After Hewlett-Packard bought the computer services company last August for $13.9 billion, it immediately began hacking the work force. Led by a master cost-cutter, Mark V. Hurd, H.P. laid off 25,000 E.D.S. workers, and cut the salaries of some by more than 20 percent. Mr. Hurd even stripped the E.D.S. brass of their plush offices and corralled them into 6-by-6-foot cubicles.

But despite the risk that disgruntled employees and customers would walk out the door, the acquisition has paid off big for H.P. — so well, in fact, that an important rival has decided to strike a similar deal. Dell announced Monday that it was paying $3.9 billion for Perot Systems, the Texas computer services company started by H. Ross Perot after he left E.D.S.

Plenty of employees have complained about H.P.’s tactics, but the company says it has persevered through the turmoil to keep most of E.D.S.’s customers. Last quarter, H.P.’s operating profit margin on services hit 13.8 percent, the highest in a decade. And the combined company’s services division is H.P.’s biggest business in terms of revenue — a remarkable metamorphosis for what has long been viewed as a slow-growth PC and printer maker.

On Wednesday, H.P. will take another big step toward full integration of E.D.S., extinguishing the 47-year-old company’s name. The new name, H.P. Enterprise Services, reflects the union of the services operations at the two companies.

“I acknowledge that we have done a lot of hard stuff, but this is all about getting H.P. in a position where we can compete and win,” said Ann Livermore, an executive vice president at H.P. who heads its services and data center products businesses.

In talks with E.D.S. employees, executives have put it more bluntly. At one meeting in August, Andy W. Mattes, who runs H.P.’s services business in the Americas, said that the deep salary reductions and broad cost cuts were for the good of the remaining employees.

“Just letting things go on will result in much more bleak and horrible scenarios,” Mr. Mattes said, according to an audio recording of the meeting.

The bloodletting pains Mort Meyerson, who served alongside Mr. Perot at E.D.S. and Perot Systems for many years. “It’s sad to see this happen because of the decades of work the men and women of E.D.S. put into the company,” he said. “But that’s what happens in business.”

H.P. executives concede that the company’s aggressive pruning comes with costs, as workers fret about their futures and the overall business endures some disruption.

But they say that tough actions were needed to bring E.D.S. in line with competitors like I.B.M., Infosys and Wipro Technologies.

By common business yardsticks, the Hurd touch on E.D.S. appears to have worked better than investors and analysts had expected.

When H.P. announced its intent to buy E.D.S. in May 2008, H.P.’s share price sank. E.D.S. had developed a reputation as a bloated has-been that had burned investors in the past through bad deals, accounting issues and an overreliance on services contracts with the government and automakers.

And while E.D.S. received high marks from customers for its role in taking over their technology operations, it required far more people than competitors to accomplish the task.

“It was almost, the closer you were to E.D.S., the more concern you had about the acquisition,” said Shannon Cross, an equities analyst with Cross Research.

E.D.S.’s own efforts to lower costs had stalled, particularly since the company lacked the financial resources to undertake a major reorganization, according to Joe Eazor, a former E.D.S. executive who is now a senior vice president and general manager of services at H.P.

Investors were also worried about change-of-control provisions in contracts that would allow customers to renegotiate or cancel long-term deals with E.D.S.

But H.P. has held onto 199 of the top 200 accounts at E.D.S., according to Mr. Eazor. Some of the deals have been reworked, but H.P. points to its improving operating margins in services as evidence that any reductions in revenue have been minor.

Meanwhile, as sales of printers, PCs and data center gear have plummeted during the recession, H.P. has used services to bolster its overall revenue and profits. “The deal has really helped insulate them from the downturn,” said Ben Reitzes, an analyst with Barclays Capital. “Without E.D.S., things could have been a lot worse.”

According to analysts, H.P. may have engineered the deal at just the right time. The down economy gave H.P. time to perform its painful restructuring and primed the company to grow when the good times returned.

Historically, E.D.S. promoted computing gear from H.P. rivals like Sun Microsystems, Xerox and Cisco Systems. But Mr. Eazor says that more of H.P.’s own hardware is slated to go into deals that are currently up for bid.

H.P. has been criticized by some analysts and derided by competitors for declining to detail the value of the services deals it has signed, as is industry practice. During a meeting this week with analysts, H.P. plans to reveal that it recently closed 32 deals valued at more than $100 million and that its customer service scores rose over the past year.

