Free Republic

I get that you might have a difficult time believing that Sarah Palin was right on the whole "quantitative easing is a really bad deal" thing, Barack, but would you believe, say, the entire G-20 summit when it turns out they aren't so excited about your plan to print tons of money and keep the value of the dollar so as to gain the upper hand in international trade. Leaders of 20 major economies on Friday refused to endorse a U.S. push to get China to let its currency rise, keeping alive a dispute that has raised the specter of...

SEOUL—President Barack Obama limped toward the close of the Group of 20 summit, weakened by an anemic economic recovery and an election drubbing that has left world leaders questioning U.S. authority. In private meetings with Mr. Obama Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintao resisted his pressure on currency revaluation. Mr. Obama also failed to secure a free-trade agreement with South Korea by his imposed Thursday deadline, a blow to a U.S. president who has pledged to double U.S. exports over the next five years. [....] That China was emboldened to lecture the U.S. on its currency, a notable reversal of recent...

/being my excerpts N. Korea Set up Special Unit to Disrupt G-20 Summit Kim Hyung-won N. Korea is drawing up 'emergency plans' to raise tension in Korean Peninsula during G-20 Summit period which is due to start on Nov. 11, and they include special force operation, according to Nov. 3 report of Radio Free Asia. Quoting sources in China, it said that Kim Jong-eun went to N. Korea's Reconnaissance Bureau and instructed Kim Yong-chol, the Bureau's head, to set up special force unit to carry out military provocation or terrorist attacks. The goal of N. Korea is said to convince...

South Korean media reported Sunday that Seoul and Washington have called off plans to hold a major joint naval exercise in the Yellow Sea this month. Yonhap news agency quoted government sources as saying the exercise involving a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has been postponed to avoid tensions on the Korean peninsula during the upcoming G20 summit in Seoul. There was no official confirmation of the reports. The Chinese government has fiercely opposed the deployment of the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington in the regional waters.

Call it Fortress Toronto. The fenced area around the Metro Convention Centre is under a lockdown, and there are more police officers than ordinary citizens on the streets. Wait, there’s more: protesters are flooding the downtown core and the well-heeled are fleeing. This is downtown Toronto — this last weekend of June. “It could be lots of fun, it could be downright miserable,” said Sgt. Tim Burrows, media relations officer for the Integrated Security Unit, in charge of security for the G8 and G20 summits. “What the protesters decide to bring is what we will respond to.” We’ll see protesters...

SNIPPET: "OTTAWA — The May 18 firebombing of an Ottawa bank was feared to be just the start of a "domestic terrorism" campaign launched by three anarchists bent on acts of destruction at the G20 summit in Toronto, with one of the accused firebombers stockpiling boxes of ammunition and gunpowder, the Ottawa Citizen has learned." SNIPPET: "Ottawa Police Chief Vern White had publicly branded those who attacked the bank branch as terrorists days after the firebombing, which was filmed and posted online in a "catch-me-if-you-can" video by a group called FFFC-Ottawa. The acronym stands for Fight for Freedom Coalition, according...

Gross Domestic Happiness? Why the French want to redefine economic growth. French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said he wanted the nations of the world to stop using GDP, or gross domestic product, as the main measure of their economic performance. He wants them instead to work up another metric that takes into account not only economic production but such things as environmental quality and even time not spent in traffic—a sort of gross national satisfaction index. France has excellent reason to suppress GDP statistics. Since 1982, among developed nations, France has been a clear laggard in GDP growth. Mr. Domitrovic...

More than 1,000 police officers were hired from precincts throughout the U.S. and sworn in prior to this weeks G-20 summit held in Pittsburgh. As expected, the presence of such a large contingency of officers was needed as an estimated 2,000 left-wing radicals descended on the city in protest of capitalism. Protesters clad in masks and in some cases armed erupted into violence breaking windows in restaurants, a bank and a local BMW dealership. Police were forced to respond to the violence by using tear-gas, firing bean bags and setting off high frequency sounds systems designed to disperse the mob...

PITTSBURGH — Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins and throwing rocks. The afternoon march turned chaotic at just about the time that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world's major economies. The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held. The protesters banged on drums and chanted "Ain't no...

