Islamabad - Pakistani authorities on Friday switched their focus from rescue efforts to providing relief aid for thousands of earthquake survivors, who are spending cold
nights under the open skies, officials said.

Soldiers aided people in remote villages ravaged by the shallow 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck the northern and central parts of the gas-rich Balochistan province
early Wednesday.

Two days after the tragedy, the official death toll stood at 225 but the provincial Chief Minister Aslam Raeesani said it might cross 300.

"(The) bulk of the rescue work is over and operations have systematically entered the relief phase," said Major Ali Qasim, a military spokesman in Quetta, the capital of

New Delhi  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that his discussions with Indian leaders reaffirmed his belief that India was ready to play a greater role on the world stage.

"I was only a year old when India became a UN member state, and it is truly impressive how much this country has achieved since then as a leading voice in the developing world, as a long established democracy and a growing economic power," Ban said at a press briefing.

The secretary general held wide-ranging talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Pratibha Patil and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee during his two-day visit.

London  - British Telecom Friday issued a surprise profit warning, telling shareholders results for the quarter ending September would be slightly down on expectations.

It said its Global Services section, used by big multinational companies, had failed to meet its targets after cost-cutting measures took effect more slowly than expected.

All the company's other areas of operation had performed as expected or slightly better. BT's half-yearly results are due to be published on November 13.

The company's latest announcement sent the value of its shares slumping, losing a fifth of their value in the first hour and a half of trading Friday.

London  - Britain's Barclays bank said in London Friday it plans to raise some 7.3 billion pounds (11.8 billion dollars) in fresh capital from investors, mostly from the Middle East.

Barclays said the move fulfilled government regulations for raising capital and avoided a government bail-out for the bank, keeping it "strong and independent."

The investments would mostly come from state funds and the royal families in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, but also from existing shareholders and institutional investors.

There would be no dividend paid out for the end of 2008.

The bank said that preliminary results for the first nine months of 2008 were "slightly ahead" of the same period in 2007.

Tokyo  - All Nippon Airways Co (ANA) on Friday lowered its earnings forecast for the current fiscal year as it saw its second-quarter profits fall because of rising fuel prices and slow demand for air travel.

Japan's second-largest airline said its operating profit declined 18.6 per cent in the July-September period from the same quarter a year ago to 35.2 billion yen (358.48 million dollars).

Its net profit was down 2.7 per cent to 15.3 billion yen, and sales were down 5.8 per cent to 407.8 billion yen.

ANA attributed the results to slowing demand for domestic travel and severe competition with other airliners and railway transport services.

Tokyo  - Markets across the Asia-Pacific ended a roller-coaster week mixed on Friday with key bourses in Hong Kong and Tokyo down despite a much-anticipated rate cut by the Bank of Japan.

Asian markets had posted significant gains mid-week with daily surges of up to 10 per cent or even more after a rate cut in the United States, making up for similarly heavy losses at the beginning of the week.

The Bank of Japan on Friday cut its key short-term interest rate to 0.3 per cent from 0.5 per cent to help the world's second-largest economy weather the global financial crisis.