Evening Edition

The national tourism office has made the auto industry a highlight of its annual programme for the first time and the southwestern region of Baden-Wuerttemburg alone has organised 200 events from May through September.

Anyone travelling to the regional capital Stuttgart will not miss the Mercedes star that sits above the main train station or the posters that advertise the local auto museum.

The AU stands in a contradictory position: several African states have individually acknowledged the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), but the pan-African bloc has shirked from recognition itself.

Misguided efforts for talks between the rebels and Kadhafi — plans rejected by rebels and ignored by the West — damaged the bloc’s credibility, said Aloys Habimana, of Human Rights Watch.

Rebel fighters said on Saturday they had captured the base of the elite 32 Brigade, commanded by Kadhafi’s son Khamis, after a NATO airstrike and seven hours of fierce fighting.

In a building nearby an AFP correspondent saw the charred remains of some 50 people who residents said were captives killed on Tuesday with rifles and grenades.

“The situation has been bad for many years, but since two months it has become very bad,” a doctor at the hospital told AFP, asking not to be named.

“We urgently need drugs, especially sedatives.”

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi would head to Damascus bearing “an initiative to solve the crisis” in Syria, a statement said early Sunday after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.

Syrian authorities, in a statement carried by SANA news agency, warned protestors to stay away from demonstrations in the main streets of the capital being urged on Facebook.

Deputy UN Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro arrived in Africa’s most populous nation late Saturday as an investigation into the bombing in Abuja deepened, with FBI agents from the United States also in the country.

Friday’s attack that saw the bomber make his way through two gates at the heavily guarded compound before slamming his car into the entrance of the building was among the bloodiest targeting the UN globally.

The outgoing prime minister Jhalanath Khanal took the job only in February when the role had been vacant for seven months in a power struggle following the ten-year civil war that ended in 2006.

Bhattarai, the vice chairman of Maoist party, won the vote after securing the support of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Marcha, a loose alliance of five regional parties from the country’s southern plains.

Three months after the opposition claimed a historic breakthrough in parliamentary polls, former deputy prime minister Tony Tan was elected president with a margin of just 7,269 votes out of 2.1 million ballots cast.

The 71-year-old banker took just over 35 percent of the vote, well below the 60 percent garnered by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) in general elections in May, when the party had its worst showing of 52 years in power.

The contest, a bitter factional fight within the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), comes amid public disenchantment over the government’s response to the March 11 quake-tsunami disaster and ensuing nuclear accident.

The outgoing premier, Naoto Kan, on Friday confirmed his resignation after 15 turbulent months in office, with his approval rating plummeting from a high of 65 percent to just 15 percent, according to media polls.

The Ramlila grounds in the city centre were packed on Sunday with supporters gathered to see Hazare break his 13-day fast after India’s parliament agreed to consider many of his demands over a new anti-graft law.

Despite monsoon rains, high temperatures, deep litter and few eating or hygiene facilities, the open-air venue has attracted tens of thousands of people every day.

Hazare’s fast at an open-air venue in New Delhi attracted tens of thousands of people every day as a nationwide protest movement emerged to back his cause, leaving the government appearing badly out of touch with public opinion.

Hazare, who looked energetic and alert, took sips of coconut water mixed with honey handed to him by two young girls before delivering a speech broadcast live on national television.

Both a solemn and festive event, a five-man band playing traditional flutes and drums — known as zurla and goc — follow a dozen men led by a local imam and a barber who make their way from house to house in the village of Lubinje.

Abdil Bajrami, a 90-year-old patriarch, brims with excitement. His two-year-old great-grandson Eldis will be circumcised along with 90 other local boys from 10 months to five years old in a centuries-old ritual known as Sunet.

Work on the golden rule has been underway for months, but after markets took a beating a couple weeks ago on false rumours France’s credit rating was to be downgraded over the eurozone debt drama, it has gained a new urgency.

The effort was applauded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a recent summit with Sarkozy, with balanced budget rules becoming a political leitmotif for European leaders.

