Watchman Newsletter

G20 Vows to Spur Fragile Growth

BBC News (Link) (November 7, 2009)

Finance ministers from developing and rich countries meeting in Scotland have pledged to keep stimulus measures in place until global recovery is assured.

A statement issued after the G20 meeting says the recovery is "uneven" and remains dependent on support, while unemployment is a "major" concern.

Earlier, British PM Gordon Brown called for a fund for bank bailouts, possibly paid for by a tax on transactions.

But the proposal received a lukewarm response from other G20 countries.

After the meeting in St Andrews, US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said there was a "very broad consensus that growth remains the dominant policy imperative across our economies".

The Real Significance of Angela Merkel’s Speech to U.S. Congress

The Trumpet (Link) - Ron Fraser (November 3, 2009)

For only the second time since World War II, a German chancellor has addressed the U.S. Congress. Amazingly, the childish commentators from the popular press ignored the most momentous of Angela Merkel’s statements and zeroed in on a topic that the most astute of climate scientists are increasingly rejecting—the global warming hoax!

Manipulators of public opinion have had a field day using the global warming fear as a smokescreen behind which to hide their true globalist political agenda. This is a reality to which the press and mass media, with few exceptions, remain largely blinded.

It’s time to face up to reality. The real meat was in the main body of Merkel’s speech, not in the global warming smokescreen tagged on the end, though this got the most applause from the Democrat side of the House.

Chancellor Merkel’s address comes at a crucial time in transatlantic relations. The U.S. is in decline politically, economically and financially. The European Union stands on the brink of overnight becoming a giant imperial power, a global power in its own right. In fact, it is becoming the very power that will fill the increasing economic, political and military vacuum being created in the world through America’s decline.

The nation that stands in the lead of the European empire is Germany. As the day approaches for ratification of the treaty that will launch the EU, overnight, as a global player, it is perhaps both a fitting and most historic—let alone prophetic—occasion of huge importance that Washington witnessed today with the German chancellor’s address. Few in that audience would have garnered the truth of the reality America faces, reading between the lines of the chancellor’s speech.

Klaus signature completes EU treaty ratification

EU Observer (Link) - Andrew Willis (November 3, 2009)

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has finally signed the Lisbon Treaty, ending a highly drawn out ratification process that left many wondering whether the document's provisions would ever see the light of day.

"I signed the Lisbon Treaty today at 15.00 (CET)," Klaus told reporters on Tuesday (3 November).

His signature, the last of EU leaders, follows on from a Czech constitutional court decision early on Tuesday morning that ruled in favour of the Lisbon Treaty's compatibility with the Czech constitution.

"It's now absolutely clear that the Lisbon Treaty will enter into force soon," said European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso upon hearing the news.

Swedish prime minister and current EU president Fredrik Reinfeldt also sought to draw a line under the process.

"His signature ends a far too long period of institutional focus within the EU. It opens up for a more democratic, transparent and efficient Union," he said.

Central banks lead subtle shift away from dollar

Reuters (Link) - Steven C. Johnson (November 3, 2009)

Central banks with trillions of dollars in reserves that are already stepping up euro and yen purchases will likely continue doing so in coming years, driven by worries over the stability of the greenback.

A record U.S. budget gap and the rise of dynamic developing economies like China suggest the dollar, down over 20 percent since 2002 on a trade-weighted basis, has further to fall.

Of course, the dollar comprises some two-thirds of global reserves and will remain dominant in most holdings, as attempts to dump it would destroy the value of central bank portfolios.

But with the speed of reserve accumulation increasing after a crisis-induced lull late last year, policy makers can choose to park more new cash in euros and yen without having to sell existing dollar assets.

"I think 2009 will be remembered as a watershed moment for currencies," said Neil Mellor, strategist at BNY Mellon, which has some $20 trillion in assets under custody. "I don't think there will be an imminent move, but it is quite clear there's a plan to shift reserves to a more balanced portfolio."

Barclays Capital research showed that central banks that report reserve breakdown put 63 percent of new cash coming into their coffers between April and July into non-U.S. currencies.

"There's an incipient desire to reduce the dollar share of reserves, and central banks will use any opportunity to do it, provided it doesn't cause the dollar to fall out of bed," said Steven Englander, chief U.S. currency strategist at Barclays.

