The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5 percent, its biggest in more than 23 years. But markets paused only momentarily before the selling wave renewed as investors seem fixated on the idea that the U.S. will drag the world economy down.

"Incoming information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets," the Fed said. Canada's central bank cut too.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he was confident in the resilience of the U.S. and global economies and welcomed the Fed cut as a helpful move.

"This is very constructive and I think it shows this country and the rest of the world that our central bank is nimble and can move quickly in response to market conditions," Paulson said.

The White House, rushing to put together a $150 billion stimulus package to prop up an economy ravaged by a housing slump and a mortgage defaults crisis, declined immediate comment on the Fed cut.

President George W. Bush was set to meet members of Congress later in the day to discuss the economic rescue package.

Outside North America, politicians and central bankers said the market selloff looked excessive. But they had their work cut out to convince as people like billionaire investor George Soros, who said the world faced a financial crisis worse than any since World War Two.

It was the second time Turkey banned the site because of clips deemed disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It is illegal in Turkey to insult the revered figure, whose portrait still hangs in nearly all government offices nearly 70 years after his death.

Users trying to access the Web site from Turkey were met with notices in English and Turkish saying it was banned under an Ankara court order issued Jan. 17.

Last March, another court blocked access to YouTube for two days after a complaint that some clips insulted Ataturk, a war hero who founded Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. The ban was lifted after YouTube removed the offending videos.

In September, a court in the eastern city of Sivas ordered a ban after saying video on the site insulted Ataturk, President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the army, but the ban was never implemented.

Vatan newspaper reported Sunday that the current ban also was imposed because of videos that were allegedly disrespectful of Ataturk.

It was not clear how long the current ban would last. The state-run Anatolia said officials from YouTube, which is owned by Google, issued a statement saying the company hoped access would be re-established quickly.

The YouTube bans in Turkey have highlighted the country's troubled record on free expression. Several prominent Turkish journalists and writers — including Nobel literature prize winner Orhan Pamuk — have been tried for allegedly insulting "Turkishness."

Turkey is not alone in blocking YouTube. Last year, the Thai government banned the site for about four months because of clips seen as offensive to Thailand's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

And in May, Moroccans were unable to access YouTube after users posted videos critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco took control of in 1975. An official blamed a technical glitch, but could not explain its nature or why it affected only the YouTube site.

Former Mitsubishi Motors Corp. President Katsuhiko Kawasoe, who had pleaded innocent, was sentenced to three years in prison suspended for five years, a Yokohama District Court official said on customary condition of anonymity. The suspended sentence means he won't have to serve time.

Kawasoe and three other company officials were suspected of failing to report defects although they knew the problems could cause serious accidents.

They were charged in 2004 with professional negligence resulting in death in a 2002 accident in southwestern Japan in which a driver died in a crash after the brakes failed on his Mitsubishi vehicle. A defective clutch system that was later recalled is suspected of causing the brake failure.

The three other officials were also found guilty but were given suspended sentences, the court official said.

Kawasoe, who became president in 1997, quit in disgrace in 2000 after acknowledging that the automaker had hidden defects for decades, many secretly repaired without recalls, despite reports of dozens of accidents.

The massive cover-up scandal stunned Japan when it surfaced in 2000. The sale of Mitsubishi Motors vehicles plunged, sending the Tokyo-based maker into losses for years.

For decades, Mitsubishi kept a two-tier record of driver complaints, tucking away defect reports in a locker that employees called "H," standing for the Japanese word for "secret."

Responsibilities were not defined and driver safety concerns were forgotten, according to a company report ordered in response to the scandal. When the concealed defects grew massive over the years, everyone was afraid to speak up, it said.

Mitsubishi apologized Wednesday to the family of the driver who died, and the company promised to do better.

"The entire company will continue to do its utmost to uphold corporate governance," it said in a statement.

The scandal has produced two other criminal trials.

In December last year, Yokohama District Court Two found two former Mitsubishi quality-control workers guilty of professional negligence in the death of a pedestrian crushed by a wheel falling off a truck.

