CENTRAL BANKS MASTER LIST | BANK for INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS
http://www.bis.org/cbanks.htm
http://www.nationaljournal.com/the-homemade-weapons-of-libya-s-rebel-forces-20110615
“A Libyan rebel fighter smokes a cigarette next to an improvised multiple rocket launcher in the back of a pickup truck, as the rebels prepare to make an advance, in the desert on the outskirts of Ajdabiya, on April 14.” (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)”
UNPRECEDENTED
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-21/libyan-rebel-council-sets-up-oil-company-to-replace-qaddafi-s.html
Libyan Rebel Council Forms Central Bank to Replace Qaddafi’s
by Bill Varner / Mar 22, 2011
Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they have created a new national oil company to replace the corporation controlled by leader Muammar Qaddafi whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council. The Transitional National Council released a statement announcing the decision made at a March 19 meeting to establish the “Libyan Oil Company as supervisory authority on oil production and policies in the country, based temporarily in Benghazi, and the appointment of an interim director general” of the company.
The Council also said it “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.” The Security Council adopted a resolution on March 17 that froze the foreign assets of the Libyan National Oil Corp. and the Central Bank of Libya, both described in the text as “a potential source of funding” for Qaddafi’s regime.
Libya holds Africa’s largest oil reserve. Output has fallen to fewer than 400,000 barrels a day, Shokri Ghanem, chairman of the National Oil Corp., said on March 19. The country produced 1.59 million barrels a day in January, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Exports may be halted for “many months” because of sanctions and unrest, the International Energy Agency said. Brent crude for May settlement on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange fell 0.3 percent to $114.62 as of 8:50 a.m. It surged to a 2 1/2-year high of $119.79 on Feb 24 as geopolitical tensions spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The European benchmark will average $109 a barrel this year, up from a previous forecast of $98, on expectations of an “extended shutdown” of Libyan oil supplies, Societe Generale SA said in a monthly review dated yesterday.
The statement by the Transitional National Council also said the rebels would “urgently prepare a file on the referral of Qaddafi and his gang and his associates involved in the killing of Libyans to the International Criminal Court.” The Security Council referred allegations of human rights violations by the Qaddafi regime to the court in a resolution adopted on Feb. 26. The statement said the council would begin choosing ambassadors to foreign countries. The UN said yesterday that Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi, who broke with the regime last month and said he was then representing the rebels, was no longer Libya’s accredited ambassador. Ambassador Mohammed Shalgham, who also broke with the regime, similarly lost his accreditation when Qaddafi appointed former UN General Assembly President Abdussalam Treki as envoy to the world body. Treki hasn’t presented his credentials yet to Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, a prerequisite for officials taking the post.
“A convoy of Libyan rebels deploy around the western gate of Ajdabiya on April 19.” (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
BROUGHT to YOU BY
http://www.ntclibya.org/english/meeting-on-19-march-2011/
the Interim Transitional National Council
“Meeting Outcomes of the Interim National Council held on 19 March 2011 BENGHAZI, LIBYA – The Interim National Council met on Saturday, 19 March 2011, and discussed a number of important national issues on the current circumstances of the country and the importance of taking necessary actions. The outcome of the meeting is summarized as follows:
First: The Council discussed all the developments on the ground, including the crimes committed by the Qadhafi regime against the Libyan people the Libyan people as well as the report submitted on the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 decided accordingly the following:
1- To welcome the mentioned resolutions and urge the international community to expedite the initiative to implement the resolutions in order to protect the Libyan people and assist them in achieving the legitimate demand.
2- To call upon the Libyans throughout the country to be cautions and to continue to demonstrate peacefully in order to achieve their legitimate demands by going out to the streets and peaceful sit-ins, particularly after the international community ensured the protection of Libyan civilians in accordance with Resolution 1973 and demanding the international community to ensure the safety of Libyan civilians.
3- To urgently prepare a file on the referral of Qadhafi, his gang and his associates involved in killing of Libyans, to the international Criminal Court and entrusting a technical and legal team to complete the procedures.
4- To intensify contacts with brotherly and friendly countries for the recognition of the Transitional National Council and welcome the positive response of many countries to deal with the Transitional National Council and urge other nations to an early recognition of the Council and urge other nations to an early recognition of the Council as the sole legitimate representative of Libyan People.
