LONDON – World leaders pledged $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to struggling countries and agreed Thursday to crack down on tax havens and hedge funds — but failed to reach sweeping accord on more stimulus spending to attack the global economic decline.
At the end of a highly anticipated one-day gathering, leaders of the Group of 20 nations said they would upgrade an existing financial forum to serve as an early warning monitor to flag problems in the global financial system.
They did not, however, satisfy U.S. and British calls for new stimulus measures. Nor did European politicians get their goal of a global financial superregulator.
The leaders did bridge several gaps between the United States and some European nations over how far to regulate the market and how to curb the excesses that sparked the global economic crisis.
President Barack Obama, in his first major venture into international diplomacy, failed to get U.S. trading partners to spend more money on job-creating stimulus programs, as the U.S. and Britain have done. The proposal was opposed strongly by France and Germany.
However, it had become clear long before the gathering began that there was little support for more such stimulus spending outside the U.S. and Britain.
“I think we did OK,” Obama told reporters afterward. “We have agreed on a series of unprecedented steps to restore growth and prevent a crisis like this happening again… We have created as fundamental a reworking of resources to these international financial institutions as anything we’ve done in the last several decades.”
Obama’s words echoed comments by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the French and German leaders.
Thursday’s gathering was called in hopes of restoring faith in the global financial system — and in one possible gauge of success, European and U.S. markets surged ahead as the outcome of the summit came into view.
The biggest headline figure was the new money for the International Monetary Fund, which helps out governments that run into financial trouble from the crisis, and other development organizations to send credit to countries that have seen it dry up.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who earlier had threatened earlier to walk out if unsatisfied with the outcome, also praised Obama for helping to create consensus and persuade China to agree to publish lists of tax havens.
“There were moments of tension,” Sarkozy said. “Never would we have thought to get as big an agreement.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the measures “a very, very good, almost historic compromise” that will give the world “a clear financial markets architecture.”
“For the first time we have a common approach to cleaning up banks around the world to restructuring of the world financial system. We have maintained our commitment to help the world’s poorest,” Brown said. “This is a collective action of people around the world working at their best.”
The G-20 leaders also said that developing nations — hard-hit and long complaining of marginalization — would get a greater say in world economic affairs. They said they would renounce protectionism and pledged $250 billion in trade finance over the next two years — a key measure to help struggling developing countries.
The leaders also agreed to new rules on linking executive pay to performance, Brown said.
Despite the announcement of a global supervisory body to flag problems, Sarkozy lost his bid for a global regulatory czar that could actual enforce regulations inside U.S. and other countries.
Obama said that the comprehensive deal was just the beginning, and the world’s problems “are not going to be solved in one meeting, they’re not going to be solved in two meetings.”
G-20 leaders agreed to gather again to assess progress on their commitments at the sidelines of the annual U.N. summit in New York in September.
Police were out in force for the G-20 summit Thursday, swarming the east London riverside site after demonstrations in the city’s financial district on Wednesday turned spordically violent.
Police boats patrolled the Thames river as small groups of demonstrators protested world poverty and climate change. Over 110 people were arrested over two days, police said.
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AP reporters Jorge Sainz, David Stringer, Emma Vandore and Pan Pylas contributed to this report.
LONDON (Apr 1) –
Angry protestors smashed through police lines and broke into a bank in London’s financial district on Wednesday, amid ugly scenes on the eve of a major economic summit here.
Riot police on horseback were deployed to push back demonstrators who attacked a branch of the state-controlled lender Royal Bank of Scotland in central London.
Thousands of angry anti-capitalist demonstrators, meanwhile, surrounded the Bank of England in the British capital’s financial district, while anti-war activists protested outside the US embassy in west London.
Riot police could be seen inside the RBS branch, trying to prevent demonstrators from entering the building, as other protestors threw missiles including bottles, cans and shoes at police outside.
“Scum” and “Beat inflation — eat the rich,” were sprayed in graffiti on the ouside of the branch, which was closed for the day.
At one point a protestor in a black balaclava pulled himself up to get into a window of the bank, but a policeman wielding a riot shield repelled him from inside.
Outside the Bank of England, frontline activists scuffled with police, hurling taunts, paint bombs and fruit, while police responded with occasional baton blows to keep masked demonstrators back.
Eleven people were arrested after a renovated armoured personnel carrier was stopped near the financial district, a police spokesman said. The group inside had at least one police uniform.
Police estimated about 4,000 demonstrators were in the streets of the main banking district.
