Watchman Newsletter

Federal Reserve announces July launch for the FedNow Service

Federalreserve.gov (Link) - Press Release (March 15, 2023)

The Service will Debut with Financial Institutions and the U.S. Treasury on Board

CHICAGO – The Federal Reserve announced that the FedNow Service will start operating in July and provided details on preparations for launch.

The first week of April, the Federal Reserve will begin the formal certification of participants for launch of the service. Early adopters will complete a customer testing and certification program, informed by feedback from the FedNow Pilot Program, to prepare for sending live transactions through the system.

Certification encompasses a comprehensive testing curriculum with defined expectations for operational readiness and network experience. In June, the Federal Reserve and certified participants will conduct production validation activities to confirm readiness for the July launch.

"We couldn't be more excited about the forthcoming FedNow launch, which will enable every participating financial institution, the smallest to the largest and from all corners of the country, to offer a modern instant payment solution," said Ken Montgomery, first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and FedNow program executive. "With the launch drawing near, we urge financial institutions and their industry partners to move full steam ahead with preparations to join the FedNow Service."

Many early adopters have declared their intent to begin using the service in July, including a diverse mix of financial institutions of all sizes, the largest processors, and the U.S. Treasury.

The President Of France Wants Eurozone Members To Transfer Their Sovereignty To A United States Of Europe

The Economic Collapse Blog (Link) - Michael Snyder (July 19, 2015)

The President of France has come up with a very creative way of solving the European debt crisis. On Sunday, a piece authored by French President Francois Hollande suggested that the ultimate solution to the problems currently plaguing Europe would be for every member of the eurozone to transfer all of their sovereignty to a newly created federal government. In other words, it would essentially be a “United States of Europe”. This federal government would have a prime minister, a parliament, a federal budget and a federal treasury. Presumably, the current national governments in Europe would continue to function much like state governments in the U.S. do. In the end, there may be some benefits to such a union – particularly for the weaker members of the eurozone. But at what cost would those benefits come?

The Fuse is Lit: European Perils

Mcalvany Financial (Link) (May 21, 2012)

With the acceleration of economic and monetary events here is the first of 3 short films in 2012. Our focus is the US dollar, notably its status as the world’s reserve currency. The monetary greed and mountains of debt in recent years has deeply impaired the dollar’s justification to hold this prestigious and privileged position. We believe the US dollar’s tenure as the world’s reserve currency is rapidly approaching its end. We first explore the EU in that context. The fuse is lit! †

The ‘United States Of Europe’ Beckons

Yahoo! News (Link) - Forbes - Clem Chambers (December 12, 2011)

It has long been said that the euro was just a step towards a federal Europe. When the European currency went into crisis, as it would be assured to do so, it would force closer fiscal integration--effectively meaning closer political union.

Closer union appears to be coming true. The euro, in its old form, has fallen into crisis and the price European countries have to pay is a large loss of sovereignty. Nationalists would consider this disastrous. In reality, there are not so many nationalists in Europe these days and many countries, and their populations, consider themselves European and see little problem with further integration.

What is set to happen is that the European super state will hold the cheque book of euro member countries; or at least be able to snap it shut should any one country wish to run away with its local budget.

Money is power and once ultimate budget power is gone, political power will subsequently be drawn into the federal centre. This illuminates the character of the current crisis; it is purely political. Come what may, economic ramifications of the crisis are secondary to those of the political necessities.

22 Reasons Why We Could See An Economic Collapse In Europe In 2012

The Economic Collapse (Link) (November 29, 2011)

Will 2012 be the year that we see an economic collapse in Europe? Before you dismiss the title of this article as “alarmist,” read the facts listed in the rest of this article first. Over the past several months, there has been an astonishing loss of confidence in the European financial system. Right now, virtually nobody wants to loan money to financially troubled nations in the EU and virtually nobody wants to lend money to major European banks. Remember, one of the primary reasons for the financial crisis of 2008 was a major credit crunch that happened here in the United States. This burgeoning credit crunch in Europe is just one element of a “perfect storm” that is rapidly coming together as we get ready to go into 2012. The signs of trouble are everywhere. All over Europe, governments are implementing austerity measures and dramatically cutting back on spending. European banks are substantially cutting back on lending as they seek to meet new capital requirements that are being imposed upon them. Meanwhile, bond yields are going through the roof all over Europe as investors lose confidence and demand much higher returns for investing in European debt. It has become clear that without a miracle happening, quite a few European nations and a significant number of European banks are not going to be able to get the funding that they need from the market in 2012. The only thing that is going to avert a complete and total financial meltdown in Europe is dramatic action, but right now European leaders are so busy squabbling with each other that a bold plan seems out of the question.