Climate tops Brussels' agenda for EU-US summit

EU Observer (Link) - Valentina Pop (November 2, 2009)

Climate change will feature heavily at an EU-US summit on Tuesday (3 November) as Brussels and Washington each try to find out what the other side is going to bring to the global negotiating table next month.

Top officials from the European Commission and the Swedish EU presidency will meet US president Barack Obama and his team in Washington in a bid to feel out the American position a month ahead of the UN-led climate change conference in Copenhagen aimed at securing a global political agreement on carbon emissions.

The first formal EU-US summit since Mr Obama took office, apart from an informal get together in April this year in Prague, will have one and half hours on Tuesday (3 November) dedicated to four topics: climate change, economic recovery after the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iran.

Germany’s Future Foreign Policy

The Trumpet (Link) - Ron Fraser (November 2, 2009)

There’s a clash on the horizon after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s swearing in of her new coalition government in Germany. At an extremely crucial time for the nation—amid its rise to global dominance as the Lisbon Treaty is about to be ratified—two personalities are set to be at odds over the future direction of the nation’s foreign policy.

One of the cleverer aspects of German foreign policy involves its intent on influencing—if not controlling—political action within countless other nations. This is largely conducted behind the cloak of a handful of seemingly innocuous institutions in Germany termed “foundations.”

The two highest-profile foundations most heavily engaged in Germany’s foreign-policy push are the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Naumann Foundation.

Courtesy of research conducted by German-Foreign-Policy.com, we have in the past pointed to how the Bertelsmann Foundation has been instrumental in taking over local government administration within Britain as a forerunner to similar takeovers in other EU member nations.

2010: Year of Bridezilla?

A Time, Times, and Half A Time (Link) - Richard Peterson (October 29, 2009)

Barbara Marx Hubbard’s words that the resonating core groups are blending and merging to do the 'one work' have no better evidence than the upcoming 2010 International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. In 2010 we are to witness many of the interlocking initiatives we’ve discussed here converge and become the legal basis for global governance. Among these core initiatives include the...

• Dialogue [Parnership] among Civilizations;
• Promotion of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace;
• Combating Defamation of Religions;
• Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief;
• etc, etc.

With names indicative of peace how could anyone oppose these initiatives?

When I was young I worked for a family who farmed—Harold and Elaine Wells. Harold was a World War II veteran. One year he decided to take Elaine to Europe and travel the places he had been during the War. This meant that the couple would spend some time in East Germany which, then, was part of the communist bloc and divided by the Berlin Wall.

When the couple returned Elaine described to me how she disliked East Germany. They were permitted to see only what their guide allowed. While in a downtown district their guide stopped the group in front of a shop where Elaine saw the most beautiful dress. She said she had to buy it and before the guide could stop her, she had opened the shop door. What she saw was not a store, but a room filled with machinery.

Soros: China should lead ‘new world order’

The Raw Story (Link) - Daniel Tencer (October 28, 2009)

China should step up to the plate as the leader of a new global economic order, and the US shouldn't fear the establishment of a global currency because it would help the economy, billionaire investor George Soros says.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Soros said that China hasn't been pulling its weight in reorganizing the global economy after last year's economic collapse, and the way to convince China to lead is to allow it to "own" the reorganization of the global financial system that is underway.

"You really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order, a financial world order," Soros told FT. "They are kind of reluctant members of the IMF. They play along, but they don’t make much of a contribution because it’s not their institution. ... They have to own it the same way as, let’s say, the United States owns the Washington consensus, the current order, and I think this would be a more stable one where you would have co-ordinated policies. I think the makings of it are already there because the G20, in agreeing to peer reviews, effectively is moving in that direction."

Peer reviews are a mechanism by which members of the G20 club of economic powers can review other members' economic performance and warn those members of dangers to their economies.

Soros also advocated for the creation of at least a limited global currency, which he says would help reduce the imbalances in the global economic structure and would actually benefit the United States, whose dollar currently acts as a de facto global currency.

Leading Climate Scientist: Cap and Trade Could Ruin US Economy

Northern News Network (Link) (October 28, 2009)

As debate over climate change legislation heats up on Capitol Hill, the Director of the University of Montana’s Climate Change Studies Program, and a co-author of a Nobel Prize winning report, says cap and trade legislation could ruin the US economy.

During a Wednesday morning interview with statewide radio talk show host Aaron Flint on “Voices of Montana,” Dr. Steve Running said any climate change solution needs to involve all nations.

