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On one side of Bangkok, you’ll find the victims of Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century. They float down trash-strewn waterways, paddling washtubs with wicker brooms over submerged neighborhoods.

Just a few miles (kilometers) away, you’ll find something else entirely: well-heeled shoppers perusing bustling malls decorated with newly hung Halloween decorations, couples sipping espresso in the air-conditioned comfort of ultrachic cafes.

Although catastrophic flooding has devastated a third of this Southeast Asian nation and submerged some of the capital’s northernmost districts, the reality for the majority of this sprawling metropolis of 9 million people is that life goes on.

The desperate images of disaster contrast sharply with scenes of total normality _ from night-owls drinking cocktails in red light districts to tourists enjoying relaxing foot massages in faux-leather chairs downtown.

An exodus of thousands of Bangkok residents to nearby resorts and a government-ordered five-day holiday have left the notoriously congested city unusually easy to maneuver by taxi and three-wheeled tuk-tuk.

“It’s better, in a way,” Nicole Attwater of Sydney said Sunday, adding that she was happy to brave some flooding to see the Grand Palace, the gold-studded former seat of the Thai monarchy, with far lighter crowds than normal on a sunny morning.

“It’s a good time to come, because it’s quiet,” she said.

Most of Bangkok is dry, with little to indicate that anything is wrong _ except for the ominous walls of sandbags stacked around hotels and homes, and the apocalyptic predictions of everyone from expatriate bloggers to some members of the Thai government.

Yet, the threat of floodwaters sweeping through the city is still very real. Nationwide, 381 people have died over the last three months, and 110,000 more have been displaced _ 10,000 of them in Bangkok, according to government figures. The catastrophe has put hundreds of thousands of people out of work and cost billions of dollars in damage _ a bill that grows larger by the day.

Among items struck from tourists’ agendas: shopping for crafts at the popular Chatuchak weekend market and dinner cruises down the city’s Chao Phraya river _ all canceled due to the high waters. The river swelled to a record high level early Sunday, spilling into some neighborhoods and sparking fears it would flood the inner city.

Fears over worse-case scenarios and travel warnings issued by foreign governments have slashed visitors by half at sites like the Grand Palace and the giant gold-plated Reclining Buddha inside Bangkok’s Wat Pho temple complex.

But the biggest problem by far, said tour guide Keerati Atui, is the media, which he said has given the impression that most of Bangkok is under water.

“Look around,” he said, gesturing to lines of tourists streaming into the white-walled palace. “It’s dry. Everything here is normal.”

River water has lapped at the palace gates and even crept inside, but much of it has welled up through drains in the riverside neighborhood. One picture posted this week on Twitter showed a cameraman filming a television news anchor on a street beside the palace in ankle-high water. On both sides of the pair, the street was bone dry.

Heavy monsoon rains have pummeled a large swath of Asia since July. As floodwaters crept across Thailand, they first drowned neighboring provinces, then districts on the northern outskirts of Bangkok. Last week, advancing water forced the city’s Don Muang airport, which is used mainly for domestic flights, to shut down. However, the international Suwarnabhumi airport remains open, and the city’s skytrain and subway lines were functioning normally.

Nobody knows how far the water will go, but so far Bangkok’s defenses have mostly held.

Statements from government leaders have alternated from assurances the capital would be spared to dire warnings that nowhere is safe.

Panicked Bangkokians have stripped supermarkets and convenience stores of bottled water and dried noodle supplies in recent weeks as a result, but there is still plenty to drink. Both those items can be still found in street-side shops along the city’s temple-dotted riverside, where the mineral water is ice cold and the noodle soup is spicy and sprinkled with fish balls.

“A lot of people are overreacting, they’ve been hoarding too much stuff,” said Kwanpimol Pleegluay, a 48-year-old housewife. “They watch the news and see people in other flooded provinces and think that’s going to happen to them here.”

Kwanpimol was taking a casual stroll along the Chao Phraya with her husband over the weekend _ to see how high the river swelled. After peering into the water, she took his photo and chose one word to describe the scene: “Beautiful,” she said.

On the other side of the Chao Phraya, where the 200-year-old pagoda of the city’s famed Temple of the Dawn rises from the banks, 42-year-old monk Phramaha Abhin said he was not worried.

“The Lord Buddha taught us not to be negligent, we must always prepare,” said Phramaha, referring to newly laid protective layer of sandbags outside the temple, where he lives. “But he also taught us not to foolishly fear that which hasn’t happened yet.”

Many people in Bangkok and neighboring provinces see the flooding as something that should be accepted, not something to be angry about.

