* Survey: Global Muslim population hits 1.57 b. The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam.

* UN body to debate Gaza ‘crimes’ The UN has brought forward a regular Security Council meeting on the Middle East after Libya demanded an urgent debate on alleged war crimes in Gaza.

* IDF fears spread of J’lem violence The IDF is raising its level of alert ahead of Friday morning prayers in Jerusalem and out of fear that violence there will spread to Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

* Peace an illusion, says Israel FM Israel’s foreign minister has said there is no chance of an early solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and told people to “learn to live with it”.

* American troops in Afghanistan losing heart, say army chaplains American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned.

* Blair seeks religious leader unity on Jerusalem Former British Prime Minister and Middle East envoy Tony Blair called Wednesday for a joint appeal by Jerusalem’s religious leaders on keeping the holy city open to all faiths even as tensions flare.

* Warning over global oil ‘decline’ There is a “significant risk” that global production of conventional oil could “peak” and decline by 2020.

* Jordan’s king to Haaretz: Without two states, there is no future Jordan’s King Abdullah II has asked Haaretz to relay a message to the Israeli public that it disavow the illusion that the status quo can be perpetuated.

* Brussels in limbo over Klaus treaty delay The heads of the EU’s three main institutions on Wednesday (7 September) came together to point out to Czech President Vaclav Klaus the “costs” to Europe if he continues to delay ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

* Rabbis Discuss Blocking Jews, Gentiles from Temple Mount The Temple Mount is sacred to the People of Israel, rabbis agree, but at least one — Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv — has urged President Shimon Peres not to allow Jews to tread the site.

By: Paul Reynolds – BBC News

The ‘Yes’ vote by Irish voters on the Lisbon Treaty has brought forward the prospect that the European Union might play a greater role in world affairs.

There are two provisions in the treaty which might make this possible. These are for a permanent president of the European Council and a beefed-up foreign policy representative.

The hope among supporters of the treaty is that these posts will enable the EU to speak more clearly and coherently on major world issues.

The fear among critics is that this will go too far and take away the role and influence of national governments.

However, it can only go so far, because national vetoes remain over joint EU-wide foreign policy and security decisions – unlike trade, where member states pool their powers by majority voting if necessary.

So even a powerful new president could not speak for the EU as a whole if it was divided, as it was over the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But the negotiations with Iran, for example, show how things could develop.

Three EU member states – Great Britain, France and Germany – work alongside the present EU foreign policy representative, thereby enabling individual governments to retain their independence of view while combining together for greater effect.

President’s impact

The president would chair summit meetings of the heads of state and government – the European Council. He or she would be elected by the council by qualified majority and would not need the approval of the European Parliament.

The term of office is set at two-and-a-half years initially, followed by a similar period on re-election. A qualified majority vote could also sack the president.

At the moment, the office is held by the head of state or government whose country has the six-monthly revolving presidency.

Six months is hardly time for anyone to say much, let alone do much.

Clearly, a full-time president would have far greater impact internally and externally in terms of setting agendas and speaking out.

Much depends on who would get the job. An outspoken president could make a big impact. Someone quieter might be sidelined by national leaders.

It seems you have to have been a prime minister or at least a foreign minister to fit the bill, but there would be no shortage of candidates.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair carries baggage from the Iraq war but would give the EU a prominent voice on the world stage.

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker is a possible runner from the right, not well-known internationally but experienced in EU negotiations.

Former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has a good reputation in economic affairs and for helping to reach the Northern Ireland agreement, but he is from a smaller country and some might want a bigger hitter.

Others possibilities include former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Pipponen.

Money power

The other more powerful post proposed is that of the so-called high representative. There is one already: Javier Solana, who is very active but perhaps not known much to the European public.

The new holder would chair the meetings of foreign ministers and combine not only the right to speak and lead for the EU on agreed policies but would additionally administer the multi-billion euro aid budget and would have a seat on the European Commission.

The power to hand out money would inevitably increase the power of the post.

In the original constitutional proposals this position was called the foreign minister but Britain, for one, felt that was gave too much away to the EU and in the treaty the name reverted to high representative.

This foreign policy chief would have his or her own diplomatic service, building on the EU representatives already present across the world.

This again has raised worries among some national foreign offices about a reduction in their power over time. It is not yet clear how important this service will become, but it certainly has the potential to become very much so.

As with the president, there would be limits on what the high representative could do, given the sensitivities of some governments in foreign affairs.

