Islamabad, Sept 23: Refuting the media reports quoting Pakistan Prime Minister’s Adviser on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik that senior Pakistani leaders, including the President, the Prime Minister and others, were to attend an Iftar party on Saturday at Hotel Marriott where the devastating blast took place killing 60 persons, the management of the hotel said there was “no such party”.

Beirut  - A Syrian troop build-up on the northern border with Lebanon has worried Lebanese security officials, despite Damascus insisting that the move is solely to stop smuggling in the region.

"Our reports from near the Abboudieh, northern Syrian-Lebanese border indicated that around 8,000 Syrian special forces have been deployed in the region," a high-level Lebanese security official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.

The Villages (Florida, US), Sept. 22: The Palin wave shows no signs of diminishing.

On her first trip as John McCain’s running mate to the battleground state of Florida, Palin drew a massive crowd of 60,000 people.

A Fox News report said that she was welcomed like a star, with tens of thousands cramming into a plaza and nearby streets in the enormous retirement community about an hour north of Orlando.

Some waited more than five hours in 92-degree heat to see her speak for 23 minutes.

New York, Sept. 22: Seeking to distance himself from President George W Bush in the run-up to the November 4 presidential poll, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has accused him and his administration of failing to arrest the meltdown on Wall Street.

"I say the Bush administration has failed," McCain said on "60 Minutes" after agreeing that he placed "a great deal" of responsibility on the President for the financial meltdown,” the New York Daily News quoted McCain, as saying.

New York, Sept. 22: Democratic presidential candaiate Barack Obama has said that the country’s regulatory system needs to be changed to ensure an improved economic performance.

Speaking with CBS’s Steve Kroft, Obama said America’s biggest financial crisis could be blamed on a lot of factors, but the main one appeared to be a badly-managed regulatory system that has not kept pace with the times.

London, Sept 22: Only a few legal formalities are left after which newly-elected Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari would pocket nearly three million pounds from the Pakistani exchequer, the sale proceeds of Surrey Palace – the “Rockwood House” - which was sold through a liquidator in 2004 after Zardari and his slain spouse Benazir Bhutto were found guilty of corruption.

The total worth of the mansion today is estimated to be around 8.5 million pounds.