Niall Quinn, the director of commercial management for Aviva, an insurer, said that H.P. had held up well under the pressure of the acquisition. In March, Aviva picked H.P. over I.B.M. for a $1 billion, 10-year outsourcing contract in Britain.

But, while Aviva has committed to H.P. for the long haul, Mr. Quinn said he had short-term concerns.

“Mark Hurd is a bit focused on hitting numbers on a quarterly basis, and some of the things he’s done, people in Europe find quite amazing,” Mr. Quinn said. “The layoffs are a concern because what you’re buying is tremendous expertise.”

H.P.’s critics, including current and former employees, warn that the company has done away with too many high-salaried, veteran executives. Jeff Kelly, who had run the E.D.S. business in the Americas, left the company in March, leaving a gap in the company’s most crucial region. His successor, another E.D.S. veteran, Mike Koehler, left in May. Now Mr. Mattes, who came from the H.P. side, is in charge.

The heads of finance, human resources, sales and software services left E.D.S. earlier this year as well.

Current and former employees, who requested anonymity because they signed nondisparagement agreements with H.P. or are afraid of being fired, complain that H.P.’s tactics work better for a product company. In the services realm, customers depend on their long-standing relationships with executives and sales team leaders.

In addition, morale has dipped, particularly in the United States, where most salary cuts have taken place, these people say.

I.B.M., H.P.’s biggest competitor in services, contends that customers have been complaining about disruption in their H.P. accounts.

“In the services business, if cost-cutting and price are the only levers you have to compete, it’s not sustainable,” said Dave Liederbach, the general manager of I.B.M.’s outsourcing business. “The chaos that results in a client situation will be severe.”

H.P. paints a much different picture, saying that for the first time, it has enough salespeople and services expertise to go up against I.B.M. for some of the largest, most lucrative contracts.

“We have re-engaged the United Nations,” Mr. Obama said, to cheers from world leaders and delegates in the cavernous hall of the General Assembly. “We have paid our bills” — a direct reference to the former administration, which often tied paying its United Nations dues to demands for reforms of the institution.

President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

An array of world leaders sat in the hall for Mr. Obama’s speech, which was often interrupted by applause and the flashbulbs of cameras going off, including some from delegates in the room.

But even as Mr. Obama sought to signal a changed tone in America’s dealings with the world, much of his speech centered on old and intractable issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and a Middle East peace process. And while his choice of words was different and more conciliatory, the backbone of American policy he expressed remained similar to the Bush administration’s in many areas.

Just as Mr. Bush once did, Mr. Obama singled out Iran and North Korea for their pursuit of nuclear weapons. “In their actions to date, the governments of North Korea and Iran threaten to take us down this dangerous slope,” Mr. Obama said. “We respect their rights as members of the community of nations. I am committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and a more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations.”

But, he added, “if the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards; if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people; if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East — then they must be held accountable. The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced. We must insist that the future not belong to fear.”

As he spoke, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sat in the fifth row, displaying no visible reaction. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Mr. Obama’s address to the General Assembly is the headline event in a day of many headlines. Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, listened to Mr. Obama from the hall and then took the podium for a diatribe notable as much for its length — about 90 minutes — as for its range of topics, from the functioning of the United Nations to the H1N1 virus. Later this afternoon, Mr. Ahmadinejad is to speak.

Mr. Obama said he planned to work toward a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and indicated again that he was impatient with the slow pace of work on interim measures like a settlement freeze and was now swinging for the harder, more entrenched final status issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979.

“The time has come to relaunch negotiations — without preconditions — that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem,” Mr. Obama said. “The goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish state of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.

“As we pursue this goal, we will also pursue peace between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Syria, and a broader peace between Israel and its many neighbors. In pursuit of that goal, we will develop regional initiatives with multilateral participation, alongside bilateral negotiations.”

At the end of his speech, much of the hall — but not the Iranian delegation — applauded.

Mr. Obama left the hall shortly before Colonel Qaddafi began speaking.

Another body was found Tuesday evening in hardest-hit Douglas County. Richard Butler, 29, was swept from his car and died, like the other five victims from the county, as a result of flash-flooding, said Wes Tallon, the spokesman for the county’s emergency management agency.

Flooded homes in a neighborhood in Mableton, Ga., on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the waters in the area began to recede.

In the county, about 23 miles west of the city, people were lining up for bottled water while the authorities checked abandoned cars for bodies and swept debris to clear streets.

