WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday announced a new lending facility aimed at helping “bystander” countries protect themselves from contagion during financial crises.The announcement of the facility, first proposed earlier this year, came as Italy and Spain fight to protect their finances while under severe pressure in bond markets already spooked by fiscal crises in Greece, Portugal and Ireland.The new tool will be used to aid countries with “relatively strong policies

PARIS (AFP) ― Disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his heiress wife are suing a top aide of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and several papers for invasion of their privacy, their lawyers said Tuesday.Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair want 100,000 euros ($135,000) from Le Figaro over a story speculating Sinclair was upset by reports her husband had sex parties with prostitutes, according to a writ served on the daily. The paper also speculated that Sinclair, a celebrity television jou

ROME (AP) ― Silvio Berlusconi is reviving his musical career, just a week out of office.The billionaire media mogul and three-time Italian premier released a new CD with his longtime musical collaborator Mariano Apicella on Tuesday.Berlusconi ― a one-time cruise ship crooner ― doesn’t sing on the new collection, titled “True Love,” but co-wrote all 11 songs.The album features love songs and jazz arrangements. It is the fourth CD that Berlusconi and Apicella, a Neapolitan guitarist and singer, ha

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) ― As big as a car and as well-equipped as a laboratory, NASA’s newest Mars rover blows away its predecessors in size and skill.Nicknamed Curiosity and scheduled for launch on Saturday, the rover has a 2-meter arm tipped with a jackhammer and a laser to break through the Martian red rock. What really makes it stand out: It can analyze rocks and soil with unprecedented accuracy.“This is a Mars scientist’s dream machine,” said NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Ashwin Vas

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The White House accused Republican Mitt Romney’s camp of blatant dishonesty Tuesday after he savaged President Barack Obama’s jobs record in a testy preview of a possible 2012 election showdown.The row erupted after the Romney camp’s first television advertisement ripped an Obama quote out of context, making it appear the president feared that talking about the crisis-riddled economy could doom his reelection hopes.Republican candidates meanwhile, just over a month before thei

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Texas judge who was caught by his then teenage daughter on video beating her repeatedly with a belt in a row over her computer use has been suspended from duty, US justice officials said.A seven-minute video of William Adams whipping Hillary Adams, now 23, at least 17 times and

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government plans to allow men over 30 to pay 30,000 liras ($16,325) to win exemption from compulsory service in the military, the second-largest force in NATO.The change has been on the ruling party's agenda for nine years a

Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service said they won’t lower ratings on the U.S. after the congressional committee charged with finding $1.5 trillion of deficit cuts failed to reach an agreement. S&P, which stripped the U.S. of its top “AAA” grade on Aug. 5, said Monday that the supercommittee’s inability to reach agreement didn’t merit another downgrade because the inaction will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts. The deliberations were “not decisive,” Moody’s spokesman E

HONG KONG (AP) ― The World Bank held its East Asian growth forecast steady but warned of growing risks including Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and uncertainty about Thai manufacturing’s recovery from widespread flooding.In a half-yearly report on the outlook for the region, the bank on Tuesday forecast economic growth of 8.2 percent this year and 7.8 percent in 2012, practically unchanged from an earlier prediction in April.Growth in East Asia’s economic lynchpin, China, is expected to ease to

BRUSSELS (AFP) ― The man tasked with ending Belgium’s record political crisis, by finally putting a government together, threw in the towel Monday after talks collapsed over budget cuts to counter the eurozone debt crisis.As Belgium hit 526 days without a government, Socialist leader Elio Di Rupo offered his resignation to King Albert II, who delayed any decision and exhorted politicians to find a rapid solution for the sake of the kingdom.The king “recalls the gravity of the current situation a