“We have to have all the major nations in agreement on future progress,” said Running.

Running is a co-author of the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and founder of the Climate Change Studies program at the University of Montana. He added, “If the US passed a cap and trade and other countries did not, it wouldn’t work. It would ruin the US economy and it wouldn’t save the climate either. So this is a global issue, the global climate statistics are global in nature, global carbon emissions are global in nature, and we really have to have an international consensus of what to do. That is going to stretch our international diplomacy to its limit, there’s no doubt about that.”

Nonetheless, Running called on the United States to show leadership on the issue of addressing climate change, saying other countries will follow suit.

EU states near agreement on diplomatic service

EU Observer (Link) - Andrew Rettman (October 23, 2009)

The EU's new foreign minister will have sweeping powers to conduct foreign policy, propose his own budget and name his own staff independently of other EU institutions, according to the latest EU presidency blueprint.

The 10-page Swedish report - obtained by EUobserver - was submitted to EU ambassadors on Thursday (22 October) and represents a synthesis of Stockholm's consultations with the other 26 EU capitals in recent weeks.

The post of EU foreign minister or "high representative" for foreign affairs and a new EU diplomatic corps or "European External Action Service" (EEAS) are to be created following the entry into life of the EU's Lisbon Treaty.

The Swedish paper envisages a minister in charge of a unique, "sui generis" institution with its own section in the EU budget alongside the European Commission, the EU parliament and the Council, the Brussels-based secretariat which prepares regular meetings of EU ministers.

The foreign minister is to propose how much money he needs each year, authorise spending, appoint his own staff and take charge of the European Commission's existing delegations across the world.

Annual Conference of the Institute for Security Studies of the European Union

Council of the European Union (Link) - European Union High Representative For Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana (October 22, 2009)

Dear friends, We are working hard to make a difference on every international question that is affecting our interests and values. We are now able to take decisions in real time; not just publish a communiqué one week after the event. From climate change to the International Criminal Court, we can say with a straight face that the EU is playing a leadership role. The European Union, more than anyone else, is constantly defending a vision of the world where rules are respected, the vulnerable are protected and solidarity is enacted.

Often we talk ourselves down in Europe. You all know the refrain of Europe being too divided, too slow and too soft. Long on rhetoric, short on delivery. And Yes in various areas we still under-perform compared to our potential. But a little perspective is in order here. Now we are taking executive action in a fast-moving world.

Building on the improvements of the last ten years, and with the new opportunities of the Lisbon Treaty within reach, we should plan our next steps : alert to new problems and dangers; guided by our common values. In partnership with others. And with the conviction that each on our own is unable to deal effectively with the problems of our globalised world. We know that acting together is the only way to defend our interests. But we have also defined acting together as being a strategic common interest. That is why European integration is both a means but also an end in itself.

I am convinced that it is only through further integration that Europeans will be able to assert themselves in a more complex world. A world characterised by big power shifts, multi-polarity and new security threats. A world where other narratives and other ways of doing things are gaining ground. We need to understand this world - at a deeper level than we often do. For this we need more common European assessments of what is driving change; how it is affecting our interests and what our options are to respond.

Wall Street Pay Cuts Stoke Debate About Washington’s Reach

Bloomberg (Link) - Julianna Goldman, Ian Katz and Robert Schmidt (October 22, 2009)

The Obama administration slammed Wall Street by ordering pay cuts of an average of 50 percent and caps on benefits for top executives at companies owing the government billions of dollars from taxpayer-funded bailouts.

The news triggered debate about the government’s reach into private industry, whether pay reductions would spread to other companies and if a talent drain from U.S. firms would ensue. Others cheered the move.

“I don’t think there will be any charity cases on Wall Street,” said Representative Barney Frank, 69, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in a telephone interview. “This is a very good thing.”

Executives at seven companies including New York-based Citigroup Inc. and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. will have their pay cut by an average of 50 percent after months of negotiations with Kenneth R. Feinberg, 63, the U.S. special master on compensation, according to people familiar with the matter.

The cash portion of salaries for the 25 highest-paid employees will be slashed 90 percent under Feinberg’s review, which will be released as early as today, according to one person familiar with the talks. Some cash will be replaced by shares that employees will be restricted from selling immediately, another person said.

