The silhouette of Japanese businessmen is seen near a stock quotation
board in Tokyo showing the day's drop in the Nikkei average November
17, 2003. The benchmark Nikkei average slid almost four percent as
investors, jittery over Middle East instability and another fall on
Wall Street, sold off shares across the board. Further worsening the
already weak market sentiment was a report in the London-based al-Quds
al-Arabi newspaper that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was planning
car bombings against the United States and its allies, including Japan.
REUTERS/Eriko Sugita

ES/FA