One potential delicate area would be the so-called “enhanced co-operation” available if nine or more member states agree. This would be extended to foreign affairs and security under Lisbon, raising the prospect of a fast-track group.

Those wanting closer military ties might also get into what is called structured co-operation. Where would the high representative position him or herself in those cases?

There might also be rivalries with the president on big issues.

Mr Solana is leaving soon anyway, and whoever replaces him would be well placed to take on the larger role.

Names mentioned include Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is losing his job as German foreign minister after the elections, Carl Bildt of Sweden, Finnish EU commissioner Olli Rehn and former British Commissioner Chris Patten.

The game is nearly on.

By: Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper – The Jerusalem Post

Here we go again. As Jews celebrate in their tens of thousands the festival of Booths, Succot, religious extremists like Sheikh Raed Salah incite Palestinian masses to recapture Jerusalem with “blood and fire.” Not to be outdone, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah rushed in to pour fuel on the fire as it protests a “plan by Jews to perform religious rituals” on the Temple Mount,’ and called on the international community to “force Israel to put off its attempts to take over Jerusalem.”

So as Israel struggles to stop the stone throwers’ verbal assaults, and the next spate of resolutions, it’s worth reminding the world that ever since the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem, millions of people have safely streamed to the Western Wall to offer their prayers and insert hand written supplications to the Almighty. While most visitors shedding their tears adjacent to Judaism’s holiest site – the Temple Mount – are Jews, not all pilgrims are. Witness Pope John Paul II inserting his own kvittel (written prayer) within the Wall’s cracks; pilgrims from Africa, tourists from Indonesia, Swamis from India, Evangelicals from the Americas, Buddhists from across Asia – all come and go to the Wall.

The only price of admission: donning a cardboard yarmulke or scarf. Presidents and prime ministers flock to the Western Wall as well, armed with the latest great hope for peace in the Holy Land. From the Oslo Accords to the Quartet Middle East road map for peace, every official, regardless of religious denomination, or lack of one, finds a welcome private moment of silent prayer or reflection at the Western Wall.

AND YET earlier this week, in the midst of the Jewish High Holy Days, French tourists on the Temple Mount were pelted by irate Palestinian worshipers who “mistook” them for Jews. And the stones, and orchestrated crescendo of violence have continued unabated. During this seemingly annual exercise, has any diplomat, foreign minister, religious icon, or political pundit asked himself, or better yet the Palestinians, one simple question – why? Why can we all pray in peace at the Western Wall, but the very notion of a Jew praying on the site of Solomon’s Temple begets only violence, denial and threats?

he centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people was never lost on friend or foe.

Two thousand years ago the Romans, after destroying the Temple, plowed under its remains and banned Jews from returning. Emperor Hadrian tried to bury the very name of City of Peace, renaming Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina. Later, Christians, for theological reasons, extended that painful ban and it was only conquering Muslim leaders who recognized the right of Jews to “return” to live in this small area of land.

Indeed, the Christian patriarchs unsuccessfully lobbied conquering Caliph Omar in the seventh century, and again when Saladin drove out the Crusaders in the twelfth, to prevent Jews from living in or returning to Jerusalem after the Christians had expelled them from the city. Such efforts by Christians were to be repeated and denied by various Muslim authorities for hundreds of years.

How to explain Muslim attitudes over the centuries? Because the Koran itself recognized Solomon’s Temple as a “Great place of prayer,” and Muslim leaders saw no theological problem with Jews praying adjacent to the Dome of the Rock and the nearby Al Aqsa Mosque. Indeed, in its 1924 guide to Al-Haram Al- Sharif (the Temple Mount) the Supreme Muslim Council wrote “It’s identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute,” adding this quote from the Book of Samuel: “This, too, is the spot according to the universal belief on which David built there an altar unto the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.” That language would remain until the 1950s.

So why are things so dramatically different in 2009?

Simply put, generations of Palestinians, “educated” by Yasser Arafat and company, have been taught not believe there ever was a Solomon’s Temple. Textbooks and Palestinian media all repeat the self-delusionary canard denying any historic Jewish continuity or legitimacy in the Holy Land. Indeed, president Bill Clinton was reportedly shocked when Arafat called the Western Wall – the Jewish people’s holiest place – “a Muslim shrine” and the Palestinian leader’s chief negotiator at the make-or-break Camp David peace talks denied the ruins of Solomon’s temple lay beneath the Dome of the Rock.