In Bangkok’s heavily flooded Thonburi district, a navy team evacuated a stranded pregnant woman whose water broke Sunday. Aorasa Wisetkoop looked anxious, but remained calm and held tightly onto her belly, while a rescue team lifted her into a boat.

“We had to get her to hospital,” rescuer Nitipat Mongolpradit said.

But along with every tragic and urgent incident in the inundation, there were images of Thais splashing in the floodwaters for fun.

When the river began flowing like a waterfall over a wall into Chantana Srisuwan’s wooden-shack kitchen, the 58-year-old pulled out a stack of aluminum pans, soaped them up and began washing them. “Why bother being troubled?” she asked.

“If we think we shouldn’t get wet, we’ll never have peace of mind,” she said, as a neighbor complained he could not sleep because his bed was submerged beneath encroaching waves. “If there’s no water, great. But if there is, we have to learn to live with it.”

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NATO has announced it will end its air campaign over Libya next Monday, following the decision of the U.N. Security Council to lift the no-fly zone and end military action to protect civilians.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Friday that the operation was “one of the most successful in NATO history,” one which was able to wind down quickly following the death of former Libyan leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

Monitoring air patrols are expected to continue until Monday to make sure there are no more threats to civilians.

NATO’s 26,000 sorties, including 9,600 strike missions, destroyed about 5,900 military targets since they started on March 31.

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BRUSSELS—European leaders are struggling for compromise on a crucial debt-fighting agreement, but it was unclear if their last-ditch meeting on Wednesday would produce an accord capable of calming financial markets.

With the future of the European Union possibly hanging in the balance, leaders have been trying to put aside national interests and craft the elements of a comprehensive, EU-wide plan to head off a financial meltdown across the continent.

Hours before EU leaders were set to arrive for the one-night Brussels summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel won vital parliamentary approval at home on plans to increase the eurozone rescue fund’s firepower.

The summit will look at a strategy to vastly increase the $600-billion bailout fund by offering government bond buyers insurance against possible losses and drawing capital from private investors and possibly sovereign wealth funds from such countries as China and Brazil.

In a speech to the Bundestag in Berlin, Merkel called for European leaders to recognize the urgency of Europe’s situation.

“We need to look to the future,” she told legislators. “If the euro fails, Europe fails.

“We need to overcome the acute crisis, we need to come to concrete solutions with regard to countries that are very much in debt, we have to tackle the mistakes made in the past so the crisis will not get worse,” Merkel said.

In another positive sign, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi appeared likely to at least partially meet EU demands for new austerity measures designed to rein in Italy’s massive public debt, which is contributing to instability on the continent’s financial markets. Berlusconi nailed down an overnight deal early Wednesday with his allies in parliament on emergency growth measures and pension reforms no fax cash loans.

But it remains unclear whether EU leaders can reach a detailed, concrete agreement Wednesday that would reassure investors or whether the accord will be a loosely worded plan for future action. Such a vague outcome might reignite the continent’s financial crisis.

The key issue of how to restructure Greek debt was unsettled on the eve of the summit. As of Tuesday, governments and banks remained sharply divided over the extent of the losses that would have to be accepted by holders of government bonds issued by Greece, the country that tipped the continent into a financial crisis.

Banks have been resisting pressure from governments for “voluntary” write-downs of about 60 per cent on their Greek bonds.

Also, there was troubling division on how to finance the expansion of the bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. France had been pushing for the European Central Bank (ECB) to support the EFSF by providing it with loans that could raise the fund’s total capacity to the $1.5-trillion range. But Germany has rejected this approach.

In a compromise, leaders may agree that the EFSF be allowed to bail out debt-laden eurozone governments such as Spain and Italy by giving partial guarantees to investors or banks who buy more of the countries’ bonds.

But key elements on how the EFSF will operate and where it will obtain funds in future may require more discussion among EU officials over coming months.

The details of any agreement are expected to be announced Wednesday evening.

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Advancing floodwaters in Thailand shut down commercial flights Tuesday at Bangkok’s second airport, spilling across a complex housing the country’s flood relief headquarters in one of the biggest blows yet to government attempts to prevent the sprawling capital from being swamped.

The effective closure of Don Muang airport, which is used primarily for domestic flights, was sure to further erode public confidence in the ability of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration to defend the increasingly anxious metropolis of 9 million people.

Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, the country’s main international gateway, has yet to be affected by flooding and flights there were operating normally. Most of the city has been spared inundation so far.

Don Muang has come to symbolize the gravity of the Southeast Asian nation’s deepening crisis, which has seen advancing waters drown a third of the country and kill 366 people over the last three months.

The airport houses the government’s recently established emergency Flood Relief Operations Center, and one of its terminals has been converted into an overcrowded shelter filled with tents for about 4,000 people who fled waterlogged homes.

