Six In The Morning

S&P downgrades Spain on weak growth outlook

Standard & Poor's (S&P) has cut Spain's long-term credit rating by one notch, from AA to AA-, because of weak growth and high levels of private sector debt.

The BBC 14 October 2011

The ratings agency added that the country's high unemployment would remain a drag on the economy.

Last week, the Fitch agency also cut Spain's rating, a process that can raise a country's borrowing costs.

S&P's move comes as G20 finance ministers are due to meet on Friday to discuss the eurozone crisis.

On Thursday, Fitch downgraded the creditworthiness of UK banks Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and also Switzerland's UBS.

Ex-warlord becomes kingmaker in Liberia ballot

MONROVIA, Liberia October 14 Sapa-AP | 14 October, 2011 

A rebel leader who videotaped himself drinking Budweiser as his men cut off the ears of the nation's former president has finished third in this week's presidential election, according to partial results issued Thursday, thrusting the notorious ex-warlord into the role of kingmaker.

Incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace laureate who is the continent's only female president, may have finished first with 41.7 percent of the vote, according to the partial tally issued by the electoral commission that represents ballots from around one-sixth of polling stations. But with 24.5 percent voting for her challenger, she needs No. 3 Prince Johnson's endorsement to win the upcoming runoff.

Despite being named one of the main actors in Liberia's horrific civil war, Johnson remains popular in his home county, which elected him senator and he is in third place with 12.5 percent of the vote.

Is China drinking its own Kool-Aid? 

By Peter Lee 

This has been a strange and unsettling year for Chinese geopolitical strategists. Like French generals, they seem intent on fighting the last war, even as new challenges appear on their doorstep. 

China recently issued a White Paper on "China's Peaceful Development". It revisits the old tropes of the "Chinese way" of apolitical commitment to economic development as the panacea for "win-win" peaceful world progress - and the basis for welcoming China into the world geopolitical order as a key participant, not a detested competitor.

Mexicans unite over arrest of alleged leader in Los Zetas cartel

Mexico has arrested Carlos Oliva Castillo, also known as 'the frog,' who was the alleged mastermind of a horrific arson attack on a casino that killed 52 people in August.

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff write

Each time a top drug boss is captured or killed, Mexicans debate whether this is good or bad news for the so-called drug war here.

The government heralds such arrests as a clear sign of victory; critics contend it only fractures groups and ultimately makes the game more deadly.

But with the arrest, announced Thursday, of Carlos Oliva Castillo, “The Frog,” that debate is likely to be overshadowed by a unifying sense of relief, given the claims made against him.

Mr. Oliva Castillo is an alleged top leader of the Zetas drug group, and more significant, the alleged mastermind of the arson attack that killed 52 people in a casino in August, most of them middle-aged women

Timeline: Myanmar's reforms under civilian government

By Sugita Katya

Myanmar freed about 200 political prisoners, including several prominent dissidents, this week as one of the world's most reclusive states begins to open up after half a century of iron-fisted rule.

The release follows a series of reforms since a nominally civilian government took power, including the release from house arrest of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Here is a timeline of developments in Myanmar since the country's first election in 20 years last November:

Nov 9, 2010 - The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party wins election by a landslide, ensuring the armed forces have control over the new legislature.

Occupy Wall Street braces for showdown

Thousands of anti-greed protesters, told they must clear their camping gear out of Zuccotti Park, brace for a showdown with the NYPD on Friday.

By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from New York— 

Wall Street protesters were preparing Thursday for a confrontation with authorities who are expected to enforce new rules in the Lower Manhattan park where the demonstrators have been camped out for almost a month.

The protesters were told to clear out while Brookfield Office Properties Inc., the owner of Zuccotti Park, power-washes the area Friday morning. But company representatives — accompanied by police — handed out leaflets Thursday notifying the protesters that they could return only if they abide by new rules, which include no tents, tarps or sleeping bags on the ground, no lying on benches and no storing of personal property on the ground.