TRAGICALLY, EVER since Israel magnanimously turned over religious control of the Temple Mount to the Muslim Wakf in June 1967, successive generations have been taught that Israelis are Nazi-like invaders, illegitimate neighbors and enemies.

And “friends of peace,” far from urging Palestinians to deal with reality, help feed the delusion of denial. Witness the World Council of Churches, the largest umbrella group of Protestants, which recently launched the so-called Bern Initiative at its “Promised Land” conference in Switzerland. Its answer to Israel’s alleged “apartheid situation” in the Holy Land is to reinterpret the Bible by differentiating between “biblical history and biblical stories . . . as well to distinguish between the Israel of the Bible and the modern State of Israel.”

The current violence and rabble rousing by the Palestinians won’t make it any easier for US President Barack Obama, but the first thing he must do is not stop illegal nursery and bathroom add-ons in east Jerusalem but admonish the Palestinian leadership to stop denying the legitimacy of the Jewish people.

Simply put: There can be no peace in the Holy Land without the Arab and Muslim world acknowledging what their Holy Book and ancestors recognized as the historic link of the Jewish people to its land and its Holy sites. Unless and until that happens, there will be no peace in our time.

By: Rebecca Anna Stoil – The Jerusalem Post

Raed Salah, the outspoken leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel’s northern branch, called Tuesday on all Israeli Arabs and residents of east Jerusalem to immediately make their way to the Old City and “shield the Aksa Mosque with their bodies.”

Salah, who was arrested later on Tuesday, is no stranger to controversy, but his militancy continues to drive a wedge within the decades-old organization, between those who say they believe in working within the political system and those advocating violent methods outside of it.

After cabinet ministers called for his indictment on Tuesday morning, a defiant Salah said he and his supporters “would pay any price to defend the Aksa [Mosque],” Israel Radio reported.

In response to accusations of inciting the Muslim violence in Jerusalem in recent days, Salah said that if forced by the government to choose between imprisonment and defending the mosque “and occupied Jerusalem,” he would choose the former without hesitation.

Prof. Yitzhak Reiter, from the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that support for the movement had remained steady among Israeli Muslims at 20 to 25 percent, but that many more supported Salah when it came to the Temple Mount.

“Both [of the Islamic Movement’s] factions together represent approximately 20 to 25% of the Muslim population, but that doesn’t mean that people who vote for Hadash or even Labor won’t agree with Salah when he speaks about Al-Aksa,” Reiter said. “And they will evaluate the situation like he does, because they don’t trust the government institutions’ line about it.”

But Reiter also emphasizes that there is a limit to Salah’s influence even regarding the Temple Mount.

“In 2007, when Israel was working on the Mughrabi gate entrance, and Salah called on people to defend the mosque, few people actually came – even on the buses that he organized to come to Jerusalem – because they understood that he took one step too far.”

In that case, Reiter said, the authorities took important steps to stem the furor by simulcasting live footage of the building project, which helped refute Salah’s allegations.

“He works by building castles of conspiracy theories, and this destroyed them,” explained Reiter, arguing that in the recent violence, Israel could have taken steps to explain to Israeli Arabs that Salah’s conspiracy theories were just that and nothing more.

Salah, whom Reiter described as the force behind the split between the Islamic Movement’s two fronts, has continued to function as one of the movement’s most recognized leaders for decades. But he was far from the only member who has pushed the boundaries between millennialist political thought advocating the establishment of an Islamist caliphate based in Jerusalem and outright support of terrorism.

The Islamic Movement was established in 1971 and even in its early years was accused of walking a narrow line between political activism and terrorism. The movement was founded by Abdullah Nimar Darwish with the goal of establishing private Islamist welfare services as an alternative to those offered by the Jewish state.

But a parallel organization called The Families of Jihad was also established by Darwish and several other leaders within the movement, and their stated goal was to establish an “Arab Islamist state in Palestine.”

Eight years later, the organization’s leadership was arrested after attempting to carry out a terrorist attack, and from then on, the movement officially renounced terrorism.

After a surge of support in the early ’80s, the movement began to run candidates in municipal elections, and Salah first achieved electoral success in the Wadi Ara city of Umm el-Fahm, which subsequently became an ideological center for the movement.

