Washington  - The World Bank will be prodding finance ministers this week to help poor countries that have been left out of global efforts to combat the financial crisis, the development bank's chief said Tuesday.

Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said the Group of 20 (G20) nations summit earlier this month in London addressed many of the "big global financial problems" facing the world's economies but provided little or no money for struggling developing countries.

Riga  - The Latvian government outlined a bleak scenario Tuesday of spending cuts even more stringent than those already announced as the embattled Baltic state struggles to meet economic criteria laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking after a lengthy extraordinary meeting of the cabinet, Finance Minister Einars Repse said the situation "forces us to look into expenses we promised to leave untouched earlier."

Those expenses are likely to include politically sensitive items such as pensions and healthcare, which had been partially shielded during earlier rounds of cutbacks.

Nifty showed increased volatility around 3430 -3450 which happens to be the 200 DMA of the market and closed below this at 3384. Increasing volatility at this level is obvious as Nifty has rallied almost 1000 points from 2540 to 3510.

A consolidation can be seen around levels of 3150-3400 before market makes new highs.

Asian stocks declined, dragging the regional benchmark index from a three?

Dhaka  - Bangladesh on Sunday announced an economic stimulus package worth over 500 million US dollars to offset the fallout of global economic meltdown, officials said.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith announced the package amounting to Tk 3,424 crore (500 million US dollars) for the fourth quarter of the current fiscal to increase subsidies in power and agriculture sector, and export sectors.

Kiev  - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to greenlight an additional 2.8 billion dollars assistance loan to Ukraine, IMF officials in Kiev said on Friday.

An IMF mission visiting the former Soviet republic recommended Ukraine receive the badly-needed credit after meetings with the country's government.

At least half of the money to be advanced by the IMF will go towards balancing Ukraine's budget, mostly by helping service foreign-issue bonds, Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said, according to an Interfax news agency report.