1.   Each smaller country in a region would either simply accept the benchmark currency as legal tender at home or adopt a currency board.

2.   That will create the euro as the single European currency, unseating the deutsche mark as the benchmark currency for Europe.

3.   That suggests the euro will be weak when it replaces the mark, the current benchmark currency in Europe.

4.   After weeks of battering, especially against the benchmark German currency, the lira had regained strength when Dini was tapped.

5.   In one market courtyard, a dense crowd of shouting, gesticulating men bargained the rate of the Pakistani rupee, another benchmark foreign currency in Afghanistan.