It was in the early ’90s that cracks in the movement’s unified front began to emerge, with the northern faction opposing the Oslo Accords and the southern front welcoming them. That division was further strengthened – and the split became official – when in 1996 the southern front decided to team up with MK Ahmed Tibi’s Arab Democratic Party to form the United Arab List-Ta’al. Salah, however, advocated boycotting elections, maintaining the faction’s complete boycott of all Israeli institutions.

Twice during that decade, the movement’s charitable wing was closed after the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) discovered that it was giving money to Hamas members’ families.

Salah, together with then-MK Abdul Malik Dahamshe was blasted for his role in inciting the October 2000 Wadi Ara riots, and then – similar to now – Salah incited followers to violence to protect the Temple Mount following then-prime minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Jerusalem holy site.

Salah continued to incite his followers to violence, frequently using the Aksa Mosque as the emotional focal point of his calls to action. In 2002, the northern branch’s newspaper was ordered closed by then (as now) Interior Minister Eli Yishai after it blasted Israel for allowing “the flea rabbis to harm Al-Aksa.”

Salah himself was arrested in 2003 for allegedly aiding Hamas, but was released in 2005 following a plea agreement.

He once again courted jail time in 2007 when he called on Muslims to defend the Temple Mount during the Mughrabi Gate project, but returned to lying relatively low in the ensuing two years. But last year, after a series of stone-throwing incidents in northern Israel, the movement returned to the headlines when two Israeli-Arab youths told a reporter for the Yisrael Hayom newspaper that northern front activists had paid them to attack passing vehicles.

Rather than denying the allegations, an unnamed senior member of the movement confirmed the report, and added as explanation: “We want autonomy like the Catalans and Basques in Spain, while all means are valid on the path to this goal.”

* Solana calls for restraint in Jerusalem European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana expressed concern Wednesday over “recent clashes in east Jerusalem.”

* EU eyes bigger global role The ‘Yes’ vote by Irish voters on the Lisbon Treaty has brought forward the prospect that the European Union might play a greater role in world affairs.

* ‘US may be planning to bomb Iran’ The US could be in the process of accelerating provisions for a possible attack on Iran.

* Czechs ‘to back treaty this year’ The Czech PM, Jan Fischer, has told EU leaders he fully expects his country to ratify the EU’s Lisbon Treaty by the end of this year.

* ‘Old City violence may lead to 3rd intifada’ Recent violence in the capital and the ongoing tensions surrounding the Temple Mount could trigger a third intifada.

* Saudi king in Damascus to mend fences with Assad Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah flew to Syria on Wednesday for talks with President Bashar Assad.

* Like it or not, the Temple Mount is key to Israeli-Palestinian peace Here we go again. As Jews celebrate in their tens of thousands the festival of Booths, Succot, religious extremists like Sheikh Raed Salah incite Palestinian masses to recapture Jerusalem with “blood and fire.”

* MEPs pressure member states on diplomatic service MEPs are rushing to establish the European Parliament’s formal position on the union’s fledgling diplomatic service.

* Few Muslims willing to mimic Salah’s actions Raed Salah, the outspoken leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel’s northern branch, called Tuesday on all Israeli Arabs and residents of east Jerusalem to immediately make their way to the Old City and “shield the Aksa Mosque with their bodies.”

* Obama ‘rules out’ Afghan cutbacks US President Barack Obama has said his review of Afghan strategy will not look at pulling out or cutting troop levels.

By: Nissan Ratzlav-Katz – Arutz Sheva

Amnon Lin, a former Knesset Member and authority on the Middle East, told Israel National News’ Hebrew-language radio that a segment of the Arab-Israeli community is taking its orders from global jihadist organizations, such as Hizbullah and Hamas.

“We need to get used to the idea that today, among Arab Israelis, there is a very extremist group – led by the Islamic Movement, Raed Salah, Kamal Khatib and others – who maintain very close relations with organizations in the Islamic movement outside Israel, be it Hamas, the Hizbullah or other elements, such as Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon – the Muslim Brotherhood. Israeli Arabs no longer live on an isolated island,” Lin explained.

Connections between Israeli Arabs and Islamist groups worldwide, Lin said, are by way of the Internet, telephone, through the mass media, and more. This facilitates events such as the pre-planned rioting in Jerusalem this week, which can be essentially orchestrated from afar.

“Nowadays,” Lin told Arutz Sheva, “Arab Israelis have many methods by which to receive guidance, and even orders and instructions, that ‘you must do such-and-such’ and thus place the struggle for Jerusalem – that is, the battle for the Temple Mount – at the center.”

