Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet to its rivals by hailing the hotly-anticipated Xbox One as “the best”.

BOMB blasts ripped through more than a dozen Iraqi cities yesterday morning, killing 60 security forces and civilians in the worst attack this year.

Clashes and bombings left up to 34 Taliban fighters and one policeman dead in five separate incidents in central and southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

An organisation based in Egypt has issued a statement saying that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden and former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, the two most wanted men in the US, are still alive.