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Arab central banks move assets out of dollar
Headline slightly misleading, in my uninformed opinion the Arabs are floating a trial balloon to see how the markets react. They prolly don't want to lose *too* much money.
Middle Eastern anger over the decision by the US to block a Dubai company from buying five of its ports hit the dollar yesterday as a number of central banks said they were considering switching reserves into euros. The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, said it was looking to move one-tenth of its dollar reserves into euros, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US move as "discrimination".

Separately, Syria responded to US sanctions against two of its banks by confirming plans to use euros instead of dollars for its external transactions. Syria has switched the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars, the head of the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, Duraid Durgham, said.

The remarks combined to knock the dollar, which fell against the euro, pound and yen yesterday as analysts warned other central banks might follow suit. The euro rose a quarter of one percentage point against the dollar to a one-week high of $1.1945, although it retreated in later trading.
I'm not an econ expert; I'd appreciate some informed commentary in the comments.

Posted by: Seafarious 2006-03-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=145399