Gordon Brown's key role in heading off a global financial crisis was challenged last night by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. 

The two leaders jostled for position at a European summit in Brussels amid tensions between them over who should get the credit for the landmark decision by governments around the world to take stakes in ailing banks. 

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has addressed the nation a day after the Prime Minister, accusing the Federal Government of missing the warning signs ahead of the financial crisis. 

The Anchor Baby summarizes the wingnut pushback on the unmasking of the diseased Republican base:  

In a televised address to the nation Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government will do whatever is necessary to maintain economic stability, as dire global conditions continue. 

The rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a 'mega-catastrophic risk' for the economy and most shares are still 'too expensive', legendary investor Warren Buffett has warned. 

The problem is that the markets no longer have any faith that the world financial system they helped create has any future.  

The model is bust. It is encouraging that both the Americans and Germans are now moving towards what they considered ideologically unthinkable a fortnight ago - they are preparing to follow the British lead, take big public stakes in banks and offer guarantees to the interbank market. 

The Federal Government says its move to guarantee all bank deposits for the next three years does not mean there is a problem with Australian banks. 

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Government will guarantee all deposits in banks, building societies, credit unions or Australian subsidiaries of foreign banks. 

The four most dangerous words for investors are: This time is different.

In 1999, technology companies with no earnings or sales were valued at billions of dollars. But this time was different, investors told themselves. The Internet could not be missed at any price. 

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin yesterday shrugged off the findings of a state inquiry into the 'Troopergate' affair, which concluded that she had used her position as governor to pursue a private feud with a State Trooper. 

A new opinion in the United States gives the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a 6 per cent lead over his Republican rival John McCain. 

The poll shows 49 per cent support Senator Obama compared with 43 per cent for Senator McCain. 

Derivatives traders were yesterday nervously picking their way through the wreckage of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in what was the biggest test to date of the unregulated $60 trillion (£35.4 trillion) credit default swaps market. 

Investors who had placed bets on Lehman's creditworthiness held an auction aimed at clarifying who owes what to whom after the investment bank went bust four weeks ago, and analysts believe that several hundreds of billions of dollars will change hands.

Until 3 pm on Thursday, it seemed as if the stock market might escape another dark day.

Then the selling hit — and hit and hit again, mimicking trading on Tuesday and Wednesday. What had been a moderately down day ended in a rout, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down 679 points, or 7.3percent, leaving it below 9,000 for the first time in five years.

Banks are supposed to lend money, but they aren’t doing very much of it these days. That is not the only cause of the global recession that is unfolding, but it is hard to see how economies can begin to recover without functioning financial systems. 

The American government has responded by taking over more and more of the lending itself, while using indirect means to shore up the banking system. It has not worked.

It's painful to be a cartoonist. It's feast or famine. And I do not mean moneybux as most of us would be on the bread-line every Thursday...  

We do it for the glory and the squishy tomatoes thrown at us... No, really... I mean feast of material to lampoon. Sometimes we could be scouring the web or the papers for inspiration, but blah... Nothing. Dubya is laying low...  

Every few years, the world seems to face a new testing time. After Sept. 11, leaders had to figure out how to respond to Islamic extremism. Now we face another test. Today, leaders around the world have to figure out how to stabilize economies amid volatile global capital flows.