Washington - The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday offered to trade 30 billion dollars each to the central banks of South Korea, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico in an effort to stop the financial crisis from spreading to the developing world. 

The creation of the new currency swap lines, which will remain open until April 30, comes as the International Monetary Fund created its own new emergency lending programme to help countries facing cash shortfalls amid the ongoing credit crisis. 

The dollar swap will "mitigate the spread of difficulties in obtaining US dollar funding in fundamentally sound and well managed economies," the Fed said in a statement. 

Bangkok - A bomb thrown early Thursday among anti-government protestors gathered at Makkahawan Bridge in Bangkok wounded at least nine people, one of them seriously, radio reports said. 

Los Angeles - Legendary music producer went on trial again Wednesday for the murder of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson, a year after a hung jury resulted in a mistrial. 

In his opening statement, prosecutor Alan Jackson portrayed Spector as a troubled man with a history of resorting to violence and armed threats when women spurned his sexual advances, as the government alleges Clarkson did. 

The case stemmed from the 2003 death of Clarkson, who was found shot to death in the foyer of Spector's castle-like home in Los Angeles after meeting him that night at a club where she was a hostess. Prosecutors allege that Spector shot her in a pique of rage, but Spector and his lawyers have argued that she was despondent and killed herself. 

London - The famous line "The name's Bond ...," the gizmos, gadgets and glib one-liners are missing from Quantum of Solace - in line with Daniel Craig's mission to reinvent James Bond for modern times. 

Following on directly from Casino Royale, the actor's first 007 incarnation, Quantum of Solace provides the viewer with a "leaner, tauter experience," half an hour shorter than the previous 21 Bond films. 

"There is a generation of people who don't know Bond movies and I want them to watch the movies and understand who those characters are," said Craig, 40, in a BBC interview about his mission. 

Washington - With a financial system on the verge of meltdown and an economy facing a prolonged recession, the final weeks of the US election campaign have mostly focused on something much narrower: taxes. 

Some of it is attributable to the sheer complexity of the financial turmoil that has ballooned out of control since September. Mortgage-backed securities, short-selling and mark-to-market accounting don't make for snappy soundbites in a 24-hour news cycle. 

"Part of the reason why taxes matter is that people identify with them," said Roberton Williams, a research associate with the Tax Policy Centre, a non-partisan think-tank. "I mean, what's a credit default swap?"