Eeyores news and view

Two-thirds of State Attorneys General File Amicus Brief Supporting Second Amendment Incorporation
Fairfax, Va. – Two-thirds of the nation’s attorneys general have filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of NRA v. Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This bi-partisan group of 33 attorneys general, along with the Attorney General of California in a separate filing, agrees with the NRA’s position that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms in the home for self-defense, disagreeing with the decision recently issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
“The historical record clearly shows that the Second Amendment was intended to apply to every American in every state in the country,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “As the Supreme Court said clearly in last year’s landmark Heller decision, the Second Amendment protects an individual right that ‘belongs to all Americans’. Two-thirds of America’s state Attorneys General agree.”
The Seventh Circuit claimed precedent bound it from holding in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment. However, it should have followed the lead of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Nordyke v. King, which found that those cases don't prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The Seventh Circuit opinion upholds current bans on the possession of handguns in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois.
California attorney general Edmund G. Brown Jr. is filing a separate brief arguing that the Supreme Court should take up NRA’s appeal and hold that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the States.
“It is fundamentally wrong to violate the civil rights of any law-abiding person based on their zip code,” Cox concluded. “The fundamental right of self-defense must be respected by every jurisdiction throughout our country.”
http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/NewsReleases.aspx?ID=12654

Microsoft warns of serious computer security hole
Microsoft warned users Monday about yet another serious security flaw related to its Internet Explorer browser for which there is no fix.
Security firm Symantec said the vulnerability, which affects PCs using Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating software, is already being taken advantage of by cybercriminals.
It can allow hackers to remotely take control of victims' machines. The victims don't need to do anything to get infected except visit websites infected with a tiny bit of code that taps into the security hole.
Dean Turner, director of Symantec Security Response, says a cybercriminal group has corrupted an estimated several hundred legitimate Web pages with such infections since July 1. The criminals most likely are sending out e-mail spam to trick victims into clicking to the corrupted pages.
Symantec researchers caught part of the malicious code moving across the Internet in a computer, called a honey pot, set up to receive infections. But they have not captured any samples of the e-mail trickery.
"This is not that uncommon," Turner says. "But this kind of exploit in the wild, with no security patch yet available, has the potential to affect hundreds of thousands of people."
A flurry of similar attacks on Internet Explorer took place in 2007 and 2008, but have slowed. Attackers in 2008 began to gravitate to security holes in popular applications, such as Microsoft Word.
And in the past few months, the most widely attacked program has been Adobe Acrobat Reader, says Roel Schouwenberg, senior researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
The so-called zero day vulnerability disclosed by Microsoft affects a part of its software used to play video. The problem arises from the way the software interacts with Internet Explorer, which opens a hole for hackers to tunnel into.
Microsoft urged vulnerable users to disable the problematic part of its software, which can be done from Microsoft's website, while the company works on a "patch" — or software fix — for the problem.
Once the attacker gains access to a PC, the machine most often is used in a network of other compromised PCs, called bots, to spread spam and steal data. Bots are also widely used to spread promotions for fake anti-spyware subscriptions and to hijack cash from online banking accounts.
A Microsoft advisory says the company is working on a patch, which will be distributed "when it has reached an appropriate level of quality for broad distribution."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2009-07-06-microsoft-security_N.htm

Banks get stingy on credit; new cards down 38%
Despite massive government efforts to bolster the credit market, banks are pulling back severely on card lending.
In the first four months of the year — the latest data — banks issued 9.8 million new credit cards, a 38% drop from the same time last year, according to Equifax credit bureau data. Low-risk borrowers can still get credit, but they're getting less than before. The average limit on a new card, after rising during the recession, slipped 3% so far this year to $4,594.
That's discouraging for those who want to see banks pumping liquidity into the economy. "The credit engine needs a tuneup," says Jim Powers, an Equifax assistant vice president.
While it's not surprising that banks are pulling back on unsecured loans as card defaults and delinquencies surge, "what's remarkable is the very sharp decline in lending," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
The drop signals a shift in mind-set by issuers, which historically have raised credit card limits through booms and busts.
The government has tried to stimulate overall lending by funding securities backed by assets such as credit cards and mortgages. It's also injected billions of aid into banks in return for preferred stock.
But in the credit card market, policymakers are working at "cross purposes," Zandi says. President Obama recently signed a law imposing far-reaching restrictions on cards, mostly starting in February 2010. Those will likely lead to even fewer cards being issued, Zandi says.
Still, if this trend means issuers are "doing better underwriting, that could be a positive thing," says Lauren Zeichner Bowne of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports. What worries consumer groups, Bowne says, is that issuers are closing inactive cards and slashing limits even for responsible consumers.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-07-06-banks-credit-cards_N.htm

Germany's biggest bank admits spying on staff: spokesman
Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, admitted Monday it had spied on a former member of its supervisory board, suspected of disclosing 2001 third quarter results before their official publication.
A bank spokesman said the target was Gerald Herrmann, who represented the union Verdi on the board that year.
German magazine Der Spiegel had reported over the weekend that the bank hired detectives to spy on its employees including a member of its supervisory board, managers and a shareholder.
The bank launched an internal inquiry at the end of May into potential breaches of data privacy law in connection with the affair, Spiegel said.
The spokesman confirmed the investigation and said the financial market regulator Bafin had also been contacted.
Herrmann told the Handelsblatt business newspaper on Monday Deutsche Bank informed him of the case a couple of days ago.
He denied the allegations against him and said he suspected he was spied on because Deutsche Bank did not appreciate his criticism of a redundancy compensation scheme.
The bank apologised to Hermann but the union member said he wanted a personal apology from chief executive Josef Ackermann who promised a "zero tolerance" approach over the affair at an annual general meeting of the bank.
According to Der Spiegel detectives "kept an eye on the movements of these people, and made inquiries as to who they were meeting and when".
In 2006, managers were spied on because of their suspected links to media mogul Leo Kirch, who was involved in a legal battle with Deutsche Bank, the magazine said.
Spiegel also said minority shareholder Michael Bohndorf, a lawyer living in Ibiza, Spain, was spied on.
Several detective agencies may have been involved in the affair.
Among the agencies is one led by a former agent of the Stasi, the notorious secret police in the former East Germany, who was also implicated in a scandal at German phone giant Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Bank even used "female bait" to find "personal weaknesses of certain shareholders", the magazine added.
Scandals over violations of privacy law have rocked the German corporate world in recent months, notably at railway company Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Telekom.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.b1bda39889783bf24189b0a92f01fc43.1a1&show_article=1

Eeyores news and view

Plan to protect D.C. from nuke EMP attack
Defense initiative focuses on saving government
Posted: June 25, 2009 12:00 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily
Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
Air Force One
WASHINGTON – As North Korea threatens a missile launch on Hawaii and Iran continues to develop its own nuclear war capabilities, President Obama has greenlighted a plan to save the federal government from the devastating capabilities of a nuclear electro-magnetic pulse attack on the U.S, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
As WND has reported, a high-altitude nuclear EMP attack potentially could disrupt or damage electronic systems over much of the U.S., William Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States From Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in July 2008.
The commission concluded Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons. Since 2005 Tehran has been testing ballistic missiles designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower.
Detonated at a height of 60 to 500 kilometers above the continental U.S., one nuclear warhead could cripple the country – knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering the U.S. domestic communications impotent.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
In 2005, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., held a hearing on the EMP threat.
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland, said one of the distinguished scientists who testified at the hearing, is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies – terrorist or otherwise," wrote Kyl. "And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years."
While few preparations have been made since 2005 to protect the American heartland, the Defense Information Systems Agency plans to install a presidential network in the Washington area this year that will be able to survive an attack by a nuclear weapon that generates a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse.
The agency started work on the network last year to install communications equipment resistant to damage by an EMP attack. The network was developed at the direction of the "National Security Presidential Directive on Survivable Senior Leadership Communications in a HEMP Environment." It features Promina network switches from Network Equipment Technologies Inc. and manage communications over a specially designed and deployed Voice over Internet Protocol network.
DISA developed the HEMP system, which includes upgrades to a UHF network serving senior leadership in the Washington area, as part of a National Emergency Action Decision Network to serve the president, secretary of defense and other senior leaders. John Garing, DISA chief information officer and director of strategic planning, said the network supports radio systems on helicopters and feeds into the HEMP network. Funding for all systems in the National Emergency Action Decision Network is pegged at less than $1 million.
The systems will be installed in ground installations and executive aircraft, including Air Force One, four VIP Boeing 757s and two VIP Boeing 737 aircraft.
DISA also asked for $49.5 million in its fiscal 2010 budget for the Crisis Management System, a "high-performance, closed network that provides classified multimedia teleconferencing for the president, Cabinet secretaries, designated agency directors and their staffs," budget documents noted.
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102023

