The Arab League expressed "growing concern" over the developments in Syria and called on the authorities to immediately stop acts of violence against protesters, Qatar's state news agency QNA reported on Sunday.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby issued a statement expressing "growing concern and strong distress over the deteriorating security conditions in Syria due to escalating violence and military operations in Hama and Deir ez-Zor, as well as other areas of Syria", QNA said.
Meanwhile, at least 57 civilians were killed in Syria on Sunday, according to human rights activists in the country.
Syrian PresidentBashar Assad has defended his crackdown on "outlaws" despite rising international condemnation, saying that Damascus had "an obligation" to punish those who are "terrorizing the population."
"These are preliminary figures. The numbers of casualties are escalating by the hour," Suhair al-Atassi, an activist with the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union, said.
Ynet
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Amid gloomy prospects for the United States creditworthiness, China's top ratings agency says the world is gradually disposing of the dollar as its reserve currency.
Dagong Global Credit Rating Company's chairman Guan Jianzhong said the US dollar is “gradually discarded by the world” and the “process will be irreversible,” CNBC reported on Sunday.
Earlier in the week, the firm slashed the US credit rating from A+ to A, casting doubt on whether the federal government is capable of repaying its USD 14.3 trillion public debt in the long term.
The agency's move came after interminable infighting in the US Congress over raising of the country's debt limit brought the country within an inch of defaulting on the debt.
“I think the most pressing issue facing the US at the moment is to reflect on the crisis which happened in relation with the debt ceiling," Jianzhong stated.
"They should get a clear understanding that the continuous decline of the debt service capability will inevitably result in the outbreak of a sovereign debt crisis,” he noted.
Officials in Beijing say a failure by Washington to control its massive debt could put the lives of millions of families within and beyond the US borders in danger.
Dagong downgraded the US ratings from AAA to A+ in November after the US Federal Reserve loosened its monetary policy.
HN/MGH
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This time we face the risk of double-dip recession without shock absorbers. Interest rates are already at or near zero in much of the OECD club. Fiscal deficits are stretched to the limits of safety.
Far from loosening, the US is on track to tighten by 2pc of GDP next year, and Europe by 1pc to 2pc, into the slowdown.
China has already pushed credit to 200pc of GDP. It cannot repeat the trick.
The Anglo-Saxons can print more money, but the gains in asset prices for the rich are offset by losses from fuel and food inflation for the poor. This is a destructive trade-off.
The decision to throw everything we had at the crisis after Lehman-AIG was a legitimate gamble at the time, given the near certainty of depression if shock therapy had been tried – as in 1931.
The Telegraph
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8687496/The-world-runs-out-of-options.html
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