New World (Dis)Order

On Wednesday, finance chiefs of five of the six-member, oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council approved a proposal to create a monetary union as a move toward adopting a single currency. The six Islamic states constituting the Gulf Cooperation Council are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Oman pulled out of the agreement last year.Five states in the compact have agreed to set 2010 as the target date for the creation of a monetary union and the adoption of common currency. The emergence of an Islamic single currency among these oil-rich Middle Eastern countries marks a significant step in the emerging worldwide movement to abandon national currencies in favor of regional currencies, along the model where the EU states have abandoned their national currencies in favor of the European Central Bank and the euro. In 2002, the finance ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council states sought out the assistance of the European Central Bank, as the model for their single currency, according to BBC reports. The monetary union will entail the creation of a central bank to issue the single currency.