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Jordan’s Queen Rania will accept an award from Internet video-sharing website YouTube for her efforts to help prevent Muslims and Arabs from being stereotyped, her office said on Thursday.

“It is a pleasure to accept the first YouTube Visionary Award in this spirit,” the queen was quoted as saying in a statement.

“YouTube encourages us to be active participants in a global conversation, making our voices heard, giving us the power to broadcast ourselves, increasing knowledge of each other, breaking down the barriers between us clip by clip.”

In April, Rania, the wife of King Abdullah II, launched her own Internet channel on YouTube in a bid to encourage young people to help address the issue of stereotyping.

“To date, the channel has generated nearly three million video views and received more than 43,000 messages from users around the world,” the queen’s office said.

The statement quoted YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley as saying that Rania “sets the standard for breaking down stereotypes and her YouTube videos are nothing short of inspirational.”

She will “accept this honour in recognition of her efforts to rid the world of the stereotypes and misconceptions associated with Arab and Muslim communities,” her office said.

Last year, the queen told an annual economic forum in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah that Muslims should reject extremism if they want to be taken seriously by the West.

“We are right to question Western governments when their actions only make it easier for radicals to recruit new followers. But our moral authority depends on our willingness to reject the voices of extremism and violence in our midst,” she said.

US oil group ConocoPhillips posted a 41 percent rise in net profit in the third quarter but warned that future earnings in the industry would be “dramatically” lower in the coming years.

The group said net profit was 5.18 billion dollars in the third quarter, or 3.39 dollars per share, despite disruption from hurricanes Ike and Gustav in the oil-producing Gulf of Mexico.

ConocoPhillips chief executive Jim Mulva said the Houston, Texas-based company expected to see “modest” production in the coming years and that the earnings of oil companies would be substantially lower than this year.

“The sustainability of earnings that we’ve just reported in the third quarter is not going to be 5.2 billion dollars. It’s going to be dramatically less,” he said in a conference call.

Mulva was addressing a question about how Conoco was preparing for possible tax increases proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama if Obama wins the November 4 election.

“We have to stand up and talk and make our point that increased taxation and regulation is just not the thing to do,” he said, arguing that higher taxation took money away from investment programs that could increase oil supplies.

Sales in the third quarter increased by 52 percent over 12 months to reach 70 billion dollars.

Oil prices fell heavily on Wednesday on expectations of weaker demand because of falling economic growth.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December, skidded 5.43 dollars to close at 66.75 dollars a barrel

Crude oil has lost a third of its value since first crossing 100 dollars a barrel at the start of the year.

A drug cartel leader who directed cocaine trafficking through Mexico City’s international airport was arrested after a shootout in the capital, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Jesus “The King” Zambada was among 16 Sinaloa cartel members arrested Monday after a gunbattle with police in which an apparent grenade explosion destroyed a car, Attorney General Eduardo Medina said. Zambada’s son, his nephew, two federal police officers and one state police officer were also among those arrested.

Zambada was identified as the brother of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who allegedly heads the cartel along with one of Mexico’s most wanted men, Joaquin Guzman.

Medina described Jesus Zambada as one of the top four leaders of the cartel. He was allegedly in charge of operations in central Mexico, including cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking through the capital city’s international airport. He is suspected in the death of several people found decapitated around the airport in 2007, Medina said.

“He is one of most important importers of cocaine and methamphetamine to this country from South America,” said Marisela Morales, head of the organized crime division at the Attorney General’s Office.

The Sinaloa cartel has suffered several blows since President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of federal troops and police across the country two years ago to seize back territory from drug gangs.

In January, police arrested Alfredo Beltran Leyva, one of five brothers believed to have been top lieutenants of the Sinaloa cartel, based in the northwestern Mexican state of the same name. Federal officials say Beltran Leyva brothers have broken away from the Sinaloa cartel.

“The arrest of Jesus Reynaldo Zambada Garcia stands out, without a doubt, as one of the most significant of the government of President Calderon,” Medina said.

He said authorities have arrested nearly 48,000 drug cartel members since Calderon took office in December 2006, seized nearly 69 tons of cocaine and recovered more than 24,000 illegal weapons.

Despite high-profile drug arrests, homicides and shootouts linked to the drug trade has surged across Mexico, particularly along the northern border with the United States. Fighting between drug gangs have become increasingly brutal, with piles of bodies — sometimes decapitated — turning up in public. Cartels have stepped up attacks on police, gunning them down in their homes or headquarters.

Prosecutors said Zambada was suspected of having a role in a failed bomb attack against a Mexico city police commander in February and in the May 8 assassination of acting Mexican federal police chief Edgar Millan.

Millan was shot inside his Mexico City home five months after announcing the arrests of 11 alleged hit men linked to the Beltran Leyva brothers.

