UN Secretary-General: Drastic measures to shore up banks and care to the poor
U.N. chief: ‘Drastic’ action needed for poor. News details: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Friday for “drastic” measures to shore up banks and extend lines of credit to the world’s poorest states, pledging to support European and American efforts to rethink the global financial architecture.
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U.N. secretary-general speaks to agency heads, IMF, World Bank leaders
There is a danger is a succession of cascading financial crises, Moon warns
U.N. chief supports French, UK idea to to consider revamp of global financing system
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Friday for “drastic” measures to shore up banks and extend lines of credit to the world’s poorest states, pledging to support European and American efforts to rethink the global financial architecture.
Moon: The era of self-regulation is over.
He said the era of self-regulation among the biggest banks and other money-lending institutions had ended.
Ban spoke at a closed meeting with top U.N. agency heads, economic advisers and the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund focusing primarily on the global financial crisis. His opening remarks were released by the United Nations.
“The danger is a succession of cascading financial crises,” Ban warned. “This demands drastic measures. The IMF and the world’s central banks may need to set up substantial standby lines of credit for proactive intervention, so that banks in developing nations, too, have adequate funds to draw on in emergency.”
The credit crisis engulfing nations from central Europe to Latin America and emerging markets ranging from Turkey to South Africa “compounds the food crisis, the energy crisis, the crisis of development in Africa,” Ban said.
“It could be the final blow that many of the poorest of the world’s poor simply cannot survive,” he warned. Watch people in Pakistan forced to steal to support families »
Worries expressed at the meeting extended to the goal of reaching international consensus by year’s end on a detailed policy to fight global warming, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said.
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“There’s a general concern that the financial crisis could be used as an excuse to delay action on climate change,” he said in an interview. “But what was a very strong sentiment in the room is that the current financial crisis really should be taken as an opportunity to rethink the way in which investments are made. … Acting on climate change can lead to a green economic revolution.”
As the U.N. officials met, stock markets around the world plummeted amid growing fears that central banks and finance ministers and their governments won’t be able to stanch deepening losses of jobs and corporate profits.
Ban plans to attend President Bush’s November 15 gathering of world leaders in Washington to address the crisis. He also supports a push by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to consider revamping the international financial and monetary system.
Earlier in the week, Ban sought advice from economists Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, Kenneth Rogoff, Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz on how to limit the depth and length of the economic downturn and ease the burden on developing countries.
“It was generally agreed that the era of self-regulation is over,” Ban said in a statement.
He also warned against nations turning to protectionism in response to the economic crisis, saying that making world trade less free would hurt poor countries.
“It would be unacceptable that the least developed countries and the most vulnerable populations were asked to pay for the consequences of a crisis the making of which was entirely outside of their control,” he said.
U.N. chief: ‘Drastic’ action needed for poor. News details: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Friday for “drastic” measures to shore up banks and extend lines of credit to the world’s poorest states, pledging to support European and American efforts to rethink the global financial architecture. Editing by Louis Lee
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