Evening Edition

The unequal duel between man and beast on the sands of the century-old Monumental bullring is the final combat before a permanent ban takes effect in the northeastern region from 2012.

A relief to animal rights activists, the ban is a bitter blow to bullfighting enthusiasts.

The gruesome find came as hundreds of the National Transitional Council’s fighters thrust into Kadhafi’s hometown of Sirte from the east and NATO warplanes pounded the coastal city for a second straight day.

The remains of the prisoners executed at Tripoli’s notorious Abu Salim jail were found in a mass grave in the capital, said Khalid Sharif, spokesman for the NTC’s military council.

The Socialist Party announced that, with its Communist and Green allies, it had won enough seats to take control of the upper house for the first time in modern French history, and its leaders were in buoyant mood.

“The left has for the first time managed to win a handover,” declared the Socialists’ leader in the Senate and thus the probable next speaker of the house, Jean-Pierre Bel, as poll results trickled in from across France.

EU heavyweight Germany will meanwhile hold a key vote Thursday on reforming a permanent European Union stability fund to enable it to engage in debt restructuring, a fallback the eurozone looks increasingly set to need.

That’s two days after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou visits Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as speculation mounts that a new EU rescue of Athens crafted in July will need to be revised.

Emerging market billionaires are showing a keen interest in superyachts, according to pundits at this year’s Monaco Yacht Show, the prestigious four-day global yacht gathering that wrapped up here on Saturday.

“The BRIC — Brazil, Russia, India and China — nations are much more active than they were three to four years ago,” Ellie Brade, Pacific editor at the Superyacht Group monthly magazine told AFP.

Anuradha Koirala left teaching 18 years ago to devote her life to waging war on the traffickers who smuggle women and children into the brothels of India, where they are often raped, assaulted and starved.

From setting up a safe house in Kathmandu to a daring undercover raid on a Mumbai brothel, Koirala says she has helped more than 10,000 victims of a cruel underworld which sees victims trafficked daily across the border.

At Nepal Fashion Week the models sashayed down the catwalk in a mix of Western and ethnic apparel, contrasting classic with kitsch in a cornucopia of sassy cocktail dresses, flowing silk gowns, kaftans, kurti blouses, shalwars, sequins and ruffles.

Dozens of young designers displayed their collections as the Nepali fashion industry bid to bring itself to global prominence, and attract the attention of international buyers.

The 24-year-old German, the defending champion and runaway leader of this year’s one-man title race, drove from pole position to the chequered flag in flawless style in his Red Bull car.

He won the floodlit 61-lap night race at the Marina Bay street circuit by a controlled 1.7 seconds.

All 20,000 seats in the historic bull ring had sold out weeks in advance for the contest in which Spain’s top matador, Jose Tomas, and two others will put to death six bulls.

Touts were charging 1,600 euros for tickets, three times the face value of the top price seats closest to the sand.

Ahead of a high-stakes meeting on Sunday afternoon between IMF chief Christine Lagarde and the finance minister of Greece — where the crisis is now centered — officials were wrestling with how to bolster Europe’s banking system and keep the crisis contained.

The IMF said the European Union’s bailout fund could not go it alone.

The debt purchases were approved by an overwhelming majority at the ECB’s board and were not influenced by governments, Paramo said in an interview with Spanish newspaper ABC.

“We will decide what future the program has, but we did not start this program as an answer to political demands at all, we are the most fiercely independent institution in the world,” Paramo told ABC.

At events across Washington this weekend, set to coincide with meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, several regulators made clear they believe higher capital standards for large banks are key to making the financial system more stable.

Many regulators sought to push back against specific arguments being put forward by banks.

A deepening of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis triggered by a Greek default or inaction by euro zone policymakers could launch a replay of the market seizures in 2008 that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, analysts and bankers say.

The scenario would largely follow the same script — markets collapse, investors flee risk, bank funding dries up and companies, who have already dramatically slowed hiring, shed employees to gird for the worst.

While economists remain divided, traders and investors that drive financial market prices expect the rapid deterioration in the euro zone economy to drive the ECB to cut interest rates by 50 basis points at its next meeting on October 6.

Honohan refused to comment on whether the bank would reverse the two 25 basis point hikes it made earlier in the year, but said there was certainly no threat anymore from inflation.

Politicians simply are running out of time and markets are running out patience.

Pessimism pervaded the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington that European Union leaders can agree quickly on a program that would convince investors of three basic principles:

“Let’s get stuck in, let’s engage, let’s get Europe to grow, that’s the priority,” he told the BBC before his centre-left Labour Party began its annual conference in the northwestern city of Liverpool.

Miliband said rising unemployment showed Cameron’s deficit-cutting strategy was not working and action was needed to get the economy growing.

A weekend briefing by African finance ministers at IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington attracted modest media attention, but there was quiet pride in the way representatives from tiny states like Cape Verde and Gambia were able to claim concrete achievements in managing debt and public finances.