Well almost Judicial Restraint, i guess as close as we will come too it.
Court says strip search violated girl's rights
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's decision Thursday striking down the strip search of an eighth-grade girl for prescription-strength ibuprofen requires schools nationwide to weigh more carefully how intrusively they search for drugs.
By an 8-1 vote, the justices ruled that school officials in a rural Arizona district violated the Fourth Amendment rights of Savana Redding when they forced her to take off her clothes after an unverified tip that she had the pain relief pills. The court emphasized the difference between a routine search of a backpack and a search that exposes a student's private parts. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
The decision, which differs from signals the justices sent during oral arguments in April, also departs from a recent trend giving administrators wide latitude to search for drugs in schools.
Writing for the court, Justice David Souter said an official must have a "reasonable suspicion of danger" regarding the drugs sought and a belief they could be hidden in a student's underwear before making "the quantum leap from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure of intimate parts."
Matthew Wright, lawyer for the Safford school district, predicted the decision would have a "chilling effect" on administrators responding to threats of drugs. Francisco Negron, lawyer for the National School Boards Association, said the decision could be confusing for school officials, who typically lack formal training in drugs yet would have to consider whether the contraband they seek is dangerous enough to do to a strip search.
Savana Redding, who was 13 at the time of the search and is now 19, said, "I'm so glad that they recognized that my rights were violated. I don't want this to happen to anyone else." Her lawyer, Adam Wolf, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case, added, "Today's ruling affirms that schools are not constitutional dead zones."
In October 2003, after Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson heard from a student that Redding might have ibuprofen, he asked a school nurse and administration assistant, both women, to search Savana in the nurse's office. They asked her to take off her shirt and pants, then to pull out her bra and underpants to see whether she was hiding any pills.
No pills were found. Savana's mother, April Redding, sued, saying school officials breached Savana's rights under the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches. A lower U.S. appeals court ruled for Redding and said Safford officials were financially responsible for harm to her.
In affirming that her rights were violated, Souter said a strip search requires officials to have an "indication of danger (and) reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear."
Souter was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito. Dissenting Justice Thomas said the decision allows judges "to second-guess" officials trying to ensure student safety.
By a separate vote of 7-2, the court said that because rulings in this area of the law have not been clear, Safford officials are shielded from financial responsibility for their actions. Stevens and Ginsburg dissented from that part of the ruling in Safford Unified School District No. 1 v. Redding.
During oral arguments April 21, many justices voiced more sympathy for school administrators than for Redding. Several, including Souter and Roberts, appeared open to arguments that administrators need considerable leeway to look for drug abuse. Ginsburg was most forceful on the other side. In a concurring opinion Thursday, Ginsburg emphasized the humiliation Savana endured, including being forced to sit on a chair outside Wilson's office even after the search found no pills.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-06-25-scotus-strip-search_N.htm

US swine flu cases may have hit 1 million June 26, 2009 - 12:53am AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA (AP) - Swine flu has infected as many as 1 million Americans, U.S. health officials said Thursday, adding that 6 percent or more of some urban populations are infected. The estimate voiced by a government flu scientist Thursday was no surprise to the experts who have been closely watching the virus.
"We knew diagnosed cases were just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert who was in Atlanta for the meeting of a vaccine advisory panel.
Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the 1 million estimate in a presentation to the vaccine panel. The number is from mathematical modeling, based on surveys by health officials.
Regular seasonal flu sickens anywhere from 15 million to 60 million Americans each year.
The United States has roughly half the world's swine flu cases, with nearly 28,000 reported to the CDC so far. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths.
The percentage of cases hospitalized has been growing, but that may be due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients. It takes about three days from the time symptoms appear to hospitalization, Finelli said, and the average hospital stay has been three days.
Other health problems have been a factor in most cases: About one in three of the hospitalized cases had asthma, 16 percent diabetes, 12 percent have immune system problems and 11 percent chronic heart disease.
The numbers again highlight how the young seem to be particularly at risk of catching the new virus. But data also show that the flu has been more dangerous to adults who catch it.
The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for hospitalized patients is 20, and for people who died, it was 37. It seems to be deadliest to people 65 and older, with deaths in more than 2 percent of elderly people infected, Finelli said.
Also at the meeting, CDC officials made projections about flu vaccines expected to be available to protect against both seasonal and swine flu this fall.
More than 25 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine should be available by early September, CDC officials and vaccine manufacturers said.
The same five manufacturers that make the seasonal vaccine are producing swine flu vaccine as well. As many as 60 million doses of vaccine to protect against the new virus could be ready by September, said Robin Robinson, an official with the federal agency that oversees vaccine manufacture and distribution. That prediction seemed a bit optimistic, others at the meeting said.
The vaccinations might be given as two shots, spaced 21 days apart. But the vaccine has to be tested before it's made available to the public.
http://wtop.com/?nid=106&sid=1661303

