Brown says time to build global society

By Jodie Ginsberg

LONDON (Reuters) - The financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday.

Brown, who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions, said that Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," Brown said in a speech in London.

Brown and other leaders meet in Washington next weekend to discuss long-term solutions for dealing with economic issues following a series of coordinated moves on interest rates and to recapitalise banks in a bid to fight the financial turmoil.

"Uniquely in this global age, it is now in our power to come together so that 2008 is remembered not just for the failure of a financial crash that engulfed the world but for the resilience and optimism with which we faced the storm, endured it and prevailed," Brown told the lord mayor's banquet.

"...And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society."

In his first foreign policy speech since Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election, Brown said Britain's "closest ally" had given new meaning to its founding creed that all are created equal and said America stood at a "dawn of hope."

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