Rioting spreads as UK's Cameron vows crackdown (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday "a fightback is under way" to restore law and order to Britain's streets despite rioting, looting and arson by gangs of youths spreading from London to other cities.

Youths fought running battles with police in the northern cities of Manchester and Liverpool as well as in the Midlands overnight Tuesday.

They smashed shop windows, carted off televisions and designer clothes, and torched buildings as police armed with shields and batons struggled to contain the disturbances.

A boosted police presence meant London itself -- an international financial center and host of next summer's Olympic Games -- was relatively quiet after three days of violent unrest that raised questions about the divided state of modern Britain.

About 16,000 policemen patrolled London's streets Tuesday night. Shops, pubs and businesses in many areas closed early after boarding up windows and the capital had the air of a city under siege.

"We needed a fightback and a fightback is under way," Cameron said after a meeting Wednesday of the government's COBRA committee that deals with national security crises.

"Whatever resources police need they will get."

This included baton rounds and water cannon, Cameron said.

The prime minister branded the unrest, which erupted in poor, inner-city areas of London at the weekend, as nothing more than criminality.

He made no reference to social and economic conditions which community leaders say sparked the problems. The initial trouble followed the death of an Afro-Caribbean man in north London from a gunshot wound after an incident involving armed police.

"There are pockets of our society that are not just broken but frankly sick," said Cameron, who made fixing "broken Britain" a cornerstone of his premiership.

The spread of the unrest to other cities including Birmingham, Britain's second biggest, means the crisis is anything but over.

Gangs of youths in hooded tops battled police in Manchester, smashing windows and looting shops, and setting fire to a clothes shop. In nearby Salford, rioters threw bricks at police and set fire to shops and cars.

"These people have nothing to protest against," Greater Manchester's Assistant Chief Constable Gary Shewan said. "It is, pure and simple, acts of criminal behavior."

In the port city of Liverpool, rioters attacked two fire engines and a fire officer's car, police said. Some 200 youths throwing missiles wrecked and looted shops.

Police said they had arrested 113 people in Manchester and Salford, and 50 in Liverpool.

Cars were burned and stores looted in West Bromwich and Wolverhampton in central England; and in Nottingham a gang set fire to a police station.

The police -- already facing manpower losses due to public spending cuts -- are at full stretch. With thousands of reinforcements sent from regional forces to London, other cities might find their own police ranks depleted.

VIGILANTES

In Birmingham, police launched a murder inquiry after three Muslim men died after being run over by a car in the mayhem there. A friend of the men told BBC radio they had been part of a group of British Asians protecting their area from looters after attending Ramadan prayers at a mosque.

Shopkeepers and residents in London and other cities were reported to be organizing vigilante groups to protect their property.

The Muslim Council of Britain condemned the violence and called on its community to remain calm and to support the authorities. It also urged them to help clean up the streets. Many small shops and businesses in England are run by Muslims of south Asian heritage.

The violence has appalled many Britons who have been transfixed by television pictures of rioters attacking individuals and raiding family-owned stores as well as targeting big business.

It has also prompted soul-searching.

Community leaders said the violence in London, the worst for decades in the multi-ethnic capital of 7.8 million people, was rooted in growing disparities in wealth and opportunity.

"This disturbing phenomenon has to be understood as a conflagration of aggression from a socially and economically excluded underclass," the liberal Independent newspaper said.

"These youths live in the heart of British cities but they do not feel part of them. Far too little has been done by successive generations of politicians and public servants to integrate these individuals into normal society. The fuse for this explosion has been burning down for many years."

The right-wing Daily Telegraph took a harder line.

"The thugs must be taught to respect the law the hard way. These riots have shamed the nation and the government must be held to account."

'GREED IS GOOD'

Critics say government policies of chopping public spending and raising taxes to cut a huge budget deficit have aggravated the plight of urban youth as the economy struggles to grow and unemployment rises.

The awarding of huge bonuses to bankers has become emblematic of a culture of flashy consumption for the elite.

Alleged corruption within London's police force and a 2009 scandal over parliamentarians' expenses have also fueled the notion that greed is a motivating factor across the spectrum of British society.