Somboon Klinchanhom, a 43-year-old civil servant who took refuge there last week, was preparing to move after authorities said the terminal had become too overcrowded and thousands of displaced people would be relocated to other shelters.

“I thought it would be safe and well-protected,” Somboon said of the airport, as she packed her belongings again.

Outside, ankle-high water rushed over sandbagged barriers and swamped roads within the airport compound.

The two main carriers based at Don Muang announced they were suspending operations and diverting flights to Suvarnabhumi. They are Thai Orient Airlines and Nok Air, which said it was halting flights until Nov. 1.

Capt. Kantpat Mangalasiri, the airport’s director, said Don Muang’s runways _ though not currently flooded _ would be closed until Nov. 1 to ensure safe aircraft operations.

Thai air force flights carrying relief supplies were continuing on a military runway that is still open, air force spokesman Montol Suchukorn said. He said floodwaters had breached the military’s air base, but the runway remains protected by flood barriers.

Last week, the air force moved 20 planes from Don Muang as a precaution.

The flood relief command will remain at the airport for now since it is still accessible by road, spokesman Wim Rungwattanajinda said.

He said the government expects floodwaters will sweep through the main parts of Don Muang by Friday, but would not rise above 3.3 feet (one meter).

The scene at the domestic terminal was chaotic as throngs of confused passengers struggled to leave or pulled up to the departure hall with luggage, unaware their flights had been canceled.

With parts of the main road heading to downtown Bangkok flooded knee-deep, taxis were in scarce supply. Some travelers waited hours for a ride as airlines scrambled to arrange special buses.

Don Muang, located on Bangkok’s northern outskirts, is among seven of the capital’s 50 districts that the government has declared at risk. Those zones, in the north and northwest, are all experiencing some flooding.

The latest added to the list is the northwestern district of Bang Phlat. Late Monday, Gov. Suhumbhand Paribatra warned residents there to move their belongings to higher ground after water from the Chao Phraya River crept in through a subway construction site.

On Tuesday, Yingluck’s administration declared public holidays on Oct. 27-31 in affected areas, including Bangkok. The Education Ministry also ordered schools in 12 affected provinces and the capital to close until Nov. 7 due to the floods.

Last week, Yingluck ordered key floodgates opened to help drain runoff through urban canals to the sea, but there is great concern that rising tides in the Gulf of Thailand this weekend could slow critical outflows and flood the city.

Late Monday, the flood relief center said water levels in the worst-hit parts of the country _ the submerged provinces north of Bangkok _ were stable or subsiding. But the massive runoff was still bearing down on the capital as it flowed south toward the Gulf of Thailand.

While neighborhoods just across Bangkok’s boundaries are underwater, most of the city is dry and has not been directly affected by the deluge.

Anxious Bangkokians, though, have been raiding stores to stock up on emergency supplies, and many have been protecting their homes and businesses with sandbags. Some have even erected sealed cement barriers across shop fronts.

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Stock futures rose Wednesday on hopes that Europe will finally take the bold steps needed to stem its financial crisis.

The European Union is expected to present a new plan Wednesday to strengthen weak banks and lower Greece’s debt burden. The plan is considered the boldest yet to stem the debt crisis that threatens to push the global economy into another recession.

The plan comes a day after Slovakia rejected a bill that would have given more power to Europe’s financial rescue program. Sixteen other countries that use the euro have already approved the bill, but the measure requires unanimous support. Still, there are ways around Slovakia’s opposition, and investors predict the bill will ultimately pass.

Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 95 points, or 0.8 percent, to 11,425 about 45 minutes before the opening bell.

Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures rose 10, or 0.8 percent, to 1,199. Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 26, or 1.1 percent, to 2,314.

Earnings season is under way, and so far results are mixed. PepsiCo Inc. rose 1.4 percent in premarket trading after the company said its profit rose because of stronger sales of its snacks and beverages, particularly in overseas markets.

Yet Alcoa Inc. dropped 4.1 percent ahead of the opening after the aluminum maker reported earnings that were weaker than analysts expected. A 12 percent drop in aluminum prices in the third quarter dragged down results.

Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. fell 3.2 percent after the lodging real estate investment trust lowered its full-year forecast for funds from operations, a key measure of its financial performance.

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Greece won’t meet 2011-2012 deficit targets imposed by international lenders as part of the country’s bailout, the Finance Ministry said Sunday.

The country’s deficit this year is expected to reach 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, or euro18.69 billion ($25.2 billion) _ higher than the targeted euro17.1 billion ($23.1 billion), which would have been 7.8 percent of GDP, the ministry said.

