Taliban suicide bomber kills six

A TALIBAN suicide bomber blew himself up and five others near a vehicle carrying the head of a government-allied militia in northwest Pakistan.

Senior police officer Akhtar Hayyat said several people were also wounded in the blast near a gas station in the district of Buner in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He said Fateh Khan, the head of the local anti-Taliban militia, was killed along with three guards and two passers-by.

Mr Khan was also a prominent leader of the secular Awami National Party, which rules the coalition government in the province, and which has angered the Taliban by supporting several military offensives in tribal districts and in the towns.

Shortly after the attack, Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility by telephone for the killing of Khan.

Buner is believed to be a hiding place for the Pakistani Taliban. It is located near the Swat Valley, where the insurgent group shot and wounded 15-year-old education activist Malala Yousufzai last month for criticizing its behavior when it seized the isolated region in 2008.

An offensive by the military broke the Taliban's control over the area in 2009, but attacks have continued.

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Clinton is Obama's secret weapon

REPUBLICAN Mitt Romney has millionaire backers, a huge staff and years of campaign experience but President Barack Obama has Bill Clinton.

The former president is sprinting through battleground states, delivering more speeches than Mr Obama himself and, arguably, carrying much of the president's re-election hopes on his 66-year-old shoulders.

There's nothing secret about this campaign weapon. If it's a competitive state, Mr Clinton is there - and there and there - picking apart Romney's proposals in the folksy yet detailed style he unleashed at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Many party activists left there wondering why Mr Obama can't make his own case as compellingly.

Friday was typical for Mr Clinton. He made five stops in Florida, stretching from Palm Beach in the southeast to Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast to Tallahassee in the panhandle.

Mr Romney had hoped to lock down the mega-swing state long ago. But he will return Monday because of its uncertainty.

Mr Clinton, his raspy voice hoarser than usual, mixed nostalgia with lawyerly dissections when criticising Mr Romney's tax-cut plans in Palm Bay, the day's second stop, south of Cape Canaveral.

"I don't understand how people like me could sleep at night taking another tax cut, and taking it away from you," he said to cheers from several hundred people, who clearly did not resent his post-presidential wealth.

After shucking his suit jacket and loosening his orange tie under a brilliant midday sun, Clinton rattled off statistics about recent slowdowns in the growth of health care costs, and benefits of Obama's health law. "That is what Mr Romney wants to repeal," he said.

"Bring it home, Bill" a woman shouted.

At every stop, Mr Clinton praises Mr Obama effusively, but he also reminds voters of his own days in office.

"I am the only living former president that ever gave you a budget surplus," he said in Palm Bay. Obama's policies, he adds, are much more in line with his than are Mr Romney's.

Mr Obama amplifies Mr Clinton's boasts, knowing they give credence to the endorsements. In one Ohio stop Friday, Mr Obama named Mr Clinton four times.

"For eight years we had a president who shared our beliefs, and his name was Bill Clinton," Mr Obama said. "His economic plan asked the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more so we could reduce our deficit and invest in the skills and ideas of our people." Mr Romney opposed that plan, Mr Obama said, and his math "was just as bad back then as it was today."

The white-haired Mr Clinton looks drawn and tired at times, and he makes a few flubs. He apologised this week for saluting Pennsylvania when he happened to be in Ohio.

Mr Clinton still runs late, even at morning events. Former Vice President Walter Mondale had to spin political yarns to kill time this week as voters waited in Minneapolis.

But the man who once headlined nine events in one day for his wife in the 2008 North Carolina primary - when Hillary Rodham Clinton was battling Mr Obama - still feeds off crowds' energy and affection.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, Mr Clinton gave a 57-minute dissertation on why the economy is better than many think. The only reason the Obama-Romney race is close, he said, "is because Americans are impatient on things not made before yesterday, and they don't understand why the economy is not totally hunky-dory again."

Mr Clinton campaigned for Mr Obama on Thursday in Wisconsin and Ohio. Earlier in the week he was in Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota and New Hampshire.

He will join Mr Obama on Saturday for a rally in Virginia and on Sunday morning for an event in New Hampshire. Clinton also will campaign Sunday in North Carolina and Minnesota. And on Monday, the Obama camp hopes Mr Clinton will snuff out any possible Romney eruption in Pennsylvania, scheduling stops for him in Pittsburgh and Scranton, plus two in Philadelphia.

