Is The US Dollar being artificially propped up to protect certain countries investments?

Some people are saying that The US is having the dollar artificially propped up to protect investments from other countries...

Here's a yahoo question from a couple of months ago...

What American Bank does Saudi Arabia own?

They do not own 100% of any US bank at this time however,Chase Manhattan Bank is participating in the new Saudi Arabian Investment Bank along with Japanese and European banks. The Saudis own 60 percent of this institution. There is also ownership in Chase, merril lynch, and many other investment companies.

They own a 60% interest in Citibank, as Saudi American bank-
Samba Financial Group was formed pursuant to Royal Decree dated 26/3/1400 H. (February 12, 1980), to take over the then existing branches of Citibank, N.A. in Jeddah and Riyadh, which were opened in 1955 and 1966 respectively. Samba was formed in accordance with a program adopted by the Kingdom in the mid-1970s, under which all foreign banks were required to sell majority equity interests to Saudi nationals. Samba commenced business on February 12, 1980 and closed its first fiscal year on December 31, 1980. The US part of citibank owns only 20% of the corporation.





Source(s):
http://www.samba.com/ENGLISH/Common/HTML...

PM 'used crony to fix nuclear power inquiry'

Government accused of driving through energy policy by using slanted study

By Ben Russell, Home Affairs Correspondent The Independent
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Sizewell B in Suffolk, one of the plants at the forefront of nuclear power





A public consultation on new nuclear power stations which was run by a company linked to the Prime Minister's personal pollster has been criticised for breaching industry guidelines.

Environmentalists and opposition MPs denounced the exercise as "fixed" after the Market Research Standards Board said some material given to focus groups was "inaccurately or misleadingly presented".

The Conservatives accused ministers of "gerrymandering" and attack-ed them for employing Opinion Leader to run the project, a consultancy linked to Gordon Brown's personal pollster Deborah Mattinson. Opinion Leader runs the Government's citizens' juries and was awarded almost £1m of Treasury contracts when he was Chancellor. Ms Mattinson stood down as the company's joint chairman last year to work for Labour but remains a senior figure in its parent company.

The Market Research Standards Board said: "Information was inaccurately or misleadingly presented, or was imbalanced, which gave rise to a material risk of respondents being led towards a particular answer."

Greenpeace denounced the consul-tation as "a sham and an insult to the people who took part" claiming it would leave the Government's plans in disarray. Examples included focus groups being given material colouring nuclear and renewable power green, with blue for coal oil and gas.

Opinion Leader argued that the standards board was not competent to judge its methods and insisted Ms Mattinson played no part.

The ruling was the second time the Government's attempts to consult the public on new nuclear power stations faced criticism. The first consultation in 2006 had to be repeated after it was condemned by the High Court.

Greg Clark, the shadow energy minister, said: "These revelations call into question for a second time the way the Government is managing its nuclear policy. The standards watchdog for market research has decided that supposedly independent research was biased to give the answer the Government wanted." Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat energy spokesman, added: "This ruling shows that the Government isn't even competent enough to rig its own consultation. It was hardly a secret that ministers had made their decision before their first consultation on new nuclear power."

Downing Street insisted the ruling would have no bearing on Britain's nuclear power programme. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "The outcome of the consultation stands, whatever the view of the Market Research Standards Board."

Viki Cooke, chief executive of Opinion Leader, said: "We do not accept the MRS ruling, which we believe to be incorrect. We do not believe that the MRS – a market research trade body – is competent to assess these new forms of deliberative engagement.

"Opinion Leader is not anybody's pet pollster. It does absolutely no political work whatsoever."

Indian activist: Massacre of Christians planned in advance

by Nirmala Carvalho
Lenin Raghuvanshi has visited Orissa as a member of a fact-finding team established by the European commission for the prevention of torture. Hindu radicals have a program for expunging Christians from the region and reconverting tribals and pariahs to Hinduism.

Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) - The campaign of attacks against Christians in Orissa was planned for months. This is the claim of Lenin Raghuvanshi, director of the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights. Mr. Raghuvanshi visited Orisa as part of of a fact-finding team for the European commission for the prevention of torture.

Speaking to AsiaNews, he says that "In the Kandhamal district, it is very clear that a cleansing of marginalized Christian populace is taking place by RSS, BajrangDal and VHP cadres (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad)."

The wave of violence has so far killed 61 people, injured 18,000, destroyed 4,500 homes, and burned and razed 181 churches. It was apparently motivated by the killing of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati, a leader of the VHP, last August 23. He was killed by a group of Maoists, but Hindu fundamentalist groups immediately accused the Christians of the assassination.

"In fact, on August 14," Raghuvanshi explains, "nearly 10 days before the death of Swami Laxamanada, a mob of RSS people came to Sahasipudar village and threatened the people of the perils of following the Christian faith . These extremists also warned the margnisalised Christian community that henceforth the Gita [editor's note: one of the sacred books of Hinduism] was their sacred book."

In Orissa, campaigns to reconvert Christian tribals and pariahs back to Hinduism date back for decades. The swami killed in August was himself a fierce promoter of this. Last December, on Christmas eve, he was the one who had pushed for new attacks against Christians, in which 13 homes were burned and 3 people killed, while thousands of faithful were forced to flee.

"After the December anti-Christian violence," Raghuvanshi says, "three families converted to Hinduism out of fear. It is most unfortunate, in a broken down church the picture of Swami Laxamandanda has been installed."

Mr. Lenin Raghuvanshi recently won the “Acha Peace Star” prize for his efforts for reconciliation among communities in India. Commenting further on the violence in Orissa and on his work with the fact-finding mission, he says: "We were witnesses to most deplorable and inhuman atrocities, most probably, these fundamentalists forces are whipping up communal frenzy with a view to the state elections scheduled next year. Here elections are won at the cost of human lives - how much lower can humanity stoop?"

Mobile phone virus spreads by MMS

mobile phone virus with the potential of spreading globally through MMS has been identified. According to security firm F-Secure, CommWarrior can spread by sending messages to contacts listed in the infected phone's address book.

Until now mobile phone viruses have only been able to replicate locally, by using Bluetooth wireless technology.

CommWarrior, which attacks Symbian Series 60 platform phones, is able to do this too, but in a critical evolution in phone viruses, now also has the ability to randomly send an MMS (multimedia messaging service) message to an infected phone's contacts list.

Users must download a file sent with the text in order to infect their phone.

This ability is similar to that seen in e-mail viruses, where the virus replicates by sending itself to e-mail addresses listed in the infected PC's address book. Users are much more likely to open these e-mails, as they often appear to have been sent by someone they know.

"The situation is not critical since we have not received a lot of reports from our customers," said F-Secure's Director for Mobile Operator Solutions, Antti Vihavainen. "However, CommWarrior creates unwanted billing for the owners of infected phones by sending MMS messages without user interaction."

"The phones can be easily protected by using common sense. None of today's mobile viruses can install themselves without the user accepting the standard security warnings," he added.

F-Secure is investigating why the virus, which appears to have come from Russia, is replicating slowly at present.

Malcolm Forbes

Anyway Malcolm Forbes was such a great man , that he had to run to Morroco and on several occasions had to use rent boys to satisfy his sexual needs...