Germany clinches bank rescue deal

Germany's finance ministry has agreed a 50bn euro ($68bn; £38.7bn) plan to save one of the country's biggest banks.

The deal to save Hypo Real Estate, reached with private banks, is worth 15bn euros more than the first rescue attempt, which fell apart on Saturday.

Germany earlier appeared to announce an unlimited guarantee for private savings and Denmark later followed suit.



Brics slump as investors flee emerging markets

The Bric stock markets crumbled yesterday as investors in emerging market stocks — including Brazil, Russia, India and China — suffered their worst one-day losses in history.

Exchanges in Russia and Brazil halted trading as their benchmark indices plummeted 18 and 10 per cent respectively. India's Sensex index lost nearly 6per cent as foreign investors fled amid fears that a serious global downturn beckons. China's CSI 300 Index lost more than 5per cent, to extend its losses for the year to 60 per cent. Last night the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which tracks bourses from Chile to Jordan, was down more than 8.2 per cent, leaving it poised for its biggest one-day slide on record.

“Foreign funds are panicking,” Deven Choksey, of KR Choksey, the Bombay brokerage, said. The Indian slump has been driven by the exodus of nearly $10 billion (£5.7billion) of overseas money this year as investors seek sanctuary in US Treasury bonds.




U.S. bank failures almost certain to increase in next year

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Here's a safe bet for uncertain times: A lot of banks won't survive the next year of upheaval despite the U.S. government's $700 billion rescue plan to restore order to the financial industry.

The biggest questions are how many will perish and how they will be put out of their misery, whether it's outright closures by regulators scrambling to preserve the dwindling deposit insurance fund or in fire sales made under government pressure.

Weakened by huge losses on risky home loans, the banking industry is now on the shakiest ground since the early 1990s, when more than 800 federally insured institutions failed in a three-year period. That was during the clean-up phase of a decade-long savings-and-loan meltdown that wound up costing U.S. taxpayers $170 billion to $205 billion, after adjusting for inflation.

The government's commitment to spend up to $700 billion buying bad debts from ailing banks is likely to save some institutions that would have otherwise died, but analysts doubt it will be enough to avert a major shakeout.

"It will help, but it's not going to be the saving grace" because a lot of banks are holding construction loans and other types of deteriorating assets that the government won't take off their books, predicted Stanford Financial analyst Jaret Seiberg. He expects more than 100 banks nationwide to fail next year.




Bank of America Posts Lower Profit, Cuts Dividend

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp. will cut its dividend by 50 percent and plans to sell $10 billion in common shares after third-quarter profit fell 68 percent. The stock fell in late trading.

Bank of America profit dropped to $1.18 billion, or 15 cents a share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $3.7 billion, or 82 cents, in the same period last year, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company said in a statement.




Financial crisis: Stock market suffers its worst fall in history

The UK stock market has suffered its worst one-day fall in history as the banking crisis intensified.

The FTSE-100 index of Britain's biggest companies dropped by 391.06 points - its steepest ever fall - to end the day down 7.9 per cent.

The FTSE's tumble was mirrored across Europe, as markets in France, Germany, Italy and Spain all recorded heavy falls.

On Wall Street, the panic drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average down through the 10,000 level for the first time in four years.The mild euphoria that greeted the passage of the $700bn bail-out of Wall Street on Friday evaporated as traders digested the more bad news from Europe.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 800 points during the session, slipping below the key psychological level of 10,000 for the first time since 2004.



Now Iceland freezes out British investors as internet bank admits 'We can't safeguard your cash'

More than 200,000 British investors in the internet bank Icesave were last night shut out from a guarantee to protect 100 per cent of their savings.

In a short statement, the Icelandic government said it would fully guarantee deposits in domestic banks.

But heads of Landsbanki, which runs Icesave, admitted that its UK-based savers would not get the same protection for their £4.5billion investments should it go bust.



