London, Mar. 29 : Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari may have welcomed US President Barack Obama''s new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan (now called AfPak in Washington), but experts have warned that both the South Asian countries will have to pay a fair price in exchange of the US aid.

According to Afghan President Karzai, the proposal for increased civil and military aid was "better than they were expecting."

New Delhi, Mar 29 : United States Special Envoy to Afghanistan

Baghdad - US and Iraqi forces Sunday imposed a siege on central Baghdad's al-Fadl neighbourhood, blocking roads leading to it, a day after clashes erupted with members of a Sunni militia group.

Iraqi police and army forces were deployed in the neighbourhood and asked inhabitants to hand over their weapons, witnesses told the German Press Agency dpa.

Armed clashes erupted Saturday evening as American and Iraqi troops arrested a key leader of the Awakening Councils, Adel al- Mashhadani, and his aide on "terrorism charges," including murder and displacement.

New York/Toronto  - A spying operation that infiltrated computers - many of them belonging to governments - in 103 countries has been uncovered by a group of Canadian researchers, the New York Times reported Sunday.

Victims of the malicious software, or malware, include computers in: the offices of the Dalai Lama; Tibetan exile centres around the world; NATO headquarters in Brussels; and the Indian embassy to the United States.

In all, 1,295 computers might have been accessed and had documents copied by the system, which the researchers dubbed GhostNet.

New York, Mar. 29 : Ponzi scammer Bernie Madoff, who is currently in jail for defrauding investors of millions of dollars, also cheated on his devoted wife Ruth

Madoff carried on at least one affair during the couple's 50-year marriage, the New York Daily News quotes two sources, as saying.

One insider tells us Bernie once had a thing with an executive assistant at a major media corporation.

"She was attractive and Jewish," says the source. "He was quite generous with her. He used to fly her around."

Chicago, Mar 29 : Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has declared President Barack Obama "our quarterback" who will help bring the Olympic Games to the city.

Daley fresh from a Denver trip to promote the Chicago's Olympic bid, said, "This is the United States of America, and the person who's our quarterback is President Barack Obama."

"He is the one who will go to Copenhagen" to present the city's final pitch to the International Olympic Committee in October, The Chicago Sun Times quoted him, as saying.