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The Abu Dhabi government has announced plans to launch a new virtual job portal to support business in the emirate.The new portal will be launched Oct 19 at the Najah career fair to be held at the Abu Dhabi Exhibition Centre, the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Committee (Adsic), the government entity spearheading the initiative, said in a statement.

Adsic is currently in the process of onboarding all of the Abu Dhabi government entities to the site as well as interested private organisations.

To serve employers from both public and private sectors in Abu Dhabi as well as job seekers from around the globe, Jobs Abu Dhabi is being developed by leveraging best global practices in the arena of virtual job markets.

It will offer many features and functionalities to facilitate various job searching and position filling processes, according to the statement.

Some of these features include intelligent search criteria to facilitate instantaneous matching of job opportunities with qualified candidates, as well as mechanisms to ensure the currency of the job and biodata postings.

The site will be available in English, Arabic and French.

The largest of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi is actively diversifying its economy in order to cut its dependence on oil.

European Union leaders hammered out a plan Sunday to confront the financial crisis which will involve hundreds of billions of dollars of new initiatives to head off a feared “meltdown.”

Two weeks after the Wall Street collapse of Lehman Brothers unleashed a worldwide crash on stock markets, US and European leaders signalled a growing commitment to take joint action to end the turmoil.

After the Group of Seven leading democracies proposed an action plan at weekend meetings in Washington, a Paris summit of the 15 nations that use the euro currency agreed a bank rescue plan , French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

Sarkozy — who oversees the French presidency of the European Union — said governments would buy into banks to boost their finances and guarantee inter-bank lending.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the coming week was critical.

“I believe that in the next few days confidence in the banking system will be restored…. The decisions we take over the next few days will affect us for the years ahead.”

“My opinion is that it should produce positive results,” added Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. “We have a serious crisis and logically when there is a serious crisis it will be difficult to overcome, but we will overcome it.”

Europe’s economic powerhouses all prepared new initiatives to underpin the banking system. No details were released, but Sarkozy said Britain, France, Germany and Italy and others would unveil packages on Monday.

Officials have said they will cost several hundred billion dollars on top of the huge sums already spent rescuing banks and supporting money markets.

In Washington, the EU action won swift praise from International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who recalled how the IMF has been calling for months for coordinated international action.

“Nearly all advanced countries are now covered and the… eurozone provisions may be extended eventually to all of Europe,” he said.

“The eurozone plan is also comprehensive…. Altogether we are going in a good direction.”

Economists were eagerly awaiting the opening of Asia’s stock markets Monday to gauge how their rescue plans are received by jittery investors hoping to stem the slide in the markets.

In another development Sunday, news media in London reported that the British government would be taking controlling stakes Monday in two banks hit hard by the crisis — Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS.

Britain has already set aside 250 billion pounds (315 billion euros) to guarantee loans, in addition to 200 billion pounds in short-term loans and 50 billion to buy stakes in major banks.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said an announcement would come “at the beginning of the week.”

Germany is meanwhile expected to guarantee interbank loans with 300 billion euros to 400 billion euros (405 to 540 billion dollars) as well as provide banks with fresh capital in exchange for shares.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said only the state could restore “the necessary trust” to the public and financial markets.

In Paris, the French government will Monday propose a state guarantee for endangered banks, a ruling party lawmaker said.

The New York Times said the Bush administration was also heading toward taking direct stakes in threatened banks in the coming days, as the crisis dominates the run-up to the November 4 presidential election.

Elsewhere, Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates and Portugal all moved to guarantee bank deposits, and Norway said it would issue up to 41 billion euros (54.5 billion dollars) in bonds to pay for measures to support banks.

In Washington, Strauss-Kahn said the action plan adopted Friday by the Group of Seven was a breakthrough with the first global pledge to cooperate to stabilise the turmoil at the meetings.

The G7 plan, though vague on details, commits countries to support the most important institutions, take measures to get credit flowing, assist banks in raising capital and reassure savers.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the financial crisis, the worst since the 1929 market crash, underscored the need for coordinated action to “modernize multilateralism for a new global economy.”

Zoellick announced that the International Finance Corp, the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank, was exploring the possibility of a fund to help recapitalize banks in the developing world.

US President George W. Bush said the world’s richest nations are united on a “serious global response” to the financial meltdown caused by massive loans to US lenders with bad credit histories.

