Because Economics is Sexy...

Separatist fighters in the southern Philippines have said they will stick to a deadline to behead one of three Red Cross workers they have taken hostage unless government troops withdraw from its stronghold.
The Abu Sayyaf group has said it will behead one of the hostages they are holding on Jolo island by 1400 local time [...]

North Korea yesterday continued to question a South Korean who was apprehended on Monday in Gaeseong Industrial Complex for allegedly criticizing the Kim Jong-il regime and recommending defection.
The detained Hyundai Asan employee appears to be under interrogation on the complex grounds, the Unification Ministry said. It said it has asked the North to guarantee the [...]

Unidentified assailants have attacked a police training academy near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, killing more than 25 officers and injuring scores of others, police say.
The attackers – thought to number between five and 10 – also took many officers hostage in the incident on Monday, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder reported.
The latest reports suggested [...]

France’s biggest carmaker, PSA Peugeot Citroen, has sacked its chairman weeks after it announced huge losses and a massive programme of job cuts.
The firm said it had removed Christian Streiff because of the “extraordinary difficulties” the motor industry faces.
He will be replaced by Philippe Varin, current chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch steel group Corus.
Consumer demand [...]

The chief executive of US car giant General Motors (GM) has resigned, reportedly under pressure from the White House.
GM confirmed Rick Wagoner’s resignation hours before Barack Obama, the US president, was due to unveil his plan for the car manufacturing sector later on Monday.
Wagoner, who was at the helm of the largest US carmaker for [...]

Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, has arrived in Qatar on the eve of an Arab League summit, defying an arrest warrant issued against him for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
Al-Bashir was greeted on a red carpet at the international airport in Doha, the Qatari capital, by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the emir of [...]

An electronic spy network, based mainly in China, has infiltrated computers from government offices around the world, Canadian researchers say.
They said the network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.
They included computers belonging to foreign ministries and embassies and those linked with the Dalai Lama – Tibet’s spiritual leader.
Researchers say they have no conclusive evidence [...]

The absence of nine leaders including Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, from an Arab League summit in Qatar aimed at forging unity on challenges facing the Middle East has highlighted divisions within the group.
Foreign ministers have been gathering in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to set the agenda for the talks, which begin on Monday.
But [...]

One of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, the Lancet, has accused Pope Benedict XVI of distorting science in his remarks on condom use.
It said the Pope’s recent comments that condoms exacerbated the problem of HIV/Aids were wildly inaccurate and could have devastating consequences.
The Pope had said the “cruel epidemic” should be tackled through abstinence [...]

The Irish Republic’s economy has suffered its largest contraction in recent decades.
The economy shrank by 7.5% in the last three months of 2008 compared with the same period a year earlier, the official statistics office said.
The construction industry, which has faced a housing market slump, suffered a 24% fall in output, the biggest fall on [...]