Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:34am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that even if Georgia were on a firm path to NATO membership, he would not hesitate to attack it under circumstances similar to last month's conflict.

Speaking to the annual meeting of the Valdai Club, a group of Russia experts, Medvedev also said he believed that Georgia's August 8 attack on the pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia was Russia's equivalent of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"Immediately after the events in the Caucasus it occurred to me that August 8 was for us almost what 9/11 was for the United States," Medvedev said.

The Kremlin leader again attacked NATO's plans for further expansion into neighboring Ukraine and Georgia. He said putting these countries on an official track to membership would not help them in the event of another conflict with Russia.

"Just by getting closer to Russia's borders, NATO is not becoming stronger," Medvedev said. "...what if Georgia had a NATO membership action plan? I would not wait for a second in making the decision I made at that point.

Georgian membership, he added, would be a destabilizing factor, both for the Western military alliance and for the volatile Caucasus region.

"The situation is not fair to Russia, it is humiliating for Russia. We are not going to tolerate this any longer," he added.

The Russian president balanced his remarks by saying he did not believe the Caucasus crisis had caused a faultline in relations between Russia and the West, which would lead to another long period of confrontation.

"We don't need this," he said.

(Reporting by Janet McBride, writing by Michael Stott, editing by Christian Lowe)

Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:09am EDT

KABUL (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed when Taliban insurgents ambushed a U.S. security firm convoy in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, provincial officials said, the second attack on the firm in as many days.

Farah provincial police chief Khalilullah Rahmani said 15 of the dead were Taliban militants killed in the fighting that broke out following the ambush.

Rahmani said U.S. Protection and Investigations, a firm involved in escorting supplies for coalition forces, also suffered casualties but he had no details.

"The Taliban militants attacked the convoy with heavy machineguns; four vehicles were set on fire," said a provincial official who asked not to be named.

He said four Afghan guards and four civilians had been killed in the ambush that took place when the convoy was passing through Bakwa district in Farah province.

Another convoy of the security firm was attacked on Thursday in Kandahar city and two people were killed.

Separately, the U.S military said coalition forces had killed more than 10 militants and detained two during operations in eastern Afghanistan that also targeted the network of veteran Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.

U.S. forces have focused on Haqqani's network this week, firing missiles from drones into a house and a religious school founded by him in Pakistan's tribal region just across the border, killing 23 people, mostly his relatives.

Haqqani, who was backed by the United States during the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is considered close to Osama bin Laden.

U.S. forces also targeted a Taliban commander in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, and 10 militants were killed in the fighting, the military said.

"Coalition forces were engaged with small-arms fire from multiple groups of armed militants as they entered a compound. The force returned fire, killing the militants," the statement said.

Violence has hit its worst level in Afghanistan since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001. More than 2,700 people including some 1,100 civilians have been killed so far this year, aid agencies say.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; writing by Sanjeev Miglani; editing by Roger Crabb)

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Thanks,

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Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:13am ED

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Lehman Brothers (LEH.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) fell more than 5 percent to $4 before the bell on Friday as investors fretted about the embattled investment bank's likely fate.

(Reporting by Ellis Mnyandu, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:08pm EDT

NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's debt burden could balloon to $5.3 trillion in the next decade, in part if it borrows more to finance another fiscal stimulus program and help ailing U.S. banks and carmakers, Goldman Sachs said.

This latest estimate is more than double the $2.3 trillion baseline forecast from the Congressional Budget Office and 50 percent higher than Goldman's previous forecast of $3.6 trillion, according to Goldman Sachs economists in a research note released late Wednesday.

Even accounting for stimulus programs and financial rescues, the two biggest components of the national debt over the next 10-year span would come from a shortfall in tax receipts worth $3.2 trillion and military spending, estimated at about $1.2 trillion.

Goldman economists also upwardly revised their federal budget deficit outlook for the next two fiscal years by more than $100 billion each compared with their prior forecasts.

They now predict the U.S. budget gap will hit $565 billion in fiscal 2009 and $560 billion in fiscal 2010, adding that there are risks that could push those figures above $600 billion.

Goldman's latest forecasts "entail a much greater degree of uncertainty than in recent years, with risks tilted heavily to the side of even larger budget gaps."

The deterioration in the U.S. economy and turmoil in the financial markets have compounded the grim budget outlook for the next couple of years, the bank's analysts said.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office raised its fiscal deficit forecast for fiscal 2008, which will end on Sept. 30, to $407 billion from its March estimate of $357 billion.

With Congress expected to consider a second fiscal stimulus package later this month, it could cost about $50 billion, with most of it recorded in fiscal 2009, Goldman analysts said. This would follow the $168 billion package enacted earlier this year.

Moreover, the government may be poised to rescue more failing financial institutions after it seized control of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) this past weekend.

Goldman said the cost of the move to bail out the two government-sponsored enterprises was upward of $50 billion, twice the amount estimated by the Congressional Budget Office in July.

Moreover, the 11 bank closures so far this year have cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp $8.9 billion.

While aid to the financial sector has gotten the most attention, Congress is also considering whether to grant as much as $50 billion in loan and loan guarantees to the struggling auto industry, Goldman analysts said. (Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by James Dalgleish)