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He noted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces elections in September and the stimulus is unpopular among her supporters, while Japan, like the United States, is still waiting to gauge the impact of the last round. The host Italians are promoting regulations to help prevent future economic crises based on a framework laid down at a G-8 Finance Minister's meeting last month. The 12-common principles aim to create a "strong, fair and clean economy" by fighting tax evasion, protectionism, bribery and money laundering. Britain's leader said in an interview published Wednesday that the world economy can't recover if the financial markets aren't fair and honest at their base. "The lessons that we learned with this crisis is clear: irresponsibility and excesses are not allowed. We can make the mistake once, not twice," Brown told the Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera. France and Britain also want to discuss how to avoid excess fluctuation in oil prices, with a proposal for a price bracket high enough to allow oil companies to continue to invest while preventing prices from going too high The leaders of France and Britain, in a joint editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, called on regulators to look at ways to reduce what they called "damaging speculation" in oil futures markets to combat the volatility of oil prices, which plunged from around $147 a barrel last July to $32 late last year, then to $73 last week. The leaders will also discuss climate change and development aid later in the afternoon before taking on security issues, including Iran's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and North Korea's firing of ballistic missiles into the ocean in violation of U.N. resolutions. European leaders are pressing for a statement limiting the increase in the planet's warming to 2 degrees Celsius. It was unclear if Obama would back such a move. Gibbs suggested that the administration is putting its political emphasis on what it can accomplish back home with Congress, not with the G-8 at an international summit. As the leaders headed to L'Aquila, over 100 Greenpeace activists occupied four coal-fired power stations across Italy, demanding more leadership on climate change. Coal is the worst climate pollutant of all the fossil fuels.
--- Jane Wardell reported from London. Emma Vandore contributed from Paris and Ben Feller from Rome and Nicole Winfield from L'Aquila.
[Associated
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