Moscow - Russia's two leading stock exchanges remained mostly shut for the third day Thursday as stocks took their worst dive since the 1998 financial crisis.

The dollar-denominated RTS is still waiting for permission from the Federal Financial Markets Service to resume trading, the market's press office said.

A spokesman said it was unclear whether the index would open Thursday.

Tokyo - Asia-Pacific stocks on Thursday mirrored the overnight plunges on Wall Street as credit dried up and fears rose that more financial companies would fail.

The biggest drops in the region were seen in Hong Kong, whose benchmark Hang Seng Index fell as much as 7.38 per cent before recovering; the Philippines at 4.25 per cent; and Thailand, which regained some ground after suffering losses of more than 5 per cent during the trading day.

Frankfurt - Major central banks have intervened in foreign exchange markets to improved liquidity, a statement early Thursday from the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt said.

It said the concerted move aimed to ease strains in worldwide exchange of dollars. Together with other moves by individual central banks in recent days, it would improve liquidity on world financial markets.

The participating banks were the ECB, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank.

Madrid - The Ibex-35, the main index of the Madrid stock exchange, dropped 0.09 per cent after trading started Thursday morning.

The main banks evolved unevenly, with Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) and Santander up 1.24 and 0.8 per cent respectively, while Banesto fell by 1.78 per cent.

The energy company Iberdrola rose by 0.72 per cent and the oil company Repsol 1.89 per cent, while the telecommunications giant Telefonica lost 0.24 per cent.

Sydney - More than 2 per cent was wiped off the value of Australian shares Thursday in response to a 4-per-cent fall on Wall Street.

The ASX 200 gave up 115 points, or 2.4 per cent, to close at 4,607.

A fourth day of losses was stemmed by bargain-hunting near the close that dragged the market up from an intraday low of 4,563.

Stocks are now languishing at a three-year low with finance sector counters the worst affected.

New Delhi - India equities fell sharply for the third day on Thursday as the benchmark Sensex shed 5.3 per cent in early trade tracking the deepening global financial crisis after the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The 30-share-sensitive index, which has lost 1,685 points in the last seven trading sessions, plunged 704.76 points to fall to below 13,000 soon after opening.

The index touched a low of 12,558.14 points, a loss of 5.31 per cent, on heavy selling by funds and investors. It later recovered and was trading at 12,790.10 points, a loss of