THE HANDSTAND

DECEMBER 2007

3-4 Line News Roundup

Money:
Two days last week, the US Federal Reserve pumped $41 billion and then $47 billion into the banking system, the largest single day volumes since 9/11.

Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland have all forecast US banking losses of between $400 and $500 billion in the next 12 months.
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The recently re-elected Danish government has announced a referendum on scrapping the country's four EU opt-outs from 1993, including on the euro. But there is no mention of a vote on the EU Reform Treaty, according to the new political working programme published on Thursday.
http://euobserver.com/9/25202/?rk=1
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Pakistan : Employing game theory to understand Pakistan proves productive. The country is the sovereign equivalent of the Nash Equilibrium - a dilemma in which all the players accept sub-optimal outcomes because they simply cannot trust each other.

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Bono, who moved his corporate headquarters from Ireland to Holland to avoid paying a 12.5 corporate tax rate, less than Irish plumbers or teachers pay. Indeed, one reason Bono’s such a fan of George Bush is that Dubya has blocked European attempts to eliminate Continental tax havens. Forbes Magazine,***********************************************

Bono also says that “Bill Clinton did an incredible thing on starting this debt cancellation. He deserves real credit. And now, President Bush deserves credit for finishing it out.”

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 Only a quarter of African countries were even eligible for the debt relief program, which required them to enact harmful neoliberal economic stipulations, like privatization of vital services such as water and education, and acceptance of heavily unequal trade rules that prevent true economic development.

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Bono was at June’s Technology Entertainment and Design conference in Tanzania, Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist and social worker, spoke out against reliance on foreign charity, pointing out that it had never succeeded in reviving an economy anywhere in the world, least of all Africa He made his points only with difficulty however because throughout the speech he was heckled from the back of the room with shouts of “Bullshit!” and “Bollocks!” The heckler was Bono,

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Kosovo: MOSCOW, November 20 (RIA Novosti) - A boycott by ethnic Serbs of recent parliamentary polls in Kosovo puts into question thelegitimacy of the future authorities in the breakaway republic, a RussianForeign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

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