Chelsea star Michael Ballack flew from London to Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday to apologise directly to Joachim Loew for comments he made last week criticising the national coach.

Asian investors looked to a key US Federal Reserve meeting to ease turbulence in regional stock markets Tuesday as Tokyo hit a fresh 26-year low a day after panic selling brought sharp falls.

TOKYO, Oct 27, 2008 (AFP) - The G7 club of rich nations pledged Monday to cooperate to bring stability to battered global markets, where stocks buckled on fears government action will be too late to prevent a worldwide recession.

HARARE, Oct 27, 2008 (AFP) - Leaders of a Southern African bloc gathered Monday in Zimbabwe to press President Robert Mugabe and the main opposition leader to break an impasse on forming a unity government.

CHICAGO, Oct 26, 2008 (AFP) - Julia Hudson, the older sister of 'Dreamgirls' star Jennifer Hudson, has pleaded for the return of her missing seven-year-old son after two members of her family were gunned down at their Chicago home.

'Give me my baby back. That's all I ask,' she said. 'I know he's out there. Put him on the side of the street. Just let him go.'

WATERLOO, Iowa, Oct 26, 2008 (AFP) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Sunday brushed off opinion polls indicating he is set to lose against Barack Obama, insisting that his bid for the White House is still afloat.

SAO PAULO, Oct 26, 2008 (AFP) - The ruling coalition of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took a body blow at the polls from conservative rivals in key cities Sao Paulo, Salvador and Porto Alegre, exit polls showed Sunday.

Members of the ruling Workers Party (PT) however won the mayor's posts in Belo Horizonte and in Rio de Janeiro, the polls showed.

CHICAGO , Oct 25, 2008 (AFP) - The mother and brother of Oscar-winning actress and chart-topping singer Jennifer Hudson has been found shot dead at the family's Chicago home, according to Hudson 's publicist and authorities.

A Chicago police department spokesman said the murders appeared to be the related to a domestic incident, but would not identify the victims.

BRUSSELS, Oct 25, 2008 (AFP) - Belgian bank KBC, whose shares have fallen heavily recently, is seeking 3.5 billion euros from the state to recapitalise before Monday, media reports said, but a company official denied the bank was in 'crisis'.

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Oct 24, 2008 (AFP) - Barack Obama quit the White House trail for Hawaii, where he arrived Friday for an emotional reunion with his gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother, 11 days before the US presidential vote.

VIENNA, Oct 24, 2008 (AFP) - OPEC began an emergency meeting here on Friday and was expected to cut its oil output in a controversial bid to support plunging crude prices even though recession looms for major economies.

WASHINGTON, Oct 24, 2008 (AFP) - The global financial crisis inflicted more pain Friday on a wide range of corporate sectors, prompting heavy losses in stock markets, while the IMF readied a rescue of some 200 billion dollars for debt-laden countries.

BEIJING, Oct 24, 2008 (AFP) - East Asian leaders agreed Friday to set up an 80-billion-dollar fund by mid-2009 to fight the global economic crisis, as Japanese shares again fell sharply after a profit warning from technology giant Sony.

ABIDJAN, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) - An Ivory Coast court on Wednesday handed down jail terms of 20 years and five years to two people for the dumping of toxic waste from a cargo ship in Abidjan in 2006 which killed 17 people and poisoned thousands.

Seven other people charged in the case were acquitted.

SYDNEY, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) - Australian share prices fell 4.3 percent in early trade Thursday after recession fears and disappointing company results caused sharp falls on Wall Street and European markets.

The market was further hit by early news that Australia's ANZ Bank reported a sharp fall in profits while resources stocks plummeted on the back of weakening commodity prices.

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa met here Thursday to discuss bilateral issues, including Mexico's spiraling drug crime, which Rice calls a 'national security priority' for both countries.

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) - The United States pledged Thursday to deliver aid urgently to Mexico to curb spiraling drug crime and to further build ties with its neighbor to the south despite attacks on US interests.

