European Union observers monitoring tomorrow's elections in Belarus are doing more than protecting the voters' rights. Their verdict on whether the vote is fair and open may shape relations between the EU and the former Soviet state.

President Alexander Lukashenko has staked future ties with the EU and U.S. on recognition of the parliamentary elections' legitimacy. EU foreign ministers said this month they are ready to re-examine sanctions imposed on Belarus in 2004.

The vote in the country of 10 million that borders three of the EU's members will be the most closely watched in more than a decade as Belarus attempts to balance its historic economic and cultural ties to Russia with overtures to the West. The nation's pipelines carry a fifth of Russia's natural-gas exports to Europe and almost 30 percent of its oil.

A cargo ship, believed to be Ukrainian or Russian, sank in stormy waters off the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria with 10 crew members aboard, authorities say.

The 5,000 tonne Tolstoy, carrying scrap metal, did not send out a distress call, said Nikolai Apostolov, head of the Bulgarian maritime office.

Bulgarian authorities were alerted by a Russian satellite centre, he said.

News agencies report that the ship's crew, believed to be Ukrainian with a Russian captain, are all missing.

Voters in Austria are going to the polls in an early general election that opinion polls suggest could result in a surge from the far right.

The elections were called after a coalition between the Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party fell apart after just 18 months.

Polls hint that has opened the door for the Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria to gain strength.

Voters appear disenchanted with the centre left and centre right.

As the credit crunch lays low reputations across the world, Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, has seized the crisis as an opportunity to try to salvage his own credibility.

Mr Brown started the week facing a potentially mutinous Labour party conference in Manchester, after a series of ministers and MPs called for a leadership contest to oust the unpopular premier.

But by the time he met President George W. Bush at the White House yesterday to discuss the banking turmoil, Mr Brown appeared to have stabilised his position at home and quelled - at least temporarily - the rebellion in his own party.

Although the upheaval casts a long shadow over Britain's financial services sector and the economy as a whole, the worsening situation has given Mr Brown a short-term political lift. Labour rebels kept their heads down at the annual congress in Manchester, sensing a moment of economic emergency was not the time to be seen trying to unseat the prime minister.

At least 17 people have been killed by a car bomb on the outskirts of Syria's capital Damascus, officials have said.

The bombing happened near a police station at an intersection leading to an important Shia Muslim shrine.

Such attacks are rare in Syria, but the country has seen two major assassinations in the past year.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, although the Syrian interior minister, Gen Bassam Abdul-Majid, called it a cowardly "terrorist act".

Pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship off the coast of Somalia have reportedly demanded a ransom of $35m (£19m) to release the vessel and its crew.

The pirates also warned against any attempt to rescue the crew or cargo of the MV Faina, which is carrying 33 T-72 battle tanks destined for Kenya.

But the Kenyan government later denied it had been issued with ransom demands.

A Russian Navy vessel is heading to the region and the US has said it is also monitoring developments in the area.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said he was concerned by the seizure of the military supplies on board the Ukrainian ship.

The International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor has told the BBC he will continue to push for Sudan's leader to be charged with war crimes.

Luis Moreno Ocampo said there was strong evidence that President Omar al-Bashir was behind attacks on civilians in Darfur province.

The Sudanese government has rejected the allegations, saying the ICC's case threatens peace efforts in Darfur.

A number of countries want the UN to block the attempt to indict Mr Bashir.

"We found evidence that al-Bashir himself was controlling the attacks on these people who normally live in Darfur," Mr Ocampo told the BBC's Arabic Service.

He said local people had been raped and killed by both the Sudanese army and Janjaweed pro-government militias.

US presidential hopefuls Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have both claimed to have come out on top in their first televised debate.

Mr McCain's campaign said he had shown a "mastery on national security issues", while Mr Obama's aides said he had passed the commander-in-chief test.

Correspondents say the debate ended with no clear winner, but TV polls on their performances put Mr Obama ahead.

During the event, the two men sparred over foreign policy and the economy.

Mr McCain accused his rival of naivety over Iran, while Mr Obama said Mr McCain had wrongly thought the Iraq war would be over quickly.

They also attacked each other's position on the US financial crisis.

US Republican and Democratic Party lawmakers have said they are getting closer to agreeing a massive rescue plan to aid the financial markets.

Democrat senator Harry Reid told the upper house that "significant progress" had been made, but stressed there was still "a long way" to go.

He said about 15 issues had still to be resolved between the two sides.

Republican senator Mitch McConnell said the goal was to announce an agreement on Sunday and to have a vote on Monday.

Negotiators want to have the outline of a deal to reassure the markets before they reopen on Monday.

