UAE bank offers more cash amid panic in Dubai crisis

UAE bank offers more cash amid panic in Dubai crisis

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates has pledged to stand behind foreign and domestic banks in the country, offering additional money while extolling the strength of the Gulf nation’s financial sector as world markets brace for a potential day of reckoning Monday over Dubai’s crushing debt.

The UAE’s immediate priority was arguably to avert any run, however unlikely, on banks by panicked depositors. But the promise of cheap funds also signaled to global investors that the country’s federal government — backed by oil money — will do what it can to limit the fallout from its indebted emirate’s woes.

In a statement Sunday, the UAE’s central bank said it had sent notice to Emirati banks and foreign banks with branches in the country making clear they would have access to “a special additional liquidity facility.”

Senator discusses Obama’s war plan to expand troops

WASHINGTON — The leading Senate Democrat on military matters said Sunday that President Barack Obama’s anticipated plan for significantly expanding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan must show how those reinforcements will help increase the size of the Afghan security forces.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that more Afghan army and police are central to succeeding in the 8-year-old war and more U.S. trainers and equipment can help meet that goal.

But it’s unclear, Levin said, what role tens of thousands additional combat troops will play and Obama has to make a compelling case during a national address he’s scheduled to give Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Senators: Action needed for White House crashers

WASHINGTON — Two senators said Sunday that authorities should pursue criminal charges against the Virginia couple who crashed last week’s state dinner at the White House.

“You’ve got to send a strong deterrent that people just don’t do this kind of thing,” Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona agreed, saying, “If it’s a federal crime to lie to a federal agent, and these people didn’t tell the truth about their invitation, then they should be in some way brought to justice here, again, as an example to others not to do it.”

According to authorities, Michaele and Tareq Salahi were allowed into the White House dinner Tuesday night even though they were not on the guest list. The Secret Service has apologized for the breakdown in security, and an investigation into possible criminal behavior is ongoing.

3 aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania, police say

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped by gunmen Sunday while delivering supplies to impoverished villages in the desert nation of Mauritania, a police official said.

The two men and one woman were attacked while delivering supplies to villages along a 240-mile road that links the capital Nouakchott to Nouadhibou to the north, the official said. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

“The Spaniards were inside their car traveling in the humanitarian convoy which had gone to distribute humanitarian aid to the poorest of the poor of Nouadhibou when the unknown gunmen started shooting at them before kidnapping them,” said the official, a top police officer in the capital.

It was unclear whether there were other foreign aid workers traveling alongside of the three.

Honduras hopes to move past coup with election

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Hondurans on Sunday elected a new president whose first challenge will be defending his legitimacy to the world and ending a crisis over a June coup that has isolated one of Latin America’s poorest countries.

Porfirio Lobo and Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen from the political old guard, are the front-runners. No official results had been released by late Sunday, but Channel 5 television and HRN radio said their exit poll indicated that Lobo was leading with nearly 56 percent of the vote, trailed by Santos with 38 percent.

The candidates’ campaigns have been overshadowed by the debate over whether Hondurans should vote at all in an election largely shunned by international monitors.

Associated Press