Washington - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Monday called for new measures to spur job growth and help homeowners threatened by foreclosure stay in their homes, as national polls showed the candidate pulling strongly ahead of Republican John McCain as voters focus on the economy.

London - The British government was forced Monday to drop controversial plans to allow terrorism suspects to be detained for up to six weeks without charge after the measure was defeated in the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords.

Home Secretary Jacquie Smith said after the vote, which rejected the measure 309-118, that the proposal to extend detention from currently 28 days to 42 days would be taken out of a package of anti- terrorism legislation.

Vienna - A public memorial service is planned for Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider on Saturday in the centre of Klagenfurt.

The politician died in a car accident Saturday.

From Thursday, his body will be laid out in the regional parliament in Klagenfurt, the capital of the Carinthia province where Haider was governor, the provincial authorities announced.

Washington, Oct. 13: Senator John McCain’s campaign said on Sunday that the Republican presidential nominee would not have any more proposals this week unless developments call for some.

McCain took a break Sunday from filming campaign advertisements and practicing for a final debate with Mr. Obama on Wednesday to cheer volunteers at a phone bank near his Northern Virginia headquarters.

On Saturday, his advisers were considering a range of economic ideas.

New York, Oct. 13: A boom in voter registration across America has raised the possibility of a landslide victory for Senator Barack Obama, with an overwhelming majority of the nine million new voters believed to favour the Democratic candidate.

According to the New York Times, with electoral rolls now closed in most states, Obama has a clear advantage among first-time registrants, many of whom are under 30 or African Americans. The big question mark over new voters is how many of them will show up on November 4.

Vilnius - A referendum held in Lithuania to decide the future of the Baltic nation's only nuclear power plant has failed to attract the necessary number of voters to be judged valid, official sources said on Monday.

Lithuania agreed to close its Ignalina nuclear power plant by 2009 as part of its deal to join the European Union in 2004. A planned replacement, to be built jointly with Estonia, Latvia and Poland, is unlikely to be ready before 2015.

Politicians fear that a six-year energy gap would increase Lithuania's energy dependency on Russia and could ruin the national economy. Ignalina currently supplies around 70 per cent of Lithuania's electricity.