Before the static kill bid can go ahead, engineers first had to inject oil through the cap on top of the well to make sure there would be no problem they pump in heavy drilling mud on Tuesday.

“Today we will do the injectivity tests, we’ll look at that information, make any adjustments to how and if we move forward with the static kill tomorrow,” said BP senior vice president Kent Wells.

The operation is one of two bids to definitively “kill” the damaged well, which has spewed noxious crude into the sea since April, devastating fragile habitats and bringing financial ruin to many residents along the US Gulf Coast.

BP officials in recent days said they hoped the “static kill” operation would take place Tuesday, but on Sunday the US point man for the spill response, Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen, said it “could start as early as Monday night, depending on final testing of the mud injection systems.”

The news sent shares in Europe’s biggest bank soaring by more then five percent and helped lift investor sentiment on global markets, alongside unexpectedly strong second-quarter profits from French bank BNP Paribas.

“As we focus on building a high quality asset base for the future, it is encouraging that loan impairment charges now stand at their lowest levels since the start of the (global) financial crisis,” HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan said in an earnings statement.

“This is a historic day for Geely, which is extremely proud to have acquired Volvo Cars,” Geely Group chairman Li Shufu said in a statement, promising continuity for Volvo but also stressing Geely’s ambitions for the brand in China’s booming market.

Known for its family-friendly cars, Volvo “will remain true to its core values of safety, quality, environmental care and modern Scandinavian design as it strengthens the existing European and North American markets and expands its presence in China and other emerging markets,” Li said.

Despite mounting casualties and public doubts, Gates said Sunday the US-led force was making headway and Taliban insurgents would not be able to wait out American forces because a major troop withdrawal was not on the horizon.

“I think we need to reemphasize the message that we are not leaving Afghanistan in July of 2011,” said Gates, referring to a deadline set by President Barack Obama for the start of a withdrawal.

“We have decided, by narrow majority, to suspend the strike,” the head of the Greek truck owners confederation, George Tzortzatos, told reporters after a union meeting that lasted over three hours.

“Transporters will be back at the steering wheel as of tomorrow,” he said.

The UAE suspension would kick in on October 11 and last until a legal solution was reached, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a statement on its website.

It said the decision was taken “after failing to make progress in repeated attempts to make BlackBerry services compatible” with the Gulf state’s legislation.

Appleby birdied the last three holes to win the inaugural Greenbrier Classic by one stroke over American Jeff Overton, taking his first title since the 2006 Houston Open plus a 1.08 million-dollar top prize and a place in golf history.

“Everything was switched on. I felt pretty comfortable out there,” Appleby said. “I liked all the reads. I liked the way the ball rolled. This course is receptive. Guys were shooting really low. I was fortunate to do all mine in one round.”

The 33-year-old Red Bull driver took full advantage of other people’s problems, including those of his German team-mate Sebastian Vettel, to produce an assured drive that brought him his fourth win of the season and the sixth of his career.

“It was a bit of a gift for me but you know I haven’t had many of them,” said Webber, who was taking part in his 150th Grand Prix.

Brawn, boss of both men during a six-year spell of unprecedented success at Ferrari, spoke out in the aftermath of Brazilian Barrichello’s claims Sunday that he was “lucky to be alive”.

In the final laps of Sunday’s race, seven-times world champion Schumacher fought to defend 10th position and almost pushed Williams driver Barrichello into the pit wall when he swerved towards him.

Four existing World Heritage sites were also expanded to include nearby natural or cultural treasures in Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain, the UN cultural agency said in a statement.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, in a 10-day meeting in Brasilia that will wrap up Tuesday, has already added or extended 17 other sites to its list, bringing the total number of sites around the world with the prestigious stamp to 910.

“Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility,” Obama will tell a national convention of Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta, Georgia, according to excerpts of his speech released by the White House.

“And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010 America’s combat mission in Iraq would end,” the president continued. “And that is exactly what we are doing, as promised, on schedule.”

Details of the probe emerged as BP prepared to deliver the first of what it hopes will be two knockout blows to “kill” its ruptured Macondo well, 105 days after it started gushing out millions of gallons of oil, causing an environmental disaster.

