It is more than just the war and  upheavals in the Middle East and catastrophe in Japan.
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This fall from the headlines seemed to come after President Obama finished his Washington meeting with Hu Jintao.
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I suppose some type of temporary consensus came during the meeting between the two leaders.
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I am sure China will be back in the headlines in a few months. To big a country and story to not be taking up the headlines again.

click on map for larger view

What I found interesting about the graph is that Libya has the largest total reserves of oil in Africa.
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I would have thought that Nigeria ,Angola or some other West African nation would have had more oil.
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But it appears that Nigeria has 37 Billion Barrels of oil in reserve and Libya 44 Billion.

FUEL COUPONS=DOLLARS
Fuel coupons/dollars are traded to China for manufactured goods, in return we send them FUEL COUPONS/Treasury Bills and Dollars.

Really the US money is backed by oil and military capacity to control the oil.  So the money is not backed just by air as some say but by the US Military and the oil and energy sources under the control of the US Military.

The core of the Euro and the European Union is the wedding of France and Germany.
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These two countries have divergent attitudes in how they want to proceed in Libya.
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Germany wants to remain cautious and France wants and aggressive military posture.
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France does not want the war to fall under the command of NATO as it would lose control of it’s command structure to NATO.
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What ever happens access to energy via oil and natural gas is definitely 1 of the about 5 moving components here.

I took the below information from Wikipedia, whats in yellow is what was of interest to me, as much as I hate arrogant people maybe the guy’s assessment of reality is correct or maybe not. Time will tell.

Reality-based community is an informal term in the United States. In the fall of 2004, the phrase “proud member of the reality-based community” was first used to suggest the commentator’s opinions are based more on observation than on faith, assumption, or ideology. The term has been defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality.” Some commentators have gone as far as to suggest that there is an overarching conflict in society between the reality-based community and the “faith-based community” as a whole. It can be seen as an example of political framing.
The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, The New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush (later attributed to Karl Rove^[1]):

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”^[2]

Tanks like these were used in battle in the Horn of Africa between Eritrea and Ethiopia over the years.
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And since we are talking about Soviet and Ex- Soviet things how about 39 year Vitali Klitschko to defend his portion of the Heavy Weight title this Saturday against Cuban and former Amatuer standout Odlanier Solis This Saturday March 19, 2011 in Germany.
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Included here is  youtube video of all around fighting machine Vitali doing some kick boxing back in 1993.

Living a frenzied life(with little time for reflection) inside my North American cocoon as chaos is raging across the news cycle from Earth Quakes and Nuclear Meltdown in  Japan to Saudi tanks rolling into Bahrain

Beautiful Japan and her people going through a testing time after earthquake and nuclear reactor radiation leaks.
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I have irrational fears myself from this here in California fearing radioactive rain from japan.
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Wondering if Japan will have to sell some of her US Treasury’s to rebuild her country hence negatively affecting interest rates in the US.
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Japan is like second or third largest holder of US Government debt.
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Wonder if China will come in to help Japan even though they are rivals. This would be an interesting way to see how far China has come as a world power.

The has the makings of heck of match up. The explosive Argentinan Champion Martinez vs the slick technican from the Ukraine Dzinziruk.
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This match up brings to world class athletes to the table in high stakes game for money and career advancement as both fighters up in age Martinez 36 and Dizinziruk 35.  Each fighter needs a couple of victories to get the money the deserve to retire on.

Brand Dollar is a hell of a brand, right up there with Coca Cola and Nike,Google, and Apple Computer.
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But there are competitors out there such as the Yuan, Euro, Gold, and maybe SDR’s (single drawing rights stand for a basket of currencies).