The Role of Crisis: Greasing the Road to Multipolar Globalism

Bible Prophecy Today (Link) - Wilfred Hahn (October 21, 2009)

Despite the savagery of the financial storm of recent years, the world’s financial system has not collapsed. Though the scale and rapidity of the crisis was unprecedented in history, to date, the interventions of the world’s leaders and authorities have managed to prevent total demise. Actually, it is partly because of the great government interventions around the world that global economic collapse has not occurred. It is these reactions on the part of policymakers and their role in establishing the nature of global financial systems that we wish to examine further.

The severity of the financial collapses prompted the interventions of policymakers in the first place. At this point, it might begin to seem somewhat circuitous that the crises themselves prompt interventions to further prevent them. But it’s actually not. This is precisely how mankind has propelled itself up the slope of globalism. It is the fears and irrational expectations of emotional humans that push up globalism’s slope. This is an important process to understand, beginning with the individual.

Thatcher adviser: Copenhagen goal is 1-world government

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Jerome R. Corsi (October 17, 2009)

A former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says the real purpose of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Dec. 7-18 is to use global warming hype as a pretext to lay the foundation for a one-world government.

"At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed," Lord Christopher Monckton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience on Thursday at Bethel University in St. Paul.

"Your president will sign it. Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they're going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won't sign it," he told the audience of some 700 attendees.

"I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.

"The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, 'climate debt' – because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't. We've been screwing up the climate and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government is enforcement."

Meet the 'father of world currency'

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Jerome R. Corsi (October 13, 2009)

A plan to replace the dollar with a world currency originated with Columbia University economics professor Robert Mundell, who won a Nobel Prize in economics in 1999 for creating the euro and is now widely regarded as "the father of the euro."

Mundell, currently an economic consultant to China, is the originator of the suggestion that the International Monetary Fund should utilize Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, to replace the dollar as a new standard for holding foreign exchange reserves in international trade transactions.

SDRs are international reserve assets calculated by the IMF in a basket of major currencies allocated to the IMF's 185 member nation-states in relation to the capital. The assets are largely in gold or widely accepted foreign currencies the members have on deposit with the IMF.

As far back as June 2008, Mundell was telling Reuters a major dollar crisis would come within five years, and China was discussing with him proposals to reform the global monetary system.

"There's no doubt about it that inside the Chinese government there's a lot of discussion going on," Mundell told Reuters. "I'm not sure how they're doing it, but I know they're going to get input from me."

In the interview, Mundell went so far as to speculate the Chinese-recommended solution would involve the IMF.

Aspiring to be the father of a global currency, Mundell has argued, "What you need to have is an International Monetary Fund that's going to take some of these excess dollars (such as held by China in foreign exchange reserves), put them into a substitution account inside the IMF or some other institution and then use that to create what is a new international currency."

Mundell stressed to Reuters that such a proposal would be "very acceptable" to China.

EU Making Plans for a Bigger Role Globally

Bible Prophecy Today (Link) - Jimmy DeYoung (October 7, 2009)

The recent "yes" vote by the Irish voters on the Lisbon Treaty has brought forward the prospects that the EU wants to play a greater role in world affairs and the ratification of the EU treaty by the 27-member states of the EU will set this plan in motion.

There are two provisions in the treaty which make such a plan very viable, with the position of a permanent president to lead the EU forward and the naming of a foreign policy representative, the EU would have a greater say in world affairs.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

As the EU member states ratify the Lisbon Treaty, this European, political, governmental and economic power will indeed become a major force on the international scene, that is according to Bible prophecy.

The recent "yes" vote by the Irish on the Lisbon Treaty has moved the EU closer to becoming the united superpower that many EU member states want to see happen in our world today. In addition to the 27-member states of the EU today, the Mediterranean Union, 17 Middle Eastern states, will be integrated into the EU later this year, giving the EU 44-member states, a true force in global affairs.

This scenario fits the prophetic scenario that can be found in the Bible. The ancient Jewish prophet Daniel revealed that in the last days, the old Roman Empire would be revived and become a major global power, Daniel 7:7, 23-24.

Libya's Colonel Khadafi said these 44-member states would be a revived Roman Empire, with the same borders of the old Roman Empire. The Lisbon Treaty also calls for a strong leader, a president, to take them into the future, a page from Bible prophecy where Daniel and John, the writer of Revelation, also call for such a leader known as the Antichrist, Daniel 7:8 and Revelation 13:1-3.