The following are 22 reasons why we could see an economic collapse in Europe in 2012....

The Coming European Superstate That Germany Plans To Cram Down The Throats Of The Rest Of Europe

Economic Collapse Blog (Link) (November 18, 2011)

A lot of people were puzzled about what German Chancellor Angela Merkel meant when she recently stated that the ultimate solution to the financial crisis in the EU would “mean more Europe, not less Europe”. Well, now we are finding out. A leaked internal German government memo entitled “The Future of the EU: Required Integration Policy Improvements for the Creation of a Stability Union” actually proposes the creation of a “European Monetary Fund” which would be given the power to run the economies of troubled European nations. This “stability union” would be quickly followed by the creation of a full-fledged “political union”. Essentially, this leaked memo proposes the creation of a “European Superstate” which will be crammed down the throats of the rest of Europe whether they like it or not. National sovereignty would be a thing of the past and European bureaucrats would run everything. Of course this will never be accepted by the people of Europe until they feel the bitter pain of the coming financial collapse, but we are starting to see that there is already a clear plan for what the Germans wish to implement in the aftermath of the coming crisis.

A lot of people have just assumed that if there is a massive financial collapse in Europe and the euro crashes that it will mean that end of the euro and potentially the breakup of the EU. But that is not what the Germans have planned at all.

Netherlands: Indebted states must be made ‘wards’ of the commission or leave euro

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (September 7, 2011)

The Dutch government has proposed that highly indebted states be put into “guardianship,” with spending decisions seized from the elected government and placed under the direct control of a European commissioner.

If a state is unwilling to surrender its sovereignty in this way, then it would be forced to exit the euro.

“Member states not willing to make themselves a ward, may choose to make use of the option to leave the eurozone,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a letter to the national parliament co-signed by the finance, economy and foreign ministers.

“To continue to be part of the monetary union, states should fully respect agreements.”

Under the proposals, seen by EUobserver, a special European commissioner would be appointed to oversee the budgets of euro-area countries.

Spectre of fresh EU treaty returns to haunt ‘incomplete’ Europe

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (September 6, 2011)

It took nearly a decade of squabbling amongst EU states, a series of referendum disasters and a last-minute game of high-stakes brinksmanship from a stubborn Czech president, but the bloc finally managed to radically refashion the way it worked with the passage of the Lisbon Treaty in 2010.

So exhausted were they by the struggle by the time the soap opera ended, European leaders then swore it would be very long indeed, perhaps a generation, before the EU treaties would be opened again.

But now, in the last few days, as Europe’s economy and the single currency stand on the precipice, these same leaders have begun to eat their words.

On Tuesday, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called for the second time in a week for changes to the treaties.

“Strengthening the eurozone’s architecture ... may need profound treaty changes,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Financial Times.

25 Signs That The Financial World Is About To Hit The Big Red Panic Button

Economic Collapse Blog (Link) - Michael (August 31, 2011)

Most of the worst financial panics in history have happened in the fall. Just recall what happened in 1929, 1987 and 2008. Well, September 2011 is about to begin and there are all kinds of signs that the financial world is about to hit the big red panic button. Wave after wave of bad economic news has come out of the United States recently, and Europe is embroiled in an absolutely unprecedented debt crisis. At this point there is a very real possibility that the euro may not even survive. So what is causing all of this? Well, over the last couple of decades a gigantic debt bubble has fueled a tremendous amount of “fake prosperity” in the western world. But for a debt bubble to keep going, the total amount of debt has to keep expanding at an ever increasing pace. Unfortunately for the global economy, sources of credit are starting to dry up. That is why you hear terms like “credit crisis” and “credit crunch” thrown around so much these days. Without enough credit to feed the monster, the debt bubble is going to burst. At this point, virtually the entire global economy runs on credit, so when this debt bubble bursts things could get really, really messy.

