President George W. Bush makes statement on US economic crisis at the White House, 10 Oct 2008
By VOA News 10 October 2008
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Leaders of the world's largest economies confronted a global financial system in shambles Friday as they gathered in Washington to cope with a plunging stock market, a frozen credit market, and fears the world is headed for recession. U.S. stock markets plunged around five percent in the first few minutes of trading, but later recovered in volatile trading. Key European stock market indexes were down sharply in afternoon trading. Steep declines forced officials in Russia and Indonesia to suspend trading indefinitely. Brazilian officials suspended trading temporarily after declines of at least ten percent. And Japan's Nikkei index was off nearly 10 percent at the close - its biggest one-day loss since 1987. Officials from the Group of Seven industrialized nations (the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Canada and Italy) are gathering in Washington ahead of a meeting of the International Monetary Fund, and will meet with U.S. President George Bush on Saturday.
In televised remarks Friday, Mr. Bush tried to reassure investors around the world. He said officials are taking strong measures to solve the crisis, and blamed "fear" for what he described as the "startling" drop in stock prices. Mr. Bush said the United States is a wealthy nation with the tools and resources to solve these problems, and urged Americans to be confident in the country's future. Meanwhile, U.S. officials may be considering a plan to help ease the credit-crunch that sparked the current crisis.The Wall Street Journal's online edition reports today the U.S. may decide to guarantee billions of dollars in bank debt and temporarily insure all U.S. bank deposits.In an interview today with CNBC television, British entrepreneur and investor Richard Branson said he does not expect the U.S. stock markets to produce any sort of sustained rally.The president of the Virgin Atlantic airline and founder of many of the Virgin Group's other enterprises - including a space tourism company - also said he plans to get back into the mortgage business in the next six months.Many economists blame mortgage-related investments tied to the U.S. housing market for sparking the financial crisis.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.