China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.

Published: March 23 2009 12:16 | Last updated: March 24 2009 00:06

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An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.  (Washington Times Link)

The fiscal stimulus bill being debated in Congress not only won’t help the economy, it will make the recession much worse, says Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.

The problem, he says, is the government is trying to perpetuate a “phony economy” based on borrowing and spending. With the U.S. consumer tapped out, the government is “now taking on the mantle” of consumer of last resort, he continues, predicting the bond bubble will soon burst – if it hasn’t already – ultimately leading to a collapse of the dollar and an “inflationary depression worse than anything any of us have ever seen.”  (Link)

Top researchers and government officials met this week to sound the alarm, once again, over the threat of a possible bird flu pandemic. Unlike years past, though, they say that their message is largely being ignored. The public, they say, has lost interest in the story, even though the threat remains.

“In the assessment of WHO, we believe that the threat of pandemic influenza remains as high as ever,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda. Particularly alarming, he added, are signs that new cases are appearing in various areas in China. “And what that really tells us again is that the virus is really widespread in China.” (Full Story)

Is China covering up a new outbreak of bird flu? Certainly there seems to be very strong evidence it is. There have already been eight reported cases of humans contracting the potential deadly H5N1 virus, from which five people have died this year. And despite the fact that Hong Kong officials have been finding dead birds infected with the virus washing up onto its shores in recent days from the mainland, China has not made any official statement concerning an outbreak among birds. At least one Hong Kong health advisor to the government, Lo Wing-lok, says the government “just isn’t admitting” to the problem.  (Read Story Here)

A federal program to guarantee or buy bad assets from the ailing U.S. bank sector could come with a $3.5 trillion price tag.

That would push the accumulated costs of rescuing the financial markets over the last year through various federal loan, stock purchase, debt guarantee and other programs close to $9 trillion and counting, with practically no end in sight for the bad news battering the banking industry.

That figure doesn’t count the $825 billion economic stimulus plan also under consideration (Forbes.com).

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” – Margaret Thatcher