Coordination against the crisis is considered vital to prevent the actions of one country harming another and exacerbating the bank solvency and credit shortage problems.

In the Great Depression, so-called “beggar-thy-neighbour” measures taken unilaterally by countries are considered to have deepened the economic pain.

Vietnam will grant clemency to two Australians facing execution in Hanoi for drug smuggling, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on Monday after talks with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd.Dung, in Australia to mark 35 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, said Vietnam’s President had agreed to clemency for the two Australians.

“Building upon the excellent friendship between our two countries and on humanitarian grounds, I have informed that the Vietnamese president has decided to grant clemency to two Vietnamese-Australians charged with drug trafficking,” he said.

Sydney woman Jasmine Luong was sentenced to death by firing squad earlier this year. She was arrested at Hanoi’s international airport in February 2007 after customs officers found 1.55 kg (3.4 lb) of heroin hidden in her shoes and luggage.

Another Australian, Nguyen Hong Viet, was sentenced to death in September 2007 after being arrested as he boarded a plane to Sydney with nearly 950 grams of heroin concealed in his clothes.

Australia strongly opposes the death penalty. But under Vietnam’s tough anti-drug laws, trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin is punishable by death or life in prison.

Australia’s Vietnamese community numbers about 250,000, with a further 10,000 Vietnamese students in Australia and about 10,000 students in Vietnam doing courses run by Australian schools and universities.

Chinese police have detained six people suspected of producing and selling melamine, the chemical at the centre of the country’s scandal over tainted dairy products, the official Xinhua news agency said.The arrests were made in Hohhot, capital of the northern region of Inner Mongolia, which is China’s main dairy-producing area, Xinhua said in an overnight report, citing the municipal government.

The arrests were made during an investigation into melamine contamination at Yili and Mengniu, two major dairy companies based in Inner Mongolia, it said.

Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, Mengniu Dairy and Bright Dairy group were found earlier to have produced milk contaminated with melamine.

Xinhua did not say whether the suspects were connected to either of the firms. It cited Tian Min, vice secretary general of the municipal government, as saying the results of the investigation would probably be released in four to five days.

Thousands of children in China have fallen ill with kidney problems and four have died after drinking milk formula laced with melamine, a cheap industrial chemical that can be used to cheat quality tests.

China’s latest food safety scare has also prompted mounting recalls and warnings abroad, as traces of the chemical have been found in a wider range of dairy products.

The arrests follow the detention last week of 22 people in Hebei province suspected of being involved in a network there for producing melamine and selling it on to milk farms and purchasing stations.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will attend a weekend summit in Paris on the global financial turmoil but stresses the need for national decisions on the crisis, his spokesman said Thursday.

Confirming his participation in a summit Saturday with his French, German and Italian counterparts, the spokesman said while there was a “European dimension” to the problems, many of the issues were best dealt with nationally.

“It is right that individual countries would want to take their own decisions, particularly when national taxpayers’ money is potentially at risk,” he told reporters.

He added that French President Nicolas Sarkozy “confirmed to the prime minister that it was not the case that the French were proposing a Europe-wide bail-out.”

This was a reference to reports of proposals to create 300-billion-euro fund to shore up European banks, a string of which have faced going to the wall or being taken over amid the global financial turmoil.

Initial reports attributed the idea to France but Sarkozy on Thursday denied that France had proposed the fund.

The Netherlands said Thursday it had suggested the creation of national — rather than pan-European — funds to help banks in trouble before they fail.

Brown, who oversaw a decade-long boom as chancellor before succeeding Tony Blair last year, has repeatedly underlined the international dimension to the financial crisis triggered by a US-based credit crunch.

At the same time he is widely seen as more Eurosceptic than Blair, insisting on not giving away further sovereignty or decision-making powers to the European Union, of which France currently holds the rotating presidency.

An official at Somalia’s foreign ministry says foreign powers may use force to free a hijacked ship carrying tanks and other heavy weapons.

Mohamed Jama Ali, the ministry’s acting permanent director, said his government granted permission on the condition that foreign powers coordinate with Somalia beforehand.

“The international community has permission to fight with the pirates,” Ali told The Associated Press Wednesday. “Permission to use force was given.”

The hijacking of the Ukrainian ship MV Faina — carrying 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, rifles, and heavy weapons that U.S. defense officials have said included rocket launchers — was the highest-profile act of piracy in the dangerous waters off Somalia this year.

