Weekend News Digest

When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception – and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.

She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free “awesome facial” she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The “absolutely gorgeous flowers” she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.

In violence, at least 25 people were killed by attacks in Baghdad and restive Diyala province, including a series of car bombings in the capital that targeted shoppers.

Amid growing criticism of the provincial election law, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed to parliament and the electoral commission to restore the quotas guaranteed for minority goups by the old election law.

However, questions abound as to whether the U.S. financial rescue plan, which would use taxpayer funds to buy up toxic mortgage debt, would restore confidence to shaky markets and head off a deeper downturn.

In a sign of the spreading crisis, Belgian-Dutch financial group Fortis faced a takeover or break-up as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet joined emergency talks with Dutch and Belgian lawmakers.

Their Shenzhou (“sacred vessel”) spacecraft parachuted down to the steppes of northern Inner Mongolia region at dusk. Doctors rushed to open the capsule and check the men as they readjusted to gravity and recovered from the punishing re-entry.

Spacewalker Zhai Zhigang was the first to emerge and was helped to a nearby folding chair, where he was greeted with flowers and applause and said he was “proud of his motherland.”

As of 7:00 pm (1700 GMT), two hours after the polls closed, the interior ministry calculated that the Social Democrat SPOe managed to hold on to first place, garnering 29.9 percent of votes.

But the reading represented a drop of 5.4 percentage points from the previous election in October 2006 and was the SPOe’s lowest score since the end of World War II.

Scenes of thousands of parents crowding hospitals, seeking help for babies ill from toxic dairy powder, have stoked widespread public dismay in China.

Reflecting that anger, local rights advocates and lawyers have mobilized to support families seeking redress, possibly by suing dairies or officials who failed to disclose the problem.

The deals with GE, Siemens and a third company would be worth a total of $7 billion to $8 billion, Iraq’s Electricity Minister Karim Waheed told Reuters.

Years of war, sanctions and neglect have battered Iraq’s power grid and the country suffers chronic power shortages. The capital Baghdad receives only a few hours of electricity a day. The deals would mark a big step in the country’s reconstruction, Waheed said.

The attackers were waiting outside the home of Malalai Kakar, head of the city of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women, and opened fire on her car, Kandahar government spokesman Zalmay Ayoobi told AFP.

“Today between 7 am and 8 am when she was (in her car) outside her house and going to her job, some gunmen attacked,” Ayoobi said. “Malalai Kakar died in front of her house. Her son was wounded.”

The 37-year veteran diplomat, interviewed by The Associated Press at his embassy in Baghdad, is in the middle of tough negotiations with Iraqi officials to define the basis for a continuing American military presence in the country beyond the end of this year.

The talks hit an impasse recently and are taking place against a backdrop of increasing calls in the United States for a U.S. withdrawal and declining interest in the war itself from many members of the American public.

Police said they had witnesses who could identify the two men who dropped a plastic bag in the capital’s busy Mehrauli market, before speeding away on a motorcycle on Saturday.

A boy picked up the bag and ran after the motorcyclists to return it when there was a huge explosion, killing him on the spot. A 60-year-old man died in hospital later. Twenty-two people were wounded in the blast.

A bomb in a minibus parked near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad’s Shurta neighbourhood killed 12 people and wounded 35 others, the officials told AFP, while a second car bombing killed one person and wounded another in Hai al-Amil.

Both attacks took place in the western Baghdad neighbourhoods just minutes before the end of the daily Ramadan dawn-to-dusk fast.

McCain made the most notable misstatements and stumbled over the names of the leaders of Iran , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , whose name he couldn’t pronounce, and of Pakistan , referring to the latter as “Qadari” instead of Asif Ali Zardari.

McCain incorrectly asserted that former Gen. Pervez Musharraf rescued Pakistan from being a “failed state” when he seized power in a 1999 coup.

Tens of millions of conservatives tune in to AM talk radio, trusting nationally syndicated hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Neal Boortz over media outlets they say have a liberal bias.

