G7 nations vow new financial safeguards

Top financial leaders, faced with the biggest crisis to hit the global economy in at least a decade, are pledging to strengthen their regulation of banks and other financial institutions while anxiously hoping the slump in the United States will be a short one.

After an opening round of talks among the world’s seven richest industrial countries – the G7, financial officials were scheduled to reconvene today for discussions focused on the 185-nation International Monetary Fund and the IMF’s sister lending institution, the World Bank.