Asia continues plunge in shares (Tuesday, Oct. 6)

Asian stock markets have opened down sharply amid investor panic that global government action might not be enough to stem the financial crisis.

Japan's Nikkei index plunged more than 5% - shattering the psychological 10,000-point barrier for the first time in nearly five years - before rallying.

Share prices in China, Taiwan and South Korea also dropped. The main US index earlier fell 8% before bouncing back.



EU-Backed Gas Pipeline Needs Iranian Fuel, Minister Nozari Says

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Iran's gas is an unavoidable source for the Nabucco pipeline project, that will supply fuel from the Caspian Sea region to Europe, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said.

"The Nabucco project can't be carried out without Iran,'' he told reporters at a gas conference in Tehran today. "Europe will eventually need to turn to Iran.''

The 3,300-kilometer (2,050-mile) pipeline aims to bring gas from the Caspian via Turkey and the Balkans to Western Europe by 2013. The 7.9 billion-euro ($10.9 billion) link is backed by the European Union to reduce energy dependence from Russia.

Such a project needs years to become cost-efficient and Iran is the only country with reserves to supply Europe over an extended period, Nozari said. Iran has the world's second- largest gas reserves.



Iran to start gas exports to Armenia by Oct. 13

TEHRAN -- Iran will start gas exports to Armenia by October 13, the director of the gas export operation office of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) said here on Sunday.

“Armenia also started electricity export to Iran on Sunday,” Rasoul Salmani added, IRINN reported. “Iran plans to annually export some 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Armenia. In the first phase Iran will export less volume to Armenia but will increase the export volume gradually, and in 2019 will raise it to 2.3 billion cubic meters” he explained.




Pope begins Bible-reading marathon on Italian TV

ROME: Pope Benedict XVI's "In the beginning" started off a weeklong Bible-reading marathon on Italian television Sunday.

RAI state TV began its program called "The Bible Day and Night," with Benedict reciting the first chapter of the book of Genesis — the holy text's opening verses about the creation of the world.

The marathon will feature more than 1,200 people reading the Old and New Testament in over seven days and six nights.

While the pope recited his segment from the Vatican, most of the reading will be done live in Rome's Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a basilica built in the fourth century.

Besides Roman Catholics, members of other religions, including Jews, Protestants and Orthodox Christians will participate.



What is it about Austria? Why the birthplace of Hitler has just voted for the Far Right
If ever there was an acceptable face of the Far Right in Europe, Mario Miksch is it.

...
Mr Strache insists he is nothing but a patriot and claims some of his best friends are Turkish; but his critics claim that some of his other friends have been neo-fascists, including three Neo-Nazis with whom he was allegedly photographed with in the late 1980s.

Yet while opponents say he is little more than a bovver-boy in a suit, Mr Strache's party polled 18 per cent in last Sunday's parliamentary elections, mainly at the expense of the mainstream Social Democrats and Conservatives, whose ruling coalition is seen to have ignored rising concerns about immigration.

A further 11 per cent of votes went to the Alliance for the Future of Austria, a splinter Far Right party run by Mr Strache's better-known rival, Jörg Haider, who earned similar notoriety a decade ago for professing admiration for the Waffen SS.

Now Austria's two mainstream parties face the unpalatable choice of either forming yet another shaky coalition, or of sharing power with the Far Right.
...

"I used to vote Social Democrat, but I am now voting for the Freedom Party because of the immigrant issue," said one resident, who declined to give his name.

"The Turkish families let their kids play out all night during the summer, and we have to sleep with the windows shut because of the noise, even when it's really hot. Strache is a good guy for at least being honest about immigration - others have just ignored it."

Others fret that white children in local kindergartens are outnumbered by immigrant youngsters. "I have Turkish friends, but my younger kids coming back from kindergarten speaking swear words in Turkish, while the older ones get abused for being Austrian," said Harald Salomon, 35, a removals man.

