Riga  - The three Baltic stock exchanges

Vienna - Austrian incest suspect Josef Fritzl has said he was "born to rape," according to a report by a court-appointed psychiatrist who probed the mind of the man who had kept his his daughter locked in a dungeon for 24 years.

Tallinn - The Estonian economy is set to remain in recession until 2010 according to a forecast published Wednesday by the Estonian central bank, Eesti Pank.

According to the base scenario of Eesti Pank's 2008 autumn forecast, Estonia's gross domestic product will decline by 1.8 per cent in 2008 and by 2.1 per cent in 2009.

The economy should pick up again either at the end of 2009 or at the beginning of 2010, resulting in an average economic growth rate for 2010 of 3 per cent, Eesti Pank believes.

London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday, for the first time, acknowledged that Britain faces a recession.

"We must now take action on the global financial recession which is likely to cause recession in America, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and, because no country can insulate itself from it, Britain too," said before parliament.

London - The Egyptian millionaire owner of the Harrods department store in London, Mohamed al-Fayed, has been questioned by police over allegations of sexual assault, British media reports said Wednesday.

They said the 75-year-old father of the late Princess Diana's friend, Dodi, had voluntarily subjected himself to questioning over reported claims that a 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at business premises in central London last May.

The reports said al-Fayed had not been detained. They quoted police as confirming that a man had been questioned in the case, but the police declined to identify him.