US President Barack Obama seized on a Republican Senate candidate's controversial remark about rape and pregnancy in an attempt to shore up his support among women.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Congress today to approve an unprecedented US plan to share nuclear technology with India, saying it was “not enabling a larger weapons programme".

A highly classified National Intelligence Estimate assembled by some of the US government’s most senior analysts this summer provided a pessimistic assessment about the future security and stability of Iraq.