G7: Need for Urgent Action on Crisis

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. and its closest allies agreed on common guidelines to address the world financial crisis, a move that opens the way for a series of government actions, but falls short of the joint plan that many investors had sought. While global stock markets, haunted by the specter of world-wide recession, continued to fall, top finance officials from the Group of Seven major economic powers tried to add coherence to what has so far been an every-country-for-itself approach that, at times, has appeared to complicate the crisis. Getty Images France and Germany's finance ministers and Treasury Secretary Paulson outside the U.S. Treasury Department. "Never has it been more essential to find collective solutions to ensure stable and efficient financial markets and restore the health of the world economy," Treasury... [read full story]