Lyndon Johnson has been sworn in as president just a few hours after JFK's death

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Fifty-five year old Lyndon Baines Johnson begins his new job today as US president.

He was sworn in yesterday just two hours after an assassin shot President John F Kennedy in the head.

The former vice president took his oath on the presidential plane at Andrew's Air Force Base.

The new first lady, Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson witnessed the swearing-in together with the dead president's widow Jacqui Kennedy - her stocking still stained with her husband's blood.

The party flew to Washington with the assassinated president's coffin after the ceremony.

On arriving in Washington the president said "I will do my best. That is all I can do."

President Johnson will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday where it is likely he will outline his future programme.

Commentators say there probably will be little immediate change in policy with a presidential election on the horizon.

The new president has come from humble beginnings to become one of the world's most powerful men.

The eldest of five children, he was born on a Texan farm in 1908 into a poor background.

Mr Johnson worked as a teacher before entering politics as a Texan congressman's secretary in 1931.

President Roosevelt soon spotted his talents and made him the director of the National Youth Administration in Texas in 1935.

After serving six successive terms in the House of Representatives, he entered the senate in 1948 and rapidly rose through the ranks gaining powerful posts.

He made his mark by single-handedly steering the Civil Rights Act through the senate in 1957 despite opposition from within his own party.

In 1960 Mr Johnson ran in the Democratic presidential elections which he lost to Kennedy who then invited him to be his running mate.

He is regarded by some commentators as a master of compromise with an able political brain.

Mr Johnson is married with two daughters, 19 year old Lynda and Lucy aged 16.   

The gang twice tried to rob the Bank of America

Out of the 175 passengers and crew on board at least 100 people were killed when Flight ET961 broke up during an emergency landing 1,640 feet (500 metres) from a holiday beach on the Comoro Islands.

Tourists and islanders were able to reach the plane minutes after the impact and about 50 people are believed to have been rescued alive from the wreckage, including two of the suspected hijackers.

The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 had been flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi when it was hijacked by three men at 0820 GMT, four hours before it was forced to ditch into the sea.

According to Ethiopian aviation officials, they ordered the pilot to fly to Australia. He persuaded the men he needed to refuel at Hahaya Airport, 15 miles from the scene of the accident.

Witnesses of the plane's last seconds off the northern tip of Grand Comore - the largest of the four islands in the Comoro archipelago - included staff and guests at the Galawa Beach hotel.

"It certainly was a crash landing, not a nose dive, but the sea was rough and the plane just broke up on impact - thefuselagebroke into three pieces," said hotel manager Bruce Thompson.

A party of 20 French doctors were among the first to reach the scene in boats.

The survivors - including the captain and his co-pilot - were taken to local hospitals, and fewer than 20 are reported to be seriously hurt.

The motive of the hijackers remains unclear, but the two suspects, who were identified by the pilot, are under arrest on the island.

fuselage: the central body of an airplane that is designed to accommodate the crew and passengers（机身）