We will want all our partners, including the United Kingdom, to tell us what is possible and desirable. And we will figure out if and how it's possible to draw it all together and hopefully at the end of our presidency make a proposal how to take the issue forward. A German Foreign Ministry spokesperson confidently told the Times, We can bring this forward faster than anyone realises. The Times also reports that Berlin has already rejected Nicolas Sarkozy's idea of a mini-treaty. A German diplomat said, It is in our interest to try to preserve the maximum substance of the text. We are happy with it. We are not going to pick out the cherries. The 18 countries who ratified it do not want to look ridiculous. It is also reported that diplomats close to Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister, will work with the Germans on a way to bring back the EU Constitution.

Meanwhile AFP reports that European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso sent a letter last month to his 24 colleagues saying he wants to bring forward a proposal to give the EU Constitution another chance, revealing a change to his previous stance towards the document. He reportedly wrote, "We can find a way out and give Europe a second chance.

"We can have an intifada even when running the Palestinian Authority," Meshaal said, explaining that the ceasefire was not designed to bring peace, but is rather another stage in the war with Israel. "The current calm [cease-fire in Gaza - ed.], just like the escalation [before that], is part of the way we manage the conflict with Israel."

Many Israeli military men and analysts have said that Hamas is using the current truce in Gaza to rearm and regroup towards the next round of fighting.

Hamas Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniye, visiting in Syria, echoed Meshaal's position in a speech at a refugee camp. He said the Palestinians will not give up on "even one grain of sand of Palestine," and that Syrian President Assad promised him that all the Palestinian [terrorist] prisoners incarcerated in Israel would be freed.

Meshaal admitted that the Hamas-Fatah talks for a unity PA government have "encountered difficulties," but said they have not yet hit a dead end. This clashes with announcements by Hamas leaders Haniye and Mahmoud A-Zahar, who said on Monday that the negotiations had failed and were beyond recovery.

Hamas and Fatah elements traded blame and accusations for the failed talks. Fatah leader Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is expected to announce - possibly today - whether he plans to dissolve the Parliament, thus leading to a clash with Hamas.

Ministers will take up the issue when they meet next week to discuss new output curbs. Most OPEC ministers are leaning towards cutting production beyond the 1.2 million barrels per day they agreed on in October to reduce high inventories. A weak dollar provides another argument for trimming supply and supporting prices.

It's often been said that if Washington, D.C., is America's seat of power, Hollywood is its seat of influence. Indeed, the southern California venue is the epicenter of an ultra-powerful values-broadcasting machine that fascinates, influences and in many ways, shapes Americans' lives, values and direction.

And yet, Hollywood's "beautiful people" the celebrities as well as the movers and shakers behind the scenes share (with few exceptions) a worldview both alien and poisonous to traditional America.

"Did you know that nine out of 10 Hollywood films lose money?" asks Emmy-Award-winning producer-director-cameraman Jody Eldred in this issue of Whistleblower. "Did you know that the vast majority of new television shows are cancelled because no one is watching them? Do you wonder why?"

The obvious answer, says Eldred, is "because they're mostly awful." But why are they awful? "Because," notes Eldred, "the people creating them are completely out of touch with the people they are creating them for! Their worldview is vastly different from the worldview of most Americans.

We have a largely Christian nation, but Hollywood is largely un-Christian, and in many if not most cases, anti-Christian.
They're not just out of touch.
They're against you!"

As we have often said in these columns, we do not expect the $ to decline down a gentle slope, but to move along a plateau, before dropping down a cliff to the next level at which it will plateau before the next fall. Steadily we will see the pressures from excess U.S. $' bring not only a value decline but also a heavy loss of confidence in the $ from outside the U.S. of A.

It appears that we are very close and have possibly begun the first cliff edge fall to the next low. The fall may be steeper and greater than most have imagined

Scotland Yard detectives are now trying to discover if Litvinenko had any secret links with Islamic extremist terror groups, the London Sunday Express is reporting.
Their biggest fear, the paper reports, is that Litvinenko, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been helping al-Qaida or other extremist groups get hold of radioactive material to be used in a devastating "dirty" atom bomb.

