One World Government on the Horizon??

[Shammu]

Barack Obama should lead Middle East peace efforts, says Tony Blair
Tony Blair has called on Barack Obama to lead the world in finding a solution to conflict in the Middle East.

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 10:25PM GMT 14 Nov 2008

The former Prime Minister said the new President would have the chance to heal divisions in an 'era of real possibility'.

Speaking during a visit to Rwanda, Mr Blair said world leaders had been too tied up with their own domestic agendas to focus properly on the decades-old Middle East conflict.

He admitted that though he tried to influence the Middle East peace process while serving as Prime Minister, his efforts were doomed because he could not acquire the necessary detailed understanding of the issues.

And he said Mr Obama could heal rifts between America and Europe by being prepared to champion causes regarded as priorities in Europe such as the Middle East, poverty and the environment.

"I think he can say to Europe, look I'm going to champion a global deal on climate change, I'm going to take the Middle East peace process seriously, I'm going to make sure that poverty in Africa is right at the top of the agenda, I'm going to listen to your concerns and get a shared agenda with you."

He said progress would come if America, Europe and the international community delegated genuine authority to envoys tasked with focusing fully on issues such as peace in the Middle East.

Since standing down as prime minister, Mr Blair accepted a number of jobs including the position of Palestinian development envoy for the Quartet – the grouping of America, Russia, the United Nations and European Union.

"I do think what's very interesting about these international situations – and I found this quite shocking in a way – is how much more comprehensive my understanding of the Israel-Palestine situation is now than when I was in office," he said.

"The interesting thing is how the international community delegates authority to make up for the limited knowledge that these leaders can have nowadays when they're dealing with a multiplicity of problems in their own domestic situation.

"I think, for example, there's no way the Middle East is going to be resolved unless there are empowered senior people from the international community able to do it.

"Because, as I say, I now have a far better understanding of what needs to happen than I did when I was British prime minister.

"And yet in one sense when I was British prime minister I obviously had greater power over the situation."

Speaking to the Guardian about the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, Mr Blair said it was important to see the connection between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the battle with extremists such as al-Qaeda.

"I personally think that one of the essential things both for the next American president and for the world is to regard this region, and broader than this region, as one problem because you face the same issue everywhere, which is a battle between those who want a modern and progressive future and those who are reactionary extreme," he said.

"Whether it's in Iraq or in Palestine or what's happening in all the different parts of Afghanistan or Pakistan, it's the same issue."

Barack Obama should lead Middle East peace efforts, says Tony Blair

[Shammu]

Barack Obama should lead Middle East peace efforts, says Tony Blair
Tony Blair has called on Barack Obama to lead the world in finding a solution to conflict in the Middle East.

"Because, as I say, I now have a far better understanding of what needs to happen than I did when I was British prime minister.

"And yet in one sense when I was British prime minister I obviously had greater power over the situation."

Why should B.O. find a solution to conflict in the Middle East?? When you have a better understanding of whats going on Mr. Blair.

[HisDaughter]

Sarkozy Pushes for Abandonment of Dollar as World Reserve Currency 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The US dollar can no longer claim to be the sole world currency, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday before a weekend summit on the global financial crisis that has its roots in the United States.

'I leave for Washington tomorrow to explain that the dollar, which at the end of World War II was the only world currency, can no longer claim to be the sold world currency,' Mr Sarkozy said.

'The world changes. We are in the 21st century and the French view is that we cannot continue into the 21st century with a system established in the 20th century,' he said.

'What was true in 1945 cannot still be true today. It is not a question of courage, it is a matter of good sense to look at things as they really are.'

Leaders from the Group of 20 developed and developing countries meet in Washington on Saturday to discuss the financial crisis that has now begun to cut growth sharply worldwide.

Created in 1999, the G20 countries account for 85 per cent of the world economy and about two-thirds of its population, with its leaders hoping to hammer on Saturday out a common approach and understanding of the crisis.

Mr Sarkozy, who also holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has said several times that the Washington meeting should tackle currency issues, alongside efforts to improve the transparency and regulation of the financial markets.

Since the end of World War II, the US dollar has effectively been the world's reserve currency, used across the board and thereby giving the United States immense influence in the global economic system.