A bigger role for the EU on the world stage is indeed setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

EU draws up plans to establish itself as 'world power'

Telegraph UK (Link) - Bruno Waterfield (October 7, 2009)

Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world.

A letter conferring a full "legal personality" for the Union has been drafted in order for a new European diplomatic service to be recognised as fully fledged negotiators by international bodies and all non-EU countries.

According to one confidential paper, the first pilot "embassies" are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa.

The move is highly symbolic in Britain as it formally scraps the "European Community", the organisation in which Britons originally voted to remain in the country's only referendum on Europe 34 years ago.

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, said that the deal showed why the British should have been given a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

"As we have long warned, the Lisbon Treaty increases the EU's power at the expense of the countries of Europe," he said. "The new power a single legal personality would give the EU is a classic example.

The demise of the dollar

The Independent (Link) - Robert Fisk (October 6, 2009)

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

End-Times Insanity

Bible Prophecy Today (Link) - Terry James (October 5, 2009)

Fear is on the rise in America and the world at the moment. It is a type of fear that comes upon humankind almost like nervous milling about that stirs within the wildebeests of the Serengeti just before predators set them to flight. There are many reasons this is so. But one reason in particular especially agitates the simmering fear. It is the culprit more than all of the other reasons combined for the building anxiety today.

Before we address that most profound reason for fear of things to come, let's look at the many other causes that make fear levels rise across the nation and the world. Those causes involve a myriad of issues and events. We and others who consider our times in light of Bible prophecy continually attempt to analyze those matters and present our findings to anyone and everyone who will stop, look, and listen.

For the masses of humanity in third-world regions, such as vast areas of Africa, Asia, and other bleak places, panic is a daily search for the next bite of food and swallow of water. We see the frail bodies, the distended stomachs, the flies on the faces of those whose wide, searching eyes look to the cameras filming them for their next life-sustaining morsel.

These suffering souls are not often demonstrative with their fear because their circumstances have denuded them of energy, and have robbed them of the ability to know how near to starvation they have come. The world turns a blind eye, for the most part, to the plight of these emaciated hordes. The group of people who are looking the other way too often includes even those of us who are watchmen on the wall for the signals of Christ's return.

Starvation, nonetheless, is one of the sure signs of where this generation stands on God's prophetic timeline. That millions of people are caught up in growing famine dramatically forewarns that the black horse of the Apocalypse will one day, perhaps soon, ride forth. But growing famine is not the greatest reason for the geometrically progressing worry around the globe.

Thinking on fear burgeoning within the civilized areas of the world, we briefly review the more familiar causes. These involve topics we have exhaustively examined in recent days:

Brussels welcomes US move toward global governance of internet

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (October 1, 2009)

The body responsible for managing the development of the internet, Icann, has cut its umbilical cord to the US government, a move the European Union has been demanding for four years.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees domain names - the .com, .eu, .org and so on at the end of a web address - as of 30 September will no longer be subject to review by the US Department of Commerce.

Instead, independent review panels appointed by Icann Governmental Advisory Committee (Gac) and Icann itself with the involvement of governments around the world. will perform this task.

Since 2005, the EU has been calling for reform of the governance of the internet, saying that the internet is a global resource and should not be tied to one national government - a position echoed by many other countries and a number of companies.

In June of this year, the European Commission raised the volume on the issue, publishing a policy document that an independent judicial body be set up, which information society commissioner Viviane Reding described at the time as a "G12 for internet governance," which would serve as a "multilateral forum for governments to discuss general internet governance policy and security issues."

Wednesday's move comes close to satisfying the EU demands, and Ms Reding welcomed the development.

Obama: G20 brought economy back from brink

Yahoo! News (Link) - AP - Tom Raum and Emma Vandore (September 25, 2009)

World leaders on Friday issued sweeping promises to fix a malfunctioning global economic system in hopes of heading off future financial meltdowns. President Barack Obama said actions taken so far "brought the global economy back from the brink."

"We leave here today confident and united," Obama said at the conclusion of a two-day gathering of the world's 20 top economies to deal with the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

The leaders agreed to keep stimulus plans, which include government spending and low interest rates, generally in place in their respective countries for now to avoid derailing still-fragile recoveries. Obama had pressed for just such a course and praised the decision.

"Our coordinated stimulus plans played an indispensable role in averting catastrophe. Now we must make sure that when growth returns, jobs do, too," he said at a wrap-up news conference. "That's why we will continue our stimulus efforts until our people are back to work and phase them out when our recovery is strong."