Two sources familiar with the preliminary Securities and Exchange Commission probe said the alleged insider trading took place after the start of the BP oil spill on April 20.

But the EPA indicated in a statement on Sunday that the difference between what the agency directed and what BP and the U.S. Coast Guard achieved is slight — the difference between a 75 percent cut in dispersant use and a 72 percent cut.

The environmental agency acknowledged, however, that the use of dispersants is “always a difficult decision.”

Speaking to the Disabled American Veterans group in Atlanta even as he struggles with waning public support for the war in Afghanistan, Obama sought to underscore his administration’s progress winding down the U.S. role in the unpopular Iraq war.

With congressional elections looming in November, it was a reminder to liberal Democrats and many independent voters whose opposition to the Iraq conflict helped sweep him into office that he was determined to bring the war to a “responsible end.”

The House ethics panel said it had found evidence of undisclosed ethics violations by California’s Waters, who denied breaking any rules in setting up a 2008 meeting between a banker and the U.S. treasury secretary and vowed to contest the allegations in a public trial.

“I simply will not be forced to admit to something I did not do,” Waters said in a prepared statement, explaining her decision not to accept the charges and force a public trial.

In the opening salvo of the legal fight, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson refused to dismiss the state’s lawsuit, which argued the requirement that its residents must have health insurance is unconstitutional and conflicts with state law.

Hudson, who noted that his ruling was only an initial step, decided the issue the state raised — whether forcing residents to buy something, namely healthcare, is constitutional — had not been fully tested in court and was ripe for review.

The whistle-blowing website published tens of thousands of war records a week ago, a move the Pentagon has said could cost lives and damage the trust of allies by exposing U.S. intelligence gathering methods and names of Afghan contacts.

Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, appeared on television talk shows renewing those concerns amid fears WikiLeaks may publish more documents.

Cameron, speaking last Wednesday during a visit to India, told Islamabad that it must not become a base for militants and “promote the export of terror” across the globe.

The comments caused anger in Pakistan where protesters in Karachi burned an effigy of Cameron. Pakistan’s spy chief canceled a trip to Britain in protest, though President Asif Ali Zardari still plans to visit Britain this week.

Pakistan’s spy chief, who had been due to visit London on Monday for talks on counter-terrorism, canceled his trip in protest at Cameron’s remarks, a spokesman for the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency said on Saturday.

Cameron, speaking in Pakistan’s rival India on Wednesday, told Islamabad that it must not become a base for militants and “promote the export of terror” across the globe, raising the ire of several officials and many people in the key U.S. ally.

As crews planned testing late Monday to determine whether to proceed with a “static kill” to pump mud and perhaps cement down the throat of the well, BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said if it’s successful the relief wells may not be used, after all, to do the same weeks later from the bottom.

The primary relief well and a backup, not far from completion, might be used simply to ensure the leak is plugged, he said. Either way, Wells said, “We want to end up with cement in the bottom of the hole.”

Fresh splotches of chocolate-colored crude, probably globules broken apart by toxic chemical dispersants sprayed by BP with government approval, still wash up almost daily on protective boom and in marshes in reopened fishing grounds east of the Mississippi River.

When shrimp season opens in a couple of weeks and Rusty Graybill drags his nets across the mucky bottom, he worries that he’ll also collect traces of oil and dispersants – and that even if his catch doesn’t smell, buyers and consumers will turn up their noses.

The Emirates’ telecoms regulator said Monday that travelers to the city-state of Dubai and the important oil industry center of Abu Dhabi will – like the 500,000 local subscribers – have to do without BlackBerry e-mail, messaging and Web services starting Oct. 11, even when they carry phones issued in other countries. The handsets themselves will still be allowed for phone calls.

Emirati authorities say the move is based on security concerns because BlackBerry data are automatically shipped to company computers abroad, where it is difficult for local authorities to monitor for illegal activity or abuse.

Portraying the end of America’s combat role in the 7-year war as a personal promise kept, Obama said Iraq will have 90,000 fewer U.S. troops by September than when he took office – a steady homeward flow he called “a season of homecomings.” But there could still be more fighting involving U.S. forces.