The county was hit by 21 inches of rain in a 24-hour period from Sunday to Monday, knocking out the drinking water supply to most residents, and forcing others to boil their water. On Wednesday, two churches provided bottles for people. “It’s going as fast as we’re giving it away,” Mr. Tallon said.

The main interstate — I-20 — leading to Atlanta reopened after 11 a.m. on Thursday, while only two bridges spanning the flooded Chattahoochee River remained closed, helping the county slowly return to its operations..

Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia declared a state of emergency in 17 counties and pleaded for federal aid, offering his appeal directly to President Obama on Tuesday night. The state insurance commissioner estimated that $250 million worth of damage had been done, mostly to homeowners without insurance.

As much as 15 to 20 inches of rain pounded counties around Atlanta for more than 72 hours, and while the rain subsided on Tuesday morning, the authorities were still dealing with dangerous repercussions.

A sewage treatment plant northwest of Atlanta flooded late Monday and into Tuesday, spewing sewage into the Chattahoochee River, which had already swollen to at least 12 feet over its minimum flood stage level. City officials said the damage to the plant would amount to tens of millions of dollars.

Several of the deaths occurred on roadways that had suddenly become impassable because of rushing waters. On Tuesday morning, the body of 14-year-old Nicholas Osley was recovered from a cornfield flooded by the nearby Chattooga River in Trion, Ga., said a spokeswoman for the Chattooga County Emergency Management Agency. On Monday, the teenager and a friend had rushed to an abandoned car to rescue the occupant, not knowing the occupant had already escaped. Nicholas was swept away by the current, while his friend was rescued, the spokeswoman said. Later on Tuesday afternoon, the body of a woman was found in Douglas County after a flash flood from the Anneewakee Creek (usually two feet deep) overwhelmed the roadway, sweeping the car downstream.

In Carroll County, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, Tim Padgett, the emergency management director, said that a 2-year-old boy died when his family’s mobile home was swept away by the fast-moving Snake Creek — about 18 feet higher than its normal level — and the father could no longer hold on to his son in the rush of the water.

Dená Brummer, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, warned people not to return prematurely into flooded areas, and to avoid driving through any water.

The waters flooded both rural and urban areas, even ravaging Buckhead, a wealthy neighborhood north of downtown Atlanta. When the neighborhood’s normally serene Nancy Creek rose to near-record levels, it burst into the basement and the first floor of the large red-brick white-columned house belonging to Dr. O. Scott Swayze and his family. It reached up to three feet on the first floor.

“The basement was an aquarium,” Dr. Swayze said. “This house was built in ’68, and the previous owners never had anything this high. This is the proverbial 100-year flood.”

The flood turned streets into their own estuaries and gave a new meaning to the name of the popular restaurant Canoe. Residents on Paces Ferry Drive were rowing in and out of their houses, using boats they would normally use for catching bass and trout in the Chattahoochee River.

State emergency officials said about 30,000 homes were without electricity. Trisha Palmer, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Ga., said that the flooding was far worse than the hurricane-level damage from 2005. “In this office, nobody remembers anything like this,” she said. “This is worse and much more widespread.”

Although the storms themselves have not been severe, Ms. Palmer said that the rains had been relentless for the better part of a week, resulting from Gulf and Atlantic moisture moving over the Southeast. She said there was a chance for afternoon showers for the remainder of the week.

The area has a history of sectarian tension. A little-known militant group calling itself Lahskar-e-Jhangvi al Almi says it carried out the attack. They say the attack was in revenge for the death of a prominent religious leader. Maulana M Amin was killed in Hangu in June 2009. Correspondents say the group is likely to be linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group which has links to the Taliban. Astarzai village, where the blast took place, has a substantial Shia population and is close to the Orakzai tribal region, a stronghold of the Taliban’s present chief.

Hakimullah Mehsud took over as chief of the Pakistani Taliban – a Sunni group – after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a US missile strike.

‘People trapped’

The car bomb was detonated close to a hotel owned by a Shia Muslim businessman.

Police officials said that many people had been injured by the explosion.

Witnesses told the BBC the blast was so powerful it nearly demolished several buildings in the area.

“Dozens of shops were destroyed. Their roofs caved in and many people were trapped under the debris,” a local police official told the AFP news agency.

Television footage from the local hospital showed bloodied and bandaged patients being treated by medical staff.

“I was standing in front of my shop when all of a sudden, a car blew up outside a restaurant,” Sohail Ahmed told AFP from his hospital bed.

