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World Leaders On The Great Challenges That Lie Ahead

US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson

French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Silvio Berlusconi

European Central Bank chief jean-Claude Trichet

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British prime minister
Gordon Brown: warns of the current situation that "this is not a time for outdated thinking or conventional dogma; extraordinary times call for bold and far-reaching solutions."

US Treasury secretary
Hank Paulson warns more American companies and banks will continue to collapse in coming weeks and months despite the bailout plan. "The turmoil will not end quickly and significant challenges remain ahead. Neither passage of this new law nor the implem-entation of these initiatives will bring an immediate end to current difficulties. US and global financial markets continue to be severely strained."

Germany's finance minister
Peer Steinbruck wrote to his G8 counterparts saying that the recent market turbulence "underscores the fact that we are not even close to being out of the woods yet."

French president
Nicolas Sarkozy says co-ordinated action between governments and central banks is the only way to confront the "un-precedented financial storm" and calls for an enlarged G8 meeting to tackle the crisis. "No country, even those who have great natural resources or foreign-exchange reserves, can ward off the impact of the crisis even though some may resist better than others... There can be no isolated answers to these global challenges," he warns.

Japaneseprime minister
Taro Aso says Wednesday's near 10% plunge on the Nikkei 225 was "beyond our imagination", and that he has "huge fears" for the future of his country's economy.

Silvio Berlusconi of Italy convenes an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday "to examine a decree on urgent measures to guarantee the stability of banks and savings."

Icelandic prime minister
Geir Haarde says "there is a very real danger, fellow citizens, that the Icelandic economy, in the worst case, could be sucked with the banks into the whirlpool and the result could be national bankruptcy."

European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet has urged financial markets to "collect" themselves after Wall Street and European stock markets tumbled again yesterday despite co-ordinated central bank cut rates. "Excessive pessimism is ill advised," Trichet said on France 3 television.

US president George Bush on Friday declared that "the United States government is acting; we will continue to act to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets. We can solve this crisis and we will."