Reuters – France has sent detailed proposals to the European Commission calling for common action to regulate volatile commodities markets before it is due to head the Group of 20 economic powers, ministry officials said. President Nicolas Sarkozy said last week that regulating commodity derivatives would be one of the priorities of France’s presidency of the G20 starting in November for a year. France’s economy, energy and agriculture ministers sent a letter to three European commissioners on August 27 stressing that current European regulation was not enough and calling for coordinated and cross-sector EU action. Read Article
EUOBSERVER – People’s confidence in the the European Union has dropped to record lows in most countries amid a placid response to the rising unemployment and the troubles of the eurozone, a Eurobarometer published on Thursday (26 August) shows. Fewer than half of Europe’s citizens (49 percent) think that their country’s membership of the EU is a “good thing” – a seven-year low – while trust in the bloc’s institutions has dropped to 42 percent, six points down compared to autumn 2009. Read Article
Telegraph – Arkady Dvorkevich, the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser, said Russia would favour the inclusion of gold bullion in the basket-weighting of a new world currency based on Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund. Chinese and Russian leaders both plan to open debate on an SDR-based reserve currency as an alternative to the US dollar at the G20 summit in London this week, although the world may not yet be ready for such a radical proposal. Read Article
Daily Mail – For decades the EU has been dreaming of the ultimate power grab over all our lives — and a story in yesterday’s Daily Mail gave a very strong hint that Brussels is now planning to pull it off. Under the headline ‘EU bids to impose new tax on Britain’, the story explained that over the next few months, the EU budget commissioner Janusz Lewandowski will be lobbying hard round the capitals of Europe for the EU to be given the power to levy its own taxes — on such things as energy, airline flights and financial transactions. It might seem surprising that this Polish Eurocrat believes the present economic downturn is an ideal time for the EU to impose such taxes across Europe, to fund its ever-rising budget and its ever-expanding empire. Read Article
Globe & Mail – B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s trip to this year’s ultra-secret Bilderberg conference of movers and shakers in Spain didn’t come cheap, with airfare alone costing more than $6,000, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail. Billing records and other documents provided to The Globe as a result of a freedom-of-information request show Mr. Campbell’s business-class flight to Barcelona for the June 3-6 meeting in the small city of Sitges, southwest of Barcelona, cost $6,430.96. In Spain, Mr. Campbell was among about 130 luminaries such as Bill Gates; Henry Kissinger; former U.S. treasury secretary Robert Rubin; Lawrence Summers, director of the U.S. National Economic Council; and Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read Article
Telegraph – The figures show that a record number of non-Britons started work in Britain between April and June. Senior MPs described the jump, which threatens to reignite the row over ‘British jobs for British workers’, as “astounding”. Labour market figures showed that 186,000 people started work – of which 145,000 were foreign and just 41,000 were British – in the three months to June 30. Read Article
Financial Times – FT Alphaville missed this IMF paper when it first came out in April, 2010. Authored by Reza Moghadam, director of the IMF’s strategy, policy and review department, it discusses how the IMF sees the International Monetary System evolving after the financial crisis. Which means, in the eyes of the IMF at least, the best way to ensure the stability of the international monetary system (post crisis) is actually by launching a global currency. Read Article
New York Times – A Lexus-Mercedes caravan of privilege disturbs the sylvan stillness along a Northern California back road, motoring under an honor guard of redwoods that have no choice in the matter. In defiance of nature’s odds, every driver is a man. This can only mean that it is time again for the annual Bohemian Grove encampment, where, for more than a century, thousands of men have shed wives and cares to hike, listen to lectures, drink, discuss current events, celebrate the arts, drink, share frat-boy traditions, enjoy boon companionship no woman could understand, and drink. Read Article
Editorial Comment - One would imagine that an annual gathering of the most powerful people on the planet would be newsworthy. After-all it has been well documented that previous attendees have included Reagan, Nixon, Bush Snr & Jnr, Clinton, Blair, Rockerfeller, Kissinger, Murdoch and even Schwarzenegger. For some strange reason the only mainstream news outlet to even mention it this year is the New York Times with this whitewashing piece. Curious. Why do you think that would be?
