Ebola epidemic leads to US protective gear backlog

New York - A surge of orders for gear to protect against Ebola is leading to backlogs through January for some US customers, as demand expands beyond hospitals to fire-fighters and others, manufacturers and healthcare workers said.

Requests for bodily fluid-resistant gowns, shoe covers and face shields have jumped since the first case of the virus was diagnosed in the United States in late September and as Ebola has ravaged three West African countries.

The shortage has forced fire-fighters to improvise when responding to a potential Ebola patient by using existing, standard gear, putting them further at risk, officials said.

600 US troops exposed to chemical agents - officials

Washington - More than 600 US troops since 2003 reported that they were exposed to chemical agents in Iraq, officials said on Thursday, a much higher number than the Pentagon stated previously.

The revelation was first reported by the New York Times, which has revealed in a series of articles this month that American troops handled an arsenal of deteriorating chemical agents and were sometimes told to stay silent about what they encountered.

The Pentagon failed to recognise the scale of the reported cases of exposure to chemical agents or to offer proper tracking and treatment to those troops who may have been injured, the Times wrote, citing defence officials.

Uruguay's 'poor president' gets big offers for his car

Montevideo - President Jose Mujica says he has received a million-dollar offer to buy his blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, which has become a symbol of the Uruguayan leader's austere lifestyle.

The man once nicknamed "the poorest president in the world" told the Uruguayan weekly Busqueda that an Arab sheik offered $1m for the humble car. When asked about the reported offer at a news conference, Mujica said: "That's what they said to me, but I didn't give it any importance."

In an informal chat, Mexico's ambassador to Uruguay recently suggested to Mujica that he auction the Beetle in Mexico and predicted he could get 10 four-wheel-drive trucks for it, according to a spokesperson for the Mexican Embassy who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk with the press.

US woman strangled and beaten, pics posted online

Portland - A man accused of killing his live-in girlfriend and posting photos of her lifeless body online was headed back to Washington State after he surrendered to an officer in neighbouring Oregon and waived extradition.

David Kalac, aged 33, was arrested on Wednesday night nearly 322km from the crime scene after a daylong manhunt. He was held overnight in Portland on a second-degree murder charge, authorities said.

On Thursday, Kalac waived extradition and was being transported back to Port Orchard, Washington, west of Seattle.

Taking credit for killing bin Laden sparks debate

Washington - Some special operations service members and veterans are unhappy that one of their own has taken credit publicly for killing Osama bin Laden.

 Others say they have gotten used to the idea that their brethren might break the code of silence and seek to profit from their deeds.

That internal debate gained intensity this week when retired Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill acknowledged that he had fired two rounds into the forehead of the al-Qaeda leader during the 2011 raid on his secret compound in Pakistan. O'Neill says more and more people were becoming aware of his role and that his name was bound to become public anyway.