Council on Foreign Relations

Age (Australia)

• Global Crisis: In an editorial, the paper acknowledges the dangers of the global financial crisis for Australia. Whatever else may be true of Australia's financial institutions, it is not true that they can be insulated from the global credit crisis and the threat of recession that comes with it, it says.

Arab News (Saudi Arabia)

• Syrian Policy: In an editorial, the paper accuses the Bush administration of following a cumbersome, often ambiguous policy on Syria.

Australian

• Rudd's Moment: Editor-at-large Paul Kelly writes that the global financial crisis should become the making of the Rudd Government, and that so far its performance has been impressive.

Boston Globe

• McCain And Obama: Columnist Derrick Jackson, commenting on Tuesday's debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, writes that with states moving in his way, odds are that Obama won even more support.
• Obama's 180: Columnist Jeff Jacoby accuses Barack Obama on reversing himself on the issue of genocide, and questions whether he is the kind of candidate who ought to be the leader of the free world?

Business Daily (Kenya)

• Kenyan Arrest: In an editorial, the paper deplores the arrest in Kenya of Jerome Corsi, the author of a book critical of Barack Obama. By arresting him, immigration officials only exposed this nation's failure to interrogate the essence of free speech and ended up portraying Kenyans as intolerant, it says.

Business Standard (India)

• State of Pakistan: The paper considers the state of the nation in Pakistan in an editorial. Pakistan's economy is close to collapse, the Standard says, and the country has to decide whether its current posture of aggression toward neighbors to the east and west is sustainable, not just diplomatically and militarily but also economically.

Christian Science Monitor

• Housing Bubble: In an editorial, the paper says that the housing bubble didn't arise from a lack of regulation, but rather the wrong kind of regulation.

Daily Telegraph

• Financial Crisis: In the Telegraph, several columnists comment on the financial crash. Simon Heffer says we are paying the price for failing to control the money supply. Gordon Rayner argues that we must tear up the rules agreed at Bretton Woods in 1944. And Jeff Randall focuses on the Congressional appearance of Lehman Brothers' former chief executive, Dick Fuld.

Financial Times

• Financial Panic: Columnist Martin Wolf says that the fear driving today's breakdown in financial markets is as exaggerated as the greed that drove the opposite behaviour a little while ago. He calls for an immediate end to the unjustified panic.
• Moscow's Response: In an editorial, the FT welcomes Russia's call for international action on the global financial crisis. This, it says, is a sign that Moscow is ready to co-operate in responding to the gravest economic challenge in decades.
• Europe's Response: In a further editorial, the paper is unimpressed by the response of Europe's leaders to the banking crisis.

Guardian

• Democratic Crisis: Columnist Jonathan Freedland writes that recent financial upheaval is a crisis of democracy. Politicians' limitations have been laid bare during these tumultuous weeks, he says.
• Invading Georgia: Columnist Martin Woollacott examines the Russian invasion of Georgia through the prism of the financial crisis. It is amazing how swiftly a new crisis can knock into perspective one which dominated discussion only a short time before, he says.

Hankyoreh (South Korea)

• Korean Crisis: In an editorial, the paper comments that the South Korean economy is rapidly sinking into a state of crisis. Ahead of any specific plan of response, what must be established is confidence in the government, it says.

Independent (UK)

• Toxic Assets: In an editorial on the British government's response to the banking crisis, the paper says recapitalization and individual bank rescues may be a matter for each nation; but an EU-wide safety net and a scheme to mop up toxic assets is needed.

International Herald Tribune

• Globalised Economy: Paul Kennedy, director of International Security Studies at Yale University, comments on how the consequences of the banking crisis are affecting all parts of an increasingly globalised economy.
• Working With Russia: Mark Brzezinksi, who served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, says America's long-range goal should be to create a context in which Russia understands that working with the U.S. and European Union will make it more prosperous, secure and free.

New Straits Times (Malaysia)

• Managing Finance: In an editorial, the paper says the shock to the global financial system may mark the beginning of the end of conservatives' notions of a minor role for governments in national fiscal management.

New York Times

• McCain's Campaign: In an editorial, the Times says that 90 minutes of forced cordiality during Tuesday's debate with Barack Obama did not erase the dismal ugliness of Senator John McCain's campaign in recent weeks.
• McCain's Honor: Op-ed Columnist Maureen Dowd writes that if McCain loses, he will have contributed to his own downfall by failing to live up to his personal standard of honor.

• Palin's Credentials: Op-ed Columnist Thomas Friedman writes about Sarah Palin. How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States, he asks. Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?

Sydney Morning Herald

• Australian Rates: Any pretence that Australia is going to ride out the global financial storm largely unscathed has disappeared in the past 24 hours, the paper says in an editorial; hence the Reserve Bank's sharp and unexpected turn on official interest rates is welcome and appropriate.

Times of London

• Cut Rates: In an editorial, the paper calls on the Bank of England to cut interest rates by a full percentage point this week.
• Iceland's Crisis: In a further editorial, on the banking crisis in Iceland, the paper says the country's crisis is not only a morality tale of global concern, given the number of foreign, especially British, investors; it also lays the country open to predators ready to seize this prize.

Wall Street Journal

• Tuesday's Debate: Commenting on Tuesday's presidential debate, the paper says that despite John McCain's best efforts, the Arizona Senator didn't knock Barack Obama from his cool evasion or even do much to rebut the Democrat's routine talking points. This, it says, isn't enough to change the dynamics of the race.
• No Deflation: David Gitlitz, chief economist at Trend Macrolytics, challenges the view that the United States is in danger of suffering a deflation crisis similar to that in Japan in the 1990s. He says there is no evidence that deflationary influences are now at work in the U.S. economy.
• Indian Alliance: Senator John Kerry (D-MA) writes about the importance of building a strong relationship with India.  Having secured the symbolic centerpiece of a nuclear deal, it's time to make India among America's closest friends, he says.

Washington Post

• Serious Candidates: In an editorial the Post expresses admiration for the tone of Tuesday's presidential debate. These are two serious, thoughtful nominees who embody differing ideologies but who are -- or could be -- a tribute to their parties and their country, it concludes.
• Crisis Response: Fred Bergsten and Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an op-ed on the response to the financial crisis, write that an internationally coordinated strategy is essential now that the U.S. rescue plan is in place.
• Health Care: CFR Senior Fellow Michael Gerson compares and contrasts John McCain's and Barack Obama's vision for health care in the United States, and says it is a shame that a discussion of health-care policy has come near the end of the presidential campaign, when the level of discourse is at its lowest.