In a statement, all the G-20 leaders declared major progress from what they called their coordinated efforts and "forceful response."

"It worked," they said.

Although many of the pronouncements and actions taken by the leaders lacked specifics or details on follow-through, leaders were bold in pronouncing the gathering — the third G-20 summit in a year — as a big success.

G20 adjusts to new economic landscape

EU Observer (Link) - Andrew Willis (September 25, 2009)

Leaders from the Group of 20 industrialised and developing nations meeting in Pittsburgh, USA, on Thursday night (24 September) appear to have struck a series of deals that recognise the changed economic landscape of the 21st Century.

Agreement was reached on a new framework to reduce world imbalances and on the need to reform voting rights within the International Monetary Fund. A decision was also taken to recognise the G20 as the primary forum for economic decision-making.

The package of deals constitute a major success for US President Barack Obama, and are set to grant a greater voice to developing countries on the international stage.

Several thorny issues still remain for Day Two (Friday) of the talks however, with discussion on climate change, banker bonuses and bank capital requirements likely to produce heated debate.

Separately in Brussels, a meeting of NGOs said the response to the crisis by world leaders had merely been more of the same, while instead a new economic paradigm based on lower consumption was needed.

President Obama and the Spirit of Global Development Partnership

The Brookings Institution (Link) - Noam Unger (September 23, 2009)

In his rousing speech at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative yesterday, President Obama tied together his administration’s recurrent themes of international collaboration, public-private cooperation, and service. By planting these themes in the context of our highly globalized world—the ways in which it presents real opportunities and grave threats, Obama struck chords resonant with his campaign’s global development and democracy policy statement to “strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity.”

The key feature of his speech was a call for a new spirit of global partnership, emphasizing that real progress in lifting millions out of poverty and countering transnational threats cannot be made by governments alone. The president declared his desire for this spirit to guide his administration and he referred to it as “a defining feature of our foreign policy.”

U.N. climate meeting was propaganda: Czech president

Reuters (Link) - Louis Charbonneau (September 22, 2009)

Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.

"It was sad and it was frustrating," said Klaus, one of the world's most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.

"It's a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem," he said. "It's simply not dignified."

At the opening of the summit attended by nearly 100 world leaders, 13-year-old Yugratna Srivastava of India told the audience that governments were not doing enough to combat the threat of climate change.

Klaus said there were increasing doubts in the scientific community about whether humans are causing changes in the climate or whether the changes are simply naturally occurring phenomena.

But politicians, he said, seem to be moving closer to a consensus on climate change. "The train can't be stopped and I consider that a huge mistake," Klaus said.

Sarkozy to press for 'Tobin Tax'

BBC News (Link) (September 19, 2009)

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will urge fellow G20 leaders to introduce a special tax to reduce risky behaviour by banks, the BBC has learned.

Mr Sarkozy wants a levy known as a Tobin Tax to be applied to every financial transaction.

The move is aimed at cutting excessively speculative trades and encouraging long-term decision-making.

But senior EU officials told the BBC that the chances of getting a global agreement were "less than minimal".

The proposal does not yet have the formal backing of the EU or Germany - France's largest trading partner - and according to the BBC's business reporter Joe Lynam, it is widely expected to face resistance from Britain and the US, home to the world's largest financial centres.

The issue of bankers' pay, especially bonuses, will be on the agenda at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, the US, next weekend.

There will be no suggestion of capping individual bonuses, our correspondent says, but it is likely that overall bonuses as a proportion of a company's earnings could be restricted.

There may also be a possibility of payment deferral and the option of clawing payments back should decisions by bankers prove to have been excessively risky or erroneous.

Cap-and-Trade's Cost to Americans: $1,761 per Household

Newsmax (Link) - Dan Weil (September 17, 2009)

The Obama administration has concluded privately that a cap-and-trade law would cost every American household $1,761 a year — or a national total of nearly $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

The previously unreleased Treasury Department analysis, which CBS News reported this week, says the new law would require new taxes between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. That’s how Treasury analysts arrived at the $1,761 per household figure.

“Given the administration's proposal to auction all emission allowances, a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually,” according to the document, which was written by Judson Jaffe, who joined the Treasury Department's Office of Environment and Energy in January.

