President George W. Bush met Pakistan’s newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari in New York on Tuesday and promised to help Pakistan improve its economy and security.

The meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session, comes as ties between Washington and Islamabad have been strained over the war on terror. Islamabad has denounced unilateral U.S. action in Pakistan’s border regions and Pakistani troops reportedly fired on U.S. helicopters earlier this month.

According to a recent New York Times report, Bush secretly approved covert U.S. operations against Taliban and al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan. These operations are to be conducted without prior approval from the Pakistani government, a fact that has drawn sharp protests from Islamabad.

Prior to his meeting with Zardari, Bush acknowledged the Pakistani leader’s “words have been very strong about Pakistan's sovereign right and sovereign duty to protect your country, and the United States wants to help.” Bush described Pakistan as a “close and important friend.”

He expressed his condolences to the victims of the recent terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. “I know that you -- your heart went out to the families of those who suffer and so does the collective heart of the American people; we stand with you,” Bush said.

Bush thanked Zardari for “staying involved in public service to honour” his wife, Benazir Bhutto’s legacy. Bhutto was killed in a terrorist attack in Rawalpindi on December 27.

“Pakistan is an ally, and I look forward to deepening our relationship,” Bush said before going in to the meeting with Zardari. The U.S. President said the two would be discussing how to help spread prosperity“We want our friends around the world to be making a good living. We want there to be economic prosperity and we can work together, and of course we'll be talking about security,” Bush said.

Zardari acknowledged, “We have a situation. We have issues. We've got problems. But we will solve them and we will rise to the occasion.”

He praised Bush saying, “As always, you prove to the world that your heart is in there for us Pakistanis, we respect your feelings, we respect the American ideals. And we bring to this the whole concept of your promise to the world of bringing democracy to Pakistan.”

“Democracy has come full circle and it's been the help of all the friends around the world and we are thankful to the world for helping democracy,” the Pakistani leader noted, adding, “And democracy is the answer. We will solve all the problems.

Zardari told Bush: “We should come together in this hard time and we will share the burden and the responsibility with the world.”

Helsinki, September 23
A student shot and killed 10 persons at a vocational school in western Finland today before turning the gun on himself, in the country's second such attack in less than a year.

The gunman, identified by a local government official as student Matti Juhani Saari, 22, died later of a head wound in Tampere University Hospital, the hospital's medical director told Reuters.

"According to latest information given to me, the number of deaths is 11," interior minister Anne Holmlund said in a live interview with Finnish national broadcaster YLE.

In an echo of last year's deadly attack at Finland's Jokela high school, Saari posted menacing comments and videos of himself wielding a gun on the Internet in the run-up to his shooting rampage.

"A cold-blooded shooter entered the building with an automatic pistol and started cutting down students," said Jukka Forsberg, a maintenance man at the school in the town of Kauhajoki where the shooting occurred.

"He also shot towards me, did not say anything and once the bullets started to whizz by I started running for my life."

Many of the students at the post-secondary school, which teaches catering and tourism studies, are around 20 years old. Holmlund told a news conference earlier on Tuesday that the police was in contact with Saari a day before the shooting, after they were alerted to footage posted on the Web showing him firing a handgun at a shooting range.

Gun ownership in Finland is among the highest in the world, but crime rates in general are low. The Internet link revived memories of last year's deadly attack at Jokela high school, where student Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal after broadcasting his intent in a YouTube video. — Reuters 

BRIEFLY

Poll campaign goes to dogs
WELLINGTON: A pet food company has come up with a novel way of gauging the public mood ahead of the New Zealand’s general election- which political leader would you like to see fed to the dogs? Masterpet has made rubber-chew toys for dogs with likenesses to the two politicians vying to run the country after the November 8 election, website www.stuff.co.nz has reported. Masterpet said it would publish sales of the Helen Clark and John Key toys as an informal “dog tucker poll”. — Reuters

Thinnest balloon created
NEW YORK: Move over, the average party balloons. Here’s science’s latest creation - the world’s thinnest balloon, just one atom thick. Using a lump of graphite, a piece of scotch tape and a silicon wafer, a team at Cornell University has produced the balloon-like membrane that is one atom thick but strong enough to contain gases under several atmospheres of pressure. And, unlike normal balloons, the membrane is actually ultra-strong, leak-proof as well as impermeable to even nimble helium atoms. — PTI

Rally against porn Bill
DENPASAR (INDONESIA): Hundreds of people protested in the Indonesian resort island of Bali against a proposed anti-pornography law here on Tuesday. Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika told the crowd the Bill overlapped with existing legislation and trampled local customs in a country of ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. “The parliament should enforce other laws on the sex industry but don’t endorse a new law on pornography,” he said. — AFP

Kelly to pen autobiography
Washington: Popstar Kelly Osbourne has signed a productive deal with publishers to pen her autobiography. Kelly, the daughter of rock legend Ozzy Osbourne, is to follow in her mum's footsteps and pen her memoirs. In the tell-all tome, the 'Shut Up' hitmaker will spill the beans about the hidden secrets of her life including her two trips to rehab for addiction to painkillers and her infamous feud with singer Christina Aguilera, reports Contact music. — ANI