US to take stake in banks, first since Depression

WASHINGTON: The U.S. government will buy an ownership stake in a broad array of American banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said late Friday (Saturday morning in Malaysia), announcing the historic step after stock markets jolted still lower around the world despite all efforts to slow the selling stampede.

Separately, the U.S. and the globe's other industrial powers pledged to take "decisive action and use all available tools'' to prevent a worldwide economic catastrophe.