Evening Edition

The strongest of the coordinated blasts hit busy districts in the south of the city, the same area targeted two and half years ago by Pakistan-based militants who caused mayhem during a 60-hour siege that left 166 people dead.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who was on his way to the scene along with forensic experts and anti-terror commandos from New Delhi, told reporters that it was “a coordinated attack by terrorists.”

Hours before Britain’s three main parties were set to back an extraordinary parliamentary vote calling for the withdrawal of the bid, Murdoch’s US-based News Corp. said it was now “too difficult to progress in this climate”.

Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the news, saying the Australian-born tycoon should focus on cleaning up his business after the scandal which forced the closure of the News of the World tabloid on Sunday.

“It has been decided to hold elections for the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council next October or November,” MENA state news agency quoted the official as saying, in reference to the lower and upper houses of parliament.

The official said the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces — which took power when president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February — “is committed to its previous announcement that the electoral process would start six months from the constitutional declaration” of March.

Campaigners hailed what they described as a powerful new weapon in the three-decade war against AIDS.

“This is a major scientific breakthrough which reconfirms the essential role that antiretroviral medicine has to play in the AIDS response,” Michel Sidibe, executive director of the UN agency UNAIDS said.

Ratings agency Moody’s meanwhile cut Ireland’s bonds to junk status and warned of further downgrades as the eurozone economy struggles to pull out of a financial crisis.

As the debt crisis blazed a trail of market damage worldwide, sapping confidence in the euro, finance ministers from the 17-nation eurozone had a sharp wake-up call from former colleague Christine Lagarde, new head of the IMF.

“Clearly, if we went so far as to default on the debt, it would be a major crisis,” that would “throw shockwaves through the entire global financial system,” the US Federal Reserve chief told a key congressional committee.

Bernanke sounded the alarm as US President Barack Obama was to welcome his political opponents and his fellow Democrats for a fourth straight day of seemingly stalled talks with an August 2 deadline just three weeks away.

Lauren Cheney (9), Abby Wambach (79), and Alex Morgan (82) kept the Americans’ bid for an unprecedented third World Cup title after 1991 and 1999 on track with Sonia Bompastor getting a goal back for France after 55 minutes.

The reigning Olympic champions will play Japan for the title in Frankfurt next Sunday.

Asian hopefuls Japan emphatically beat Sweden in Frankfurt while earlier the United States used their vast experience to get past France in Moenchengladbach.

Despite their nickname Nadeshiko — a pink flower symbolising grace and beauty — the Japanese are proving no pushovers at Germany 2011 having beaten the hosts and two-time defending champions in the quarter-finals, and are now through to their first final.

Frenchman Thomas Voeckler, of Europcar, retained the yellow jersey after the 167.5km stage from Blaye-les-Mines to Lavaur, which ended in a group sprint after an early breakaway was caught 4km from the finish.

Voeckler finished the stage with all the yellow jersey favourites to retain his lead of 1min 49sec on Spaniard Luis Leon Sanchez of Rabobank.

India has remained jittery about the threat of militant strikes, especially since the November 2008 attacks which killed 166 people and raised tensions with nuclear-armed arch rival Pakistan.

At least 141 people were wounded on Wednesday and the death toll was at least 21, the Home Ministry said in statements about what it called “terror attacks” centered mainly on Mumbai’s jewelry markets.

The move pre-empted by a couple of hours a planned vote in parliament that had all-party support for a non-binding motion urging the Australian-born media magnate to drop a buyout offer which was a major part of his global expansion in television

“News Corp announces that it no longer intends to make an offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of … BSkyB not already owned by it,” the U.S.-listed parent of the global media empire said.

The number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track rose to 63 percent this month, up from 60 percent in June, with stubbornly high unemployment and prolonged gridlock in Washington dashing hopes of a swift economic recovery.

But voters do not appear to be holding President Barack Obama responsible for the problems so far. Obama’s approval rating held relatively steady at 49 percent, down 1 percentage point from June. His approval rating among independents — a group Obama needs to win re-election — fell to 39 percent from 44 percent.

While holding to a view that recent economic softness would eventually pass, he appeared less confident in that projection and more willing to entertain the possibility of another round of stimulus.