During a rare Saturday session of the upper house, Mr Reid, the Senate majority leader, said congressional staff had worked on the legislation for the bail-out plan until the early hours of the morning.

President George W Bush used his weekly radio address to try and reassure those Americans concerned about the burden on taxpayers of the deal, saying the package would end up costing less than the headline figure of $700bn.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress made significant progress on a financial bailout of Wall Street and the Senate's Democratic leader said Saturday he hoped to announce a deal by the end of the weekend.

President Bush expressed confidence that lawmakers soon would pass a rescue plan before leaving Capitol Hill to campaign for re-election. He acknowledged that many Americans are frustrated by a situation that has led to a possible $700 billion bailout and angered that they may have to cover Wall Street firms' mistakes.

The bailout is intended to rescue bankers from the bad loans that threaten to derail the economy and plunge the country into a long depression. With talks set to resume, negotiators sought a deal before Asian markets open Monday.

"We hope sometime tomorrow evening we can announce that there has been some sort of agreement in principle so that the only thing that will have to be done is to write the legislation," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "It is still a long way from completing it but we've made significant progress."

Aides worked late into the night, he said, and there are "probably 15 issues still left outstanding that senators are going to have to get together and resolve."

WASHINGTON, Sep 26 (IPS) - In a significant and highly unusual defeat for the so-called "Israel Lobby", the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has decided to shelve a long-pending, albeit non-binding, resolution that called for President George W. Bush to launch what critics called a blockade against Iran.

House Congressional Resolution (HR) 362, whose passage the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) had made its top legislative priority this year, had been poised to pass virtually by acclamation last summer.

But an unexpectedly strong lobbying effort by a number of grassroots Iranian-American, Jewish-American, peace, and church groups effectively derailed the initiative, although AIPAC and its supporters said they would try to revive it next year or if Congress returns to Washington for a "lame-duck" session after the November elections.

Congress, which may still adopt a package of new unilateral economic sanctions against Iran -- some of which the administration has already imposed -- over the weekend, is expected to adjourn over the next several days.

''We'll resubmit it when Congress comes back, and we'll have even more signatures,'' the resolution's main author, New York Democrat Rep. Gary Ackerman, told the Washington Times, adding that the resolution currently has 270 co-sponsors, or some two-thirds of the House's entire membership.

S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled Collapse

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street's largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down.

The S.E.C.'s oversight responsibilities will largely shift to the Federal Reserve, though the commission will continue to oversee the brokerage units of investment banks.

Here's an interesting tidbit

The program Mr. Cox abolished was unanimously approved in 2004 by the commission under his predecessor, William H. Donaldson. Known by the clumsy title of "consolidated supervised entities," the program allowed the S.E.C. to monitor the parent companies of major Wall Street firms, even though technically the agency had authority over only the firms' brokerage firm components.

The commission created the program after heavy lobbying for the plan from all five big investment banks. At the time, Mr. Paulson was the head of Goldman Sachs. He left two years later to become the Treasury secretary and has been the architect of the administration's bailout plan.

The investment banks favored the S.E.C. as their umbrella regulator because that let them avoid regulation of their fast-growing European operations by the European Union.

Congress Approves Auto-Industry Loans, Defense Budget

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Congress gave final approval to legislation providing the auto industry with $25 billion in loans, lifting an offshore oil-drilling ban and funding the government until the next president takes office.

The legislation, approved by the Senate 78-12, spends $602 billion for the departments of defense, homeland security and veterans affairs. It also funds most of the rest of the government at current levels until March 6.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Bernanke Jumps Out of Political Fray After Warning of Collapse

By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Ben S. Bernanke jumped into the political fray this week when he urged quick action from Congress to deal with ``grave threats'' to the financial system. Now he's trying to jump back out.

The Federal Reserve chairman hasn't returned to Capitol Hill after two days of congressional testimony earlier this week. He has made it clear to Treasury officials and lawmakers that he isn't taking part in negotiating details of a $700 billion proposal to rescue the financial system even as the plan runs into a political buzzsaw.

-skip-

``Bernanke's been a total straight shooter on this,'' Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who sits on the Banking Committee, said in an interview at the Capitol. ``People trust him. He doesn't have the Wall Street bias that Paulson has. And he doesn't have the Bush administration coloring, if you will, that others have.''

-skip-

At the same time, Bernanke and Paulson are getting political lessons of their own, given the backlash over a plan that Americans see as aiding Wall Street and not Main Street.

``There's been some degree of amazement from the White House -- and certainly Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke - - that people who run for elective office have constituencies that they have to take care of,'' Reid said.

Behind Biggest Insurer'sCrisis

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: September 27, 2008

Two weeks ago, the nation's most powerful regulators and bankers huddled in the Lower Manhattan fortress that is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, desperately trying to stave off disaster.