Asked by the interviewer if this constitutes, in effect, an operational arm within Israel of the global jihadist movements, Lin replied: “I am certain that [the Islamist leadership in Israel] is an operational arm that acts in full coordination with the leadership of the Hamas groups or of Hizbullah. It is all networked by the extremist fundamentalist Islamic movement.”

INN: “If so, then we have to treat it like a spy network, because we are a country that has to deal with existential threats.”

Lin: “I don’t think you or I need to encourage the security services. They do their job well.”

Asked if he sees the justice system at fault for the growth of Islamic fundamentalist activity, Lin replied that, in his estimation, the legal penalties for terrorist activities are not sufficient to deter those who want to attack innocent Jews.

“The only thing that surprises me,” added Lin, “is that we, Jews in the State of Israel, apparently have not yet learned, and are not investigating or aspiring to learn well, the sad truth that describes the situation among the Arab Israelis – [that they are] not separate from the general Arab public or from the Islamic fundamentalist public in the Arab countries.”

Amnon Lin, a graduate of the Shomer HaTza’ir Kibbutz movement in pre-state Israel, started his political career as in the mainstream socialist Mapai party led by David Ben-Gurion. Lin was responsible for Mapai party activities among the Israeli Arab sector in the 1950s and ’60s. By the 1970s, Lin had switched parties and joined the Likud under Menachem Begin. Then, due to local political issues in his hometown of Haifa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lin rejoined the left-wing Labor party, Mapai’s successor. His last term in the Knesset ended in 1988.

Lin has published several publications and many articles dealing with the Arab refugees of 1948, the Arab states, politics in the Arab Israeli community, as well as on the future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

By: BreitBart

The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the “privilege” of building a huge trade deficit.

“Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity,” UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.

Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: “It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity.”

He said: “Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes,” he said.

The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies — the dollar, euro, yen and pound — which is calculated daily.

China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.

By: Robert Fisk – The Independent

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China’s former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. “Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable,” he told the Asia and Africa Review. “We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security.”

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region’s conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China’s extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America’s power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China’s growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China’s reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America’s trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington’s control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. “The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies,” a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. “The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won’t be able to use the US dollar.”

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years’ time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker said. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

By: STEPHEN CASTLE and STEVEN ERLANGER – The New York Times

LONDON — Ireland’s vote to ratify the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty has finally cleared the way for the creation of a powerful new president, intended to elevate the 27-nation bloc’s standing on the global stage.

But do European leaders actually want one?

Ahead lies a difficult discussion about how much power and influence a new European Union president should have and whether the post should fall to a political star — like former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain — or one of his grayer, more technocratic rivals.

The leaders of member countries will decide, probably this month, and their decision could determine whether the union really seeks the bigger role it says it needs to try to match the influence of the United States and that of rising powers like China, Russia, India and Brazil.

The Lisbon Treaty, which aims to streamline decision-making and reform the bloc’s ramshackle structures, lays down a two-and-a-half-year term for a full-time president of the European Council, the body that represents member nations. The treaty, if finally ratified by the Poles and Czechs, also mandates a single new foreign affairs chief, in charge of both policy and aid money, and a new European diplomatic corps.

Both new jobs would be subordinate to the leaders of member countries, and the position of commission president, held by José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, continues. But those who fill the two new posts will have a considerable chance to carve out significant roles for themselves, since they will be the most prominent faces of a collective Europe.

There would also be greater powers for the European Parliament — the only popularly elected European Union institution — an effort to improve democratic accountability.

The treaty, assuming it passes, is “a splendid virtual success,” said Justin Vaïsse, a French scholar at the Brookings Institution. “It is virtual not only because much will depend on the men and women who occupy the main functions, and how they choose to define them and assert their authority, but also because there will be no real improvement without greater convergence and cooperation between the big three European countries,” he said, referring to France, Germany and Britain.

So when they gather at a summit meeting this month, the 27 European leaders face a clear choice between appointing a prominent president to represent them, or someone who will be more submissive.

The identity of the new president will determine the type of job that is created, said Katinka Barysch, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute in London. “If you have someone like Tony Blair, he will not want to be talking about the minutiae of service-market liberalization,” she said. “He would want to be talking about Iran to Barack Obama.”

While the European Union says it desires a bigger international role, national politicians know that a charismatic figure would overshadow many of them and could shift the bloc’s center of gravity.