At the time of the explosion, the area was reported to be thronged with shoppers buying supplies for the weekend and for iftar, the break of fast during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Astarzai lies 18km (11 miles) west of the town of Kohat, where a bomb was detonated on Thursday wounding at least six people.

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that Sunni Taliban militants in the area have carried out frequent attacks on minority Shias.

Sunni Muslims account for around 80% of Pakistan’s population and are the dominant group in the tribal areas, although Orakzai has significant Shia numbers.

Pakistan’s army has been bombing Taliban hideouts in Orakzai for the past month, correspondents say.

There were reports of more aerial bombings in the area on Friday morning, shortly before the bomb attack.

The last month has seen a series of major attacks on targets across the NWFP.

On 30 August a suspected suicide bomb attack in Pakistan’s north-western Swat valley killed at least 14 police recruits and injured others.

And in February, at least 25 people were killed when a bomb exploded at the funeral procession of a prominent Shia Muslim cleric.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a proper effort to counter the Taliban insurgency correctly would “probably means more forces.”

Mullen spoke during a hearing on his nomination for a second term as the president’s senior military adviser.

Pfc. Joshua De Jonge of Smithfield, Va., keeps watch during a patrol mission on Tuesday, Sept. 13, in Zerok District, East Paktika province in Afghanistan.

The influential chairman of the panel, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., used the session to underscore his opposition to additional forces, at least until the United States takes bolder action to expand Afghanistan’s own armed forces.
“Providing the resources needed for the Afghan Army and Afghan police to become self-sufficient would demonstrate our commitment to the success of a mission that is in our national security interest, while avoiding the risks associated with a further increase in U.S. ground combat troops,” Levin said.
Levin is one of several leading Democrats who have expressed skepticism in recent days about adding more American troops. Levin first wants to make sure larger numbers of Afghan security forces are trained and deployed on the battlefield and in Afghan communities.
Mullen told the senators that “it’s very clear to me that we will need more resources,” to carry out the revamped counterinsurgency strategy Obama laid out earlier this year.
Mullen said he did not know how many more troops would likely be requested by the commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. A debate over the right mix of forces and other resources will be held in the coming weeks, Mullen told the panel.
Levin’s Republican counterpart, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said committing too few forces to the war would invite a rerun of mistakes the U.S. made in Iraq. “I’ve seen that movie before,” McCain said.
Wrong message feared
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said Afghans will get the wrong message if the U.S. is only willing to commit additional training specialists instead of combat troops.
“They’re essentially going to decide we’re on our way out,” Lieberman said.
Mullen agreed that Afghans and Pakistanis are “waiting on the sidelines to see how committed we are.”
However, “it’s not as simple as trainers. It’s not as simple as combat troops,” Mullen said.
War enters ninth year
Mullen said he has made no recommendations to the White House about how many more forces might be needed. He said McChrystal will submit his request very soon.
Mullen has been sounding increasingly glum about the prospects for the war, which will enter its ninth year this fall. On Tuesday he said the war would continue to deteriorate without a renewed U.S. commitment, and he said Gen. McChrystal found conditions worse than he had expected when he took the job this summer.

The United States has about 65,000 troops in Afghanistan now, with a few thousand additional trainers due by the end of this year.

The move followed a crisis meeting between the French Labour Minister, Xavier Darcos, and France Telecom’s chief executive, Didier Lombard.

Both the government and the company have begun to take industrial suicide seriously, says a BBC correspondent.

Mr Lombard said “the infernal spiral” of copycat suicides must be broken.

Unions blame France Telecom's drive for efficiency

Mr Darcos pressed France Telecom to tackle the problem and to listen to its workers.

Unions have blamed tough management methods at the multinational, which was privatised in 1998.

Counselling

But France Telecom says the rate of suicides is statistically not unusual for a company with a 100,000 workforce.

According to the World Health Organization, France had an annual suicide rate of 26.4 for 100,000 men in 2008. The rate for women was 9.2 suicides per 100,000.

The latest suicide occurred on Friday, when a 32-year-old woman leapt to her death at a France Telecom office in Paris.

On Wednesday, a 49-year-old man in Troyes, east of Paris, plunged a knife into his own stomach during a meeting in which he had been told he was being transferred.

He is being treated in hospital.

The unions say a never-ending drive for efficiency is causing emotional havoc in the workforce – especially among older employees recruited when France Telecom was part of the public sector.

Since privatisation in 1998 some 40,000 jobs have gone, and unions say there is pressure on many employees either to leave or to accept new working conditions.

