Berlin - Germany is to rush through legislation in the new week to recapitalize its banks with a vast cash injection of up to 100 billion euros (140 billion dollars), according to news reports Saturday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will sign off with euro zone leaders Sunday on the extraordinary bail-out before announcing details.

The website of the German business newspaper Handelsblatt said her cabinet would vote through the plan on Monday.

Dhaka - Businesses and policymakers in Bangladesh said Saturday they fear that the global financial crisis might cause a slump in the country's export earnings as its major export destinations are severely hit by the meltdown.

Businessmen said their buyers in Europe and the US have already started delaying new orders, and economists predict a higher fiscal deficit because of lower foreign capital inflow and external funding to the impoverished South Asian country.

Detroit - US automakers are looking right into an abyss, and experts note that the US economy is facing its next health problem following the collapse of its financial sector.

After a downward slide that has already lasted years, and with losses worth billions of dollars, General Motors (GM) and Ford appear to be racing ever closer to the precipice.

The financial crisis threatens to cut off the funds of the heavily indebted manufacturers. The stock exchange has already discounted the staggering auto giants, as share prices fell even faster than sales figures.

Washington - The United States is open to letting more countries into the select group of top world economies known as the Group of Seven (G7), Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday.

Paulson suggested the current bloc was not broad enough to deal with today's economic problems, in a press conference just after G7 finance ministers and central bank heads met in Washington to discuss the financial crisis.

"I don't think it reflects the global economy today," Paulson said.

Washington - The world's seven leading economies agreed to take "all necessary steps" to tackle a financial crisis that threatens to plunge the world into recession, and promised to provide banks the money they need to stay afloat, according to a joint statement by the Group of Seven on Friday.

The G7 finance ministers and central bank heads called for "urgent and exceptional action" to stabilize the financial system and unblock credit markets that have come to a virtual halt in the United States and Europe.

Washington - The US government plans to take ownership stakes in banks in a fresh bid to restore confidence in financial markets, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday.

The dramatic step comes as part of the 700-billion-dollar rescue package passed by Congress last week that gave the government broad new powers to buy up soured mortgage assets from troubled banks in the United States.