"The immigrant kids tell them, 'You'd better watch your mouth, because we're in the majority here now.'"

[The people of Austria, and the rest of Europe, have a legitimate problem on their hands. I just don't like where the 'solution' appears headed.--Amanda]



Suicide blast hits Sri Lanka town

A suicide blast in the Sri Lankan town of Anuradhapura has killed at least 27 people, including a former senior general, according to the army.

Maj Gen Janaka Perera, a controversial commander in the Jaffna peninsula in the 1990s, died alongside his wife.

More than 80 people were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside the United National Party office near a bus depot, officials said.

They blamed the attack on separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

Gen Perera was the provincial leader of the United National Party (UNP), the country's main opposition party, and a critic of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government.




33 killed in fighting in northeast India

GUWAHATI, India: At least 33 people were killed and thousands left homeless in violence over the weekend between tribal people and Bangladeshi settlers in northeast India, the police and hospital authorities said.

Violence between members of the Bodo tribe and Muslim immigrants broke out Friday in Rowta in the Udalguri district of Assam State, about 60 miles north of Dispur, the state capital. It then spread to neighboring districts.

The deaths included eight people shot Sunday by the police, who opened fire on rioters.

Villagers from the two groups fought with guns, bows and arrows, machetes and spears. More than 100 were wounded, and 50,000 fled their homes to take refuge in makeshift camps set up by the police.



Bomber targets Pakistan MP's home

At least 17 people have died in a suicide attack on the home of an MP in Pakistan's Punjab province, police say.

Dozens were injured in the bombing, which took place at a reception hosted by MP Rasheed Akbar Nawani.

He is a member of the PML-N party led by former PM Nawaz Sharif. Mr Nawani himself escaped with slight injuries.




Turkish troops bomb northern Iraq after PKK clashes

(CNN) -- The Turkish military bombed PKK rebel targets Saturday in northern Iraq in response to clashes that left at least 15 Turkish troops dead, the PKK and the military said Sunday.

The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, said it sustained no casualties in the operation.

The Turkish military said the air operation was conducted on the PKK's "hiding positions" in the Avasin-Basyan area of northern Iraq near the border with Turkey.

During the operation, steps were taken to avoid civilian casualties, the Turkish military said.




Suicide bomber strikes in Mosul

Eleven people have been killed during a American raid in the Iraqi city of Mosul in which a suicide bomber blew himself up, the US military says.

Three women and three children were among the dead at the private home, the US military said, adding that five "terrorists" had also died.

However, an official at a local morgue told the BBC most of the dead showed signs of bullet wounds.

Elsewhere in Mosul, four people were killed when gunmen attacked a funeral.

Three other people were wounded in the drive-by attack in the Zanjili district, the BBC's Hugh Sykes reports from Baghdad.



Bomber Strikes During Raid in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Oct. 5 -- A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vest inside a home in northern Iraq as U.S. forces were trading gunfire with its occupants, according to the American military. Eleven Iraqis were killed in the operation early Sunday.

No U.S. casualties were reported in the incident in Mosul, where war continues to rage despite a sharp drop in violence in much of the rest of the country.




28 Somali Emigrant Drown near Shabwa Coasts; 35 More Die Near Taiz’s Dhubab Coast

On Saturday, 35 African refugees died near Dhubab coast of Taiz when their boat flipped over. Only five managed to live the tragedy.

This comes as waves of Somali refugees continue to arrive to Yemen, as the number of refugees trying to enter the country nearly tripled since the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Meanwhile, as Yemenis were celebrating Eid Al-Fitr, Interior Ministry sources revealed that twenty-eight illegal Somali migrants died when their boat capsized off Yemen's southern coasts.

The same sources reported that strong winds and high waves were to blame for the incident. Only 15 corpses have been recovered so far and the number is rising as coastguard and fishermen find more bodies.