Britain's secret intelligence service MI6 had earlier learned that al-Qaida was prepared to pay $3 million a gram for polonium 210, G2 Bulletin reported last week.
Litvinenko's friend Mario Scaramella now says the late spy helped smuggle radioactive material from Russia to Switzerland in 2000. Litvinenko was also known to have sympathies with Chechen rebels, seeking to break away from Moscow and create an independent Muslim state.

Litvinenko's conversion to Islam was announced by his next-door neighbour, moderate Muslim and Chechen dissident Akhmed Zakayev, who revealed: "He was read to from the Koran the day before he died and told his wife that he wanted to be buried in accordance with Muslim tradition."
The hunt began a week ago in Peshawar. The ancient Pakistan city hosts a joint MI6/CIA surveillance operation supported by America's National Security Agency satellite surveillance.

Using the latest cyber-technology, the intelligence officers in Peshawar picked up a short-burst transmission from somewhere in Peshawar's Old Town. It was in response to a call that appeared to have come from beyond the towering Khyber Pass, possibly from Afghanistan.

The call was automatically recorded on one of the computers in the offices the MI6/CIA team share.
Just as automatically, it was dispatched down the line through cyberspace to GCHQ, the British Government Headquarters in the Cotswold town of Cheltenham. Simultaneously it reached America's NSA at Fort Meade, Md.

The words from Peshawar were part of the trillions of words in 500 languages that the GCHQ/NSA super computers are programmed to listen to, shift, reject or retain so they can be analyzed by the thousands of experts both GCHQ and NSA employ.
By late last week, MI6 knew of al-Qaida's offer to purchase Polonium 210.

The China trip means that the ticking time bomb at the bottom of the dollar dam needs to be defused before it blows up, and the value of the dollar is swept away. Both the Republican Administration and the Democratic Congress want China, and the rest of Asia, to end their policies of manipulating their currencies down, by building up massive foreign exchange holdings.

The new Congress is tuned into the fact that China has tariffs of 25 percent on imports such as autos, and is very tired of seeing American labor slaughtered. (In 2007 GM, Ford and Chrysler as well as auto parts suppliers such as Delphi are buying 100,000 workers out of their jobs or just letting them go.)
To make trade fair again, Congress is willing to take the action of imposing tariffs if China and Asia do not revalue.

In turn, China may threaten to dump their dollars, unless the Fed keeps interest rates high. If China starts selling dollars, the dam will break.

Not only does the U.S. owe a net $3 trillion to foreigners, we now pay more in interest overseas than we collect from abroad. Foreigners hold $13 trillion in dollar assets that are at immediate and painful risk to any dollar weakness. Indeed, that volume of liquid assets is just about equal to the total GDP.

A 30 percent drop in the dollar, could cost foreign investors an easy $3 trillion in lost purchasing power, not to mention the loss to U.S. citizens who own over $46 trillion in dollar net worth assets. Our leaders must find a way to lower the U.S. Trade Deficit, or risk the dollar losing its unique position as the World's Reserve Currency.

Remember, if you own dollar assets, a falling dollar can cause havoc to most American and foreign investors. Only those who invest in foreign financial assets or real assets (such as commodities or gold and silver) are likely to be safe and not swept away when the dollar dam breaks.

According to Investor's Business Daily: "a growing chorus of officials and executives are howling that the U.S. is losing ground to more nimble markets like London and Hong Kong." Indeed "After decades out front, a report says the U.S. hobbled itself with overly strict regulation while the spread of globalization and technology helped the rest of the field play a stellar game of catch-up."

In the post 9/11 world, the markets move faster, and there are clearly more places to put money to work with a fairly good rate of return, at least in the short term. Aside from Europe, there is China, as well as other so called emerging economies like India, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.

The dollar remains the centerpiece of the global financial system. But it is clearly facing some very serious competition. If the dollar continues to fall, though, there will be some repercussions. The White House is hoping that a weak currency will spur demand for less expensive U.S. goods.

The problem with that argument is that it's a 20th century view, and may not be applicable to an increasingly global economy, where the Euro, the Yen, and other currencies are starting to have more influence.