[Shammu]

"A New World Order is Gaining Ground" - Vatican Cardinal

By John-Henry Westen
 
ROME, November 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking at the opening of the 23rd plenary assembly for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the president of the Council, Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, warned, "The idea of creating a 'new man' completely detached from the Judeo-Christian tradition, a new 'world order,' a new 'global ethic,' is gaining ground."
 
According to the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the cardinal denounced the "dictatorship of relativism," rampant in Western societies, in which there is a growing "anti-Christian attitude" that makes "attacks on Christians, and particular on Catholics, pass off as politically correct."
 
Speaking of Christians today he said, "Our true problem is not being a minority, but rather having voluntarily become marginal, irrelevant, because of our lack of courage, so that we will be left alone, because of our mediocrity."  "For Christians," Cardinal Rylko added, "the moment has arrived to free themselves from a false inferiority complex … to be valiant witnesses of Christ."
 
This is, he said, the "hour of the laity," to take on their "responsibility in the diverse fields of public life, from politics to the promotion of life and family, from work to the economy, from education to the formation of youth."
 
He warned, however, that such faithfulness would come at a personal cost.  "Whoever wants to live and act according to the Gospel of Christ has to pay a price, even in the highly liberal societies of the West," he said.

"A New World Order is Gaining Ground" - Vatican Cardinal

[Shammu]

Babylon's future written in its ruins

By Khalid al-AnsaryPosted 2009/02/10 at 8:47 pm EST

BABYLON, Iraq, Feb. 10, 2009 (Reuters) — For a site whose historical importance ranks with Egypt's Pyramids, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon has suffered some rough treatment.

In recent times, U.S. troops and allied armies have parked tanks and weapons on the site in southern Iraq and used earth containing ancient fragments to fill their sandbags.

Looters ransacked its treasures, and before that Saddam Hussein "restored" parts of it using new bricks bearing his name and built a kitsch palace overlooking it.

Now officials hope Babylon can be revived and made ready for a rich future of tourism, with help from experts at the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and the U.S. embassy.

"The Future of Babylon" project launched last month seeks to "map the current conditions of Babylon and develop a master plan for its conservation, study and tourism," the WMF says.

"We don't know how long it will take to reopen to tourists," said Mariam Omran Musa, head of a government inspection team based at the site. "It depends on funds. I hope that Babylon can be reborn in a better image."

Fabled home of the Hanging Gardens, one of the wonders of the ancient world, and lying in a region ancient historians call the cradle of civilization, Babylon was badly damaged during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Saddam.

Looters had been plundering the ancient site, about 85 miles south of Baghdad for centuries, but the pillage accelerated rapidly after the invasion, when thousands of other archaeological sites in Iraq were also targeted.

ONCE MIGHTY

The ruins of the once mighty city are a far cry from the Babylon of popular imagination, with its magnificent golden gate and lush gardens cultivated by King Nebuchadnezzar for his wife.

Its clay-brick walls are crumbling, a statue of the Lion of Babylon has all but lost its facial features and European imperial powers long ago looted the best of Babylon. The Ishtar Gate has been in Berlin since German archaeologists seized it before World War One, despite calls for its return.

Officials say preserving Babylon, a relic of a time and place that gave birth to such milestones of civilization as agriculture, writing, codified law and the wheel, is crucial.

"It's extremely important. When people say this (region) is the cradle of civilization, that's certainly true of Babylon," Lisa Ackerman, WMF vice-president, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It's a culture that had a profound impact on what we think of as modern civilization."

It may also help war-racked Iraq generate revenue in the future through tourism, as it seeks to rebuild after years of sectarian slaughter and attacks by insurgents.

Religious tourism to Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim holy sites has boomed since the fall of Saddam, but the country still has a long way to go, and security will have to be vastly improved before it can start to dream of luring Western tourists.

Babylon, and places such as the southern marshes believed to be the biblical Garden of Eden, could eventually be major attractions.

The U.S. military occupied Babylon as a base for five months before handing over to a Polish-led division which left in 2005.

WALLS CRUSHED

The British Museum said in a report that U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements and their forces had used archaeological fragments to fill sandbags.

"They dug trenches for storing gas by the Babylon theater," said Maitham Hamza, who keeps the site's two museums. "They also crushed walls by landing helicopters on them."

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad is contributing $700,000 toward the site's restoration.

Saddam Hussein's insensitive reconstructions also pose a dilemma for efforts to restore Babylon. Apart from his palace, he also rebuilt Processional Way, a street of ancient stones.

