
Global stocks steady after Wall Street drop unsettles Asia
CNN
Stocks in the United States and Europe steadied on Tuesday after Asian markets were rattled overnight by fears of a potential US default, trouble in China's massive property market and rising oil prices.
US stock futures advanced and European markets opened with small gains. Nasdaq futures were up 0.4%, rebounding from a difficult trading session on Monday that saw the tech-heavy index shed 2.1%.
Investors have been unnerved by dysfunction in Washington, where lawmakers have made little progress on allowing the US government to keep borrowing to pay its bills. The US Treasury has said it will default if the debt ceiling isn't hiked by October 18.

More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the “Highway of Death” due to car bombs and snipers.