Where is Nancy Pelosi's outrage today? Anarchists and Lunatic Fringe Liberals, some wearing masks have begun demonstrations and the accompanying mindless destruction of property that accompanies these type protests to disrupt the G 20 Summit in Pittsburgh. The first group of would be Rioters gathered in Arsenal Park and and are moving on into the streets. Pittsburgh is the latest city to fall victim to left wing radical Economic Summit protesters and the damage they will undoubtedly cause. Many businesses have already boarded up, and will be closed several days like they do during a winter storm. They will be...

....Barack Obama said on Sunday he would push world leaders this week for a reshaping of the global economy in response to the deepest financial crisis in decades. ...Obama said the U.S. economy was recovering, even if unemployment remained high, and now was the time to rebalance the global economy after decades of U.S. over-consumption

An Internet list includes names of businesses, government buildings and university structures around Pittsburgh that protesters apparently plan to illegally target during the G-20 summit, Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons reported. Many of the 100 sites are in the East Liberty, Shadyside, Oakland and Lawrenceville neighborhoods, away from the site of the global economic summit, which will be held Sept. 24-25 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center downtown.

Obama pledges to work with G-20 to regulate markets Press Trust Of India / Washington September 20, 2009, 0:59 IST US President Barack Obama today pledged to work with leaders of the G-20 countries to strengthen the rules governing financial markets and ensure that the global economic crisis that engulfed the world just a year ago does not happen again. . . “At next week’s G-20 summit, we’ll discuss some of the steps that are required to safeguard our global financial system and close gaps in regulation around the world — gaps that permitted the kinds of reckless risk-taking and...

Pittsburgh will host a global economic summit of leaders from 20 of the world's largest economies Sept. 24 and Sept 25, the White House announced this afternoon.

http://www.leap2020.eu/Open-letter-London-G20-Summit-Last-chance-before-global-geopolitical-dislocation_a3010.html This OPEN LETTER was written in March, 2009 about the G20 Summit. I just found it, and was shocked to read the small print on advice that a new global currency change from the US dollar was a step to prevent a June, 2009 collapse.

The recent G20 summit -- a much expanded platform from the traditional and exclusive G7 and G8 -- brought together a disparate, and somewhat desperate, group of world leaders from across the political divide. They gathered after realising that they could no longer afford to operate within the constraints of ideological straitjackets, economic orthodoxy and in a business-as-usual mode in the face of the global financial meltdown, which has left a bloodbath of banking failure, business collapse and job losses. The meltdown had to be addressed urgently or else it would result in a world economic depression. So they had...

It is hard to imagine a bigger slight to the memory of the more than 100,000 American soldiers who died liberating Europe than the image of a U.S. president attacking the “arrogance” of his own country on French soil. President Obama’s speech last week ahead of the NATO summit in Strasbourg, barely 500 miles from the beaches of Normandy, marked a low point in presidential speechmaking on foreign policy. The largely French and German town hall audience cheered like ancient Romans in a packed Coliseum. This time, however, it was not Christians being fed to the lions but the symbolism...

AT the recent meeting of G-20 nations in Lon don, officials from many nations agreed on one thing -- that the United States is to blame for the world recession. President Obama agreed, speaking in Strasbourg of "the reckless speculation of bankers that has now fueled a global economic downturn." One problem with this blame-game is that last year's recession was much deeper in many European and Asian countries than it was in the United States. By the fourth quarter of 2008, as the nearby table shows, real US gross domestic product was just 0.8 percent smaller than it had...

One picture is worth a thousand words: And here's the link to the video, so you can watch the whole thing over and over while screaming, "THIS IS YOUR IDEA OF RESTORING AMERICAN PRESTIGE?"It didn't take long before the official denial: "Barack Obama did not show subservient fealty to that king, Mr. Abdullah..." Barack Obama's handler's may be right. At least technically. From Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language: "Curtsy: a bow by women in recognition or respect, consisting of bending the knees and lowering the body." Let's see: bent knees - check. Lowered body - check. Woman?...

In a shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate, President Obama bowed to Saudi King Abdullah at the Group of 20 summit in London last week. Mr. Obama later said in Strasbourg, France, "We have to change our behavior in showing the Muslim world greater respect." Symbolism is important in world affairs. By bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the U.S. president belittled the power and independence of the United States. The bow was an extraordinary protocol violation. Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king's subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for...