Does Crisis Imperil Role in World Economy?

The White Star liner 'Titanic' leaving Queenstown harbour before making her maiden voyage en route for the USA, The ship struck an iceberg and sank near Newfoundland, killing 1550 people (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

A bench in memory of 9/11 Pentagon victim Janice Scott, a U.S. Army civilian employee.

Phyllis Lyon, left, and her partner Del Martin, right, sit for a photograph at their home in San Francisco,. Martin, 87, and Lyon, 84, longtime lesbian activists who have been together for more than five decades, have become symbols for the movement to grant same-sex couples the right to marry. The pair also were plaintiffs in the California Supreme Court case that led to the legalization of gay marriage. Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to officiate at the couple's wedding at City Hall on June 16, the day when gay marriage becomes legal in California. (Eric Risberg/AP)

T. Boone Pickens listens to opening statements on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 22,2008, prior to testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing on his energy plan. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

A rural Church in Autumn in Windham, Vermont. (Bob Krist/Corbis)

Presumptive republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) looks on during a Global Competitiveness Roundtable at Finelite Inc. manufacturing facility May 22, 2008 in Union City, California. Sen. McCain met with Silicon Valley CEOs and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during a day of campaigning in California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

An offshore oil drilling platform located in the Gulf of Mexico, some 90 miles due south of Mobile, Alabama. (Jim Lo Scalzo for USN&WR

The Katahdin Paper Company's Millinocket (Maine) Mill. (Carl D. Walsh/Aurora for USN&WR)

Thomas Fingar, head of the National Intelligence Council. (Jeffrey MacMillan for USN&WR)

The price label of a grass fed black angus steak is photographed at the Grazin' Angus Acres farm stand at the Union Square Farmers Market Friday, June 13, 2008 in New York. The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices rose by 0.6 percent last month, the biggest one-month increase since last November, as gasoline costs surged by 5.7 percent. Food prices, which have also been rising sharply, were up 0.3 percent as the cost of beef and bakery products showed big gains. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

Indian farmers harvest wheat in a field near the village of Bathinda, some 100kms south east of Amritsar. (Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images)

A guard stands at a gate at the Camp Delta detention compound, which has housed foreign prisoners since 2002, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, June 6, 2008. (Brennan Linsley/AP)

This 1979 file photo provided by the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shows the presidential hopeful, Obama, in 1979 during his high school graduation in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents, Stanley Armour Dunham and his wife Madelyn Payne, both natives of Kansas. Growing up as a young man of mixed race, Obama benefited from the spirit of tolerance that defined Hawaii's racial climate. His childhood in the country's idealized melting pot was far from painless, though. (Obama Presidential Campaign/AP)