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Vienna, Austria (AHN) - Austrian far-right politician, Jörg Haider, died early Saturday morning in a car crash near Klagenfurt in his home province of Carinthia.

The 58-year-old leader of the nationalist Alliance for Austria's Future and governor of the province suffered severe head and chest injuries when he lost control of the car on damp pavement and the vehicle veered off the road, police said.

Police said he was wearing a seat belt but the serious injuries were caused when the vehicle flipped repeatedly before coming to rest almost 40 yards away from the scene of accident.

Reports said Austrians were shocked to hear the news about his accident as he has been the most polarizing figure of the country and had recently helped his party regain a lead in national elections.

He led the party that is anti-immigrant and anti-European Union sentiment to secure 27 percent in the 1999 national elections along with combined with his former party, the Freedom Party, compared to 5 percent gain in 1986.

But he was also known for his remarks praising Adolf Hitler's employment policies and triggered controversy after he visited Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

His parents were early supporters of Hitler's National Socialist Party during the Germany's rule over Austria after it was annexed in 1938.

Haider, whose father was a shoemaker and mother a teacher, was born in Bad Goisern in the Upper Austria province and studied law at the University of Vienna.

Seoul, South Korea (AHN) - The United States has decided to remove North Korea from its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism and President Bush is likely to announce the news later Saturday, according to senior US officials.

The measure will be taken in order to salvage and resume six-party talks were related to nuclear disarmament agreement, according to the officials.

The move comes after several assurances given by Kim Jong Il's government to check on its nuclear facilities and to verify its nuclear program activities.

President Bush has reportedly signed off on the plant yesterday in the hope of salvaging nuclear disarmament deal with the North and to reduce the gap between the two countries.

Early this week North Korea had reportedly told International Atomic Energy Agency that it was planning to remove weapons inspector from the country, according to US officials.

Washington expects North Korea to submit and verify the list of steps to China under the disarmament process and to stop any nuclear program activities as well as missile tests.

"We've agreed to a series of verification measures [on North Korea's nuclear program], and flowing from that we can now remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror," an administration official was quoted saying by AFP news agency.

Baghdad, Iraq (AHN) - A bomb exploded at a market in southern Baghdad and two other explosions in Mosul, Nineveh province also hit a market and police patrol Friday. The mayhem killed 16 Iraqi civilians.

The bomb attack on a market in Abu Dshir, a mainly Shia enclave in the predominantly Sunni district of Dora, resulted in 13 deaths, including women and children, while 27 were wounded, authorities said. Shops and parked cars were also destroyed.

The attack on another market in Mosul killed two people and injured 12 others. The explosion targeting a police patrol in Mosul killed one person and wounded 12 others.

Kiev, Ukraine (AHN) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the leader of her bloc in parliament said Friday the early elections called by President Viktor Yushchenko will not push through on Dec. 7.

In a television talk show, Tymoshenko said the government does not have enough money to fund the holding of the elections and that lawmakers will not pass a law to that effect because it is unconstitutional.

Ivan Kirilenko, the leader of Tymoshenko's allies in the Verkhovna Rada, said the election is burdensome in light of the bad economy.

The country's election commission is asking $80 million from the government to fund preparations of the election starting on Oct. 28.

Yushchenko dissolved the parliament on Wednesday and called for the new elections to form a new coalition government. His pro-Western coalition government with Tymoshenko broke up last month due to political differences.

Budapest, Hungary (AHN) - NATO ministers agreed on Friday to allow coalition troops in Afghanistan to fight Afghan drug lords and destroy opium laboratories, the source of funds for Taliban militants.

Afghan forces will join in NATO operations against drug trafficking, the military bloc's spokesman, James Appathurai, told BBC News.

Currently, NATO's anti-drug trafficking activities together with the Afghan army and police are limited to destroying opium poppy production.

Proceeds from the sale of heroin produced in Afghanistan are estimated at $100 million a year and the money is being channeled to Taliban militants battling the U.S.-led coalition forces.

The United Nations, U.S. and the Afghan government had urged NATO to help dismantle the narcotics industry in Afghanistan as a way to stop the insurgency.

Geneva, Switzerland (AHN) - One hundred out of 150 Somali migrants remain missing Friday after human smugglers supposed to bring them to Yemen by boat forced them to swim to the country's shore.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Yemeni coast guard are searching for survivors off Yemen's coast. Forty-seven managed to reach shore by swimming five kilometers of water.

Yemeni authorities have buried five bodies, according to UNCHR. Thirty bodies have washed up on the shore of Yemen's Shabwa province but authorities are verifying if these belonged to the victims.