No state underscores Mr Clinton's value more than Florida, where the Republican Bush family looms large. While Mr Obama makes every possible use of his party's most recent president, Romney can hardly mention George W. Bush, who left office amid an economic collapse and an unpopular war in Iraq.

Mr Romney campaigned Thursday in Tampa, however, with Bush's brother Jeb, a former Florida governor who remains widely popular.

Much has been made of Mr Clinton's once-frosty relationship with Mr Obama. Mr Clinton, among other things, in 2008 called Mr Obama's history of opposing the Iraq war a "fairy tale."

The two men may never be chums. But Mr Clinton's endorsements now seem full-throated. It delights Democratic loyalists.

"The Republicans have nothing to match the personal appeal and persuasive power of President Clinton," said Doug Hattaway, a consultant with close ties to the Clintons. "He can energize Democrats and close the deal with moderate swing voters."

Bruce Marvin, who attended Clinton's event in Chillicothe, Ohio, said the ex-president explains Mr Obama's plans even more understandably than does the nominee.

"I think it's backing up what Obama may not have been able to get across," Mr Marvin said.

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Power back to some NYC homes

MORE New Yorkers awoke overnight to power being restored for the first time since Superstorm Sandy pummeled the region

Those whose lights were back on celebrated it, but patience was wearing thin among those in the region who had been without power for most of the week.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline frustrated people who were just trying to get to work or pick up a load of groceries. Petrol was to be rationed starting at noon Saturday in northern New Jersey, where drivers will be allowed to buy it only every other day, the governor declared.

The ongoing recovery also forced the cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs.

Mr Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

Many runners understood the rationale behind the decision. The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of people were shivering without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of police officers protecting a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

But the suddenness of it all forced runners to deal with an unexpected twist: what to do with no race.

Well over half of the 40,000 athletes were from out of town. Their entry fees were paid. Their airline tickets were purchased. Their friends and family had hotel rooms. And all week the race was a go, even after Sandy came ashore Monday.

"I understand why it cannot be held under the current circumstances," Meb Keflezighi, the 2009 men's champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist, said in a statement. "Any inconveniences the cancellation causes me or the thousands of runners who trained and travelled for this race pales in comparison to the challenges faced by people in NYC and its vicinity."

ING, the financial company that is the title sponsor of the marathon, said it supported the decision to cancel. The firm's charitable giving arm has made a $500,000 contribution to help with relief and recovery efforts and is matching employee donations. Sponsor Poland Spring said it would donate the bottled water earmarked for the marathon to relief agencies, more than 200,000 bottles.

"When you have a significant amount of people voicing real pain and unhappiness over its running, you have to hear that. You have to take that into consideration," said Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

"Something that is such a celebration of the best of New York can't become divisive," he said. "That is not good for the city now as we try to complete our recovery effort, and it is not good for the marathon in the long run."

Each day has brought signs of recovery in the region. Fewer than 1 million customers in New York were without power Saturday, the lowest the number has been since the storm hit.

Aida Padilla, 75, was thrilled that the power at her large housing authority complex in New York City's Chelsea section had returned late Friday.

"Thank God," said Ms Padilla, 75. "I screamed and I put the lights on. Everybody was screaming. It was better than New Year's."

Asked about whether she had heat, she replied, "hot and cold water and heat! Thank God, Jesus!"

NYU Langone Medical Centre, one of two New York hospitals that had to evacuate patients at the height of the storm, said it would reopen Monday, though some doctors would see patients at alternate sites.

Seven backup generators at the hospital failed during the storm surge on Monday night, forcing the evacuation of 300 patients.

At Bellevue Hospital Centre, some 700 patients had to be evacuated after the power failed. An official there said Thursday the hospital could be out of commission at least two more weeks.

In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie announced that he would make public a list of when utility companies intend to restore power to each community. Even if they end up working faster or slower, he said, residents will have a sense of when they will have power restored so they can plan their lives a bit better.

Commuter rail operator NJ Transit said it would have more service restored in time for the workweek to start Monday, most of Atlantic City's casinos reopened, and many school districts decided to hold classes next Thursday and Friday, days previously reserved for the New Jersey Education Association's annual conference, which has been canceled because of the storm.

