Kuwait City - ­ Kuwait halted trading in its stock exchange on Thursday after traders demanded action to stop major losses, the country's trade minister and its state news agency said.

The halt in trading came after a court order on Thursday.

Minister of Trade and Industry Ahmad Baqer told Al-Arabiya TV that trading could resume on Sunday.

The station showed footage of traders protesting at the stock exchange.

Beijing - Shares on China's two stock markets jumped about 4 per cent Thursday, spurred by government economic measures and bucking the downward trend of other Asian markets.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in foreign and local currencies, gained 3.68 per cent to end the day at 1,927.61, up 68.5 points.

Jakarta  - Indonesian stocks dropped

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares dropped by more than 5 per cent Thursday an investors dumped stocks following overnight losses on Wall Street and deepening gloom over the economy.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 717.74 points, or 5.15 per cent, to 13,221.35 points. Turnover was 51.7 billion Hong Kong dollars
(6.67 billion US dollars.)

The closing figures, which took the index to a two-week low, represented a marginal improvement on earlier in the day, when shares plunged by more than 6 per cent in the first minutes of trading.

Kuwait - The oil-rich Gulf state of Kuwait halted its share trading by a court order on Thursday after significant losses on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE), Kuwait news agency KUNA reported.

The court decision came to prevent further losses among traders, after the KSE price index fell to 8,691 points on Thursday, a drop of 160.1 points.

Director of KSE Saleh al-Falah was informed of the court's decision early Thursday, he said that the suspension will continue until November 17, KUNA reported.

Seoul - Shares nosedived Thursday on t