Murree Declaration: Agreement Between Zardari and Musharraf

Computer viruses make it to orbit

Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG.

The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games.

Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected.

Orbital outbreak

Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS.

Nasa told SpaceRef that no command or control systems of the ISS were at risk from the malicious program.

The laptops infected with the virus were used to run nutritional programs and let the astronauts periodically send e-mail back to Earth.

The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection.

Once it has scooped up passwords and login names the Gammima.AG worm virus tries to send them back to a central server. It targets a total of 10 games most of which are popular in the Far East such as Maple Story, HuangYi Online and Talesweaver.

Nasa is working with partners on the ISS to find out how the virus got on to the laptop in the first place.

The ISS has no direct net connection and all data traffic travelling from the ground to the spacecraft is scanned before being transmitted.

It is thought that the virus might have travelled via a flash or USB drive owned by an astronaut and taken into space.

The space agency also plans to put in place security systems to stop such incidents happening in the future.

Nasa told Wired News that viruses had infected laptops taken to the ISS on several occasions but the outbreaks always only been a "nuisance".

Pakistan presidential candidate Asif Ali Zardari 'suffering from severe mental problems'

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto and himself a leading contender for the country's presidency, was suffering from severe mental illness as recently as last year, it has been reported।

Mr Zardari, co-chair of the Pakistan People's Party, was diagnosed with a range of psychiatric illnesses, including dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The illnesses were said to be linked to the fact that he has spent 11 of the past 20 years in Pakistani prisons fighting charges of corruption. He claims to have been tortured during his incarceration.

In March 2007 New York psychiatrist Philip Saltiel found that Mr Zardari's time in detention left him with severe "emotional instability", memory loss and concentration problems, according to court documents seen by the Financial Times.

"I do not see any improvement in these issues for at least a year," he wrote.

Stephen Reich, a psychiatrist from New York State, said Mr Zardari was unable to recall the birthdays of his wife and children and had thought about suicide.

Mr Zardari used the medical reports to successfully fight a now defunct English High Court case in which the Pakistan government sought to sue him over alleged corruption. The case was dropped in March.

Mr Zardari was not available to comment on the documents, but Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistan high commissioner to London said he was now fit and well.

Mr Zardari is his party's candidate to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of the nuclear-armed country.

However, his coalition government with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, fell apart yesterday after Mr Sharif withdrew his party, the The Pakistan Muslim League-N.