Nations and financial institutions would never get into debt trouble if they could always borrow as much money as they wanted at extremely low interest rates. But what has happened is that lending sources are balking at continuing to lend cheap money to nations and financial institutions that are already up to their eyeballs in debt.

For example, the yield on 2 year Greek bonds is now over 40 percent. Investors don’t trust the Greek government and they are demanding a huge return in order to lend them more money.

EU—Power to the President!

The Trumpet (Link) - Ron Fraser (August 22, 2011)

There’s a profound leadership gap in Europe.

At a time of increasing crisis, commentators are crying out for someone to step up and take the lead in stemming the spread of the euro crisis:

“Investors have little if any confidence in eurozone leaders’ ability to stick together in the face of mounting calamity …” (Wall Street Journal, August 9; emphasis added throughout). “Markets can adjust to a downgrade of global growth, but they cannot cope with a spiraling loss of confidence in leadership and a growing sense that policymakers are disconnected from reality” (Financial Times, August 8). “In a sane world, the German chancellor and the French president would sack their economic advisers who clearly lack an understanding of basic economics or national accounting principles” (EU Observer, August 17). “A poll released Friday indicates Germans know little about the current euro crisis—but are overwhelmingly opposed to the way it is being handled by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the two leaders spearheading efforts to solve the crisis” (Spiegel Online, August 19).

As the European Union fragments into what will ultimately comprise 10 leading nations, the rest enslaved politically—if not in the fullest sense of the word—to one centralizing power (Revelation 17), the leadership gap is becoming most glaring.

Henry Kissinger during the 1970s famously asked the question, “If I want to call Europe, who do I call?”

EU elites moved to begin solving that dilemma by creating the office of president of the European Council within the Lisbon Treaty/EU constitution ratified in December 2009. Appointments to that presidency are for a period of 2½ years, renewable once. That position is currently held by Belgian Herman Van Rompuy. The European Council comprises all EU member nations’ heads of state. It sets strategy and direction for the European Union.

Syria mobilizing troops for conflict with U.S., NATO

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Aaron Klein (August 21, 2011)

Syrian President Bashar Assad is taking military measures to prepare for a possible U.S.-NATO campaign against his regime, WND has learned.

While Assad struck a conciliatory tone in an interview today with his state-run television network, he also instructed the Syrian military to be prepared for an air or ground campaign if the international community determines his pledges of reform are not enough.

Last week, WND first reported Turkey secretly passed a message to Damascus that if it does not implement major democratic reforms, NATO may attack Assad’s regime, according to Egyptian security officials.

The Egyptian security officials said the message was coordinated with NATO members, specifically with the U.S. and European Union.

Father Of The Euro: It’s “On The Edge Of A Precipice”

Business Insider (Link) - Simone Foxman (August 18, 2011)

Jacques Delors -- one man responsible for ushering in the European Economic and Monetary Union -- told Swiss newspaper Le Temps that Europe and the euro risk falling from “the edge of a precipice.”

“To avoid falling, the choice looks straightforward to me: either member states accept the robust economic partnership I always demanded, or they transfer more powers to the Union,” said Delors, who served as European Commission president from 1985 to 1994.

His voice joins a chorus of experts and leaders who are calling for eurobonds and a more comprehensive economic and political EU.

Delors proposed a part-mutualization of European debt, with nations allowed to harmonize debts worth “up to 60 percent of GDP” and issue joint securities. This is, in his words, “the pump to extinguish the fire.”

Weaker euro states could lose local banks

The Telegraph (Link) - Harry Wilson (August 10, 2011)

Equity analysts at Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, said that the problem with the European banking system is that it is “not aligned to the single currency area” and that larger banks with operations across the region were likely to replace smaller single country-focused lenders.

“We envisage that banks operating on a more EU-wide basis, alongside an ECB with appropriate powers, would be an important part of a sustainable euro project,” said Tony Silverman, a financial analyst at S&P.

