RTFA: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/17/saud…

The debate over the controversial practice of child marriage in Saudi Arabia was pushed back into the spotlight this week, with the kingdom’s top cleric saying that it’s OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.

“It is incorrect to say that it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. “A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she’s too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her.”

“… The judge required the girl’s husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.”

Wow. I grew up a liberal believing everyone should be treated equal, but should this apply to government and religion? Honestly, this is one of America’s ALLIES, how fucked up is the rest of the middle east?

RTFA: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM…

World leaders agreed at an economic crisis summit Saturday to an action plan for reforming the financial system and promised to work together to restore global growth, according to a final communique.

“We are determined to enhance our cooperation and work together to restore global growth and achieve needed reforms in the world’s financial systems,” the final statement from the G20 group of countries said.

The statement committed the leaders, whose countries account for 85 percent of the world economy, to fiscal measures to boost national economies and laid out a series of areas for review before a deadline of March 31.

Six areas will be targeted: regulating those areas of the financial markets which have exacerbated the crisis, boosting transparency in the often murky derivatives markets and reforming compensation practices.

The ministers must also evaluate global accounting norms and the financing needs of international financial institutions.

Finally, they must draw up a list of financial institutions whose collapse would imperil the global financial system .

Okay – the US Dollar is intact. However, what are we to make of that final line: “financial institutions whose collapse would imperil the global financial system?” Watch out for more to precipitate out of that one.