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Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath may from now on have to address his old friend on the global stage Peter Mandelson as the Baron of Hartlepool and Foy.

If he really wants to be formal, the Indian minister can call Mandelson by his full designation: Baron Mandelson of Foy in the County of Hertfordshire and Hartlepool in the County of Durham.

But since that could take up the better part of an entire meeting - and time is precious for these two men when talking trade and business - it is a safe bet Kamal Nath will stick to something shorter.

According to a report Monday, Britain’s new business minister wants to be known as ‘plain Lord Mandelson’ - there is no problem with that since he is the only Mandelson in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament.

The former European trade commissioner, drafted into Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s cabinet in a reshuffle earlier this month, had to be made a peer - member of the House of Lords - because he is not an MP.

He is said to have chosen the ‘geographic designations’ of Hartlepool because that was his constituency as MP and Foy because he once owned a cottage in the Welsh hamlet.

‘I have decided to be plain Lord Mandelson,’ he told The Times.

‘Foy and Hartlepool are places in which I lived. But that is not the title. The only one to be used for formal or informal occasion is Lord Mandelson,’ he added.

But going by the long-standing association between the two men, chances are it will be business as usual for Peter and Kamal.

A conservative opposition party won the most votes Lithuania’s election, but strong support for populist groups set the stage for tricky coalition talks, an exit poll and partial results showed.

The parliamentary vote Sunday, which came as the Baltic country’s economy slumps after years of spectacular growth, appeared to spell the end for Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas‘ centrist coalition government.

Thorny talks between party leaders, including ousted ex-president Rolandas Paksas and Russian-born millionaire Viktor Uspaskich, lie ahead. A runoff vote for single-mandate constituencies in two weeks.

The exit poll, released on Lithuania’s TV3 network moments after voting ended, showed the conservative Homeland Union winning 21 percent of the vote, and two allied populist parties — led by Paksas and Uspaskich — mustering a combined 25 percent.

Kirkilas’ Social Democrats received 14 percent of the vote, while their four partners in the coalition government failed to break the 5 percent barrier to remain in Parliament, according to the survey by the Rait pollster.

Conservative leader Andrius Kubilius said the result sent a “strong signal” that Lithuanian voters wanted change.

“We are ready to take responsibility and expect the president’s offer to start forming a new Cabinet,” Kubilius told cheering colleagues at the party’s headquarters.

Partial results released with nearly half of precincts counted showed narrower margins between the top parties.

The final outcome was unclear because the survey only included the party list vote, which covers 70 of the 141 seats in Parliament. The remaining 71 seats are decided in individual races in single-mandate constituencies, many of which will require a runoff on Oct. 26.

The Sunday vote also featured a nonbinding referendum on whether to keep a Soviet-era nuclear plant operating beyond its scheduled closure in 2009. The Central Election Commission said Sunday it appeared the referendum could be invalid due to low voter turnout.

The Chernobyl-style nuclear plant’s design flaws scare EU members, who insist that it be closed on its scheduled date in December 2009. Many Lithuanians claim that shutting down the Ignalina plant, which gives them energy independence, would leave them vulnerable to Russia, an unreliable energy supplier.

Paksas, a stunt pilot and former president who was ousted in 2004, wouldn’t rule out any possible partners in coalition talks despite strong rivalry. His Order and Justice party was second in the exit poll, with 14 percent.

“If I had a choice, we would not work together with the conservatives or Social Democrats, who are responsible for this disorder in Lithuania,” he said. “But if voters decide those parties deserve to be in government, we may be negotiating with those parties.”

Paksas and Uspaskich, who leads the Labor Party, could form the backbone of a populist coalition that would likely talk tough to the European Union on the nuclear plant and improve relations with neighboring Russia. The Labor Party was in fifth spot in both the exit poll and partial vote count.

TV3 said the poll included more than 4,600 respondents and had a 1.5 percent margin of error.

Lithuania, which regained independence in 1991 amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, experienced an economic boom after joining the EU in 2004. However, the economy overheated and like its Baltic neighbors, Lithuania is now struggling with high inflation and slumping growth.

Paksas was ousted in 2004 for violating the Constitution and abuse of office, making him the first European head of state to be impeached and removed from office. Though he is constitutionally barred from occupying public office, he could wield tremendous influence on the sidelines.

