New York  - Deere and Co, the world's largest farm equipment maker, said Wednesday it had withstood the weaker US economy and construction market as sales of its agricultural machines led up quarterly earnings.

Net profits rose 7 per cent to 575 million dollars, in the third quarter as the Moline, Illinois-based firm also fought rising prices for raw materials. The amount fell short of analysts' estimates. Quarterly revenue rose 17 per cent to 7.7 billion dollars.

New York, Aug. 13: It is not for nothing that the New York Times is known as America’s most famous paper. Why? Because it did not think twice about issuing corrections 48 years later on two of its news items that appeared in 1960.

One related to a review of a Broadway production of West Side Story, and the other concerned a certain soldier going by the name of John McCain, now the expected Republican presidential nominee.

New York  - US markets fell Tuesday as analysts said financial firms may report more losses tied to the credit crunch and sub-prime mortgage crisis.

"It's going to be like a long, slow car crash to work through the housing situation," Joseph Veranth of Dana Investment Advisors told Bloomberg financial news. "We're still in the middle of it."

New York  - Fighting in central Mindanao between Philippine government forces and Muslim groups has driven some 130,000 people out of their homes, raising the spectre of a humanitarian crisis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday.

Ban said the displaced people face threats against their lives and livelihoods in the decades-long conflict between Manila and Muslims in the south.

Ban called for "restraint, protection of all civilians as well as access for the provision of speedy humanitarian assistance to the affected population."

New York  - A United Nations internal investigation found that peacekeepers from India engaged in sexual exploitation and abuses when they were posted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN said Tuesday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply troubled" by prima facie evidence that the Indian contingent in the UN Mission in Congo had committed sex crimes while on duty in the West African nation.

New York, Aug. 12 : A Harlem-based political consultant, Kevin Wardally, has expressed the view that racism will not be a factor in the November presidential contest between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, though there have been reports of fevered insinuations about racism and race-card-playing.

"It is just overblown and over-thought," claimed Wardally, 35, an African-American whose political journey has run from City Council precincts to Hillary Clinton''s campaign for president.