Amsterdam - Dutch bank and insurance giant ING Group suffered a loss of 478 million euros (609.93 million dollars) in the third quarter of 2008, the firm's first-ever quarterly loss, ING reported on Wednesday.

The quarterly report said the loss was partly the result of write-downs of more than 1.5 billion euros on ING's various assets, including those related to the US real-estate market.

In the third quarter of 2007, ING posted a net profit of 2.3 billion euros.

Wednesday's quarterly report did not come as a surprise.

Kathmandu  - Nepal's exports of ready-made clothes have suffered considerably because of the financial crisis in the United States, officials said Wednesday.

The United States is Nepal's main buyer for ready-made clothing, importing as much as 85 per cent of Nepal's garment exports.

"The export of ready-made clothing to the United States fell by 47 per cent until October 2008," the Garment Industries Association said. "The fall in exports was aggravated by financial crisis in the United States."

Beijing - Christmas is normally a happy time for the millions of workers at vast factory complexes in China's southern manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong province.

The workers can relax in the knowledge that the export orders they have just completed will bring them relative prosperity, at least for a few months.

But this year, Christmas will instead be an anxious time for many Guangdong workers as they seek new jobs before they use up their dwindling savings.

Washington  - Since its rededication in the 1980s, the National Building Museum has become one of Washington's newest, yet oldest, gems - a 19th century brick building inspired by Michelangelo design and now dedicated to architectural ideas.

In fact, when the leaders of 20 world leading economies meet there Saturday for the hastily assembled economic crisis summit, there may be an unseen guest in the room which also had its origins in the 1980s: financial greed.

Washington/Brussels  - Governments around the world have committed at least 4 trillion dollars in the scramble to save banks and other pillars of the world finance industry and free up credit, in the hope of easing a looming global slowdown.

The financial sector has already written down more than 500 billion dollars since late 2006, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected total losses of 1.4 trillion dollars by the time the crisis ends.

Overview of rescue moves by major governments:

Berlin - European leaders travel to Washington this week for the summit of Group of 20 (G20) major economies with an ambitious set of plans for reforming the world financial system and facing up to the threat of a sharp economic slowdown.

But the package of measures that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to present in Washington on behalf of the 27-member European Union has been shorn of the high-minded calls for overhauling capitalism which emerged at the height of the financial firestorm that swept global markets only weeks ago.