News from around the web: 2009-09-07

A number of countries in Eastern Europe immediately come to mind – not only the Baltics, but also Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia. And in Southern Europe Spain and Greece stand out as in particular need of what Jean Claude Trichet would undoubtedly call “extreme vigilance”.

He is dismissive of central bankers’ calibre, up to and including Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve: “They used to be 130 well bid. Now they are offered in size at 6.” He added: “Banks will always hang us if they are given enough rope.

Going by both numbers, that means the Android market has grown 4.4 times in size in just four months.

Playing video war games and solving Sudoku may have the same effect as keeping up to date with Facebook, according to Dr Tracy Alloway. But text messaging, micro-blogging on ”Twitter” and watching YouTube were all likely to weaken ”working memory”.

Oil traders said the world’s sixth-largest oil exporter had started to hedge a small portion of its oil revenues for next year after it successfully locked in an average price of $70 a barrel for all its oil exports this year. The fresh deals were securing a lower price floor for 2010 of about $50-$55, they said.

Japan’s foreign exchange reserves rose in August by $19.6 billion to a record $1.042 trillion, largely due to an increase in its holdings of special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

Ignore the optimists. Peak oil is real. Hat tip Paul Kedrosky.

Two thousand and nine may just be the year that marks the rise of the Chinese consumer and the Chinese brands that they will covet.

He talks of Scylla and Charybdis flation challenge. My exact words in June. "Deflation is spreading from the core of the global system to the most unexpected regions of the world. It has even reached Latin America. Prices are sliding in Peru, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and El Salvador, to the consternation of everybody."

France and Germany may be forced to semi-nationalise more of their stricken banks after the G20 imposed new, stricter rules on banks’ balance sheets.

I returned from holiday to find the City in a funk over something on which I have been pondering long and hard, and which forms a major part of my forthcoming new book, writes Roger Bootle.

As soon as I saw the headline, I knew it was AEP. ‘The US Federal Reserve’s policy of printing money to buy Treasury debt threatens to set off a serious decline of the dollar and compel China to redesign its foreign reserve policy, according to a top member of the Communist hierarchy."

Distraction of the day: What you should include in an emergency survival kit