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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for "drastic" measures to shore up banks and extend lines of credit to the world's poor Friday and pledged to support European and American efforts to rethink the global financial architecture. He also said the era of self-regulation among the biggest banks and other money-lending institutions had ended. Ban spoke at a closed meeting with top U.N. agency heads, economic advisers and the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund focusing primarily on the global financial crisis which was to continue Saturday. His opening remarks were released by the United Nations. .... The global...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush, who will host a global summit on the financial crisis next month, said on Saturday that agreeing on common principles to reform regulators would be essential to preventing another disaster. His comments came one day after a worldwide sell-off in stock markets amid growing fears of a global recession. Friday's session was the lowest closing level for all three major U.S. stock indexes since the spring of 2003. "In recent weeks, concerns about the availability of credit, the safety of financial assets, and the volatility of the stock market have made many families...