5- To choose a number of ambassadors and representatives of Libya to foreign countries, according to proposal submitted by Foreign Affairs submitted for approval.
Second: The Designation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.
Third: The establishment of Libyan Oil Company as supervisory Authority on oil production and policies in the country, based temporarily in Benghazi and appointment of an interim Director-General for the Libyan Oil Company.”
“A rebel fighter rests on a weapon mounted on the back of a pickup truck on the front line between them and Muammar el-Qaddafi forces, 30 km south of Misurata, on May 27.” (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
As analysts debate possible motives behind President Obama’s United Nations-backed military intervention in Libya, one angle that has received attention in recent days is the rebels’ seemingly odd decision to establish a new central bank to replace dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s state-owned monetary authority — possibly the first time in history that revolutionaries have taken time out from an ongoing life-and-death battle to create such an institution, according to observers. In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”
The Gadhafi regime’s central bank — unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is owned by private shareholders — was among the few central banks in the world that was entirely state-owned. At the moment, it is unclear exactly who owns the rebel’s central bank or how it will be governed. The so-called Interim Transitional National Council, the rebels’ self-appointed new government for Libya purporting to be the “sole legitimate representative of Libyan People,” also trumpeted the creation of a new “Libyan Oil Company” based in the rebel stronghold city of Benghazi. The North African nation, of course, has the continent’s largest proven oil reserves. The U.S. government and the U.N. have both recently announced that the rebels would be free to sell oil under their control — if they do it without Gaddafi’s National Oil Corporation. And the first shipments are set to start next week, according to news reports citing a spokesman for the rebels.
But the creation of a new central bank, even more so than the new national oil regime, left analysts scratching their heads. “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,” noted Robert Wenzel in an analysis for the Economic Policy Journal. “This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.” Wenzel also noted that the uprising looked like a “major oil and money play, with the true disaffected rebels being used as puppets and cover” while the transfer of control over money and oil supplies takes place. And other analysts agreed. A popular blog called The Economic Collapse used sarcasm to express suspicions about the strange rebel announcement. “Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants. They sure do get a lot done,” joked the piece, entitled “Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya.” The blog also commented, sarcastically again, on the possibility of outside involvement. “What a skilled bunch of rebels — they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever. If only the rest of us were so versatile! … Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed,” read the piece.
Even mainstream news outlets were puzzled. “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power?” wondered CNBC senior editor John Carney. “It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.” But some observers are convinced that the central bank issue was actually the primary motivation for the international war against Libya‘s dictatorship. In an article that has spread far and wide across the web, entitled “Globalists Target 100% State Owned Central Bank of Libya,” author Eric Encina maintains that the world’s “globalist financiers and market manipulators” could not stand the Libyan monetary authority’s independence, explaining:
Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations. And when Gadhafi is gone and the dust has settled, according to Encina, “you will see the Allied reformers move in to reform Libya’s monetary system, pumping it full of worthless dollars, priming it for a series of chaotic inflationary cycles.” The future of Libya’s vast gold stockpiles could also be in jeopardy, he noted.
Numerous other analysts and experts have also pointed to the central banking issue as one of the top factors leading up to the Western backing of Libyan rebels. Monetary historian Andrew Gause, for example, recently shared his concerns about the matter publicly. Other points made in the rebels’ odd announcement last week included preparations to send Gadhafi to the U.N.’s International Criminal Court for trial, the selection of diplomats to send abroad, and the desire for other governments to recognize the Transitional National Council as the legitimate new rulers of Libya. France has already done so, and other governments may soon follow suit.
Of course, the U.S. government claims to have very little knowledge about who the rebels actually are. But the U.S. Commander of NATO forces recently admitted to the Senate that hints of al Qaeda involvement have been detected among the rebels. The terror group was created, armed, funded, and trained by the U.S. government decades ago, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted even recently. But since then, it has targeted American embassies and other U.S. targets. As The New American reported over the weekend, elements of al Qaeda and affiliated terror groups are indeed among the leadership of the revolution. But despite that fact, the U.S. government and the international coalition are providing air support and weapons for the new central-bank-creating rebels. Where the conflict goes from here is uncertain, but Western regimes have vowed not to let Gaddafi remain in power.
