Paris  - The four European members of the G8 group of leading industrial nations are to meet Saturday in Paris to discuss a European response to the economic crisis, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told the French radio station Europe 1 on Wednesday.

In addition to officials from France, Germany, Italy and Britain, European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet and Juncker, as head of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, will take part in the meeting.

Speaking on France 24 television late Tuesday, the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said Brussels was preparing several measures, "and not only on the European level; something must be done on the global level as well."

Warsaw  - Poland's government signalled Wednesday that European Union officials have refused privatization plans for its ailing shipyards and said it would ask Brussels for an explanation.

Workers at the shipyards on Poland's Baltic coast, birthplace of the Solidarity trade union that helped bring down communism, threatened to hold strikes.

Finance Minister Aleksander Grad's remarks came amid media reports that European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes rejected the Polish plan at a meeting with Grad in Brussels on Tuesday.

Grad stopped short of confirming the reports, but accused Brussels of failing to show good will in solving the dispute - an emotional one the historic connection with Solidarity.

Brussels  - The European Union on Wednesday approved in record time Britain's nationalization of troubled financier Bradford & Bingley, the country's eighth-biggest mortgage lender, saying that it was in line with EU rules.

On Monday the British government decided to take the lender into public ownership and sell off its savings and deposits business to Spanish banking giant Santander in a deal which the buyer valued at 612 million pounds (1.1 billion dollars).

The move was made in consultation with experts from the EU's executive, the European Commission, which oversees the bloc's rules on competition and state aid.

Paris  - Buoyed by Wall Street's strong rebound, French shares on Wednesday continued to make up losses from earlier in the week as rumours swirled that a large French bank was in trouble.

The Paris Bourse's blue-chip CAC 40 was up 0.58 per cent, at 4,055.47, in mid-morning trade, with advancing issues outpacing losers by about three to one.

The French-Belgian bank Dexia, which is to receive an injection of 6.4 billion euros (9.05 billion dollars) from the French, Belgian and Luxembourg governments, led the gainers, up 6.3 per cent to 7.99 euros.

Other financial stocks were faring less well, with insurance giant Axa and the banks BNP Paribas and Societe Generale all on the losing side of the ledger.

Frankfurt - World demand for machinery is slumping fast, according to Germany's VDMA federation of machinery and plant builders in Frankfurt Wednesday.

In the latest sign of recession, it said orders from abroad in August were down 19 per cent in price-neutral terms compared to one year before. Domestic orders rose 6 per cent in the same period.

The industry, a key to German prosperity, saw combined orders decline 10 per cent.

VDMA senior economist Ralph Wiechers cautioned that a few big orders had distorted the picture, but said the overall trend was clearly downwards.

Manila - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Wednesday it extended a 250-million-dollar loan to help strengthen the Philippine government's fiscal management and reform programmes.

The Manila-based ADB said the loan will help the Philippine government in dealing with the adverse impact of the recent developments in the global economy.

It will also boost the government's efforts to implement measures to strengthen the investment climate with focus on reducing red tape, and support for infrastructure policy and rural development.