WASHINGTON - NEW claims for US unemployment benefits fell for the second consecutive week to 545,000, the government said on Thursday as jobless concerns continue to dog the US economy emerging from recession.
The seasonally adjusted number of claims fell by 12,000 in the week ending September 12 from the previous week's revised figure of 557,000, the Labor Department reported.
KEPUH SARI (Indonesia) - ARMED Indonesian police stormed an Islamic militant hideout early Thursday in a raid that killed wanted terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top and three other militants, police said.
Noordin's body was among four recovered after the early morning raid on a village house in Central Java, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters, bringing to an end an exhaustive six-year manhunt.
KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIAN authorities captured a Muslim sect leader who claimed to be God's prophet and was on the run for three years, an official said on Thursday.
Abdul Kahar Ahmad was charged in 2006 in an Islamic law court with spreading false teaching, blasphemy and violating religious precepts, said Muhamad Nazri Basrawi, a prosecutor in the Islamic Religious Department in central Selangor state.
LONDON - FLAVIO Briatore said he sacrificed himself to save his Renault Formula One team but it will take more than the departure of a flamboyant Italian showman to repair the damage done by race-fixing revelations.
'The worst act of cheating in the history of sport,' declared the back page headline in the Times newspaper on Thursday.
