The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank began their annual meetings Saturday under pressure to tackle the global financial crisis and minimize its impact on the world's poor.

The meetings open after Wall Street's worst weekly rout on record, and as governments around the world struggle to contain the most severe financial meltdown since the 1930s Great Depression.

Finance leaders from the twin institutions' 185 member nations and private financiers gathered in Washington in search of an effective response to the crisis that has slowed the advanced economies to a standstill.

Late Friday, the finance chiefs of the Group of Seven richest industrialised countries agreed to use "all available tools" to support major banks and prevent their failure as they sought to dampen a financial firestorm threatening more mayhem.

Their broad five-point action plan followed another day of massive falls on the markets as investors rushed to the exits, putting G7 officials under intense pressure to come up with a convincing accord.

US President George W. Bush, speaking early Saturday after hosting G7 crisis talks attended by the IMF and World Bank leaders, said that all agreed the world financial meltdown required "a serious global response."

Bush was joined by the G7 finance ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, as well as International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick and other officials.

The central bank chiefs and finance ministers of the Group of 20, a grouping that includes rich and emerging nations, are to hold a crisis meeting Saturday in Washington.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said late Friday he expects emerging nations in the G20 to sign up to the G7 five- point action plan.

"I would be surprised t if they didn't look at the action plans and didn't endorse them," Paulson told reporters.

"Never have all of us been so dependent on the other and so interdependent. We need to work together."

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush said on Saturday after crisis talks with finance ministers from the G7 rich countries that all agreed the world financial meltdown required "a serious global response".

"All of us recognize that this is a serious global crisis and therefore requires a serious global response for the good of our people," Bush said in the White House Rose Garden after the roughly 40-minute meeting.

"The United States has a special role to play in leading the response to this crisis. That's why I convened this morning's meeting here at the White House and it is why our government will continue using all the tools at our disposal to resolve this crisis," he declared.

Bush was joined by finance ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, as well as International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick and other officials.

With some warning that the crisis may be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Bush vowed no repeat of steps that deepened that crisis, such as enacting protectionist steps that choke off trade.

"There have been moments of crisis in the past when powerful nations turned their energies against each other, or sought to wall themselves off from the world," said the US president.

"This time is different: the leaders gathered in Washington this weekend are all working towards the same goals," he said. "We're in this together, we'll come through it together."

Bush hailed international cooperation thus far, and said the Group of Seven would work with an enlarged forum known as the Group of 20 that includes other major economies like China, India and Russia.

"As our nations confront challenges unique to our individual financial systems, we must continue to work collaboratively, and ensure that our actions are coordinated," he said.

"We must ensure the actions of one country do not contradict or undermine the actions of another. In an interconnected world, no nation will gain by driving down the fortunes of another," he warned.