IBT Staff Reporter

Shares in British housebuilders fell sharply on Friday, with sector leaders skidding over 8 percent, as reports of falling house prices and liquidity problems at mortgage lender Northern Rock raised concerns over reduced home demand.

First Acceptance Corp shares fell more than 30 percent on Friday after the automobile insurance provider posted a quarterly loss and had its access to capital reduced as it failed to comply with terms of a credit agreement.

Wall Street grew anxious on Friday after news that Britain's central bank was forced to rescue mortgage lender Northern Rock, suggesting a global credit crisis was spreading.

British banks have been borrowing unusually large amounts from the European Central Bank due to the Bank of England's reluctance to make extra funds available, a German newspaper reported on Friday.

Northern Rock Plc's share price plunge after needing a lifeline from the Bank of England has turned the mortgage lender into a stricken target, more likely than ever to fall prey to a takeover bid.

Retail sales and industrial output eked out smaller-than-expected gains in August, according to data on Friday that kept in place expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week. The reports showed signs of economic softness but the picture was not uniformly bleak. A drop in gasoline prices helped curb the sales retail gain, but helped hold a gauge of consumer confidence steady in early September.

China will work with the United States to ensure the safety of exported toys and other goods, a top Chinese official said, but Beijing still insists it is not solely to blame in recent safety scandals.

A U.S. Senate decision to block funding for a test program to let Mexico's long-haul trucks operate in the United States uses outdated safety fears to mask protectionism, Mexican truckers and the U.S. government say.

Fueled by last year's Nobel Prize for a man nicknamed banker to the poor, microlending to small businesses in the world's poorest countries is booming as individuals discover they can be their own mini World Bank.c

Very efficient coal-fired power plants will be able to sell carbon offsets under the Kyoto Protocol, in an expansion of project eligibility under the carbon trading scheme, U.N. official Jose Miguez said.

Major U.S. indexes started off the day slightly lower on Friday as August retail sales disappointed while the subprime crisis extended overseas as the Bank of England rescued mortgage lender Northern Rock.

Have you ever missed taking a great smiling photo because of digital camera shutter lag? Sony Corp's newest cameras aim to use technology to assist users to resolve that problem.

President George W. Bush on Thursday ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic change of course, telling war-weary Americans the U.S. military role there will stretch beyond his presidency.

Stock futures fell on Friday, suggesting Wall Street shares could open under pressure after British mortgage lender Northern Rock became the biggest UK casualty of the current liquidity squeeze.

Web search leader Google Inc. will sponsor a $30 million competition for an unmanned lunar landing, following up on the $10 million Ansari X Prize that spurred a private sector race to space.

Toyota Motor Corp, the world's biggest auto maker, plans to build a new car plant in Japan to revamp its production facilities, domestic media reported on Friday.

Britain's Cadbury Schweppes Plc rejected a private equity bid for its North American drinks unit over the terms rather than price after it was asked to finance a third of the deal, industry sources said on Friday.

Verizon Wireless will drop all Bob Marley ringtones, ringbacks and pictures after being threatened with a trademark infringement lawsuit, representatives for the late reggae star's family said on Thursday.

South Korean regulators have sent a statement of objections to Intel Corp following a two-year investigation into whether the U.S. microchip company violated antitrust laws.

Frightened residents on Indonesia's Sumatra island huddled in tents outside their damaged homes on Friday, traumatized by the latest of more than 40 aftershocks since a huge earthquake struck two days ago.

The Bank of England has offered an emergency loan to Northern Rock after the mortgage lender became the biggest British casualty of the credit squeeze sparked by the crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market. The British central bank's support is the first time it has acted as lender of last resort in this way since becoming independent on interest rate policy in 1997.

U.S. stocks rose on Thursday after a Wall Street analyst said brokerage shares were undervalued and McDonald's Corp raised its annual dividend by 50 percent.

Sometimes it's best not to keep your cool.

Hedge funds managers who won big by betting that credit markets would slump say they are not seeing reasons to change their bets, despite a stabilizing stock market.

Carmakers in Europe's biggest auto show are displaying clean cars alongside powerful sportscars and gas-guzzling SUVs.

At a Senate hearing on his nomination to head the U.S. central bank, Ben Bernanke pledged to follow the risk-management path of his predecessor, Alan Greenspan: steering policy based not only on the most likely outcome, but on less-probable, but costly, scenarios as well.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he was late to see the storm gathering around U.S. mortgage lending practices and commended his successor Ben Bernanke's handling of the crisis, saying he would likely be responding in a similar fashion.

Countrywide Financial Corp, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, said on Thursday that it had lined up $12 billion of secured financing to help cope with a housing slowdown that has reduced loan demand and will lead to widespread layoffs.

Chinese shares have reached a dangerously high level because the market is failing to price risks properly, just as investors misjudged the value of U.S. subprime mortgages, an academic economist said on Thursday.