AFP - News

LONDON (AFP) - World stock markets stabilised Tuesday despite a tumbling banking sector across Europe, as Asia pulled back from the brink on the prospect of cuts to global interest rates, dealers said.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AFP) - Democrat Barack Obama is gaining ground in hard-fought battleground states, new polls said Tuesday, piling pressure on his rival John McCain ahead of their second debate clash.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian fighter jets have forced an aircraft carrying US troops to land in Iran after it entered its air space without permission, the Fars news agency said on Tuesday.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Anti-government protests left at least one dead and hundreds injured on Tuesday as months of political turmoil boiled over, with troops deployed across Bangkok to quell the demonstrations, officials said.

ROME (AFP) - The UN food agency cast doubt Tuesday on the potential of biofuels to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while warning that their development threatens food security.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan and Yoichiro Nambu of the United States won the 2008 Nobel Physics Prize Tuesday for groundbreaking theoretical work in fundamental particles.

REYKJAVIK (AFP) - The Icelandic government said Tuesday it had taken control of the country's second largest bank, Landsbanki, as the island's financial sector tottered on the verge of collapse.