El Universal newspaper reported Wednesday that, by its count, at least 4,000 people have been killed across Mexico this year, a record number. Federal authorities have acknowledged that homicides have surged, though they do not regularly release homicide figures.

Zambada gave a false name upon his arrest, and it took several days for investigators to confirm his identity, said Morales. The 16 suspects were lined up in front of reporters Wednesday, standing behind a table cluttered with weapons seized after the shootout.

None of the 16 suspects have been charged. Morales said prosecutors would ask a court to order them jailed while investigations continue.

With a federal budget crunch looming, Congress this month canceled Pentagon plans to buy and launch two commercial imagery satellites to complement its network of classified spy craft, military and space industry officials said.

House and Senate defense appropriations committees cut all funds for the satellite program during a conference to work out differences in the classified 2009 bills that approve intelligence spending. They also erased the remaining 2008 funds.

Congress “zeroed” the budget, cutting about $1 billion, said an industry official with direct knowledge of the program. The exact budget is classified, but the program was expected to cost about $1.7 billion, according to Pentagon documents and military and industry officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified information.

The cut means the next administration will not be locked into an expensive and potentially controversial program to buy new satellites while paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the $700 billion national financial rescue.

In a related move, the Pentagon has pushed back a competition between Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. for a new multibillion-dollar satellite communications system contract, according to an industry source familiar with the decision.

A contract award for the Transformational Communications Satellite, known as TSAT, is now planned for the fourth quarter of 2010, said the source who asked not to be identified because the Pentagon has not officially announced the change. The Air Force has planned to award the contract, which could have been worth as much as $6.5 billion, in December.

The National Reconnaissance Office was supposed to buy and launch two commercial-style satellites around 2012 under the program called the Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collection satellite system, or BASIC. The program also funded additional commercial imagery purchases, according to Pentagon documents obtained by The Associated Press last month.

Some of the money — approximately $350 million — has been set aside for the Pentagon to study whether it needs more satellite imagery, and if so, to begin a new satellite program with the funding, two industry officials said. The study is expected to be completed this spring.

Pentagon, Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office officials wrangled for months over whether to buy and operate commercial satellites with the ability to see the outlines of 16-inch objects from space, or to pump the money into buying more imagery from the commercial companies that already have such satellites in orbit. Those commercial satellites are built and outfitted with sensors by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Co.; General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems of Fairfax, Va., Lockheed Martin, ITT Corp. Space System Division of Rochester, NY, and Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md.

Program critics say the Pentagon would be spending billions to recreate the capabilities of private companies like GeoEye of Dulles, Va., and DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colo., which are expected to put four new satellites into orbit by 2013.

President Bush’s national security space policy directs the government to buy as much commercial imagery as possible to help the companies withstand competition from subsidized foreign satellite companies. Pentagon officials pushed the program as a backup to commercial capabilities, and to give military commanders more control over the imagery produced.

The BASIC system was meant to spy on enemy troop movements, spot construction at suspected nuclear sites or alert commanders to militant training camps. The still images would be pieced together with higher resolution secret satellites into one large mosaic.

TSAT is part of a planned network of communications satellites designed to help the military integrate the data it collects, such as relaying information gathered by unmanned flying drones to troops in a battle zone. The Army’s new high-tech Future Combat Systems would use TSAT for battlefield information.

Original estimates for the value of TSAT ranged upward of $20 billion, but the program has been scaled back due to questions over its cost and capabilities.

Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib said no final decision has been made on TSAT’s status.

Lockheed Chief Financial Officer Bruce Tanner said Tuesday that the company has not gotten official Pentagon notification of any change in the timeline, but said, “TSAT seems to be in a state of flux.”

Deepening global credit crisis is taking a toll not just on financial institutions but is eroding individual wealth as well, with Britain’s richest man Lakshmi Mittal losing nearly seven million pounds per hour in the last four months, media reported in London.

“Mittal, who owns some of London’s finest homes, including two in Kensington Palace Gardens, has seen the value of the shares he and his family hold crash from 33.24 billion pounds in June, 2008 to 11.82 billion pounds today.

“Over the last four months, he has lost the equivalent of nearly 180 million pounds a day or some seven million pounds an hour,” London’s newspaper Evening Standard said in a report published online on Thursday.

The India-origin chief of world’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal has lost close to 20 billion pounds in the deepening financial turmoil, Evening Standard said.

Meanwhile, a wealth expert has also said that steel tycoon Mittal has lost an estimated 20 billion pounds owing to the tumbling stock markets and sliding property prices during the last five months.

According to Philip Beresford, the wealth expert who compiles the annual Rich List for The Sunday Times, more than 100 billion pounds would be wiped off the personal fortunes of Britain’s wealthiest industrialists and entrepreneurs in the coming months.

