White House loses 'electronic touch' for 2 hrs

Washington, Jan 27: The new White House's e-mail system crashed on Monday, Jan 26 leaving the administration out of electronic touch for almost two and a half hours. The last e-mail from the White House reached press at about 9 am informing that President Barack Obama's event on energy independence in the East Room would be open to all media.

Usually only a smaller group of reporters and photographers follow the President. The malfunction left inboxes in the White House complex and across town errily empty.

Later Robert Gibbs, US Press Secretary apologised to the media for being out of electronic touch. "Our apologies if you've e-mailed any of us in the last two-and-a-half hours," he said. "Our e-mail system is not working so well. So our apologies on that, and we'll endeavour to get you information from earlier in the day, hopefully in a little bit more of a timely manner, if we can get the e-mail to work," he added. In the end his assistants got the necessary information, but in the old-fashion, 'on paper.'

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)