Week in pictures

Monday: The market turmoil continued, with the FTSE 100 index suffering its biggest ever one-day points fall and its third biggest percentage drop, while Wall Street dipped below 10,000 points for the first time in four years Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

1,263,158 frontline RBS staff (average salary: £19,000) Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP

Tuesday: As banks shares nosedived, Downing Street was forced to act, suddenly announcing that Gordon Brown would meet the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, on Tuesday evening Photograph: Leon Neal /AFP

Wednesday: Gordon Brown announced the use of up to £50bn of taxpayers' money to take major stakes in high street banks, in a last-ditch attempt to restore confidence in the financial system. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Press Association

Wednesday: The most concerted effort yet by global authorities to bring an end to the 14-month credit crunch, using every weapon in their arsenal, failed to restore battered confidence. Stockmarkets tumbled despite a £500bn bank rescue package from the British government and unprecedented interest rate cuts from the world's key central banks Photograph: Leon Neal /AFP

Thursday night/Friday morning: Market sentiment remained extremely fragile. The Dow Jones industrial average dived by 678 points to 8,579 in the blue chip index's third worst points fall of all time as alarm over the stability of the global financial system took hold Photograph: Spencer Platt/guardian.co.uk

Friday: World stockmarkets slumped in the wake of Wall Street's late decline as global recession fears increased - the FTSE 100 lost 10% in early trading as traders dumped shares Photograph: Akira Suemori/AP

This week saw a sub-plot to the credit crunch take a dramatic turn. Last week the Icelandic economy started showing distress signals. On Tuesday the UK government faced the very real prospect of the first British consumers losing substantial amounts of their savings following the collapse of the popular internet bank Icesave Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

Wednesday: The prime minister and chancellor threatened legal action over any losses incurred by British citizens as banks are nationalised Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP

Thursday: The Icelandic government seized control of the country's largest bank, Kaupthing, as its prime minister urged savers not to stampede to withdraw cash. A Treasury team was dispatched to Iceland on Friday to heal the diplomatic rift Photograph: Bob Strong/Reuters

Thursday: Gordon Brown branded Iceland's failure to guarantee British savings in its failed banks as 'totally unacceptable and illegal', amid warnings that more than 100 local councils, police authorities and fire services have up to £1bn lost in its bankrupted system Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP

Other business news: Citigroup is flexing its muscles in a tug-of-war for control of struggling Wachovia through an aggressive legal and financial effort to defeat a rival bid by California-based Wells Fargo Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Vodafone is putting pressure on Apple's iPhone with news that it has clinched an exclusive deal to offer the first touchscreen phone made by mobile email specialist BlackBerry in time for Christmas Photograph: PR/PR