H1N1 / 6,000 Deaths / The Pandemic is Here
Those who dismiss H1N1 as a panic-fest are profoundly wrong - even the mild version in a country like Canada could kill thousands. And the nightmare scenario? That would be really scary
So it's here at last. After months of will-it-won't-it anticipation, H1N1 officially went pandemic on June 11.
Yet despite increasing numbers of cases in over 70 countries, many still think it a fuss over nothing: "What's the big deal? It's just ordinary flu." It is worrying that even Canadians are saying this, although they know from recent memory what it is to experience a big disease outbreak.
Many in Britain are saying the same thing. One high-profile commentator, Simon Jenkins in the Guardian newspaper, asserted that swine flu was a panic stoked in order "to posture and spend," saying that health scares such as this enable media-hungry doctors, public-health officials and drug companies to benefit by manipulating fright.
Those who dismiss H1N1 as a panic-fest are profoundly wrong. This "ordinary flu" might have real consequences to many Canadians.
Canada has an excellent flu vaccination program and good access to medical care. Nonetheless, 6,000 to 8,000 Canadians die of seasonal flu each year, mostly older people or those with other health problems. These are people's mothers and grandfathers, uncles and fathers. Ordinary flu causes a great many deaths, even in a country such as Canada.
Let's say that H1N1 continues to be mild and is no worse than seasonal flu. "Mild" means having up to five days feeling really unwell with fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches, and then a further week before one feels able to return to work and normal life.
The old story about the difference between flu and a cold holds good: If a $50 bill is dropped outside your front door, if you've got a cold, you'll go pick it up; if you've got flu, not even $50 will get you out of bed.
This is a novel flu. While people over 50 seem to have some immunity, perhaps because of the Asian flu of 1957, those who are younger have not been exposed before and have no defences in place. Current H1N1 attack rates are about 20 per cent. That is, one in five people exposed to this new flu will come down with symptoms like the ones above; exposure can result from merely touching a surface where there are viruses, because someone else has touched it. Pretty much everyone who comes into contact with other people will be exposed to this flu, sooner or later.
4-PER-CENT IMPACT ON GDP
That means 20 per cent of the population becoming sick, with perhaps another 10 per cent of the working population home looking after them. Think about the effects on business, on transport, on day-to-day life, of so many people being off sick at the same time. Flu is estimated to have a 4-per-cent impact on a country's GDP.
And think about its effect on hospitals. Not on its effect on patients requiring intensive care, but its effect on staffing. A tanker drivers' strike in Britain bought our hospitals to a halt in less than a week. Why? Because schools didn't have fuel for heating and were closed, working mothers had to stay home to look after their children. Where are there are large proportion of working mothers? In nursing and allied health services.
There are 33 million people in Canada. At an attack rate of 20 per cent, six million people would develop flu. The death rate in Canada is currently tiny, at roughly 0.1 per cent (12 deaths, 4,905 cases). But 0.1 per cent of six million is 6,000. These 6,000 will not be just the old and the sick, whose deaths, extraordinarily, don't seem to greatly concern many commentators, but will include previously healthy twentysomethings (such as three of those admitted to intensive care units in Britain), pregnant women and a disproportionate number of those sections of the population that are genetically particularly susceptible. Such effects are already appearing in Canada with outbreaks of severe illness among previously healthy native people in Manitoba.
This is not scaremongering. This is reality.
Many people expect that all medical staff will turn up for work during a flu pandemic. Toronto's experience of SARS in 2003 shows that they won't, and cannot be made to do so. Many of them won't be able to, because they are looking after family at home, and some will fear catching flu and its effects. Normal hospital schedules will grind to a halt, meaning that far fewer elective procedures such as hip replacements and heart surgery can take place. It will inevitably cause deaths that should have been preventable. This is without the strain on services from many more people requiring respiratory support because of flu.
So why couldn't the hospital authorities make flu vaccines mandatory for health-care staff when they become available? Britain does not make this mandatory, and only 13 per cent of National Health Service Staff front-line staff voluntarily had seasonal flu vaccination in 2008-2009. Why? It's principally because staff think of flu as "ordinary," not something that causes severe illness. Recently, unvaccinated NHS staff were shown by Britain's Health Protection Agency to have been the cause of a major outbreak of flu among patients who were already critically ill in a hospital in Liverpool.
When people look upon the threat to themselves as "mild," they will not consider vaccination, which they feel has greater risks than the illness.
Playing in the background are current attitudes to vaccines, coloured by the long-running contention that the MMR vaccine is linked to autism, but also by the experience of swine flu in the United States in 1976.
THE FORT DIX PRECEDENT
In January, 1976, scores of army recruits at Fort Dix, N.J., complained of flu symptoms - not unusual at that time of year. But 18-year old Private David Lewis, with the bravado of youth, decided to ignore medical advice to go to bed; he went out on a strenuous all-night exercise in the bitter cold. At the end of the exercise, he collapsed. He died a few hours later. An autopsy revealed that his death was caused by a previously unknown variant of swine flu A/H1N1. But what really spooked the Centers for Disease Control was its similarity to the strain that had killed more than 40 million people across the world in 1918.
The CDC rightly decided to develop a swine-flu vaccine for use in the following flu season. But there were many production problems. It was on the point of being cancelled, when there was an outbreak of fatal pneumonia after the Pennsylvania convention of the American Legion. The media linked it with swine flu (although today it is known to have been what is called legionnaires' disease), and politicians joined in the clamour to push forward the swine-flu vaccination program.
The threat from swine flu was vastly exaggerated in the media, although it was already clear that the outbreak (which involved no more than 300 people) was over. President Gerald Ford took personal charge of a mass vaccination program, and it had deadly consequences.
With all manufacturing capacity devoted to swine flu, seasonal flu production stopped. That year, there was a particularly virulent strain of seasonal flu, and there were thousands more regular flu deaths than normal, largely in unvaccinated seniors. There was also the problem of vaccine side effects.
SIDE EFFECTS BECOME NUMEROUS
When millions of people are vaccinated, very rare side effects become numerous. About nine in every million of those vaccinated then developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralytic disease. There were 500 cases and 25 deaths.
The batches may have been contaminated with a bacterium. In any case, the vaccination program was stopped, having only treated 24 per cent of the population.
This is not then. There are already thousands of cases, and vaccine technology is better than it was. But no vaccine is absolutely safe. There will be very rare side effects with new H1N1 vaccines too, and most have not yet been tested on children, who are one of the groups that are most likely to be vaccinated as a priority, because they seem to be especially affected. But people can only ever see risk from their own perspective.
It seems probable that, despite knowing that 6,000 or more Canadians might be prevented from dying and tens of thousands more prevented from having serious illness, people will concentrate on their own individual risks, with many choosing to remain unvaccinated. This places individuals at risk but also friends, family and loved ones and those who are unable to be vaccinated for one reason or another.
All this comes from a mild illness that many people think is not a risk and claim to be overhyped. Everyone should think again about the seriousness of pandemic flu.
Let us hope that the nightmare scenario of a new virus with the virulence of H5N1 (bird flu) and the transmissibility if H1N1 does not come to pass. That really would be scary.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/h1n1-6000-deaths-the-pandemic-is-here/article1190655/

Dollar Falls on China Call for World Currency; Stocks Pare Gain
June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar weakened and stocks pared their advance after China’s central bank reiterated a call for a “super sovereign currency” and said the country’s financial institutions face a tougher environment this year.
The Dollar Index that measures the currency’s performance against six trading partners fell as much as 0.8 percent at 1:01 p.m. in London after China’s central bank also said the International Monetary Fund should manage part of members’ foreign reserves. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index of European shares added 0.3 percent, trimming an advance of as much as 1.3 percent. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures fell 0.2 percent.
China, the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasuries, cut its holdings of government notes and bonds by $4.4 billion to $763.5 billion in April, according to data released on June 15 in Washington. People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan in March urged the IMF to expand the functions of its unit of account and move toward an international reserve currency to reduce dependence on the dollar.
“In the longer term there will be diversification among global central banks,” said Beat Siegenthaler, chief emerging markets strategist at TD Securities Ltd. in London. “These comments tend to remind traders of that, but there’s still a question about the time horizon.”
The Dollar Index fell below 80 as the People’s Bank of China said that the IMF relies on too few foreign currencies. The central bank was commenting in an assessment of the country’s financial situation at the end of 2008 posted on its Web site today.
Special Drawing Rights
Group of 20 leaders on April 2 gave approval for the IMF to raise $250 billion by issuing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, the artificial currency that the agency uses to settle accounts among its member nations. It also agreed to put another $500 billion into the IMF’s war chest.
"There’s a very strong case to be made for reducing the reliance on the dollar,” said Steven Barrow, a currency strategist with Standard Bank Plc in London. “But the market is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Among the BRIC countries, China seems the least positive about the idea. If they talk down the dollar they’re talking down a vast bulk of their assets.”
The asset quality and profitability of China’s financial institutions face challenges and the correction in the country’s property market may raise banks’ credit risks, the central bank also said today.
The yen also headed for a weekly loss against the euro. Japan’s benchmark interest rate is 0.1 percent and the U.S.’s is between zero and 0.25 percent, compared with 1 percent in the euro region and Norway’s 1.25 percent.
OECD Forecast
Today’s gains in European stocks trimmed the Stoxx 600’s second-straight weekly drop to 1.5 percent after a three-month, 36 percent rally drove price-earnings valuations to the highest level in five years. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development boosted its forecast for the economy of its 30 member nations for the first time in two years this week, while a U.S. government report today may show consumer spending rose in May for the first time in three months.
“Risk appetite is coming back,” Peter Redward, the head of Asian emerging-markets research at Barclays Plc in Singapore, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We’re now seeing the effects of fiscal and monetary stimulus beginning to kick in and those themes are going to continue.”
Stocks gained in Asia and Europe after Bridgestone Corp., the world’s largest tiremaker, narrowed its loss forecast. Bridgestone gained 8.5 percent in Tokyo.
Emerging Markets
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 1.8 percent. While the 22-country benchmark has dropped 1.2 percent this month, it’s headed for the best quarterly gain on record, up 34 percent since March.
OAO Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, advanced 1.6 percent as crude gained, while OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the country’s biggest mining company, added 6.7 percent as copper climbed 1.8 percent this week to $5,119 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. The Micex is recovering from a retreat this month that sent it down more than 20 percent from its June 1 peak, the world’s first benchmark equity index to enter a bear market since global stocks began rallying in March.
Crude oil for August delivery rose as much as 1.5 percent to $71.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after Nigerian militants said they attacked a Royal Dutch Shell Plc offshore oil field late yesterday, hours after an offer of an amnesty by President Umaru Yar’Adua.
New Zealand’s dollar weakened 0.3 percent versus the U.S. dollar after the nation’s statistics bureau said gross domestic product declined 1 percent in the first quarter. The median of 11 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 0.7 percent contraction.
U.S. Consumer Spending
A report at 8:30 a.m. in Washington will show consumer purchases in the U.S. increased 0.3 percent after falling 0.1 percent in April, according to the median forecast of 76 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
A U.S. report yesterday showed gross domestic product shrank last quarter at a 5.5 percent pace, slower than the 5.7 percent decrease previously estimated by the government.
Futures on the S&P 500 slid 0.3 percent today after the GDP report helped send the gauge up 2.1 percent yesterday.
Stocks and credit markets have rebounded since the U.S. government and Federal Reserve pledged $12.8 trillion to combat the first global recession in five decades and almost $1.5 trillion in losses and writedowns at financial firms from the collapse of subprime mortgages.
The cost of borrowing in dollars for three months in London fell below 0.6 percent for the first time today, according to the British Bankers’ Association. The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge for three-month loans fell less than half a basis point to 0.598 percent.
Libor-OIS
The Libor-OIS spread, which measures banks’ reluctance to lend, has narrowed to 38 basis points, from a record 364 basis points in October, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Analysts covering S&P 500 companies began to boost 2009 profit estimates for the first time this year in May as economists predicted the U.S. economy will start to expand next quarter, weekly data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Global market liquidity is at its strongest level since November, according to an index updated today by the Bank of England. The index, which measures market prices, including gaps between bid and offer prices, the ratio of returns to trading volumes, and spreads in the credit market, reached a low in April.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLpv3.MFL1Oc