“This may mean peripheral countries should not necessarily expect to have their own domestic banks,” he added.

Mr Silverman points out that about 50pc of eurozone deposits lent through the European Central Bank and the interbank market are to banks that have loans in excess of their deposits, adding there is a “conspicuous” absence of banks that are net lenders to the market.

“We would question whether this is sustainable and indeed to what extent such funding can meaningfully be regarded as temporary,” said Mr Silverman.

Senate Panel Keeps ‘Secret Patriot Act’ Under Wraps

Wired (Link) - Noah Shachtman (August 2, 2011)

The secret Patriot Act is staying secret.

Two Senators have been warning for months that the government has a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act so broad that it amounts to an entirely different law — one that gives the feds massive domestic surveillance powers, and keeps the rest of us in the dark about the snooping.

“There is a significant discrepancy between what most Americans – including many members of Congress – think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and how government officials interpret that same law,” wrote the Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. “We believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret.”

The Senators tried to get the government to reveal some of the law’s contents, by forcing the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to produce a report outlining when this secret surveillance has gone overboard. Yesterday, the effort failed. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said no to the report by rejecting Wyden and Udall’s amendment to the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization Act.

In other words: we are all still in the dark about how the government is spying on us.

EU demands that Britain admit immigrants intending to go straight on to benefits

The Telegraph (Link) - Daniel Hannan (August 2, 2011)

The European Commission may finally have hit on an issue that jerks Britain from its euro-torpor – an issue that simultaneously presses the buttons of border control, welfare abuse and Brussels intrusiveness. Whether from hubris, power-hunger or from sheer stupidity, Eurocrats are demanding that Britain stop asking immigrants to show that they won’t immediately start accessing the social security system.

As the law stands, people wishing to settle in Britain must demonstrate that they have the means to support themselves, either through work or through an alternative source of income such as a pension. The European Commission claims that this amounts to discrimination against EU citizens, who are supposed to enjoy the same rights as British nationals.

In fact, as so often happens, Eurocrats are disregarding the plain text of their own rules. Article 7(1) of the Free Movement Directive gives EU citizens the right to reside in another member state only if they have “sufficient resources for themselves and their family members not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State”.

Jim Rickards - Germany’s Fourth Reich Has Conquered Europe

King World News (Link) - Eric King (July 28, 2011)

With fear escalating around the financial world as the US debt ceiling deadline draws near, today King World News interviewed Jim Rickards to get his take on where things stand. One of the things KWN was surprised to learn was that while everyone has been focused on the US’s debt problem, the Germans with the cooperation of their political and financial foot soldiers have essentially conquered Europe.

Jim Rickards explains this extraordinary conquest,

“It became more and more clear that there was no good way out, in other words you could just have an outright Greek default, which would be highly disruptive or Greece could have left the Euro and that’s another bad outcome. Not so much economically, but politically, Germany and France don’t want that because it would lead to the unraveling of the entire Euro project which has been going on since the early ‘50s.”

Radical Islamists Trying to Take Over Temple Mount

Israel National News (Link) - David ben Yacov (July 28, 2011)

On the 90th anniversary of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the vast Islamic Caliphate regime which fell in 1921 after WWI, thousands of members of the Radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir rallied on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They called for Muslims to unite and embrace the Caliphate rulership once more.

The rally took place in early July. Demonstrators flew banners bearing inscriptions such as “The Ummah (Muslims) Want Muslim Caliphates.” A giant banner was put up in the Al Aksa mosque courtyard on the Temple Mount. Other banners said “No to Democracy, Yes to Caliphates.” The crowd controller, using a microphone, soon had the crowd chanting over and over, “O Muslim armies, awaken to help Muslims.”

The Hizb ut-Tahrir (‘Party of Liberation’) website calls for the Muslim armies to forcefully lift the Gaza IDF naval blockade with military action, making it serve “as a tight noose” around Israel.

