AFP - HBOS said on Thursday that net profits tumbled 56 percent in the first half of the year due to a sharp rise in credit-crunch write-downs and bad consumer debts that cannot be repaid.
AP - The secret's out about next week's Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Be ready for a dramatic countdown, giant whales, an illuminated globe and performers flying through the air like Peter Pan. -- read full article
AP - Radovan Karadzic makes his first appearance Thursday before the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges that the former Bosnian Serb leader was behind massacres and atrocities against Muslims and Croats.
AP - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to resign amid corruption allegations and his own plummeting popularity has intensified doubts about Israel's prospects for reaching peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.
AP - Aborigines won traditional ownership rights over a large stretch of coastline in northern Australia on Wednesday, in a landmark ruling lawyers said could set a precedent in other parts of the country. -- read full article
AFP - The Beijing Olympics were plunged into another controversy on Wednesday as China announced a backflip on Internet freedoms for the thousands of foreign reporters covering the Games.
AFP - Power-sharing talks between Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and opposition MDC are set to resume Sunday, South African President Thabo Mbeki said after meeting President Robert Mugabe.
AP - Paraguay's president-elect has received unprecedented permission from the pope to resign as bishop, the papal nuncio said Wednesday, ending a dispute over Fernando Lugo's priestly status. -- read full article
AP - Iraq's Olympic team was thrilled Wednesday at the news that the International Olympic Committee revoked a ban on its participation in the Beijing games, allowing four of the original seven athletes to compete. -- read full article
AP - A team of European scientists unveiled on Wednesday a new method for extracting images hidden under old masters' paintings, recreating a color portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.
AP - Zimbabwe will drop 10 zeros from its hyper-inflated currency — turning 10 billion dollars into one — the country's reserve bank said Wednesday. President Robert Mugabe threatened a state of emergency if businesses profiteer from the country's economic and political unraveling.
AP - Turkey's top court on Wednesday narrowly decided against banning the ruling party over accusations that it was steering the country toward Islamic rule, preserving a government locked in a power struggle with the secular elite. -- read full article
