Washington, September 8 : A team of scientists has discovered a living sensor in a giant mine in Canada that can spot contamination in the form of arsenic pollution.

They have also discovered new bacteria that can clean up arsenic spills, even in previously untreatable cold areas.

The giant mine, which is in Canada in the sub-arctic, contains over 230,000 tonnes of arsenic-containing dust, making it one of the most polluted places on Earth as well as one of the most inhospitable.

“Water seeps through the mine cracks carrying the arsenic with it as it drips down the walls,” said Thomas Osborne from University College London, UK.

Rabat, Morocco/Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saluted the democratic and economic reforms carried out in Morocco under King Mohammed VI.

Rice spoke Sunday in Rabat to reporters after having dinner the night before with Morrocan ministers, including her counterpart, Foreign Minister Fassi Fihri.

Rice and Fihri agreed that the US-Morocco Free Trade Agreement, which went into force in 2005, laid the basis for a new phase of development in Morocco and relations with the United States.

Rabat, Morocco/Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Sunday dismissed allegations in a new book by one of the top US investigative reporters that she played politics in 2006 with growing violence in Iraq.

Rice, who spoke in Morocco during an ongoing trip through northern Africa, said that she had tried to avoid a review of Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections to prevent the issue from becoming a political football.

Washington - Uneasy about ongoing tropical storms, the US space agency NASA Sunday announced a two-day delay in launching the Atlantis shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope.

Atlantis will launch on October 10 instead of October 8 from the Kennedy Space Center on the Florida Atlantic coast, NASA said.

The mission is complicated because a second shuttle must be ready on the launch pad immediately after Atlantis takes off to serve as a back-up in case of problems with the mission.

Washington, Sept 7: The US presidential nominees Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have welcomed the NSG waiver to India.