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The News In Review newsletter is a service provided
by Understand The Times that
is a compilation of the news articles previously posted
on our site .
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April 3 - G20 summit: Gordon Brown announces 'new world order'
Article: One World Government
The Prime Minister
claimed to have struck a
"historic" deal to
end the global
recession as he unveiled plans to plough more than
$1
trillion into the
world economy. "This is the day that the
world came
together to fight back against the global
recession," he
said. "Not with words but with a plan
for
global recovery
and reform."
Barack Obama, the
US
President, hailed the deal as a "turning
point" for the
global economy which would put it on the path to
recovery.
Under the $1.1
trillion
(£750 billion)
agreement, which followed several days of intense
negotiation,
struggling economies will be offered money provided
to
the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) by wealthier nations. The G20
leaders also
agreed restrictions on bankers' pay, rules to target
tax havens and
hedge funds and a new financial early warning
system
to prevent a future
economic meltdown.
"Today's
decisions, of
course, will not
immediately solve the crisis.
But we have begun
the process by which it will be solved," Mr
Brown said.
"I think a new
world
order is emerging
with the foundation of a new progressive era of
international co-
operation,"
The success was
echoed by
Mr Obama. "By any measure the London
summit
was historic,"
he said. "It was historic because of the
size
and the scope of
the challenges that we face
and because of
the timeliness and magnitude of our
response."
Mr Sarkozy, who had
threatened to walk
out of the talks unless he got action on tax
havens, said a "page has been turned"
on the
old financial
model, the "Anglo-Saxon model".
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April 2 - G20 leaders seal $1tn global deal
Article: One World Government
The G20 summit has ended in a
global deal to
boost world growth. Is it the
beginning of a new
world economic order? But there are hints,
in the rhetoric and
in substantive measures,
that a new way of
running the world economy may be emerging from the
G20 process.
President Barack
Obama
said as much
when he acknowledged that the
'Washington
consensus' of unfettered globalisation and
deregulation
was now
outmoded, and called for a more balanced approach
to
regulating markets
rather than letting them run free.
And it is the shift in the US
position, which
was previously the strongest opponent of
international
regulation, that has opened the way for a much
broader
attempt to regulate
the financial sector.
And
in the new
Financial Stability Board, which will now incorporate
all
G20 members,
there is the potential for a powerful new
global financial
regulator.
Even more
significant is
the increased
power given to the international financial
institutions, the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
who have been
subcontracted by the G20 to monitor and run many of
their policies.
Mr Strauss Kahn
said that
he believed that
the G20 was shaping up as the
board of governors
for the world economy, and said he
favoured an even
bigger grouping to give more representation to poor
countries. It may
be that after the crisis is over, the G20 disbands
as a group. But
given the belief by
governments on
both sides of the Atlantic that global cooperation is
now essential for
economic growth, the likelihood is that it will
carry on and
attempt to strengthen its role.
With fits and starts,
the world may be moving to a
recognition that as
the economy has become global, the power of
governments can
only be effective if they too become more
international in
scope.
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April 6 - Obama backs Palestinian state, conciliatory to Muslims
Article: Israel And The Last Days
U.S. President Barack Obama told
Turkey's largely Muslim but
secular democracy on Monday
the United States was not at
war with Islam and that it wanted to
reinvigorate efforts toward
creating a Palestinian state.
"Let me be clear:
the
United States strongly supports the goal of
two states, Israel and
Palestine, living side by side in peace and
security," he said
in a speech to Turkey's parliament.
Chief Palestinian peace
negotiator Saeb Erekat
welcomed Obama's words, saying
he had
made a major commitment to the two-state
solution. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel
was committed to reach peace
and would cooperate with the Obama
administration to achieve that
goal.
He is
trying to rebuild ties with
Muslims after anger at the invasion
of Iraq and war in Afghanistan,
made more urgent by a resurgent al Qaeda
and Taliban insurgency in
Afghanistan.
"Let me say this as clearly as
I can: the United States is not at war with
Islam.
In fact, our partnership with the
Muslim world is critical in rolling
back a fringe ideology that
people of all faiths reject," Obama
said.
"But I also want to be clear
that America's relationship
with the Muslim world cannot and will not be
based on opposition to al
Qaeda. Far from it. We
seek broad engagement
based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We
will listen carefully, bridge
misunderstanding, and seek common
ground."
