BERLIN — The European Central Bank is opening its money taps wide to prop up an increasingly shaky banking sector and keep the region’s debt crisis from spawning the type of credit crunch that plunged the global economy into recession two years ago. In the move announced Thursday, the top monetary authority for the 17 euro nations offered to flood banks with any amount of one-year loans through 2013. The hope is that will shield them from malfunctioning credit markets, in which banks are becoming too worried to lend to each other, and keep loans flowing to businesses and households.

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