Briefly World

William M Daley will be the next White House chief of staff,Obama administration officials said Thursday.

JP Morgans Daley is OBamas next chief of staff

Washington: William M Daley will be the next White House chief of staff,Obama administration officials said Thursday. Currently a senior executive with JP Morgan Chase,and formerly a commerce secretary with the Clinton administration,Daley is expected to bring an outsiders voice and decades of business experience to the West Wing. Pete Rouse,the interim chief of staff and a longtime friend of the Presidents,will become a counselor to Obama,officials said.

Mali: Embassy attacker claims Qaeda link

BAMAKO: Police in Mali say the man who attacked the French embassy here with a gas cylinder claims he is a member of the Al-Qaeda terror network and a Tunisian citizen. Abdoulaye Sow,who runs the police station where the detained man was brought for questioning after Wednesdays attack,says the assailant did not have any identity documents with him and the claims could not be confirmed.

MJ bodyguard breaks down while testifying

Los Angeles: Alberto Alvarez,the first of Michael Jacksons bodyguards to testify in the trial of the icons physician,Conrad Murray told the court that the doctor asked him to remove a bag of medicines and a drip bag before calling an ambulance. Prosecutors claim Murray was attempting to hide the fact that he had injected Jackson with a fatal dose of a powerful hospital anaesthetic.

Siberian tiger kills bus driver in China

Beijing: A Siberian tiger attacked and killed a tour bus driver in China while horrified passengers watched,Chinese media reported. The tiger pounced on Jin Shijun and dragged him into the forest after he got out to check on his bus,which was stuck in the snow at the breeding base in Heilongjiang.

24 kids hospitalised with lead poisoning

Beijing: Twenty-four children living close to two battery manufacturing plants in China were hospitalised after high levels of lead were found in their blood. The children were taken in with severe lead poisoning,with more than 250 microgrammes of lead per litre of blood.