coming soon to a 'country' near you ?
(snip)"Russia braced for unrest
By Isabel Gorst in Moscow and Anuj Gangahar in New York
Published: December 26 2008 19:53 | Last updated: December 26 2008 19:53
Russia is bracing for further unrest as the rouble on Friday slid to a new low against the euro after a succession of moves to devalue its currency.
A cut on Friday extended six weeks of devaluations by Russia’s central bank designed to offset the impact of the global economic crisis and falling oil prices as the country’s main export commodity approached its lowest level since 2004."(snip)
(snip)"Analysts at Barclays Capital said the best case scenario would see Russian policymakers, facing the mounting evidence of a recession, allowing a one-off depreciation of 10 per cent or more.
The rouble’s slide comes as the government faces scrutiny over its policies. A demonstration earlier this month in the far eastern city of Vladivostok marked the first major challenge to the Kremlin since the onset of the global financial crisis.
Mikhail Sukhodolsky, a deputy interior minister, warned on Christmas Eve that there could be further protests. “The situation may be exacerbated by a growth in frustration of workers over the non-payment of wages or those threatened with dismissal,” he said.
His remarks coincided with criticism of the Kremlin’s rough handling of the protests in Vladivostok. Moscow-based Omon riot police detained about 61 people in the protests against car import duties designed to prop up domestic car producers, but making foreign vehicles prohibitively expensive for ordinary Russians.
Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister who now leads the liberal People’s Democratic Union opposition movement, said that an unspoken social contract between the government and the people, swapping political freedoms for prosperity and consumer goods, had broken down.
“It was a deal,” he told the FT in an interview this week. “But it has fallen apart and that is why people are appearing on the streets. The process has started . . . Things could spin out of control when people wake up and realise their neighbours have lost their jobs and they are at risk of losing theirs.” He added that “the authorities had reacted “cynically and in a very nervous manner for nothing,” against a peaceful demonstration.
Boris Gryzlov, the pro-Kremlin speaker of parliament, on Friday accused the opposition of provoking the demonstration.
Moscow, which has pledged $200bn to mitigate the effects of the economic downturn, late on Thursday published a list of 295 strategic enterprises entitled to preferential government support.
Amid suspicions that the money will not be distributed transparently, the government said the list published on its website was not complete and did not guarantee financial support for those on it.
"(snip)
Re: coming soon to a 'country' near you ?
or maybe ...
(snip)Crisis widens appeal of Islamic finance
By EMMA VANDORE – 2 days ago
PARIS (AP) — France is becoming the latest country to woo Islamic banks, which avoided much of the damage from the subprime mortgage crisis by following strict principles laid out in the Quran — as the global financial crisis broadens the appeal of Islamic finance.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has promised to make adjustments to the regulatory and legal arsenal to enable Paris to become a major marketplace in Islamic finance.
At a recent forum in Paris, she said Western financiers could learn a thing or two from the Islamic world as global leaders try to establish "new principles for the international financial system, based on transparency, responsibility and, I would like to add, moderation."
"In this sense, Islamic finance is calling out to us," she said.
Finance that complies with Shariah, or Islamic law, accounts for around $700 billion of assets and is growing at 10 to 30 percent a year, according to Moody's Investors Service.
That's grabbing the attention of governments eager to oil their liquidity-strapped economies with money and deposits from the Islamic world. Islamic finance is concentrated in the Persian Gulf and Muslim parts of Asia such as Indonesia and Malaysia but is spreading into North Africa and Europe.
Islamic banking does not have the scale to replace Western-style finance, but in these cash-strapped times it is seen as offering another alternative for raising money.
London has attracted the largest pool of Shariah-compliant assets in the West and desire to compete with Britain's ailing financial center is motivating Paris to get in on the act. The country has some 5 million Muslims, but does not offer Islamic-based retail banking, and the country's secular traditions may present an obstacle to a French version of the Islamic Bank of Britain.
Moody's ratings agency noted in a November report that Islamic financiers will need to quell fears that France's official religious neutrality could be put at risk.
But more people are seeing business reasons to attract Islamic funds. A report by economics professors Olivier Pastre and Elyes Jouini claims that France could attract up to euro100 billion ($136.9 billion) from Islamic financial institutions.
"We want to make sure that Paris is in a position to be able to welcome this money to finance the French economy," said Gilles Saint Marc, a Paris-based lawyer who is advising an Islamic institution which plans to make a formal application to start investment banking activities in France."(snip)
(snip)""If global banking practices were based on Islamic practices then we wouldn't be seeing the kind of crisis we are living through now," he said.
Islamic financial institutions work on a philosophy of prohibiting transactions considered immoral and promoting greater social justice by sharing risk and reward. Investing in casinos, pornography, arm dealers or anything to do with pork is out: long-term investments in projects considered to benefit society are in.
Interest payments, short selling and contracts considered excessively risky are also prohibited. That rules out some of the products that got Western finance into so much trouble such as subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations or credit default swaps."(snip)
Re: coming soon to a 'country' near you ?
Another piece of Western civilization crumbles. We'll be back to women requesting their husband's or father's permission to open a bank account pretty soon.