19 "Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws—the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.
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23 "He gave me this explanation: 'The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.
Time overdue for a world currency
A world central bank is becoming a necessity in a global economy. Such an independent central bank, not subject to the political whims of a particular government, would be more likely to apply orthodox and safe central banking. Contrary to any country's central bank, a world central bank would have no obligation to accommodate budgetary deficits, war spending, domestic wage and price rigidities, speculative asset bubbles, or rescue ailing domestic banks. Its law should be as meticulously applied as any constitutional law of a Western democracy.
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Second, a world central bank would create a reserve currency, not be a fictitious unit account such as the IMF's Special Drawing Right (SDR), but a true legal tender represented by a currency bill, the same as a dollar, euro, sterling, or any other currency bill. Rueff was a strong proponent for a gold standard. Recently, Mundell maintained that gold could be used as a reserve asset in a reformed international monetary system for the 21st century.
Hmm. The authors of this piece:
Hossein Askari is professor of international business and international affairs at George Washington University. Noureddine Krichene is an economist at the
International Monetary Fund and a former advisor, Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah.
Democracy and markets link will help India outdo China
If you were to pick out the main reason for the financial crisis, what would that be?
The main reason is that we have a global economy without global governance. The global economy is creating resources by providing resources for creating newer financial instruments. But we don’t have a world central bank to limit the money supply. Today, we have too much resources, which jeopardize the integrity of the system. The lack of a global control on the creation of financial instruments is the most challenging issue around the globe.
Kenya: We Need New Deal for Global Food Policy
We need a New Deal for Global Food Policy. This New Deal should focus not only on hunger and malnutrition, access to food and its supply, but also the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, the marginalisation of women and others, and economic resiliency and growth.
Food policy needs to gain the attention of the highest political levels, because no one country or group can meet these interconnected challenges.We should start by helping those whose needs are immediate. The UN's World Food Programme requires at least $500 million of additional food supplies to meet emergency calls.
Madeline Albright. Ugh.
Since Iraq, the world is scared to help
A third reality is that the concept of national sovereignty as an inviolable and overriding principle of global law is once again gaining ground. Many diplomats and foreign policy experts had hoped that the fall of the Berlin Wall would lead to the creation of an integrated world system free from spheres of influence, in which the wounds created by colonial and Cold War empires would heal.
In such a world, the international community would recognise a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations - to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide disaster relief when national governments were either unable or unwilling to do so.
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In this view, sovereignty is still a central consideration, but cases may arise in which there is a responsibility to intervene - through sanctions or, in extreme cases, by force - to save lives.
U.N. might need bold action in disasters
This next idea might sound scary to many, but I have been thinking about this for a long time. With the failure of so many countries in the world to feed and care for their people, perhaps the United Nations could consider a bolder mission, a more intriguing and dangerous discussion.
For example, in the wake of a disaster such as the malfeasance of the Myanmar government in this tragedy, the U.N. could consider “mandatory management” of crucial institutions whose purpose is to serve the needs, hopes and desires of the people in the country.
What that means is in tragedies of this scale, artificial borders set up by local politics become irrelevant. Saving people becomes the priority. The diplomats will sort it all out later when the people have food, clothing, shelter, and are free of disease.
Conservatives Place Hold on Obama's Global Poverty Bill
Officially, S. 2433 declares it to be U.S. policy to help reduce global poverty and eliminate extreme global poverty. It also commits the U.S. to achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme global poverty in half by 2015 and directs the president to create a strategy to help reduce global poverty.
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But conservatives say the legislation also pledges the U.S. government to make available "additional overall United States assistance levels as appropriate."
Ian Vasquez, director of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that plan is troubling because the U.N. has been after the U.S. for years to substantially increase the amount of foreign aid it gives to impoverished nations. "There has been a push for the past several years, which is a political push, to double the size of aid going to the poorest countries, despite the fact that most of the academic literature and the experience shows that foreign aid is not a key to economic development," Vasquez told Cybercast News Service.
Obama’s Bill Would Commit the United States to UN Poverty Goals
Obama’s Global Poverty Act does not authorize or appropriate any money to fight global poverty, but does require the president to develop a strategy for achieving UN Millennium Development goals for reducing poverty. Based on the 2002 UN goal of foreign-aid spending of 0.7 percent of GNP by developed nations, it has been estimated by some conservative commentators that achieving the Millennium Declaration’s development goal of poverty reduction could ultimately cost the United States over $800 billion by 2015.
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Then of course, there's Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty.
Ireland rejects EU reform treaty
Voters in the Irish Republic have rejected the European Union's Lisbon treaty in a vote by 53.4% to 46.6%.
The poll is a major blow to leaders in the 27-nation EU, which requires all its members to ratify the treaty. Only Ireland has held a public vote.
EU ministers ask Ireland to explain Lisbon Treaty no
Luxembourg - The European Union's foreign ministers Monday called on their
Irish colleague to explain his countrymen's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, warning that no quick solutions were in sight.'Ireland signed the Lisbon Treaty, it is up to her to find a solution,' Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said at a meeting in Luxembourg.
European Treaty: Irish plan to get around 'no' vote
Officials in Brussels are working on plans to ensure that the European Treaty is still implemented elsewhere if Ireland votes against it in the referendum.
Although measures such as creating an EU president, "foreign minister" and European diplomatic service may be delayed, they are still expected to be introduced.
One diplomat said a "bridging mechanism" was being discussed. If Ireland rejects the treaty, it may simply be removed from the list of signatories and will not be legally obliged to abide by it.
5The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. 6He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.[b]
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