Lima  - A head-on crash between a

Washington  - US football fans, media and officials named US men's national team goalkeeper Tim Howard and US women's national team midfielder Carli Lloyd as the 2008 athletes of the year, according to a statement released Thursday.

The awards were the first ever for the two athletes, US Soccer said.

Howard is goalkeeper for English Premier League club Everton FC and the US national team.

Lloyd started all six games at the Beijing Olympics in August.

Madrid  - For Maria G., a 40-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant in Madrid, it is a grim Christmas ahead.

"Since my husband lost his construction job six months ago, we have only relied on my earnings," says the bakery employee and housemaid, one among hundreds of thousands of immigrants to have been hit hard by Spain's deepening economic crisis.

"We could not even dream of giving each other presents this Christmas," Maria sighs, explaining that she always sends more than half of her monthly income of about 1,000 euros (1,400 dollars) to her children and other relatives back in Latin America.

Brasilia  - Cuban President Raoul Castro, on his first official foreign visit since taking power in February, Thursday suggested that Havana and Washington could consider a possible prisoner exchange to start a thaw in relations between the two countries.

Castro, who took over leadership of the communist country in February from his ailing brother, revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, made the remarks after meeting Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

San Francisco  - Research in Motion, the smartphone maker whose BlackBerry devices are the main US competitor to Apple's iPhone, reported record third quarter sales Thursday, and a profit rise of over 7 per cent to 396 million dollars.

The Canadian company also said it was enjoying its strongest-ever start to the holiday season as customers clamoured for its newly released BlackBerry Storm, the company's first touch screen device.

San Francisco  - Business software giant Oracle saw its profit slip slightly in the second quarter amid a tightening economy and a stronger dollar.

The Silicon Valley company said late Thursday that it earned 1.27 billion dollars, or 25 cents a share, down from 1.3 billion dollars, also at 25 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue rose 6 per cent to 5.6 billion dollars.

Oracle said that excluding the impact of the stronger dollar, it would have earned an extra 4 cents a share.