“I really don’t like this (proposal),” said Lance from North Carolina on the “Today’s Issues” program broadcast on Christian radio stations across America.

While Congress debated a $700 billion bailout to save the U.S. financial system, Clinton said as he wrapped up his philanthropic summit that the turmoil could also be seen as an opportunity to invest in developing nations.

He warned governments to avoid just “looking inward” as they sought to fix the financial system.

Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid attributed the fresh progress to a last-minute intervention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“It’s been a very long day. Quite frankly, a long week. This evening has been extremely difficult,” Reid said after US lawmakers worked feverishly into the early morning hours.

Obama was to speak at a rally in Detroit one day after the US Senate approved 25 billion dollars in loan guarantees for the financially strapped US auto industry.

The bill, which passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday, contains the first loan guarantees for US carmakers since Congress approved a similar 675 million dollar measure for Chrysler in 1980.

Like many, the 30-year-old insurance agent turned towards banks for a loan but he ended up finding a much better deal elsewhere, on the Internet, through a website called Lending Club (lendingclub.com).

Little eventually borrowed 10,000 dollars from 30 people he didn’t know and had never met through Lending Club, a “peer-to-peer” or social lending network.

“That’s the way they always do,” the Arizona senator said dismissively of fellow lawmakers. “You put in the, you put in the good deals, and then you put in the pork, as well.” He said separate votes should be allowed on the bill’s different provisions.

McCain did not vote on the measure when it cleared Congress on Saturday, although he returned to Washington after Friday night’s campaign debate in Mississippi. McCain said he was working on other matters at the time of the vote, including negotiations on a bailout of the financial industry.

The loan guarantees were included in a continuing resolution that included funding for the US government and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President George W. Bush has indicated that he intends to sign the bill.

It usually takes years to recover from a financial crisis severe enough for politicians to ride to the rescue with truckloads of taxpayer money.

Take, for example, the U.S. government’s August 1989 bailout of the savings-and-loan industry. The stock market fell by 12 percent within the first 14 months of the rescue plan while the economy slipped into an eight-month recession that began in July 1990. Housing prices that had just begun to erode continued to fall for another three years.

Holding signs that said “Return my blood money” and “Crafty salesmanship, sugarcoated poison,” about 400 people marched through Hong Kong’s Central financial district to nearby government headquarters.

The protesters complained that banks that sold them Lehman-backed bonds didn’t properly explain the products to them and urged the Hong Kong government to better regulate methods of selling investment products.

Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd., little known outside China but with an estimated 42 percent of its pure juice market, could become a victim of its own success if Beijing deems it too big and famous to fall into foreign hands.

Huiyuan’s green cartons of orange, apple, pear and grape juice are ubiquitous in Chinese grocery stores. Acquiring the company would expand Coke’s presence in a major market. For Huiyuan, which welcomes the deal, being acquired would give it access to experience at product development and marketing.

The Treasury is leading talks on the rescue of the bank and said on Sunday discussions were continuing. A full statement will be made by finance minister Alistair Darling before Monday’s market opening.

The Treasury would have preferred a private sector rescue for Britain’s ninth biggest mortgage provider but rivals appear unwilling to come in as a “white knight” amid a global credit crisis and weakening British housing market.

Trichet, who as ECB head is responsible for safeguarding financial stability in the euro zone, joined Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme in Brussels in a bid to secure the future of Fortis, including a partial or full sale or some form of state intervention, a source familiar with the situation said.

BNP Paribas and ING Group both declined comment on reports that they could buy all or part of Fortis or Dutch bank ABN AMRO, which Fortis bought a year ago.

While Washington’s $700-billion bailout package is crucial in tackling the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, doubts remain as to how it could immediately thaw the frozen money and credit market.

This week’s data highlight is the U.S. employment report for September but the indicator is unlikely to fully capture the massive shock to the labor market, broader economy and consumer confidence of the events of the past two weeks.

