US woman kidnapped in Afghanistan

Unknown gunmen took the pair outside of the southern city of Kandahar, said provincial governor Asadullah Khalid.

He blamed the kidnapping on the "enemy of Islam and the enemy of Afghanistan", Associated Press news agency said.

It quoted Mr Khalid as saying the unidentified 49-year-old US woman was wearing a burka when she was taken.

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He said the gunmen had not contacted the government or the aid agency Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, where she worked.

Mr Khalid added that police and intelligence officials were working to find the woman, who he said had lived in the country for years.

Followers of the hardline Taleban - ousted in 2001 - have been mounting a violent comeback over the past two years, centring on the south of the country.

There is also criminal violence in the region, associated with the opium poppy trade.

GOOGLE Ranked NO.1 in employee satisfaction....!!

For the second year in a row, Internet search engine giant Google has been named as the best company to work for in America by Fortune magazine.

Google has topped the latest list of '100 Best American Companies to Work for' followed by online mortgage lender Quicken Loans and store chain Wegmans Food Markets in the second and third positions, respectively.

"Back in our No.1 spot, Google continued to mint millionaires as the stock cracked $700 . It gives stock options to 99 per cent of employees," the magazine said.

Interestingly, in last year's list of best companies to work for in America, Quicken Loans was ranked at the 17th position whereas Wegmans Food Markets was at the third place itself.

Other leading names in the list include Cisco Systems, Starbucks Coffee, Adobe Systems, Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Procter & Gamble, AstraZeneca and Nike.

Microsoft slipped to the 86th place in the latest list from 50th position last year.

According to the report, the job growth at Google is down to 60 per cent as compared to 67 per cent in 2007. Moreover, Quicken Loans had witnessed a steep jump in job growth to 68 per cent this year whereas it was just 19 per cent previous year.

"Ethically driven is what one employee calls the online mortgage lender. It avoided the subprime crisis by sticking with plain-vanilla loans," noted the magazine report.

The list was jointly prepared by Fortune and consulting firm Great Place to Work Institute after surveying 406 companies. About 1 lakh employees at these firms responded to queries related to their attitudes about the management's credibility and job satisfaction, among others.