Lavrov Calls for Pirate Fight

Russia will work with the United States and European Union to fight piracy off the African coast and wants naval forces gathering in the area to coordinate their efforts, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

Lavrov's comments signal that momentum is growing for coordinated international action to back up the sharp response after the stunning seizure late last month of a Ukrainian ship with a cargo of 33 Soviet-built tanks and a crew that includes two Russians.

"Russia aims to prevent pirates from causing mayhem," Lavrov said.

He said nations with naval vessels in the area, which include the United States, should work together against piracy.

"It would be useful to coordinate the naval forces that are deployed," Lavrov said, RIA-Novosti reported. "It seems everything is leading to this."



Russia finds unlikely ally in Ukraine's Tymoshenko

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin has struck a tactical alliance with its former foe Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko designed to help her become the next president and help Russia rein in Ukraine's drive to embrace the West.

Tymoshenko and the Kremlin have put aside years of mutual suspicion to unite against Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the driving force behind Kiev's ambitions to join NATO and Tymoshenko's rival in a bitter struggle for power.

The new warmth was on show on Thursday when Tymoshenko -- who two years ago accused Russia of extorting cash from Ukraine in a row over gas -- had a cordial meeting with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin followed by unscheduled, late-night talks with President Dmitry Medvedev.

"The tactical interests of Moscow and Tymoshenko have coincided. They have the same main opponent and that is Yushchenko," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.



Russia's warships head for exercise with Venezuelan navy

Russia displayed its military strength in the Mediterranean yesterday after warships heading to Venezuela passed through the Strait of Gibraltar in the second deployment of Russian naval vessels in the waterway since the Cold War.

The nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, accompanied by the Admiral Chabanenko, an anti-submarine destroyer, as well as a reconnaissance vessel and a support ship, are destined for a maritime exercise with the Venezuelan navy.

En route, however, the aim appears to be to demonstrate to the West and Nato that Russia is once again back in business as a blue-water power.

“It's all about strutting your stuff and cocking a snook at the West, in the same way that the Bears [Russian strategic bombers] have been doing since they began patrolling again,” said Andrew Brookes, of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.




2 More Christians Murdered in Iraq

MOSUL, Iraq, OCT. 5, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Two Christian men were killed Saturday in Mosul, contributing to a "climate of panic" among the small community there, reports AsiaNews.it.

Hazim Thomaso Youssif, 40, and Ivan Nuwya, 15, were both killed in the Iraqi city, contributing to a long list of attacks against Christians in the war-torn country. Youssif was ambushed in front of his clothing store, and Nuwya was shot to death in front of his home, located near the local mosque of Alzhara.

A source for AsiaNews in Mosul reported that there is a "climate of panic" among the Christian community there, and that the city "has become the holocaust of the Christians."




Iraqi Christians suffer ‘paralyzing fear,’ Archbishop of Baghdad reports

Baghdad, Oct 3, 2008 / 05:43 am (CNA).- Jean Sleiman, the Latin-rite Archbishop of Baghdad, recently spoke to an Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) event in Westminster, England, saying a “paralyzing fear” still grips Iraq’s Christian communities. The archbishop said “very real persecution” remains a threat alongside intense pressure to conform to rigorous Islamic standards, driving many Christians to leave the country.

The archbishop, a Lebanese Carmelite who pastors approximately 5,000 Latin-rite Catholics in Iraq, spoke of the situation in the country before a crowd of more than 400 at the Aid to the Church in Need UK’s annual Westminster Event this past Saturday.

Archbishop Sleiman said most Christians in Iraq still want to leave the country despite the decline of violence in and around Baghdad and the reconstruction efforts in Kurdish areas in the north. He said Baghdad, Mosul, and other regions remained hot-spots of persecution and violence against minority groups.

The Christian population numbered over one million before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, but is now barely 400,000.