Uspaskich was forced to resign as economy minister after coming under investigation for a conflict of interest case involving Russia, where he was born.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Britain’s ambassador to protest the release from prison of the only surviving member of a group of gunmen who seized the Iranian embassy in London in 1980, media said on Monday.

British newspapers reported on Friday that Fowzi Nejad, 50, would be freed within days after serving 27 years in jail.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari summoned British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams on Sunday in protest at a “condemnable and indefensible” act which raised serious questions about Britain’s sincerity in its ties with Iran, the Tehran Times reported.

The official IRNA news agency said Safari delivered a “strong protest” over the “release of a terrorist,” according to BBC monitoring.

Britain’s embassy was not immediately available for comment.

Six gunmen seized the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980, demanding the release of prisoners in Iran and taking 21 hostages, two of whom they killed. The dramatic six-day siege ended when elite SAS troops stormed the building and rescued 19 hostages, killing five gunmen.

Nejad, the only surviving member of the group, was given a life sentence in 1981 but Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Friday quoted his lawyer as saying the Parole Board had concluded he was no longer a threat to society and had ruled he could be released.

Britain’s Times newspaper reported that Iran wants Nejad returned to Tehran to face trial in connection with the 1980 siege but that Britain had blocked his deportation because it had not received assurances that he might not face the death penalty in Iran.

The Iranian embassy in London said in a statement on Saturday the decision to release Nejad would have “negative impacts on relations” between Iran and Britain.

British officials declined to comment on the case last week.

Britain and Iran are at loggerheads over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes but which the West fears is aimed at developing a nuclear bomb.

In May, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned Adams to protest a decision by three British judges to uphold a ruling that the British government was wrong to ban an Iranian opposition group as a terrorist organisation.

The People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) won a seven-year legal battle when three senior judges at Britain’s Court of Appeal dismissed a government challenge to the earlier ruling.

Swiss banking giant UBS on Thursday said it would swing into profit in the third quarter, as it seeks to regain client trust after successive quarters of losses on massive asset writedowns.

UBS last year posted its first-ever full-year loss, followed by two successive negative quarters this year after writing down more than 42.5 billion dollars’ worth of subprime-related assets.

With the financial turmoil in the United States worsening over the past two weeks, some analysts had expected UBS to post further writedowns when it reports its third quarter results on November 4.

But even as the contagion spread from the United States to Europe this week, with governments having to step in to save European banks Fortis and Dexia, UBS said it was turning a corner.

“Despite recent extremely volatile market conditions, UBS currently expects to report a small profit for the third quarter, based on preliminary estimates,” said a statement summarising Chairman Peter Kurer’s address to shareholders.

The bank, whose shares have been wildly volatile in recent weeks, would also turn a profit in 2009, Kurer told more than 2,300 shareholders who attended the bank’s extraordinary general meeting.

The bank’s moves appeared to satisfy shareholders, as the meeting was significantly calmer than the last session when dozens of investors took to the podium to vent their frustration at the bank’s management.

Kurer also underlined the bank’s commitment to making UBS profitable again.

UBS’s chief executive officer “Marcel Rohner and I have said that the Bank will be profitable in the year 2009… Despite the difficult environment and the latest developments we still are fully committed to and optimistic about achieving this objective,” he said.

Investors greeted the news positively, keeping the stock in positive territory all day. At 3:43 pm (1343 GMT), it was up 11.27 percent to 21.92 Swiss francs, the top gainer on the Swiss Market Index, which was up 0.85 percent.

Analysts at Bank Wegelin said in a note to clients: “The last few days’ worst fears appear not to have come true. The further reduction in risk positions would be taken positively.”

While it noted that there were still question marks surrounding the bank’s strategy, “all in all, relief should dominate.”

Bank Vontobel’s analysts saw the bank reaching a turning point and said it was recommending its clients to buy UBS shares.

“We think that UBS is close to reaching an inflection point and we see the risk/reward more balanced,” it said in a note to clients.

UBS had disposed of many of its US commercial and residential mortgage-related positions, said Kurer, a move that Bank Helvea’s analyst Peter Thorne described as “particularly encouraging.”

“Risk positions on our balance sheet have been written down, closed out or sold. Headcount and operating costs are in the process of being reduced,” Kurer said.

The bank has also embarked on a programme to reposition itself and take remedial measures following the crisis, including the way it apportions risks.

Kurer also cited as a priority the settlement of major legal cases such as a US investigation into whether the bank had helped its US clients to evade taxes.

It would stop offering cross-border services to clients in the United States through entities that were not regulated there, it said.