Telegraph – The power allows prosecutors from any EU country to demand details such as DNA or even bank and phone records on anyone they suspect of a crime. Officers in the UK would be almost powerless to refuse the request even if they believed it was disproportionate to the alleged offence being investigated. They could also be told to carry out investigations and live surveillance for their EU counterparts, despite already stretched resources. Read Article
Press TV – France and Germany have signed a joint declaration on tightening punitive measures against European Union countries that fail to curb their soaring budget deficits. The two countries sent their joint proposals to the EU on Wednesday, calling on the 27-member bloc to speed up the process it deems necessary for the establishment of economic convergence. According to AFP, the declaration also called for the imposition of sanctions on countries that undermine the stability within the EU’s financial regulatory system. Read Article
Daily Mail – British citizens face being subjected to chilling new EU ‘Big Brother’ surveillance and investigation powers. Bureaucrats want foreign officials to be able to travel to the UK and immediately assume the powers of our own police. They would be able to order undercover-spying missions, demand DNA and even pursue people for ‘crimes’ which are not recognised in UK law – such as criminal defamation. Read Article
CNN Money – There are those who would argue that the financial crisis was caused by over-enthusiastic worship of the Almighty Dollar. Call it brutal financial karma, but that church is looking pretty empty these days. A new report from Morgan Stanley analyst Emma Lawson confirms what many had suspected: the dollar is firmly on its way to losing its status as the reserve currency of the world. We already knew that central banks have preferred gold to dollars, and that they’re even selling their gold for cash; now, according to Lawson’s data, it seems that those central banks prefer almost anything to dollars. Read Article
Daily Mail – Brussels has fined Britain more than £150million for failing to display the EU flag on a string of projects part-funded by Europe. Several schemes were also penalised for failing to use the flag on their letterheads. The fines relate to £3.8billion given to the UK by the European Regional Development Fund over a seven-year period. Read article
Morning Star – Earlier this month some of the world’s most powerful women and men met in a hotel in Sitges, Spain, to take part in the annual Bilderberg conference. The controversial group is shrouded in secrecy, leading many to believe that the organisation, which appears to consist of big business, politicians, world leaders and invited guests, is the real seat of power in the world. Read article
Telegraph – Olli Rehn, the EU economic affairs commissioner, pledged to bring forward six new regulations by the end of September ahead of an October summit. Included among “sanctions and incentives” to get governments to rein in public spending is an entirely new “corrective arm” using the EU budget as a stick to keep national spending in line with euro targets. Read Article
CNN – The dollar is an unreliable international currency and should be replaced by a more stable system, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in a report released Tuesday. The use of the dollar for international trade came under increasing scrutiny when the U.S. economy fell into recession. “The dollar has proved not to be a stable store of value, which is a requisite for a stable reserve currency,” the report said. Read Article
Ria Novosti – Russia called on the participants at the G8 summit to consider the creation of a new international monetary control system, which could help prevent further crises, an aide to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said. Arkady Dvorkovich told journalists on Saturday that the introduction of additional reserve currencies would be the best measure that could assure global financial stability. Read Article
Daily Mail – Black-clad demonstrators burned police cars and smashed windows with baseball bats and hammers when rioting broke out at the G20 summit. Some protesters hurled bottles at police after they prevented them approaching the perimeter of the economic summit site. Heavily-protected riot police responded by firing tear gas. The security costs are estimated at more than £600 million and include an estimated 19,000 law enforcement officers drawn from all regions of Canada. Read Article
Guardian – Signs of deep rifts at the G8 and G20 summits in Toronto over how quickly governments should cut deficits added to financial market jitters today, with the Americans warning of the dangers of a double dip recession if all countries started to rein back spending at once. The leading European economies, especially Germany, are putting a new emphasis on cutting back government spending, and there is a possibility that a G20 communique, due to be released on Sunday , will set out an indicative timetable of how far and fast countries should retrench spending. Read Article
Daily Mail – The Coalition Government will support a new European treaty to strengthen central control of EU economies in Brussels, David Cameron has announced. In a statement to MPs, the Prime Minister said Britain will not stand in the way of eurozone governments if they want to pass control over their budgets to Brussels bureaucrats. But Mr Cameron insisted he will not support moves to pass controls from Westminster to the European Union. Read article
Reuters – The African Union on Tuesday supported a mediation agreement between Eritrea and Djibouti, whose border standoff could destabilise the Horn of Africa region. Djibouti’s government said that further to the deal, Eritrea had withdrawn its troops from two areas they had occupied. Read article
Telegraph – Germany and France are examining ways of creating a “two-tier” euro system to separate stronger northern European countries from weaker southern states. A European official has told The Daily Telegraph the dramatic option was being examined at cabinet level. Senior politicians believe their economies need to be better protected as they could not cope with another crisis on a par the one in Greece. Read Article
Bloomberg – Russia will help lead efforts to recast the global economic hierarchy as the world emerges from the financial crisis, President Dmitry Medvedev said. “We really live at a unique time, and we should use it to build a modern, prosperous and strong Russia, a Russia that will be a co-founder of the new world economic order,” Medvedev said at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum today. Read article
Make a note and remember the Bilderberg 2010 agenda issues that are listed in the article below, not least “Global Cooling”, and remember where you heard it first when events start occurring. These issues will effect every single person on this planet, and this undemocratic secret meeting of the world’s most powerful business people and politicians has just set the agenda for the coming year. It is your world too.
