I apologize for not posting several days. Now I'm way behind and have to play catch-up.

I think the quakes we saw over the weekend were pretty much what I expected.

Container traffic seen ahead on river

The expansion of the Panama Canal by 2015 and the acceptance of barging as a cheaper alternative to rail and highway transportation will drive growth of container-on-barge traffic in the coming decade, advocates of the nation’s inland waterway system say.

[BTW, don't ask me why the interest in shipping. All I know is that something funky is there and I've got to keep an eye out for it.]


Financial crisis may end boom for Suez Canal


Malaysia calls for limit on traffic in Malacca Straits



Surgeons blame overcrowding for superbugs' spread

Persistent overcrowding on NHS hospital wards is causing an uncontrollable spread of superbugs and other forms of infection, the Royal College of Surgeons warned last night.




ECB's Nowotny Sees Global `Tri-Polar' Currency System Evolving

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank council member Ewald Nowotny said a ``tri-polar'' global currency system is developing between Asia, Europe and the U.S. and that he's skeptical the U.S. dollar's centrality can be revived.

``What I see is a system where we have more centers of gravity'' Nowotny said today in an interview with Austrian state broadcaster ORF-TV. ``I see for the future a tri-polar development, and I don't think that there will be fixed exchange rates between these poles.''




Circuit City may shut stores to avoid bankruptcy

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Struggling electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. is considering a plan to shut at least 150 stores and cut thousands of jobs to avoid filing for bankruptcy protection, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation.



UAE plans Hormuz bypass canal in event of war

In response to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a military attack, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planing to build an inland canal to bring Persian Gulf oil to world markets. "Our oil revenues will be jeopardized if we don't find an alternative to using the Hormuz Strait for exporting oil," Dubai Chief of Police Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the UAE daily Gulf News. The canal, passing through the northern emirate of Ras Al-Kheima, would be big enough to accommodate super-tankers.



U.S. Pact Hits Snag As Iraqi Shi'a Seek Changes

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- A landmark pact to allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until 2011 has hit its first major political snag, with Iraq's ruling Shi'ite parties calling for changes just days after a "final draft" was unveiled.

The draft of the pact was agreed last week after months of difficult negotiations between Baghdad and Washington, and Iraqi officials had previously described it as a final text unlikely to be renegotiated.




Obama 'Beyond Humbled' as GOP's Powell Says He'd Be 'an Exceptional President'
Republican Who Served as Bush Secretary of State Says He Will Vote for Obama

[SOB doesn't have a humble bone in his body. Ugh. ]



Ankara readies for tough calls at un Security Council

Officials have hailed Turkey’s election to the UN Security Council as a well-deserved reward for a diplomatic campaign for more influence in regional politics and reforms at home, but analysts warn that the role in the UN’s main decision-making body also means tough decisions for Ankara, especially on whether its neighbor Iran should face sanctions over its nuclear program.




China workers abducted in Sudan

Nine Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped in Sudan, a Chinese diplomat in the capital, Khartoum, has said.

The men, and their two Sudanese drivers, were abducted in the southern Kordofan state on Saturday afternoon.



China tightens grip on Muslims in the northwest

The Chinese government, which is officially atheist, recognizes five religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism and Buddhism - and tightly regulates their administration and practice.

Its oversight in Xinjiang, though, is especially vigilant because it worries about separatist activity in the region.



Taleban kill many in bus attacks

Taleban insurgents have killed at least 27 people travelling on buses in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

A Taleban spokesman said that all those killed in the attacks on three buses were Afghan government soldiers, but officials said they were civilians.

The attacks happened on Thursday but the bodies have only just been found, dumped over a wide area.




Gunmen kill UNICEF worker in Somalia

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a Somali working for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Sunday, just two days after another local U.N. worker was assassinated in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, witnesses said.

In the latest attack three men armed with pistols and assault rifles ambushed the UNICEF worker as he was walking in the southern town of Hudur.



ING to receive €10 billion from the Dutch

PARIS: The Dutch government said Sunday that it would inject €10 billion into ING Group after the financial services company became the latest victim of the global financial crisis.

The capital injection, in the form of nonvoting "tier-1 securities," works out to about $13.4 billion. The new funds, ING said, will create "a strong buffer to navigate the current market and economic environment."



Israel to give PA control of more cities

In an effort to maintain momentum on the ground in the absence of a peace deal with the Palestinians, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has drawn up a plan under which Palestinian security forces would take control of several key West Bank cities during the coming year.



