Washington: Amid credible reports that the Pakistan’s spy agency ISI was secretly supporting Taliban insurgents to recover lost ground in Afghanistan, the United States has asked Islamabad to snap those ties and act against terrorist safe havens.

Secretary of State Hillary “raised many of these issues when she was in Pakistan last fall,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters Wednesday when asked about a leaked NATO report published in the British media about ISI’s “manipulation” of Afghan Taliban’s senior leadership.

“So from that perspective, obviously this is not new-our concerns about safe havens, our concerns about whether together we are doing enough to go after these groups, our interest in cooperating with the Pakistanis to do more,” she said.

However, Nuland sought to play down the import of the report saying, “The context, as described by NATO, is that this is basically a summary of the views of those Taliban that we have in detention. So it’s a summary of what they think, what they believe to be true.”

The classified report shouldn’t have come out into the open, she said suggesting, “It was not designed for any purpose other than to help those in the field understand what Taliban detainees were saying.

“So it was in no way designed to impact on our ongoing efforts to get back on track with Pakistan, which continue,” Nuland said.

At the Pentagon, spokesperson Navy Capt John Kirby said US had “long standing concerns” about links between the elements of the ISI and the Taliban and wants Pakistan to “cut-off” those ties.

The facts brought out by the report were “not a new notion” and “the (Defence) Secretary (Leon Panetta) has been very clear about the ongoing problem of safe havens inside Pakistan for these groups,” Kirby said.

“We have made it clear already that Pakistan needs to act against safe heavens. We would like ties between some elements of ISI and Taliban to be cut-off,” he said.

Washington: Unmanned drones regularly strike suspected militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, US President Barack Obama confirmed during a video “hangout” on Google’s social network Google+ that was also streamed live on YouTube.

Use of the unmanned drones began under former president George W. Bush, BBC reported.

There were 118 drone attacks in 2010 and 70 in 2011, according to the New America Foundation. Top militants believed killed by drones include former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and Al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri.

Obama, during the hour-long video Monday evening, termed the strikes a “targeted focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists”.

Asked about the use of drone strikes, which have increased in intensity during his presidency, Obama said a lot of strikes have taken place in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

The strikes target “Al Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan”, he said.

“For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military action than the ones we’re already engaging in,” he said.

The strikes have caused outrage in Pakistan, where people say the attacks cause indiscriminate civilian deaths and injuries.

Obama also said it was tough being president.

“Look, this is the greatest job on Earth, and it’s such an honour to serve, but it is true sometimes, you get a little stir crazy.”

“One of the things I look forward to after I’ve had this extraordinary honour is just taking a walk or waking up on Saturday morning, not shaving and going to the local Starbucks and not having to worry about it,” he was quoted as saying by CNN.

Beijing:China’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging and battery swapping station has been put into operation in Beijing, Xinhua reported quoting sources in the city’s power supply authorities.

Located in the eastern Beijing’s Chaoyang district, the Gaoantun charging station can charge up to eight vehicles simultaneously and it takes only four to six minutes to swap a battery of an EV.

The station has been installed with over 10 types of EV charging or battery swapping machines, covering all charging modes that are available in China.

Beijing is striving to build a new energy vehicle grid as part of the nation’s plan to usher in more energy-saving and environmentally-friendly vehicles.

Beijing hopes to build a three-level EV charging and battery swapping network that consists of six large-scale concentrated charging stations, 250 charging and battery swapping stations and 210 small-sized delivery stations by the end of 2015.

So far, the China’s capital city has completed construction of 12 charging and battery swapping stations and 274 charging posts.

The city was chosen as one of the 25 pilot cities in China for the utilisation of new-energy vehicles.

China plans to have over 500,000 electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles on the road by 2015 and five million by 2020.

Jakarta: At least 14 people have been killed and more than 60 injured in a tornado that hit Indonesia this week, the government said Sunday.