“We will completely exit this business and have established a project team to implement this in the fastest and most efficient way within the confines of the law,” he said.

Africa’s first-ever solar-powered car race is underway in South Africa to raise awareness about alternative energy and promote science and technology, organisers said Wednesday.

Local teams are competing against racers from India and Japan in the two-week South African Solar Challenge, which aims to encourage students to study engineering, a field in which the country faces huge skills shortage.

“Promoting science and technology, that is the main focus. If we can convince another 10 people in our country to become engineers, it could be a radical improvement to our economy,” said organiser Winstone Jordaan.

The group also hopes to promote alternative energy and green technology.

“Not a lot of people understand a six-square-metre (65-square-foot) solar array can make a car go 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour. That’s the crux of it, to get a generation of people growing up understanding the power of solar, how do we apply it.”

Other solar car races are held in Europe, the United States and Australia, helping to develop technology for both alternative energy power sources and electric cars.

France’s notoriously divided and ideologically marooned Socialist opposition has long struggled to find a leader capable of selling a modern leftist vision that voters will embrace. Right now, though, conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy may be doing that job for the Socialists. Following his Tuesday address to the United Nations in which he characterized international financial markets as “insane,” Sarkozy Thursday sounded like an indignant leftist when he called for sweeping regulation and “moralization” of international finance, and declared that the era “of the market always being right is over.”

“A certain conception of globalization has closed out: [one that] imposed its own logic on the entire economy and helped pervert it,” Sarkozy said during a speech in Toulon, attacking those who had created the unfolding financial crisis. “Self-regulation as a way of solving all problems is finished. Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”

That’s pinko talk for a man who came to power promising to liberalize the French economy, free up its markets, and roll back the 35-hour work week imposed by the Socialists. Sarkozy’s new views may be similarly surprising to some of his closest friends, who include several billionaire businessmen and stock market titans - an elite to whom critics have accused Sarkozy of tailoring his policies.

Despite his chumminess with French business big-wigs, Sarkozy on Thursday didn’t restrict his fire to Wall Street. He warned France’s well-heeled CEOs to come up with rules to reel in their own sky-rocketing remuneration packages and to do away with golden parachutes for disgraced executives - or watch him do it for them.

“Either the professionals make an agreement,” Sarkozy warned on soaring executive packages, “or we’ll solve the problem with a law before the end of the year.”

Why such rage over a U.S. provoked financial calamity that poses less threat to France than it does to countries like the U.K. that have more vigorously embraced American-style deregulation and blind faith in markets? First off, as Sarkozy warned in Toulon, because the credit crisis will worsen what had already been a darkening economic outlook, and limit the prospects for the sorts of reforms he’d hoped to pursue. Despite the fact that better-regulated French banks are less vulnerable than many U.S. counterparts, Sarkozy also assured French households that the state would guarantee the totality of their savings in event of any bank failures here.

Leftist and centrist politicians responded by accusing Sarkozy of cynically adopting their own positions in the face of a crisis that challenges the core assumptions of his more traditional free-market crusading. But Sarkozy insists he’s never been a rigid ideologue. In the only private interview he gave to a foreign media as a government minister before being elected president, Sarkozy told TIME of his belief that the “rigidities of ideology limit your choices when the best solutions might involve a mix: more liberalism where best, intervention when necessary.”

And conservatives and leftists alike have applauded his calls for greater regulation, echoing those of fellow conservative, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has long argued that increased regulation of financial markets was vital - and who bristled at the dismissive response such calls drew from her U.S. and British allies. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose British Labour Party is easily the most pro-business of Europe’s social democratic parties, has called for restoring order and decency to markets that have gone wild.

“Along with a few others in Europe, Nicolas Sarkozy incarnates the new voice of a right re-centered halfway between economic liberalism and state-direction, and between odes to business and those to intervention,” Laurent Joffrin, editor of the left-leaning daily LibÉration wrote Friday.

Still, Joffrin demands that Sarkozy’s tough talk be matched by action. “As president of Europe” - France currently holds the rotating EU presidency - “Nicolas Sarkozy proposes no European-level action; eloquent in denouncing money gone insane, he announces no concrete measures for mastering it,” Joffrin writes. “The sound of his speeches are good, but that’s because they often resonate hollow.”

Japan’s new Prime Minister Taro Aso, off to a rocky start after a minister quit just days into the job, sought on Monday to get back on track with crisis funding to revive Asia’s largest economy.

