Detroit came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, cap in hand and requesting $25bn in alms. 

As if to underline the fact that the financial crisis is shaping every corner of industry, the three top executives of what is still known as the Big Three companies of the US car industry appeared at the US Senate banking committee asking for a slice of the US's $700bn (£467bn) financial rescue package. 

Israel is collectively punishing innocent civilians by withholding and controlling food and medicine to Gaza, says Christian Aid. 

The errors of Iraq are being repeated - and magnified ....

The awful prospect is of Obama and Brown, no fans of the 2003 invasion, blundering on in a more perilous war: Afghanistan.

One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante". 

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has clashed with members of Congress over the $700bn US financial bail-out plan.  

Mr Paulson told a Congressional committee that injecting cash into banks was the most effective way to stabilise the financial system.  

from Crikey ….. 

The Howard Years: history told by the players 

from Crikey ….. 

Ul-Haque case gives ASIO licence to play rough 

Greg Barns writes: 

As Doctor Nelson, the former leader of the Australian Liberal Party, graces the doldrums of the parliamentary hills with his affable nature, his heroic grandstanding on global warming is only belittled by his own insistence to give a tax rebate of 5 cents a litre on petrol back to the punter, so they can add more CO2 into the atmosphere...  

The Catholic Church in South Carolina is telling its members, who voted for Obama that they cannot receive communion without confessing and repenting for their sin.  

The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.  

In a moment of high panic in late September, the U.S. Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed - a change long sought by the industry.  

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is getting a tour of his new home from the outgoing occupant, Vice President Dick Cheney. 

Biden arrived Thursday at the Naval Observatory, the home for vice presidents, with his wife, Jill. They were greeted with smiles by Cheney and his wife, Lynne. 

The model for the treatment of the Arabs was the strategy adopted to wipe out the indigenous peoples of America. The mad ideas about racial and cultural superiority prevalent at the time knew no bounds.  

There really isn't any doubt any more about whether the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has the killer instinct. 

The problem tends more to be how to drag her off the victim's body. 

The Art Gallery of NSW will sell two paintings by famous Australians to raise funds towards the $16.2 million purchase price of Paul Cezanne's landscape Bords De La Marne.

Brett Whiteley's Balmoral and John Perceval's Pleasure Craft will be auctioned by Sotheby's in Melbourne on November 24.

So far, so good. 

The first week of Barack Obama's transition to the presidency has gone about as well as anyone could imagine. His few public appearances have been gaffe-free, and his initial decisions in setting up his administration have been strongly reassuring.