Eeyore's News and view

Swine flu 'could infect up to half the population' Health authorities told to set up testing and drug distribution centres in case of autumn outbreak By Jonathan Owen
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Primary care trusts are to set up anti-viral drug distribution centres and swine flu testing clinics amid fears that the infection could spread out of control.
The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, wrote to health authorities last week urging hospitals to test all patients who show signs of flu-like symptoms. He wrote: "Transmission from person to person in this country is increasingly common. There is evidence that sporadic cases are arising with no apparent link either to cases elsewhere in the UK or to travel abroad."
The letter followed an earlier warning from Sir Liam that millions of Britons could fall victim to swine flu in the coming months. Government officials admitted last night that illness rates from the virus could reach 50 per cent.
Primary care trusts are now being briefed to expect that the pandemic could affect as much as 40 per cent of the workforce before the end of the year, with many worried that there could be a surge of cases in the autumn, according to health industry sources.
The Department of Health sought to reassure the public last night. A spokesman said: "Previous pandemics have seen total illness levels of 25-35 per cent. So our plans are as robust as possible, we have based them on illness rates of 50 per cent, though we do not anticipate it being this high in the current pandemic. Based on this figure, the workforce could be reduced by 15-20 per cent at the pandemic's peak. In the unlikely event that every school closed, this could rise to 35 per cent." He said it was impossible to predict when the pandemic would peak, but added: "As part of ongoing planning, the NHS is being asked to ensure that antiviral collection points could, if needed, be put into action in a week."
Keen to avoid panic, the Government is careful to present official statistics showing "laboratory-confirmed" cases, which currently stand at 2,244. Yet the true scale of infections is far higher than headline figures suggest. The total number of cases either confirmed by laboratory tests or "clinically presumed" currently stands at 3,725.
Almost 400 cases of swine flu in Britain have occurred as a result of in-country transmission, according to latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Control. The virus is continuing to gain ground, with a number of people falling ill without having been abroad or in contact with previously confirmed cases – a signal that transmission is "growing in some areas of the country", according to the Health Protection Agency. The HPA said: "We would need to have a significant number of people where you really don't know how they have got it for it to be classified as sustained community transmission. We are getting closer to that, but are not there yet."
This comes a week after Jacqui Fleming, 38, of Glasgow, became the first person to die from swine flu outside North America. Since then, health officials in Birmingham have said they can no longer contain the spread of the virus, and in Glasgow, a series of swine flu testing clinics have been set up.
Meanwhile, calls to NHS hotlines have almost doubled in the past week. Latest figures from NHS Direct reveal that 2,356 calls about swine flu were made on Thursday 18 June, up from 1,280 a week earlier.
Under a new scheme that began in June, hundreds of people calling NHS Direct about swine flu have been sent swab kits to return for testing.
Economic toll: Pandemic to cost Britain £42bn
£42bn losses are predicted to hit Britain as a result of a three per cent fall in gross domestic product (GDP) due to the swine flu pandemic, according to a new report from the Oxford Economics think tank, due to be released tomorrow. Researchers claim that swine flu could threaten already fragile businesses and put further strains on financial markets in what could become a "vicious cycle that postpones the recovery".
Deflation is a "significant risk" as a result of the pandemic's impact on the economy – putting back economic recovery by two years, says the report. The predictions are based on a 30 per cent infection rate, should a pandemic begin in October and last for six months.
A $2.5 trillion cut in global GDP is a possibility – with a flu outbreak in the autumn hitting the world economy just as it starts to recover from the credit crunch.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/swine-flu-could-infect-up-to-half-the-population-1711552.html


Prof. Dr. Sigmundur Gudbjarnason and associates’ research carried out since 1992 reveals that the seeds and leaves of the Icelandic variety of Angelica archangelica contain potent bioactive compounds that help prevent viral infections, such as cold and flu.
The compounds found in the Icelandic angelica herb are known to restrict viral proliferation and strengthen the body against infection by viruses, according to Dr. Gudbjarnason, head of research and development at SagaMedica and former President of the University of Iceland.
What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic to help prevent Influenza A (swine flu)?
Dr. Gudbjarnason says, “There are several important antiviral compounds in Angelica archangelica that might be important in prevention of viral infections. This should be considered if the Influenza A becomes a more severe epidemic and flu medication becomes scarce”
During the time of the Spanish influenza (1), there are accounts of Angelica archangelica being used as flu treatment in Denmark. Recent studies linking the origin of the swine flu virus to the Spanish influenza (2) of 1918 further suggest that the herb may prove to be an effective prophylactic for swine flu prevention people can use to avoid infection if the Influenza A virus becomes more severe.
Preventing colds and flu with natural herbs
Icelandic Angelica archangelica provides the basis for a variety of supplements from SagaMedica.
Herbal remedies SagaPro and Voxis lozenges are made using angelica leaf and therefore contain the antiviral compounds in question. They may be used to prevent viral infection.
More information at www.sagamedica.com
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/06/16/icelandic-angelica-prevention-for-swine-flu

