October 24, 2008

Peter Fabricius 'Developing world must play bigger role in global economic affairs'.
They say US President George Bush doesn't read much, but you have to give him credit for selectivity. Last week this column suggested the IBSA countries - India, Brazil and SA - should stop bickering about the US and the West inflicting the global financial meltdown on them, and call for a global summit to address it.

The next day Bush announced such a summit, making a particular point of noting that he wanted to get the input of developing countries, in particular on how to address the crisis and prevent it happening again. That's the global reach of Independent Newspapers for you!. Maybe Bush would have thought of it anyway. And as a closet Democrat in the US embassy said, who would boast about being Bush's financial adviser anyway? But India, Brazil and SA are all going to be there, nonetheless. The White House announced this week that the summit would happen in Washington on November 15, and be a meeting of the heads of state of the G20.That's the G7 group of rich nations plus a bunch of important developing countries/emerging markets, including the IBSA three and Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia etc.