That trial revolved around the January 2002 death of then 29-year-old Shiho Okamoto, a housewife, who was walking on a sidewalk with her two children when she was crushed to death by a wheel that rolled off a Mitsubishi truck. Her two boys were injured.

In another lawsuit, three former Mitsubishi officials, charged in Okamoto's accident, were acquitted in December 2006 of falsifying defect reports and failing to take proper recall measures. Among them was Takashi Usami, former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp., the automaker's former truck unit.

The court recently rejected a petition to appoint a trustee for the chimp, named Matthew Hiasl Pan, the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories said, and subsequently vowed to contact the European Court of Human Rights over the matter.

The court's decision follows in the footsteps of a similar ruling last fall. In September, a provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case, ruling the Association Against Animal Factories has no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf.

The legal back and forth began in February, when the animal shelter where Pan and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years filed for bankruptcy protection.

Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless. Both were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.

Donors have offered to help with the upkeep costs, but under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal gifts.

Organizers could set up a foundation to collect cash for Pan, whose life expectancy in captivity is about 60 years. But they argue only personhood will ensure he isn't sold to someone outside Austria, where he's protected by strict animal cruelty laws.

Among her 300 million citizens, America finds room for 2.2 million prisoners, half a million soldiers — and 1.1 million lawyers, increasing numbers of whom find their way across the Atlantic. From Park Lane to Mincing Lane, US law firms now deploy 3,900 lawyers in London. While one Washington wag labels them “our most ominous export”, some predict that, short of full-blown recession, their number may double within five years.

Wartime GIs in Britain, often caricatured as “overpaid, oversexed and over here”, have a contemporary equivalent: the London managing partners of US law firms, who entice elite City lawyers with seven-figure packages.

Rainmakers in finance, tax and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have been charmed away by Cadwalader, Kirkland & Ellis, Skadden, Arps and Simpson Thacher. The result? US firms’ annual London billings comfortably exceed £1.2 billion, while 100 or more of their local partners are in the £1 million-a-year club.

"Our strategy has been to recruit well-known partners from well-known firms,” Mike Francies, London head at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, says. The former Clifford Chance M&A lawyer, a Watford FC and Zutons fan, is “an incredibly hard worker, who runs a very tight ship”, says one admirer. As relative latecomers, Weil, Gotshal has rapidly grown to 120 lawyers, fuelling its drive to become a world leader in private equity. “We already compete with the UK market leaders: Ashurst, Clifford Chance and Freshfields,” Francies says.

His most prominent recruit, Marco Compagnoni, the former Lovells’ private equity head, is on a £1.3 million annual deal, fixed for two years. “We looked at Marco’s seniority, experience and clients when deciding to hire him,” Francies says. “There have been people we would have liked where other firms paid more. If you start paying too much, you’re building problems for the future.”

He points to Kirkland & Ellis hiring the private equity stars Graham White and Raymond McKeeve — both from Linklaters — for packages of £3.5 million and £1.5 million respectively, guaranteed for three years. Kirkland also hired Stephen Gillespie, an Allen & Overy partner, in a reported £1.8 million annual deal. “I can’t see how it works. I’ll be interested to see if they’re all there in three years’ time,” Francies says.

A byword for prestige, pre-eminence and very strong profitability, Sullivan & Cromwell came to London in 1972. But when Bill Plapinger, the London managing partner, arrived from New York in 1987, it still had only five lawyers. Today, it has seventy. Fifteen are UK qualified, of whom five are partners. These include some big lateral hires: English corporate star Vanessa Blackmore, ex-Allen & Overy, and M&A heavyweight Tim Emmerson, formerly at Milbank Tweed, London.

“We have no interest in growth for growth’s sake. Critical mass does not mean having armies of lawyers,” Plapinger says. “We’ve grown almost exclusively in response to client demand. Competing against firms several times our size, we use relatively small, focused, highly integrated teams.” He adds unapologetically: “We work our lawyers very hard.” The strategy pays off. As advisers to 40 of Europe’s 300 largest companies, S&C dominates the capital markets and M&A league tables.