And he painted on it. A mural of King Nebuchadnezzar in blue and gold, with a suspiciously Saddam-like face, adorns one wall; a tacky cartoon lion, another. He built an artificial lake in what critics called the "Disneyfication" of Babylon.

Ackerman said one of the first things the WMF would do was establish whether underground water was present and erect barriers to prevent it from seeping into the ruins and damaging the clay bricks.

But Saddam's alterations might be best left alone.

"One approach is: people have been doing things to Babylon for centuries, if not millennia, so we can accept Saddam Hussein's changes as part of the life of Babylon."

Eventually, if security in Iraq continues to improve, officials hope tourists will return.

"We are optimistic about 'ruins tourism' in Iraq," Qais Hussein Rasheed, acting head of Iraq's Committee of Antiquities and Heritage, told Reuters.

"God willing, we could surpass Jordan and Egypt's tourism."

Babylon's future written in its ruins

[HisDaughter]

IMF Says New Reserve Currency to Replace Dollar Is Possible

bloomberg.com

The International Monetary Fund said it’s possible to take the “revolutionary” step of creating a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar over time.

The IMF’s so-called special drawing rights could be used as the basis for a new currency, First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky told a panel discussing reserve currencies at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today.

“There are many, many attractions in the long run to such an outcome,” Lipsky told a panel discussing reserve currencies at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today. “But this is not a quick, short or easy decision,” he said, adding that it would be “quite revolutionary.”

The SDRs would have to be delinked from other currencies and issued by an international organization with equivalent authority to a central bank in order to become liquid enough to be used as a reserve, he said.

As much as 70 percent of the world’s currency reserves are held in dollars, according to the IMF, leading to calls for nations to diversify their cashpiles to avoid excessive exposure to the U.S. economy as it quadruples its budget deficit in a bid to counter the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The dollar fell on June 3 to its lowest level in 2009 against the euro on concern that the ballooning deficit would sap demand for Treasuries among foreign investors and central banks.

“The largest debtor is very unlikely to dominate any currency arrangement today,” said Ousmene Mandeng, head of Ashmore Investment Management Ltd.’s public sector investment advisory.

Medvedev Proposal

President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday questioned the U.S. dollar’s future as a global reserve currency and said using a mix of regional currencies would make the world economy more stable. Russia has proposed regional reserve currencies, including the ruble, as part of a response to the global financial crisis.

“Its an oddity that on the one hand we have an increasingly multipolar international economy, an increasing commercial diversification, and on the other hand we have a unique concentration in terms of monetary transactions,” Mandeng said. “That in itself creates a lot of instability.”

[HisDaughter]

Brazil calls for "New World Order", expanded UN Security Council   

google.com

The global financial crisis has reduced the differences between nations and created the opportunity to form a new world order, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.

Speaking after a meeting with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Kazakh capital Astana, Lula called on the global community to seize on the crisis to create a fairer world for developing nations.

"I want to say that before the crisis, there were many countries which had greater significance than others, and some countries which had no significance at all," he said through a translator.

"After the crisis, everyone has become similar. We have the possibility to create a new world order and together we should improve our relations."

Lula arrived in Kazakhstan Wednesday following the first-ever summit between fellow developing economic powerhouses Russia, India and China -- together with Brazil dubbed the BRIC nations -- in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Nazarbayev, head of Central Asia's largest economy, is keen to secure a larger role for his government in world affairs.

Following up on Lula's call, the pair said in a statement following their meeting that the United Nations should open up the UN Security Council to developing nations in an effort to bolster global security.

They said that opening the organisation, which only has five permanent members, to wider membership was the only way to make the often-criticised body "more legitimate and effective."

[HisDaughter]

Arabs Back On Board For Mediterranean Union     

nasdaq.com

Arab states will rejoin the Mediterranean Union, which has been frozen since the Gaza war in December-January, an Arab League official said Wednesday, despite reservations about sitting down with Israel.

"The whole Arab group will participate in the next meetings. We will not be the ones to block the process," Mohammed al-Nasseri, who heads the Euro-Arab cooperation department at the Arab League, told AFP.

He said Arab members, which include the Palestinians, would attend the July 7 meeting in Brussels to formally announce the 43-member union's relaunch.

The Arab members will first attend a Euro-Mediterranean ministerial meeting in Paris Thursday on sustainable development, Nasseri said.

