Morning Brief: One week left

Top Story

With just a week to go before American voters head to the polls, Barack Obama and John McCain are sparring vigorously over which candidate can best address the United States’ economic woes.

Obama told a Pittsburgh crowd it was time to “get beyond the old ideological debates,” while McCain seized on a newly unearthed interview from 2001 to accuse the Democratic nominee of wanting to raise taxes. “He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs,” McCain said, adding later, “Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist in chief. I’m running to be commander in chief.”

The odds, however, look increasingly long for an increasingly demoralized McCain campaign. NBC analyst Chuck Todd now says that Colorado and Virginia are likely to go for Obama. One particularly confident statistician rates the Illinois senator’s chances of victory at 96.7 percent. And in a sign of just how tough the map has become for McCain, the Republican Party is now spending scarce ad dollars to prop him up in Montana.

Economy

Markets rallied in Asia and Europe after yesterday’s selloff.

The International Monetary Fund “could soon run short of firepower,” the Financial Times warns.

The Bank of England estimates financial institutions’ losses at $2.8 trillion.

Americas

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of corruption charges, but he’s still running for reelection.

General Motors and Chrysler will reportedly seek $10 billion from the U.S. government to support a merger of the two companies.

Mexico admitted that drug traffickers infiltrated an elite government unit charged with drug enforcement.

Asia

The U.S. military is said to be considering talks with elements of the Taliban, even as it eliminates key commanders via airstrikes in Pakistan.

North Korea threatened to reduce South Korea to “debris” unless it stops dropping propaganda leaflets across the border.

With credit scarce, Thailand is planning to trade rice for Iran’s oil.

Middle East and Africa

U.S. officials say the weekend raid in Syria eliminated a top al Qaeda leader.

Mosul, Iraq, is at risk of becoming an ethnic flashpoint.

Kidnappers killed five Chinese oil workers in Sudan.

Rebels are advancing in Congo.

Europe

Iceland jacked up interest rates by 6 percentage points, to 18 percent.

Porsche’s stealth takeover of VW has observers concerned about the transparency of German capital markets.

BP announced 148 percent growth in profits.

Today’s Agenda

The Open Market Committee of the U.S. Federal Reserve meets in Washington.

McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning in Pennsylvania; Barack Obama is stumping in Pennsylvania and Virginia; Joe Biden is in Florida; Michelle Obama is in New Mexico and Colorado.

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images