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An apparent car bomb attack has been attempted at Glasgow Airport’s main terminal.

Witnesses have reported that a blazing Cherokee jeep containing two Asian-looking men appeared to ram the terminal building at high speed.

The car reportedly crashed into the main doors of the terminal.

One of the two men in the vehicle was said to have ran from the blaze with his clothes on fire.

He was restrained by passengers until police arrived.

Witnesses have told how the other occupant of the vehicle struggled with police at the scene immediately after the incident and was wrestled to the ground by officers.

The airport was immediately evacuated and all flights to and from the airport have been cancelled as a result of the incident.

There have been no reported injuries.

Strathclyde police say told two vehicles had been involved in a collision just outside the airport at approximately 3.15pm today, and that one of the vehicles had burst into flames as a result of the accident.

Police have confirmed that the vehicle did not enter the building, and the blaze is now under control.

Strathclyde Police spokeswoman Lisa O’Neil could not confirm reports that the vehicle may have been driven at the terminal building deliberately.

Eyewitness James Edgar said: “There was chaos at the airport.

“I was in the airport building trying to book a holiday. Suddenly people were running past us. Suddenly everyone said to get out of the airport.

Anther witness told how the vehicle had been driven at high speed towards the terminal building and appeared to explode into flames when it hit the outer wall.

BAA, who manage the airport were not immediately available for comment.

WASHINGTON: The United States and South Korea signed a free trade agreement Saturday that will face a tough battle in Congress because of Democratic Party concerns that it will cost jobs in the U.S. auto industry.

The pact is the biggest such U.S. deal since the North America Free Trade Agreement 15 years ago. Two-way trade between the United States and South Korea, its seventh largest trading partner, is about $80 billion annually.

The agreement concluded April 1 after 10 months of tough negotiating phases out tariffs on nearly 95 percent of trade in consumer and industrial products between the two countries within three years.

It immediately eliminates duties on more than half of U.S. farm exports to South Korea and expands business opportunities for U.S. service providers in sectors ranging from banking to telecommunications to express delivery.

But top Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and leading presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York have denounced the deal because of its auto provisions.

“While I value the strong relationship the United States enjoys with South Korea, I believe that this agreement is inherently unfair,” Clinton said earlier in June in a speech in Detroit, home of the U.S. car industry.

Democrats complain that the agreement opens the U.S. market to more South Korean cars while failing to tear down non-tariff trade barriers that they blame for a huge imbalance in automotive trade between the two countries.

“Last year, South Korea exported more than 700,000 cars into the U.S., while the United States exported fewer than 5,000″ to South Korea, Pelosi said in a joint statement with other senior House Democrats on Friday.

Bush administration officials say the pact does tackle barriers that have blocked U.S. car exports and immediately eliminates Korean tariffs on a number of U.S. cars and trucks. It also contains a mechanism to reimpose U.S. auto tariffs if South Korea violates its end of the pact.

Within the auto sector, Ford has been the most vocal critic of the pact while General Motors has taken a neutral stance.

Most other U.S. business groups strongly support the agreement, and labor groups are opposed.

Many farm state lawmakers — including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana — have tied their support for the agreement to South Korea fully reopening its market to U.S. beef, which was shut after mad cow disease was found in U.S. cattle in December 2003.

Seoul has begun accepting some U.S. beef, but not from cattle older than 30 months or cuts containing bones.

U.S. agriculture officials say there is no scientific reason now for South Korea to ban any U.S. beef imports.

June 30, 2007 — Moving rapidly to stabilize its reeling asset management unit, Bear Stearns replaced the group’s chief with a well-respected money management veteran charged with cleaning up the mess created by the collapse of two hedge funds.

Jeffrey Lane, the former head of asset management firm Neuberger Berman and a vice chairman at Lehman Brothers, agreed to take the helm at Bear Stearns Asset Management. Former chief Richard Marin will become a consultant.

There will be no graceful exit for Marin - Lane is assuming his duties at BSAM immediately.

Lane is credited with growing Neuberger Berman to $135 billion in assets from $40 billion over five years prior to Lehman acquiring the firm in 2003 for $3.2 billion.

In speaking about his new role, Lane tried to emphasize the future in a discussion with Bloomberg News.