"The
United States has been
enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other
Americans have Muslims in
their family, or have lived in a
Muslim-majority country I
know, because I am one of them,"
Obama
said in his speech to
parliament.
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April 5 - Obama: 'Rid world of nuclear weapons'
Article: Misc.
The US will take the
lead in ridding the world of
nuclear weapons, President Barack
Obama has promised. Speaking in
front of a crowd of thousands in Prague,
Mr Obama said
the US was ready to take "concrete
steps" to end what he called "the most
dangerous legacy of the Cold
War".
The US will negotiate a
new arms reduction treaty with Russia this
year, he announced, saying
he had already
begun to lay the groundwork for a new
deal with Russian President Dmitri
Medvedev.
Mr Obama said the United
States would maintain a safe and effective
arsenal to deter any adversary,
but will begin reducing its
arsenal.
He said North Korea broke
the rules with its rocket launch earlier on
Sunday and
must be forced to
change.
Referring to the threat
of
terrorism,
Mr Obama announced a new international
effort to "secure all vulnerable
nuclear material around the world" within
four years.
Mr Obama said:
"If the Iranian
threat is eliminated, we will have a
stronger basis for security, and the driving
force for missile contruction
in Europe will be
removed."
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April 8 - Obama praises Islam, calls for Mideast peace
Article: Misc.
U.S. President Barack Obama ended
his trip to Muslim Turkey on
Tuesday by
calling for peace and
dialogue with Islam and the creation of a
Palestinian state living side by
side with Israel.
"I came to Turkey
because
I am
deeply committed to rebuilding a relationship
between the United States and
the people of the Muslim world, one that
is grounded in mutual interest
and mutual respect,"
Obama said.
"I believe
we can
have a dialogue that is open, honest,
vibrant...And I want you to know
that I am personally committed to a new
chapter of American
engagement," he said at a meeting with
Turkish youngsters.
Obama's visit, in which he
said America "will never be
at war with
Islam," marks
a strong shift in U.S. policy after his
predecessor Bush upset
Muslims with his backing for Israel, invasion of
Iraq and branding of Iran as
part of an "axis of evil."
Amr El-Choubaki, an Egyptian
political analyst with the Al-
Ahram Center for Political and Strategic
Studies, said Obama differed fundamentally from
Bush's world view and lacked
his high-handedness toward Arabs and
Muslims.
He pleased Muslims
with his call to push aggressively for a
two-state solution for Israelis
and Palestinians, in
a challenge to the new Israeli
government of right-winger Benjamin
Netanyahu.
"I think in
order to achieve that, both
sides are going to have to make compromises.
I think we have a sense of
what those compromises should be and will be.
Now what we need is political
will and courage on the part of
leadership."
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April 8 - Tony Blair tells the Pope: you're wrong on homosexuality
Article: Misc.
Tony Blair has challenged the
"entrenched" attitudes of the
Pope on homosexuality,
and argued that it is time for him to
"rethink" his views.
Speaking to the gay
magazine Attitude,
the former Prime Minister, himself now a Roman
Catholic, said that
he wanted to
urge religious
figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious
texts to see them
as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that
in time this would
make all religious groups accept gay people as
equals.
Asked about the
Pope's
stance, Mr Blair
blamed generational differences and said:
"We need an attitude of
mind where rethinking and the
concept of evolving
attitudes becomes part of the discipline with
which you
approach your religious faith."
In the interview Mr
Blair
spoke of a "quiet revolution
in
thinking"
and implied that he believed the Pope to be
out of step with the
public.
He also thought that
in Islam there would eventually be a
change of
heart. "I
believe that, ultimately, people will find their way to a
sensible
reformation of attitudes."
People's thinking
had changed fundamentally, he added. He
said: "When people quote the
passages in
Leviticus
condemning homosexuality, I say to them - if you read
the
whole of the Old
Testament and took everything that was there in a
literal way, as
being what God and religion is about, you'd have
some pretty tough
policies across the whole of the piece."
Referring to his
contacts
with evangelical
groups in the US and elsewhere through the
foundation, he
said: "I think there is a
generational shift
that is happening. If you talk to the
older generation,
yes, you will still get a lot of pushback,
and parts of the
Bible quoted, and so on. But if you look at the
younger
generation of evangelicals, this is
increasingly
for them
something that they wish to be out of - at least in
terms
of having their
position confined to being anti-
gay."