Launched at a Paris summit in July, the Union groups E.U. member states with countries in North Africa, the Balkans, Arab world as well as Israel in a bid to foster cooperation.

[HisDaughter]

Pope calls for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy     

news.yahoo.com/


Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat.

The pope made his call for a re-think of the way the world economy was run in a new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations.

Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketers because of its underlying rejection of unbridled capitalism and unregulated market forces, which he said had led to "thoroughly destructive" abuse of the system and "grave deviations and failures."

An encyclical is the highest form of papal writing and gives the clearest indication to the world's 1.1 billion Catholics -- and to non-Catholics -- of what the pope and the Vatican think about specific social and moral issues.

The pope said every economic decision had a moral consequence and called for "forms of redistribution" of wealth overseen by governments to help those most affected by crises.

Benedict said "there is an urgent need of a true world political authority" whose task would be "to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result."

Such an authority would have to be "regulated by law" and "would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights."

"Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums," he said.

The United Nations, economic institutions and international finance all had to be reformed "even in the midst of a global recession," he said in the encyclical, a booklet of 141 pages.

The pope's call for a supranational body to tackle global economic woes disturbed some Catholic capitalists.

"There is a difference between coordination and mandate ... a reckless loan in the United States can and did impoverish people in Latvia. So obviously coordination is important as long as it is not mandates," said Frank Keating, CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers and former Governor of Oklahoma.

LOFTY MESSAGE

The encyclical was addressed to all Catholics and "all people of good will" and was released on the eve of the start of the G8 summit in Italy and three days before the pope is due to discuss the global downturn with U.S. President Barack Obama.

In several sections of the encyclical, Benedict made it clear he had great reservations about a totally free market.

"The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from 'influences' of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way," he said.

"In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise," he added.

Profit was useful only if it served as a means to a brighter future for all humanity.

"Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty," he said.

He said the current economic crisis was "clear proof" of "pernicious effects of sin" in the economy.

"Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity ...," he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had rebuked the pope earlier this year at the height of the row over a Holocaust-denying bishop, welcomed the encyclical as important encouragement for world leaders ahead of a G8 meeting in Italy.

"Pope Benedict has encouraged the state leaders to create rules so that this sort of worldwide economic crisis isn't repeated," Merkel told reporters. "I also saw this as an order to work toward a social market economy in the world."

The pope appeared to back government intervention "in correcting errors and malfunctions" in the economy, saying "one could foresee an increase in the new forms of political participation, nationally and internationally."

[HisDaughter]

Medvedev Unveils “World Currency” Coin At G8      

prisonplanet.com

In a highly symbolic moment at the G8 summit in Italy today, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled to reporters a coin representing a “united future world currency”.

“We are discussing both the use of other national currencies, including the ruble, as a reserve currency, as well as supranational currencies,” the Russian leader said at a news conference.

However, those who have downplayed the formulation of a world currency by dismissing it as merely a progression of SDR’s (Special Drawing Rights) and not something that would physically be used by citizens in a system of world government, were contradicted when Medvedev clearly outlined that the new currency would be “used for payment” by citizens as a “united future world currency”.

“This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to settle such issues jointly,” Medvedev said.

“Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it,” reports Bloomberg.

The question of a supranational currency “concerns everyone now, even the mints,” Medvedev said. The test coin “means they’re getting ready. I think it’s a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are.”

Press images released to the Yahoo photo wire did not show any close up shots of the coin and little was known about it, except that it had been minted in Belgium and bears the words “unity in diversity”. An RIA Novosti report noted that the coin represented an example of a “possible global currency”.

China and Russia have repeatedly called for a new global currency to replace the dollar.

When confronted about plans to supplant the dollar with a new global currency, both Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner denied that such an agenda existed.

However, just days after he told a Congressional hearing that there were no plans to move towards a global currency, Geithner sought to please the elitist CFR by assuring them that he was “open” to the notion of a new global currency system.

The scandal-ridden and highly secretive Bank For International Settlements, considered to be the world’s top central banking power hub, released a policy paper in 2006 that called for the end of national currencies in favor of a global model of currency formats.

The global currency would be a key central plank of a future system of world government. Earlier this week, Pope Benedict called for a “world political authority” to manage the global economy.

[nChrist]

Let's just call the so-called new world order and everything associated with it WHAT IT IS:  SATANIC SADISTIC CHAOS!

