New York, Sept. 18: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has retaken a lead over Republican rival John McCain, according to the latest CBS/NYT poll.

The poll indicates Obama as having taken a 48 percent to 43 percent lead over McCain among registered voters.

McCain had a two percentage point lead among registered voters in a CBS News poll released on September 8th, just after the Republican National Convention. Prior to the party conventions, Obama led McCain by three points.

Washington, Sept 18: Pakistan's efforts to scuttle India’s bid to get a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council reportedly suffered a serious setback when the UN General Assembly recently decided to conduct ‘inter-governmental negotiations’ on reforming the Security Council, instead of leaving the matter to the Open-ended Working Group.

In the Working Group, Pakistan, Italy and Argentina have been effectively blocking the induction of any new permanent members since 2005, when India, Brazil, Germany and Japan made an official bid for permanent membership of the UN.

San Francisco - Anonymous hackers penetrated the private email account of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Wednesday posted screen shots of the account on the internet.

The intrusion came amid growing reports that Palin used her private email account to conduct official business in an effort to avoid public scrutiny.

It was strongly condemned by the McCain-Palin campaign as a "shocking invasion of privacy" and both the FBI and Secret Service launched investigations into the incident.

Los Angeles - Hollywood royalty turned out in force to back Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama in two glittering events Monday night that raised a record 9 million dollars.

In the midst of the worst US financial crisis in decades, Obama kept television cameras away from the star-studded parties in a bid to minimize criticism that he was celebrating as the country suffered.

Tel Aviv - In a contest that could decide the fate of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israel's ruling Kadima party began electing a new leader Wednesday to replace discredited Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Some 144 polling stations opened their doors at 10 am (0700 GMT) at locations throughout the country, and are to stay open for 12 hours, to enable the 74,000 eligible Kadima members to cast their ballots. By late afternoon, around 20 per cent had done so.

Cairo -