Boston: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in his first foreign policy address in the United States today, called on the US and Europe to lead a new era of global "interdependence" aimed at solving international problems such as terrorism, poverty and climate change.

He also reiterated his call for reform of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations to give emerging countries such as India, China and Brazil more say in the international institutions.

"We urgently need to step out of the mindset of competing interests and instead find our common interests, and we must summon up the best instincts and efforts of humanity in a cooperative effort to build new international rules and institutions for the new global era," Brown said in a speech to about 350 invited guests at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

In a speech replete with praise for Kennedy, Brown cited the president's Independence Day speech in 1962,when Kennedy proposed a "new and global declaration of interdependence." Brown said Kennedy's call for public service "still reverberates around the world and always will."

Remembering Kennedy's creation of the U S Peace Corps, Brown called for the creation of "a new kind of global peace and reconstruction corps," which he described as an organisation of trained civilian experts available any time to rebuild states anywhere.

He called on the World Bank to intensify programmes to reduce poverty and said the institution should become a bank for both development and the environment by transferring billions in loans and grants to encourage the poorest countries to adopt alternative sources of energy.

Brown insisted that a new global pact on reducing carbon emissions must be agreed on by the end of 2009.

Source : PTI