Frankfurt  - The European Central Bank was joined by the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan in pumping more than 150 billion dollars into financial markets in attempts to stem the tide in the fallout from the US credit crunch.

The ECB on Tuesday pumped 70 billion euros (99.9 billion dollars) into financial institutions, in addition to the 30 billion euros that it provided on Monday.

Stockholm/Oslo  - The Oslo bourse on Tuesday afternoon hit an annual low before rebounding on the news that US Federal Reserve had injected 50 billion dollars of reserves into the banking system.

The Oslo index was down almost 9 per cent before clawing back, and with less than a half hour of the trading session was down 4.3 per cent.

Shares in oil companies including state-controlled Statoil Hydro were impacted as crude prices declined.

Taipei  - Taiwan on Tuesday suspended the operations of the local unit of the investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and said it might help Taiwan investors seek damages from its US-based parent company.

On the order of the Financial Supervisory Commission, investigators went to Lehman Brothers' Taipei office to check the company's financial records.

The commission ordered the Taiwan office to suspend operations until the parent company's financial crisis is over.

New York - The largest US investment bank Goldman Sachs on Tuesday announced a third-quarter profit loss of 845 million dollars, but stressed the company was doing better than its competitors.

The loss compares to a 2.9 billion dollar profit for the same quarter in 2007, the bank said in a statement from in New York.

Despite the loss, Goldman Sachs could boast that it was still a going concern unlike competitors Lehman Brothers (which filed for bankruptcy Monday) and Merrill Lynch
(which was sold to the Bank of America).

The government has ruled out, any plans of privatize public sector banks of the country. It has advised to the Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) to call off its proposed two day strike. The bank union has announced a two day strike on September 24 and 25 against the privatization of public sector banks. The center government said that it would hold 51 percent stakes in all government banks which would not affect their character. The union government hopes that the union would call off the strike for the overall interests of the people of country.

Manila - Developing Asia's economic growth is expected to slow down in the next two years due to high oil and food prices and an economic slump in industrial countries, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Tuesday.

The Manila-based ADB said developing Asian economies will revert to moderate growth of 7.5 per cent in 2008 and 7.2 per cent in 2009 after posting their fastest growth of 9.0 per cent in 2007.