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The Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland has just published its annual report, and it is a dour document. The BIS was created in 1930 to handle post-World War I reparation payments from Germany to Britain and France. The Great Depression ended reparations, and now the BIS provides sober commentary on the global economy. Its latest report oozes foreboding: • On government debt: "The market turbulence surrounding the fiscal crises in Greece, Ireland and Portugal would pale beside the devastation that would follow a loss of investor confidence in the sovereign debt of a major economy." • On the need...

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank - this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal: I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. Alex Newman wrote in the New American: In a statement released last week,...

b>Conference focuses on creating "architects of change (LOL) California first lady Maria Shriver will host the annual Women's Conference beginning Sunday in Long Beach, with the event featuring more than 140 speakers and participants, including Oprah Winfrey, first lady Michelle Obama and second lady Dr. Jill Biden. The event, which runs from Sunday to Tuesday, is expected to attract 30,000 participants to the Long Beach Convention Center. Among the speakers expected to take part are Erin Brockovich, Campbell Brown, Deepak Chopra, Giada De Laurentiis, Linda Ellerbee, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Arianna Huffington, Billie Jean King, Matt...

Sovereign debt crisis at 'boiling point', warns Bank for International Settlements The Bank for International Settlements does not mince words. Sovereign debt is already starting to cross the danger threshold in the United States, Japan, Britain, and most of Western Europe, threatening to set off a bond crisis at the heart of the global economy. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Published: 6:31AM BST 08 Apr 2010 Bond investors are waiting for Governments to lay out clear plans for deficit reduction "The aftermath of the financial crisis is poised to bring a simmering fiscal problem in industrial economies to the...

Industrial world underestimates state debt: BIS 6 Apr 2010, 2030 hrs IST,AGENCIES GENEVA: Industrialised economies face a worse public debt problem than reflected by official data because spending for ageing populations will raise debt further, research by the central bank body BIS shows. "Fiscal problems confronting industrialised economies are bigger than suggested by official debt figures that show the implications of the financial crisis and recession for fiscal balances," said the economists at the Bank for International Settlements, the bank for central banks. "As frightening as it is to consider public debt increasing to more than 100 percent of GDP...

William White predicted the approaching financial crisis years before 2007's subprime meltdown. But central bankers preferred to listen to his great rival Alan Greenspan instead, with devastating consequences for the global economy. William White had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life after shedding his pinstriped suit and entering retirement. White, a Canadian, worked for various central banks for 39 years, most recently serving as chief economist for the central bank for all central bankers, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. Then, after 15 years in the world's most secretive...

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is warning that the global economy could be on the brink of a major depression similar to the one that passed in the 1930s. The BIS said that years of loose monetary policy have fueled a dangerous credit bubble leaving the global economy more vulnerable to an economic catastrophe than is generally understood. In its 77th Annual Report for the financial year April 1, 2006-March 31, 2007 that was submitted to the BIS' annual general meeting held in Basel on June 24, the BIS - which one source described as "the ultimate bank of...

Carol Weihrer talks to a group at the Trinity Methodist Church, in April in Virginia. Weihrer is speaking out about anesthesia awareness after her experience of feeling her surgery under general anethesia during an eye operation. Linda Spillers / AP file MCLEAN, Va. - The pain in Carol Weihrer’s eye was so severe she decided to have it surgically removed, believing it was the only way to get on with life.Instead, the surgery was the beginning of an unending nightmare. Her anesthesia failed, leaving her awake but paralyzed for a five-hour surgery in which doctors cut and gouged to...

The Saddam-9/11 Link Confirmed By Laurie Mylroie FrontPageMagazine.com | May 11, 2004 Important new information has come from Edward Jay Epstein about Mohammed Atta’s contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States, met with Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. As Epstein now reports, Czech authorities have discovered that al-Ani’s appointment calendar shows a scheduled meeting on April 8, 2001 with a "Hamburg student." That is exactly what the Czechs had been saying since shortly after 9/11: Atta, a long-time student...

Question:     Three years have passed since the putative meeting in Prague between hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraq Consul al-Ani. What has the CIA, FBI, Czech intelligence (BIS) and other intelligence services established about the activities of the alleged participants at this meeting? Answer: 1)   Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani served as consul at Iraq's embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001 and he was activity involved in agent-handling during this period. 2)  Mohammed Atta applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic on May 26, 2000 in Bonn, Germany According to Czech visa records,...

< snip > Current levels of foreign aid, at some 0.24 percent of annual GDP, fall far short of the 0.7 percent target developed countries promised to meet. < /snip > The Challenges of Globalization: The Role of the World Bank Public Discussion Forum by James D. Wolfensohn President The World Bank Group Berlin, Germany, April 2, 2001 Also available: Press Release World Bank Calls for Global Campaign to Halve the Proportion of People in Extreme Poverty by 2015 It is a pleasure to address you again in this beautiful city. I would like to thank Ms. Scheel, Chairwoman...

Good afternoon. I am delighted to be here. I would like to thank both the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council and the Fabless Semiconductor Association for organizing this important conference. My Bureau at the Commerce Department – the Bureau of Industry and Security – actually deals with a range of issues at the intersection of business and national security, including export controls, anti-boycott compliance, defense trade and offsets, imports and foreign investment that affect our security, and monitoring the health of our defense industrial base. The People’s Republic of China and Taiwan figure prominently in several of these areas. This afternoon I...

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) this week published in the Federal Register proposed penalty guidance for the settlement of administrative enforcement cases under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). In announcing the publication of the proposed guidance, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Kenneth I. Juster stated: “Providing the public with greater transparency and predictability in how BIS approaches these issues will promote both effective enforcement and fair resolution of cases.” The proposed guidance provides the public with a comprehensive description of how BIS determines what penalties are appropriate in the settlement of administrative enforcement...

Governor Jeb Bush is in Orlando to announce an expansion of Jet Blue. We've been telling you the discount carrier will train it's work force here by building "JetBlue U". The company will spend 160 million dollars to build "JetBlue U". They'll get 4 million in incentives from the city, county and state. Governor Bush says it's a winning approach, "You see in Florida we recognize that people, if we build the right business climate investment will occur, and jobs will occur and then local and state governments and the needs of people will be taken care of not by...

Objectives of a Lengthy and Comprehensive Campaign Warren Pollock March 8, 2003 The Globalization Bugaboo The Swiss Confederation Barbarians or Technical Engineers Protesting the Irrefutable The Recent Movements of Political Princes and Financial Priests Alas, The Coffers Are Dry The System Needs To Be Oiled Security Structure Objectives of a Lengthy And Broad Campaign Quoted Sources and Reference Materials Bio The Globalization Bugaboo Thomas P.M Barnett of the US Naval War College believes that wherever "globalization is thinning or just plain absent" you will find "regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and the...