Disagreements between Somali pirates holding a ship laden with tanks and heavy weapons escalated into a shootout and three pirates are believed dead, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday. The pirates denied the report.

The U.S. destroyer USS Howard and several other American ships have surrounded the Ukrainian cargo ship Faina, which was hijacked Thursday and is now anchored off the lawless coast of Somalia. The pirates have demanded a ransom of $20 million and the U.S. Navy cordon aims to prevent them from taking any of the weapons ashore.

The official in Washington who reported the shootout spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. He refused to elaborate and said he had no way of confirming the deaths.

But the pirate spokesman insisted the report was not true, that his colleagues were just celebrating the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr despite being surrounded by American warships and helicopters.

“We didn’t dispute over a single thing, let alone have a shootout,” pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told The Associated Press by satellite telephone Tuesday.

“We are happy on the ship and we are celebrating Eid,” Ali said. “Nothing has changed.”

The Islamic feast marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Earlier Tuesday, Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program cited an unconfirmed report saying three Somali pirates were killed Monday night in a dispute over whether to surrender. Mwangura said, however, he had not spoken to any witnesses.

Elsewhere in Somalia, pirates freed a Malaysian tanker Tuesday after a ransom was paid, according to a Malaysian shipping company.

The blue-and-white Ukrainian ship Faina has been buzzed by American helicopters since Sunday. Pirates hijacked the Faina and its cargo of 33 Soviet-designed tanks and weapons Thursday while the ship was passing through the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, en route to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

Ali said the vessel was surrounded by four warships but he could not identify where the ships were from. The San Diego-based USS guided missile destroyer Howard has been watching the pirate ship for several days and has spoken the pirates and crew by radio.

The U.S. defense official in Washington said the pirates have been moving from ship to shore and back again, bringing provisions including livestock.

He said between 40 and 50 pirates were involved in the hijacking, but a second U.S. official said only about 30 of them were on the ship itself.

On Monday, U.S. naval officials said several other American ships had joined the watch, but declined to give details.

U.S. Navy officials said they have allowed the pirates to resupply the ship with food and water, but not to unload any of its military cargo, which included T-72 tanks, ammunition, and heavy weapons that U.S. Defense officials have said included rocket launchers.

The U.S. fears the armaments may end up with al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants who have been fighting an insurgency against the shaky, U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006, when the Islamists were driven out after six months in power. More than 9,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Iraq-style insurgency.

Russia has also dispatched a warship to the area, but it will take about a week to get there.

American military officials and diplomats say the weapons are destined for southern Sudan.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian shipping line MISC Berhad said Tuesday that Somalia pirates released the seized palm oil tanker, MT Bunga Melati 2, on Monday, two days after its first vessel was released.

Chairman Hassan Marican said a ransom was paid for both vessels but declined to reveal the amount. All 79 crew on both ships are safe but were traumatized and will undergo counseling, he said.

Piracy has become a lucrative criminal racket in impoverished Somalia, bringing in tens of millions of dollars a year in ransom. There have been 24 reported attacks in Somalia this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Most pirate attacks occur in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, to the north of Somalia. But recently pirates have been targeting Indian Ocean waters off eastern Somalia.

In all, 62 ships have been attacked in the notorious African waters this year. A total of 26 ships were hijacked, and 12 remain in the hands of the pirates along with more than 200 crew members.

International warships are patrolling the area and have created a special security corridor under a U.S.-led initiative, but attacks have not abated.

The US has denied a Pakistan claim of shooting down an unmanned American drone in South Waziristan last night.”No such thing occurred,” one senior US official said while denying the reports, reported The Telegraph.

Earlier, reports had quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying local Taliban groups had shot down a drone on Tuesday night.

A Pakistani TV channel reported security forces had discovered the remains of the drone near the Afghan border. The channel said that the local Pashtun tribesmen claimed to have shot down the machine.

US operations - including bomb attacks carried out using drones - have attracted bitter resentment in Pakistan. Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani said that foreign troops would not be allowed on Pakistani soil.

Victims of sexual harassment will now be able to directly lodge their complaints through e-mails or helpline systems of MCD. An e-mail, helplinecomplaintsmcd@gmail.Com, and Helpline — 011-23919312 — was launched by MCD through which victims can file their complaints that will be referred to the sexual harassment committee for quick redressal and necessary action. This was today launched by MCD Leader of House Subhas Arya at a workshop organised here to sensitise municipal employees of Najafgarh and West Zones about sexual harassment. “This campaign has been initiated to educate the women employees of MCD about the definition of sexual harassment, their rights to fight against it as well as the judicial procedure available to get the guilty punished in the related areas,” Rekha Gupta, the civic body’s Women Welfare and Child Development committee chairman, said.