As the group, led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., pondered the collapse of one of America's oldest investment banks, Lehman Brothers, a more dangerous threat emerged: American International Group, the world's largest insurer, was teetering. A.I.G. needed billions of dollars to right itself and had suddenly begged for help.

The only Wall Street chief executive participating in the meeting was Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Paulson's former firm. Mr. Blankfein had particular reason for concern.

Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals' woes, was A.I.G.'s largest trading partner, according to six people close to the insurer who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman's side, several of these people said.

Days later, federal officials, who had let Lehman die and initially balked at tossing a lifeline to A.I.G., ended up bailing out the insurer for $85 billion.

McCain ... Ties to Gambling Industry

By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.  NYT
Published: September 27, 2008

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

HONING AN IMAGE Senator John McCain, as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, at a hearing in 2005 to examine accusations of misconduct made by six Indian tribes against their former lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.

BETS Mr. McCain supported tax breaks for casinos over the years, including one that helped Foxwoods in Connecticut. He has also gambled there.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party's evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain's campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world's second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain's current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain's affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.

Is there a need for bottled water? On Thursday, we questioned whether Fiji's eco-friendly efforts were really that green. And it seems that the folks at the London Design Festival were thinking about the bottled water controversy as well. At the Greengaged best practice case studies earlier this month at the London Design Festival, Joshua Blackburn presented a pro-tap water campaign developed by communication design agency, Provokateur. With a desire to bring about positive changes in consumer behavior, WeWantTap is both a campaign and product line. The campaign is simple, though the ambition is big, as Joshua explained: "We want to develop an initiative to take on the bottled water industry."

The We Want Tap site is excellently designed. Worth taking a look at.

(been running since mid-june, so not quite news... but interesting)

We Want Tap : Bad Water : Bottled water backlash

The tide is turning for the bottled water industry and after a decade of unfettered growth, UK sales of bottled water have decreased by 9 percent.

Bottled water is being increasingly banned at local council meetings and Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently announced that his government would be phasing out bottled water in all of its departments.

Campaigners are getting their act together to put the squeeze on bottled water. Think Outside the Bottle, Neau, Refill not Landfill and Water on Tap are just four campaigns amongst many that are hoping to give the industry - and the public - something to think about.

A Chinese astronaut has become the first in his country's history to take a walk in space.

In an operation broadcast live on national TV, fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang emerged from the capsule orbiting the Earth to wave a Chinese flag.

Mr Zhai, 42, stayed outside the capsule for 15 minutes while his two fellow astronauts stayed in the spacecraft.

The exercise is seen as key to China's ambition to build an orbiting station in the next few years.

Mr Zhai began the manoeuvre just after 1630 Beijing Time (0830 GMT) on Saturday, and completed it about 15 minutes later.

"I'm feeling quite well. I greet the Chinese people and the people of the world," he said as he climbed out of the Shenzhou VII capsule.

MEXICO CITY, Sep 26 (IPS) - Atheists who have built up a virtual community over the last decade will hold the "First Global Atheist March for a Secular Society" on Sunday, with the aim of defending their views and protesting that they are misinterpreted and in some cases discriminated against.

The organisers say the main marches will be held in Madrid, Mexico and Lima, while demonstrations may also take place in London and Rome.

"We have decided to take to the streets to fight prejudice and discrimination against atheists, stress that although we don't believe in god, we have ethics and values, and demand that secularism should be respected," Alfredo Villegas, spokesman for the group Ateos Mexicanos (Mexican Atheists), told IPS.

There are hundreds of religions in the world, but only a handful of large ones, of which Christianity and Islam have the biggest numbers of followers. Meanwhile, different studies estimate that atheists (those who deny the existence of god) and agnostics (those who believe that at our present level of knowledge we cannot know whether or not a god exists) number between 500,000 and one billion people worldwide.

Paul Newman, the quiet, classy star who, despite those bright blue eyes and leading man looks, managed to carve out a career as quirky as his legendary sense of humor, has died. It's typical of Newman, who lived his life far from the glare and craziness of the Hollywood spotlight, that the cancer which ended his life never became more than a vague rumor. Here's more about Newman from our obit, by Lynn Smith:

Stunningly handsome, Newman maintained his superstar status while protecting himself from its corrupting influences through nearly 100 Broadway, television and movie roles. As an actor and director, he evolved into Hollywood's elder statesman, admired as much offscreen for his quiet generosity, unconventional business sense, race car daring, political activism and enduring marriage to actress Joanne Woodward.

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a `We Deserve It Dividend'.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up.. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a `We Deserve It Dividend'. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?