NEW YORK -- One of the biggest corporate casualties of the global credit crisis, Bear Stearns Cos., is about to vanish into history.

PARIS -- Credit Agricole said Thursday it plans to sell $7.72 billion worth of assets and named a new leader at its investment bank. The French bank, shaken by the global credit crisis, will also seek $9.1 billion in new capital.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve announced Friday that it will expand a series of efforts to deal with the global credit crisis, in coordination with European central banks.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Major banks have rushed to tap Japan's investors as the global credit crisis made lenders wary elsewhere and more banks are expected to take advantage so long as U.S. and European markets are under strain.

NEW YORK -- Wall Street rallied Wednesday after better-than-expected quarterly results from JPMorgan Chase and two other Dow Jones industrials raised investors' hopes that companies and the economy are indeed recovering from the protracted global credit crisis. The Dow rose more than 250 points as investors shrugged off any concerns about oil passing $115 a barrel for the first time.

RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Overseers of the U.S. and international financial system need to quickly put reforms in place to restore confidence in markets disrupted by a global credit crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON -- The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said the global credit crisis, despite some recent improvement, remains a significant threat to economic growth.

PURCHASE, N.Y. -- Morgan Stanley Chief Executive John Mack said Tuesday that Wall Street is facing the most difficult conditions that he has seen in 40 years, but he feels the global credit crisis might be "in the final innings."

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks sank on Monday to their lowest level since August 2007 and the dollar tumbled, as the fire sale of ailing U.S. bank Bear Stearns and the Federal Reserve's emergency cut in its discount rate intensified concerns that there could be more victims of the global credit crisis.

Bear Stearns, squeezed by the sub-prime crisis, needs an emergency loan. Its stock plunges, and wariness grows. The battered global financial system looked a lot more fragile Friday as one of Wall Street's biggest investment houses was forced to get an emergency loan from the Federal Reserve, raising the specter of more giant securities firms laid low by the global credit crisis.