New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Wednesday the suicide bombing attacks on a government provincial office in Kandahar which killed at least two people and injured a large number of others, including a UN employee.

"Such attacks indiscriminately targeting people and institutions committed to building a better future for the country are morally repugnant and can only set back the efforts to foster peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan," Ban said in a statement.

New York, April 1 : Hugh Hefner''s former girlfriend Kendra Wilkinson has decided to launch her own line of stripper poles.

New York, Apr. 1 : US President Obama's strategy review for Afghanistan and Pakistan, unveiled last week, finally focuses the government's attention and resources where they are most needed, says an editorial in the New York Times.

According to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, after years, the president has recognized that the key to US national security is defeating Al Qaeda, and that to do so we must address both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

New York  - Major US stock indices posted strong gains Tuesday following Europe's lead, capping the US market's best month in nearly seven years.

Financial firms led the gains on signs that banks were starting to increase lending in the current recession. An index of financial companies jumped 6.7 per cent.

The rally comes ahead of an emergency summit of the Group of 20 major economies Thursday in London to help pull the world out of recession. US President Barack Obama and other world leaders began arriving Tuesday in London.

New York  - Sudan on Tuesday agreed to let the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur take over the assets of 13 expelled international relief groups.

The decision was reached between the UN, the Sudanese government and AU representatives in El Fasher, Darfur, where the peacekeeping force is headquartered.

The three sides met to review progress in the deployment of the UN-AU force in Darfur, which is currently at 67 per cent of the authorized ceiling of 30,000 military and civilian personnel.

New York  - The UN General Assembly approved on Tuesday New Zealand's former prime minister Helen Clark as the new administrator of the UN Development Programme.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated Clark last week to replace outgoing UNDP head Kemal Dervis of Turkey.

"Helen Clark was selected, amongst a group of excellent candidates, for her outstanding qualifications and numerous accomplishments in her long career," said UN spokeswoman Michele Montas in an official statement.