Washington - The world's top economic powers hoped that a guarantee to take action on the financial crisis would be enough to stop a global sell-off in stocks as they kicked off a meeting at the US Treasury on Friday.
But finance ministers and central bank heads from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations were reluctant to offer a common, cross-border solution to shore up banks on the brink of bankruptcy in their own countries.
Frankfurt - European shares plummeted Friday as panic selling spread from Asia and the United States on renewed fears about the economic fallout from the global credit crisis.
Washington - US President George W Bush on Thursday called for a "common policy" between the United States and Europe to address the financial crisis that has threatened the world's economy.
Bush, meeting with Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic, said he discussed "our common desire to work with our European friends to develop a best as possible common policy."
Bratislava - Slovakia, which will switch to the euro on January 1, has no immediate plans to match the European Central Bank's interest-rate cut, a national bank spokeswoman said Thursday.
Slovakia's financial sector has an adequate capital base and enough liquidity to operate at current borrowing costs, spokeswoman Jana Kovacova said.
The Slovakian National Bank will bring interest rates back in line with the ECB at some point before joining the eurozone, she said.
The ECB joined the US, British, Canadian, Swiss and Swedish central banks Wednesday in slashing rates by half a percentage point in a bid to prop up tumbling stock markets and ease frozen-up credit markets.
The move left the ECB's lead rate at 3.75 per cent.
The Canadian maker of the BlackBerry family of smartphones, Research in Motion has unveiled its first ever touch screen device ‘The Storm’ on Wednesday.
Targeted at business and consumer markets, the newly launched device is BlackBerry’s official answer to rival touch-based smartphones launched recently including Apple's 3G iPhone, Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1, T-Mobile's Google Android-powered G1 and Nokia's 5800 music phone launched last week.
‘The 3G Storm’ will be available through Verizon Wireless in the US, and Vodafone in the European market by November 2008.
Washington - The world's top economic powers hoped that a guarantee to take action on the financial crisis would be enough to stop a global sell-off in stocks as they kicked off a meeting at the US Treasury on Friday.
Washington - US President George W Bush on Thursday called for a "common policy" between the United States and Europe to address the financial crisis that has threatened the world's economy.
Frankfurt - European sto
Motion has unveiled its first ever touch screen device ‘The Storm’ on Wednesday. 
