from Crikey ….. 

This morning Treasury Secretary Ken Henry talked - when permitted to by Coalition senators - about the Rudd Government’s bank guarantee and the claims, made with alarming prominence in The Australian yesterday, that the RBA had always wanted a cap on it.  

On the brief occasions when the President now appears in the Rose Garden to "comfort" or "reassure" a shock-and-awed nation, you can almost hear those legions of ducks quacking lamely in the background.  

Ordinary Cubans could reasonably be excused for wondering why the fates have dealt them such a rotten hand over the years, but at last it seems that their luck may have changed.  

US President George W Bush's first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has endorsed Democratic election candidate Barack Obama for the White House. 

Backing Mr Obama over John McCain, the Republican Party's choice to succeed Mr Bush in November, he said the Democrat had the 'ability to inspire'. 

President George W Bush has invited world leaders to gather in the US by the end of the year to discuss reform of the global financial system. 

The summit would be the first of a series announced after talks between Mr Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and EU Commission chief Manuel Barroso. 

Democratic Party circles are in raptures over Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama.  

So, we Australians don’t trust politicians. Tell us something we don’t know. 

If Sen. Barack Obama wakes up as the president-elect on Nov. 5, he will immediately assume responsibility for fixing a shredded economy while the Bush administration is still in office.

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

from Alan Ramsey …… 

The Rudd Government this week "dealt" with the gravest "global financial crisis" since the Great Depression of the 1930s by ignoring Parliament. 

Scanners being tested at Melbourne Airport will not blur the genitals of passengers.

Transport security authorities are trialling the new 'X-ray backscatter' body scanner, which has been described by critics as a 'virtual strip search'. 

The Government has some power to influence executive pay levels. But it can't do so alone. It needs help from company boards. Hitherto boards have been in the thrall of chief executives, seduced by the cult of the big chief, happy to be duchessed and co-opted.  

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. 

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