By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer Joe Mcdonald, Ap Business Writer

–
1 hr 9 mins ago

BEIJING – World stock markets slid Wednesday as the yen hit a fresh 15-year high against the dollar and new concerns bubbled about Europe’s banks after a report they have more risky government debt than thought.

The mood among investors was downbeat a day after The Wall Street Journal reported European Union stress tests of 91 banks in July understated some lenders’ holdings of potentially risky debt.

“That is another negative driver of sentiment,” said Jackson Wong, investment manager for Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong. Investors were also locking in profits after some gains last week, he said.

Fears that the global economic recovery was rapidly losing momentum appeared to ease last week but the respite has proven to be shortlived with Europe’s debt crisis threatening to flare up again.

Early in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.6 percent to 5,376.11 while Germany’s DAX was off 0.6 percent at 6,083.4. France’s CAC-40 declined 0.5 percent to 3,624.88. Wall Street was set to fall with Dow Jones futures down 17 points, or 0.2 percent, at 10,322.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index dived 201.40, or 2.2 percent, to 9,024.60, with exporters pressured by the yen’s continued strength. A strong yen hurts Japanese companies like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. as it cuts their overseas profits and threatens to derail the country’s fragile economic recovery.

China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.1 percent to 2,695.29 amid fears of new property curbs and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.5 percent to 21,088.86.

Investors worried that Beijing might impose new curbs to cool the housing market ahead of the peak sales season of September and October, analysts said. That may include halting mortgage discounts and loans to developers.

“Heavyweights, including banks and real estate stocks, remained sluggish, because it is unclear where the government policies are heading,” said Li Jun, an analyst for Central China Securities in Shanghai.

Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.5 percent to 1,779.22. India’s Sensex was down 0.2 percent at 18,598.63 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.8 percent to 4,537.20. Shares in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore all retreated.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 107.24 points, or 1 percent, to 10,340.69.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2671 from $1.2682 in New York late Tuesday. The dollar fell to 83.57 yen from 83.74 yen.

Benchmark crude for October delivery was down 49 cents at $73.59 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 51 cents to settle at $74.09 on Tuesday.

Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook

By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press Writer Ishtiaq Mahsud, Associated Press Writer

–
1 hr 31 mins ago

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. drone killed at least six militants in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday when it fired a missile at a house linked to a group that often carries out attacks on NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said.

The U.S. has stepped up drone strikes in recent days, carrying out five suspected attacks in less than a week in North Waziristan, a tribal area along the border that is effectively controlled by militants at war with foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge such strikes, but officials have said privately that they have killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Wednesday’s strike hit a house in the village of Dande Darpa Khel near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, two Pakistani intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The house was owned by Maulvi Azizullah, a member of the Haqqani network, a militant group based in North Waziristan that U.S. military officials have called the most dangerous threat to NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network is closely allied with the Taliban and is led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a well-known fighter during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Haqqani received support from the U.S. and Pakistan during the Soviet war but has since turned against the Americans.

The U.S. has repeatedly urged Pakistan to launch an offensive against the network, but the government has not done so, a decision many analysts believe is driven by Pakistan’s desire to maintain its historical ties with the group.

The militants have refrained from launching attacks inside Pakistan, and analysts believe the government views them as an important ally once foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

Without a Pakistani military offensive, the U.S. has had to rely on drone strikes to battle the group.

The Pakistani government has publicly criticized the missiles strikes as violations of its sovereignty, but many analysts suspect it actually helps the CIA carry out the attacks, especially when they target militants at war with Pakistan.

Militants have stepped up attacks in Pakistan in recent days, possibly taking advantage of the army’s focus on helping millions of victims from the worst floods in the country’s history. A string of four big attacks have killed at least 135 people in less than a week.

Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook

An era of fiscal austerity is sweeping over Europe, with governments moving to slash record budget deficits and avoid a Greek-like debt crisis by cutting everything from aid for single mothers to once-sacred state jobs.