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April 7 - The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency
Article: One World Government
A single clause in Point 19
of the
communiqué issued by the G20 leaders
amounts to
revolution in the global financial order.
"We have
agreed to support
a general SDR allocation which will
inject
$250bn (£170bn)
into the world economy and increase global
liquidity," it
said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic
paper currency
issued by the International Monetary Fund that has
lain dormant for
half a century.
In effect, the G20
leaders
have activated the IMF's power
to
create money and
begin global "quantitative easing". In doing
so,
they are putting a
de facto world currency into play.
It is outside the
control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy
theorists will love
it.
There is now a
world currency in waiting. In time, SDRs are
likely evolve into a
parking place for the foreign holdings of
central banks, led
by the People's Bank of China. Beijing's moves
this week to offer
$95bn in yuan currency swaps to developing
economies show
how fast China aims to break dollar dependence.
French President
Nicolas
Sarkozy said the
summit had achieved more than he ever thought
possible, and
praised Gordon Brown for pursuing the collective
interest as host
rather than defending "Anglo-Saxon"
interests. This
has a double-
edged ring, for it suggests that Mr Brown may have
traded pockets of
the British financial industry to satisfy
Franco-German
demands. The
creation
of a Financial
Stability Board looks like the first step towards a
global financial
regulator. The devil is in the details.
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April 6 - Ahmadinejad rips capitalism
Article: One World Government
ASTANA (AFP)
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad lashed out on Monday at capitalism
as a "false"
economic system and called for
the
creation of a new
global financial order.
"I want to say
that capitalist economics is
false economics. Now they are trying to
reform the system, the very
system that caused the crisis," Ahmadinejad
told reporters during a visit to
Kazakhstan. "We are interested in
a new financial system
based on
justice. A real economic
system."
In a surprise
move, Ahmadinejad became
the first major world
leader to back a plan put
forward by Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev last month
to create a single world currency.
"It's a
wonderful proposal. We consider it a good and
correct idea. The world needs a
single
currency, a real
currency."
Nazarbayev
first called publicly for the creation of
a new global
currency, the "acmetal," in
an article
published in Russia's official
daily Rossiskaya Gazeta in February. At a
conference in March,
Nazarbayev argued the world
required "an
absolutely new global currency system."
His idea
immediately won support from
Robert Mundell, the Nobel prize-winning
Canadian economist and
a key intellectual
architect of the euro currency,
who said he was "right on track" with
the scheme.
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April 9 - Warren's 'backsliding' on marriage damages church
Article:Misc.
A Washington, DC, pastor and
outspoken opponent of same-
sex "marriage" says California mega-
church
pastor Rick Warren has done
"tremendous damage" by
apologizing for his support last
fall of California's marriage
protection
amendment.
Rick Warren said Monday on CNN's
Larry King Live
that he has
"never been and never
will be" an "anti-gay marriage
activist," and made
a point to inform the program's
host that he apologized to his
homosexual friends for
comments he made in October to his church in
support of Proposition 8 in
California.
Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., with
the High Impact
Leadership
Coalition says
he was very disappointed with
Warren's statements on CNN. "This man
who's been called the next
Billy Graham, who I really respect with all
my heart and love what he's
doing in Africa, is falling into a trap that
is emblematic of the problem
that the entire church is facing in this
generation," Jackson
states. "And that is that we love the applause of
men more than we love the
work of God and the gospel.
Jesus...told us that we are to honor
God first,
and that we are not to fear
men but we're to fear God."
Jackson argues that Warren was
"aiding and abetting a
deception around what kind of stance the Bible
calls Christians to take"
by telling Larry King that
opposing
the recent Iowa
Supreme Court ruling
legalizing same-sex marriage was "not his
agenda."
Warren told King on Monday
that he "never once
even gave an
endorsement" during the Prop. 8
campaign. However,
in late October -- just weeks
before the November 4 election -- the
pastor told his congregation:
"Now let me say this really clearly: we
support Proposition 8 -- and if
you believe what the Bible says about
marriage, you need to support
Proposition 8." (Read a complete
transcript of those
comments)
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
Sincerely,
Roger Oakland
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