“A rebel poses with an armful of rocket-propelled grenades taken from an armored personnel carrier captured from forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi on the outskirts of the town of Zliten, west of the rebel-held port city of Misurata, on June 10.” (Reuters/Abdelkader Belhessin)
MEANWHILE: QADDAFI HAS $100+ BILLION STASHED
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/15/bloomberg1376-LOF9MG6S972901-254BJ5BEJ5PGELCM4FF1HAHRT3.DTL
July 16 (Bloomberg) — Muammer Qaddafi has at least $100 billion of assets abroad and Libya’s Transitional National Council expects a portion of the frozen funds to be released or to obtain borrowing against them. “To be safe we’re saying there’s over $100 billion,” spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said today by telephone from Istanbul, where the U.S. and its allies recognized the council as the sole legitimate governing authority in Libya at a meeting yesterday. “We need some necessity expenses and to get loans against a percentage.” The council requires $3 billion over six months to cover the budget and expects to get a $100 million loan from Turkey in the next three days, Shammam said. Kuwait has pledged $180 million, while Italy and other governments said yesterday that Libyan assets held by their countries “will be released or we’ll get loans against them,” he said. The TNC is saying the unfrozen funds won’t be spent, rather used as collateral to cover borrowing until an elected government is in place, Shammam said.
the LIBYA CONTACT GROUP
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/15/us-libya-meeting-usa-idUSTRE76E2QF20110715
Seeking to free funds, U.S. recognizes Libya rebels
by Andrew Quinn / Jul 15, 2011
(Reuters) – The United States Friday recognized Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (TNC) as a legitimate government, a diplomatic boost which could unlock billions of dollars in frozen assets. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would extend formal recognition to the Benghazi-based TNC until a fully representational interim government can be established. “The TNC has offered important assurances today, including the promise to pursue a process of democratic reform that is inclusive both geographically and politically,” Clinton said in prepared remarks. “Until an interim authority is in place, the United States will recognize the TNC as the legitimate governing authority for Libya, and we will deal with it on that basis.”
Clinton’s announcement came as the Libya Contact Group, meeting in Istanbul, formally recognized the opposition as the representative of the Libyan people — sealing its diplomatic status as the successor government to embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi. The contact group, made up of more than 30 governments and international and regional organizations, also authorized U.N. special envoy Abdul Elah Al-Khatib to present terms for Gaddafi to leave power in a political package that will include a ceasefire to halt fighting in the civil war. Clinton said any deal “must involve Gaddafi’s departure” from power and a halt to violence. “Increasingly the people of Libya are looking past Gaddafi. They know, as we all know, that it is no longer a question of whether Gaddafi will leave power, but when,” she said. U.S. officials said the decision on formal diplomatic recognition marked an important step toward unblocking more than $34 billion in Libyan assets in the United States but cautioned it could still take time to get funds flowing to the cash-strapped Benghazi council. “We expect this step on recognition will enable the TNC to access additional sources of funding,” Clinton told reporters after the meeting, saying Washington would discuss with allies “the most effective and appropriate method” to do this. They also said no decisions had been made on upgrading U.S. representation in Benghazi — now a small office headed by special envoy Chris Stevens — or on bringing the TNC into the United Nations and other international organizations. Clinton acknowledged that the United States had “taken its time” in deciding on formal recognition of the TNC, but now firmly believed this was the way forward. “We think they are have made great strides and are on the right path,” she said.
U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order on February 25 freezing the assets of Gaddafi, his family and top officials, as well as the Libyan government, the country’s central bank and sovereign wealth funds. Most of the frozen assets are liquid in the form of cash and securities. U.S. officials have pledged to free up some of the money for the TNC, which has run dangerously short of cash to pay for salaries and basic services even as it takes on more of the responsibilities of government. But discussions with Congress on mechanisms to free up the money ran into legal complications — some of which could be swept away by U.S. recognition of the TNC as Libya’s legitimate government. “Our hope is that in a relatively short time frame we will be able to make progress (on funds) but there’s a lot of moving pieces here,” one senior State Department official said. The United States could direct banks to transfer frozen funds directly to the TNC, but this might still run foul of U.N. financial sanctions in place on Libya. A second option would be for the United States to establish a line of credit backed by the frozen assets as several other countries have done.