Under mounting political pressure, some countries are now balking at the mega-price tags of lofty regional cooperation projects such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), home to the “Big Bang Machine” that sprawls for miles across this complex straddling the picturesque border of Switzerland and France.

Under orders of Europe governments to cut costs, CERN officials say the institute is planning to mothball all nine particle accelerators at the facility beginning in 2012 - saving $25 million on electricity alone. It will mean a critical period of lost opportunities for visiting research fellows and a year without fresh data for projects, including one on the cusp of trapping an atom of antimatter to better understand the early formation of the universe.

“It will now take a little longer to answer some of these questions,” said Rolf-Dieter Heuer, CERN’s director general.

The pressure on European science, observers here say, is yet another legacy of the financial crisis. Nations that overextended themselves over the past decade, taking on more and more debt, are now facing liabilities so large that politicians in a growing number of European countries have decided that dramatic cuts in public spending are the only answer. That stands in sharp contrast with the United States, where government spending - including on science and technology - continues to steam ahead despite the record U.S. deficit.

Some here fear that Europe could fall behind in the highly competitive world of scientific research, where it now goes head to head with the United States and Japan.

The new coalition government in Britain, European science officials say, is leading the austerity charge, but other nations including Italy and Spain are also warning of empty pockets that are curbing their contributions to science.

Britain, for instance, has said it may not be ready to commit in December to funding for a second, far more powerful European telescope on a mountaintop in Chile that could discern atmospheres on incredibly distant planets. Science officials warn that domestic cuts in Britain set to be laid out in October might also force the temporary closure of one of two high-tech national facilities near Oxford - the Diamond Light Source particle accelerator or the Isis neutron source.

To maintain programs at the European Space Agency, Germany - which has vigorously protected science and technology spending at home - is stepping in to cover shortfalls from other nations, like Spain. But even so, the space agency is set to cut internal and administrative costs by 25 percent to cope with fiscal pressures and is waiting to see whether European governments will agree to new funding to help sustain the International Space Station until at least 2020.

Meanwhile, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France - where researchers used X-ray fluorescence to illuminate the genius of Leonardo da Vinci’s brush strokes and to study the skulls of ancient hominids - has been asked by government donors to assess the impact of potentially sharp cuts to its annual budget.

“We are all impacted, we are all living on the same planet as our member states,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, the space agency’s director general. “And we cannot ignore that most of our member states now have budget constraints.”

In the village of Nahuala, about 200 rescue workers suspended the search for bodies Sunday afternoon after heavy rain fell in the area, Civil Protection spokesman David de Leon said.

Two slides in the same spot in the town of Nahuala killed at least 20 along a highway leading northwest of the capital toward Mexico. Another slide closer to Guatemala City killed at least 12.

“We will return when the rain ceases,” De Leon said. “It is difficult and dangerous to continue with the search.”

Suagustino Pascual Tuy, a Nahuala police officer, said he and several others rushed to the highway with picks and shovels after hearing radio reports of the fallen earth, which had buried two pickup trucks and a bus at kilometer 171 of the Inter-American highway.

Pascual Tuy said the crowds were able to rescue several people alive including his nephew, who was driving one of the pickups.

“He is in critical condition, but thank God we were able to get him out alive,” he said.

Pascual Tuy said people were still digging through the rubble when the mountain above them began crackling. He shouted a warning, but moments later the second slide buried a number of rescuers. Pascual Tuy ran for his life and the slide only caught his legs.

“The mountain was making noise like an earthquake, but people wouldn’t leave,” he said. “They were being stubborn and didn’t get out.”

Regional fire department Maj. Otto Mazariegos said at least 50 people are believed to be buried.

“Under the earth there is a bus that carried we don’t know how many people, and there are those who tried to help the victims of the first slide,” Mazariegos said.

Rescue crews have recovered 20 bodies from that site, said fire department spokesman Jose Rodriguez.

Andrew Loog Oldham also changed rock music forever, managing the Rolling Stones in the early years, manufacturing their bad boy image and producing some of music history’s most memorable hits.

