WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush Friday signed into law the far-reaching rescue package for the U.S. financial markets passed by Congress.

Bush said the plan, which allows the Treasury Secretary to buy up to $700 billion in troubled assets, will help the economy weather the financial crisis, CNNMoney.com reported.

By acting in a bipartisan manner, "we have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said after the House passed the $700 billion bailout package 263-171. "We have shown the world that the United States of America will stabilize our financial markets and maintain a leading role in the global economy."

The Senate passed its version of the bill 75-24 Wednesday. The House rejected its version of the measure 228-205 Monday.

House passes economic bailout bill

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. House of Representatives, spurred by cries that inaction was unacceptable, passed a $700 billion economic bailout bill 263-171 Friday.

"Passing his legislation is only the beginning of our work" to protect U.S. citizens, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said during debate on the measure.

Some House members who voted against the measure Monday said they reluctantly changed their votes.

Retiring Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss, noting that the vote would be his last, said he would beswitch his "no" vote to "yes" to "preserve those things I believe in most."

Pickering said he hoped the House vote would be remembered favorably because "we didn't do what was easy, but we did what was right."

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said, "The consequences of us not acting are "overwhelming" because the American people "are counting on us."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said he disagreed with the tax provisions added in the Senate, which passed the bill Wednesday.

"This crisis is teaching us about the dangers of fiscal recklessness, and that debt does, indeed, matter," Hoyer said. "But an emergency like this calls for the courage to compromise."

Many representatives used their time at the microphone to chide the Senate for loading the measure with earmarks and unrelated items to make it more attractive for passage.

However, House members did note that the Senate measure raised the limit for deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 and extended some tax benefits and relief to 24 million households.

Bailout bill has high earmark level

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- As they crafted a bill designed to rescue the credit industry, U.S. senators quietly added billions of tax-break dollars for private projects, lawmakers say.

Those additions, called earmarks, covered many things that appeared to have little to do with restoring faith in the financial markets, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

They were hardly noticed, reports said, as lawmakers debated the $700 billion bailout bill. A similar measure lost in a vote Monday in the U.S. House of Representatives but was revised -- with the added funding issues -- and passed Wednesday by the Senate. The House was to consider it Friday, despite an added price tag said to be about $100 billion.

Among added projects listed by the Chronicle, were a $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children, a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners, $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry and $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers.

Many of the tax breaks had been in place for years and were about to expire, the newspaper said.

U.S.: 'Substantive' talks with North Korea

SEOUL, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said Friday he had "substantive" talks with North Korea over nuclear disarmament, but no breakthrough was reported.

Hill, the assistant secretary of state, returned to Seoul after a three-day visit with North Korean officials to meet with Kim Sook and Akitaka Saiki, his counterparts in South Korea and Japan.

Hill had traveled overland to Pyongyang Wednesday to meet with North Korean's Kim Kye-gwan and other officials on a mission to stop the country from reviving its atomic weapons drive.

"The discussions in Pyongyang were quite substantive, we went into great detail on things," Hill said in a report from Voice of America.

"They were quite lengthy ... needless to say there's been a lot of problems in the six-party process, so indeed we did quite a substantial review of activities in the last couple months."

Tensions have mounted since North Korea moved to resume its nuclear activity in recent weeks in an apparent protest against the United States' refusal to take it off the terrorism sanctions list.

Hill heads for Beijing Saturday to meet with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who heads the talks with North Korea.

Explosion in Georgia kills seven Russians

TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- A Russian commander said seven Russian troops died Friday in an explosion in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The unidentified Russian military commander in South Ossetia said the blast occurred in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and left seven other Russian troops with injuries, the BBC reported.

Officials said the blast was caused by an explosives-laden car that exploded at a regional Russian military base.

The South Ossetian government said the vehicle had been seized by Russian troops after weapons were found in it during a search of an ethnic Georgian village.

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity accused Georgia of orchestrating the bombing in order to sour relations between his breakaway republic and Russia.

"That was a deliberate terrorist act prepared by the Georgian Security Ministry," Kokoity was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

The BBC said Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili, whose country's invasion of South Ossetia was stopped by Russia this year, has denied the allegation.

Week's body count in Tijuana drug war 35

TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Officials in Tijuana said six bodies were found Friday, raising the body count in an going gangland war to more than 30 this week.

The Baja California Attorney General's Office said five of the victims were discovered before dawn in a residential neighborhood with their faces wrapped with duct tape and their hands and feet bound.

The San Diego Union-Tribune said that unlike other discoveries this week, there was no taunting note left by the killers. Nine bodies were found Thursday after 16 had been discovered Monday, officials said.

The slayings were the latest in a surge of violence blamed on rival drug gangs battling for control of the lucrative turf once dominated by the Arellano Felix smuggling organizations.

The newspaper said the victims are by and large criminal element; however their deaths have rattled residents of normally quiet areas of the border city.