The demise of the dollar

By Robert Fisk

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.

 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…..

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Al-Qaeda gains strength, active in Russia’s North Caucasus

Moscow,  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s special envoy for international cooperation on combating terrorism, Anatoly Safonov today said international terrorist organisation al-Qaeda has not become weaker but gained strength, while hundreds of similar extremist groups have emerged worldwide.
”We said al-Qaeda had been weakened financially and that a change of generations had taken place, that did not result in management loss, but in its perfection, reformation, and today we see that the organisation in some ways is more prepared for the current global situation,” Mr Safonov said.

He added hundreds of similar organisations to al-Qaeda have emerged in the recent years with some of them operating in the troubled Russian North Caucasus.

”There are still active representatives of international terrorist organisations, including al-Qaida, operating in Russia’s North Caucasus,” Mr Safonov noted.

Russian Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev told reporters earlier that al-Qaida was active in Russia’s Republics of Daghestan and Chechnya where they carry out regular inspections of illegal armed units providing them with weapons and explosives.

Sporadic terrorist attacks and militant clashes are common in the Russian republics of Ingushetia and Daghestan, and in neighbouring Chechnya, in the North Caucasus, although the Kremlin has ended its campaign to fight separatists and terrorists there
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Afghan incursion was wrong: ex-general

MOSCOW, Feb 15: Russia on Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, haunted by its catastrophic war against Mujahideen and convinced the trauma harbours lessons for western forces today.

On Feb 15, 1989 the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan, ending a war that Moscow initially saw as a brief incursion to bolster its Afghan supporters but became a protracted and bloody struggle that lasted almost 10 years.

The war, which cost over 13,000 Soviet lives and may have killed as many as one million Afghans, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

“We did not expect the war to turn out like it did. We had the wrong strategy maybe. We shouldn’t have taken our troops there,” said Ruslan Aushev, a highly decorated veteran and lieutenant-general in the conflict.

“At a certain moment we made a military mistake that led to a political mistake,” said Aushev, who went on to become president of the Russian republic of Ingushetia.

The last Soviet soldier to leave was the commander of its forces in Afghanistan, Lt-Gen Boris Gromov, who crossed the Friendship Bridge across the Amu Darya (river) into Soviet Uzbekistan at midday on Feb 15.

“I am convinced of one thing. That it is irresponsible to forget about lessons like Afghanistan,” Gromov, a hero of the USSR and now governor of the Moscow region, told the Rossiskaya Gazeta daily.—AFP
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