“The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq,” the president said in a speech to the national convention of the Disabled American Veterans. “But make no mistake, our commitment in Iraq is changing – from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats.”

The charges against Waters, a 10-term California congresswoman, focus on whether she broke the rules in requesting federal help for a bank where her husband was a board member and owned stock. She immediately denied the charges.

The House ethics committee’s announcement comes just days after it outlined 13 charges against Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., including failing to disclose assets and income, delayed payment of federal taxes and improper use of a subsidized New York apartment for his campaign office.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli claims in the lawsuit that Congress doesn’t have the authority to require citizens to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson’s ruling denied the Justice Department’s attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying further hearings were needed to weigh the merits of the case. An Oct. 18 hearing had previously been set.

You have a right to a lawyer – before, during and after questioning, even though the police don’t have to tell you exactly when the lawyer can be with you. If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you, which, by the way, are only good for the next two weeks?

The Supreme Court made major revisions to the now familiar Miranda warnings this year. The rulings will change the ways police, lawyers and criminal suspects interact amid what experts call an attempt to pull back some of the rights that Americans have become used to over recent decades.

Einhorn drew bone marrow from the man’s pelvic bone with a needle, condensed it to about four teaspoons of rich red liquid, and injected that into his ankle.

Four months later the ankle was healed. Einhorn, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center, credits “adult” stem cells in the marrow injection. He tried it because of published research from France.

Shiite Premier Nouri al-Maliki’s comments, airing late Monday on state run TV, came just hours after President Barack Obama promised again to remove all but 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the month.

They also came on a day that saw the killings of a dozen Iraqis in bombings and drive-by shootings around the country – underscoring widespread fears that insurgents are taking advantage of the political impasse caused by March’s inconclusive elections which failed to produce a clear winner.

Sen. Robert Menendez, leading a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation, had scheduled a hearing on Capitol Hill last week that was canceled after BP and British and Scottish government officials declined to attend.

He and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, both Democrats, said at a news conference Monday they would continue to push the British and Scottish governments to release documents regarding al-Megrahi’s release. Menendez said he plans to hold a hearing in September.

The Rev. Tom Brock told The Associated Press he has known for years he is sexually attracted to men, but doesn’t consider himself gay because he never acted on it.

In June, the Minnesota gay magazine Lavender reported that Brock was a member of a support group for Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction. Brock’s church, the Hope Lutheran Church, placed him on leave while a task force looked into the matter. The Rev. Tom Parrish, the church’s executive pastor, said the investigation determined Brock’s story checked out.

With the childhood obesity rates creating demand for healthier foods in schools, more attention is being placed on the culinary skills of those charged with preparing it. What good are fresh local produce and grass-fed beef, for example, if the lunchroom employees know how to make only canned vegetables and frozen fish sticks?

“It’s more work to cook from scratch, no doubt,” said Dawn Cordova, a longtime school cafeteria worker attending Denver Public Schools’ first “scratch cooking” training this summer.

“We have decided, by narrow majority, to suspend the strike,” the head of the Greek truck owners confederation, George Tzortzatos, told reporters after a union meeting that lasted over three hours.

“Transporters will be back at the steering wheel as of tomorrow,” he said.

Military trucks and petrol company vehicles were employed to alleviate the fuel shortage as over 30,000 lorry and tanker truck operators sat out a government requisition order to return to work on pain of prosecution.

Officials said the situation was improving in the main cities of Athens and Thessaloniki, but shortages were still reported on many holiday islands and destinations in northern Greece where thousands of tourists are stranded.

A strike wave against austerity policies, a violent May protest in which three people died in a firebombed bank and unionist action targeting cruise ships and flights have made for a calamitous season, operators say.

And additional disruption caused to tens of thousands of travellers by the fuel holdup caused by a trucker walkout could not have come at a worse time for a sector which makes up nearly a fifth of the troubled Greek economy.

The HSBC China Manufacturing PMI, or purchasing managers index, fell to 49.4 last month from 50.4 in June — its first drop below the neutral 50 threshold since March 2009, the bank said.

A reading above 50 means the sector is expanding, while below 50 indicates an overall decline.

The UAE suspension would kick in on October 11 and last until a legal solution was reached, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a statement on its website.

