G7 pledges urgent, decisive action as markets reel

By Emily Kaiser and Claudia Parsons WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Finance chiefs of the world's major economies pledged on Friday to take decisive action and work together to stem the escalating financial crisis after another day of gut-wrenching drops on world markets. Reeling from the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth, investors worldwide had pinned their hopes on decisive action from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations. U.S. stocks pared massive losses in a late recovery. After markets closed, the Group of Seven major industrialized nations said the situation called for "urgent and exceptional action," and pledged to take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets. They said that would include using all tools to prevent systemically important institutions from failure and ensuring that... [read full story]