More than 2,000 houses were damaged by the tornado, Xinhua reported.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, head of public relations at the National Agency for Disaster Management, said 35 regions in the main islands of Java and Bali were hit by the tornado since Wednesday.

He said the tornado was caused by tropical cyclone Iggy. However, Iggy was weakening and leaving Indonesian waters, he said.

Beijing: The best gift a Chinese bachelor thinks he can take home for parents is a bride-to-be. Under parents’ pressure to marry, many young men in China this year took hired women along on their homecoming for the Lunar New Year.

Some luckless men without girlfriends preferred hiring women to meet their parents on the occasion of Lunar New Year, which fell Monday this year, so the old couple was happy, Xinhua reported.

Online advertisements offering “temporary” boyfriends and girlfriends started appearing on Taobao.com, China’s largest consumer e-commerce website, many weeks ahead of the traditional Chinese holiday.

Dozens of Taobao stores offered such “boy meets girl” rental services. The prices depended upon the required intimacy, time and distance. A handshake with parents was 3 yuan (about half a dollar), while hugs and kisses cost 5 yuan and 10 yuan, respectively.

Most stores charged 8 yuan per hour for the hired date to accompany a customer to a family dinner, and 15 yuan per hour to join them on a party or a shopping sortie.

The rates were for local service. But if the fake date had to travel to another city, the charge was several times higher.

A store based in Guangzhou city, for example, charged 1,500 yuan a day for such a service.

Software engineer Hu Xiaofei said he spent 6,000 yuan, more than half of his year-end bonus to rent a girlfriend for a week-long stay at his family home in the countryside of central Hunan province.

“My parents want me to marry early, but I can’t find a girlfriend easily. So I might as well hire one to make them happy,” Hu said.

Hu said a colleague “rented one for three days last year”. This year, he hired someone else for five days.

New Delhi: Author Salman Rushdie Tuesday said he was shocked at the situation that even screening of his video image was unacceptable at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF).

“It was pretty shocking that not only my physical presence, even the screening of video image was unacceptable,” Rushdie said from London at a video conference interview to NDTV Managing Editor Barkha Dutt.

He said the real enemies of Islam were the extremist leaders of the community.

“I have my personal disappointment (for not being permitted to attend the JLF),” Rushide said. But he was “more disappointed at the attitude of the authorities in India” who did not allow him to attend the literary meet, he added.

Tokyo: Japan posted its first annual trade deficit since 1980, due to the affects of the March earthquake and tsunami and the yen's appreciation versus its major counterparts, data from the Ministry of Finance showed Wednesday.

According to the ministry, the trade deficit stood at 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) in 2011, marking the first annual deficit in 31 years.

The value of exports dropped 2.7 percent during the year, totaling 65.55 trillion yen, with the finance ministry noting that the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, coupled with the yen's appreciation and a slowdown in overseas economies, contributed to the decline. The March disasters impacted key supply chains and hampered the nation's key export sector.

The ministry's data also showed that imports gained 12.0 percent to 68.05 trillion yen ($875 billion) in 2011, reported Xinhua.

According to the preliminary report, the government said there was a 205.1 billion yen trade deficit for December alone, exceeding consensus forecast for a 150.5 billion yen gap.

The ministry added that exports for December dropped 8.0 percent from a year earlier, marking the third straight month of decline and falling more than market forecast of a 7.5 percent retreat in the recording month.

Imports jumped 8.1 percent in December year-on-year, slightly higher than median forecast for a 8.0 percent gain, the ministry's data showed.

Beijing: A total of 28,000 people died of HIV/AIDS in China in 2011, the health ministry said Saturday.

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS rose by 40,000 since 2009, the ministry, the UN programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization, said in a joint report.

About 780,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS nationwide.

The main reason for the rise in the number of AIDS patients in the country is due to the government's efforts in prevention and intervention of the disease, the report said.