It said the decision was taken “after failing to make progress in repeated attempts to make BlackBerry services compatible” with the Gulf state’s legislation.

The main ECB interest rate is sure to remain at a record low of 1.0 percent for the 16th month running and governors can take a summer break in the wake of some positive economic indicators and amid relative calm on financial markets.

Recent ECB meetings have been held as the Greek debt crisis festered, record one-year bank loans were coming due or markets braced for the results of stress tests on European financial institutions.

Highlighting the conundrum has been the death of wealthy Americans including oil tycoon Dan Duncan and New York Yankees baseball owner George Steinbrenner, who can pass on their fortunes to heirs with no taxes. Duncan’s fortune was estimated at nine billion dollars and Steinbrenner’s at 1.1 billion by Forbes magazine.

If they had died in 2009 or 2011, their estates would have paid huge amounts of taxes to the US Treasury. The heirs avoided the tax man because a law enacted in 2001 under president George W. Bush phased out the estate tax entirely in 2010.

The increase in sales has come as Amazon slashes the price on its Kindle device amid heavy competition from Apple’s multi-purpose iPad and e-readers from Sony and bookstore giant Barnes & Noble.

Underscoring the growth, Hong Kong’s massive book fair, an annual event attended by almost one million people, wrapped up last week with visitors exposed to a brand-new section: digital reading.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth fell back sharply to 2.4 percent in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said, slamming the brakes on an already tepid rebound and painting a bleak picture of the road ahead.

“The post-recession rebound is history,” said Bart van Ark, chief economist for The Conference Board, a leading business research group.

“The particular challenges facing Spain will likely make the recovery slower and more fragile than in the euro area,” the IMF said in its latest report on the country’s economy.

The International Monetary Fund’s growth forecast for Europe’s fifth-largest economy for next year was lower than the 1.3 percent expansion predicted by the Spanish government, which is under pressure to close its public deficit.

It’s a daily journey that could be made easier as a bridge spanning the bay goes under construction later this year, part of the 1.5 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros) that Mozambique is pouring into rebuilding its war-shattered infrastructure over the next five years.

“It will help. I won’t have to wait for a ferry,” the 29-year-old says.

The two banks showed a dip in investment banking income in the latest quarter, but more than made up for that with lower losses on personal and corporate loans as broad economic conditions improved.

Half-year profits for HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, hit $11.1 billion, more than double the $5 billion of a year ago and above the average forecast of $9.1 billion from eight analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Zhejiang Geely, parent of Hong Kong-listed Geely Automobile (0175.HK) said on Monday it paid $1.3 billion in cash and issued a $200 million loan note to Ford. That represents $300 million less than the earlier headline of $1.8 billion, but Ford said it would get a further “true-up” payment later in the year.

With the deal now done, the real challenge for Geely will lie ahead as it aims to restore Volvo to long-term profits. Volvo Cars posted revenue of $12.4 billion in 2009 by selling 334,000 cars, but it recorded a pretax loss of $653 million.

Global stock markets rose on Monday, viewing a declining Chinese manufacturing purchasing index as the signal of a desired slowdown rather than the harbinger of a slump, with strong results from two of Europe’s top banks adding to the positive tone.

Investors also looked ahead to equivalent U.S. factory data due later on Monday for further signs that the recovery in the world’s biggest economy might be stalling, three days after second quarter output numbers there came in below forecasts.

Documents filed with the Singapore High Court by the defense last Thursday alleged that the orders against them were oppressive and had been for “unlawful or illegitimate reasons.”

The filings highlight the manner of the execution of the seizure by BP, in particular, the seizure of mobile phones and laptops used by the six former employees’ spouses and children, the search of the handbag of the wife of one of them and the search of one former employees’ son’s school book folder.

It will be Dudley’s first visit to Russia since he was forced to flee the country in 2008, citing a campaign of harassment by its billionaire partners in the TNK-BP joint venture of which he was CEO.

BP has since settled its dispute about control of TNK-BP and the venture remains a key part of BP’s portfolio, representing a quarter of total production and over 10 percent of profits.

The job market, often described as reacting in slow-motion to shifts in the pace of economic growth, may actually be a pretty solid indicator of the United States’ prospects.

