PRESS RELEASE
China Endorses Germany's Initiative
for Hedge Fund Control
April 16, 2007 (EIRNS)—The April 13 Washington meetings of G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors, as well as a separate meeting with 20 hedge fund representatives on April 15, resulted in no concrete action, except for a mandate to Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi, to draft a report on the issue of hedge funds for the next G-7 finance meeting in Potsdam on May 19. Given Draghi's explicit link to the Anglo-Dutch interests, not much good can be expected from that draft report: as once exclusively exposed by EIR, Draghi participated in the infamous June 2, 1992, meeting off the coast of Italy on of Queen Elizabeth's yacht Britannia, which planned privatizations later carried out, when Draghi was a government official in the 1990s. After an interlude as head of Goldman Sachs Europe, Draghi was appointed Governor of Italy's central bank in 2006.
Discussion about regulating the hedge funds is gaining wider support, though: the Finance Ministry of China endorsed the German initiative for hedge fund transparency, as an important step to maintain financial stability on a global scale, and the Chinese also urged supervision of transactions, of the scope and operational plans of the funds.
How urgent fund control is, is underlined these days by the massive increase of uranium prices, which according to a report yesterday on northern Germany's television station "n-tv" can be traced back to hedge fund activities, mostly. Funds already in 2005 and 2006 controlled 75% of spot market transactions of uranium--a figure likely higher even now. If the world is to be given a real chance for widespread nuclear power development, it cannot tolerate having the price of such a crucial resource as uranium remain in the hands of fund speculators.
