Srinagar, Kashmir - Life in India-administered Kashmir came to a halt on Friday in response to a call by the separatist Hurriyat Conference to mark United Nations Day with a strike, police said.

Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who issued the call for the strike, said the protest was to remind the world body of its "indifference" to Kashmir and that the Kashmir dispute remained unresolved for more than six decades.

Ankara - The Turkish military on Friday claimed to have killed 25 Kurdish rebels and wounded several others in airstrikes last week on Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq.

General Staff spokesman Metin Gurak told reporters that Turkish war planes hit the PKK positions in the Qandil mountains near the Iraqi border with Iran on October 17.

The PKK uses mountainous northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks inside Turkey.

Ankara blames the separatist group for the deaths of more than 35,000 people since the early 1980s when the PKK began its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east of Turkey.

Frankfurt - Global shares are ending the week on a grim note, with a new wave of selling hitting European stocks Friday as concerns grew about the outlook for corporate profits.

Picking up on steep falls on Asian markets and volatile trading on Wall Street, Europe's blue-chip Stoxx 50 plunged more than 6 per cent in early trading Friday with a steady stream of weak third-quarter earnings reports fuelling worries about a looming recession.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index slumped 8.3 per cent Friday to plunge below 13,000 points, closing at 12,618.38, its lowest level in four years.

The index shed 1,142 points and in October lost more than 30 per cent of its value so far.

Turnover was 56.14 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.2 billion dollars).

Analysts blamed concerns about corporate earnings and wider global economic woes for the drop.

Among the biggest losers were HSBC and Standard Chartered, two of the territory's largest banks, dragged down by worries about the banks' investments in emerging economies.

HSBC saw its share price crash 12.5 per cent to end the day at 88 Hong Kong dollars.

London - The British economy has shrunk for the first time in 16 years, dropping 0.5 per cent in the July-September quarter, the Office for National Statistics reported Friday.

Paris - Anxiety about corporate earnings and the expected announcement that OPEC will cut oil production have driven French shares sharply lower on Thursday.

In mid-morning trading, the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index was down 6.09 per cent, at 3,109.09, with 39 of 40 listed stocks losing ground.

France's two large car makers, Renault and Peugeot, were among the biggest losers, giving up 16.41 and 14.45 per cent, respectively, because the global car market is screeching to a halt.