According to the rating of the Swiss bank "Credit Suisse" Bulgaria occupies second position as one of the countries exposed to the greatest macroeconomic risk.

31 countries were included as the rating was based on point the so-called "scoring" model, taking into account indicators such as due balance, levarage rate, measured by private sector's debt ratio in the GDP, net external debt to GDP.

Los Angeles  - Producer Scott Rudin left the movie The Reader and is taking his nave off the project after a bruising battle with executive producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein.

Los Angeles  - A woman charged with stalking Hollywood star John Cusack, 42, was handed a 5-year probation sentence after she accepted a plea deal.

Emily Leatherman, 33, pleaded no contest, thereby avoiding going to jail if found guilty of two charges of petty theft and disobeying a restraining order, the KTLA television channel reported.

Bangkok  - Thailand's largest lingerie-manufacturer has refocused on the domestic market amid predictions that US demand for women's underwear will feel the pinch as a result of the financial crisis, news reports said Saturday.

Sydney  - Australia claimed Saturday that a 101-metre giant swamp gum found last week just 4 kilometres from a popular Tasmanian tourist attraction is the world's tallest hardwood tree, tallest eucalypt and its tallest flowering tree.

The 400-year-old whopper is only a few metres shorter than the world-record 115-metre redwood in California's Redwood National Park.

Washington  - Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her powers as governor of Alaska, a state investigator's report released Friday said.

The report concludes an investigation into whether Palin fired the chief of Alaska's police force after he refused to get embroiled in a family feud.

Vienna  - Joerg Haider, the right-wing leader of Austria's Alliance for the Future of Austria, died in a car accident early Saturday, Austrian news agency APA reported.

According to police, the accident occurred in Klagenfurt, capital of the province of Carinthia, where 58-year-old Haider was governor.

Haider was driving by himself when his car left the road and flipped over. Police is still investigating the cause of the accident.

The politician died of serious injuries to the head and chest, police said. (dpa)

Washington  - The United States is open to letting more countries into the select group of top world economies known as the Group of Seven (G7), Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday.

Washington  - Two players from Cuba's national football team, in Washington for a World Cup 2010 qualifying match, have gone missing, a team official confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa late Friday.

"It is always a problem for the Cuba team," the team's German coach Reinhold Fanz said. "We have security, but you can't handcuff them to their rooms," he was quoted as saying by the Washington Post website.

San Francisco  - The world famous Golden Gate Bridge is to get a 50-million-dollar suicide net after bridge bosses ruled that it was more important to save lives than preserve the structure's classic lines.

An average of 20 people commit suicide each year by climbing over the 1.2 metre railing and plunging some 75 metres to the San Francisco Bay below.