Global stocks fall on swine flu fears

Global stocks have fallen further amid concerns over the US banking system and mounting fears over a swine flu pandemic. The MSCI world equity index fell 1.4 percent, extending Monday's losses after seven weeks of gains, and the FTSEurofirst 300 index dropped more than 2 percent. The decline comes after The Wall Street Journal reported that US regulators have told Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc they may need to raise more capital following the initial results of stress tests on 19 US banks. Futures on the US S&P 500 pointed to a weaker start in Wall Street. The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised its alert level on swine flu to a phase four, or two steps short of the first full pandemic in 40 years. Alert level four means the virus is showing a sustained ability to pass from human to human and is able to cause community-level outbreaks. New cases of the virus were confirmed in New Zealand and Israel on Tuesday. Britain, Canada, Spain and the US have also confirmed cases but so far the deaths have not spread beyond Mexico, where the outbreak began. Mexico has raised the number of probable deaths to 152, with 1,614 suspected sufferers under observation.