Firefighter's Kick Saves Two-Year-Old Child

Firefighters have dramatically stopped a man jumping to his death while holding a two-year-old child by kicking him through an open window back into his bedroom.

Soldiers and firefighters had rushed to a block of flats in Xining, the capital of China's Qinghai province, after a man threatened to throw himself from a window. 

The man, who at points was crying and screaming, was sat on the ledge while cradling the child.

The man was sat on a windowsill

Rescue workers quickly inflated a safety cushion at the foot of the building in case the man jumped or fell, but at the same time, two firefighters began abseiling down the building from higher windows.

When one was just a few metres above the man's head, he swung himself out from the wall before swinging back in to kick the man back into the bedroom.

Rescuers picked up the child

Rescuers who had entered through another window were there to pick up the child.

The man had reportedly had an argument with his wife.

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Greek Football Team's 'Brothels Kit' Banned

A football club in cash-strapped Greece thought it had found a way to keep up with the bills by signing sponsorship deals with two brothels - but it is not being allowed to wear the shirts.

Voukefalas Larissa's new kit is bright pink and emblazoned with the logos of Villa Erotica and Soula's House of History.

By contrast, their rivals turned to kebab shops, a jam factory and a cheese maker to see them through the season.

The club's president Yiannis Batziolas said: "Unfortunately, amateur football has been abandoned by practically everyone.

"This year, because of the more general financial crisis, that has affected us greatly. We were forced to seek any type of financial support for the club so that we could survive."

Although prostitution is legal in Greece and neon signs promoting brothels are commonplace, Voukefalas players are banned from wearing the shirts during games.

League organisers said the sponsorship is inappropriate for underage fans and claimed the advertisements violate "the sporting ideal".

But the team's new benefactor, Soula Alevridou, owner of Soula's House of History, said: "They advertise sports betting firms and various lottery and sports betting games. What are these? Aren't they gambling?"

The 67-year-old grandmother paid 1,000 euros (£812) for her sponsorship deal with Voukefalas, which is now appealing the ban.

The club, made up of students, a bartender, waiters and pizza delivery drivers, is not the only Greek sports team to be struggling financially.

Earlier this year, the country's Amateur Athletics Federation suspended its activities for several weeks to protest against funding cuts.

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New York Fed 'Bomber' Is Bank Manager's Son

A man arrested for allegedly trying to blow up the US Federal Reserve building in New York is the son of a bank manager, reports say.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, of Bangladesh, has been charged with trying to detonate a fake device in a vehicle parked outside the Manhattan building, home to "the world's largest accumulation of gold".

In an elaborate FBI sting, agents grabbed Nafis when he made several attempts to detonate the 1,000lb device by mobile phone.

Nafis had travelled to the US with "the purpose of conducting a terrorist attack" and actively tried to make al Qaeda contacts after his arrival, authorities said.

But the family of the 21-year-old suspect insist he had never displayed any radical tendencies and said he was a devout Muslim whose arrest had come as a shock.

His father, Quazi Mohammad Ahsanullah, said: "We're stunned. Nafis is not a radical type. He says prayers five times a day, and reads the holy Koran and Hadith every day.

"I have never seen him reading any books on jihad. We don't believe that he can have committed this... He is our pride and joy."

Nafis' extended family lives in North Jatrabari, an upper middle-class neighbourhood of southeastern Dhaka. His father is a senior vice president of National Bank and his sister is a doctor.

The bank is one of the most fortified buildings in the city

Speaking from the family home, Nafis' brother-in-law Arik said they had spoken to him only hours before his arrest and even discussed a possible bride for him.

"We heard the news this morning. Everyone is crying here," Arik told AFP. "Nafis never showed any form of radicalisation when he was in Bangladesh."

Officials at North South University in Bangladesh said Nafis had struggled during his eight terms as an electrical engineering and telecommunications student and had been effectively forced to leave after disappointing exam results.

His family said he then moved to the US where he initially took up a place at Missouri Southern State University, left after a term due to cost and took a job at a New York hotel.

Authorities insisted the alleged terror plot never posed an actual risk - but that it demonstrated the value of using sting operations to neutralise young extremists eager to harm Americans.

Before trying to carry out the plot, Nafis went to a warehouse to help assemble a 453kg (1,000lb) bomb using inert material, according to the FBI.

The alleged attack targeted the Federal Reserve Bank in New York

Court documents claim he asked an undercover agent to videotape him saying: "We will not stop until we attain victory or martyrdom."

An official complaint said Nafis contacted a confidential FBI informant in July telling him he wanted to form a terror cell.

In further conversations, authorities said Nafis proposed several spots for his attack, including the New York Stock Exchange, and that in a written letter taking responsibility for the Federal Reserve job he was about to carry out, he said he wanted to "destroy America".

Nafis has appeared in court in Brooklyn charged with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda.

The bank in New York, just a short walk from the scene of the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, is one of the most fortified buildings in the city.

It is home to "the world's largest accumulation of gold", according to the bank's website.

Dozens of governments and central banks store a portion of their gold reserves in high-security vaults deep beneath the building - making it a bigger bullion depository than Fort Knox.

"Attempting to destroy a landmark building and kill or maim untold numbers of innocent bystanders is about as serious as the imagination can conjure," said Mary Galligan, acting head of the FBI's New York office. "The defendant faces appropriately severe consequences."

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China GDP: Economic Growth Slows To 7.4%

Global shares are driven higher by China's economic figures, despite it growing at its slowest pace since the start of 2009.

The country's economy grew 7.4%  between July and September, according to official statistics, compared with 7.6% growth in the previous quarter.

"This is within expectations, the economy is showing signs of stabilising and that is good news," Hong Kong-based Credit Suisse economist Dong Tao said.

"We think that with rebounding property markets, stabilising export orders, resuming consumption, we probably have seen the bottom of the economy.

"The economy can bounce back quickly."

The figures reassured investors, with Asian stock markets rising overnight.

Japan's Nikkei hit a three-week high, rising 2%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.6%.

In London, the FTSE rose 0.2% and Germany Dax increased by 0.14% in early trading.

But while these GDP figures would be cause for celebration in recession-hit economies like the UK, it marks the seventh consecutive quarter of slowing growth in China, as its main export markets, Europe and the US, continue to battle economic problems.

Beijing has attempted to boost growth this year by cutting interest rates twice in quick succession and slashing banks' capital requirements to encourage lending, but with little success.

It has also shifted its focus to quality growth, rather than quantity, and lowered its target to 7.5% growth in 2012, compared with the 8% target of recent years.

Other data released alongside GDP showed industrial output grew by 9.2% in September compared with the same month last year, and retail sales were up 14.2%.

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'Child Porn Ring' Raid: Boy Rescued In Canada

A 14-year-old boy has been rescued from years of abuse amid a police investigation that targeted 21 alleged online child predators, Canadian officers have said.

Some 21 people have been arrested, and 16 of them charged so far as part of Operation Snapshot, according to Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The charges include invitation to sexual touching, internet luring, indecent exposure and accessing and distributing child pornography.

Authorities also rescued the boy identified in some of the images who had been sexually abused over the past five years in Saskatchewan province.

His alleged abuser was a friend of the boy's family who was arrested in June and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Detective Sergeant Darren Parisien said hundreds of thousands of images were found on more than 100 computers or hard drives and 1,000 discs.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police teamed up with half a dozen police forces in Canada's western prairies to identify suspects who possessed and distributed child abuse images across peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

A police spokesman told a nationally televised news conference: "With their activities, obviously they are using common file-sharing networks and common technology and common programs to chat and look for kids who possibly networked with other offenders.

"But none of the individuals (arrested) were directly related (to each other)."

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Neo-Nazis' Twitter Account Blocked In Germany

New powers which allow Twitter to block accounts in certain countries have been used for the first time to hide those from a banned German neo-Nazi group.

An account belonging to the far-right Besseres Hannover, or 'Better Hannover', has been blocked in Germany, where the content of its posts is considered illegal.

The account is still available in other countries, a spokesman for Twitter confirmed.

Besseres Hannover was banned by Lower Saxony's state government last month on the grounds it was promoting Nazi ideals in an attempt to undermine German democracy.

It a letter sent to Twitter, the head of the city's police administration department asked for the group's account to be closed immediately.

Twitter introduced its "country withheld content" function last month in an effort to "respect our users' expression, while also taking into consideration applicable local laws".

On its website, the company says "the open and free exchange of information has a positive global impact", adding that "the tweets must continue to flow".

When Twitter receives a request to withhold content, it notifies affected users unless it is legally prevented from doing so.

Although tweets or accounts are not deleted, they appear greyed-out in countries where they are deemed unsuitable.

Users can challenge the ban, delete contentious tweets or deactivate their account altogether.

Besseres Hannover's Twitter account has more than 440 followers and 1,000 tweets, although the most recent is from almost a month ago.

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Rescued Yachtsman Speaks Of Fears At Sea

A yachtsman rescued by coastguards after his mast snapped and he ran out of fuel has been talking of his fears that he would not be found.

Glenn Ey was left drifting 270 miles off the southeast coast of Australia.

He was sailing from the north of Sydney when he ran into difficulties.

Commercial passenger airliners were asked to fly low over the ocean to help find him.

The yacht was seen drifting 270 miles off the coast

Air Canada and Air New Zealand planes dropped to 4,000ft to make sweeps of the area and the Air Canada plane was the first to spot him.

Mr Ey spoke of his relief. "At that point, it was absolutely wonderful, beautiful." he said. 

"They flew overhead and I thought: "That's a rescue aircraft.' And I put my head up and sure enough it was.

"It happened at midday ... until dark I was very, very concerned. You do think your number's up....there's no question about that."

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Chicago Bullet Tax Plan To Curb Gun Crime

A leading Chicago official is proposing to tax the sale of bullets and firearms in an effort to curb the city's high gun crime and murder rate.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is submitting her proposal calling for a levy of five cents for each bullet and $25 for each firearm sold in Chicago and its surrounding area.

The tax could generate about $1m a year which could be diverted towards medical care for gunshot victims.

Law enforcement officials would be exempt. 

Chicago has reported 409 homicides this year compared to 324 during the same period in 2011. That is actually an improvement on the 900 killings a year Chicago averaged in the 1990s.

"We think that's an appropriate thing to do, especially in the light of the gun violence we struggle to deal with in our criminal justice system and our public health system," Toni Preckwinkle told local journalists. 

"The legal gun shops in suburban Cook County are a conduit for crimes in Chicago. There's no way around it."

Chicago police officers guard a gun crime scene in the south of the city

Richard Pearson, the executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, said the tax would do nothing to address gang violence but would harm local businesses and law-abiding citizens.

"If she wants to get to the people causing all the problems she ought to put a tax on street gangs," he said.

"All this is going to do is drive business out of Cook County, into other counties, Indiana and Wisconsin."

The proposal is likely to face stiff legal opposition if it ever came near to becoming law. 

Gun rights advocates spent years challenging Chicago's previous handgun ban, which was ultimately overturned in 2010 by the US Supreme Court.

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Newsweek Scraps Print Edition To Focus Online

Newsweek has announced it will scrap its print edition and shift to an all-digital format, starting next year.

The weekly magazine will produce its last US print edition on December 31 after 80 years on the news-stands.

The online publication will be called Newsweek Global and will be a single, worldwide edition that requires a paid subscription.

It will be available for tablets and online reading, with certain content available on The Daily Beast website.

The announcement was made by Tina Brown, editor-in-chief and founder of The Newsweek Daily Beast Co.

"Exiting print is an extremely difficult moment for all of us who love the romance of print and the unique weekly camaraderie of those hectic hours before the close on Friday night," she said in the statement.

"But as we head for the 80th anniversary of Newsweek next year, we must sustain the journalism that gives the magazine its purpose - and embrace the all-digital future."

Newsweek's global circulation fell from 4 to 1.5 million in the past decade

Newsweek's decision does not come as a complete surprise, with management announcing in July that the publication was examining its future as a weekly print magazine.

Staff cuts are expected, but the company gave no specific figures.

Newsweek was the second biggest news magazine in the US and owned for decades by the Washington Post. 

It was sold in August 2010 amid falling circulation, and later merged with The Daily Beast. 

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Greek Police Clash With Austerity Protesters

Violence has broken out in the Greek capital Athens, where protesters have clashed with police during an anti-austerity demonstration.

Campaigners threw petrol bombs and rocks at police officers, who responded by firing tear gas to break up groups of troublemakers.

It comes on the day European leaders meet to discuss the future of the single currency.

Millions of Greeks have joined a general strike in a bid to convince politicians to let up on years of crippling austerity.

The 24-hour walkout, organised by the country's two biggest labour unions, is the twentieth work stoppage since a devastating debt crisis erupted in the country late 2009.

The financial crisis has since spread to other troubled economies sharing Europe's single currency.

A protest at the Greek finance ministry on Wednesday

The latest action targets a fresh batch of brutal budget cuts which Athens must take to unlock some 31 billion euros (£25.1bn) in bailout loans it needs to keep the country paying pension, state salaries and running costs.

From taxi drivers to doctors and diplomats, the strike is expected to paralyse an already suffocating economy.

Ships will remain docked throughout the day, hospitals plan to operate on skeleton staff, and dozens of domestic and international flights face cancellation as air traffic controllers agreed to join the protest.

Aircraft will be grounded - and the country isolated from the rest of the world - for three hours.

Most business and public sector activity is expected to come to a screeching halt and government offices will remain shut.

The focus will be in the capital where organisers have called on protesters to rally outside parliament, a venue of frequent, at times, violent, showdowns between demonstrators and police.

Fearing potential violence, authorities have ordered some 4,000 police to the streets to mind demonstrations planned in the capital.

Steel fences and water cannon have been propped outside parliament to shield the sprawling building.

"Just once, the government should reject [international] lenders' absurd demands," said Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the GSEE private sector union.

The Greek parliament has been a frequent venue for protests

"Agreeing to catastrophic measures means driving society to despair and the consequences as well as the protests will be indefinite."

Opinion polls show eight in 10 Greeks increasingly pessimistic, believing the country was heading down a wrong path of austerity.

Still, with the country running low on cash, the prime minister has said Greece has enough money through November.

But Athens has little leverage against lenders pushing for it to adopt 13.5 billion euro in added austerity.

Earlier this week, demands for drastic labour overhauls, including cuts in wages and severance fees, kicked up a political storm. The government's junior coalition partner threatened to walk out of government if the measures were adopted.

Under the current agreement, Greece has to adopt the cuts through 2014; to ease the pain, however, the government, wants an extra two years, until 2016.

Entangled in its worst economic crisis since World War Two, Greece has seen the recession leave a record 1.3 million people, or 25.1%, jobless.

And so unions have vowed to wage rolling strikes to pressure the government to repeal the latest new labour regulations, which include a reported 15,000 public sector sackings.

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