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The software giant Microsoft has withdrawn its offer for the internet services company Yahoo, because the two cannot agree on the price. Microsoft said it raised its offer by about 5 billion dollars to 33 dollars a share, but Yahoo wanted 37 dollars a share. Joe Leone explains.

Amid the recent chaos of the banking sector and the gloom of the credit crunch, Microsoft’s sudden 44-billion-dollar bid to buy Yahoo last February was for many a welcome bolt out of the blue. The news that the software giant has now decided to walk away entirely will shock the technology industry just as much. And so what now for Yahoo? Its shares have fallen by a third before Microsoft’s bid. It may afford off a takeover this time, but for how much longer?

Reports from Egypt say there's very little sign that people have heeded the call by the opposition for a nationwide strike in protest against rising food prices. There is a heightened security presence in the town of Mahalla al-kubra where there were clashes last month between striking textile workers and riot police. But in the capital Cairo, shops open as normal and streets are busy. The opposition had urged people to stay at home or to wear black if they did go out.

Women’s groups in Malaysia have reacted angrily to proposed government restrictions on women travelling abroad on their own. The state news agency quoted the foreign minister as saying Malaysia was considering requiring women to obtain written consent from their families or employers before being allowed to travel abroad alone. Malaysia is a predominately Muslim country, but the news agency said the move was an anti-crime measure intended to stop women being used just as couriers by drug syndicates. Women’s groups have described the proposal as repressive and regressive.

At least 18 prisoners have been killed in a fight at a jail in Honduras. It happened when a group of inmates who’d been transferred from another jail were set upon by armed inmates. Police were called in to help restore order.

According to a spokesman for the Honduras’ Security Ministry, the riot started late on Friday, in Honduras’ national penitentiary just outside the capital Tegucigalpa. Local media reports say that the violence started when a member of one gang shot dead a rival gang member. Prison guards and police had to fire shots into the air to force their way into the cells to break up the fight. According to one news agency, many of the inmates were hacked to death with knives and machetes.

The military authorities in Burma have declared disaster areas in parts of the south and center of the country after cyclone caused extensive damage. The main city Rangoon was among the areas hit with the roofs blown off many buildings, power lines brought down and roads blocked. State media reported that at least 4 people were killed. Military and police personnel were carrying out rescue operations.

Coast guard officials in South Korea say 8 people were killed when a sudden large wave swept them away on the country’s west coast. Some were fishing and others were tourists walking by the sea when the wave struck a wharf at the port of Boryeong Namdo nearly 200 kilometres south of the capital Seoul.