Ten years after the strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil, security and counter-terrorism businesses will have to look to the future and develop new technologies to combat new threats, they say.

“Saying that private security has been growing after 9/11 is an understatement,” counter-terrorism expert Eroll Southers, who is a professor at the University of Southern California, told AFP.

The fugitive Gaddafi’s exact whereabouts where still not known and it was possible he was still in hiding in Tripoli five days after it fell to rebel forces and his 42-year-old reign collapsed.

In the capital, the rebel leadership sought to establish control after days of confusion and sporadic skirmishing with the remnants of Gaddafi’s forces.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who had been diagnosed with cancer, served only eight years in a Scottish jail for orchestrating the attack on Pan Am 103, before being released on compassionate grounds in 2009 and flown back to Libya after doctors gave him only months to live.

He was received with a hero’s welcome on his return to Tripoli, and the televised images of cheering crowds angered many relatives of the 270 people killed in the attack, 189 of whom were Americans.

The rebels’ ruling council faces shortages of basic supplies including fuel in many areas as its soldiers battle die-hard remnants of Gaddafi’s forces.

Rebel authorities have called on oil workers to return to their jobs to get the country’s economic lifeline flowing again but there are few signs of an imminent return to production, and many workers remain too afraid to come back.

Six months into a popular uprising, Assad is under pressure from street protests and from Arab foreign ministers who told Syria Sunday to work to end bloodshed “before it is too late.”

The Arab League decided to send its secretary-general to Damascus to push for reforms, while the president of neighboring Turkey said he had lost confidence in Syria.

Despite the deaths of leaders and pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces, al Qaeda’s Sunni insurgents have been carrying out bolder attacks, seeking to rattle local security forces, officials said.

U.S. officials said al Qaeda’s global second-in-command, Atiyah abd al-Rahman — a Libyan who played a key role in managing ties between the leadership and al Qaeda in Iraq — was killed in Pakistan last week.

Friday’s car bomb blew out windows, gutted a lower floor and set the building alight in one of the most lethal attacks on the world body in its history.

There has been no confirmed claim of responsibility for the attack but security sources suspect the violent Islamist sect Boko Haram, which has been blamed for almost daily bomb and gun attacks on security forces and civilians in the northeast.

After initially arresting Anna Hazare and dismissing him as an anarchist, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government caved in to the demands of the 74-year-old as parliament backed anti-graft legislation that met many of his demands.

“It’s a proud moment for the country that a mass movement which was carried out for 13 days was peaceful and non-violent,” Hazare, wearing a crisp white kurta smock and cap, told cheering supporters from a stage at an open ground in New Delhi that has become the epicenter of a nationwide crusade.

Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years faces huge challenges — a resurgent yen that threatens exports, forging a new energy policy while ending the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, finding funds to rebuild from a devastating March tsunami as well paying for the ballooning social welfare costs of a fast-aging society.

The obstacles to governing, including a divided parliament and internal party bickering, have raised concerns that the next premier, to be selected in a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) vote Monday, will end up being another short-lived leader.

Seen for much of the past six years as a reliable, steady leader whose competence and knack for brokering deals made up for a lack of bold vision, Merkel’s image has taken a beating over the past months and polls show an increasing number of Germans view her government as directionless.

The chancellor’s troubles can be traced back to two decisions taken in March, when she abruptly dropped her long-standing support for nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, and days later backed Germany’s abstention from a U.N. vote authorizing military action in Libya.

The 45.5 billion euro ($65.3 million) austerity package, drawn up at the insistence of the European Central Bank, is currently being examined by the Senate, where any amendments must be presented by 1800 GMT Monday.

Ahead of this deadline, tensions have been running high in Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, with Tremonti widely blamed for what are seen as failings of the original package and also for resisting the changes that are now being proposed.

If politicians ignore their pleas — including a blunt call from International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde to “act now” — the slowdown in world growth and debt turmoil in Europe could morph into a deeper crisis, top monetary officials and economists warned at an annual retreat here.

“I hope they listen,” said Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer.

