British Prime Minister Urges New Rules For New Global Order

The Sydney Morning Herald

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says that the current financial crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to create a "new global order", ahead of a week of meetings with world leaders.

Speaking in London, Brown - due to meet the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China in the next seven days - renewed a warning against protectionism, urging countries to instead help set "new rules for this new global order".

"Or we could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth pangs of a new global order, and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global economy, not muddling through as pessimists but making the necessary adjustment to a better future and setting new rules for this new global order."

Brown's spokesman Michael Ellam said that the premier would meet South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo and Japanese premier Taro Aso, as well as World Bank chief Robert Zoellick at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Friday.

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