Developing countries from across the world, including Africa, are portraying themselves as “innocent bystanders” of the economic storm boiling out of Europe and the United States, and have joined the chorus calling on the European nations in crisis to bite the bullet of painful economic reforms.

Europe is under intense pressure from financial markets and other major world economies to come up with a more aggressive response to the crisis.

Investors say Europe need more muscle to defend its bigger economies, such as Spain and Italy, from market turmoil.

The UBS board on Saturday accepted the resignation of its 67-year-old German-born chief executive and appointed as his interim replacement Sergio Ermotti, 51, who hails from Switzerland’s Italian-speaking region of Ticino.

The board is looking at both internal and external candidates to fill the post permanently and Chairman Kaspar Villiger has said ex-Bundesbank head Axel Weber has already been involved in the CEO selection process as an independent advisor.

For the first time since 1958, the right-dominated upper house swung to a left-wing majority as the body’s membership underwent a major generational change of guard.

Early results from the indirect elections showed left-wing candidates took at least 23 seats from the ruling conservative party, securing them an absolute majority.

Foreign investors were alarmed by Alexei Kudrin’s snub after Putin, who is now prime minister, announced he would run for president next March in an election that could extend his rule until 2024.

Kudrin, a Putin ally, has prime ministerial ambitions and said he had “disagreements” with Medvedev who may now struggle to establish his credibility as premier after being forced by Putin to renounce his dream of a second term as president.

To the east of Tripoli, NATO bombers hit the city of Sirte to clear the way for fighters with the National Transitional Council (NTC) who are trying to capture Gaddafi’s hometown.

But Gaddafi loyalists showed they were still a threat by attacking the desert oasis town of Ghadames, on the border with Algeria, NTC officials said.

Small heaps of weathered bones — some pulled from the earth by relatives of those killed and anti-Gaddafi gunmen who flocked to the site — dotted a dusty, wind-whipped field outside the prison.

The massacre 16 years ago was covered up for years but ultimately it helped to topple Gaddafi because the rebellion that ended his rule was rooted in anger about the Abu Salim killings.

Saleh, speaking after the sixth day of a wave of violence in which more than 100 people have been killed, said in his speech he was committed to transferring power through elections.

But since the crisis began in January when protesters took to the streets demanding that he quit, the embattled president has made numerous proposals to end the violence but followed up on none that entail him surrendering power.

It was by far the biggest change in Saudi Arabia’s tightly-controlled society yet ordered by the 88-year-old Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who took power six years ago with a reformer’s reputation but has ruled as a cautious conservative.

In practice, the measure will do little to change how the country is run: Saudi Arabia’s rulers allow elections only for half of the seats on municipal councils which have few powers. Only men will vote at the next elections which will take place next week; women will be allowed to vote in 2015.

Addressing about 100,000 people during mass at a small airport near the southwestern city of Freiburg, he said the sometimes fractious Church needed to unite around him and the German bishops.

“The Church in Germany will continue to be a blessing for the entire Catholic world if she remains faithfully united with the successor of St Peter,” he said, referring to himself.

Perry, leading in the polls for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination to run against Democratic President Barack Obama, had needed a victory in what was an early test of strength to salve the wounds left over from a debate with his rivals on Thursday in which he struggled.

Instead, former Godfather’s Pizza executive Cain, who is far behind the two top-tier candidates Perry and Mitt Romney in national polls, won with 37 percent of 2,657 votes cast.

The U.S. space agency said it believes the debris ended up in the Pacific Ocean, but the precise time of the bus-sized satellite’s re-entry and the location of its debris field have not been determined.

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, ended 20 years in orbit with a suicidal plunge into the atmosphere sometime between 11:23 p.m. on Friday and 1:09 a.m. EDT on Saturday (0323 to 0509 GMT Saturday), NASA said.

The company has 821 orders for the lightweight carbon-composite aircraft on its books, a record number for a Boeing plane still in development.

The airplane, which owes its popularity to promises of unprecedented fuel savings and passenger comfort, however, is three years behind its original development schedule and by some estimates tens of billions of dollars over budget.

It’s the homecoming mum, and it has come a long way since parents of today’s teens were in high school.

Back then, it was a real chrysanthemum flower given by a boy to his date, similar to a corsage given for a prom.

But it’s a hard one to shake — even though the state produced a two-term president in Bill Clinton, a famous author in John Grisham, and one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs in Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

This weekend, in conjunction with the Old State House Museum exhibit “Arkansas Arkansaw: A State And Its Reputation,” academics addressed the ongoing inferiority complex the state has always suffered, thanks to hillbilly lore.

Massa, already fuming from an incident in qualifying, was furious and confronted Hamilton after the grand prix during which the Briton’s McLaren had clipped his Ferrari while attempting to pass.

Hamilton collected a drive-through penalty for causing the collision but still finished the race fifth while the Brazilian, who limped back to the pits with a punctured rear tyre, was ninth and blamed Hamilton for “destroying” his race.

