US has been continuously running on high budget deficits and it has been funding it through the investments made by trade surplus countries, into it. Till last year Japan was the largest investor into US treasury bonds, and China has now taken over with over 1.5 trillion dollars worth of investments into US treasury.

There are also scores of other countries like Saudi Arabia, India and South Korea who have invested their foreign exchange surplus into US treasury bonds. These countries were feeling safe till recently when the US economy was not doing badly. But the signs in the last few months , especially the collapse of the Lehman Brothers, and also the big dent in the US financial system, have made these countries sit back and think about their huge investments into a weak country.

Now they are likely to avoid further investments into US and that can lead to bigger trouble for US economy because it will not have money to fund its budget deficit and it might be forced to go for new currency printing, which might result in more economic problems.  And for the sake of it, the US government has confidently said that all the investments by its friendly countries into US bonds, are very safe.

The world has at least some thing to cheer about, amidst all the turmoil it is facing. We are hearing one after the another bad news in the form of more troubles in the banking and insurance sectors across the US and Europe and Japan. The global financial system is in a mess and exports for most of the countries are crashing. Automobile sales are plunging and nobody knows whether the three US auto majors will survive the coming months or not. Even if the current weak demand condition continues for another few months, one or more of the three US auto majors might become history.

There is a silver lining amidst all these bad news. The crude oil prices which were at a record high of 147 dollars just two quarters back, has at last come below 100 dollars mark. While this is a sharp 30% correction from the record highs, still the prices are substantially higher than the prices a year ago. Experts tracking the industry feel that the crude oil historically has been subject to huge volatility, directly by being in corelation to the global economic condition. With the global economic condition becoming weak, experts are fairly certain that the crude oil prices will go below the 70 dollars mark in the coming months, unless there are strong signs of a global recovery.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the dreaded LTTE, was controlling over 50% of the Sri Lankan country just two years back. The support it was receiving from the western world indirectly through arms and funding started vanishing in the last few years, due to the concerted anti-terror operations carried out by US and Europe together.

The Sri Lankan army in the meanwhile continued its stock pile of weapons and slowly but steadily it was encroaching into the LTTE territories ever since 2008 beginning. The offensive was accentuated in the last six months, and is claiming major victory over the LTTE. It is said that the LTTE is only controlling 15% to 20% of the coastal area in the northern tip of the country. Sri Lankan Military experts are confident that the LTTE will be reduced to nothing before the end of 2008.

Sri Lanka has assured its neigbor India, that it will be handling the Tamils with dignity and equal rights, which needs to be seen. The fall out of LTTE would mean two things to India. First, select cadres of LTTE would sneak into Tamilnadu which is the border state and could create major hurldes in the entire southern India. Second, the hundreds and thousands of Tamils who will be seeking refuge in India, need to be tackled with care by India, which can also pose long term problems.

The long drawn out battle for Barak Hussain Obama is over finally and he has been declared the first black African American US President. It has been a tough battle for Obama right from the beginning. He had to fight for months together to win over Hillary Clinton, to bag the democratic nomination for the US President election. And the fight was fought in every state and almost on a daily basis, with Hillary Clinton managing a lead over Obama in the initial phase. And Obama had to sweat it out thorougly through extensive use of Technology, including Internet and Mobile phones to slowly inch towards victory.

And post nomination as the Democratic candidate, again he was trailing behind, albeit marginally, over his rival Republican candidate John Mccain. And John Mccain was indeed racing ahead due to his decades of political experience, and he indeed gave a tough fight for Obama, right till the last stage.

Barak Obama will be remembered for his perseverance, and his ability to get his rivals working for him. Hillary Clinton showed all the maturity and stood by Barak Obama, immediately after her failure for democratic nomination. And John Mccain for his part, was very matured in wishing Barak Obama all the very best, for his historic election as the next US President.  Let us all pray for US to come out of the present financial crisis, and let the world too flourish alongwith US.