Clinton’s announcement formally recognizing the TNC marked the end of a process which began in February when Obama declared that Gaddafi had lost his legitimacy as Libya’s leader because of his brutal response to anti-government protesters. “We wanted to send a very clear signal to Gaddafi and the people around him that we are looking past Gaddafi to a future without him,” the senior U.S. official said. “We felt that taking this step today sends that message loud and clear.” The United States closed its embassy in Tripoli in February and withdrew its diplomatic staff, but maintains embassy staff working in Washington to develop ties with the TNC. The United States and Gaddafi’s government have been estranged for most of the past four decades, and only resumed contacts in 2003 when Tripoli gave up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and took responsibility for its role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Central Bank of Libya offices in Tripoli
the CENTRAL BANK of LIBYA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_of_Libya
“The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is 100% state ownership and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and enjoys the status of autonomous corporate body.”
DEFECTED CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR: ‘CASH MAY BE HIDDEN in DESERT”
http://video.ft.com/v/946393675001/Libyan-cash-may-be-hidden-in-desert
May 17 2011 : “Farhat Bengdara was, until he defected, at the heart of the Libyan regime as central bank governor. As rebels began the uprising against Muammer Gaddafi, Bengdara flew to Turkey and began to help the other side. In this revealing interview with the FT’s Middle East editor Roula Khalaf, he describes where Libya’s gold is kept, how Gaddafi may have foreign reserve cash hidden in the desert and the powerful effect of western sanctions.” (video 8m 44sec)
100% STATE-OWNED
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27208.html
Globalists Target 100% State Owned Central Bank of Libya
by Patrick_Henningsen / Mar 28, 2011
Eric V. Encina writes: One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned. The world’s globalist financiers and market manipulators do not like it and would continue to their on-going effort to dethrone Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi, bringing an end to Libya as independent nation. Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations. When the smoke eventually clears from all the cruise missiles and cluster bombs, you will see the Allied reformers move in to reform Libya’s monetary system, pumping it full of worthless dollars, priming it for a series of chaotic inflationary cycles.
The CBL is currently a 100% state owned entity and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The financial structure and general operation procedures of a state bank is of course much different than that of an American or European based central bank. Form starters it is not privately owned, for-profit bank with a undisclosed list of private shareholders like the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are. Libyan constitutional law establishing the CBL stipulates that its central bank maintains monetary stability in Libya and promotes sustained growth of its national economy. Libya also holds more bullion as a proportion of gross domestic product than any country except Lebanon, according to the London-based World Gold Council using January data from the International Monetary Fund. The value of gold is based on the March 25 close of $1,429.74 an ounce. Will this gold remain in Libya once Allied forces have taken control of Tripoli, or will it lost, or exchanged for pallets upon pallets of paper aka US dollars?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE]
“THE PLAN”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html
There is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to the desert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the US$33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya. The GMMR provides 70% of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya’s vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north. The Libyan government has done at least some things right.
Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is “all about oil”, but that theory too is problematic. As noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2% of the world’s oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market. And if it’s all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?
Another provocative bit of data circulating on the Net is a 2007 “Democracy Now” interview of US General Wesley Clark (Ret). In it he says that about 10 days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. “I don’t know!” was the response. “I guess they don’t know what else to do!” Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.” According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar”, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.
During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa. And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed: “One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned … Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.”
Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tonnes of gold in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules? All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies. An article on the BIS website states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective “to preserve price stability”.
They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don’t interfere with this mandate. “Price stability” means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.
In a 2002 article in Asia Times Online titled “The BIS vs national banks” Henry Liu maintained: “BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests. FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies.” He added, “Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation.” The “state theory of money” refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.
The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government’s own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly owned or privately owned. Most new money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government’s own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest-free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50%. And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include “issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya” and “managing and issuing all state loans”. Libya’s wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes. That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care, and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the Great Man-Made River project. Libyans are worried that North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led air strikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.
So is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both – and water as well. With energy, water, and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible. Most countries don’t have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy-independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation’s own publicly owned bank. Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers, and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans. If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and healthcare continue to be free.
{Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://webofdebt.com and http://ellenbrown.com.}