As the rest of the field jostled for position behind him, the 24-year-old Red Bull driver tamed the floodlit streets to stand just one point away from becoming the sport’s youngest double champion.

“The car was amazing and the start was good,” the German told reporters after holding off the late-charging McLaren of Jenson Button to cross the line 1.7 seconds ahead of the Briton and celebrate his ninth win of the season.

The cross-border attack on Saturday shows loyalist forces have managed to escape Libya and regroup and collect arms, bolstering fears the North African nation could face a protracted insurgency.

Fighters who took up arms against Gadhafi have seized Tripoli and have gained control of the rest of the country, but they are still battling forces loyal to the ousted regime on several fronts.

Libyan officials announced Sunday that they found a mass grave believed to hold the remains of the victims outside the white walls of Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison, where Gadhafi locked up and tortured opponents or simply made them disappear. Excavation has not begun, but several bone fragments and pieces of clothing already have been found in the topsoil.

Those bones could offer some of the most damning evidence of the brutality of Gadhafi’s nearly 42-year rule, and allow relatives of the victims to learn the truth about their fates after years of regime stonewalling. They also hold symbolic importance to the Libyan revolution itself, which was sparked in mid-February in the eastern city of Benghazi by demonstrators demanding the release of a prominent lawyer representing the families of slain inmates.

Ali Abdullah Saleh appeared in improved health after nearly four months of treatment in neighboring Saudi Arabia for severe burns and other injuries he suffered in a June 3 attack on his compound in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Saleh abruptly returned on Friday, and a week of renewed clashes with his opponents intensified, littering the streets of the capital with bodies.

“The crisis is big. You who are chasing power, let’s all go to the ballot boxes,” Saleh said, speaking to his opponents and suggesting elections rather than agreeing to step down.

Afghan authorities said gunfire was heard in the evening near the Ariana Hotel, a building that former U.S. intelligence officials said was the CIA station in Kabul. The CIA occupied the heavily secured building just blocks from the Afghan presidential palace in late 2001 after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

Four explosions struck the city of Karbala over a five-minute period, government officials said, sending thick black smoke over the city. Two of the bombs targeted an Interior Ministry office that issues ID cards. Another struck near a house, shredding its walls and ceiling. And one of the explosions went off half a mile from an important gold-domed shrine.

“Once again, the terrorist enemies of both Iraq and humanity have committed a new crime against the innocent people of Karbala,” said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite.

It is a “Saudi Spring” of sorts.

For the nation’s women, it is a giant leap forward, though they remain unable to serve as Cabinet ministers, drive or travel abroad without permission from a male guardian.

Aiming to renew the ardor of Democratic loyalists who have grown increasingly disenchanted with him, the president mixed frontal attacks on Republicans with words of encouragement intended to buck up the faithful as the 2012 campaign revs up.

“From the moment I took office what we’ve seen is a constant ideological pushback against any kind of sensible reforms that would make our economy work better and give people more opportunity,” the president said at an intimate brunch fundraiser at the Medina, Wash., home of former Microsoft executive Jon Shirley.

Aiming to renew the ardor of Democratic loyalists who have grown increasingly disenchanted with him, the president mixed frontal attacks on Republicans with words of encouragement intended to buck up the faithful as the 2012 campaign revs up.

“From the moment I took office what we’ve seen is a constant ideological pushback against any kind of sensible reforms that would make our economy work better and give people more opportunity,” the president said at an intimate brunch fundraiser at the Medina, Wash., home of former Microsoft executive Jon Shirley.

For the first time in months, retail gasoline prices have fallen below $3 a gallon in places, including parts of Michigan, Missouri and Texas. And the relief is likely to spread thanks to a sharp decline in crude-oil prices.

The national average for regular unleaded gasoline is $3.51 per gallon, down from a high of $3.98 in early May. Last week’s plunge in oil prices could push the average to $3.25 per gallon by November, analysts say.

Few states are as Republican as Nebraska, which hasn’t supported a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. But opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline has risen steadily since the project was proposed three years ago.

The reason: Fears of contaminating the Ogallala Aquifer, a vast subterranean reservoir that spans a large swath of the Great Plains and provides water to much of Nebraska, as well as seven other states. Opponents have grown to include Nebraska’s conservative governor and two U.S. senators, a Republican and a conservative Democrat.

Stewart is on a roll when the season matters most, following last week’s Chase opening victory at Chicagoland Speedway with another strong performance at New Hampshire. Both of his victories this season have come in the Chase and have propelled him to the top of the points standings.

The outcome was a complete reversal of the race at New Hampshire last fall, when Stewart’s tank ran dry a lap from the checkered flag and Bowyer pounced for the victory.

Or it could just be an act of collective will to dispel the growing economic gloom.

Because when they look into their crystal ball for next summer, they see the tropics. They see parties. They see fun, a return to the Roaring ’20s, the carefree ’50s.