Bangkok - In case anyone had any doubts, the largest bankruptcy in US history plus a bailout of the largest US insurer have demonstrated that Asia is still very much coupled to the world's largest economy.

Asian stock markets suffered sharp declines across the board Monday and Tuesday on the weekend double whammy from across the Pacific, with Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy while Merrill Lynch was taken over by Bank of America.

That was swiftly followed by more bad news that the American Insurance Group (AIG), the world's largest insurer, was seeking a bailout, which it received Tuesday to the tune of 85 billion dollars, much to the relief of AIG policyholders in Asia, including 5.8 million in Thailand and 1 million in Hong Kong.

Berlin - Berlin has ordered an inquiry into reports that Germany's federal-government bank KfW handed over 300 million euros (420 million dollars) to Lehman Brothers only hours before the US investment bank failed, a newspaper said Wednesday.

The Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung said KfW passed the money to Lehman as part of a swap arrangement on Monday, the day the US firm declared insolvency. The impending collapse had been world news since the previous day.

New Delhi - Shares of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, India's largest drugmaker, plunged Wednesday after the United States banned the sale of 30 generic medicines made in two India-based manufacturing units.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US food and pharmaceutical watchdog, issued an import alert Tuesday that blocked entry of the drugs, including generic versions of the antibiotic Cipro and cholesterol medicine Zocor, citing manufacturing deficiencies.

Islamabad - Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Pakistani commanders on Wednesday discussed the security situation along the Afghan frontier, where US pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants has strained relations between the two allies, officials said.

Mullen met Pakistan's military chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in the garrison town of Rawalipindi weeks after both officers reviewed the counter-terrorism strategy aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean.

The talks focused on cooperation between the US and Pakistani forces against international terrorism and recent incursions by American troops into Pakistan.

Berlin - The effects of the Wall Street financial crisis on Germany have been moderate so far, Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Bundestag parliament in Berlin Wednesday.

In a debate on the 2009 federal budget, she said credit to German business had been significantly expanded.

The government was closely watching the crisis and consulting German banking leaders and other governments.

"An open economy like Germany's won't remain completely unaffected by this," she said.

Seoul - US memory card maker SanDisk Corp has rejected Samsung Electronics Co's hostile 5.85-billion-dollar takeover bid, calling it "inadequate."

In a statement released after the markets closed Tuesday in the United States, the Milpitas, California-based SanDisk said its board unanimously decided against the South Korean electronic giant's 26-dollar-per-share offer because it "significantly undervalues SanDisk given the long-term prospects of its business."

Samsung retorted Wednesday that its 26-dollar-per-share cash offer represented a premium of 80 per cent of Monday's stock price and SanDisk "continues to cling to unrealistic expectations on both its standalone market value and an appropriate merger price."