The losses witnessed by Mittal is much higher than others in the top 10 billionaire victims of the financial turmoil in London, compiled by Evening Standard.

Evening Standard said that apart from Mittal, another Non Resident Indian Anil Aggarwal, Chief of mining major Vedanta Resources has also seen an erosion in fortunes due to the financial crisis.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said on Monday he was not thinking of calling an election now, indicating that an expected early poll aimed at breaking a political stalemate may be pushed back.

The 68-year-old Aso, who took office last month after his predecessor resigned suddenly, had been expected to call an election for the lower house as early as November in the hope of breaking a parliamentary deadlock.

“At this stage, I am not thinking about dissolving parliament,” Aso said, adding that the priority now was to deliberate and pass the supplementary budget.

“The greatest interest of the people right now is uncertainty over the future of the economy,” Aso told parliament.

There is growing concern over the impact on Japan’s faltering economy of the U.S. financial crisis, while support for the government may have been hurt following the transport minister’s resignation last week due to a series of contentious remarks.

A media poll on Monday showed that support for Aso’s cabinet and the ruling party had fallen from a previous survey in September.

Approval for Aso’s cabinet stood at 41 percent, down 7 points from September, the Asahi newspaper poll taken on Saturday and Sunday showed.

Asked whom they would vote for if an election took place now, 34 percent of respondents picked the main opposition Democratic Party, up 2 points from last month, while 33 percent chose the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, down 3 points from September.

No election for the lower house need be held until September 2009.

A British soldier shot dead an Afghan civilian on a motorbike Monday who failed to stop as he approached a military patrol in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry here said.

A spokesman said the man “failed to react to two verbal warnings and two warning shots” as he approached troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Helmand province.

After the man was shot, he was treated by medics at the scene but “unfortunately he did not survive”, the spokesman said.

The incident took place at about 5:00 pm (1330 GMT) near Forward Operating Base Inkerman in the Upper Sangin Valley, described by the defence ministry as “one of the most dangerous and austere bases that UK troops occupy”.

In July, British troops killed four civilians who failed to respond to warning shots as their car approached a checkpoint in the same district.

Freddie Mac, one of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis, paid 15,000 dollars to a firm owned by John McCain’s campaign manager despite earlier claims by Republican presidential candidate that the aide had broken ties with the company.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years, The New York Times reported.

Davis’s firm received the payments from the Freddie Mac until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

Davis took a leave from Davis and Manafort for the presidential campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income.

No one at Davis and Manafort other than Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

A Freddie Mac spokeswoman said the company would not comment.

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, did not dispute the payments to Davis’s firm. But she said that Davis had stopped taking a salary from his firm by the end of 2006 and that his work did not affect McCain.

The revelations come at a time when McCain and Obama are sparring over ties to lobbyists and special interests and seeking political advantage in a campaign being reshaped by the financial crisis and the plan to bail out investment firms, the paper reported.

The report also escalated a confrontation between the McCain campaign and The New York Times that flared up a day earlier, when the paper first reported that campaign manager Rick Davis was paid nearly 2 million dollars over five years for defending both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae against stricter regulations.

McCain adviser Steve Schmidt responded to the first report by lashing out at the newspaper, saying it was “in the tank” for Barack Obama and had “cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition.”

Security was tightened in Islamabad as the atmosphere remained tensed on Monday after the weekend bombing that killed dozens.Teams combing the burnt-out shell of the hotel continued to unearth more charred bodies.

Residents on the other hand remained upset and fearful. Internal security in nuclear-armed Pakistan,a country vital to the war against al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups, has deteriorated alarmingly over the past two years.

In a bid to strengthen relations with India, Bahrain is likely to start granting visas on arrival to Indians by the end of 2008.

The new system is going to be implemented over two phases, with businessmen benefitting first, according to Shaikh Rashid Bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the undersecretary for nationality, passports and residence at Bahrain’s interior ministry.

Bahrain had first announced its intention to give visa on arrival to Indians and Russians in July this year.

‘It has been agreed in principle to add the two countries to the list of countries approved by Bahrain for visas on arrival,’ Al Khalifa told the Gulf Daily News.

‘However, certain procedures have to be completed before it is implemented,’ he added.

He said the decision was in line with the wishes of Bahrain’s ruler King Hamad Ibn Isa Al Khalifah, Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa, and Crown Prince and Bahrain Defence Force Deputy Supreme Commander Shaikh Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa to further strengthen ties with India.

There are around 290,000 expatriate Indians in Bahrain.

Al Khalifa said Indian businessmen would be given visa on arrival for a period of two weeks in the first phase.

‘For Indian tourists, including families, the walk-in visa facility may be available at a later stage. I am not in a position to say exactly when it will be implemented,’ he said.

As of now, citizens of 35 countries are granted visa on arrival at Bahrain’s various entry points.