[HisDaughter]

Developing world calls for 'new world order'   

timesonline.co.uk


More than 50 heads of state from the developing world met Wednesday in Egypt to tackle the fallout from the global economic meltdown, with calls for a "new world order" to prevent a repeat of the crisis.

Cuban President Raul Castro said in a speech at the opening session of the Non-Aligned Movement summit that the financial crisis had hit developing nations the hardest.

"Every country in the world must seek just solutions to the global economic crisis," Castro told the 118-member body at the gathering in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"We call for a new monetary and economic world order... we must restructure the world financial system to take into consideration the needs of developing countries."

Global power dynamics also need to be addressed, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said, demanding a restructuring of the UN Security Council which he branded a form of terrorism "monopolized by a few countries that are permanent members."

"This represents a danger toward international peace. We have suffered all sorts of harm from the Security Council, it has become a sword over our necks," he said. "The Security Council is terrorism."

Kadhafi said he wanted to correct the imbalance at the Security Council, demanding a permanent seat for the 53-member African Union, which he chairs.

But the developing world's military ambitions looked set to steal the summit limelight, with nuclear-armed South Asian foes India and Pakistan to hold talks on Thursday aimed at relaunching stalled peace talks.

New Delhi and Islamabad's fraught relations deteriorated after terror attacks in the Indian commercial capital Mumbai in November last year which killed 166 people.

The attacks were blamed by India on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Pakistan has acknowledged they were partially planned on its soil.

Indian foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon met his Pakistani counterpart Salim Bashir on Tuesday ahead of the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Singh has voiced hope that Pakistan will promise action against those behind the attacks when he meets Gilani for only the second high-level contact between the two sides since the Mumbai bombings.

Pakistan said on Saturday that it would "probably" put the five accused of involvement in the attacks on trial next week.

The attacks left in tatters a fragile peace process launched in 2004 to resolve all outstanding issues of conflict, including a territorial dispute over the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

India, along with host Egypt, is one of the founding members of the NAM, the largest grouping of countries outside of the United Nations, aimed at giving a voice to the developing world.

The summit will "provide a chance for discussions over the international economic crisis, which first started in the industrialized countries, and greatly impacted the developing countries, especially Africa," Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said on Tuesday.

He said industrialized states "should not be given free rein to manage such a crisis."

Founded in 1955, NAM's 118 member states represent around 56 percent of the global population. NAM states consider themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.

Set up during the Cold War, the movement sought to distance itself from both the Western and Soviet blocs, but today its raison d'etre is questioned after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing shift in power politics.

[HisDaughter]

New Push For Global Currency

news.yahoo.com


The embattled US dollar is expected to come under scrutiny at a summit of developing and industrialized nations following China-led calls to review its role as a reserve currency.

The dollar issue is bound to surface at the two-day meeting in Pittsburgh as US President Barack Obama and other leaders of the Group of 20 economies debate a new framework for tackling the so called global "economic imbalances" blamed for fuelling the latest financial crisis.

"Though not clear how the plan would be enforced, it would involve measures such as the US cutting its deficits and saving more, China reducing its reliance on exports and Europe making structural changes to boost business investment," analysts at French bank Societe Generale said in a report.

Some argue that the financial crisis resulted from imbalances between savings and investment in major economies, which have led to large current deficits, as evident in the United States, and surpluses, as enjoyed by China.

Beijing was the first to call for a new global currency as an alternative to the US dollar as the US deficit rocketed -- the White House estimates it could reach nine trillion dollars over a decade.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern as early as March over the safety of his country's huge US bond holdings now worth more than 800 billion dollars, making it the largest creditor to the United States.

Then, Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, who supervises more than two trillion dollars worth of dollar reserves, the world's largest, raised the stakes by calling for a new reserve currency in place of the dollar.

He wanted the new reserve unit to be based on the SDR, a "special drawing right" created by the International Monetary Fund, drawing immediate support from Russia, Brazil and several other nations.

"These countries realize that they would suffer losses if inflation eroded the value of the dollar securities they own," said Richard Cooper, a professor of international economics at Harvard University.

But he said there were no feasible alternatives to the US dollar as a widely used international currency, discounting even IMF's synthetic SDR currency, comprising a basket of the dollar, euro, yen and the pound.