The boat people left Somalia's Marera port on Monday. They have been sailing the Gulf of Aden for three days when smugglers stopped the boat and ordered them to swim to their destination.

Thousands of people escaping civil war and hunger from countries in the Horn of Africa are making the perilous sea journey to Yemen. Last month, 52 Somalis drowned when they were also forced to swim to shore.

Caracas, Venezuela (AHN) - The head of Venezuela's tax agency ordered Thursday the closure of all 115 branches of American fastfood chain McDonald's in the country over bookkeeping irregularities related to its taxes.

The order to shutter the hamburger chain was for 48 working hours, which covered Thursday to Saturday, according to Jose David Cabello of the tax agency. He explained McDonald's sales and purchases books have inconsistencies, particularly on taxes it was supposed to pay the Venezuelan government.

McDonald's is not the first multinational which has had problems with the Venezuelan government. A major U.S. soft drink company was also ordered closed by the government recently for 48 hours, also on charges of bookkeeping irregularities.

The move is seen as one of the anti-U.S. stand Venezuelan President Hugo Chaves has taken over the past few months, which culminated in Venezuela and another South American nation and Caracas-ally Bolivia kicking out American ambassadors in their capital cities. In turn, Washington did the same thing to the envoys of the two nations and froze as well the assets of Chavez's three aides.

Stockholm, Sweden (AHN) - The Norwegian Nobel Committee concluded the week-long awarding of Nobel winners by declaring on Friday former Finland President Martti Ahtisaari as the Peace Prize recipient for 2008.

The committee said it selected Ahtisaari for his efforts covering continents and over 30 years to resolve international conflicts and to work for brotherhood among nations. The 71-year old ex-president has been shortlisted as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate since 2005 after he worked to stop the 130-year old conflict between the Indonesian government and leaders of the separatist movement in Aceh.

Other areas where Ahtisaari has made significant inroads in resolving conflicts were in Northern Ireland, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

In announcing the award of a $1.4 million prize to the former Finnish head of government, the committee said, "Through his untiring efforts and good results, he has shown what role mediation of various kinds can play in the resolution of international conflicts."

Downers Grove, IL (AHN) - Thousands of air flights are slated to be canceled over the last quarter of 2008 as the international aviation industry struggle with the double whammy caused by expensive jet fuel and the global financial meltdown.

The cut in service will translate into 46 million less airline seats, according to figures compiled by the Official Airline Guide.

In Europe, at least 45 gateways are slated to lose schedule services by December as flights shrink by 83,000 trips within the European Union. If airports from other parts of the world are included, at least 200 airports will stop operations for the meantime.

In the U.S., hardest hit by the belt-tightening measures on an individual and national levels are the domestic routes, expected to fall by 59 percent for the fourth quarter of this year. That is equivalent to 265,000 fewer flights or 21 million less air seats.

Even Asia, where growth has been by leaps and bounds the past few years, will lose 15 million seats from October to December.

Last month, the International Air Transport Association forecast the losses of the global aviation industry will hit $5.2 billion in 2008, said Giovanni Bisinani, director general and chief executive officer of IATA.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - A mission from Iceland arrived in Washington Thursday to seek bailout money for the nation's financially hemorrhaging banks.

The arrival of the team followed a Wednesday statement from Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde that a loan from the International Monetary Fund was being considered by the European nation after Russia turned down its request to borrow bailout funds.

Many from Iceland's academe are in favor of the nation seeking bailout money from IMF. University of Iceland professor Arsaell Valfells told the New York Times, "Iceland in bankrupt... The Icelandic krona is history. The only sensible option is for the IMF to come and rescue us."

In anticipation of the rush of borrowers, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the fund has activated a rapid-fire emergency loan program which would lend trillions of dollars to emerging markets threatened by the global financial meltdown.

The ongoing global economic turmoil will bring back the prominence and importance of the IMF to the global economy. Over the past few years, IMF has been sidelined as a major source of funds as healthy capital markets and rising commodity prices gave many developing countries the opportunity to raise funds from within and in the process build up their currency reserves.

Prior to the global credit crisis, "The IMF had been written off as increasingly irrelevant," Inter-American Dialogue scholar Claudio Loser told Bloomberg. He added, "Now we could see a renaissance at the fund. Countries that had hoped never to need the fund again may be forced to ask for help as the normal sources of finance dry up."

New Delhi, India (AHN) - The gallstone removal surgery of the Dalai Lama was successful. The operation was done in New Delhi.