Press reports say Air France-KLM and Lufthansa are preparing takeover bids for the troubled airline. Berlusconi promised during his election campaign to keep Alitalia in Italian hands, opposing in April a takeover bid from the Franco-Dutch company.

“There is a clause (in the contracts) which forbids shareholders from selling a majority stake for at least five years,” Berlusconi was quoted as saying by ANSA, referring to Italian consortium CAI’s offer of one billion euros (1.45 billion dollars).

A problem with a magnet connection will delay the start of experiments for half a year, partly because the $3.8 billion accelerator is so complicated to repair. Physicists – some of whom waited two decades to use the new equipment – will now have to wait three more weeks for the damaged section to be warmed up to room temperature.

They can then get inside to see what went wrong.

The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.

“We’re delighted,” said UCLA’s Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. “Now we’re looking for the next one, despite the odds.”

Without authorization to spend tax dollars on Russian Soyuz spacecraft and other space services, NASA would have been forced off the space station just as the $100 billion complex is finally finished and ready for full-time science.

The Soyuz capsules are the only available vehicles capable of ferrying people to and from the station aside from the U.S. space shuttles, which are being retired in two years. Soyuz capsules also serve as the space station’s lifeboats.

The rocks may be remnants of Earth’s primordial crust, which formed on the planet’s surface as it cooled following the birth of the solar system, according to Jonathan O’Neil of McGill University in Montreal.

“Maybe it was the original crust, and before that there was no stable crust on the Earth. That’s a big question,” O’Neil said in a telephone interview.

However, the measures will not be as tough as the strict curbs on driving that were implemented for the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, which were widely credited with clearing the city’s skies.

From Wednesday, 30 percent of government vehicles will be taken off the roads, said a notice on the municipal government’s website.

Everywhere, that is, except on the sun-drenched continent of Africa.

With an average daily dose of five-to-seven kilowatts per hour (kWh) for every square metre (10 square feet), Africa has more potential for producing energy from the sun than almost anywhere on Earth, with the possible exception of northern Australia or the Arabian peninsula.

“We are imposing regulations on the oil sands to achieve important environmental targets for this country,” said Harper at a press briefing on Friday, adding that Canada will not allow the emission target to be avoided “by exporting to countries that do not impose sufficient environmental standards.

“We think that’s environmentally responsible,” said Harper.

Researchers from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and other groups are preparing to watch from afar as the unmanned cargo ship Jules Verne plunges through the Earth’s atmosphere and burns up over the Pacific Ocean after a successful supply run to the International Space Station. The spacecraft’s demise will mark a dramatic end for the first of ESA’s new fleet of Automated Transfer Vehicles.

“With the reentry of Jules Verne, there is a certain sadness at the conclusion of what has been such a successful mission,” ESA’s ATV mission manager John Ellwood told SPACE.com. “However, we know that all the mission requirements were met or exceeded and this has given a great satisfaction to the enormous team which has worked on this amazing project.”

Geologists compare the fractures in the sandstone rock deposits on Mars to features called deformation bands on Earth, which can arise from the influence of groundwater in the underground bedrock. The bands and faults have strong influences on groundwater movement on Earth, and seem to have played the same role on Mars. Other research has examined how surface water from rain or snow shaped the planet surface, but many agree that groundwater has an equally important influence.

“Groundwater often flows along fractures such as these, and knowing that these are deformation bands helps us understand how the underground plumbing may have worked within these layered deposits,” said Chris Okubo, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz. who headed up a new study of the Martian fractures.

With colleagues, Songkun Su of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and Shaowu Zhang of the Australian National University in Canberra managed to overcome the apian impulse to kill intruders and cultivated the first mixed-species colonies, made up of European honeybees, Apis mellifera, and Asiatic honeybees, A. cerana. The researchers confirmed that the two species have their own dialects: foraging in identical environments, the bees signaled the distance to a food source with dances of different durations.

Remarkably, despite the communication barrier, A. cerana decoded A. mellifera’s dance and found the food.