World Highlights
¤ Flights were cancelled and state-run banks shut across India yesterday as hundreds of thousands of people stayed away from work to protest against economic reforms. Trading volumes on the country's currency and bond markets fell to a trickle as bank...
¤ Flights were cancelled and state-run banks shut across India yesterday as hundreds of thousands of people stayed away from work to protest against economic reforms. Trading volumes on the country's currency and bond markets fell to a trickle as bank workers and airport staff heeded the strike call by the ruling coalition's communist allies.
¤ Germany's two biggest parties edged closer to a "grand coalition" yesterday, as conservative leader Angela Merkel said there was a strong chance the conservatives and Social Democrats would form a government. After meeting the leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), the allies with whom she failed to win a majority in the election on September 18, Ms Merkel said her Christian Democrats (CDU) were much more likely to forge a coalition with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD).
¤ A month after Hurricane Katrina left New Orleans in ruins and less than a week after Rita dealt it a second blow, officials yesterday relaunched a "repopulation" campaign ay to get the city back on its feet. They threw open the doors for business owners in some neighborhoods and planned to allow residents to start returning today in a phased effort to bring life back to streets now largely abandoned.
¤ The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian mistakenly shot dead by police who thought he was a suicide bomber, yesterday met with independent investigators probing his death. His parents and brother who travelled from Brazil earlier this week, met the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is looking into the events that led to the shooting, to get an update on its probe. They were shown the only available surveillance footage of Mr Menezes entering Stockwell station.
¤ Nigerian troops freed two British oil workers yesterday less than 24 hours after they were kidnapped for ransom in the southern Niger Delta, a military commander said. Brigadier-General Elias Zamani, head of the military task force in the restive wetlands region, said the pair were freed without a fight. Two of the kidnappers had been arrested during an exchange of fire on Wednesday night and had indicated where the hostages were being taken.