Caliphates were a totalitarian system of Muslim government established by Mohammed, who made himself the first Caliph, reigning until 632 C.E. The Caliph was a religious and political leader, who made the Koran’s prescriptions, now developed into the legal body known as Sharia law, the law of the land. The Ottoman Empire embraced the idea of a caliphate, and was governed this way until its dissolution.

Europe’s Giant Leap Toward a Superstate

The Trumpet (Link) - Brad Macdonald & Richard Palmer  (July 22, 2011)

Nearly 30 years ago Herbert Armstrong prophesied that a massive banking crisis “could suddenly result in triggering European nations to unite as a new world power larger than either the Soviet Union or the U.S.” (emphasis added throughout).

On Thursday, that prophecy became reality.

To many observers, Thursday’s eurozone meeting in Brussels seemed like just another meeting. Europe’s leaders, noted some economists, have once again kicked the can down the road. These people have gotten bogged down in the details. In reality, unlike previous summits, Europe’s leaders on Thursday made several important long-term decisions that catapult the Continent toward becoming a European superstate.

“[I]t is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of the decision which European leaders seemed last night to be reaching,” wrote the Telegraph’s chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, in an article titled “The euro crisis will give Germany the empire it’s always dreamed of.”

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a lady not prone to exaggeration or speaking in dramatic terms, announced Thursday that “this is a historic day.”

“What we are doing now is an example for deeper integration—handing over and transferring more competences to EU institutions,” Merkel said.

The fate of the euro is in the hands of Germany

The Telegraph UK (Link) (July 14, 2011)

The Italian parliament’s endorsement of a £40 billion austerity package has temporarily eased the turmoil in the eurozone but will not end it.

Yesterday’s vote in the senate, to be confirmed by the lower house today, marked a truce in the political in-fighting in Rome that had placed the debt reduction strategy in peril.

A successful, if expensive, sale of Italian government bonds also helped steady nerves amid fears that the eurozone contagion was spreading to one of its biggest economies.

Speculation that the European Central Bank stepped in to buy Italy’s debt has not been confirmed, but would be significant if true.

It would suggest that the ECB is finally trying to put together a strategy to contain the crisis. The piecemeal approach it has so far adopted is simply not good enough.

Europe’s Moment of Truth

The Trumpet (Link) - Brad Macdonald (July 14, 2011)

Maybe it lacks the pizazz that surrounds the downfall of a global media baron, or the urgency of America’s debt ceiling debate. But let’s set aside all the other headlines and dwell a bit on the most underreported yet most important story of the moment.

That is, Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

After months of focusing primarily on Greece, the spotlight this week turned on Europe’s third-largest economy, Italy. This doesn’t mean Greece’s problems have been solved. Au contraire. Despite the endless “emergency meetings,” the bailouts and the austerity measures, Athens continues to edge toward bankruptcy. And European officials this week hinted that they may even be prepared to let Greece default.

All eyes turned on Italy last Friday, when fears of a contagion set in and resulted in the plunge of Italy’s stock market and a significant rise in the interest rate on Italian bonds. When markets opened Monday, the crisis worsened. Spooked investors continued to flee Italian bonds, causing yields to jump to 5.6 percent. The bond crisis was compounded by investors dumping stocks of banks exposed to Italian debt, which sparked the largest global run on stocks since March.

The Divided States of Europe

Stratfor Global Intelligence (Link) - Marko Papic (June 28, 2011)

Europe continues to be engulfed by economic crisis. The global focus returns to Athens on June 28 as Greek parliamentarians debate austerity measures imposed on them by eurozone partners. If the Greeks vote down these measures, Athens will not receive its second bailout, which could create an even worse crisis in Europe and the world.

It is important to understand that the crisis is not fundamentally about Greece or even about the indebtedness of the entire currency bloc. After all, Greece represents only 2.5 percent of the eurozone’s gross domestic product (GDP), and the bloc’s fiscal numbers are not that bad when looked at in the aggregate. Its overall deficit and debt figures are in a better shape than those of the United States — the U.S. budget deficit stood at 10.6 percent of GDP in 2010, compared to 6.4 percent for the European Union — yet the focus continues to be on Europe.

