Frankfurt - A tumultuous trading week on global share markets drew to a close Friday, with European bourses defying renewed volatility on Wall Street and holding on to gains run up during the day.

After closing down 5 per cent on Thursday, Europe's blue-chip Stoxx 50 index headed toward the end of the week up 3.8 per cent, at 2,219 points.

The close came despite the fact that Wall Street opened down as further data underscored the grim state of the US housing market, which is already in crisis.

London, Europe's leading stock market, headed into the end of week with a gain of about 2 per cent, while Paris's CAC 40 index edged up 0.91 per cent, following a 4.37-per-cent jump shortly after opening on Friday.

London - Nationalized Northern Rock mortgage lender was Friday accused of being the "most aggressive" among British banks on the sensitive issue of home repossessions, a charge it immediately rejected.

A BBC report, based on information gained from charities linked to mortgage lending, said Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-biggest lender, was twice as likely as other banks to move to repossess a home.

"There's not a lot of flexibility being shown by Northern Rock," Chris Tapp, director of the charity Credit Action, said. "They are not giving people a lot of time, they seem to be moving for repossessions quite quickly as a resort."

Paris (dpa) - French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has asked the
government's bank oversight authority to look into the country's
second-largest banking group, Caisse d'Epargne, after it announced a
loss of 600 million euros (804 million dollars) in a derivatives trade,
French radio reported Friday.

The loss, which the bank described as a "market incident," occurred
during the week of October 6, when the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index lost
22 per cent of its value.

The Caisse d'Epargne, which controls some 358 billion euros in
savings deposits, said Friday in a statement that the loss was caused
by "the extreme volatility of the markets and the stock market crash of
the week of October 6."

Beijing - Thousands of workers were made redundant in southern China after the global recession and rising costs forced more than 3,000 toy makers out of business, state media said on Friday.

More than 6,000 workers at two plants lost their jobs this week when Hong Kong-based company Smart Union closed two toy factories in Dongguan, Guangdong province, the official China Daily said.

"The main reason for the closure is that we are too dependent on the US market, which has become sluggish," the newspaper quoted Xu Xiaofang, a Smart Union personnel officer, as saying.

Riga - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are among those that could experience an Iceland-style economic crisis according to two new reports.

"The markets are asking the question 'Which country will be the next to fall?' The markets seem to have decided that Hungary will be the next Iceland. However, there are other countries that share some unpleasant similarities with Iceland," said a Danske Bank report.

Berlin - The German Parliament lower house signed off Friday on Chancellor Angela Merkel's 500-billion-euro (683.1-billion-dollar) bank rescue package aimed at shoring up international investor confidence following weeks of share market turmoil.

Merkel unveiled the plan on Monday as part of a concerted effort by governments around the world to stabilize markets and to help troubled financial institutions limp through the crisis, which was triggered last year by an upheaval in the risky US subprime mortgage business.