Brussels  - Turkey must make sure it protects the freedom of the press, the head of the European Union's executive told Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Thursday.

"Full respect of press freedom is an important value for us. It is important that there be full respect of this basic, fundamental right," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said as he welcomed Gul on the first-ever visit to the EU's headquarters by a Turkish head of state.

Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia  - Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen secured the season's World Cup biathlon title with second place in the men's 10-kilometre sprint on Thursday.

It was a sixth overall World Cup win for the 35-year-old who equals the record of Magdalena Forsberg of Sweden.

Race winner in the Siberian venue of Khanty-Mansiysk was Germany's Arnd Peiffer who celebrated a first World Cup race victory.

With two races remaining, Bjoerndalen has an unassailable 978 points, with Tomasz Sikora of Poland on 854 and Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway on 758.

Gold recovered well from our 1st tier uptrend line after Treasury Secretary Geithner alluded to the fact the U. S. would not be opposed to migrating from using the Dollar as the standard international currency.

Consequently, gold flexed its negative correlation with the Dollar, which is interesting because U. S. equities have been positively correlated with the EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY throughout the heat of the crisis.

Such movements indicate that the correlations may be shifting between U. S. equities and the major Dollar pairs.

However, this is merely a hypothesis based on observation and will need to be clarified further. What we can say is that the uptrend for Gold has been rescued for now.

Jerusalem - Citing lack of evidence, Israeli police said Thursday they were closing a corruption investigation against outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, under which he was alleged to have bought a house at a significant discount in return for extending favours to the contractor.

The premier however faces indictment on three other corruption allegations.

Washington  - President Barack Obama's administration, in a massive overhaul of the US financial regulatory system, is seeking the power to keep watch on all types of financial firms and to seize failing companies integral to the health of the system.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the plans in congressional testimony on Thursday, arguing that the current financial turmoil has proven the system is "too unstable and fragile" to be allowed to manage itself.

Miami - Roger Federer says that his commitment for Swiss Davis Cup play certainly doesn't turn on a huge payday.

The number 2 is happy to play for relative pocket change - as long as the event does not conflict with his fitness or career goals.

"Honestly I never heard of money being the issue here, why players are not playing," he said of the lack of big names who consistently compete in the worldwide team event.

"Sometimes I walk away with 5,000 or 10,000 dollars.