More than 136,000 AIDS patients had received anti-virus treatments by September 2011, bringing the treatment coverage rate to 73.5 percent, an increase of 11.5 percent compared to the corresponding period in 2009, Xinhua reported.

Indonesia : A crocodile in eastern Indonesia attacked and ate up a 10-year-old girl on a river bank, the Jakarta Post reported Saturday.

Juraida was hunting for turtles with her father and a brother when the wild crocodile leered up and snatched the girl, official Viktor Mado Waton said.

"Juraida was seized when she was in about a half-metre of water at the river's mouth…Her father and brother could only watch helplessly," said Waton.

Rescuers could only found the girl's dress and a hair ribbon.

It was the second crocodile's attack in the area over the last two months.

In early December, a 12-year-old boy was also eaten up by a crocodile, the paper quoted the official as saying.

Authorities plan to close down the area for swimming, Waton added.

Jaipur/New Delhi: Controversial writer Salman Rushdie may not attend the Jaipur Literature Festival beginning Friday, informed sources said Tuesday, as a leading Muslim scholar asked him to apologize for hurting Muslim sentiments.

Although there is no official announcement yet, the sources told IANS that the British Indian novelist may keep away from the Jan 20-24 event scheduled at the Diggi Palace Hotel.

The sources gave no details but spoke as Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot told Home Minister P. Chidambaram in Delhi that Rushdie's presence could spark off trouble.

Muslim groups have come out against the visit by Rushdie, whose fourth novel, "The Satanic Verses" (1988), led to major protests from Muslims in many countries after a 'fatwa' by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.

Organisers of the popular Jaipur Literature Festival admitted that Rushdie "will not attend" the first day of the event.

He was supposed to reach Jaipur Jan 20 and address two literary sessions.

The event's producer Sanjay Roy said in a two-line statement: "Rushdie will not be in India Jan 20 due to a change in his schedule. The festival stands by its invitation to the author."

The organisers were mum over whether he will attend the festival or not.

Nearly 250 authors from the world, including celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, will take part in the festival.

Gehlot told reporters in Delhi: "We don't have any official communication when he is coming… but minorities in the state are protesting against it. I have informed him (Chidambaram) about the situation.

"It is a famous festival. I am sure organisers … would not want anything to happen that affects the whole festival. I hope we work out something so that things don't turn ugly.

"We can't prevent (Rushdie) from coming to India since he is a PIO (Person of Indian Origin) and PIOs don't need visa," said Gehlot, who also met Law and Minorities Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.

Many Muslim leaders in Rajasthan have asked the government not to let Rushdie enter India.

After Darul Uloom Deoband — the country's biggest Islamic seminary — demanded that the writer be denied entry, some leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) minority cell in Rajasthan echoed the view.

Darul Uloom vice chancellor Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani, who had urged the Indian government to cancel Rushdie's visa, Tuesday demanded an apology from the writer for hurting Muslim sentiments.

"Rushdie has hurt Muslim sentiments. He should apologise to the entire Muslim ummah (society) for his blasphemous remarks against Islam and the Prophet. Only then we can allow him to travel to India," Nomani told IANS over phone from Deoband in Uttar Pradesh.

The Man Booker prize winning writer had earlier visited India in 2000 for a Commonwealth writers' forum, and in 2007 the Jaipur Literature Festival despite widespread protest.

Through the week, fans and liberals voiced anguish over attempts to bar Rushdie from visiting India.

In a hard-hitting message on Twitter, journalist and commentator Vir Sanghvi said: "Don't take power away from the people and give it to the bullies."

Last year, an invitation to Rushdie for the Harud festival in Kashmir that was later aborted, had triggered similar flak.

Rahul Pandita, the author of "Hello, Bastar", described the tirade against Rushdie as "shame, shame, shame!"

"This is the real face of the Congress party," Pandita said on social media. Foreign correspondent Seema Sirohi felt "the large Indian state was too weak to protect one man".