FURTHER NATIONALISATION? UK

Faced with plunging bank stocks and a worsening economic downturn that the £500 billion ($740 billion) rescue plan has failed to stem, the U.K. government now plans to offer banks a number of new measures, featuring a kind of insurance that would limit their losses on mortgage and other loans. The insurance would be aimed at easing worries about the extent of banks' losses and at reviving the market for securities into which banks repackage the loans.

* Britain launches second bank rescue plan in three months

Brown Tightens Grip on Banks as Recession Worsens 

The latest government measures to encourage banks to raise their lending levels are vital to help protect jobs, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.

The taxpayer will be forced to underwrite up to £200 billion of bad banking debt under a government plan to take control of assets belonging to Britain's major high street lenders, The Daily Telegraph can disclose