New markets spur Honda to record quarter

Honda Motor Co. reported record profit for a fiscal first quarter Friday as sales growth in new markets offset the damage from a stronger yen and soaring material costs.

The results came a day after U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co. reported its worst quarterly loss ever.

Honda, Japan's No. 2 automaker, earned a better-than-expected 179.6 billion yen ($1.68 billion) in the April-June quarter, up 8.1 percent from the same period the previous year. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had forecast 131.3 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in quarterly profit.

Sales for the quarter dipped 2.2 percent from a year ago to 2.867 trillion yen ($26.79 billion), largely …

Clay eager to pass playoff test

DAILY MAIL SPORTS EDITOR

Clay County is looking forward to the Class AA football playoffs,where it hopes some nagging questions will be answered. Like, justhow good are the Panthers? Really?

Sure, Clay compiled an impressive 10-0 regular season, the firstin school history. But not one of the Panthers' defeated foes is inpostseason play.

It's not surprising that Clay outscored its opponents an averageof 40-7 per game this season.

"We really don't know how good we are, to be honest with you,"said Clay Coach Ron Sirk, whose third-rated Panthers play No. 14Winfield (7-3) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Nicholas County High inSummersville in a first-round playoff …

Iraqi Civilian Deaths Hit Record in Oct.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The United Nations on Wednesday reported 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll of the 44-month-old war, as gunmen and bombers behind the plague of revenge-driven sectarian bloodshed increasingly targeted top politicians and professionals.

Assassins murdered a bodyguard of Iraq's parliament speaker on Wednesday, one day after a bomb exploded in the hot-tempered politician's motorcade as it drove into a parking lot in the fortified Green Zone, a major security breach in the heavily guarded central Baghdad compound that houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government.

Security considerations also could have …

Lippi excited by Rossi's future

American-born Italy striker Giuseppe Rossi has impressed coach Marcello Lippi, and that could mean more minutes for the Villarreal forward when World Cup qualifying comes around again.

Rossi came on as a second-half substitute in Italy's 2-0 loss to Brazil on Tuesday in London, and got involved in play all over the field.

"Rossi's personality has won me over," Lippi told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "He was excellent."

The loss, however, kept Lippi from setting a world record of 32 consecutive wins.

"We played as though we were scared, the exact opposite of …

Gen. Petraeus calls for unity in Afghanistan war

Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, called Saturday for unity in the civilian and military effort to turn back the Taliban, saying, "In this important endeavor, cooperation is not optional."

In his first public comments since he arrived Friday night to assume command of the international military mission in Afghanistan, Petraeus said he would work to improve coordination between troops on the battlefield and civilians trying to bolster the Afghan government and improve the lives of the people.

His predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was fired last month for intemperate remarks that he and his aides made to …

India: Low apparel productivity

INSIDE ASIA

The Garment Exporters Association (GEA) has pleaded with the Labour Commission to allow productivity-linked wages. GEA says that apparently wages in India are about 10% lower than China, but in reality they work out to about 40% higher. The average output per worker in India is estimated at about 10 shirts a day, whereas in China, production is about 22 shirts per worker per day. Thus, …

Astronauts take spacewalk to wire up station's newest room, keep December trip on track

Two astronauts went out on a spacewalk Tuesday to wire up the international space station's newest room and keep the next shuttle visit on track for early December.

Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani needed to hook up power and heater cables and fluid lines between the space station and the Harmony compartment that was delivered by the shuttle last month.

The fluid lines _ for carrying ammonia, a coolant _ were in an 18 1/2-foot, 300-pound (136-kilogram) tray. The spacewalkers removed the tray from its storage location on the space station, then lugged it over to Harmony.

"Don't get it going too fast," Whitson warned Tani. The two …