Is this the death of the dollar?
After two smugglers were stopped last week with what at first appeared to be $134bn in US state bonds, the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the dollar hit a new high.
By Edmund Conway Published: 7:32PM BST 20 Jun 2009
Border guards in Chiasso see plenty of smugglers and plenty of false-bottomed suitcases, but no one in the town, which straddles the Italian-Swiss frontier, had ever seen anything like this. Trussed up in front of the police in the train station were two Japanese men, and beside them a suitcase with a booty unlike any other. Concealed at the bottom of the bag were some rather incredible sheets of paper. The documents were apparently dollar-denominated US government bonds with a face value of a staggering $134bn (£81bn).
How on earth did these two men, who at first refused to identify themselves, come to be there, trying to ride the train into Switzerland carrying bonds worth more than the gross domestic product of Singapore? If the bonds were genuine, the pair would have been America's fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the UK and just behind Russia. No sooner had the story leaked out from the Italian lakes region last week than it sparked a panoply of conspiracy tales. But one resounded more than any other: that the men were agents of the Japanese finance ministry, in the country for the G8 meeting, making a surreptitious journey into Switzerland to sell off one small chunk of the massive mountain of US bonds stacked up in the Japanese Treasury vaults.
In the event, late last week American officials confirmed that the notes were forgeries. The men, it appeared, were nothing more than ambitious scamsters. But many remain unconvinced. And whether fake or otherwise, the story underlines one important point about the world economy at the moment: that the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the US dollar has hit a new high. It went to the heart of the big question: will the central bankers in Japan, China and elsewhere continue to support the greenback even in the wake of the worst financial crisis in modern history, or will they abandon it as America's economic hegemony dissipates?
Dollar obituaries are nothing new. The currency has been presumed dead more times than Shane Macgowan. But like the lead singer of The Pogues, the greenback has somehow withstood repeated knocks and scrapes over the years and lived on, battered, bruised and a couple of teeth the lighter, to fight another day. In the 1970s and 1980s there were plenty predicting its demise, although at that point the main challenger was the Japanese yen. And in the years preceding this crisis, economists and investors including Peter Schiff and George Soros were lining up to declare the dollar's demise as the world's reserve currency. In the late 1990s, the creation of the euro gave dollar sceptics another stick to beat the currency with, and no doubt the European currency has claimed some of the prominence in its first decade.
Now, following the collapse of the global financial system, those warnings have become louder still, and ever more difficult to dismiss – because this time around there are threatening noises coming from those who actually have the power to do something about it. First came a paper from Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC), a couple of months ago, positing the idea of introducing the special drawing right (SDR) – a kind of internal currency at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – as an international reserve currency. These calls were then repeated, with more force, by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who last week declared that the world needed new reserve currencies in addition to the dollar.
And this time around, the dollar is most certainly suffering. Since 2002 its trade-weighted strength – calculated against a basket of other currencies – has fallen by more than a quarter, from 112 to 81 points. In the same period, the proportion of dollars held by reserve managers in leading central banks has also taken a dive. According to figures from the IMF, confirmed holdings of dollars in government vaults, from Beijing and Tokyo to London and Paris, fell from 71pc of reserves to 64.5pc between 2002 and 2008.
However, detecting what is really happening in the world of foreign exchange reserves is notoriously closer to an art than a science. For instance, figures from April seemed to suggest a fall in China's holdings of US Treasuries – something 'dollapocalypticists' pounced on at the time. But according to Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations, the country was merely rejigging its Treasury portfolio rather than liquidating parts of it. In such an opaque world it is little wonder the conspiracy theories over those two Japanese smugglers show little sign of dissipating.
Nonetheless, for US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has inherited his predecessors' role as dollar wallah-in-chief, the currency's travails have made it all the more difficult for him to repeat the mantra that he "believes in a strong dollar" while keeping a straight face. Indeed, when he tried to insist at a university lecture in Beijing earlier this month that "Chinese financial assets are very safe," it drew floods of laughter from the audience.
He wasn't playing for laughs, but the irony of the situation is plain to see. If there were a textbook list of actions one could take to weaken a currency, the US (alongside most other developed nations) would be following it to the letter. It has cut interest rates to a whisker above zero; it has engaged in quantitative easing, pumping cash directly into the economy; it has committed to spending trillions of dollars on a fiscal stimulus package designed to pull the country out of recession; it has pledged tacitly to support its stricken banks so that no major institution is allowed to collapse. In any normal circumstances, actions like these would hammer a currency.
According to Stephen Jen of BlueGold Capital Management: "People are having second thoughts not simply because they don't like the dollar, but they are having second thoughts about whether US assets are obviously the strongest assets to own."
Like everything else, the currency's fate depends on how well the US authorities manage the crisis. The US is balanced on a knife-edge between possible Japan-style deflation as the weight of all its debts bear down on it and potential inflation as the force of all its powerful stimulus measures take root. No one knows for sure which way it will fall, but neither would be particularly good for the currency, and by extension for those who hold much in the way of dollar assets.
And China and all other major central banks which have trillions of dollars in their vaults, face something of a dilemma. Any fall in the greenback will cause the value of their investments to slide. Even if they wanted to exit, there seems no easy way of doing so without provoking some serious self-harm. Indeed, according to Olivier Accominotti, a PhD economist at Paris's Sciences Po university, the situation is not unlike that faced by France in the 1920s, as it sought to reduce its massive sterling reserves. The Bank of France found itself in a "sterling trap" in which it "could not continue selling pounds without precipitating a sterling collapse and a huge exchange loss for itself".
Neil Mellor, of Bank of New York Mellon, said: "We've got a situation where Geithner is smiling and has no choice but to stress the credibility and stability of the US financial and economic system, while the creditors [such as the Chinese] smile back and say they believe him, while at the same time giving hand signals to their reserve managers to get rid of these things."
Rather like the brinksmanship on display throughout the Cold War, it is a dilemma which applies itself to game theory. Both sides know that the dollar is set to weaken, but both could be set to suffer if they both allowed it to collapse at the same time. "If you are the Chinese it is in your interest to play the game – you've got a lot of dollars at stake – but in the long run you surely want to reduce your holdings and diversify them at the margins," says Mellor.
Still, with every passing week, the conjunction of different warning signals for the US currency seems to evolve and intensify. Recently, the alarm bell ringing most loudly has been the increase in yields on US Treasuries – a sign, some fear, of acute nervousness among institutional investors about the sheer scale of the cash the Obama administration is planning to borrow in coming years. The Federal Reserve's meeting next week is likely to be watched attentively by everyone with a stake in the game, as the central bank indicates whether it is planning to plough more dollars of newly-created cash into the economy.
But while the debate fixates on the greenback, the issues at heart here go far deeper. The dollar's fate is intertwined with that of the global economy. America is on the brink of losing its economic superpower status, which it will have to share with China at least, if not others, in the coming years. Holding such a position confers important responsibilities, none of which is more symbolic than providing the world's reserve currency – the currency against which all major commodities are denominated, and the de facto international unit of exchange in trade and finance.
It was a position enjoyed by UK sterling during the first waves of globalisation in the Victorian era and the final decades of the British Empire. Eventually, around the time of the Second World War, the dollar inherited the mantle. At first this was something enshrined in the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, which fixed world currencies to the dollar, but although that system broke down in the 1960s and 1970s, it has remained the de facto currency of choice.
In a globalised world, with trade being carried out between hundreds of different nations by thousands of different companies, having an international standard makes sense: it enables traders to exchange goods more quickly and efficiently than they would have done otherwise. It may be invisible to us, but the vast majority of foreign exchange transactions – particularly those between smaller nations – involve the dollar. Exchange your sterling for Thai baht and you're actually swapping pounds for dollars for baht, whatever the exchange booth says. Even the much-vaunted exchange arrangements by the Brazilian and Chinese are designed not to disrupt these foundations, but merely to smooth things over for importers and exporters.
But a by-product of the dollar's dominance has been the skewing of the world's monetary system. By dint of having this blessed position, the US has been able to finance ever-larger current account and fiscal deficits, with both the government and the public borrowing from overseas, at cheap rates of interest. It has been able to sell US Treasuries at interest rates that other countries can only dream of because of this position as reserve currency. It has had a captive consumer – both because its government bonds are something of a safe haven and because those wishing to peg their currencies against the dollar and enhance their trade flows have little choice but to buy US Treasuries.
And this mutated international monetary system that has evolved since the 1960s is largely responsible for the crisis into which the world has tipped. Because it was able to borrow off other countries at such low rates without enduring the market punishment – in other words higher interest rates – America was able to build up massive current account deficits which poured a record amount of debt throughout its economy, which manifested itself in the financial crisis.
Indeed, as Mervyn King said in a speech earlier this year: "At the heart of the crisis was the problem identified but not solved at Bretton Woods – the need to impose symmetric obligations on countries that run persistent current account surpluses and not just on countries that run deficits. From that failure stemmed a chain of events, no one of which alone appeared to threaten stability, but which taken together led to the worst financial crisis any of us can recall."
When the PBoC's Zhou referred to the SDRs he was not merely questioning the dollar's pre-eminence. He was indicating something far more radical – that China supports plans for a new Bretton Woods-style agreement to manage the flows of cash around the world. At that seminal conference in 1944, John Maynard Keynes's original idea, which was watered down by Harry Dexter White of the US Treasury, was for an international reserve currency, Bancor, fixed against a basket of 30 currencies, and that countries would be penalised if their current accounts swung too far into surplus or deficit. It is an idea which is now being dusted off from history books by officials in finance ministries around the world, including in China.
Such a radical shake-up would cause earthquakes in the currency markets, a prospect which perhaps makes it unlikely. So in the absence of such a deal, how is the dollar's role likely to evolve in the coming years? The short answer is that no one should expect it to lose its reserve currency status any time soon. It took around half a century for Britain to cede this position to the US, even after being overtaken in true economic might.
One possibility is that the SDR may be used increasingly as a means of denominating assets in accounts, but this is something which would take place gradually, over a course of some years. But even if that is a bridge towards a multi-polar world, in which other currencies vie with the dollar for influence, it will take some time – perhaps 30 years or more, according to Stephen Jen. "People should look at history," he said, referring to sterling's pre-eminence in the first part of the 20th century. "There's a real incumbency advantage."
Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, sees the next few years as something of a "vacuum period".
"The BRIC countries [Brazil, Russia, India and China] are becoming so much more important, while the G7, including the US declines, which raises issues about the degree of dominance of the dollar. The problem is that the currencies of the BRICS are the ones that matter, but they won't let you export or use their currencies.
"Until we see another five years' of evidence over whether China is a more consumer-driven economy, becoming bigger and bigger, and whether the euro can have a successful second decade, the dollar looks set to remain dominant."
China has made some hints about loosening its hold over the yuan in recent months, but these are only early manoeuvres. A second step would be to allow the yuan to become a part of the SDR – whose own value is determined by those of a basket of currencies including the dollar, pound and euro. As Jen adds, there are certain prerequisites any contender to the crown of world reserve currency needs in its pocket.
"We have to ask this question: is Russia going to provide asset market that will be as liquid, reliable property rights, the rule of law, currency convertibility and so on? Will we see the same from the likes of China? Their task is very daunting."
Referring to the forged Treasury bonds picked up on the Japanese smugglers on the Swiss border, he adds: "There is a message here: we haven't heard much about anyone counterfeiting roubles. That is probably telling you something."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5586543/Is-this-the-death-of-the-dollar.html