“Most clients are European rather than US-based,” Plapinger says. “Outside the ‘magic circle’, our competition is Cleary Gottlieb, Shearman & Sterling, Skadden, Arps, Davis Polk and Cravath. We want to be chosen for our experience and understanding of the deal technology. The legal world can be seen as a pyramid: the most desirable work is at the very top. Lots of firms want to be there; very few succeed.”

Several large London offices have evolved from transatlantic mergers: Mayer Brown, Jones Day, DLA Piper and Dechert. Last January, Reed Smith tied up with Richards Butler. Although the Clifford Chance-Rogers & Wells marriage is eight years old, no top-flight New York firm has yet been seduced by the overtures of Freshfields or Allen & Overy — both keen to find a suitable partner. “I can’t see it happening. The economics make it unattractive,” Plapinger says.

White & Case has grown exponentially since 2002, giving it the largest London office of any non-merged US firm: 346 lawyers, 80 per cent of them UK qualified. Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley are typical clients. Peter Finlay, the London managing partner, explains: “We’ve established a broad-based, local firm with disputes, pensions, IP, construction and employment capacity. Very few US firms have that.

“One key objective was to build the leading finance practice of a US-headquartered firm in London, to get on the panels of major companies. We now have the largest acquisition finance team. We also have 53 trainees, more than any other US firm.

“Our billable hours per lawyer are less than some. We don’t have the reputation of being a sweatshop. We have flexible and part-time working to attract and retain staff.” Finlay has discussed merger with London firms, but none recently. “It’s not part of our plan,” he says. So who does he benchmark? “Shearman & Sterling and Latham & Watkins.”

A bellwether for many US firms in London, Shearman & Sterling has been managed locally since 2003 by Kenneth MacRitchie: “Working for a US law firm is very liberating,” the former Clifford Chance project finance partner says. “The culture is very entrepreneurial. We’ve tried to develop an English law practice that competes with the magic circle. We took some leverage finance partners from Ashursts. We saw that the combination of English law debt finance and New York high yield would be a winner. Our English corporate law practice took off when we hired Peter King from Linklaters.”

Last month, he lured high-yield partner Jacques McChesney from Latham.

“The prize,” he believes, “is to create a firm that combines top-end New York law and English law capability in a global network. US firms have taken a significant share of London work. It will only increase.

“New York firms are much more successful here than London firms have been in New York.” Strong in banking and finance, Shearman now has 158 London lawyers — approximately 70 per cent practise English law. “We want to have a much bigger European footprint in M&A,” MacRitchie says. Although London has been among the most profitable of the firm’s 20 offices, he is quick to highlight that “New York supports a significant amount of overhead. We have not grown as fast as some because we won’t compromise on quality. We’re not at optimum size yet — we will grow substantially.”

Latham & Watkins wins many plaudits. Having built a strong European presence within a decade, it is the only US firm to join Skadden in the global Top Five. “Taking growth, the quality of their people and how far they’ve come, they really stand out,” one prominent City observer says. Latham came to London in 1990. Most of its 170 lawyers are more recent arrivals, including tax partners Sean Finn and Daniel Friel, hired from Lovells in 2006.

Andrew Moyle, the managing partner, joined in 2003 as an IT and outsourcing specialist from Shaw Pittman. Grown from an LA base, “Latham has no head office,” Moyle says. “In London, we’re full service. Disputes, private equity, M&A and finance have been the big growth areas.”

Moyle highlights a different culture from traditional Wall Street firms: “We never thought we could come in and dominate from Day One, a mistake that several firms made.

“We totally reject a star culture and pride ourselves on a consensus-driven model. We want team players, not prima donnas. You can’t become a partner here without the blessing of the associates committee. We don’t do special deals for laterals. How can a successful US law firm be so considerate and so profitable? Many people are sceptical. Somehow we manage both.”