BAGHDAD (AP) — While the rest of the world is facing a financial meltdown, the Iraq Stock Exchange is booming.
The ISX index soared nearly 40 percent during September, boosted by increasing confidence in security gains.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The International Olympic Committee will retest all doping samples from the Beijing Games to check for traces of blood boosting drug.
TOKYO (AP) — A magnitude 7 earthquake hit northern Japan on Thursday morning, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia’s leadership and called for an arms embargo against the nation until a different government is in place in the ex-Soviet republic.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks are likely to anger the United States and Europe and enrage Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. He made it clear Moscow wants Saakashvili out of power in Georgia.
”If the United States and its allies in the end choose not their own national interests, not the interests of the Georgian people, but rather choose the Saakashvili regime, it will be a mistake of historic proportions,” Lavrov said.
”For a start it would be right to impose an embargo on weapons to this regime, until different authorities turn Georgia a normal state,” he said in an address at Russia’s top foreign policy graduate school.
Lavrov spoke as the European Union prepared for a summit Monday to discuss the Georgia crisis and further relations with Russia.
Russia’s ties to the West have been driven to their lowest point since the Soviet collapse of 1991 by the war last month in Georgia, where Saakashvili angered Moscow by courting the West and seeking NATO membership.
Russia repelled a Georgian offensive against the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia and sent troops, tanks and bombers deep into undisputed Georgian territory, where some still maintain positions. Moscow last week recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent countries.
Russia says it was provoked. The United States and Europe have accused Russia of using disproportionate force and of violating the terms of a cease-fire that called for the sides to withdrawal their forces to pre-conflict positions. They have also denounced Russia’s recognition of the separatist regions, saying Georgia’s borders must remain intact.
WSJ report: The Justice Department, in an unprecedented move against a foreign bank, is seeking to force UBS AG to turn over the names of wealthy U.S. clients who allegedly used the giant Swiss bank to avoid taxes.
NYT/Cynthia Tucker report: ‘A consortium of Western oil companies — the very definition of Big Oil — is on the verge of receiving no-bid contracts in Iraq, giving them access to one of the most sought-after prizes in the petroleum industry, according to The New York Times.’
Federal regulators said Tuesday they will place stricter limits on foreign exchanges that trade U.S. oil as concerns continue to grow about the role of speculation in rising fuel prices. Some lawmakers said the move was long overdue. (more…)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan president’s brother says hundreds of prisoners have escaped in prison attack.
Australia, a staunch U.S. ally and one of the first countries to commit troops to the Iraq war five years ago, ended combat operations there Sunday, a Defense Department official said. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was swept into office in November largely on the promise that he would bring home the country’s 550 combat troops by the middle of 2008. -AP
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese officials say earthquake death toll has risen to 55,239.