The wave of suicides has triggered protests from France Telecom staff

The management of France Telecom denies that there has been a sudden increase in the suicide rate.

It points out that in the year 2000 there were 28 suicides in the company – a figure which it says is statistically not unusual.

France Telecom says most suicides are prompted by personal, not professional, causes.

However, a BBC correspondent in Paris says the firm concedes that the cultural and organisational changes required by the move from French public monopoly to a competitive multinational were bound to cause stress.

After the latest cases it has promised to hire more counselling staff and to suspend internal job transfers pending new talks with the unions.

Facebook also revealed that it had started making money ahead of schedule.

The company had not expected to start turning a profit until sometime in 2010.

“This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook's audience has doubled since the start of the year

“We are succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. We are just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.

“We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web,” Mr Zuckerberg said in a blog post.

‘Milestones’

The news that Facebook had passed these two benchmarks was made at TechCrunch 50 in San Francisco, a conference for start ups.

Facebook hit the 250 million user mark back in July. It is estimated that the site is gaining about five million new users a week, or 50 million in the last 75 days.

“Passing these milestones to me means we can continue to fund our development and our innovation and be self sustaining as we grow this network,” Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s vice-president of engineering, told BBC News.

More than 70% of users are outside the United States

“We think 300 million is a just a step on the way to get as much of the entire world on the social network communicating with the friends and family and the people they want to communicate with.”

“That Facebook is able to continue this growth and build a “cash-flow positive” business is an impressive feat,” said Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook.com.

“If the company can cover the cost of scaling to one billion users and still manage to break even, there’s no doubt that the company will have a great opportunity to rake in billions,” added Mr O’Neill.

Facebook’s Mr Schroepfer said the company had worked hard to get more money flowing in than out.

“The growth of the network has certainly helped us go cash-positive and the engineering team has done a lot of innovation on our ad products, as our business is primarily advertising-funded.

“As more and more of the world gets on the network, people and advertisers realise the power of sharing information, whether it’s about a movie preview or a car,” said Mr Schroepfer.

Look out Twitter, said Ben Parr, who is associate editor at the social media blog Mashable.com.

“If Facebook continues to open up its platform and adopt Twitter’s best features, it could spell trouble for the Twitterverse. The world’s largest social network is on the warpath,” warned Mr Parr.

Mrs Clinton said the issue “cannot be ignored” and was the key reason why the US agreed to take part in the talks.

Tehran last week offered “comprehensive” talks, but did not mention its nuclear programme.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes

The West fears that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons – a claim denied by Tehran.

Iran insists its programme is for civilian purposes only.

‘Fulfilment’

“We have made clear to the Iranians that any talks we participate in must address the nuclear issue head on,” Mrs Clinton said in Washington.

“Iran says it has a number of issues it wishes to discuss with us but what we are concerned about is discussing with them the questions surrounding their nuclear programme and ambitions.

“We will wait to see how Iran responds in that face-to-face venue,” America’s top diplomat said.

She added the talks marked a “fulfilment” of US President Barack Obama’s pledge to engage with Iran.

The meeting between Iran and the so-called P5+1 Group – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the UK, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany – are due to start at an as yet undecided venue.

The P5+1 Group has a longstanding offer on the table of diplomatic incentives in return for the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment.

Iran has always defended its right to continue its nuclear programme.

Last week, Tehran offered to “embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations”, but ignored the nuclear issue.

Ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, was jailed for at least 40 years.

Plot “quartermaster” Assad Sarwar, 29, must serve at least 36 years, while Tanvir Hussain, 28, was jailed for at least 32 years at Woolwich Crown Court.

(L to R) Tanvir Hussain, Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar were found guilty

Their aim was a terrorist outrage to “stand alongside” the 9/11 attacks on the US in history, the judge said.

Mr Justice Henriques called the plot “the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction”.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the sentences “reflected the severity of this horrendous plot to kill and maim thousands of people”.

“I’m very pleased the jury gave a sentence that was proportionate to this potential crime,” he said.

“Our police and our national security service is a national asset, they’ve proven that again today.”

The trial heard that at the time of his arrest, Ahmed Ali, of Walthamstow, east London, had identified seven US and Canada-bound flights that were to be attacked within a two-and-a-half-hour period.

“I’m satisfied that there is every likelihood that this plot would have succeeded but for the intervention of the police and the security service,” he said.

“Had this conspiracy not been interrupted, a massive loss of life would almost certainly have resulted – and if the detonation was over land, the number of victims would have been even greater still.”