That is because the real crisis is the more fundamental question of how the European continent is to be ruled in the 21st century. Europe has emerged from its subservience during the Cold War, when it was the geopolitical chessboard for the Soviet Union and the United States. It won its independence by default as the superpowers retreated: Russia withdrawing to its Soviet sphere of influence and the United States switching its focus to the Middle East after 9/11. Since the 1990s, Europe has dabbled with institutional reform but has left the fundamental question of political integration off the table, even as it integrated economically. This is ultimately the source of the current sovereign debt crisis, the lack of political oversight over economic integration gone wrong.

Towards a sovereign union

Press Europ (Link) - Andrzej Talaga (June 27, 2011)

On June 2 in Aachen, Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, announced that the EU should only have one finance minister. At the same time, he also called for the transformation of the EU into an unprecedented confederation of states with a common budgetary policy — a vision that amounts to a severe blow to national sovereignty.

A “super-finance” ministry, with the power to veto certain public spending decisions and to control the budgetary policies and competitiveness of Europe’s member states, as well as an EU financial sector that is fully compliant with European rules: this would amount to establishing a system for the control of national budgets, at least for those countries that have adopted the euro. According to Trichet’s proposal, those states would then become semi-independent, perhaps to the point where they only retained territorial autonomy. Nowhere in any dictionary of politics has such a state been defined.

However, these proposals are not exactly new. In response to the Greek crisis, the plan is to make aid to the Athens government contingent upon strict supervision of the country’s finances by the supranational troika of experts from the European Commission, the ECB, and the IMF.

This is something that has never been seen before in the EU. Certainly, Ireland and Portugal have been obliged to rein in their public spending, but it has yet to fall under external control. On the other hand, Greece, which has come under pressure for the mishandling of its financial affairs, is being forced to handover control of its budgetary policy to foreigners: yet another step in the loss of sovereignty which began when it joined the euro and relinquished control of its monetary policy.

The Greek crisis brings us even closer to the long-planned European empire

The Telegraph UK (Link) - Norman Tebbit (June 23, 2011)

A long time ago, when I spent a lot of time at the Council of Ministers in Brussels, my good friend Otto Graf Lambsdorff and I would wearily raise our heads and mutter “Beware the Greeks when they come demanding gifts” when confronted by yet another plea for a subsidy from our Greek colleague. It would be very easy to think that current events in Greece are just a continuation of that same problem.

That would be to misunderstand the grand strategy being pursued in Brussels. It is designed to achieve, without recourse to war, the realization of a dream unfulfilled since the fall of Rome, the first pan-European Empire. Spain, France and Austro Hungary failed in their attempts to build such an Empire and after yet another destructive European war, the founding fathers of the EU swore to achieve through politics what warfare had failed to deliver.

The creation of a common, or to be correct, sole currency, the euro, was not an end in itself, but a weapon to achieve by economic means, a European government. It was about politics, not economics.

Soros Frontman Pushing for Muslim Brotherhood

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Aaron Klein with research by Brenda J. Elliott (June 15, 2011)

A former Jordanian diplomat widely quoted in news media in recent months calming fears about the Muslim Brotherhood is a Mideast specialist for a peace institute funded by philanthropist George Soros.

WND previously reported the International Crisis Group, or ICG, led in part by Soros has long petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. The ICG includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also, WND reported on the numerous ties of Soros initiatives, including the philanthropist’s own Open Society Institute, to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Since those revolutions first started in Tunisia in January, news media have widely quoted Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister and deputy prime minister, as a Middle East analyst.

Muasher has roundly championed the revolutions while calling for Arab countries to include Islamist groups in a new democratic system based on an open society.

‘New system of European governance’ demands deeper austerity

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (June 9, 2011)

The European taskmaster has cracked the whip. However much austerity has been imposed by EU member states, it is simply not enough.

That is the overriding message from the European Commission that runs through its recommendations for each of the 27 member states in the new, post-crisis system of radically centralised oversight and correction of national economic policies by the EU known as the ‘European Semester’.

“We are now implementing the new system of European governance,” commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, heralding the unveiling of 27 detailed - or ‘granular’, to use the adjective EU officials use - national prescriptions, telling member states what they are getting right and wrong with their fiscal policies and what they must do to ‘fix’ their economies.