"Everyone's heard about the police taking bribes, the members of parliament stealing thousands with their expenses. They set the example. It's time to loot," a youth in the riot-torn London district of Hackney told Reuters.

John McDonnell, a legislator for the opposition Labor Party, wrote in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper: "We are reaping what has been sown over the last three decades of creating a grotesquely unequal society with an ethos of grab as much as you can by any means.

"A society of looters created with MPs and their expenses, bankers and their bonuses, tax-evading corporations, hacking journalists, bribe-taking police officers, and now a group of alienated kids are seizing their chance."

In London court sessions, which ran through the night processing suspects, people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, ages and employment circumstances appeared before the magistrates.

They included a 31-year-old primary teacher from Stockwell, south London, who pleaded guilty to burglary in Croydon, several miles from his home.

Police said they had arrested a total of 770 people, one as young as 11, in London since the unrest began.

(Additional reporting by Tim Castle, Paul Hoskins, Adrian Croft, Avril Ormsby, Peter Griffiths; Jodie Ginsberg, Stephen Addison and Mohammed Abbas; Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Robert Woodward)

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Nation wilts as heat wave spreads eastward (AP)

NEW YORK – Americans withered under yet another day of searing sun Friday as a heat wave spread in earnest into the urban core of the Northeast, while warnings about excessive heat stretched from Kansas to Maine and the Carolinas.

Temperatures were forecast near or into the triple digits Friday and into the weekend.

The high temperatures and smothering humidity will force up the heat indexes. Boston's 99 degrees on Friday could feel like 105 degrees; Philadelphia's 102 degrees like 114 degrees and Washington, D.C.'s 103 degrees could seem like 116.

It's enough to test the patience of a saint.

Taking her morning walk with temperatures already soaring near 90, Sister Elizabeth Ann Hughes of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia offered her simple strategy — go out only when it's relatively cool and stay in the air conditioning when it's not.

"I walk in the shade and get out of the sun before 10 a.m.," she said.

In New York, people looking to beat the heat were thwarted by warnings urging them to avoid city waterways after a wastewater treatment plant disabled by fire began spewing millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River.

Officials cautioned against swimming and bathing at four beaches in the city boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn, especially for people with medical conditions.

It was 90 in New York City at 8 a.m.

Beesham Nanan, 53, was drinking coffee in an air-conditioned fast-food restaurant before starting his shift as a limo driver. He often has to drive clients to their destinations and then wait in the car. He tries to park somewhere where he can turn the car's air conditioning on, but it's risky. "You're not supposed to have the engine on in the city," Nanan said. "It's a big fine."

Across the country, emergency room visits were way up, according to public health officials, mainly because of people suffering from heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

The weather is suspected of contributing to a number of deaths nationwide. At least six more fatalities were reported Thursday, including a Michigan restaurant cook who suffered a heart attack after being sent home from his job and a teenage boy who drowned while swimming at summer camp in the same state.

In Chicago Thursday night, hundreds of children and more than a few adults cavorted in a shallow pool of the Crown Fountain in Chicago's Millennium Park. Temperatures hovered around 90 degrees in the park, about half mile from the shores of Lake Michigan.

Christopher and Renee Mickles said they came out in the evening to give their 3-year-old a little exercise after being cooped up in their air conditioned house.

"It didn't cool off, but at least the sun isn't out," he said.

A Pittsburgh man slipped as he worked on the roof of his cousin's home on Thursday and found himself stuck for nearly two hours because of the hot tar he'd been using.

Lamont Robinson said the slick tar kept him from climbing to safety after he slipped. He said he was "baking like a turkey" before his rescue. Temperatures were in the low-90s.

In Connecticut, a dozen Girl Scouts were treated for heat-related problems at a scout camp.

None of the girls required hospitalization, but New Fairfield First Selectman John Hodge says they spent Thursday night in the camp's cafeteria after workers brought in industrial fans to help cool them off.

Philadelphia's public schools canceled summer classes Thursday and Friday, while Allentown to the north waived fees at its public pools.

Special dangers can come at night, experts warn, if the temperatures don't cool enough to provide relief.

While the current heat wave has recorded 12 all-time daily highs so far this month, it also has registered 98 all-time overnight highs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported at a briefing Thursday.