In doing so, he may have bought himself time to play the strongest hand possible when he is ready.

Bernanke’s speech on Friday at an annual Fed conference here came at a time of alarm about a fading U.S. economic recovery and concern about the health of Europe’s banks.

The question now is, do investors face prospects of further cuts to production and financial forecasts?

If crude prices keep hovering in the $80-$85 a barrel range, there’s a strong chance that many producers will have to live with tempered growth prospects for a while, said Chris Feltin, analyst with Macquarie Capital Markets.

Traders juggling European debt worries and soft economic data are assessing the impact of the storm, which knocked out subway and train services across the New York City metropolitan area, issues that may not be resolved by the start of work on Monday.

Though the storm itself wasn’t expected to be a factor in broader market direction on Monday — though many analysts forecast pressure on insurance and transportation-related stocks — there could be some impact as transportation issues leave many offices short-staffed.

Although Eliquis will be third to market among a wave of new oral anticoagulants, the data presented Sunday at Europe’s biggest medical meeting means it could now be viewed as the best in class.

People with dangerously irregular heart rhythms given Eliquis were 21 percent less likely to suffer strokes than those on decades-old warfarin, a problematic drug first developed as rat poison that requires regular blood tests.

The data from a relatively small Phase II trial may increase confidence in the high-risk project, although the key test of whether dalcetrapib saves lives in heart patients will not be known until a large Phase III trial finishes in late 2012, with results likely in 2013.

Dr Thomas Luescher, of University Hospital Zurich, said the new drug was generally well tolerated and did not produce any significant increase in blood pressure. Nor did it impair the flow rate in blood vessels.

The hit television program is building a soup kitchen and home in the Rehobeth Beach area of Delaware for Dale Dunning and her husband, Ken, who have been providing food for hundreds of needy residents for a dozen years.

Work at the site began on Monday, then the mid-Atlantic region was hit by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday. It continued through Friday, when the show’s executive producer George Verschoor; the local builder, Schell Brothers; and government officials called off work until after Hurricane Irene passed.

The victory was the 24-year-old German’s seventh in 12 races this year, with seven rounds remaining worth a maximum 175 points and the title likely to be wrapped up well before the end of the season.

“It was probably one of our best results ever as a team,” said Webber.

As he took the chequered flag for his seventh win in 12 races, extending his championship lead to 92 points with only a maximum 175 still on the table, the 24-year-old whooped his delight.

Team principal Christian Horner congratulated him over the team radio on leading a one-two with Australian Mark Webber, adding enigmatically: ‘Double Carpet’.

In one case, Gadhafi fighters opened fire and hurled grenades at more than 120 civilians huddling in a hangar used as a makeshift lockup near a military base, said Mabrouk Abdullah, 45, who escaped with a bullet wound in his side. Some 50 charred corpses were still scattered across the hangar on Sunday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the evidence it has collected so far “strongly suggests that Gadhafi government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling.” The justice minister in the rebels’ interim government, Mohammed al-Alagi, said the allegations would be investigated and leaders of Gadhafi’s military units put on trial.

Michel Kilo, Loay Hussein and Fayez Sara were on their way to neighboring Lebanon to take part in a televised panel discussion when they were told by Syrian immigration authorities at the border that they were prohibited from leaving out of concern for their safety in Lebanon.

Hussein denounced what he called an attempt to keep them from speaking on television. The debate was to be aired by the U.S.-funded Al-Hurra television.

It came more than six months after his regime launched sweeping crackdowns against demonstrators seeking greater rights.

In the speech, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa offered no clear concessions toward Bahrain’s majority Shiites, whose demands include easing the Sunni dynasty’s hold on power, setting policies and hand-picking government officials.

In his last interview after two years in Baghdad, U.N. envoy Ad Melkert said Iraqi security forces have made “clear improvements” but declined to say if he thinks they are ready to protect the country without help from the American military.

“It’s up to the government, really, to assess if it is enough to deal with the risks that are still around,” Melkert said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on the eve of his departure Monday.

