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Bush to meet Sarkozy, EU leader on reforms

CAMP DAVID, Md., Oct. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush prepared Saturday to meet with French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy on international financial regulatory reforms, officials said.

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Sarkozy and European Council President Jose Manuel Barroso headed to the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David after meeting in Canada in Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the BBC reported.

The three leaders were expected to set the framework for a summit of Group of Eight leaders planned for November -- a meeting that may also include China, India and other major developing economies. The goal of the meeting would be to develop reforms for international regulations set up in the 1940s that have proven incapable of dealing with the global financial crisis, the British broadcaster said.

"The world is confronted by the worst economic and financial crisis since the 1930s," Sarkozy said Friday in Canada. "We need to reflect on the stakes, how we arrived here, who is responsible, and what happened. And we must draw lessons from it."

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"Our European partners are taking bold steps. They show the world that we're determined to overcome this challenge together," Bush said Friday, Deutsche Welle reported.


Sadr supporters stage mass Iraq rally

BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Supporters of radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr staged a mass demonstration in Baghdad Saturday demanding the removal of U.S. troops, officials say.

Iraqi officials estimated 50,000 people lined the streets of the Sadr City slums and moved toward central Baghdad. They chanted slogans, including "Get out occupier," as the Iraqi government and the United States negotiated a "status of forces" agreement that would legitimize the presence of U.S. troops in the country, the BBC reported.

Sadr opposes the draft of the agreement, which would replace a United Nations mandate that provides the legal framework for U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq. Under the draft, which would have to be approved by the Iraqi parliament, U.S. troops would withdraw by 2011 and Iraq could prosecute Americans who commit crimes, the broadcaster said.

Sadr's parliamentary bloc expressed its disapproval of the deal Friday during a meeting of the Iraq Political Council for National Security.


Zimbabwe power-sharing talks near collapse

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Talks to share power in Zimbabwe are on the brink of collapse, President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai say.

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A fourth day of intense negotiations between the two men and a smaller opposition party mediated by former South African President Thabo Mbeki Friday were fruitless, with Mugube saying they went "very well in the wrong direction" and Tsvangirai adding, "it appears we are far apart," the BBC reported.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change signed an historic power-sharing agreement last month brokered by Mbeki, but since then have been unable to agree on which should have control of the country's police and finance ministries.

They have called on the Southern African Development Community and the African Union "to use their collective wisdom to help unlock the deadlock," Tsvangirai told the BBC.

Mbeki, whose clout has been diminished since his resignation as South African president, was more upbeat, declining to declare the situation a "deadlock" and saying the issues were "capable of solving themselves quite easily."


Obama's ad buys swamping McCain

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama is swamping his Republican opponent in advertising spending, approaching an all-time record, observers say.

With ads running day and night in battleground states and in multiple venues, Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, is outspending Sen. John McCain of Arizona by a 4-to-1 margin after raising more than $100 million in September, The New York Times reported Saturday.

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Obama is quickly approaching and is likely to surpass the all-time presidential campaign ad-spending record set in 2004 by U.S. President George Bush, CMAG, a service that monitors political advertising, told the Times.

"This is uncharted territory," Kenneth Goldstein, the director of the Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin, told the newspaper. "We've certainly seen heavy advertising battles before. But we've never seen in a presidential race one side having such a lopsided advantage."

Obama's ad-buying blitz has given him a key ability to counter McCain's own television ad strategy of launching a series of highly negative ads attempting to tie the Democrat to 1960s radical William Ayers as well as a blitz of automated telephone calls attacking him, the Times said.


Canadian E. coli victims rise to 131

NORTH BAY, Ontario, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Public health officials in North Bay, Ontario, say the number of people sickened by E. coli bacteria at a fast food restaurant has risen to 131.

Local Medical Officer of Health Dr. Catherine Whiting told the Toronto Star she expected the number to increase further in coming days because the bacteria's incubation period that can last as long as 10 days.

She said three of the victims were being treated in hospitals after the outbreak last weekend at a Harvey's restaurant. The victims range in age from 1 to 84 years old.

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Whiting said preliminary suspicions on the source of the outbreak centers on hamburgers, but that hadn't been conclusively proved. The restaurant was closed Sunday night.

Most victims went to hospitals with symptoms of diarrhea, including bloody diarrhea, stomach cramps, and vomiting, the Star said.

Whiting said she believes the number of victims are high for a fairly small community because the restaurant has a prime location at the intersection of two highways.

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