“The possibility remains that the recent economic weakness may prove more persistent than expected and that deflationary risks might reemerge, implying a need for additional policy support,” Bernanke told the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

The central banker’s comments offered the first public indication of how the Obama administration will prioritize its financial obligations after August 2, when the U.S. Treasury says the government would run out of money to pay all of its bills.

“The assumption is that as long as possible, the Treasury would want to try to make payments on the principal and interest to the government debt, because failure to do that would certainly throw the financial system into enormous disarray and have major impacts on the global economy,” Bernanke said.

With Germany hanging back, euro zone officials struggled even to set a date for leaders to meet to agree a way forward, raising fears financial markets might exploit a policy vacuum with a new onslaught on the bloc’s high debtors.

“The principle of having a euro chiefs’ meeting is accepted by the main players, including Germany,” said one EU diplomat, adding that it was likely to happen next week despite earlier signals from Berlin that there was no rush to finalize a second package of aid.

Facing a market rout after stocks plunged and borrowing costs hit record highs on Tuesday, government and opposition parties shelved their differences and agreed to ensure quick approval of a four-year, 40 billion euro austerity plan.

“The market remains nervous, very attentive, but we had an Italian reaction that was remarkably fast on budget austerity,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Gilles Moec.

In media interviews, Atlantis’ crew reflected on the end of the 30-year shuttle program and the series of “lasts” that will end when the spacecraft returns to Earth for a planned landing on July 21.

“I think that after we get back down to the ground, after landing, that it’s going to hit us really hard,” said mission specialist Sandra Magnus. “I think we’re all going to have a really hard time leaving the shuttle.”

Bloody bodies were strewn in the dirt of Mumbai’s crowded neighborhoods and markets. Doors were ripped off storefronts, motorcycles were charred and a bus stop was shredded. After the blasts in three separate neighborhoods, police set up checkpoints and were put on high alert.

The bombings came just months after peace talks resumed between India and Pakistan, which New Delhi has blamed for past attacks.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of the Kandahar provincial council and the president’s most powerful emissary in the south, was shot to death Tuesday by a trusted friend at his mansion in Kandahar.

“My message for them (the Taliban) is that my countrymen, my brothers, should stop killing their own people,” President Karzai said after the funeral, which was attended by thousands of mourners. “It is easy to kill and everyone can do it, but the real man is the one who can save people’s lives.”

Cameron appointed a senior judge to lead an inquiry into the phone hacking and police bribery scandal engulfing Murdoch’s British newspapers, and promised it would investigate whether Murdoch’s reporters sought the phone numbers of 9/11 victims in their quest for sensational scoops.

“There is a firestorm, if you like, that is engulfing parts of the media, parts of the police, and indeed our political system’s ability to respond,” Cameron said Wednesday in the House of Commons.

Delivering his twice-a-year economic report to Congress, Bernanke laid out three options the central bank would consider. One possibility, he said, was another round of Treasury bond buying. That would make the third such effort since 2009.

The Fed chief’s reassurances helped drive stock prices higher, but it also underscored the fragile state of the economy more than two years after economists said the recession had ended. Unemployment has risen for three straight months and a debt crisis in Greece and other European countries threatens to weaken the global economy.

Ahead of a fourth negotiating session at the White House in as many days, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell defended his proposal to give President Barack Obama new powers to increase the nation’s borrowing limit without GOP support.

“I refuse to help Barack Obama get re-elected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy,” McConnell said on a radio talk show, contending that letting the nation go into financial default would give Obama reason to blame Republicans for the negative fallout.

The government, which ordered the probe into 1996-2009 cover-ups in the County Cork diocese of Cloyne, warned that parishes across Ireland could pose a continuing danger to children’s welfare today given Cloyne’s claims to be following church child-protection policy while actually ignoring it.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter pledged to pass a new law making it an imprisonable crime to withhold knowledge of suspected child abuse as he published the investigation into the Cloyne diocese in southwest Ireland.

Assistant U.S. attorney Steven Durham revealed the results during opening arguments in Clemens’ trial on charges of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens’ attorney Rusty Hardin responded that he won’t dispute the needles contain Clemens’ DNA and steroids, but accused the trainer Brian McNamee of “mixing” it up.

“He manufactured this stuff,” Hardin told jurors. “Roger Clemens’ only crime was having the poor judgment to stay connected with Brian McNamee.”