She said that the helpline has been started to help and create more awareness about sexual harassment. PTI.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wasted no time Sunday working to put together a new government, meeting with potential coalition partners even as outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert formally resigned. Her ability to move fast in her first task could have far-reaching effects on Mideast peace talks.

Livni, who has gained respect for favoring peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria while distancing herself from the unpopular Olmert, would become Israel’s second female prime minister after Golda Meir, who served from 1969-1974.

A former lawyer and one-time agent in the Mossad spy agency, Livni has 42 days to form a government.

Olmert remains in office until a new government is approved by the parliament, and he has pledged to press ahead with peace efforts as long as he is premier. That in itself might push reluctant Israeli politicians to deal quickly with Livni.

Olmert’s dismal approval ratings approach single figures, and both those who favor an accord with the Palestinians and those who oppose it don’t want him to be the one who presents an agreement to the people.

She met leaders from the pivotal Shas Party Thursday, hours after she won a primary election to succeed Olmert as head of their Kadima Party. Over the weekend, she sat with leaders of several other factions, and later Sunday, she met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, head of the Labor Party, Olmert’s main partner.

Formal steps were overtaken by events, and the two unfolded in parallel universes.

Olmert told his Cabinet on Sunday morning that he would resign and followed that with a visit to the official Jerusalem residence of President Shimon Peres — both formalities in a process that began in late July, when Olmert caved under the pressure of multiple corruption probes and announced he would step down after the Kadima primary election.

“This decision was not easy, it was not simple, and it was not taken in an offhanded way,” Olmert said before the start of the Sunday Cabinet meeting. He pledged to help Livni, a longtime rival, form a new government.

“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented to me this evening his resignation as head of the government,” Peres said after the two met. Peres thanked him for his service. Olmert did not talk to reporters.

At stake is political stability in Israel as the clock winds down on a January target date for a peace accord with the Palestinians, set by Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference last November.

Livni favors negotiations and making concessions to forge a peace agreement, but if she fails to form a coalition, elections would be called, and Israel might not have a new government until next spring. That could freeze peace efforts for months.

Olmert succeeded the popular and respected Ariel Sharon, who was felled by a stroke, and weeks later Olmert led Israel into a war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. The decision to go to war and its inconclusive outcome, along with the damage wrought by almost 4,000 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, decimated Olmert’s popular support.

Then old corruption allegations caught up with him. Police began pressing their investigations, and a key witness testified in a “trial” against Olmert though no charges had been filed. That led Olmert to step down, setting the search for a new leader in motion.

On Sunday, Peres consulted with the parties over who should join the new government. Peres faced a shorter deadline than the week allotted him by law — he was due to leave for the United Nations on Monday to address the General Assembly session the next day. Peres said he would announce his decision before leaving for New York.

It was a foregone conclusion that Livni would be his choice, so even before receiving the formal title of prime minister-designate, Livni was sounding out the parties about their demands for remaining on or joining her team.

Livni won the Kadima primary by a small margin over hawkish former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who announced he would not serve in her government. With Kadima already holding only 29 seats in the 120-member parliament, a split in her party could doom her efforts to forge a majority coalition.

Shas has already demanded additional funds to help needy Israelis, the party’s main constituency.

Barak’s Labor is in a difficult position. On the one hand, Labor does not want to continue in its subordinate position as a junior partner to Kadima. But polls show that if an election were held now, Labor would win only a dozen or so seats, a drastic comedown for the party that ruled Israel practically unchallenged for its first three decades.

Analysts believe that after an initial show of reluctance, Labor will join along with Shas and the Pensioners party, the other member of the outgoing government. Livni would like to add others to the team to increase its stability.

The main opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu of the hawkish Likud, is calling for new elections. Likud stalwarts are ridiculing Kadima, Livni and Olmert, saying they have failed the country and must all be replaced. Polls show Kadima and Likud virtually tied if an election were held now.

Livni has 28 days to form a government after she is formally tapped by Peres and can receive an extra two weeks if necessary. Israeli political historians point out that in every case in the past, the politician chosen to form a government here has succeeded.