Washington, Sep 12: The United States and China are holding talks about what to do if the government in Pyongyang collapses after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il became physically impaired from a stroke apparently suffered last month, FOX News reports.

A senior Bush Administration official said that although Kim may not be close to death, the US does not accept reports from South Korea that he’s on his way to a rapid recovery.

The official told FOX News the United States is naturally engaging the Chinese about what to do if there is ensuing instability in North Korea. There is no logical successor to Kim. He has not been grooming one of his sons to replace him, as Kim’s father, Kim Il Sung, groomed him.

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the US ambassador, acting out of solidarity with his embattled Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales.

US Ambassador Patrick Duddy had to leave the country within the next 72 hours, Chavez said Thursday night in a televised speech. At the same time, the leftist populist president recalled Venezuela's ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez.

Duddy arrived in Caracas last year.

Washington, Sep 12: Islamabad is harbouring al Qaeda and placating radical domestic groups and the next attack on the US could originate from Pakistan as its politicians try to “out-demagogue one another in denouncing the Americans for killing terrorists,” the Washington Times has said.

The newspaper noted with regret that Islamabad seems less concerned about its territory being used for an attack on the US than about placating radical domestic groups.

Manila - US soldiers are backing the Philippine military's offensive against Muslim rebels in the south but the Americans are not directly involved in combat operations, the country's armed forces chief said Friday.

General Alexander Yano belied claims by government critics that hundreds of US soldiers stationed in the southern region of Mindanao were engaged in combat operations against Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas.

"There is no direct participation," he said. "They [the US troops] may be involved in combat-related activities, but these are not combat in itself."

Washington, September 12 : A new fossil study has indicated that ancient whales has large back legs, a tail like a dog’s, and a hip-wiggling swimming style, which helps pinpoint the advent of new physical features in modern whales between 38 and 40 million years ago.

The new features are known as ‘flukes’, which are the two wide, flat triangular lobes on a whale’s back end and are made of skin and connective tissue, with bones in the middle.

Scientists have known whales evolved from semiaquatic, four-footed creatures with long, thin tails to today’s fully aquatic mammals with fluked tails, no back legs, and flippers instead of front legs.

Kabul, Sep 12 : Afghanistan’s insurgent Taliban movement said that the United States was on the “edge of an historical defeat” in Afghanistan, seven years after invading following the 9/11 attacks.

In a statement released to mark the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, the Taliban reiterated their rhetoric that the West was leading a “crusade” in Afghanistan.

The US had not realised that there were “so many guardians of Islam who will guard God’s religion and its values”, said the statement e-mailed to the media.

It asked what US President George W Bush and his North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies had achieved in the seven years since they had invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government in 2001.