Perhaps one of the most negative legacies of the Bush II era might well be the fact that the U.S. dollar might have suffered irreparable damage, and that its exclusivity as the world's reserve currency may have been permanently, or at least semi-permanently damaged.

The Institute for Supply Management index on US manufacturing activity fell unexpectedly to 49.5 in November from 51.2 in the previous month. Economists had forecast a slight rise to 51.5.

This was the first time since April 2003 the figure has dropped below the 50 level, which marks expansion from contraction. Within the overall index, new orders, which gauges future growth within the sector, tumbled to 48.7 from 52.1 in October. Employment also showed contraction, with the index falling to 49.2 from 50.8.

Omer Esiner, an analyst at Ruesch International, said: "I think this number will definitely continue to fan fears of a hard landing for the US economy."

From this edge of the Anatolian peninsula, a natural bridge between continents, let us implore peace and reconciliation, above all for those dwelling in the land called 'holy' and considered as such by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike," the [Pontiff] said. "It is the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, destined to be the home of a people that would become a blessing for all the nations.

"Peace for all of humanity! May Isaiah's prophecy soon be fulfilled: 'They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.'"

Benedict XVI continued: "We all need this universal peace; and the Church is called to be not only the prophetic herald, but even more, the 'sign and instrument' of this peace. Against the backdrop of universal peace, the yearning for full communion and concord between all Christians becomes even more profound and intense."

Christians must shed the idea that they need to promulgate a worldwide Christianity, he said. "If I hold to a model of Jesus what I've committed to in my baptism is loving my enemy," Lee said. "I'm committed to not killing you, but to serving and honoring you.

It's an exclusive commitment to the way of Christ, not to the exclusive authority of Christ."

The earlier pope declared, in the lines Benedict quoted, that the two faiths owed each other special kindness "because we believe in one God, albeit in a different manner, and because we praise him and worship him every day as the creator and ruler of the world."

The pope reiterated his criticism of violence in the name of faith, while avoiding singling out Islam. In a separate speech to the diplomatic corps, he called on all religious leaders to "utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of religion" and referred to the "disturbing" violence in the Middle East. And he called religious freedom a necessity, a pointed remark in Turkey, where the Christian minority and observant Muslims each chafe in different ways against state limits on religion.

Turkish officials, too, made conciliatory if not extravagantly warm gestures. In a last-minute change of plans, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had said he was too busy to meet the pope, met him briefly at the Ankara airport before leaving for a NATO summit in Latvia and expressed "happiness" at his visit.

The yen was up against the dollar after official Japanese data showed an unexpected rise in Japan's industrial production.

It pushed the dollar down to 115.75 yen, from 116.15 yen overnight in the US.

Meanwhile, sterling was up to $1.9494 after earlier hitting $1.9545, its highest level against the dollar since December 2004.

While the Fed is expected to lower interest rates in the New Year, the European Central Bank (ECB) is predicted to boost rates for the eurozone.

Analysts said this was another factor driving the dollar down against the euro.

"The euro is becoming extremely attractive as a vehicle, a transaction, an investment and a reserve currency," said ECB council member Christian Noyer.

The ECB last raised interest rates in October to the current 3.25% level.

They have risen five times since December last year, as the eurozone economies have expanded.

With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines, brazen Sunni-Shiite attacks continue unchecked despite a 24-hour curfew over Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia now controls wide swaths of the capital, his politicians are the backbone of the Cabinet, and his followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi security forces. Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority?or the will?to stop the cycle of bloodshed.

"This is live and, God willing, everyone will hear me: We are not interested in sidewalks, water services or anything else. We want safety," an unidentified Sadr City resident said as the televised crowd cheered. "We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that's the truth."

Militia leaders told supporters to prepare for a fresh wave of incursions into Sunni neighborhoods that would begin as soon as the curfew ends Monday, according to Sadr City residents. Several members of the Mahdi Army boasted they were distributing police uniforms throughout Shiite neighborhoods to allow greater freedom of movement. The government announced it would partially lift the curfew Sunday to allow for pedestrian traffic.