Amman - The Islamic Action Front (IAF), Jordan's largest political party, on Thursday rebuked Arab leaders who failed to accept Qatar's invitation for an emergency summit on Friday in Doha to look into steps against Israel for its prolonged offensive on the Gaza Strip.

The IAF charged in a statement that Arab leaders who were trying to block the Arab summit "were colluding with Israel and betraying the blood of hundreds of children and women" killed in the Israeli bombardment over the past 20 days.

London - Villagers wept and environmentalists pledged "direct action" as battle lines were drawn Thursday over the British government's decision to allow a major expansion of London's Heathrow airport - notorious around the world for its perennial problems with congestion, punctuality and lost luggage.

"I lose everything. It will mean totally starting again," said Debbie Power, whose pub in the village of Sipson is among the 700 properties earmarked for destruction if the plan to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow goes ahead.

Copenhagen - Denmark's central bank Thursday lowered its lending rate

San Francisco - Even mighty Google is feeling the effects of the global recession. The advertising and software giant is cutting 100 recruiting jobs and plans to shutter three engineering offices in Norway, Sweden and Texas, the company announced.

Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president of people operations, said in a blog post late Wednesday that since Google is now hiring at a reduced rate it needs fewer people to hire people.

The company had a huge number of recruiters working as it scaled up from a two person operation to a workforce of over 25,000 in just a decade.

Vienna - After a young Chechen refugee was shot execution-style in Vienna, a prosecutor on Thursday did not rule out that the young man said to have been a critic of the Chechen regime was murdered for political reasons.

According to witness reports, two unknown men were involved in the fatal shooting of Umar Israilov, 26, outside a grocery store on Monday. A third man, also a Chechen, was detained as he is suspected of having driven the getaway car.

Austrian and US media reported that Israilov was a former Chechen rebel fighter who later turned bodyguard of pro-Russian Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

San Francisco - Shares of Apple opened sharply lower in US trading Thursday as investors worried that the company's performance would flounder without founder and CEO Steve Jobs at the helm.

Jobs announced he was taking medical leave until the end of June to deal with health problems that were more complex than he had earlier divulged. Investors were also concerned that Apple could face shareholder lawsuits alleging that Jobs' halting revelations about his health failed to meet the necessary standards of disclosure.