BUJUMBURA, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) - A fugitive Burundian army officer was sentenced to death in absentia Thursday for the killing of 31 civilians at an army base in 2006, legal officials and witnesses said.

'Colonel Vital Bangirinama, who supervised the massacre, has been condemned to death,' said Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, a local rights defender.

TOKYO, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) - Asian stocks took another battering on Thursday, tracking a sell-off on world markets driven by more gloomy profit news and deepening fears of a global recession ahead.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Oct 16, 2008 (AFP) - Hurricane Omar pounded the Virgin Islands with lashing rain and 120 mile-per-hour winds on Thursday after strengthening into a major category three storm and taking aim at Puerto Rico.

WASHINGTON, Oct 16, 2008 (AFP) - With recession fears for the US economy growing by the day in the wake of a global financial crisis, analysts are pondering the questions of how deep and wide the downturn will be.

HEMPSTEAD, New York, Oct 15, 2008 (AFP) - John McCain clashed with Democratic front-runner Barack Obama in a last-chance presidential debate Wednesday, hoping to launch a dramatic comeback just 19 days from election day.

TOKYO, Oct 16, 2008 (AFP) - Emergency measures to tackle the financial crisis provided little relief for nervous investors Thursday, as stock markets around the world took a battering on fears of a global recession ahead.

PHNOM PENH, Oct 14, 2008 (AFP) - A Cambodian court Tuesday sentenced four former Khmer Rouge guerrillas to up to 20 years in prison over the kidnapping and murder of a British mine clearer and his translator in 1996.

Three of the five accused were jailed for 20 years, a fourth for 10 years, while the fifth man was acquitted and released.

TOKYO, Oct 14, 2008 (AFP) - Japan and Australia moved Tuesday to shore up consumer and investor confidence, as governments around the world took new steps to ease the global financial crisis -- and saw stocks soar in response.

WASHINGTON, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - The United States, after saying it plans to buy stakes in banks, was expected Tuesday to unveil specific measures on how it will shore up the banking system and market confidence.

The US Treasury announced on Monday it was gearing up to purchase equity in a 'broad array' of financial firms.

MADRID, Oct 14, 2008 (AFP) - After snapping up stakes in two British banks hard hit by the financial crisis, Spain's biggest bank, Santander, has turned its sights across the Atlantic with the purchase of a controling stake in troubled US lender Sovereign Bancorp.

Governments around the globe launched a multi-pronged attack on the
finance crisis, as President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson prepared Tuesday to unveil the next step in the US
response.

WASHINGTON, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank hailed Sunday progress made to coordinate responses to the financial crisis in the G7, the eurozone and multilateral institutions, but urged that poor countries not be forgotten.

LONDON, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - The British government will on Monday announce plans to take controlling shares in HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), two of the banks worst affected by the global financial crisis, media reports said.

PARIS, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - European Union leaders hammered out emergency plans Sunday worth hundreds of billions of dollars to protect troubled banks mired in the global financial crisis, and some Asian stock markets responded by showing sharp early gains.

ARLINGTON, Virginia, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - The US presidential campaign settled into a straight fight on the economy Monday as global financial turmoil focused both candidates on how to help Americans worried about their future.

LONDON, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - European governments attacked the financial crisis on several fronts Monday buying into banks and giving huge new loans in a campaign that brought relief to shell-shocked share markets.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - Republican John McCain Monday desperately sought to win back voters hit by the economic crisis and flocking in droves towards Democrat Barack Obama, three weeks before the elections.

PARIS, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - World powers vowed to keep a united front to solve the financial crisis as the IMF warned that the global system was on the brink of meltdown ahead of new European crisis talks in Paris on Sunday.

LONDON, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned European leaders they were facing a 'moment of truth' Sunday in their efforts to tackle the global financial crisis.

PARIS, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - European leaders on Sunday hammered out action to confront the financial crisis, adding their voices to a global chorus of demands for coordinated action against the turmoil.

LA PAZ, Mexico, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - Hurricane Norbert, which made landfall in Mexico as a category two hurricane, was downgraded Sunday to a tropical depression after it largely dissipated, the Mexican weather service said.