US regulators close 3 small banks
June 20, 2009 - 2:42pm By MADLEN READ AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Regulators have shut down three more small banks, pushing this year's tally of failed banks to 40.
One bank closed Friday was in North Carolina, another in Georgia, and the third was in Kansas. The wave of bank failures is expected to continue throughout the year as the weak housing market and rising unemployment rate cause more borrowers to default on their loans.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Cooperative Bank of Wilmington, N.C., Southern Community Bank of Fayetteville, Ga., and First National Bank of Anthony in Anthony, Kan.
The FDIC agreed to have First Bank of Troy, N.C., take over Cooperative Bank's 24 branches and nearly all of its assets. Cooperative Bank had total assets of $970 million and total deposits of $774 million.
United Community Bank of Blairsville, Ga., will assume Southern Community bank's five branches, its $307 million in deposits, and nearly all of its $377 million in assets.
And Bank of Kansas of South Hutchinson, Kan., will acquire First National Bank of Anthony's six branches, its $142.5 million in deposits, and nearly all of its $156.9 million in assets.
The FDIC will retain the remaining unacquired assets of all three failed banks to sell later. And with all three acquirers, the FDIC has entered into loss-sharing agreements to maximize returns on the assets and minimize disruptions for loan customers.
The FDIC said it estimates that Cooperative Bank's failure will cost the deposit insurance fund $217 million. Southern Community Bank's will cost $114 million, and First National Bank of Anthony's will cost $32.2 million.
The number of banks on the FDIC's list of "problem" institutions leaped to 305 in the first quarter _ the highest number since 1994, during the savings and loan crisis _ from 252 in the fourth quarter. The combined assets of those banks rose to $220 billion from $159 billion.
To be sure, most "problem" institutions don't fail, but the pace of failures has been much higher this year than in past years. The 40 institutions that have closed this year compare with 25 in all of 2008 and just three in 2007.
One silver lining is that while more banks are being shuttered this year than last, the size of the banks has tended to be smaller.
The largest U.S. bank failure ever was last year: Seattle-based thrift Washington Mutual Inc. fell in September, with about $307 billion in assets. It was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion in a deal brokered by the FDIC.
The costliest bank failure was also in 2008, when the big California lender IndyMac Bank got seized and cost the FDIC's insurance fund an estimated $10.7 billion.
The FDIC expects U.S. bank failures to cost the deposit insurance fund around $70 billion through 2013.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1659999

Struggle among Iran's clerics bursts into the open
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A backstage struggle among Iran's ruling clerics burst into the open Sunday when the government said it had arrested the daughter and other relatives of an ayatollah who is one of the country's most powerful men.
Tehran's streets fell mostly quiet for the first time since a bitterly disputed June 12 presidential election, but cries of "God is great!" echoed again from rooftops after dark, a sign of seething anger at a government crackdown that peaked with at least 10 protesters' deaths Saturday.
The killings drove the official death toll to at least 17 after a week of massive street demonstrations by protesters who say hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole his re-election win. But searing images posted online — including gruesome video purporting to show the fatal shooting of a teenage girl — hinted the true toll may be higher.
Police and the feared Basij militia swarmed the streets of Tehran to prevent more protests and the government intensified a crackdown on independent media — expelling a BBC correspondent, suspending the Dubai-based network Al-Arabiya and detaining at least two local journalists for U.S. magazines.
English-language state television said an exile group known as the People's Mujahedeen had a hand in street violence and broadcast what it said were confessions of British-controlled agents in an indication of the government's readiness to crack down even harder.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi warned supporters of danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times." But in letters posted on his allies' websites Saturday and Sunday, he said he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board.
The former prime minister, a longtime loyalist of the Islamic government, also called the Basij and military "our brothers" and "protectors of our revolution and regime." He may be trying to constrain his followers' demands before they pose a mortal threat to Iran's quixotic system of limited democracy constrained by Shiite clerics, who have ultimate authority.
His chances of success within the system would be far higher if he has backers among those clerics.
In the clearest sign yet of a splintering among the ayatollahs, state media announced the arrests of five family members of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani including his daughter Faezeh, a 46-year-old reformist politician vilified by hardliners for her open support of Mousavi.
"We are in uncharted territory," said Ahmad Sadri, a professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois who writes a column for an Iranian newspaper associated with reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi.
Rafsanjani heads the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, which can remove the supreme leader, the country's most powerful figure. He also chairs the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council.
Rafsanjani and his family have been accused of corruption by Ahmadinejad. And the 75-year-old ayatollah was conspicuously absent Friday from an address by the country's supreme leader calling for national unity and siding with the president.
That fueled speculation that Rafsanjani, who has made no public comment since the election, may be working behind the scenes and favoring Mousavi.
The Assembly of Experts has not publicly reprimanded Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But this crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader.
Protesters have openly defied his orders to leave the streets and witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations — a once unthinkable challenge.
State media said Rafsanjani's relatives had been held for their own protection and released later Sunday but experts said the message was clear.
"That is a major escalation and ratchets up the conflict with Rafsanjani," said Michael Wahid Hanna, a regional affairs analyst with the Century Foundation, a New York think tank. "It really raises the stakes."
At least some lower-ranking clergy also appeared to have broken with the supreme leader. Photos posted by a moderate conservative news website showed what appeared to be mullahs in brown robes and white turbans protesting alongside a crowd of young men, some wearing the green shirts or sashes symbolizing Mousavi's self-described "Green Wave" movement.
The images could not immediately be independently verified due to government restrictions on foreign media, who were banned from reporting on Tehran's streets.
Ahmadinejad appeared to be courting clerical support. State television showed him meeting with clerics at the presidential palace and telling them the election had demonstrated popular love for the regime.
He criticized British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Obama, who on Saturday urged Iranian authorities to halt "all violent and unjust actions against its own people."
"With that behavior you will not be among Iran's friends," Ahmadinejad said, in a potentially ominous sign for Obama's recent efforts to warm relations with Iran.
Strengthening Ahmadinejad's position, Iran's military issued a thinly veiled warning to Mousavi after days of silence.
"We are determined to confront plots by enemies aimed at creating a rift in the nation," said Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, acting joint chief of the armed forces.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused Britain of sending spies to manipulate the election, blasted France for "treacherous and unjust approaches" and said Germany had unfairly criticized Iran's government.
Blaming foreign conspirators is a staple of Iranian government rhetoric that resonates for many in a country with a long history of direct manipulation by Britain, the U.S., Russia and other powers.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband "categorically" denied his country was meddling and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran anew to conduct a complete and transparent recount.
"This can only damage Iran's standing in the eyes of the world," Miliband said.
The British Broadcasting Corp. said its Tehran-based correspondent, Jon Leyne, had been asked to leave the country but its office remained open. Newsweek said journalist Maziar Bahari, a Canadian citizen, had been detained without charge and LIFE reported the arrest of the photojournalist who took an iconic photograph of a young woman in a headscarf making a "V" for victory gesture at the camera as white smoke roiled in the background. It did not reveal the photographer's name.
Reporters Without Borders said 23 journalists had been arrested during the past week.
There were unconfirmed reports of small demonstrations and clashes Sunday, and stores were closed in Tehran neighborhoods that saw violence the day. Life appeared to be normal in other parts of Tehran on Sunday, a weekday in Iran, but experts cautioned that it could be a brief lull and not the end of Iran's worst internal turmoil in three decades.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-20-iran-saturday_N.htm