It goes further than fresh call for austerity: it is a recipe for much deeper liberalisation of the European economy than has yet been seen.

Germany demands seat for EU on UN security council

The Parliament (Link) - Martin Banks (May 24, 2011)

Germany’s foreign minister says Berlin is “fully committed” to the EU having a seat on the security council of the United Nations.

The comments by Guido Westerwelle in parliament on Tuesday will cause a stir in some member states, notably the UK and France, Europe’s only two permanent members of the UN security council.

Addressing the security and defence subcommittee, Westerwelle admitted that Berlin’s view represented a “problem” for those who are opposed to the EU having a permanent security council seat.

“We know that two EU member states are permanent members of the UN security council and that they do not want to give up their seats,” he said.

“This makes for a difficult situation but Germany’s goal is for the EU to become a permanent member of the UN security council.”

He also told the committee that, in addition to the EU, Germany wants to have a UN security council seat itself. At present, it is a “temporary” member.

A New Global Financial System

The Trumpet (Link) - Robert Morley (May 24, 2011)

The European Union is set to issue a very special bond this week. It is special because it is practically unprecedented. Just twice before has the EU borrowed money with the promise that all member nations would be responsible for paying it back.

If the Eurobonds become a permanent part of the European Union, the implications are global. A United European bond market could save the eurozone’s struggling economies.

But that is not the biggest implication. For the first time, the U.S. treasury market will have a real and potentially lethal competitor, and the world will finally have a true alternative to the dollar for reserve currency.

According to the Financial Times, the first bond auction in January led to “overwhelming demand” for the paper from investors around the world. The second issuance in March was equally successful, as investors in Asia and the Middle East snapped up the bonds. The success of the Eurobond sales contrasts sharply with the rising cost of raising money in most European countries.

Germany’s Klaus Regling, the head of the EU facility selling the Eurobonds, said investors saw the bonds as a “new way to diversify” their assets.

EU wins new powers at UN, transforming global body

EU Observer (Link) - Leigh Phillips (May 5, 2011)

EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy will now be able to address the United Nations no differently from US President Barack Obama, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Russia’s Dimitri Medvedev.

In order to win the vote, the EU had to agree to changes to the global organisation that transforms the UN from an assembly of nation states into a body that also offers representation rights to regional blocs as well, including potentially the African Union, the Arab League and the South American Union.

The EU on Tuesday was given almost all the rights in the global chamber that fully-fledged states enjoy after the General Assembly backed 180 to two a resolution giving the bloc, which until this week only maintained observer status at the UN, the union the right to speak, the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right of reply, the right to raise points of order and the right to circulate documents.

There will also be additional seats put in the chamber for the EU’s foreign policy chief, High Representative Catherine Ashton and her officials.

G20 agrees guidelines to measure economic imbalances

BBC News (Link) - Barak Ravid (April 15, 2011)

Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 have agreed a set of “indicative guidelines” to measure potential risks to the global economy posed by national economic policies.

All members of the G20 will be monitored under the new system.

In addition, members who account for more than 5% of total G20 economic output will be subject to a deeper, second-stage analysis of imbalances.

They include the US, China, Japan, Germany and France.

This is to “reflect the greater potential for spillover effects from larger economies,”  the group said.

The G20 did not formally name the countries this would apply to but French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said that France would be one of seven in total to face higher scrutiny.

The group was meeting in Washington, ahead of the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The G20 accounts for 85% of global output and is now the main forum for trying to reform the world’s financial system.

Is this Obama’s next target after Libya?

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Aaron Klein With research by Chris Elliott (April 11, 2011)

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya, WND has learned.

The discovery is particularly pertinent because on Sunday Moussa announced during a special meeting in Cairo that the Arab League plans to press the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip similar to the one imposed now on Libya.

Moussa said he plans to present the proposal to the U.N. Security Council.

The call comes as Hamas has fired over 140 rockets into Jewish civilian population zones, prompting Israel to carry out anti-terror operations in Gaza aimed at diminishing Hamas’ rocketing capabilities.

As WND was first to report, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world’s leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine’s main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros.