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MOSCOW--By any measure, Russia's stock markets have been on a sickening ride.

PARIS--French President Nicolas Sarkozy received a harsh lesson about European realities when he convened an emergency meeting of leaders representing the Continent's four biggest economies--France, Britain, Germany, and Italy--last week to deal with the financial-markets crisis.

New York - The dramatic changes in the US financial system – the debt write-downs and consolidation of corporate balance sheets – are now mirrored at kitchen tables around the United States.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The credit crisis has shattered U.S. consumers' faith in financial institutions, including a stunning loss of confidence in the Federal Reserve, and that is likely to trigger the biggest drop in consumer spending in more than three decades and a deep recession, according to a survey released on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Violence in Afghanistan will escalate in 2009 unless the United States and other countries move quickly to counter an intensifying Taliban insurgency with troops and assistance, the top U.S. military officer said on Thursday.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama praised his rival John McCain for trying to tone down the vitriol of the U.S. presidential race but pressed ahead on Saturday with an effort to cast the Republican as out of touch on the economy.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected U.S. drones fired two missile on Saturday into a Pakistani region regarded as an al Qaeda and Taliban safe haven, killing at least five militants, residents and an intelligence official said.

OSLO (Reuters) - Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for a decades-long career of peacemaking around the world from Namibia to Kosovo.

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish golf legend Seve Ballesteros, a five-times major winner, said Sunday he has been diagnosed with a brain tumour.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley stock nearly doubled after Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (MUFG) completed its $9 billion investment in the bank on Monday.

LONDON (AFP) - The government will on Monday announce plans to take controlling shares in HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), two of the banks worst affected by the global financial crisis, media reports said.

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland has officially requested financing from the International Monetary Fund, an IMF official said on Monday, part of efforts to combat a crisis that has overwhelmed its once-flourishing financial sector.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans may like to make fun of girls who are good at math, but this attitude is robbing the country of some of its best talent, researchers reported on Friday.

ROME (Reuters) - A 106-year-old American nun who became a minor celebrity after she appeared on television saying she is voting for Barack Obama is "startled and a bit anguished" by all the attention she is getting, her order said on Monday.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The death of Austria's charismatic rightist politician Joerg Haider makes a reunification of the two far-right parties more likely, but they may struggle to keep rural and middle-class voters.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - NATO allies reached a deal on Friday to allow direct attacks on the Afghan drugs trade that the United States says are vital to bringing security to the country in the face of a worsening Taliban insurgency.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran U.S. actor and legendary sportscaster Gil Stratton, remembered for his signature line, "Hi folks, time to call 'em as I see 'em," and for roles in such movies as "Stalag 17" and "The Wild One," has died at age 86.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Finance chiefs of the world's major economies pledged on Friday to take decisive action and work together to stem the escalating financial crisis after another day of gut-wrenching drops on world markets.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - An Australian academic claims to have found evidence to suggest that the wife of Johann Sebastian Bach wrote several of the German composer's acclaimed pieces.

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland sought on Friday to reassure international investors caught in its banking meltdown, saying it aimed to meet its obligations despite the turmoil which has ravaged a once-vibrant financial sector.