Greece has been reliant since May 2010 on regular payouts of loans from a euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. It was granted a second euro109 billion package in July, but details of that deal remain to be worked out.

The Finance Ministry said the missed target was because of a deeper-than-expected recession, with the economy contracting by 5.5 percent instead of the 3.8 percent estimate made in May. It implied the deficit could even exceed this level by the end of the year unless all new austerity measures were implemented.

“The final estimate for a deficit equal to 8.5 percent of GDP can be achieved, if there is a proper response by the state authorities and the citizens themselves, on whose stance the country’s financial … and social future depends,” the announcement said.

The announcement reflects the government’s frustration with tax collection, which they blame on tax inspectors’ lax performance, and its fear that citizens, angry at seeing their wages shrink and, at the same time, having to pay an increasing amount of one-off taxes, would refuse to pay.

There are already widespread calls not to pay a property surcharge, to be included in the next batch of state electricity company bills, despite the fact that delinquent payers are threatened with having their houses disconnected from the grid. The government hopes that revenue from the property levy will raise about euro2 billion ($2.7 billion) in 2011 and a similar amount in 2012.

The 2012 budget is projected to reduce the deficit to euro14.68 billion ($19.82 billion), or 6.8 percent of GDP. Excluding serving Greece’s debt, the budget is projected to have a primary surplus of euro3.2 billion, or 1.5 percent of GDP, meaning that Greece’s debt will stop growing, as a percentage of GDP.

The Cabinet also was also expected to approve a plan to cut civil service staff by about 30,000 by the end of the year. It is still in session.

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SHANGHAI

The leaders of Germany and Greece met in Berlin on Tuesday, buoying stock markets around the world with hopes they were finally preparing a comprehensive solution to the European debt crisis.

Greece must receive an euro8 billion ($11 billion) rescue loan before mid-October to stave off bankruptcy, a collapse that would send shock waves through financial markets in Europe and the world. But creditors have demanded more efforts to raise revenue.

In response, Greek lawmakers approved a controversial new property tax Tuesday evening, passing it 154 votes to 143 against in the 300-member parliament.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government downplayed speculation of bold new moves ahead of her meeting Tuesday with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou but the simple gathering itself buoyed spirits in financial markets.

The current plan is to have Greece implement painful debt-reduction measures in exchange for rescue loans. Greece relies on funds from last year’s euro110 billion ($149 billion) package, and European leaders have also agreed on a second euro109 billion bailout, although some details of that remain to be worked out.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said his country will get the money. “The disbursement will be decided in time, in line with the course of our funding needs,” he said Tuesday.

Speaking over chants from protesting ministry employees and tax office workers outside his department, Venizelos said Greek had made great efforts to achieve its fiscal targets, but that a “hyper-effort” was necessary to fully meet its commitments.

Experts, however, say the current course of austerity is untenable.

There is growing speculation in the markets that Greece’s bailout creditors will look to impose bigger losses on Greece’s private bondholders as well as recapitalizing Europe’s banks and boosting the size of the eurozone’s rescue fund. Talk of such a comprehensive package has helped turn sentiment around in stock markets this week following last week’s turmoil.

So far, there’s been no confirmation from Europe’s capitals that such a comprehensive solution is being planned Payday Loan for Bad Credit.

Venizelos said representatives from the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank will return to Athens this week. The so-called troika suspended their review in early September amid talk of missed targets and budget shortfalls.

In Berlin, Papandreou told a conference of the Federation of German Industries that “we are borrowing to repay” _ but also stressed that Europe needs to show it can get its act together.

“I can guarantee that Greece will live up to all its commitments,” Papandreou said ahead of the evening meeting with Merkel.

The Greek government recently announced new austerity measures, including pension cuts and tax hikes.

The new property tax will be charged through electricity bills to make it easier for the state to collect, instead of going through Greece’s unwieldy and inefficient tax system. Those who refuse to pay risk having their power cut off.

But the extra charge has deeply angered Greeks, who have already been through more than a year of sharp austerity that has seen salary and pension cuts and increased taxes across the board. State electricity company unionists have threatened not to collect the tax.

Speaking before the vote, Venizelos acknowledged the new tax was harsh on some, but stressed the government had no choice but to impose it as it fought to reduce its budget deficit.

“Clearly there will be categories of people who will not be able to pay this housing charge and this is a situation that will be resolved,” he said. “But the most important thing is that we achieve the targets agreed to in 2011 and 2012.”

Greeks have been outraged by the new measures after a year of austerity, and unions have responded with strikes and protests. Public transport workers walked off the job Tuesday for two days, and were to be joined by taxi drivers on Wednesday. Tax office and customs workers were also on strike.

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