"The dollar will remain the dominant world currency, thanks to the stability of our political system and the rule of law that isn't a feature of many other economies," said Irwin Stelzer, director of economic-policy studies at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

Some groups, he said, were buying euros and other currencies from time to time, "but not in amounts that threaten the dollar's primacy."

Even the Chinese are stuck with nearly a trillion dollars worth of US bonds and are not likely to drive down the value of that hoard by selling large amounts of dollar-denominated assets, Stelzer said.

But what is baffling analysts is that a key UN agency -- the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD -- has joined the chorus of calls for a new reserve currency.

An UNCTAD report this month endorsed a proposal that IMF-issued SDRs "could be used to settle international payments."

Until the current global economic crisis, SDRs issued by the IMF have been used by IMF member nation states "primarily as a reserve account to support international trade transactions, not as an alternative international currency available to settle international debt transactions in danger of default," said political scientist Jerome Corsi in "Red Alert," a global financial newsletter.

China, meanwhile, continues to flex its muscle.

It has proposed that the G20 economies consider setting up an international wealth fund that would invest a portion of its members' current-account surpluses in developing economies.

"These comments reinforce their desire to diversify out of dollars and to encourage other nations to do so as well," said Kathy Lien, chief strategist for Global Forex Trading.

A few Chinese deals were recently seen accepting payment in the currency of the buyer rather than in dollars, especially with Brazil, which the Asian giant is wooing as a future oil supplier.

In addition, China -- the first nation to sign an agreement to buy IMF bonds -- took the unsual step of paying for the papers equivalent of 50 billion dollars with its yuan currency rather than dollars, which Beijing uses for much of its trade and other foreign transactions.

Carl Weinberg, chief economist of High Frequency Economics, said he was surprised by the move but did not see it having any major impact on the dollar.

"The transaction can now be clearly seen as a political move by Beijing to get more traction in the governance of the IMF, not as an effort by the PBOC (Chinese central bank) to reduce the share of dollars in its reserve asset," he said.

[Barbara]

Is the Bubble Abour to Burst?
by Gary Kah - Hope for the World

Yes, it's true! The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the organization that "insures" your bank deposits, is officially broke. It ran out of money in early October due to the large number of banks that are continuing to fail. This news came in spite of the fact that the FDIC had raised its rates to member banks earlier in the year in an attempt to shore up its dwindling reserves.
When the financial crisis began in Sept. of last year, the FDIC reported that 117 banks were in trouble. Since then approximately 80 percent of the banking companies on that list have gone under. To make matters worse, according to the FDIC the curent number of troubled banks has risen to over 400. Let's think positive and say that only 50 percent of these institutions will fail during the next year; that could mean the closing of another 200 banks - twice as many as in the last 12 months. (7 banks failed in just one day on October 23rd).
The FDIC has a special arrangement to borrow up to $20 billion of additional funds from the US Treasury in an emergency, but that will only get the agency through a few more months. What happens when that fund dries up?
   At some point the American people will realize how dire the circumstances are and, having lost confidence in the system, will seek to withdraw their money before their banks go under as well. If you believe such a scenario is unlikely, consider the fact that the FDIC recently announced it expected to be "in the red" through 2012.   Cont'd...

[Barbara]

Cont'd...
This situation is compounded by the scores of jobless Americans who are depleting their bank accounts in order to survive. Although the government reports the unemployment rate to be at 9.8 percent, the real unemployment rate is closer to 17 percent. Millions of Americans have stopped looking for jobs or have taken on part-time positions and therefore no longer appear in the gov'ts statistics. Thiss drain on wealth is putting an increasing number of banks at risk.
The US Gov't is also being affected. As a result of the dramatic rise in unemployment, Uncle Sam is taking in less and less tax revenue. The government's tax base is faltering not only because of fewer jobs and a slumping GDP, but also due to the colossal amount of this year's tax write-offs resulting from last year's business and investment losses. Economist John Williams, who publishes the website Shadow Gov't Statistics, recently reported that the federal budget deficit for 2008 was $5.1 trillion based on a GAAP accounting basis. And, calculations from the 2008 Financial Report of the US Gov't showed that the negative net worth of the federal gov'g had increased to $59.2 trillion, with total federal obligations now tataling $65.5 trillion (based on GAAP). This figure is expected to climb to more than $70 trillion by the end of this year.
                              Cont'd.....