Washington - The US Treasury official heading up the government's 700-billion-dollar rescue of the financial system said Monday officials were working "quickly but methodically" to implement the plan.

Neel Kashkari outlined the government's progress in the plan to buy up mortgage-backed securities that have weighed on banks' balance sheets, leading to the collapse of several major financial institutions and a freezing of the credit markets over the past several weeks.

Karachi - Pakistan's largest bourse late Monday decided to unfreeze trading by October 27, a senior official told reporters.

Adnan Afridi, managing director of the Karachi Stock Exchange, said the decision was taken tentatively during three days of marathon meetings with the state watchdog Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).

New York  - Stocks opened higher on Wall Street on Monday as news of European financial rescue plans heartened US investors.

Within the first hour of trading, stocks were up about 5 per cent on the major US indices. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average picked up 420.62 points, or 4.98 per cent, to 8,871.81 by
10:36 am (1436 GMT). The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 46.52 points, or 5.17 per cent, to 945.74, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gained 86.63 points, or 5.25 per cent, to 1,736.14.

London - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised an "end to rewards for failure" while annoucing details of a 37-billion pound (65-billion-dollar) bank bail-out package in London on Monday.

The package, which will see the British government taking significant ownership in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and a merged Lloyds TSB and HBOS, comes with the proviso of no bonuses for the executives of banks that receive public funds.

London - Britain's Lloyds TSB bank is to renegotiate its