Because personal income tax revenues bring in around $1.37 trillion a year, a $200 billion additional tax would be the equivalent of a 15 percent increase a year. A $100 billion additional tax would represent a 7 percent or 8 percent increase a year.

That finding has been echoed by other internal Obama administration documents on the subject.

"Europe in the World"

Council of the European Union (Link) - Javier Solana at Harvard University (September 17, 2009) [Emphasis below mine]

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, I am delighted to be back at Harvard.

The last time, we discussed whether the US and Europe, Mars and Venus, could be reconciled. The answer today is even more obvious than it was then. But we have new issues to grapple with and a new geo-political landscape. Again the question is what the US and Europe can and should do together.

Before we get to that, let me assess the changed context. Ours is a world in flux. One where everything is speeding up: politically, economically and technologically. The net result is growing complexity. There is no single narrative or template to guide us. Chaos and hypermodernity live side by side. Integration and disintegration co-exist. No wonder many of our citizens feel confused, even lost.

Against this background, we need to be flexible and principled at the same time. For our core values have not changed. Nor has our determination to preserve them at home and support them abroad.

What is really changing the world is globalisation. It is leading to deeper interdependence and, probably, to multi-polarity.

Globalisation is good. And anyway pretty much unstoppable. It spreads prosperity and makes us richer culturally. It brings people together across continents. Of course, it has a dark side too. It makes us more vulnerable to shocks and has brought new problems in its wake. It needs a human face.

Globalisation is our child, the child of our ideas. But we can no longer run the world as we used to. We have to adjust. It means new powers are rising while older ones are playing new roles. The financial crisis has shrunk the timeline. The need to reposition ourselves is not a challenge for the medium-term. It is an issue for today.

No we can't? UK think tank says US power is fading

Yahoo! News (Link) - AP - Raphael G. Satter (September 15, 2009)

A weakened United States could start retreating from the world stage without help from its allies abroad, an international strategic affairs think tank said Tuesday.

The respected London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said President Barack Obama will increasingly have to turn to others for help dealing with the world's problems — in part because he has no alternative.

"Domestically Obama may have campaigned on the theme 'yes we can'; internationally he may increasingly have to argue 'no we can't'," the institute said in its annual review of world affairs.

The report said the U.S. struggles against insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan had exposed the limits of the country's military muscle, while the near-collapse of the world financial markets sapped the economic base on which that muscle relied.

The report also claimed that the U.S. had lost traction in its efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program and bring peace to the Middle East.

"Clearly the U.S. share of 'global power,' however measured, is in decline," the report said.

Obama 'clones' Bush in Killing Sovereignty

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Jerome R. Corsi (September 13, 2009)

President Obama is continuing President George W. Bush's effort to advance North American integration with a public-relations makeover calculated to place the program under the radar of public opinion and to deflect concerns about border security and national sovereignty.

The Obama administration has "rebranded" and "refocused" the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, to advance the Bush administration's agenda of North American integration under the rubric of the "North American Leaders Summit," a less controversial banner, according to confidential sources in the U.S. Department of Commerce and State Department who agreed to speak with WND only if their comments were kept off the record.

As WND reported in August, the White House offered few details to the press in advance of the most recent North American Leaders Summit held in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Moreover, the Guadalajara summit was reduced to a one-day meeting, whereas all previous SPP trilateral summits had been two-day events.

Sources confirmed to WND that the SPP is now being directed from within the White House, as reflected by a new blog posted on the White House website entitled "The North American Leaders Summit." The site is intended to replace SPP.gov as the official website documenting trilateral government activities going forward under the rebranded name.

The SPP website maintained by the Department of Commerce now has a disclaimer that reads: "This website is an archive for SPP documents and will not be updated."

World system moves towards new order: Singapore official

China View (Link) (September 10, 2009)

The global economic situation appears to be no longer so dire, as with any major shock to the system, there will be profound structural changes that will shift the equilibrium towards a "new world order," a Singapore official said on Thursday.

The economic situation has somewhat stabilized these two quarters, which thanks to the concerted and decisive efforts of many governments and central banks, said Lim Hwee Hua, Singapore's Minister in Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Finance and Transport.

Speaking here at a forum dinner, She said that three trends have already begun to take shape towards a new world order, namely rebalancing of the global economy, increased domestic protectionist pressure in many countries, and "global green new deal."

She said that as many economists have observed, a "delicate rebalancing act" of international trade flows would be required for a global recovery.