World stocks slide

LONDON (AFP) – European and Asian stock markets slumped Friday after sharp losses on Wall Street overnight and as Britain officially joined a growing list of rich nations in recession.

Britain is in recession for the first time since 1991 after its economy shrank during the final two quarters of last year as a global financial crisis raged, official data showed on Friday.

The generally-used technical definition of a recession is two quarters running of negative economic growth.

In trade following the data, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares was down 1.40 percent, Frankfurt's DAX 30 showed a loss of 2.15 percent and in Paris the CAC 40 had shed 2.01 percent.

"The FTSE continued to struggle after GDP figures proved we are now in a technical recession. This is no secret and had been predicted for some time," said City Index market strategist Joshua Raymond.

"What was important is that GDP figures showed a bigger contraction than anticipated and this was enough to bring in the sellers on mass pushing the FTSE index through the 4,000 (points) level."

The Office for National Statistics said that gross domestic product (GDP) had shrunk by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the previous three-month period, when it contracted by 0.6 percent.

In Asian trade on Friday, Japanese share prices tumbled 3.81 percent, hit by overnight losses on Wall Street and Sony's forecast of a record loss, dealers said.

Sydney meanwhile shed 4.1 percent following weak US leads and news the nation's three main export economies were softening. Hong Kong closed down 0.6 percent, Seoul gave up 2.1 percent and Shanghai slid 0.71 percent.

"The short-term outlook for (Australian) shares remains highly uncertain," said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Investors.

"The difficult global economic and profit outlook mean that falls to new lows are a high risk."

The US House of Representatives will next week vote on an 825-billion-dollar bill, which supporters say may save the battered US economy from sliding into depression.

New US President Barack Obama has decided top advisors will give him a daily economic crisis briefing as he attempts to shore up the ailing US economy.

US stocks had tumbled Thursday on investor concerns over increasing unemployment and the housing market slump as well as company earnings' pessimism, traders said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.28 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped 2.76 percent and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 1.52 percent.

US markets were gripped by renewed caution after jobless claims jumped and housing starts and building permits plunged, "reinforcing the view that the economy remains mired in a steep recession," said analysts at Charles Schwab & Company.

The Labor Department had Thursday said the number of new US unemployment claims shot up to 589,000 in the past week, matching the highest level in more than 26 years.

A young life changed forever by Iraq's war

BAGHDAD – She was a beautiful, round-faced little girl with large, coal-black eyes and an instant smile. Two years later, the 3-year-old is blind and scarred, her mother is dead and her father's new wife can't cope with caring for her.

Shams, whose name in Arabic means "sun," is among tens of thousands of Iraqis whose suffering will linger long after the war ends.

Shams' young life changed on Nov. 23, 2006, when a car bomb exploded near her father's pickup as he was driving his family — his wife, two sons and the daughter — home after a visit to his wife's parents in the Shiite district of Sadr City.

The blast engulfed their car in flames. Shams and her mother, who was fatally injured in the blast, were thrown from the backseat into street. Her father, Husham Fadhil, tried to douse the flames on his wife's clothing.

But there was little he could do for his 1-year-old daughter, lying face down next to her dying mother.

"I was totally preoccupied with putting out the flames which were burning my wife's body," Fadhil, 32, said. "Then, I lifted Shams and saw her face covered with blood. I thought that they were caused by minor injuries that would heal. Later, I learned that the blood was coming from her badly injured eyes."

The car bomb was one of a series of attacks in Sadr City, including rocket and mortar fire. Iraq's medical and rescue services were strained to cope with the carnage that day, when about 160 people were killed.

Ambulance attendants loaded the dead and wounded into vehicles and sped off to hospitals. Fadhil's wife Wafa, Shams and the two boys — 3-year-old Taif and 5-year-old Gaith — were rushed to separate hospitals. It took Fadhil hours to track them down.

"After searching for 24 hours, I found her in the Medical City compound," he said. "The doctors there took care of her burns but neglected her eye injuries" that left her blind.

In 2007, Fadhil took his daughter to Amman, Jordan, with the assistance of Doctors Without Borders. But the Jordanian doctors told him there was little they could do because Shams didn't get proper treatment at the time she was wounded.

"Had there been proper treatment of her eyes at that time, she could have at least had one of her eyes safe and active by now."

Months later, Fadhil took her to Iran, hoping for a miracle cure.

Most Asian markets rebound after recent slides

SEOUL, South Korea – Most Asian stock markets rebounded Tuesday after several days of steep declines as investors snapped up beaten down shares like Honda, Samsung and HSBC. Shares in Europe also opened higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose a whopping 14.4 percent — its biggest gain in 11 years — to 12,596.29, a day after plunging more than 12 percent. South Korea's Kospi jumped 5.6 percent to 999.16. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index surged 459.02 points, or 6.4 percent, to 7,621.92 after early falling to fresh 26-year lows. A weaker yen against the dollar encouraged traders to buy exporters like Toyota and Sony, whose overseas earnings are eroded by a strong yen. The dollar, which had fallen to a 13-year low against the yen on Friday, rose to 94.72 yen from 93.01 yen in late New York trading. Even Shanghai's main index, which had fallen 6 percent earlier, turned positive in the afternoon. "The market can't fall forever," said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. Lun said the Hang's Seng's huge drop Monday was bringing buyers back to seek bargains and scoop up blue chips that had tumbled. He pointed to banking giant HSBC, which had declined Monday to levels not seen since the SARS epidemic in 2003. In Europe, stocks rose in early trading. London's FTSE 100 index gained almost 3 percent, Germany's DAX jumped 4.4 percent and France's CAC-40 rose nearly 3 percent. U.S. stock index futures were sharply higher early Tuesday, suggesting Wall Street would advance after an erratic session Monday. Dow Jones industrial average and S&P futures were both up more than 4 percent. "Extreme pessimism eased in the market as sentiment cheered the yen's retreat and sharp gains across Asia," said Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Shinko Securities in Tokyo. He also said that the Nikkei's early fall below 7,000 points spurred buying. Australia's key stock measure closed down 0.4 percent, though sharply pared earlier losses. Singapore's market index, also down more than 5 percent in morning trading, turned green in afternoon trading. In South Korea, the buying was driven by domestic investors following the biggest rate cut ever by the central bank on Monday, analysts said, even as foreign investors kept selling to get cash to meet redemptions and liquidity needs at home. South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. rose 5.8 percent, while Hyundai Motor Co. jumped 12.6 percent. In Tokyo, Honda Motor Co. surged 14 percent, Toyota Motor Corp. jumped 7.8 percent and Sony Corp. rose 9.6 percent. In a volatile session Monday on Wall Street, the Dow fell 203.18, or 2.42 percent, to 8,175.77 after earlier rising by as many as 220 points. Most of the decline came in the final 10 minutes of trading. Broader indicators fell more.