Aso’s cabinet, which took office last week, approved 17 billion dollars in emergency funding to help consumers, companies and farmers cope with high fuel costs and Wall Street’s meltdown.

A champion of government spending to boost the economy, he was expected to outline his economic priorities in a policy speech to parliament — customary for a new Prime Minister — at 0500 GMT.

Japan is teetering on recession, and the 1.81- trillion-yen budget approved by cabinet today is part of an 11.7-trillion-yen emergency package announced by Aso’s predecessor Yasuo Fukuda in late August.

But Aso can expect a tough battle with the opposition, which controls one house of parliament and scored an easy first blow when his Transport Minister quit Sunday over a series of controversial statements.

The opposition says it wants discussions with the government on the extra budget, which some economists argue is too small to boost the world’s second largest economy, threatening a difficult passage through parliament.

Aso has vowed to make the emergency economic measures his first priority, and hinted he would call snap general elections if the budget gets too bogged down.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, spokesman for Aso’s government, insisted the prime minister would not call general elections without at least starting debate on the budget.

On Japan’s refueling mission, Aso stressed the importance of the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s activities as he believes Japan engages in the mission for its own sake.

“There is no choice for Japan, a member of the international society, to withdraw from the activities in this time,” Aso said, urging the DPJ to show its view on whether it is okay for Japan to discontinue the mission beyond January when the current law authorizing the mission expires.

The opposition camp, which controls the House of Councillors, has opposed the refueling mission, leading to a four-month suspension of the mission until February after Aso’s predecessor Fukuda failed to win parliamentary approval to extend the then special authorization law.

On the diplomatic front, he stressed that strengthening the Japan-US alliance is most important, while also mentioning the need to build regional stability and prosperity with Asian and Pacific nations including China, South Korea and Russia.

On prioritizing the Japan-US alliance, Aso apparently referred to DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa’s UN-centered foreign policy and said Japan cannot commit the destiny of the nation to the United Nations as it can currently be swayed by intentions of a small number of countries.

Japan’s sumo wrestlers are vulnerable to a more virulent strain of a herpes skin virus, contracted through grappling their opponents, scientists said on Sunday.

The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is notorious among the general public for causing unsightly cold sores and sore throats.

The symptoms recur because the pathogen can hide in nerve cells for a long time and then leap out.

But a more extreme form of the disease occurs among athletes who take part in close-contact sports, such as sumo, rugby and judo.

Known as Herpes gladiatorum, or scrumpox, it causes painful, virus-filled blisters to form on the face and the neck that can damage the skin. Fever, headaches and an infection of the lymph nodes can also result.

As H. gladiatorum is highly infectious, players who have the blisters are usually taken out of competition to prevent them from passing it on.

In a study published in a British journal, Japanese scientists looked at blood samples from 39 sumo wrestlers in Tokyo who had been diagnosed with H. gladiatorum between 1989 and 1994.

Tests revealed that some of the wrestlers had been infected only once, while in others, the disease had recurred several times.

The culprit for this was a variant of HSV1-1 called BgKL, which reactivates, spreads more efficiently and causes more severe symptoms than other strains, they found.

The authors, led by Kazuo Yanagi of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, believe the H. gladiatorum was transmitted by other wrestlers in the “stable” where they live and train together.

“Two of the wrestlers died as a result of their infections, so cases like this do need to be investigated,” Yanagi said in a press release.

“This research will aid future studies on herpes and may help identify herpes genes that are involved in recurrence and spread of disease.”

The study appears in the Journal of General Virology, published by Britain’s Society for General Microbiology.

A Russian warship on Friday rushed to intercept a Ukrainian vessel carrying 33 battle tanks and a hoard of ammunition that was seized by pirates off the Horn of Africa — a bold hijacking that again heightened fears about surging piracy and high-seas terrorism.

A U.S. warship is tracking the vessel but there has been no decision about intercepting it, U.S. Defense Department officials said.

“I think we’re looking at the full range of options here,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

It was unclear whether the pirates who seized the 530-foot-long cargo ship Faina on Thursday knew what it carried. Still, analysts said it would be extremely difficult to sell such high-profile weaponry like Russian tanks.

The hijacking, with worldwide pirate attacks surging this year, could help rally stronger international support behind France, which has pushed aggressively for decisive action against Somali pirates.