The judge said that the plot had “reached an advanced stage in its development”, with the men in possession of enough chemicals to produce 20 detonators.

The flights due to be targeted were from London’s Heathrow airport to San Francisco, Washington, New York, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal.

Sarwar had obtained bomb ingredients which he kept at his home and in woods in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

A flat in the Walthamstow area of north-east London became the men’s bomb factory, where they mixed chemicals that they planned to take onto planes in ordinary sports drinks bottles stored within hand luggage.

The plot prompted the biggest terror investigation ever mounted in the UK.

No emotion

The convicted men displayed no emotion at their sentences, although Ahmed Ali shook his head and appeared angry and frustrated at earlier sentencing remarks from the judge.

“With this plot you sought the attention of the world and now you have it,” Mr Justice Henriques told him.

“You have embraced Islamic extremism and it is that burning extremism that has motivated you throughout this conspiracy and is likely to drive you again.”

E-mails submitted as evidence in the trial had shown that “the ultimate control of this conspiracy lay in Pakistan”, the judge said.

Ahmed Ali, Sarwar and Hussain, from Leyton, east London, had been “high-level executives within this country”.

‘Act of revenge’

The men’s defence had been that they were planning a political stunt, including small explosions intended only to frighten people at airports.

These political demonstrations, they said, would be backed up by a documentary aimed at changing opinion on Western foreign policy.

But Mr Justice Henriques dismissed that claim, saying their intention had been “an act of revenge inspired by extremist Islamic thinking” toward the “governments of several allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

Ahmed Ali, Sarwar and Hussain, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder using explosives on aircraft.

They were also convicted of a more general conspiracy to murder offence.

A fourth man, Umar Islam, 31, convicted of the more general conspiracy to murder charge, was also given a life sentence and will serve a minimum of 22 years in prison.

The men’s arrests in August 2006 caused chaos to the global aviation industry and prompted continuing restrictions to the amount of liquids passengers can take on to aircraft.

This had meant “massive expenditure” and “huge inconvenience for the travelling public” as a direct result of the plot, the judge said.

“Tons of liquids are confiscated from the public on a daily basis at airports,” he said.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, is seeking a retrial of three other men for conspiracy to murder, after the jury failed to reach a verdict on this charge against them.

A hearing on 5 October will decide whether Ibrahim Savant, 28, Arafat Khan, 28, and Waheed Zaman, 25, will face another trial.

The suspect, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, is wanted over 2002 attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in the Kenyan port of Mombassa.

He has been on the FBI’s list of top suspects years.

The claim followed earlier reports that foreign troops had attacked Islamist militants in southern Somalia.

Earlier reports said the troops wore uniforms with French insignia, and had attacked a vehicle carrying Islamists from the al-Shabab group.

A French military spokesman denied his country’s forces were involved.

The reason for the confusion over the identity of the troops was not immediately clear.

Witnesses said the soldiers took away two men, and two bodies were left in the road after the attack in the southern coastal town of Barawe.

Spanish news agency Efe and Reuters also reported witnesses and al-Shabab sources as saying the Kenyan-born Nabhan had been killed.

Nabhan is suspected of bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya and attempting to shoot down an airliner in 2002, as well as two attacks on US embassies in the region in 1998.

Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991.

Rival Islamist factions are battling forces loyal to the weak UN-backed government, which controls only small parts of the capital Mogadishu.

The news, though not confirmed by the Old Trafford club, was announced in a statement by JS Limited, the agency that negotiated the new deal.

Park, 28, was a regular in United’s 2008-09 winning Premier League season.

The South Korea international, who signed from PSV Eindhoven for £4m in 2005, has been a valuable option in manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s midfield.

Ferguson said during the summer that he was always confident a deal would be done with Park, whose wages are estimated to be about £65,000 a week.

The only Korean to hold a Champions League winner’s medal, Park began his professional career in Japan in 2000, with Kyoto Purple Sanga.

Three years later he made his move to PSV Eindhoven, where in two seasons he scored 13 goals from 64 matches.

He has been on the scoresheet nine times for United in 87 appearances, and scored in each of the last two World Cup finals.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Great. The global economy finally starts to show signs of emerging from the recession and now a possible trade war between the U.S. and China is throwing a monkey wrench into the recovery.

The U.S. just slapped a 35% tariff on tires imported from China, beginning Sept. 26.