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Associated Press writers Randolph E. Schmid in Washington, John Seewer in Toledo, Herb McCann in Chicago, Karen Matthews in New York City and Jeff McMillan in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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Debt crisis spreads to shake Europe's core (AP)

BRUSSELS – The debt crisis shook Europe's core on Tuesday as market fears grew over the stability of Spain and Italy, forcing a rethink of the currency union's strategy to restore trust in its future.

Markets took a nosedive on worries that the eurozone's third and fourth biggest economies — both too expensive to save with Europe's rescue funds — may become the crisis' next victims.

On the one hand, investors are concerned by the EU's determination to get banks to share the burden of bailouts, even at the cost of triggering a Greek default. On the other, they see in EU disagreements over giving Greece more aid the ominous signs of a drop in commitment to the currency union.

The mix of uncertainty proved toxic for markets. The sell-off extended to Italy, one of Europe's stable core economies, which despite its high debt had so far escaped the turmoil that has crippled the eurozone for a year and a half.

The contagion "could mark the beginning of the end for the single currency union in its current form," Jonathan Loynes, economist at Capital Economics.

As so often before, the eurozone finance ministers were pushed into action only when the markets gave them no choice.

Italy's government sped up approval of its austerity plan and the EU opened the door for a complete overhaul of the region's bailout fund, which has so far focused on handing out rescue loans to countries on the brink of collapse in return for high interest rates and painful austerity measures.

The pledges calmed market nerves — for the day, at least. The euro bounced back above $1.40 from as low as $1.3885 in the morning and Milan's stock index swung to a 1.2 percent gain after being down as much as 4.4 percent.

"We said we are ready to test, whether, as part of the private sector involvement, an expansion of the toolkit is necessary and appropriate — such as prolonging (loan) maturities and lowering interest rates," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. "Everything can help to improve debt sustainability and defend the euro as a whole."

Schaeuble did not exclude new powers for the eurozone's rescue funds, such as buying up the bonds of troubled countries on the open market, which could lower the debt weight and help stem market jitters, especially for a country like Greece, which few economists believe can stand on its own feet again without substantial additional support.

Until very recently, Germany, the eurozone's largest economy and the biggest contributor to the region's bailout fund, had firmly ruled out such expanded powers.

Schaeuble indicated that the heightened market panic may have led to a change in opinion. "We never before had such an intensive and honest debate over the real issues," he told journalists at the end of a two-day meeting with his counterparts in Brussels.

But while the promises of more support stabilized European markets by the close of the day on Tuesday, sentiment remains fragile as the eurozone's top officials — once again — remained thin on details and appeared to disagree among themselves.

Calm will return to markets only if "all the countries of the eurozone assume their responsibility, in particular the most powerful countries," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters in Madrid.

The comment seemed to be a direct rebuke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose reluctance to anger taxpayers at home has blocked previous efforts to get ahead of the debt crisis.

Because of the heightened tensions, this week could become crucial to the eurozone's ability to survive the crisis. EU President Herman Van Rompuy said there may be a special summit of EU leaders in Brussels Friday, the same day as the results of long anticipated bank stress test will be revealed.

While the finance ministers struggled in Brussels, Italy worked to restore confidence in its ability to tackle its debt pile, some 120 percent of economic output and one of the biggest in the eurozone.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said the government will bring forward the timetable it has for a raft of austerity measures, which are now meant to pass through parliament by Sunday, instead of waiting until August.

Berlusconi said in a statement that the turmoil in Italian financial markets in recent days has prompted the government to accelerate and strengthen the measures, so that the country can have a balanced budget by 2014.

"It is necessary to eliminate every doubt on the efficiency and credibility of the austerity measures," Berlusconi said in his first public comments since speculators started pushing up the interest rates Italy pays on its debt.

Berlusconi, who has been weakened in recent local elections and referendums on his policies as well as a sex scandal, expressed confidence that the government and opposition would work together "to defend the country."

The comments helped the Italian 10-year yield drop back down to 5.55 percent from above 6.0 percent earlier, while the Milan stock index turned positive to trade 1.2 percent higher — its first rise in days.

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Barry reported from Milan. David McHugh in Brussels, Maria Grazia Murru in Rome and Daniel Woolls in Madrid contributed to this story.

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