Now 66 but still characteristically self-deprecating, Oldham said he could be enjoying the perks of a free bus pass in London. But more than four decades after his highly publicized split with the Stones, Oldham said it’s still about the music.

So in this latest chapter of a remarkable life, Oldham is once more managing rock-and-rollers. But this time he is doing it en español, here in South America.

“You could say it’s the wrong time to be investing in making records,” said Oldham, speaking in the dining room of his Bogota apartment, “but then again, I couldn’t resist the songs, you know. It’s as simple as that.”

The man who helped make Mick Jagger a mesmerizing showman is working with an Argentine band, Los Ratones Paranoicos, or the Paranoid Mice, a foursome that worshiped the Stones. The collaboration has resulted in six albums, the latest last year, a medley of blues-oriented ballads and hard-driving guitar riffs that include lyrics Oldham wrote with the group’s front man, Juanse.

“Basically, they are like the Rolling Stones,” said Oldham, who with his lanky frame and long, slightly kinky hair, still looks the part of a rock impresario. “All I had to do was to upgrade technically. I fell in love with them immediately.”

He also recently produced “Peregrino,” or “Pilgrim,” for Juan Galeano, an up-and-coming Colombian rocker who has won Oldham’s admiration for not only writing his own songs but playing myriad instruments.

“I’m a vampire, man - keeps me young,” Oldham said with a laugh, describing his now hectic schedule. “What I mean is while you are engaged, you don’t feel your age. And all of a sudden, I am recording a lot of stuff.”

In rock’s early years, Oldham was a fast-talking hustler, fascinated with fashion and music when he saw the Stones in a London bar in 1963. He became their manager, producing “Paint It Black,” “19th Nervous Breakdown” and “Satisfaction.” Those and other hits he produced relied on explicit lyrics unheard of in rock, antithesis to the sugar-coated lines of the more popular Beatles.

“If he did nothing but that, he’d be important to rock-and-roll, but he did a lot more,” said Mark Kemp, a former editor for Rolling Stones magazine.

After Oldham split with the Stones in 1967, he remained financially and creatively successful but he said drug use nearly killed him - three times, to be exact. “In about 1967, I basically went out to lunch for about 25 years,” he explained.

Oldham partly credits his recovery to a near-epic project he undertook in the 1990s, writing “Stoned” and two other lengthy volumes that make up his memoirs. Oldham said that he had not been ready to expend his energy on music.

“When I straightened up in 1995, the worst thing you can do is dive straight back into the world which supported or tortured or enabled your addictions,” he said. “So I concentrated on doing my books, because the first thing to do was to prove to myself that I could start and finish a job.”

Off drugs and healthy, Oldham also took on a steady job - hosting “Underground Garage” on Sirius Satellite Radio from his Bogota apartment. The hyperkinetic Oldham can offer a long soliloquy on the merits of the old Mayflower Hotel in New York one moment, then switch to the roots of garage bands before delving into Kennedy at Chappaquiddick.

“I was not looking for a typical DJ, but someone who could speak from experience, and who better than him?” said Steven Van Zandt, who recruited Oldham for “Underground Garage.” “He has an absolute love for the music and a healthy dose of cynicism.”

Oldham moved to Bogota after marrying a Colombian model and actress he had met in London, Esther Farfan, and gathering “what remaining marbles I had at that time.”

“I couldn’t stand the idea of staying in England and becoming a relic,” Oldham said.

On the surface, it is hard to imagine Oldham thriving in Colombia, a land of salsa and regional folk music, or Argentina, where the tango is king. “It gives me a headache,” he said of the local music scene.

And it is also easy to see how life could be one of mundane routines, like walking the two lovable mutts Oldham found in the street or going to bed shortly after dusk, as his wife said he is prone to do.

Yet, ask Oldham to elaborate on Latin music and he gushes about Carlos Vives, a Colombian who took folkloric music, mixed it with world music and became an international star. “He has a pop sensibility that I can understand,” said Oldham.

These days, Oldham has taken on yet another project: working with Lou Adler, himself a famous rock producer, on an HBO pilot for a possible series.