There are no declared candidates. But the politician thought to have the best prospect is also the most controversial: Mr. Blair. Other contenders include: Jan Peter Balkenende, François Fillon, Herman Van Rompuy, and Jean-Claude Juncker, respectively the Dutch, French, Belgian and Luxembourgian prime ministers; Paavo Lipponen and Felipe González, the former Finnish and Spanish prime ministers; and former President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland.

Though Mr. Blair led the British Labour Party to three victories, he does not have the support of most European center-left parties, which have not forgiven him for his role in the Iraq war. Britain remains outside several important union initiatives, like its single currency, the euro, and Mr. Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, is thought very likely to lose the next election to David Cameron of the Conservatives, who is sharply critical of further European integration.

But with the possible exception of Mr. Fillon, Mr. Blair’s is the only credible big name to emerge so far from informal discussions. Supporters say that Mr. Blair thinks he could play a useful role because of his good relations with Mr. Barroso and several other European leaders. Smaller countries suspect that Mr. Blair would be too susceptible to favoring the big nations, reducing the influence of the bloc’s minnows.

Mr. Fillon, who is reaching the end of a successful premiership, has already proven his ability to work with and around an imperious and sometimes petulant leader, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

But Mr. Sarkozy and the freshly re-elected German chancellor, Angela Merkel, will be crucial in deciding who gets the job, and both do not want their influence diminished.

Mr. Sarkozy has spoken positively of Mr. Blair for the post, but his current thinking is unclear. Mrs. Merkel was never enthusiastic about Mr. Blair, but she was more open to the idea during recent talks with Mr. Sarkozy, a European diplomat said.

Olivier Ferrand, the president of Terra-Nova, a research institute in Paris, said Mr. Sarkozy backed Mr. Blair because the British leader would strengthen the leadership of big member states like France in an enlarged Europe.

But there will be other political considerations, too, like balancing politicians from the left and the right and from large and small nations.

If the president comes from the center-right, for example, the foreign policy chief is likely to come from the left.

Mrs. Merkel is pressing for a woman to be appointed to one of the two big jobs, with the Greek foreign minister, Dora Bakoyannis, and Austria’s former foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, possible contenders.

“We don’t want to have a big-personality president, like Tony Blair, and then a big-personality foreign high representative, because then they will compete with each other,” said Ms. Barysch, of the Center for European Reform. “We already look ludicrous on the international stage having so many different voices.”

By: Douglas Birch – Associated Press

MOSCOW – Russia should ease barriers to immigration in order to reduce the impact of labor shortages, slower economic growth and other pressures brought on by its ongoing demographic crisis, a United Nations report said Monday.

The report said that Russia should adopt legal and other reforms that insure basic rights and access to services for millions of migrants, many of them from other former Soviet nations, who work in construction and other industries. These workers often face discrimination, exploitation and occasionally even violence.

Konstantin Poltoranin, deputy chief of the Federal Migration Service’s international and public relations department, told the Interfax news agency Monday that Russia has already taken the necessary steps toward reform.

“Many of the procedures have become more transparent and we can see progress,” he said. “Russia will decide on its own what migrants it needs and how many. Russia is in no need of a huge inflow of unskilled workers from abroad.”

Migrants in the former Soviet Union not only provide a crucial source of labor for Russia, the report found, they serve a vital economic purpose in their home countries.

The amount of money sent to Tajikistan by its citizens working abroad represents 45 percent of its gross domestic product, the highest level in the world, an earlier U.N. study found. Most of the country’s migrant workers are employed in Russia.

Russia’s population has fallen by 6.6 million since 1993, despite the influx of millions of immigrants, according to a U.N. report released last year, and by 2025 the country could lose a further 11 million people.

Recent Kremlin efforts to reward women for having more babies have caused a surge in the birth rate, the U.N. has said, but won’t make much difference in the long term.

Population levels in many developed countries have stagnated and are expected to fall by 2025, but Russia’s population, currently around 142 million, has been in retreat since 1992. Russia’s mortality rate is among the highest in the developed world, with average life expectancy for males at barely 60 years.

For reasons that are not fully understood, Russians suffer very high levels of cardiovascular disease. But most experts blame the country’s overall high death rate on alcohol. Drinking has been linked to everything from liver disease to Russia’s high number of murders, suicides and fatal accidents.

The U.N. has also urged Russia to overhaul the health system to provide more efficient care, while encouraging lifestyle changes to reduce the number of deaths related to alcohol consumption.