And in a move that doesn’t look like mere coincidence, the Chinese government announced Sunday that it is launching a probe into possibility of the U.S. dumping auto parts and chickens on the Chinese market.

This is not good news. This spat could have a major impact on more than just Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT, Fortune 500), Cooper Tire & Rubber (CTB) and poultry producer Tyson Foods (TSN, Fortune 500).

If the tension between the U.S. and China escalates into a full-blown bout of global protectionism, we might need to kiss the notion of an economic recovery goodbye. This could be the start of that much-feared double dip into another recession.

Or as Michael Corleone said in an often parodied line from the “The Godfather: Part III”: “Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in!”

On the one hand, it makes sense for the White House to try and enforce existing trade laws so that U.S. tire makers can compete more effectively with cheaper tires imported from China.

The trade deficit with China has soared in recent years, hitting a record high in 2008. This is a concern for obvious reasons: If we continue to buy a lot more from China than we sell to them, more U.S.-based manufacturing jobs could be lost.

“It’s not uncommon for the government to side with certain industries to protect American workers,” said Keith Hembre, chief economist with First American Funds in Minneapolis. “These tariffs wouldn’t be happening if the unemployment rate was substantially lower.”

But we’ve been down this road before. The launching of tariffs during a severe economic slowdown has done more than harm than good in the past.

Many historians blame the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariffs to their highest levels ever, for making the Great Depression worse.

Protectionism is a bad idea. In this increasingly globalized economy, it just doesn’t make sense to alienate trading partners.

“One would hope we can avoid more of this. There is no positive side to raising tariffs,” said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist with Swiss Re. “In this global crisis, you want global cooperation. This doesn’t help.”

And that’s especially true with China since it is also the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury debt, owning about $776 billion of Treasurys as of June.

If the Chinese stopped buying Treasurys — or worse started selling them en masse — it could have a catastrophic effect on the dollar and the nation’s fiscal state as a whole.

“A trade war would be very detrimental to the U.S. and the global economy,” said Michael Pento, chief economist with Delta Global Advisors, Inc., a money management firm. “We should have fair, open trade. But our banker right now is the Chinese, and it’s best not to bite your banker’s hand.”

Karl isn’t too concerned that China would dump Treasurys. He argues that would be the equivalent of China shooting itself in the foot since it would further erode the value of its holdings.

Nonetheless, Karl does worry that China could retaliate against the tire tariff with tariffs of its own and even more government subsidies of Chinese manufacturers. That could make the trade deficit worse.

But at least one economist thinks cooler heads will eventually prevail and that the brouhaha over tires won’t lead to the China and U.S. levying more tariffs on other goods.

Michael Strauss, chief economist with Commonfund, a money management firm based in Wilton, Conn. said there is not going to be a repeat of the mistakes of Smoot-Hawley.

Strauss said both the U.S. and Chinese are smart enough students of economic history to know that the last thing the world needs now is for arguably the two most important economic powers to turn a spat over tires and chickens into something that could derail a global rebound.

“This is not that big of a deal. You get these battles once in a while and they pass. This is not reminiscent of what happened 80 years ago,” he said. “Deep down, the U.S. and China know that they need one another. There’s going to be more negotiation than retaliation.”

Here’s hoping that he’s right.

Talkback: Would a trade war between the U.S. and China be a bad thing? Or should the U.S. be more protectionist to try and save jobs? Share your comments below.

The musician stormed the stage to tell the audience Beyonce should have won best female video prize.

Singer Swift did not finish her speech

Madonna made a personal tribute to Michael Jackson at the ceremony, saying she felt she had “abandoned him” and “felt his pain”.

The late star’s sister Janet recreated the dance moves from their duet Scream.

‘Magnificent creature’

West jumped onto the stage after Swift scooped the award, and said: “Taylor, I’m really happy for you, and I’m gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.”

The audience jeered, and Beyonce, who won video of the year and two other awards for Single Ladies, later invited Swift back onto the stage to complete her acceptance speech.

West wrote on his blog later: “I’m soooo sorry to Taylor Swift, her fans and her mom.

Lady Gaga gave a flamboyant performance

“I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would’ve said. She is very talented.”

Madonna, who appeared on stage dressed in black, spoke about Jackson’s life lived in the glare of publicity, saying “I had a childhood and was allowed to make mistakes and find my own way in the world.”

She added that when she heard of his death: “We had allowed this magnificent creature who once set the world on fire to somehow slip through the cracks.”

The ceremony concluded with an airing of the full trailer for This Is It, the documentary about Jackson’s final concert rehearsals, due to be released next month.

