other as well as with Khartoum.

New York - Mary Travers - a US folk-singing icon who was part of the famed 1960s trio Peter, Paul and Mary - has died at the age of 72 from leukaemia.

She died Wednesday night in a hospital in the eastern US state of Connecticut, her spokeswoman Heather Lylis told The New York Times.

Peter, Paul and Mary was famous for such hits as If I Had a Hammer; Blowin' in the Wind; Puff, The Magic Dragon; I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane; and Lemon Tree.

But Travers, Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey also were known for their political activism, which was based on strong opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the civil rights movement.

The trio won five Grammies before disbanding in 1970 to pursue solo careers. They found little individual success and reunited in 1978.

Hollywood actress Jennifer Connelly was forced to move out of her Brooklyn home with hubby Paul Bettany, after she was convinced that it is haunted.

‘A Beautiful Mind’ star grew up not far from the same New York home, and planned to raise her kids six-year-old son Stellan and 12-year-old son Kai.

But when the kids echoed Connelly''s spooky fears, she was convinced that the house was haunted and moved with Bettany to Manhattan.

New York  - Actress Natasha Richardson was buried Sunday at a small funeral service of family and friends, after her death mid-week from a brain injury after the 45-year-old fell on a learner's ski slope in Canada.

Her husband and actor Liam Neeson, 56, was one of the bearers who carried her casket into a church in Millbrook, New York, the internet news service E! Online reported.

The British film and stage actress died Wednesday in a New York hospital from head injuries during her fall on Monday.

“Once,” the unexpected Irish movie that won an Oscar for the best-song at this year’s Academy Awards show, is being re- made as a Broadway musical. The film and theatrical producers John N. Hart Jr. (“Boys Don’t Cry”), Fred Zollo (“Quiz Show”) and Jeff Sine (“Spring Awakening”) have acquired the theatrical rights for “Once”. They plan to open the show during the 2010-11 Broadway season.

The cast and creative team for the show have not been announced by the producers yet.
 

The world’s biggest drugmaker, Pfizer has paid $894 million towards the settlement of its most outstanding litigation around its two painkillers – Bextra and Celebrex - sparked by concerns that they caused heart attacks and strokes. According to Jayne Conroy, a plaintiffs’ attorney, the company faced about 8,000 lawsuits over the drugs.