U.S. stock markets gyrated wildly yesterday as the world's top finance ministers met in Washington to hammer out a joint set of principles aimed at containing the financial crisis and restoring badly damaged confidence.

NEW DELHI -- With freshly cut keys to their new brick-and-cement homes, families in an impoverished settlement on the outskirts of India's capital honored a surprising hero this week: Richard S. Fuld Jr., head of the now-defunct wall street giant Lehman Brothers.

The sky over Tokyo seemed to fall in September of 1990, when the Nikkei stock index dove almost 20 percent in one month. Real estate prices would plummet and the financial sector would crack, trapping Japan in a "lost decade" of economic growth. Is the United States now set for its own?

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the U.S. government is prepared to purchase equity in financial institutions and to insure mortgage assets to protect the U.S. economy. Paulson briefed the press on these issues after a meeting of the G-7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors on Friday.

WORLD finance ministers were last night under growing pressure to intervene to bring down the crucial inter-bank lending rate as it continued to rise despite the massive injec

WHERE will the blame be laid when the current turmoil engulfing the world economy has run its course?

Gasoline prices fell nearly 6 cents a gallon, coming within 30 cents of $3, according to a daily survey of credit card swipes.

President bush on Saturday once again tried to reassure a nervous public that world leaders were working together to address the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

President bush this morning called on world governments to continue working together in a bid to stabilize collapsing financial markets.

President bush was short of specifics in his brief statement after Saturday morning's meeting. Will the meeting itself be enough to calm the worldwide markets after the weekend, or will the finance ministers have to offer a concrete plan to stabilize the world's financial systems?