Japan's economy minister said recession in the world's second-biggest economy could last longer than feared. In the United States and Britain measures of inflation fell sharply, paving the way for further interest rate cuts.
And in an illustration of the alarm gripping America's auto industry and the impact of U.S. troubles on economies well beyond its frontiers, Ford Motor Co decided to sell its controlling interest in Japan's Mazda Motor Corp.
Banking, seat of a crisis inflicting the sharp international slowdown, also showed the strain. Britain's Barclays altered fund-raising plans to quell shareholder anger and profits in Japan's largest bank tumbled.
In Washington, Bush administration officials defended the decision to use bailout funds to recapitalize financial institutions, instead of buying bad assets as had been originally proposed.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in testimony to the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said the global slump had become so severe that "an asset purchase program would not be effective enough, quickly enough."
In a rare spot of positive corporate news, though, U.S. computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co said it expects its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings to beat Wall Street forecasts, and predicted a profit for the coming year that topped analysts' estimates.
Technology had been seen as an area particularly vulnerable to cutbacks in corporate spending, and HP's comments offset worries about the economic slump to help send U.S. stocks up at the opening. European shares turned flat after declines in Japan.
The economic crisis has spread steadily in recent weeks beyond major developed countries, with states from Ukraine and Iceland to Pakistan seeking help from the IMF.
"It is true to say that because of globalization the amount which the IMF is asking for is increasing, and increasing rapidly, and the list of countries asking for some support is increasing every day," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a news conference on a visit to Libya.
He had said his organization was likely to need at least $100 billion in extra funding over the next six months to help countries out of the mire.
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