Leftist Czech opposition wins landslide in regional elections

PRAGUE: The main Czech opposition, the Social Democratic Party, has made huge gains in regional elections, possibly threatening plans to install part of a U.S. missile shield in the country.

With almost all votes counted late Saturday, the leftist Social Democrats had won all 13 regions contested, the Czech Statistics Office said, handing Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek his first defeat since he took over as chairman of his conservative Civic Democratic Party in 2002.



South Korea's Won, Stocks Gain on $130 Billion Financial Rescue

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea's won and stocks rose after the government announced Asia's biggest financial rescue package to open access to overseas credit markets and allay concern of a recession.

The won climbed 1.4 percent to 1,315 per dollar at the close in Seoul. The currency has risen 4.4 percent since Oct. 16, when it suffered its biggest one-day decline since South Korea required an International Monetary Fund bailout in 1997. The Kospi stock index rose for the first time in four days, gaining 2.3 percent.



Toddler virus flares up again in China, kills three

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three children have died in eastern China from hand, foot and mouth disease in the country's second outbreak of the potent toddler virus this year, state media reported on Monday.

Health officials warned that the disease was epidemic in some parts of the coastal Fujian province, with 113 cases reported since the start of October, the official Xinhua news agency said.




U.S. deficit rises, and consensus is to let it grow

Like water rushing over a river's banks, the U.S. government's rapidly mounting expenses are overwhelming the federal budget and increasing an already swollen deficit.

The bank bailout, in the latest big outlay, could cost $250 billion in just the next few weeks, and a newly proposed stimulus package would have $150 billion or more flowing from Washington before the next president takes office in January.



Saudi developer Al-Oula to raise $800mn via sukuk

Saudi developer Al-Oula plans to sell Islamic bonds worth 3 billion riyals ($800 million) within two years to help finance projects both in the kingdom and in the region, its top executive said on Sunday.




Moroccan Court Jails 45 People for Terrorist Plot

A Moroccan court has sentenced 45 people to jail terms of up to 30 years for plotting terrorist attacks in the country's largest city, Casablanca.

The court convicted the defendants Thursday on charges of forming a terrorist gang, making explosives, committing theft and forgery, and failing to denounce terrorism.




Barak: Israel considering Saudi peace plan

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak (EH'-hud bah-RAHK'), says the leaders of the Jewish state are seriously considering a dormant plan from Saudi Arabia. It would offer a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world in exchange for lands captured during the 1967 war.

Barak says it may be time to pursue an overall peace deal for the region because individual negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians have made little progress.


Israel reopens Saudi peace plan


Revived Saudi Peace Plan Rejected

CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Israeli officials said renewed interest in the Saudi peace initiative has more to do with transitional political periods in the U.S. and Israel and the stalled diplomatic process than with anything substantive.

"Whenever the process stalls, there will be those who will pull out the Saudi plan," one senior Israeli official said. "And the Saudis have an interest in pushing this out there now to put on a 'constructive face' with which to greet the new U.S. president," he said.




Citic Pacific warns it faces $1.9 bln currency loss

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Citic Pacific Ltd., the Hong Kong branch of China's biggest state-owned investment company, warned Monday it faces a loss of HK$14.7 billion ($1.9 billion) after its currency market positions on the Australian dollar and the euro soured as the U.S. dollar appreciated.




A new financial order

The financial market turbulence continues to rock the world, with no end to the crisis in sight. The EU needs to keep taking effective action to calm markets. It should provide support for efforts to contain the crisis by European countries that are not EU members, such as Switzerland and Iceland, and also enhance its own oversight of financial institutions.

At the same time, Europe is now trying to draw up a blueprint for establishing a new financial order after the current crisis is over.

As for reform of the international financial system, Europe has long been calling for efforts to inject more transparency and accountability into financial transactions through tightened regulations. Now, some European leaders are even referring to a radical overhaul of the system that could drastically transform the International Monetary Fund (IMF).




Global summit absolute survival

Things must change
The global financial economy had to be put on life support this year in order to survive, but serious preventative medicine is needed immediately. So is a major crackdown on crime. China executed women who robbed the elderly, not inappropriate in a desperately poor country where robbery amounts to murder. That is why it was welcome news this weekend that the world’s leaders agreed to stage a series of summits to create a new global governance architecture out of the global regulatory and legal vacuum that led to the crisis in the first place.

The failure to have global governance in the financial economy led to the panic, to bad practices, rogue elements and widespread credit and other fraud. Countries, companies and individuals should never be allowed to do as they wish. This has been like allowing California or Quebec or London to do whatever they want irrespective of damage to other portions of the country. We don't allow this within our countries and this shouldn't be allowed among those which participate in the global economy.



