Leaders at the Group of 7 summit in Ise, Japan issued a final communique which warned that a British exit from the European Union - a "Brexit" - would pose a "serious threat to global growth".

The meeting brought together the leaders of the top seven industrialized nations, plus the heads of the European Commission and European Council.  They agreed that if UK voters choose to leave the continental union in a referendum coming up on 23 June, it would reverse global trends of increased job growth, investment, and global trade.  UK Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama oppose a Brexit; Australia's economy isn't big enough to qualify for the G7, but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stands with Obama and Cameron.

The final statement had the US, Canada, Britain, Italy, Germany, France, and Japan pledge "to strengthening our economic policy responses in a cooperative manner and to employing a more forceful and balanced policy mix, in order to swiftly achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth pattern".

But the leaders didn't get everything they wanted.  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abesays there is a danger of the world economy careering into a crisis on the scale of the 2008 collapse.  But leaders failed to add his language to the final statement, which would have noted "the risk of the global economy exceeding the normal economic cycle and falling into a crisis if we did not take appropriate policy responses in a timely manner."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel wasn't expecting the other leaders to come up with concrete offers to take in refugees - her country had "welcomed", often grudgingly, more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.  But she did have a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during which told him how much she appreciates the large number of refugees his country is taking in.

"One has to consider that Canada isn't right next to Syria and yet it still feels responsible for the problems there," said Chancellor Merkel.