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'Militia attack' kills 13 in Darfur

MILITIA in Sudan's North Darfur state have attacked a village and killed 13 people, a local source says.

The attack on Friday targeted Sigili village, about 30 kilometres southeast of the state capital El Fasher, said the source, who cannot be further identified for security reasons.

"Basically it was a tribal clash between local militia and Zaghawa," the source said, adding that five people were also reported missing.

Since July, civilians have been increasingly at risk from inter-communal fighting, harassment by militia groups, and sporadic clashes between rebel and government troops, particularly in North Darfur, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a three-monthly report issued on October 16.

Disputes between farmers and pastoralists over land use triggered most of the inter-communal violence, he said.

Tensions escalated when tribal militia aligned to the government became involved, along with anti-regime rebels.

"At the same time, local sources have cited mounting frustration among communities from which the militias are drawn ... over unfulfilled commitments by the government that have led to the militia challenging authorities and engaging government security forces," Ban said.

In the Hashaba area northwest of El Fasher, more than 70 civilians died in September from rebel-government fighting and aerial bombardments, the United States said.

Ban did not provide a casualty figure from that incident.

But he said a dispute over land use triggered clashes between Arab nomads and Tunjur farmers in Hashaba before fighting reportedly escalated after government and rebel forces also became involved.

Peacekeepers from the African Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were prevented from reaching the area three times in late September, due to government restrictions blamed on insecurity, Ban said.

On October 17, a UNAMID convoy on its way to the Hashaba area for an assessment was ambushed by unidentified attackers, killing one South African UNAMID member and injuring three others.

Though down from its peak, violence persists in Darfur nine years after ethnic African rebels rose against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government. The United Nations estimates at least 300,000 people died but the government puts the toll at 10,000.

An estimated 1.7 million Darfur people are still living in camps for the displaced, the UN says.

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Van attack kills at least 18 in Pakistan

AT LEAST 18 people were killed in a huge blaze that erupted after gunmen opened fire on a passenger van at a petrol stall in restive southwest Pakistan, officials said.

Senior local official Abdul Mansoor Kakar said that four gunmen opened fire on the van with automatic rifles, igniting petrol drums by the roadside and triggering a massive inferno.

The incident took place in the outskirts of Khuzdar, around 250 kilometres southwest of Quetta, the capital of insurgency-hit Baluchistan province.

Baluchistan is one of Pakistan's most impoverished and dangerous provinces, despite having large gas and oil reserves, and it is plagued by sectarian violence as well as attacks by Taliban militants and separatist insurgents.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

A number of stalls selling petrol smuggled from Iran were engulfed in the fire, Mr Kakar said, with stallholders among the dead.

"At least 18 people have been killed in the fire. The dead included seven women and four children sitting in the passenger van," Mr Kakar said.

Doctor Akbar Harifal, the top administrative official in Khuzdar confirmed the new death toll, which rose sharply from a previous tally of seven dead.

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Sony adds live broadcasting to games

SONY Online Entertainment (SOE) announced an alliance with Twitch to let gamers broadcast online play live for others to watch.

The feature will make its debut in massively multiplayer online first-person shooter computer game PlanetSide 2 which will launch in North America and Europe on November 20.

The free-to-play title lets thousands of online players simultaneously engage in virtual combat on an alien planet. Beta testing of the ability to live stream gameplay using Twitch was set to be expanded this weekend.

"We believe very strongly in providing deeper social and emergent gameplay experiences," said SOE president John Smedley.

"The ability for our players to broadcast their gameplay directly to Twitch will provide Twitch's huge user base a chance to see the massive scale battles in PlanetSide 2 for themselves," he continued.

"We've gone out of our way to make the interface extremely easy to use and allow players to cast with just one-click."

Twitch bills itself as the world's largest videogame broadcasting network.

Millions of people monthly watch videogame play streamed using TwitchTV, which boasts partners such as the Electronic Sports League, Major League Gaming and IGN Pro League.

San Francisco-based Twitch was created by the founders of live video streaming platform Justin.tv - Justin Kan and Emmett Shear.

