Eideard

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Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel prize-winning development economist, appears to have lost his bitter battle with the Bangladeshi government for control of the pioneering microlender Grameen Bank, which he founded nearly three decades ago.

Bangladesh’s chief justice, ABM Khairul Haque, ruled out an appeal by Yunus against a decision last month by the central bank to ban him from continuing as a managing director, a post he has held since 2000…

Yunus, 70, did not appear in court but his legal team said they were surprised by the decision…

Despite the apparently final nature of the ruling against Yunus, his team told the Guardian they still hoped to find a legal avenue to continue the fight.

The decision was the climax of a long battle between the Grameen Bank’s founder and the Bangladeshi government which has triggered statements of concern from diplomats and a range of international personalities including Mary Robinson, the former Irish president, and the American senator John Kerry.

Supporters claim the respected economist, who founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 after witnessing the suffering of rural people in a series of famines, is the victim of a political vendetta.

An outspoken government critic, Yunus has long had frosty relations with the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina. Reportedly angered by Yunus’s attempt in 2007 to form his own political party, Hasina has accused Grameen Bank and other microfinance institutions of charging high interest rates and “sucking blood from the poor borrowers”…

Small-minded politicians, bureaucrats, seem to devote most of their energies to guaranteeing the people of their nation remain a “little people” – while they profit as much as possible themselves.

Bangladesh appears to be no different from so many of their peers – from Sudan to Iran.

Democracy manages to slip into the U.S. Senate

Lael Brainard won Senate confirmation today as the Treasury Department’s top financial diplomat, giving her a key role in U.S. efforts to persuade China to adopt a more flexible currency.

The Senate approved President Barack Obama’s nominee in a bipartisan 78-19 vote that was stalled more than a year by Republican concerns over Brainard’s tax payments.

That’s a year of stalling, hemming and hawing by crap moralists like Jim Bunning of Kentucky. One of the Republican thugs who specialized in blocking unemployment checks.

Nineteen Senate Republicans joined 57 Democrats and two independents in confirming Brainard Treasury Department under secretary for international affairs…

The timing of the confirmation vote is significant as it occurs before meetings this week of the Group of 20, the smaller Group of Seven and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank…

As well as holding a key position in talks with China, Brainard would help shepherd U.S. official positions through the global lending agencies that are being urged to take on a stronger role in monitoring global currency policies.

The Party of NO continues their favorite folk dance – Blocking the Road.

Raj Patel’s desk sits in a dusty, cement-floored nook in his garage, just beyond a parked gray Prius, near the washer and dryer. They are humble surroundings for a god.

Followers of Share International, a New Age religious sect, claim Raj Patel is the messiah Maitreya. He denies the claim, but he cannot persuade them.

“It is absurd to be put in this position, when I’m just some bloke,” Mr. Patel said.

A native of London now living on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, Mr. Patel suddenly finds himself an unlikely object of worship, proclaimed the messiah Maitreya by followers of the New Age religious sect Share International…

Mr. Patel’s journey from ordinary person to unwilling lord is a case of having the wrong résumé at the wrong moment in history. For this is a time when human yearning to find a magical cure for the world’s woes can be harnessed to the digital age’s instant access to a vast treasure-trove of personal information…

Mr. Patel has emphatically and publicly denied being Maitreya. Bad move. According to the predictions, “Maitreya will neither confirm, or will fail to confirm, he is Maitreya,” said Cher Gilmore, a spokeswoman for Share International…

“It’s incredibly flattering, just for an instant,” Mr. Patel said of his unwanted status. “And then you realize what it means. People are looking for better times. Almost anything now will qualify as a portent of different times.”

What would you do? Continue to deny the neurotic conclusion of looneybirds? Or take the money and run?