WASHINGTON - ON THURSDAY, two Democratic leaders of Congress called on US President George W. Bush to convene a summit of G8 leaders to try to resolve the financial crisis.

In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid said: 'The American people and the world are looking to the United States for leadership.'

'We are writing to support the call for an emergency meeting of the G8 heads of state to address the continued instability in world financial markets and the freeze in global credit', their statement read.

Promising 'we'll get through this,' Mr Bush earlier on Thursday scheduled weekend economic crisis talks at the White House with finance ministers from leading democracies who will be in Washington for International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings.

Mrs Pelosi and Mr Reid went further, saying Bush should bring together the leaders of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

'More must be done to demonstrate a concerted international effort to address the global economic crisis,' on top of Wednesday's coordinated rate cut by central banks in the United States and Europe, they said.

'Doing so will send a strong signal that world leaders recognise the severity of the crisis and that they are committed to taking strong, concerted action to resolve it.'

'We acted nationally - and now, in order to promote economic security more broadly, we must also act globally.'

Mr Bush is due to make a high-profile statement on Friday to soothe upheaval on financial markets and reassure a fearful public after US stocks plummeted to new five-year lows on Thursday in their seventh-straight loss. -- AFP