Major shippers skirt Gulf of Aden to avoid pirates (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

Rampant piracy off Somalia is forcing shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal and send cargoes of oil and other goods on a longer journey around southern Africa, industry officials said on Thursday.

Aerial Firefighting Conference in Athens, Greece, Addresses International Concern (Topanga Messenger)

This year Northern California experienced a wildfire siege with a record number of more than 2000 wildfires burning at one time. Firefighters from local, county, state and federal fire agencies deployed thousands of firefighters, and hundreds of firefighting aircraft to battle the wildfires.

Banks, raters face subprime lawsuits and new rules (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has sparked more than 250 class action suits against Wall Street banks and rating companies and will lead to rising regulation in 2009, top litigators said on Thursday.

China's Hu calls for deeper partnership with Latin America (TODAYonline)

Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks during a ceremony at the Peruvian Congress in Lima. Hu called Thursday for a new era of cooperation with Latin America, saying the world's biggest developing country and the large developing region were a natural fit.

Companies eyeing Kentucky for nuclear power plants (AP via Yahoo! Finance)

Decades after closing the door to nuclear power, political leaders in Kentucky have begun a dialogue that could lift a legal ban on such generating plants.

China's Hu calls for deeper partnership with Latin America (AFP via Yahoo!7 News)

LIMA (AFP) - Chinese President Hu Jintao called Thursday for a new era of cooperation with Latin America, saying the world's biggest developing country and the large developing region were a natural fit.

China's Hu calls for deeper partnership with Latin America (AFP via Yahoo! News)

Chinese President Hu Jintao called Thursday for a new era of cooperation with Latin America, saying the world's biggest developing country and the large developing region were a natural fit.

Major shippers skirt Gulf of Aden to avoid pirates (AlertNet)

Source: Reuters * Maersk and other major shippers divert ships around Cape * U.N. urged to send troops to Somalia to halt strife * Arab League calls on Europe, United States to act * U.N. Council votes for ...

For Real Estate Funds, the Question is: How Ugly Will it Get? (CoStar Group)

Two veterans - and giants - of commercial real estate investing are telling their investors that economic conditions are going to get a lot uglier before they get better. In third quarter conference calls Steve Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of The Blackstone...

Brown to target 'irresponsible' credit card firms (Guardian Unlimited)

Credit card companies were on a collision course with Gordon Brown last night after they rejected calls to reduce interest rates, some as high as 69%, after last week's shock cut in the Bank of England's base rate. In a clear signal that the prime minister is determined to make credit cards the next battleground in the financial crisis, he used his monthly press conference yesterday to ...