That means a double-dip U.S. recession cannot yet be completely ruled out, particularly since economists believe Friday’s payrolls report for July will show a second straight month of net job losses.

Net profit jumped 31 percent thanks to lower loan provisions and strong retail banking, offsetting volatile financial market conditions that hit investment banking, BNP said.

The performance underlined an improving but still challenging macroeconomic environment in BNP’s key euro zone markets, pointing the way to more growth in retail, Chief Executive Baudouin Prot said in a statement.

BlackBerry’s Messenger application has spread rapidly in the Gulf Arab region but because the data is encrypted and sent to offshore servers, it cannot be tracked locally.

“Certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns,” the United Arab Emirates’ Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a statement.

The setback halted a drop in month-to-month stress readings that had begun in February. In May, economic stress had declined from the previous month in 33 states. And in April, stress fell in every state but two.

But in June, bankruptcy rates rose in Utah, California, Colorado and Idaho. Higher foreclosures spread to the Midwest, particularly Illinois. This occurred even as foreclosures eased in states that have suffered most from the housing bust, such as Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada.

The legendary Swedish automaker is China’s biggest foreign auto acquisition and an unusually large deal for a private Chinese company.

Industry analysts say 13-year-old Geely, barely known abroad, will face a struggle in integrating the two corporate cultures and turning around Volvo Cars, a perennial money-loser in a country with strong labor unions.

Based on surging first-half results, the Louisville-based company raised its net income-per-share expectations for the full year to a range of $5.65 to $5.75, compared to a prior range of $5.55 to $5.65.

Analysts expect $5.71 per share, on average.

Some of the nail salons, restaurants and other small shops that have sold the coupons have risked both new and existing business as they struggled to handle the surge in clients.

For Crystal Nail Salon in Chicago, ratings at web sites like Yelp.com tumbled as owner Phu Bui struggled to serve up the 5,100 manicure-pedicure combinations he sold in June for 65 percent off.

The appeal is easy to understand.

Junk bonds, known more politely as high-yield bonds, are bonds with very low credit ratings that corporations pay more interest on so they can attract investors. As of last week, they were yielding 8.34 percent, down from 9 percent earlier in July.

The only thing keeping millions more gallons of oil out of the Gulf right now is an experimental cap that has held for more than two weeks but was never meant to be permanent.

The so-called “static kill” attempt carries no certainty, and BP PLC engineers still plan to follow it up days later by sending a stream of mud and cement into the bottom of the mile-deep underground reservoir through a relief well they’ve been digging for months.

Fresh splotches of chocolate-colored crude, probably globules broken apart by toxic chemical dispersants sprayed by BP with government approval, still wash up almost daily on protective boom and in marshes in reopened fishing grounds east of the Mississippi River.

When shrimp season opens in a couple of weeks and fisherman Rusty Graybill drags his nets across the mucky bottom, he worries that he’ll also collect traces of oil and dispersants – and that even if his catch doesn’t smell, buyers and consumers will turn up their noses.

Medicare will save about $8 billion by the end of next year, and $575 billion over the rest of the decade, the report said.

Release of the analysis comes ahead of the official annual financial checkup for Social Security and Medicare from the program’s trustees, expected as early as this week. It provides support for the administration’s position that the health care law secures and strengthens health care for seniors.

Congress is at work on a new program that would send $30 billion to struggling community banks, in a process similar to the huge federal bailouts of big banks during the financial crisis. This time, money is more likely to disappear as a result of bank failures or fraud.

Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama declared an end to taxpayer bailouts when he signed a sweeping overhaul of financial rules. In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, he described the new bailout program as “a common-sense” plan that would give badly needed lending help to small-business owners to expand and hire.

The study, which has been embraced by many agricultural groups but criticized by some environmentalists, found that improvements in technology, plant varieties and other advances enabled farmers to grow more without a big increase in greenhouse gas releases. Much of the credit goes to eliminating the need to plow more land to plant additional crops.

The study’s authors said they aren’t claiming modern, high-production agriculture is without problems, including the potential for soil degradation through intense cultivation and fertilizer runoff that can contaminate fresh water.