St Stephen’s College seems to have taken serious offense to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s comment that during his year-long stay there, students who asked questions in class “were looked down upon”.

On Tuesday, while addressing students at a university in Srinagar, Rahul Gandhi said, “When I was studying at St Stephen’s College, asking a question was not (perceived to be) good in our class. You were looked down upon if you asked too many questions.”

This statement set off a chain reaction among the Stephanians.

Beijing - Leaders of the "ASEAN plus three" group on Friday promised joint efforts to combat the global financial crisis and maintain regional economic stability.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao chaired the meeting of leaders of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and South Korea.

The 13 Asian leaders held an open discussion on "issues of common concern, especially the financial crisis and its influence on East Asia," host nation China said.

 La Serna del Monte, Spain - In the night of August 14, 1936, Jose, Juan, Nicolas and Francisco Gutierrez were asleep in their parents' house in La Serna del Monte, a village north of Madrid.

Spain was through living turbulent times. A month earlier, a military uprising instigated by right-wing General Francisco Franco against the leftist republican government had unleashed a civil war.

Buenos Aires - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said it best for how much of Latin America holds sees the US presidential elections on November 4.

He was upbeat about a victory for centre-left Democrat Barack Obama, the 47-year-old US senator.

"This (financial) crisis, among other benefits it will cause, will get Obama elected as president of the United States. It will get a black man elected, which is no small matter," Lula said bluntly.

Tokyo - Japan markets continued their losing streak Friday with the key Nikkei index dropping nearly 3 per cent.

In the first 15 minutes of trading, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 232.45 points, or 2.75 per cent, to 8,228.53.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was down 24 points, or 2.75 per cent, to 847.7.

On currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar was quoted at 97.58-63 yen, down from Thursday's quote of 97.68-70 yen.

San Francisco - Microsoft on Thursday reported first-quarter results that exceeded analysts' expectations, with profits up 2 per cent to 4.37 billion dollars.

Sales rose 9.4 percent to 15.1 billion dollars in the quarter that ended September 30, the company said in a statement, spurred by the demand for Office programmes and the Xbox video game console.

The world's largest software maker said sales for the full fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009, would be between 64.9 billion dollars to 66.4 billion dollars.