U.S. President Barack Obama urged Americans to honor first responders and men and women in uniform who keep the country safe as he marked the eleventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"It's a chance to honor the courage of the first responders who risked their lives - on that day, and every day since," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

President Barack Obama can beat rival Mitt Romney as a television draw, but can't eclipse his old self.

The Nielsen Company said 35.7 million people watched the final night of the Democratic convention on Thursday between 10 and 11 p.m. Eastern time. That's when the president delivered his nomination acceptance speech.

Barack Obama's prime-time address to the nation accepting the Democratic presidential nomination for 2012 broke a new Twitter record Thursday for political traffic, the site said.

"A new record political moment on Twitter: @barackobama drives 52,757 Tweets per minute. Over 9 million Tweets sent about #DNC2012," the micro-blogging site tweeted.

Barack Obama on Thursday accepted his party's nomination for president with a prime-time convention address that asked Americans to give him four more years at the White House.

"On every issue, the choice you face won't be just between two candidates or two parties," Obama said, making his case for re-election. "It will be a choice between two different paths for America."

His approval rating may be under 50 percent but some Americans are still willing to pay good money to hear President Barack Obama speak.

With the 2012 election campaign in full swing, Obama will make a high-profile pitch to voters Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Democrats' are holding their party convention.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Beijing Wednesday that reaching a code of conduct over the South China Sea was in "everyone's interest", but denied seeking to contain the rising power.

"We do believe it's in everyone's interest that China and ASEAN engage in a diplomatic process toward the shared goal of a code of conduct," Clinton told a joint news conference in Beijing with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

President Barack Obama cranked up campaigning on his road to the Democratic National Convention in the swing state of Colorado on Sunday, as top aides slammed his Republican opponent.

With the election barely nine weeks away, Obama is locked in a tight contest against Mitt Romney, whose campaign has doggedly stood its ground and even upstaged the slick fundraising that swept the incumbent to power in 2008.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney campaigned in the swing state of Ohio on Saturday, where he likened Barack Obama's promises on job-creation to that of a failing sports coach.

Romney, fresh from being crowned the party's official candidate for the White House, campaigned in Cincinnati and unfavorably compared the job pledges made by Obama in 2008 against his subsequent record in office.

Hundreds protested outside the Hungarian consulate in Yerevan on Saturday after Budapest sent a soldier who murdered an Armenian back to his native Azerbaijan, where he was immediately pardoned.

Several hundred angry demonstrators burned the Hungarian flag and threw eggs, tomatoes and coins, accusing Budapest of doing a deal with Baku in order to profit from Azerbaijan's energy riches.

The United States has significantly scaled down a planned joint military exercise with Israel most likely because of disagreements on how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions, Time magazine has reported on its website

Citing "well-placed sources in both countries", the magazine said Washington was slashing by more than two-thirds the number of U.S. troops going to Israel, and reducing the number and potency of missile interception systems that will be used in the exercise dubbed Austere Challenge 12, which is scheduled for October.