AFP - European finance ministers were set Tuesday to begin preparing their first joint measure to reassure savers unnerved by the financial crisis by ramping up minimum bank deposit guarantees.

AFP - London's FTSE 100 index of top shares rose 1.50 percent at the start of trading on Tuesday, one day after plunging 7.86 percent on growing fears about the global financial crisis.

AFP - Battered world markets shook off some of their recent gloom Tuesday as European stocks rallied and Asian bourses pulled back from the brink on hopes of cuts to global interest rates.

AFP - The London stock market nosedived 7.85 percent on Monday, hitting a four-year trough on investor concerns about the spreading global financial crisis, dealers said.

Reuters - Governments and central banks around the world grasped at measures to contain the fast-spreading financial crisis on Monday but global stocks still plummeted as investors bet a recession was inevitable.

AP - Germany became the latest country to move to allay fears about the financial meltdown, enhancing a rescue plan for Hypo Real Estate AG and guaranteeing private bank accounts as European governments scrambled on their own Sunday to save failing banks.

AP - Germany on Sunday guaranteed all private bank accounts and negotiated a 50 billion euro ($69 billion) bailout deal for Hypo Real Estate AG as Europe's second largest economy sought to ward off financial crisis.

AP - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her government is working hard to keep Hypo Real Estate AG afloat because it will not let the failure of any company disrupt Europe's biggest economy.

AFP - EU regulators have provisionally approved the original three-country bailout package for troubled finance group Fortis, a spokesman said Sunday, though the deal is swiftly being superceded.