Leaders call for urgent financial reforms
By Adrian Croft and Sebastian Tong
WATFORD (Reuters) - Centre-left leaders from around the world called on Saturday for urgent reform of global financial institutions to prevent a recurrence of the credit crisis.
About a dozen leaders, brought together by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, issued a communique urging the International Monetary Fund to help develop an effective early warning system to guard against financial risks to the global economy.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the world had to learn the lessons from the credit crisis, sparked eight months ago by massive default on U.S. sub-prime mortgage debt.
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"Too often in the past when these sorts of events have occurred ... the lessons are lost. The lessons must be learned and applied, otherwise we will face a very rocky future indeed," Rudd told a news conference after the "Progressive Governance" conference outside London.
The leaders, also including South African President Thabo Mbeki, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, gathered just before key Group of Seven and IMF meetings in Washington next week which wi