Brown calls for coordinated tax cuts

Gordon Brown has called on world leaders to agree coordinated tax cuts and increases in public spending to help drag the global economy out of recession in the run-up to the G20 summit this weekend.
He made the comments after arriving in New York for the meeting between the leaders of the world's leading 20 economies - dubbed Bretton-Woods II.
Brown said there was a need for a "fiscal stimulus" after months of accelerating job losses intensified fears of a deep and lasting slump.
"By acting now we can stimulate growth in all our economies," the prime Minister said. "There is a need for urgency. The cost of inaction will be far greater than the cost of any action."
Outgoing American president George W Bush has admitted that the global financial system was in need of reform but, in a speech on Wall Street, he defended the free market and insisted the current crisis was not the fault of the system.