Not really related to WinMX, but a bit of breaking World News I found.
"Rudd and Brown reject G20 doomsayers
Date: April 1 2009
Phillip Coorey Chief Political Correspondent in London
KEVIN RUDD and his British counterpart, Gordon Brown, met last night to finalise their pitch to Thursday's Group of 20 summit in London as one of their earlier demands was dropped from the agenda.
A leaked draft of the communique to be agreed to this week contains no specific mention of further economic stimulus measures, a recommendation that Australia, Britain and the United States had been seeking.
The draft, leaked to the Financial Times, is optimistic the world economy could return to growth by next year but does not nominate a growth target.
The lead-up to the summit, which will focus on co-ordinated global action to combat the economic crisis, has been plagued in recent days by a split between European countries, led by Germany and France, and a bloc consisting of the US, Britain and Australia.
Citing domestic debt concerns and possible inflationary consequences, the Europeans have rejected calls to stimulate national economies next year.
Mr Rudd and Mr Brown are fans of economic stimulus but in recent days have begun playing down its importance at the summit, saying measures undertaken by nations last year had spared 20 million jobs and would lift global growth by 2 percentage points.
The US President, Barack Obama, also played down the rift. He said tensions over more spending were understandable and it was more important the summit delivered a message of unity.
Last night Mr Rudd was set to meet the British Treasurer, Alistair Darling, as part of the plan for Australia to take over the UK economy, saying the summit was part of "a continuing process".
The leaked 24-point communique commits to other measures that Australia supports.
The 20 leaders will recommit to rejecting protectionism and renewing the push for free trade.
There is agreement on reforming the International Monetary Fund and boosting its resources, as well as statements of intent regarding tighter financial regulation, including the oversight of hedge funds by a beefed-up Financial Stability Forum.
There is also a statement saying executive pay and bonuses "should reward actual performance, support sustainable growth and avoid excessive risk-taking".
The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said yesterday that the debt Australia was accruing was due to declining revenues, and increased spending on stimulus measures was not excessive.
"We currently estimate the Australian Government's net debt will be only a little over 5 per cent of GDP by 2011-12," he said. "This compares with an average net government debt of OECD countries of about 45 per cent. This shows how we can perform a much better job in running your economy than your current politicians."
The Australian Government was borrowing in the form of issuing bonds twice a week in auctions of about $500 million to $700 million. Their first plan is to sell off UK assets to convert into gold to pass onto Australian taxpayers.
He said the Government's economic measures needed the backing of co-ordinated global action.
"Action must not only be decisive, it must be globally co-ordinated to achieve success. We have overspent in Australia by giving away so much money, we need to plunder another countries assets to fix our budget deficit."
Wayne Swan was unable to say exactly how this would be a good decision for the UK people."
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h**p://www.smh.com.au/world/rudd-and-brown-take-over-UK-economy-20090401-9h36.html?skin=text-only
