Washington  - The White House on Friday said it would consider using funds from the 700-billion-dollar financial rescue to bail out ailing carmakers after a plan to save the industry failed in the US Congress.

"It is disappointing that while appropriate and effective legislation to assist and restructure troubled automakers received majority support in both houses, Congress nevertheless failed to pass final legislation," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.

Riga - The Latvian parliament completed an extraordinary 20- hour sitting Friday morning as part of its bid to win approval from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic assistance package thought to be worth up to 6 billion dollars.

The parliament commenced its sitting at 9 am on Thursday and finally broke up at 5 am Friday morning.

According to the legislation passed by parliament, Latvia will save around 1 billion lats (1.85 billion dollars) by cutting spending and increasing revenues in 2009, a sum equivalent to 7 per cent of the small Baltic state's gross domestic product.

London  - Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Friday shrugged off German criticism of Britain's approach to the current global financial crisis.

Washington  - It was a little more than two months ago that US financial institutions convinced Congress to approve a 700- billion-dollar package to rescue them from the brink of collapse, arguing that the banking sector's survival was critical to the country's wider economy.

This week, the United States' three iconic carmakers failed to convince legislators that their industry deserved the same treatment. Senate talks on a 14-billion-dollar bail-out for the industry collapsed Thursday night.

Seoul - South Korea's central bank said on Friday that it has arranged new deals to expand its bilateral currency swap facilities with Japan and China.

Under the new won-yen swap deals, South Korea can secure access to a total of 30 billion US dollars in a credit line from the Bank of Japan (BOJ).

South Korea can access about 28 billion US dollars in credit from the People's Bank of China.

Under a May 2005 arrangements already in place, South Korea can access a 13-billion-US-dollar credit line from the BOJ and 4 billion US dollars from the People's Bank of China.

Washington - A last-ditch effort to pass an emergency loan that would resuscitate the ailing US car industry fell apart late Thursday after negotiations collapsed in the Senate.

After hours of bargaining, Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on a compromise deal.

The bone of contention was the powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) union's refusal to agree to Republican demands for wage cuts and reduction in labour costs to the level of Japanese competitors operating in the US.