The convenient war against the Jews

...
The anti-Semitic belief that all Jews are Zionists and therefore all Jews are fair game in the war against Israel - itself simply another round of the age-old war against the Jews - allows anti-Semites to obfuscate the fact that their anti-Israel rhetoric is simply warmed over Jew-hatred. People like Iranian leaders Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei, and Palestinian terrorists from the PLO and their progeny in Hamas and Hizbullah nearly always limit their threats to "Zionists," and so pretend that they aren't actually anti-Semites.

Their razor-thin deception is eagerly embraced by their fellow travelers in the West - from university professors like Juan Cole, Steven Walt and John Mearshimer, to policymakers like Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, to Western decision-makers and European heads of state, and an alarming number of American politicians.

This deception is par for the course of anti-Semitism. Throughout history anti-Semites have used Jew-hatred as a way to rally their troops. By attacking Jews as the collective enemy, tyrants have given their people a convenient, weak culprit to attack to deflect criticism away from their own failures or to hide real enemies from pacifistic publics uninterested in fighting. Anti-Semitism appeals to people's basest instinct. But people don't like to acknowledge how much they hate Jews, and Jews have always preferred to deny that they are hated.
...




NATO chief: I'm not positive Iran can be stopped

In what is seen as a rare statement of support for Israel, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday that there was no reason for Israel to surrender its alleged nuclear capabilities in the face of Iran's continued race towards nuclear power.

Speaking at a conference in France, Scheffer said he did not believe the international community would be able to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

"I am not positive about the world being able to stop Iran from fulfilling its ambitions," he was quoted as saying.

"It is a major challenge to prevent Iran from continuing to strive to get the bomb," Scheffer said, adding that his concern was "that the Security Council, as we speak, is rather incapable of coming to further conclusions on further sanctions."




We can't defeat Taleban, says Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith

The departing commander of British forces in Afghanistan says he believes the Taleban will never be defeated.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, whose troops have suffered severe casualties after six months of tough fighting, will hand over to 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines this month.

He told The Times that in his opinion, a military victory over the Taleban was “neither feasible nor supportable”.

“What we need is sufficient troops to contain the insurgency to a level where it is not a strategic threat to the longevity of the elected Government,” he said.




Law puts thousands of Florida voter IDs in question
Florida's controversial 'no-match' law has already called into question thousands of new voter registrations.

TALLAHASSEE -- About 3,200 new voters are in the cross-hairs of Florida's new and controversial ''no-match'' law, which could force them to cast provisional ballots on Election Day if officials can't confirm their identities.

The law, designed to prevent potential election fraud and remove joke names from voter rolls -- ''Ricco Suave'' and ''Joe Blow'' among them -- requires local elections officials to mail letters to anyone whose registration information doesn't match the state's driver's license or Social Security databases.

Only those who registered after Sept. 8 are affected. Since then, 71,000 new Florida voters have registered through Monday, according to Florida's elections division.




Dubai aims to top its own world's tallest tower
The structure will soar the length of more than 10 American football fields

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - With its world's tallest building nearing completion, Dubai said Sunday it is embarking on an even more ambitious skyscraper: one that will soar the length of more than 10 American football fields.

That's about two-thirds of a mile or the height of more than three of New York's Chrysler Buildings stacked end-to-end.

Babel had nothing on this place.




Police: Jobless father kills family, self

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A man distraught because he could not find work shot and killed his mother-in-law, his wife and three sons and then killed himself inside a home in an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood, police said.

Authorities said the man had an MBA in finance but appeared to have been unemployed for several months and had worked for major accounting firms, such as Price Waterhouse.

The two-story rented home is in a gated community in Porter Ranch, about 20 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The shootings were discovered after 8:20 a.m. Monday, after a neighbor called police to report that the wife had failed to pick her up to take her to her job at a pharmacy, Deputy Chief of Police Michel Moore said.

Ed Winter, assistant chief from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, identified the suspect as Karthik Rajaram, 45.

Winter said the victims included Rajaram's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, and his 19-year-old son Krishna Rajaram, a Fulbright Scholar and honor student at UCLA.