Russian navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo told The Associated Press that the missile frigate Neustrashimy left the Baltic Sea port of Baltiisk a day before the hijacking to cooperate with other unspecified countries in anti-piracy efforts.

But he said the ship was then ordered directly to the Somalia coast after Thursday’s attack.

According to the British-based Jane’s Information Group, the Neustrashimy is armed with surface-to-air missiles, 100 mm guns and anti-submarine torpedoes.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Yury Yekhanurov, meanwhile, said the hijacked vessel Faina was carrying 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks and a substantial quantity of ammunition and spare parts. He said the tanks were sold to Kenya in accordance with international law.

Ukrainian officials and an anti-piracy watchdog said 21 crew members were aboard the seized ship, including three Russians. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko ordered unspecified measures to free the crew, but it was unclear whether any of the former Soviet republic’s naval vessels had been dispatched.

A Kenyan government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, confirmed the East African nation’s military had ordered the tanks and spare parts. The tanks are part of a two-year rearmament program.

“The government is in contact with international maritime agencies and other security partners in an endeavor to secure the ship and cargo,” Mutua said in a statement. “The government is actively monitoring the situation.”

A person who answered the telephone at Ukrainian state-controlled arms dealer Ukrspetsexport, which brokered the sale, refused to comment, and said all requests for information must be submitted in writing.

It was unclear where the shipment originated, though Ukrainian news agencies identified the ship operator as a company called Tomex Team based in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Calls to Tomex offices went unanswered Friday.

At the Pentagon, two defense officials said the warship was tracking the Ukrainian ship but there has been no decision about taking any other action such as intercepting it. The officials said that besides the T-72 tanks, it was carrying guns and rocket launchers. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

“Obviously, we are deeply concerned,” said Lt. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet, declining to provide details.

Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said the United States was worried about the cargo.

“A ship carrying cargo of that nature being hijacked off the coast of Somalia is something that should concern us, and it does concern us,” he said.

The Navy says the 5th Fleet includes the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and several support ships, which “deter destabilizing activities and ensure a lawful maritime order in the Arabian (Persian) Gulf, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Aden.”

Paul Cornish, head of the international security program at the London-based think-tank Chatham House said the tanks would be difficult to sell on to a third party — private buyers or warlords, for example — because of the logistics involved with keeping them operational.

“It’s not like (stealing) a container full of machine guns, where all you need is a tin of bicycle oil,” he said.

Roger Middleton, another Chatham House researcher, said it was unlikely the pirates knew there were tanks aboard the Faina, and also said unloading the cargo would be difficult.

“Most of their attacks are based on opportunity. So if they see something that looks attackable and looks captureable, they’ll attack it,” he said.

Middleton said it was unclear how the pirates might react if confronted by military action, noting that they have fled from authorities in the past. On the other hand, he said, they are usually well-armed and organized and are based in an unstable country — Somalia.

“It could potentially get pretty messy,” he said.

Long a hazard for maritime shippers — particularly in the Indian Ocean and its peripheries — high-seas piracy has triggered greater alarm since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States because of its potential as a funding and supply source for global terrorism.

Pirate attacks worldwide have surged this year and Africa remains the world’s top piracy hotspot, with 24 reported attacks in Somalia and 18 in Nigeria this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center.

The issue burst into international view Sept. 15 when Somali pirates took two French citizens captive aboard a luxury yacht and helicopter-borne French commandos then swooped in to rescue them.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy this month called on other nations to move boldly against pirates, calling the phenomenon “a genuine industry of crime.”

In June, the U.N. Security Council — pushed by France and the United States — unanimously adopted a resolution allowing ships of foreign nations that cooperate with the Somali government to enter their territorial waters “for the purpose of repressing acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.”

Congo’s 83-year-old prime minister announced Thursday he is resigning due to fatigue.

In a statement broadcast on state television, Antoine Gizenga said “even if the spirit is still sane and alert, the body has its limits and those must be taken into account.”

Gizenga has been premier since being appointed by President Joseph Kabila in December 2006, charged with organizing Congo’s first democratically elected government since the central African nation’s independence in 1960.

Gizenga said he had submitted his resignation and was awaiting Kabila’s response. There was no immediate word on a replacement.

Gizenga ran against Kabila in the country’s 2006 election. An opposition member for years, he also served as a deputy to Congo’s first leader, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated shortly after independence from Belgium.

Gizenga led a rebellion in 1964, as well as a political party and a shadow government-in-exile as the country endured decades of dictatorial rule.