“I didn’t come here to unwind an asset-management company, I came here to grow one,” he said.

But Lane certainly will have to unwind a pair of hedge funds first.

Over the past two weeks, two connected Bear funds, with about $1.1 billion in capital between them, have teetered on the edge of collapse, requiring the firm to commit $1.6 billion in credit to guarantee what had been a debt load of over $10 billion.

At the same time, Lane is almost immediately likely to have to turn his attention to managing an expanding Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into the funds’ collapse.

As reported in The Post last week, the SEC has begun issuing document requests, specifically looking into events in May, when the fund told investors that a previously announced 6.5 percent loss was actually almost 19 percent.

To appease worried creditors, the head of Bear’s high-profile mortgage department, Tom Marano, is helping direct the fund’s remaining asset sales.

“It was designed to do two things: Send a message to [BSAM] investors that we are very serious about managing money safely, and to begin the process of shaking up management,” a senior Bear executive said of the management move.

Investors continue to pound Bear’s stock, sending it down $4 yesterday, to close at $140 - its lowest price since last September.

roddy.boyd@nypost.com

Canadians poured more than $2.5 billion into mutual funds in April traditionally a slow time for the fund industry.

The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) confirmed Tuesday that net new sales last month sales minus redemptions were $2.55 billion.

That’s almost five times the $537 million in net sales recorded in April 2006.

“Historically, there tends to be an industry wide slowdown in sales between March and April when investors take a breather after the RRSP season. However, this April we’ve seen sales that are $2 billion higher than the same period in either of the last two years,” IFIC vice president Pat Dunwoody said in a statement.

About 80 per cent of the net sales came in Canadian balanced funds, global balanced funds and foreign equity funds. All three categories saw about$1 billion in net sales.

On the flip side, Canadians were busy selling domestic equity fundsin April. Net redemptions that month came in at $620 million, even thoughthe TSX gained about two per cent.

Year-to-date, Canadians havepoured almost $20 billion into mutual funds, as this year’s RRSP seasonwas the best for industry sales in nine years.

Could water be the liquid gold of the future?

Yes. Because 97% of the world’s water is saltwater or otherwise undrinkable. Another 2% is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. So only 1% of the world’s water is available for drinking, growing food and for other needs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

It’s a finite resource, yet if the rate of current use continues, two-thirds of Earth’s population will lack adequate water supplies by the year 2025, according to the United Nations Environment Program.

Investors see a huge opportunity for anything involved in water infrastructure. In just a year and a half, PowerShares Water Resources () has become the flagship of the provider’s 86 offerings.

“There weren’t many opportunities to buy stock in clean water providers in the open market,” Bruce Bond, founder of PowerShares Capital Management, recently told IBD. “But investors understood it. Now it’s our biggest, with $1.7 billion in assets.”

Solid Returns

PowerShares Water Resources returned 10% over the past 12 months as of Tuesday. It is ahead 28% year to date and 25% since inception.

It’s no wonder Claymore Securities and First Trust Advisors want a piece of the action, too. This week they launched the Claymore S&P Global Water Index () and First Trust ISE Water Index.

But Christian Magoon, senior managing director of Claymore, contends his isn’t a copycat.

“Imagine if you were competing in the Olympics, and only three or four countries showed up; it’s not the Olympics,” said Magoon. “The water ETFs out there right now only have four or five countries. We have 16 involved. We are trying to have a global investment take.”

Key Differences

PowerShares and First Trust focus on U.S. companies. Claymore globally diversifies with many holdings that aren’t accessible to U.S. investors. U.S. firms are the most heavily weighted in this index with 28%, followed closely by France with 20%, Japan with 16% and the U.K. with 14%. Eleven other countries make up the remaining 22%.

Another difference is the purity of the plays. The 41-stock PowerShares and 36-stock First Trust include health care and information technology companies. Firms such as Millipore () and Itron () make only a portion of revenue from a water-related service or product. PowerShares includes General Electric () and other industrials that derive only a part of revenue from services related to water.

Claymore holds 50 utilities and industrial firms that make water treatment chemicals, pump equipment, motors, plumbing equipment and fluid meters.

PowerShares and First Trust have a 75% overlap with each other, while about half of Claymore’s holdings overlap with the other two, Magoon said.