About 5,
000 officers were deployed to protect US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other Group of 20 leaders who will hold a summit on Thursday.
Anti-globalisation and anti-war protesters and climate campaigners joined with activists demanding more help for the poor and the punishment of bankers they blame for the economic crisis.
In one street, a band played reggae and rock music while a shop dummy dressed as a banker was hanged by a noose from a lamp post and fake money was thrown in the air.
A protestor dressed as the Grim Reaper led the rally to Britain’s central bank, where demonstrators chanted: “Build a bonfire, build a bonfire. Put the bankers on the top.”
The Times newspaper described the pre-summit security lockdown as “Fortress London”.
The possibility of a terror attack is also taken seriously, and while there is no specific intelligence police are on high alert with the national terror threat level at “severe”, meaning an attack is “highly likely.”
All leave for London police has been cancelled and reinforcements were called in from other forces.
Officers began searching the summit venue, the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands, and other key sites last week, while a marine unit patrolled the River Thames. Across the river from the centre, a banner read: “Smash Capitalism”.
The mix of causes — ranging from action on climate change to demands for an end to Western involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan — could be seen in the banners. “Can we overthrow the government? Yes we can!” said one banner in the streets referring to US President Obama’s election campaign slogan.
Other protestors carried a giant yellow canary on a stretcher, with a sign reading “RIP Canary Wharf, 1990-2009”, referring to the east London area dominated by investment banks and finance firms.
LONDON/BERLIN, March 29 (Reuters) –
Tens of thousands of people marched in capital cities across Europe on Saturday to protest about the economic crisis and urge world leaders to act on poverty, jobs and climate change at a G20 summit next week.
Chanting “tax the rich, make them pay,” protesters marched through London waving banners saying “People before Profit,” at the start of a week of protests that reflected growing public anger over bankers’ pay and their role in the crisis.
Leaders from the world’s 20 biggest economies meet in London on Thursday to discuss how tighter regulation of financial markets, billions of dollars in stimulus measures and credit lines for international trade can help the world economy recover from the deepest recession since the 1930s.
In Britain, trade unions, aid agencies, religious groups and environmentalists joined together under the slogan “Put People First” to demand reforms to make the world’s economy fairer.
One group carried a traditional Chinese dragon with the head of a devil papered with dollar bills, calling it “The G20 Monster.” Others waved signs reading “Jobs, Justice, Climate.”
While the atmosphere was generally carnival-like, some marchers jeered when they passed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Downing Street offices. Police said up to 35,000 people took part in the march and subsequent rally in Hyde Park.
“This is going to be a summer of rage for the working class,” said marcher Bryan Simpson, 20, a clerk from Glasgow.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said the protesters should “give us a chance” and listen to what politicians plan to do.
“Hopefully we can make it clear to them we are going to walk away from this G20 meeting with some concrete proposals,” he told reporters in Chile.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he understood people’s concerns, adding, “That is why the action we want to take (at the G20) is designed to answer the questions that the protesters have today.”
BLACK COFFIN
The British protest was mirrored in other major EU nations.
About 15,000 people marched through Berlin with black-clad protestors throwing rocks and bottles at police, setting off fireworks and smashing a police car window. Police said several arrests were made.
Up to 14,000 assembled in Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, police said, as part of a two-city demonstration.
About 6,000 demonstrators, mostly students and trade union members, marched in Rome to protest about a meeting of G8 labor ministers in the city.
Most of the marchers were peaceful, carrying placards and chanting “We won’t pay for the crisis” and other slogans, but one small group smashed the glass front of a bank, and daubed “give us our money back” on the wall in red paint.
Fire-crackers were let off and banks, insurance companies and estate agents were also covered in paint.
“There has been a total failure of creative finance and of an economy based on the exploitation of workers, financial speculation and tax evasion,” said protester Mario Giannini.
In Vienna, police said some 6,500 marched through the Austrian capital under slogans such as “Make The Rich Pay” and “Capitalism Kills.” There was no violence.
In central Paris, a few hundred demonstrators gathered in a protest under the slogan “We will not pay for their crisis.”
While some G20 protesters in London have adopted slogans such as “Hang a Banker” and “Storm the Banks,” organizers of the London march said they had wanted a peaceful day.
A London police spokesman said there was only one arrest, for drunken behavior. However, police have canceled leave in the capital to cope with further protests planned by anarchists.
(Additional reporting by Catherine Bosley in London, Gavin Jones in Rome, Boris Groendahl in Vienna and Adrian Croft in Chile; Writing by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Louise Ireland)