It would be about the Rolling Stones in the 1960s - so it would largely be about Andrew Loog Oldham and his escapades. The writing had been taking place of late in Malibu.

“Tough life!” Oldham said from California. “This is rock-and-roll heaven.”

The tough guys look tough, and they don’t talk so much as mumble.

But the alleged gringo gangster called “La Barbie” smirked. And bragged.

In videotaped confessions that have riveted this country, a sweaty, cocky, beefy Barbie boasts he was pals with the most famous crime bosses in Mexico, that he was rich, had “offices” in Colombia and Panama, and that he paid “some movie guys” $200,000 to film the story of his life - but didn’t much like the script.

What happened to the filmmakers?

He says doesn’t know.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal was arrested after a 14-month manhunt involving 1,200 Mexican federal police and an unknown number of U.S. agents. He faces multiple indictments in the United States for importing tons of cocaine. Mexican authorities say he is a kidnapper, torturer and murderer - as well as a major trafficker of marijuana and cocaine.

“Someone should write a book about this guy,” said a senior U.S. law enforcement official who works in Mexico.

The agent added that the United States would like to bring Valdez home for trial - he wouldn’t even need to be extradited. La Barbie is a U.S. citizen and could simply be deported as an illegal alien. “We would like to nail him,” the official said.

Valdez, 37, was born and raised in south Texas. He reportedly was a good student and a high school football star in the border town of Laredo, where he lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and went to a private high school. According to law enforcement agents, he began his climb up the criminal ladder after he started drinking and driving in Texas - and killed a man in an auto accident.

He got his nickname, Barbie, from a coach who thought the lean, dark-haired, square-jawed teen was as handsome as a Ken doll — though these days with his smirking grin stretched across chipmunk cheeks, La Barbie looks more like a sinister version of actor Seth Rogen.

Had he been arrested in the United States, an alleged criminal mastermind of Valdez’s stature would probably have zipped his lips. But in Mexico, where organized crime and celebrity often go together, Valdez has been more than willing to puff up the legend. Shown boasting to police interrogators about his “investments” in Colombia in one recent video clip released to the press, Valdez was asked: drugs?

Early on Saturday, a boat on a river in northwest Equateur Province hit a rock and capsized, provincial spokeswoman Ebale Engumba said Sunday. She said more than 70 people are believed dead among 100 estimated passengers. She said officials are investigating why the boat was traveling through the darkness without a light.

In a separate incident in Kasai Occidental Province, 200 people were feared dead after a boat loaded with passengers and fuel drums caught fire and capsized in southern Congo, a survivor said Sunday. Another survivor confirmed the account and said local fishermen refused to help drowning passengers who jumped off the crowded boat.

The incident in southern Congo would be the deadliest boat accident in the Central African nation this year, and among the worst in Africa this year.

The boats that traverse Congo’s rivers are often in poor repair and filled beyond capacity. The industry is not well-regulated and boat operators are known to fill boats to dangerous levels.

In the first incident in northwest Congo, Engumba said officials think the boat’s lack of lighting was responsible.

“We are going to arrest people involved who are in charge of regulating the boat’s movement who failed to stop that boat from traveling at night,” she said.

In the second incident, survivors said the boat was overloaded with people and goods. A local official said two of the boat’s crew were arrested but both refused to say how many people were aboard. The official said the passenger manifest apparently vanished in the fire.

Fabrice Muamba, who said he was on the boat when it caught fire Saturday night on the Kasai River, said he thought only 15 of the more than 200 people he thought were aboard were able to swim to safety. He said passengers began to jump overboard when the engine caught fire as it passed the remote village of Mbendayi, some 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the town of Tshikapa, which is north of Congo’s border with Angola.

Another survivor, a woman named Romaine Mishondo, said the boat was already packed with “hundreds” of passengers when it stopped some 10 minutes before the fire to pick up more people.

She said she did not know exactly how many people were aboard, but said the boat was so crowded it reminded her of “a whole market in the village full of people.”

But when the fire started and people began jumping overboard, she said nearby fishermen ignored drowning passengers’ pleas for help.