Suit accuses TSA of unreasonable airport detention
By JIM SALTER – 2 days ago
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Transportation Security Administration alleges a Ron Paul supporter was unreasonably detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying about $4,700 in cash.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Bierfeldt, director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an organization that grew out of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.
The organization had hosted an event in St. Louis that included the sale of tickets, T-shirts, stickers and other materials and Bierfeldt said he was carrying the cash proceeds in a metal box when he was detained at Lambert Airport for about 30 minutes on March 29.
The lawsuit does not seek money but asks the court to declare the TSA's actions unconstitutional and to prohibit the agency from similar searches when there is no evidence aircraft are endangered.
"It's obviously important that the safety of flights be ensured," Bierfeldt said in a telephone interview. "But subjecting innocent travelers like me who are doing nothing wrong — I think it diverts TSA away from its core mission of safeguarding air travel."
TSA spokesman Greg Soule said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
Bierfeldt said he refused to answer when a TSA official asked what was in the box. Another TSA official arrived, and Bierfeldt was taken into a separate room where he used an iPhone in his jacket pocket to record the officials' questioning.
An audio clip provided by the ACLU includes repeated questions from a TSA official about why Bierfeldt was carrying so much money, and his repeated refusal to answer. On one occasion, the questioner swears and asks, "Is there any reason you're not answering questions?"
Bierfeldt answers, "Am I legally required to answer the question?"
Soule said while there is no limit to the amount of cash a person can travel with domestically, travelers must cooperate with the TSA screening process.
"Cooperation may involve answering questions about their property," Soule said. "A passenger who refuses to answer questions may be referred to appropriate authorities for further inquiry."
Bierfeldt's attorney, Ben Wizner, said the lawsuit does not challenge TSA's authority to search and detain those suspected of taking weapons, explosives or other dangerous objects onto planes.
"That's the whole purpose of airport searches," Wizner said. "These are not, however, open-ended criminal searches."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gSn_6PR94lxb-8eilNzijc--1U1QD98TCATO0

Eeyores news and view

ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET
On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!
Highlights on the agenda:
ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.
The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

Late Monday night, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay fired off a complaint to the head of ABCNEWS:
Dear Mr. Westin:
As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC's astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.” This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.
Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party's views to those of the President's to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.
In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.
Respectfully,
Ken McKay Republican National Committee Chief of Staff

ABCNEWS Senior Vice President Kerry Smith on Tuesday responded to the RNC complaint, saying it contained 'false premises':
"ABCNEWS prides itself on covering all sides of important issues and asking direct questions of all newsmakers -- of all political persuasions -- even when others have taken a more partisan approach and even in the face of criticism from extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. ABCNEWS is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on this issue.
"ABCNEWS alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president. Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience."
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashaot.htm

Iran rules out annulment, Tehran crowds gather
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters coverage is now subject to an Iranian ban on foreign media leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.
By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top legislative body on Tuesday ruled out annulling a disputed presidential poll that has prompted the biggest street protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution, but said it was prepared for a partial recount.
In what appeared to be a first concession by authorities to the protest movement, the 12-man Guardian Council said it was ready to re-tally votes in the poll, in which hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the runaway winner.
But the powerful Council rejected reformist calls to annul Friday's election, which set off swift-moving political turmoil, riveting attention on the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, locked in a nuclear dispute with the West.
State television said the "main agents" in post-election unrest had been arrested with explosives and guns. It gave no further details.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who has sought to engage Iran and asked its leadership to "unclench its fist," said he was deeply troubled by the post-election violence and that protesters who had taken to the streets had inspired the world.
Supporters of Mirhossein Mousavi, outraged at what they viewed as a stolen election, had planned another big rally on Tuesday, even though seven people were killed on Monday on the fringes of a vast march through the streets of Tehran.
But state television showed live pictures of thousands of Ahmadinejad supporters, some waving Iranian flags, gathering at the Vali-ye Asr Square before any Mousavi supporters arrived, and authorities banned the opposition rally.
Mousavi urged his supporters to stay away from the square "to protect lives" and avoid possible confrontation with security forces and Ahmadinejad backers. It was not clear if the call would be heeded.
Further protests, especially if they are maintained on the same scale, would be a direct challenge to the authorities who have kept a tight grip on dissent since the U.S.-backed shah was overthrown in 1979 after months of demonstrations.
JOURNALISTS BANNED
Illustrating Iran's sensitivity to world opinion, authorities on Tuesday banned foreign journalists from leaving their offices to cover street protests.
"No journalist has permission to report or film or take pictures in the city," a Culture Ministry official told Reuters.
On the world stage, the United States and its European allies have been trying to persuade Iran to halt nuclear work that could be used to make an atomic bomb. Iran says its program is purely for peaceful electricity generation.
France, Germany and Britain have led an EU campaign to persuade Iran to clarify the election results, but Iran on Tuesday summoned a senior Czech diplomat, representing the EU, to protest against "interventionist and insulting" EU statements about the election, the ISNA news agency said.
A spokesman for the Guardian Council, which groups clerics and Islamic law experts as a constitutional watchdog, said that it was "ready to recount the disputed ballot boxes claimed by some candidates, in the presence of their representatives."
"It is possible that there may be some changes in the tally after the recount," spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai said. "Based on the law, the demand of those candidates for the cancellation of the vote, this cannot be considered," he told state television.
In northern Tehran, a Mousavi stronghold, his supporters gathered in small groups, wearing wristbands in his green campaign colors, amid heavy traffic, residents said.
"We only want cancellation of the election result," said one of them, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour.
Dozens of young supporters of Mousavi, holding pictures of him, walked toward the state television building in northern Tehran, residents said. Car drivers honked their horns in support and passengers flashed victory signs.
Despite the turmoil at home, Ahmadinejad traveled to Russia for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The group, which includes Russia and China, congratulated him on his win.
MONDAY VIOLENCE
Iran's English-language Press TV said seven people were killed and several wounded at the end of Monday's rally -- a mainly peaceful gathering attended by many tens of thousands -- when "thugs" tried to attack a military post in central Tehran.
An Iranian photographer at the scene had said Islamic militiamen opened fire when people in the crowd attacked a post of the Basij religious militia. He said one person was killed and many wounded.
The Basij militia is a volunteer paramilitary force fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state and replaced revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini when he died 20 years ago.
During the past three days of violence, police have accused "bandits" of setting buses on fire, breaking windows of banks and other buildings, and damaging public property.
Iran's influential speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, a conservative who has been critical of Ahmadinejad in the past, condemned Sunday's attack on students at Tehran University, which they blamed on the Basij militia and plainclothes police.
"They (attackers) have attacked dormitories and brutally broken legs, heads, arms and thrown some of the students out of the windows," Mousavi said, according to his website.
There have been widespread arrests across the country since the election protests broke out. ISNA said on Tuesday that around 100 people were arrested in unrest near a university in the southern city of Shiraz.
Leading Iranian reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice-president who backed pro-reform candidate Mehdi Karoubi in the election, was arrested early on Tuesday, his office said.
Gunfire was heard in districts of northern Tehran late on Monday and residents said there were peaceful pro-Mousavi protests in the cities of Rasht, Orumiyeh, Zahedan, and Tabriz.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSEVA14340720090616?sp=true

