The Guardian: Main section

Crisis meeting agrees to take 'urgent and exceptional action' to bail out banks

Nils Pratley: Call it a crash, call it a rout, but please don't describe yesterday's selling as irrational

American bank faces a critical weekend as it awaits a crucial $9bn investment from Japan's Mitsubishi

Faced with the threat of financial meltdown, finance minsters choose nationalisation rather than a free-market solution

Banks including RBS and Barclays involved in credit derivatives market and exposed to Lehman default

Individual efforts by G7 governments are proving haphazard as position of banks continues to deteriorate

British consumers in for one of toughest years in recent memory as more people seek mortgage help

Shares in RBS, which owns brands including NatWest, Coutts and Churchill, slump by 25%

Crucial steps taken to try to avoid collapse of the country's banks which may precipitate a 1930s-style depression

Key questions surrounding the financial crisis

Ministers will consider reforms to ease the burden on pensioners caught out by the drop in the stockmarket

British government delegation will meet Icelandic officials and bankers in an attempt to protect UK depositors

North Atlantic island has few realistic options other than to turn to International Monetary Fund for help

Some of the biggest names on the high street are now in the dark about their ownership, their cash in the bank and their future after the collapse of Kaupthing Bank in Iceland.

European governments scramble for rescue plans but anti-capitalist states also plagued by problems

Experts predict that relative isolation of China's financial system and high savings rate will keep it secure

Teenage gang member admits he had 'just shot someone' but denies murder of 11-year-old boy

Former president of Finland, wins the Nobel peace prize for promoting 'fraternity between nations'

Hard drive contains personal details of military personnel, possibly including bank account details

Britain's latest TV export is a hit, despite Gene Hunt's 'over-ripe' one-liners

More stories from across the UK

Ben Goldacre: Lloyds Pharmacy is trying to flog carbon monoxide detectors (for only £12.99)

Conferring while writing notes after police shootings an 'opportunity for collusion', says judge

Broadcaster to cut 150 jobs as part of an attempt to save £100m over the next two years

Subject was suffering from rare disease, say experts, and painting is not a copy

Professor Baum and his students have also solved other mysteries of paintings at the National Gallery

Simon Hoggart: Commentators keep telling us that the credit crunch is about to hit the real world. It hasn't yet

Author calls for different style of development of site in Oxford after current plans are rejected as 'sterile'

Woolwich crown court hears how London bomb accused made separate getaways on cycle-rickshaws

Scientist discussed superficial journalists who failed to understand his theories and how to deal with Russia

Some 600 tribal members had come together for a traditional gathering when the bomber struck

Siberian or Ussuri tiger is extremely rare, with only between 520 and 550 in Russia

British volunteers who fought in Spain against General Franco's fascist-backed rebels are finally rewarded by the Spanish state

Campaign officials say they are negotiating with CBS, NBC and Fox for half-hour broadcast days before polls

We are seeing, from the majority of the country, much of what is good and decent about America in this election

Palin accused of sacking the head of the Alaskan police force for refusing to dismiss her former brother-in-law

Lebanese Industrialists' Association pushes back against Israel's 'appropriation' of their cuisine

Last year road accidents claimed more than 130,000 lives, overtaking China, where fatalities have dropped

British public image consultants Acanchi hired to counter anti-Israel 'mindsets'

Migrants missing feared drowned after smugglers forced them overboard in treacherous Gulf of Aden

Turkistan cockroach can carry typhoid and dysentery and is adept at dodging pesticides

More news from around the world

Hoarding food and emigrating are just some of the things people are doing to find financial security

Ian Jack: Fear doesn't always have a visual manifestation, neither is it always easily articulated

Interview: Kevin McCloud has designs on a whole Wiltshire town, and refuses to be put off by 'scurrilous and rancid' coverage

Roy Hattersley: As I found out in the cod war of 1975, the people of that tiny island can prove fearsome foes. Beware

David Marquand: The capitalist system is the least bad we have, but the role of states and markets need redefining for the modern economy

Guy Browning: Where's the rescue plan for the banks' unwanted human capital? Try this rehabilitation package

Lynsey Hanley: The official call for more chatter in libraries is absurd, silence too, can be a creative, social glue

Polly Toynbee: Brown's next task is to craft a vision of a good society in bad times, and reflect the public mood on supersonic wealth

Editorial: Rich nations must agree this weekend on a plan to stem the banking crisis

Derek Niemann: Bedfordshire

Editorial: Spanish government awards citizenship to Britons who fought for Republican cause in country's civil war

Editorial: Research sheds new light on the economic gulf between the rich and the rest

Today's corrections

The sin of usury, diluted by Eck and the Fuggers in the 1500s, should be brought back now, says Ann Pettifor

Letters: After reading through the depressing financial and world news I eventually came to the Comment & Debate section

Letters: It's awful that the downturn has wiped one-fifth off retirement funds (Report, October 8)

Letters: A number of your commentators and editorials have urged the 'curbing' of City bonuses this year

Letters:Gordon Brown's diatribes against Iceland have a hollow sound

Letters: The global financial instability has reminded us of the need to explore alternative forms of investment

Star of The Apprentice acquires a near 4% stake in struggling retailer as shares rise 29%

Fears have been growing that the biggest US carmakers, GM and Ford, are close to calamity

Frenzied selling sees shares savaged in the blue chip index's worst week since 1987 crash

More stories from the business world

Nancy Banks-Smith on Coronation Street, The American Future: A History and Harry and Paul

Young Vic, London
Mythic simplicity overwhelmed by production says Michael Billington

Project, Dublin
The Corn Exchange's take on Tennesse Williams is more damp than steamy, says Helen Meany

Birmingham HippodromeThe triple bill is a superb choreographic package, but not all of the dancing fills it out

Coliseum LondonA tangle of sexual cynicism in a riveting new Handel, says Tim Ashley

Andrew Weir writes

Obituary: Versatile actor whose face was recognisable to millions across a 76 year career

Alexandra Topping meets Kay Steward who was 'converted' by her late husband in 1953

Is it worth complaining about the NHS? | Why do banks need to borrow from each other? | Should I read more foreign-language books?

Lawrence of Arabia sat by a blaze of olive logs, listening to two musicians playing Kurdish war-songs, when the storm suddenly broke