PM wants global "cooperation" amid financial crisis
Thursday, 25 September 2008 12:00 AM
Gordon Brown says the international community can "work together" to solve the international financial crisis, as he prepares to travel to Washington.
The prime minister, speaking to reporters in New York after meetings with world leaders, said he had talked to "every continent in the last few hours" over a number of proposals he is putting forward.
Mr Brown wants a global early warning system to be put in place as well as a "college of supervisors" to enforce more rigorous international regulation of firms operating in more than one country.
"I think people are starting to realise we must take action as soon as possible so we can build confidence in the international system as well," he said.
"The important thing now is we stabilise the system, we then move forward as quickly as possible with a timetable of action for the changes that are necessary."
Mr Brown threw his support behind the $700 billion (£377 billion) rescue plan put forward by US president George Bush, saying it was an "essential element" to rebuild confidence in the US' system.
He explained different countries need different measures, saying Britain has a smaller number of institutions and pointing out its "special liquidity facility" which has made available more than £100 billion.
"Each country will do what is necessary for their country to do," he added.
The prime minister will fly to the White House for talks with Mr Bush tomorrow. Security issues like Georgia are expected to be included in the talks, before Mr Brown addresses the UN on the millennium development goals.
In his speech to the Labour party conference this week, Mr Brown stressed the importance of international development.
"This Labour government will not allow the world to stand by as more than 20,000 children die today from diseases we know how to cure," he told delegates.
"We will not pass by as 100 million men, women and children face a winter of starvation.
"So the poor will not go unheard tomorrow at the United Nations, because we the British people will speak up for them and for justice."
Yesterday evening Mr Brown met Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in bilateral talks, winning a pledge that China would "look seriously" at a number of Britain's development initiatives.
At the halfway point towards achieving the goals, the UN has admitted that none are likely to be achieved in Africa by 2015.
The fact that large pockets of people across the world are still living in extreme poverty is being exacerbated by rises in global food and fuel prices, as well as climate change.
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