Global Financial Regulatory Body on the Way?

With the European Union leading the way, the internationalists are preparing to exploit the recent global financial turmoil to hold a "second Bretton Woods" and radically restructure the world's entire international financial system. The first Bretton Woods international conference in 1944, lest we forget, ended up saddling the world with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank (known formally as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).




Brown Wants Global Super-Regulator

As world financial leaders gather to grapple with the ongoing financial crisis, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is calling for a new world order.

That means international supervision of financial institutions, global accounting, and regulatory standards, he wrote in an editorial in the Washington Post. In other words, a global super-regulator.

Brown and other European leaders have proposed "guiding principals" for this new international system. Its hallmarks, according to Brown, are transparency, sound banking, responsibility, integrity, and global governance.



World needs better system

What this shows is not only that every country must be accountable to multilateral bodies for its economic management, but that a much better system of running the global economy, with much improved transparency and oversight, is essential. Global economic management must be more than the sum of individual national policies.






Iceland close to $6bn rescue deal with IMF and central banks

Iceland is finalising the terms of a $6bn (£3.5bn) rescue package put together by the International Monetary Fund, after its banking system and currency collapsed earlier this month.

The plan involves a $1bn (£600m) loan from the IMF and a further $5bn (£2.9bn) from the Nordic and Japanese central banks, with an agreement expected in the next few days.



Don’t Worry–We Survived the Cuban Missile Crisis

On the very same day he told us that Colin Powell should have ended all questions about Barack Obama’s national security bona fides, Joe Biden comes along to tell us precisely why we should be scared of Obama as commander-in-chief:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”



The Obama salute's creepy predecessor


Iran busts 'spy pigeons' near nuclear site


China facing chronic disease timebomb


Gazprom invited for geological prospecting on Alaska shelf-Miller

MOSCOW, October 19 (Itar-Tass) - Gazprom received an invitation to start geological prospecting on Alaska shelf, said Gazprom board chairman Alexei Miller in an interview with the Rossiya TV networks, circulated by the Gazprom press service.

Executives of the Russian company and specialists from other countries participated in a scientific seminar in Alaska on development of oil and gas deposits.



Russia worried by Iran urging peace with Afghanistan Talibs

TEHRAN, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is worried by tendencies among some political forces in Iran to have Talibs engaged in peace efforts in Afghanistan, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on Monday.

Speaking after talks in Iran on Sunday with the country's top security and Foreign Ministry officials, Sergei Ryabkov said: "We expressed concerns about recent tendencies toward reconciliation with Talibs demonstrated by certain circles [in Iran]."



Israeli officials think out loud on seeking truce with Lebanese

BEIRUT: Israeli Foreign Ministry officials are exploring the possibility of a long-term non-belligerence pact with Lebanon that could prevent future hostilities between the neighbors, Israeli officials media outlets said Monday. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the director general of the Foreign Ministry, Aharon Abramovich, proposed an evaluation of a potential pact two weeks ago and that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the prime minister-designate, has supported the initiative.



Bulgarian FM: Romania unlikely to replace Bulgaria in South Stream project


Crew of hijacked Japanese ship receive food supplies


Gas pipelines investment to touch Rs45,500 crore by 2012: study


Malaysia to beef up patrols in Malacca Straits


Financial Crisis engulfs Eastern Europe


HIGHLIGHTS-France's Sarkozy at European Parliament

'This is a global crisis so the response can only be global.'

'The president of the United States and Europe together have proposed various different summits kicking off in mid-November which will look at new global governance, new regulation.'



Police Arrest Temple Institute Director

(IsraelNN.com) While waiting in line to visit the Temple Mount early Sunday afternoon, Temple Institute Director Yehuda Glick was suddenly singled out and arrested. A police spokesman said he would look into the incident.



Romania Transgaz denies Gazprom pipeline talks




Somali Pirates Hijack Indian Ship


Somali forces free hijacked Indian dhow

MOGADISHU, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- Local security forces in the northeastern Somali region have managed to forcibly free an abducted Indian dhow carrying sugar for Somali business people, hours after the news that it may have been abducted, officials said Tuesday.

The forces were able to apprehend four of the pirates while four others escaped following a shootout between pirates and the local forces acting as coast guards, Ali Abdi Aware, local official said.



Trans-Balkan Bosporus Bypass Line Gets Pushed Back


Stocks pressured by cautious corporate outlooks