U.N. security chief Gregory Starr acknowledged that safety features “could have been better” to stop the speeding sedan loaded with explosives. But only hours later, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told journalists that the building had “really, really tight” security.

Migiro earlier laid bouquets of red and white roses near a U.N. flag flying at half staff at the site of Friday’s attack, along with Nigeria’s foreign minister and the body’s acting local representative. She promised the U.N. would continue its work no matter what in Nigeria, an oil-rich country of 150 million people now violently divided by religion and ethnicity.

A government decree published Saturday returns assets that once belonged to Greek, Armenian or Jewish trusts and makes provisions for the government to pay compensation for any confiscated property that has since been sold on.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to announce the decision formally later Sunday when he hosts religious leaders and the heads of about 160 minority trusts, at a fast-breaking dinner for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, officials said.

At least the markets plan to open Monday, but after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced no new program Friday to lift stocks, investors sold lots of them.

That set at least one Wall Street economist to musing whether Buffett might be willing to lend a helping hand instead.

Irene’s storm surge had triggered scattered flooding in coastal areas after coming ashore Saturday in North Carolina. It plunged at least 2.7 million residential and business power customers into darkness and roughed up one of the most densely populated areas of the country. Initial reports suggested light damages in many areas from Irene, a lower-strength hurricane when it struck the U.S.

But Irene inflicted scattered damage over such a broad area that the total damage – and costs involved – were not yet known. Authorities also said teams would be deploying later Sunday, particularly in more remote areas, to assess the extent and severity of those damages after Irene, which was blamed for eight deaths.

St. Claude Avenue, the once moderately busy commercial thoroughfare, looks like the main street of a railroad town bypassed long ago by the interstate. Most buildings are shuttered, “For Sale” signs stuck on their sides. There aren’t many buyers. And the businesses that are open are mostly corner stores where folks buy pricey cigarettes, liquor and packaged food.

Six years after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the New Orleans neighborhood that was hardest hit still looks like a ghost town. Redevelopment has been slow in coming, and the neighborhood has just 5,500 residents – one-third its pre-Katrina population.

Until his term expires in 2015, Powell will run 325 schools and 35 school districts with 195,000 students, all for less than a starting California teacher earns.

“How much do we need to keep accumulating?” asks Powell, 63. “There’s no reason for me to keep stockpiling money.”

BJ’s Kountry Kitchen, in the heart of California’s farm country, uses about 26,000 of the 9-inch foam clamshells a year, mostly for takeout by the customers who come in for the restaurant’s popular breakfast omelets.

“We put cheese on those omelets. And when we put the cheese on, it’s really hot and bubbly and it goes right through the biodegradable stuff,” he said. He expects his costs would more than double if the state requires him to use only biodegradable cartons.

There are usually one or two in each class of about 30 students who graduate from the one-story wooden school in Superior, a town of 900 residents in the forested northern Rockies.

But the class of 2003 was the most striking for its military service, coming two years after the attacks of Sept. 11 and just months after the country went to war with Iraq. Three graduates of Superior High enlisted in the military, so many that the county briefly held the distinction of producing the highest number of Army recruits per capita in the nation.

It was the latest volley in a clash that stretches back to their first years in the George W. Bush administration.

Powell went so far as to say that if Cheney’s staff and others in Bush’s White House had been as forthcoming as the State Department in the case involving CIA operative Valerie Plame, the indictment and conviction of Cheney’s friend and former chief of staff never would have happened.

Sepp Blatter told The Associated Press he will announce his reform agenda after an Oct. 20-21 meeting in Zurich with his executive committee colleagues – several of whom have been under suspicion.

“I will announce a road map of where we go and when we go,” Blatter said, on the sidelines of his charitable foundation’s annual soccer tournament.

Vettel started from the pole to win his seventh race of the season and 17th of his career. The German led Red Bull to a 1-2 finish with Mark Webber finishing close behind.

“I enjoyed every lap today. The car was fantastic to drive,” Vettel said. “If the car does what you want it to do, this place is really fun. It was a very entertaining race, with the strategy to come in early.”