Details of the call to discuss the global financial crisis were reported last week in The Weekend Australian.
During the call, Mr Bush reportedly responded to Mr Rudd's suggestion of a G20 summit to deal with the crisis by saying: "What's the G20?''.
Call to investigate leaked call between Rudd and Bush
The Real America Vs. the Republican Party of Intolerance
What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
As we know, the smug, hateful, religious extremist, and morally reprehensible heart of the GOP has beat all the stronger over the last 8 years. It has reached a new level of a Frankenstein parody of the "Real America" – our Constitution and our system of checks and balances – during the McCain campaign.
Putin: We must end monopoly in world finance
The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has called for a complete overhaul of the world’s financial system in order to guarantee stability and ensure progress.
“We now clearly see the defectiveness of the monopoly in world finance and the policy of economic selfishness. To solve the current problem Russia will to take part in changing the global financial structure so that it will be able to guarantee stability and prosperity in the world and to ensure progress,” he said.
UN envoy to Israel: Halt house demolitions
The U.N.'s Mideast envoy said Saturday he was "alarmed" by Israel's decision to resume house demolitions in the West Bank.
Earlier this week, Israel knocked down dozens of shacks in two West Bank villages, leaving dozens of Palestinians homeless. U.N. envoy Robert Serry said Israel agreed in April to halt the demolitions and he urged it to reinstate the moratorium.
TVNL Comment: But the US will support any action by Israel, without regard to breaches of international law.
Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News
Many more Americans are turning to the internet for campaign news this year as the web becomes a key source of election news. Television remains the dominant source, but the percent who say they get most of their campaign news from the internet has tripled since October 2004 (from 10% then to 33% now).
TVNL Comment: That is why they have to rig elections these days. The TV used to control the vote in that they shaped your opinion. Now you know better...so you stopped listening to them.
Legal experts question US Attorney's decision not to prosecute Obama 'assassination plot'
Interviews with numerous legal experts suggest that Colorado US Attorney Troy Eid misled reporters and diverged from state law when declining to prosecute any of the three men arrested in Denver for threatening to assassinate Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Eid, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006, declined to prosecute the three men on charges of threatening to assassinate Barack Obama during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, saying that the suspects were "just a bunch of meth heads" and their words failed to meet the legal standard for "true threat."
Bush administration denies funding for FBI probe of mortgage mess
The Bush administration is rejecting FBI pleas for more agents to investigate crimes that helped trigger the global financial meltdown, bureau sources said this week.
Bush's proposed budget calls for increasing FBI funding in 2009 by $451 million, to $7.1 billion. That includes funding 280 additional agents for national security programs, but adding none for criminal programs.
Halloween Trick from Bush Administration: Treat to Factory Farms
housands of factory farms will be exempt from needing permits that limit water pollution thanks to a new Bush Administration rule signed today. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency did not adopt improved controls for bacteria and other pathogens that can pose risks to human health and wildlife.
Factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), confine animals on an industrial scale and produce massive amounts of manure and other waste that can pollute waterways with dangerous contaminants. EPA estimates that these facilities generate three times more waste than people do nationwide. Moreover, factory farms lack waste treatment facilities comparable to those that treat human sewage.
FDA Panel Accepts Findings On BPA Despite Mistakes
The Food and Drug Administration made mistakes when determining that a widely used chemical found in baby bottles and other plastics was harmless and the agency should redo its risk assessment, an FDA advisory panel ruled yesterday.
But the report's authors told the Science Board advisory panel that they could not say whether BPA was harmful or whether it should be banned in food and beverage containers. They left that to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to decide.
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