TwitchTV launched last year and has since made a partnership with television titan CBS to get money-making video and display ads to weave in during breaks in live game play.

Twitch "broadcasters" range from professional gaming leagues to individual players.

"With the Twitch community now in excess of 20 million gamers, live broadcasting has evolved from a niche novelty to an integral part of the gaming experience," said Twitch marketing vice president Matthew DiPietro.

"We're in discussions with the industry's largest developers and publishers, so there's no question that integrating turn-key live broadcasting into games is the future of this industry."

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Solid jobs numbers send US stocks higher

A SOLID number on US job creation in October has given a spark to stocks, even as the unemployment rate ticked higher to 7.9 per cent.

The economy generated a net 171,000 jobs last month, and revisions put the three-month average at 170,000, better news than expected for the economy and President Barack Obama as he fights to keep his job in next Tuesday's vote.

Five minutes into Friday's trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 47.35 points (0.36 per cent) to 13,279.97.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 4.83 (0.34 per cent) to 1432.42, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 6.77 points (0.22 per cent) to 3026.83.

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Teen takes break from school to launch app

A FORMER Australian schoolboy has launched an iPhone app after attracting $US1 million ($A966,000) from tech-savvy and celebrity investors.

London-born Nick D'Aloisio, 16, who spent some of his early years in Melbourne and Perth, is living back in his homeland and this week the whiz kid has made the most of his school's semester break, as his creation Summly goes live.

The app, designed for Apple's popular smartphone, condenses news articles into three key paragraphs that fit on an iPhone screen, reports British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

Users can customise news categories and select links to original articles.

"I designed Summly because I felt that my generation wasn't consuming traditional news anymore," said the teenager.

"I was using Google and Bing and there were so many results to scroll through it was really inefficient.

"So I built an algorithm that shared them and trimmed them. Then it just transformed into the idea of: why not just summarise news in general?"

After developing a prototype in 2011, Nick received some $US300,000 backing from Horizon Ventures, a private technology investment company owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

News of the support arrived on Nick's 16th birthday, making him one of the youngest people ever to attract venture capital funding.

Since the initial investment, the schoolboy has found additional support from Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher, British screen celebrity Stephen Fry and Yoko Ono.

Nick's lawyer mother is a director of the company behind the app and owns shares on his behalf.

"The reality hasn't sunk in yet; I've just been focused on building the product," Nick said of his excitement about Summly.

While dedicating a lot of his time to the app, Nick plans to continue his studies and hopes to branch into philosophy or history at university.

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Oil spill off storm-battered NY

US oil company Shell has confirmed superstorm Sandy triggered an oil spill in the waters off New York City, without specifying an amount, saying clean up efforts were underway.

A news report said 300,00 gallons of diesel fuel spilled.

"At least two diesel storage tanks were damaged and an unknown quantity of product was released," the company said in a statement.

The storage tanks were at a Sewaren, New Jersey refinery part-owned by Shell and run by Motiva.

"No injuries have occurred and there has been no further product released since the initial event."

"Previously deployed booms are continuing to skim released product in the Woodbridge creek adjacent to the site. Motiva and public emergency responders are onsite assessing the situation."

CNN reported that some 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel had spilled, saying the US Coast Guard was overseeing the cleanup effort.

The Coast Guard was not immediately available for comment.

The massive storm carved a path of devastation across the US northeast on Monday and Tuesday, flooding lower Manhattan and much of the New Jersey coastline and leaving millions without electricity across several states.

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Object thrown from stolen car strikes man

A MAN is in hospital with serious head injuries after being hit by an object thrown from a suspected stolen car in the Northern Tablelands of NSW.

Police had been trying to stop the suspect vehicle but called off their pursuit on the New England Highway near Glen Innes at about 4.20pm (AEDT) on Thursday.

Shortly afterwards, when the vehicle passed another car, a heavy object was thrown from it.

It hit the other driver on the head, leaving his passenger to take over as he was left incapacitated.

The car was eventually stopped by the passenger and the injured man was taken to Armidale Hospital with serious head injuries, after being treated at the scene.

Officers from New England Local Area Command arrested four men and one woman who are assisting them with inquiries.

A critical incident team from a neighbouring command will investigate circumstances surrounding the police operation, overseen by the Professional Standards Command.

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