So much for transparency, it was a lie his lips were moving.
Obama blocks list of visitors to White House
Taking Bush's position, administration denies msnbc.com request for logs
The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.
Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.
CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.
"We are deeply disappointed," said CREW attorney Anne L. Weismann, "that the Obama administration is following the same anti-transparency policy as the Bush administration when it comes to White House visitor records. Refusing to let the public know who visits the White House is not the action of a pro-transparency, pro-accountability administration."
Groups that advocate open government have argued that it's vital to know the names of White House visitors, who may have an outsized influence on policy matters. The visitor logs have been released in only a few isolated cases, most notably records of visits by lobbyist Jack Abramoff to the Bush White House, and in the "filegate" investigation of the Clinton White House.
The Obama administration is arguing that the White House visitor logs are presidential records — not Secret Service agency records, which would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The administration ought to be able to hold secret meetings in the White House, "such as an elected official interviewing for an administration position or an ambassador coming for a discussion on issues that would affect international negotiations," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.
These same arguments, made by the Bush administration, were rejected twice by a federal judge. The visitor logs are created by the Secret Service and maintained by the Secret Service, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled in 2007 and again this January. CREW had requested records of visits to the Bush White House, as well as the residence of Vice President Dick Cheney, by leaders of Religious Right organizations.
The Bush administration appealed Lamberth's decision, and the Obama administration has continued to press that appeal.
"It is the government's position," the Secret Service wrote last week to msnbc.com in denying access to the visitor logs, "that the vast majority, if not all, of the records ... are not agency records subject to the FOIA. Rather, these records are records governed by the Presidential Records Act" and "remain under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White Office and the Office of the Vice President. After the resolution of this litigation, we will respond further to your request if necessary."
The visitor records are kept in two databases:
Worker and Visitor Entry System (WAVES). This Secret Service database includes information submitted to the Secret Service about individuals who have a planned visit to the White House. This information includes the name of the pass holder submitting the request, the date of the request, the time and location of the planned visit and the nature of the visit or the person to be visited. This information may be updated with the actual date and time of entry and exit. Msnbc.com also requested lists submitted to the Secret Service of groups or delegations of visitors with planned visits to the White House.
Access Control Records System (ACES). This Secret Service database includes information generated when a pass holder, worker or visitor swipes a permanent or temporary pass over an electronic reader at entrances or exits. This information includes the name of the visitor, the badge number, the post or location, and the date and time of entry or exit.
No private information requested
Msnbc.com excluded from its request any private information on the White House visitors. It asked that the Secret Service delete from the logs any dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and home addresses (other than city and state).
In addition, msnbc.com asked the Secret Service to exclude information on security precautions and the results of background checks on prospective visitors.
The Bush White House had taken several steps to close off access to the visitor logs, steps repeatedly rejected by the federal judge.
In May 2006, the Bush White House signed a memorandum of understanding with the Secret Service, declaring that the logs are agency records, under White House control.
In October 2006, CREW sought records of visits by nine religious leaders: James Dobson, Gary L. Bauer, Wendy Wright, Louis P. Sheldon, Andrea Lafferty, Paul Weyrich, Tony Perkins, Donald Wildmon and Jerry Falwell.
The Bush position was rejected in December 2007 by Judge Lamberth, a former federal prosecutor who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan. Lamberth gave the White House 20 days to hand over the public records. But CREW did not get the visitor logs.
In September 2008, Homeland Security said that it did not plan to release the visitor logs, claiming that the visitor logs were protected by the presidential communication privilege in the law.
Judge Lamberth ruled again, denying that claim on Jan. 9. The judge wrote that a simple list of visitors is not a communication at all, because it includes no details on the topics discussed during a meeting, and therefore is not protected by a presidential communication privilege.
The Bush administration appealed on Jan. 14, a week before the end of President Bush's term of office.
In late January and again in May, the Obama administration had opportunities to change course, when it filed papers in the appeals court, but stuck with the Bush position.
In February, the White House spokesman, LaBolt, told msnbc.com that the policy was under review. "We are reviewing our policy on access to visitor logs and related litigation involving the previous administration to determine how we can ensure that policymaking in this administration happens in an open and transparent way, and that we take appropriate measures to ensure that we are operating in a secure environment."
But last week, in denial letters to msnbc.com and CREW, the Secret Service continued to cite the Bush position.
Asked Monday whether the White House plans to continue to oppose release of the records, White House spokesman LaBot said the policy is still under review. He also cited a list of "the unprecedented steps the administration has taken to promote openness and transparency." These include instructing all agencies to adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure in Freedom of Information Act decisions, and overturning the practice of allowing other executives, aside from the president, to assert executive privilege to block access to an administration's records.
Unpersuaded was the attorney for the watchdog group CREW, which was formed in 2003 during the Bush administration to increase open government.
"It's great that President Obama made this commitment to transparency," attorney Weismann said. "But now you need to make good on it."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/ns/politics-white_house/

Medvedev calls for new reserve currencies
YEKATERINBURG, Russia – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says the world needs new reserve currencies.
Medvedev told a regional summit Tuesday that the creation of new reserve currencies in addition to the dollar is needed to stabilize global finances.
Medvedev has made the proposal before. It reflects both the Kremlin's push for greater international clout and a concern shared by other countries that soaring U.S. budget deficits could spur inflation and weaken the dollar.
Airing it at a summit meeting underlined the challenge to U.S. clout.
Medvedev spoke at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and four Central Asian nations.
Later Tuesday he hosts a summit of the BRIC group of leading emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China.
YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AP) — Russia played regional power broker Monday, hosting China and Central Asian nations for a summit that highlights the Kremlin's efforts to maintain clout in former Soviet territory and raise its profile in Afghanistan.
Moscow is expected to use the meeting of leaders from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to try to cement the six-nation group as a counterbalance to the U.S. presence in strategic Central Asia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev opened the two-day meeting by saying the group would discuss the global financial crisis as well as the key issue the organization was created to address: regional security.
"Our organization has been created quite recently, but it has scored quite serious progress," he said.
Late Monday, Medvedev had what he called a "most productive and useful" meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and he promised that Russia will help Afghanistan create "an efficient political system."
"We are very thankful for the assistance that Russia has given Afghanistan," Karzai responded, "particularly over the last seven years, during this difficult period of history when we have been fighting terrorism."
At a meeting later with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Medvedev said all nations needed to work together to fight terrorism — a call he repeated after he, Zardari and Karzai held a final meeting together.
"Many issues including the most difficult challenges our nations are facing today, such as terrorism and crime, can only be fought with collective efforts," Medvedev said. "If we can create efficient workable trilateral mechanism, that will benefit our nations."
The 8-year-old Shanghai Cooperation Organization is dominated by Russia and China and includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with countries such as India, Iran and Pakistan holding observer status.
Medvedev also was expected to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian leader postponed his arrival in this Ural Mountains city until Tuesday, according to the Iranian Embassy in Moscow, during protests in Iran over his bitterly disputed re-election.
Amid efforts by Washington and Moscow to improve strained ties, the summit will be watched for signs of stronger support from Russia and its neighbors for American-led operations in Afghanistan. That will be a signal of the depth of Russia's determination to mend fences with the United States at a time of warming relations between the two countries.
While Moscow and its neighbors have stressed solidarity with the West on the need for stability in Afghanistan, Kremlin critics say they have used their combined clout in the past to confound U.S. efforts.
In 2005, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization supported Uzbekistan's eviction of U.S. forces from a base supporting operations in Afghanistan. In February, Kyrgyzstan announced it would evict U.S. forces from their only other Central Asian base — a decision widely seen as influenced by Russia. U.S. officials have said there is still hope for a deal to keep use of the Manas base.
Karzai has appealed to Kyrgyzstan to let coalition forces continue using Manas, and the Afghan leader could meet his Kyrgyz counterpart for talks during the summit.
Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Sergei Prikhodko said Sunday that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has seen "more transparency" from the administration of President Barack Obama on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The niches of interaction with Western countries, including the U.S., may be widened," he said.
Russia and the Central Asian countries already have allowed the transport of non-lethal military supplies across their territory.
Prikhodko did not say what the nations might do to increase cooperation, but made it clear they want a greater say in resolving the situation in Afghanistan.
Prikhodko also said the leaders will discuss broader security issues and the global financial crisis, as well as the situation on the Korean peninsula, but that no major statement on North Korea's nuclear activity was expected.
The summit will be followed late Tuesday by the first full-fledged summit of BRIC, a group linking the emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Medvedev may repeat Russia's call for a new global reserve currency to augment the dollar, but Russia's finance minister over the weekend suggested that the dollar would remain the currency of choice for years to come.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090616/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_summit_talks_7