"China needs to develop and demonstrate more ‘soft power’ in order to persuade the world to hold its assets and its currency," Jen wrote. That is "measured by a general sense of admiration and trust from global investors, is more difficult to build and demonstrate."

As cyber-currency magnates promote bitcoins festooned with hypnotic barcodes, spare a thought for the officially non-existent nation of Somaliland. Its 3.8 million inhabitants insisted that something more inspirational adorn their country’s equally tenuous global tender and bankroll its quest for global recognition. So they went with goats, sheep and the often petulant dromedary camel.

An announcement Tuesday by the obscure-sounding Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, better known as SWIFT, may not get much ink. China's currency, it reported, was used in 8.66 percent of global trade finance transactions in October, the group said. It's now the No. 2 most widely used currency for trade finance, supplanting the euro.

Cuba has approved a plan to gradually eliminate its dual monetary system as part of reforms aimed at improving the country’s economic performance, a communique carried by official media on Tuesday said. “The Council of Ministers has adopted a chronogram of measures that will lead to monetary and exchange unification,” the government statement said, giving few details.

When the economic history of the decade is written someday, there very well may be a chapter about the spring and summer of 2013, when money that had been pouring into emerging market countries shifted the other way. Recently, the economies of emerging markets are looking dismal with both currencies plummeting in value against the dollar.

Ögumundur Jónasson, a member of Althingi for the Left Green and former Minister of Health, wants the Icelandi authorities to send the government of China a clear message that closer cooperation between the two countries does not mean that Iceland will ignore human rights violations in China.

HONG KONG-The media in this commerce-fueled city have been fascinated by the fallout from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent Senate testimony asserting that mainland China "manipulated" its currency. The South China Morning Post prominently ran a Reuters analysis today that argued that "manipulated" is too harsh a term, and that "managed" would be better; besides, the article argued, the U.S. itself could equally be accused of currency manipulation.