Washington  - The World Bank will be prodding finance ministers this week to help poor countries that have been left out of global efforts to combat the financial crisis, the development bank's chief said Tuesday.

Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said the Group of 20 (G20) nations summit earlier this month in London addressed many of the "big global financial problems" facing the world's economies but provided little or no money for struggling developing countries.

London  - World Bank chief Robert Zoellick has urged the European Union (EU) to lead efforts to increase global support for the ailing economies of central and eastern Europe in order to avoid a new "split" 20 years after the fall of communism.

In an interview published in the London Financial Times Thursday, Zoellick said the World Bank was trying to work with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral institutions to help the region but needed more backing from Brussels.

Berlin  - The global financial crisis could present the international community with the chance to lay aside the recent tensions that have emerged with Russia, World Bank chief Robert Zoellick said in a speech delivered in Berlin Wednesday.

"Relations with Russia have been strained in recent years," Zoellick told an audience at Berlin's Humboldt University.

Washington - World Bank president Robert Zoellick greeted the commitment to poorer countries made at an emergency financial summit Saturday and urged a "global, coordinated and fast response" by world leaders.

Zoellick released his statement after the leaders of the so-called G20 group, which included wealthy nations and emerging economies like China and India, agreed to close up gaps in financial system regulations that have brought the global system to the brink of meltdown.

Washington - The World Bank on Tuesday sharply cut its growth forecast for developing countries in light of the spreading financial crisis and said it would loan up to 
100 billion dollars over the next three years to help the countries worst affected.

The global development bank lowered its 2009 growth prediction to 4.5 per cent for developing countries, down from a forecast of 6.4 per cent made just last month, due to the ongoing credit crisis, falling exports and lower commodity prices.

Washington - World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Monday called on the world's largest nations to band together to prevent the kind of massive economic downturn now striking the globe from ever happening again.

Zoellick said the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations should be expanded to include the top 14 global economies to tackle development issues as well as the financial turmoil plaguing richer nations.

"The G7 is not working," Zoellick said in Washington. "We need a better group for a different time."