Other winners at the ceremony, hosted by Russell Brand, included Lady Gaga for best new artist, whose live performance culminated in her pretending to stab herself and swinging from the ceiling.

Britney Spears won best pop video for Womanizer, with prizes also going to Green Day, Eminem and TI.

In a speech to mark one year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank, he will also mount a vigorous defence of his administration’s economic policies.

The US president will focus on “the need to take the next series of steps” in regulatory reform, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Mr Obama has spent billions of dollars to stimulate economic growth

Mr Obama’s team have argued that they staved off a second Great Depression.

Mr Obama will give his speech at 1210 local time (1610 GMT) in New York, at Federal Hall on Wall Street, where George Washington was inaugurated as the first US president.

‘Verge of collapse’

It comes a week before the US hosts a summit of the Group of 20 richest nations in Pittsburgh.

The White House has said its massive $787bn (£472bn) stimulus package, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed earlier this year, has created up to 1.1m jobs and boosted economic activity.

“When I walked in, the banking system, the financial system was under the verge of collapse,” Mr Obama said on Sunday in an interview on the 60 Minutes television show.

“The reason we did so was that every credible Democratic and Republican economist at the time when we came in said if we don’t have a stimulus of some sort, then this is potentially going to get a lot worse,” he said.

The White House has said it boosted US GDP by 2-3% between April and June.

Mixed verdict

But some opinion polls have showed that most Americans believe the stimulus plan is having no impact.

Mr Obama’s speech comes as a BBC World Service poll showed that 67% of people in 20 countries wanted more regulation and running of national economies.

US citizens were evenly split between those who were happy and unhappy with their government’s response, the survey showed.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed “rich countries” and international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for the crisis because of a lack of regulation in an interview with the BBC.

Mr Lula is popular in Brazil, with 59% saying they were happy with Brazil’s handling of the crisis in the World Service poll.

Brazil recently became the latest country to emerge from a relatively shallow recession.

Overall, the survey suggested that people in developed countries were less satisfied with all of these groups than those in developing countries.

Positive signs

Recent data has suggested that the US is starting to recover, just as other countries such as Japan ad Germany have left recession.

Many economists believe that the US will return to positive economic growth in the June-September quarter.

“When the president was elected and in transition, the issue… was whether recession would become depression,” said Lawrence Summers, head of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council.

“Today, the question is when the recession phase will end? That is not, in our judgement, an accident.”

“We are making a clear transition from rescue as the priority of public policy to sustained recovery,” he added.

The collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, soon after troubled rival Bear Sterns was sold with Federal Reserve intervention, marked the start of a near-total collapse of the financial system that required unprecedented global intervention to keep it solvent.

The number of people arrested for suspected roles in the three-day riots could go up because investigations are still under way, said Kale Kayihura, the nation’s police chief.

Trials for the suspects will start Monday on charges including taking part in violent acts and unlawful assemblies, Kayihura said.

At least 82 were injured, according to the police chief.

Ugandan police ride past a burning barricade in the Natete suburb of Kampala on Friday.

Tensions between President Yoweri Museveni and the Buganda kingdom — headed by King Ronald Mutebi II, the ruler of the Baganda tribe — have intensified in recent years.

The violence flared Thursday when the government said it would not allow the king to travel to an area inhabited by a renegade rival group.

After the travel ban, young Bagandans took to the streets, stealing ammunition from a police station and confronting officers, accusing them of harassment.

“The government is wrong to undermine cultural institutions which are the backbone of Uganda’s heritage,” said Mzamiru Balidha, a resident of Kampala. “Cultural leaders must be left alone since they are not interfering in politics.”

Rioters burned tires and cars, set buildings on fire and looted stores. Streets in the capital were strewn with debris over the weekend, including torched cars and burned tires.

Police and the army patrolled deserted but calm streets Sunday as residents tried to return to normalcy after the protests.

“I’m happy to see that there is peace now,” said Harry Sagara of Kampala. “Now people can return to work.”

Government officials and the Buganda kingdom have been at odds for years, sparring over land, sovereignty and political power.

A government official said Sunday that the two leaders have pledged to meet and address their differences.

“Both the central government and the king are still working out details of the meeting,” said Daudi Migereko, the minister of parliamentary affairs.

Bagandans are the dominant ethnic group and one of four ancient kingdoms in the nation. Kings in the east African nation are limited to a ceremonial role overseeing traditional and cultural affairs.