The 73-year old spiritual leader of Buddhists was first admitted to a Mumbai hospital in August after he suffered from stomach pains. On Thursday the Dalai Lama entered a hospital in New Delhi in preparation for the surgery.

His spokesman , Chhime Chhoekyapa, said the Dalai Lama is recovering from the simple routine medical procedure.

The Dalai Lama has been a resident of Dharamsala in northern India since 1959 after he left Tibet.

Berlin, Germany (AHN) - Following the discovery that personal information of 17 million Deutsche Telekom mobile phone subscribers have been missing, the largest German telco promised to tighten data-security regulations.

But it turned out the data made up of private numbers of politicians and celebrities, cellular phone numbers, addresses, birthdays and email addresses, were acquired by a private firm two years ago.

To address these breaches in privacy, the company will appoint a seventh board member who will be mainly responsible for corporate compliance and legal issues. Among the tasks of the new board member would be to come up with privacy reports every six months.

In addition to this, Telekom chief executive Rene Obermann said that if in the future there would be another incident of data privacy violation, the public will be informed on a dedicated portal. "In the race against data theft, we want to be at least one step ahead at all times," Obermann said, quoted by Deutsche Welle.

New York, NY (AHN) - Fortune Magazine will issue another list of the top 400 billionaires in the U.S. for its Oct. 27 issue as the global credit crisis has changed rankings.

Second placer Warren Buffet, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, regained the top spot from Bill Gates after an additional $8 billion was included in his net worth in a span of 33 days, covering the period Aug. 29 to Oct. 1. With the recomputation, Buffet's net worth reached $58 billion.

Microsoft founder Gates, who has stayed on the number one spot for 15 straight years, slipped to second place after his net worth went down by $1.5 billion to $55.5 billion for the same 33-day period.

The biggest drop was by Las Vegas Sands Corporation chief executive Sheldon Adelson, whose net worth dipped by $4 billion after he lost over $1 billion during the credit crisis. Another loser was Dish Network Corp. chief executive Charles Ergen, whose net worth fell $2.2 billion to $5.9 billion.

The revision comes just over a month since Forbes last issued the top 400 list on its Sept. 17 issue.

Tokyo, Japan (AHN) - The global economic crisis has started to hit Japan's financial sector after a mid-sized insurance company filed for bankruptcy becoming the first company to collapse in Asia's largest economy.

The 98-year-old business, Yamato Life Insurance Co., filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors on Friday, for the first time in seven years in the sector.

The firm's debts exceed assets by 11.5 billion yen ($116 million), which is a result of the decreased value of its securities holdings, the company's president said.

"We are deeply sorry and offer apologies from the bottom of our hearts," Yamato Life Insurance Co President Takeo Nakazono was quoted saying by Japan Today, local English newspaper, as he bowed deeply on nationally televised news.

Yamato Life Insurance Co. President Takeo Nakazono said on Friday that the company's stocks had lost value over the last 12 months since the subprime contagion began, sending the shares down $111 million in the red.

Yamato employees around 1,000 people and had almost 170,000 individual insurance contracts by the end of March this year.

It had assets worth 283.1 billion yen ($2.86 billion) and around 1.075 trillion yen ($10 billion) in individual policy accounts at the end of the fiscal year through March 2008, according to local reports.

By the end of September, the company had moved its assets to alternative investments, accounting almost 30 percent of the firm's total portfolio.

President Nakazono told reporters on Friday that the Tokyo-based company will look for sponsors and seek court authorization for its rehabilitation.

Reports showed that the number of corporate bankruptcies in the country had surged by 34 percent in September, which is considered to have increased at the fastest pace in eight years.

According to local reports, Yamato's bankruptcy filing was positioned as the fifth biggest corporate collapse in the country this year.

Podgorica, Montenegro (AHN) - Montenegro and Macedonia recognized Thursday the independence of Kosovo. Serbia, angered by the recognition of its separatist province, expelled Montenegro's ambassador.

Montenegro's Foreign Minister Milan Rocen said government ministers unanimously decided to recognize Kosovo in the interest of the country's future.

Macedonia's parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution recognizing Kosovo, which formally seceded from Serbia in February, and the government approved the decision, according to Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki.

Montenegro and Macedonia were formerly parts of the broken up Yugoslavia, which also consisted of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia declared independence from the federation in 1991. Bosnia-Herzegovina became independent the following year and Montenegro and Serbia declared their independence in 2006.

Serbia is currently disputing the legality of Kosovo's independence before the International Court of Justice. Kosovo is already recognized by 50 countries, including the U.S.