Thread: Iraq/Dinar News Until 5/31/2007 7:15 PM CST..

Originally Posted by tiffany

There has been NOTHING mentioned about the Oil Summit supposidly going on now...did I miss something important?

Sorry Tiff! I forgot to tell you, it was postponed.

Kurdistan delegation returned to the territory after talks

(صوت العراق) - 31-05-2007

(Voice of Iraq) - 31-05-2007

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Kurdistan delegation returned to the territory after talks with the central government

Baghdad-Iraq votes 4:19:25

By Hadi Hadi

Member of the House of Representatives on Thursday that the Kurdistan Alliance delegation of the Kurdistan to Baghdad headed Najirfan Barzani, head of the territorial government returned to Kurdistan after talks with the central government in Baghdad revolved around the oil, gas and theme Peshmargas.
He added Mahmoud Othman told the Independent News (Voices of Iraq) "was kind of agreement on the issue of troops s not led by the text in relation to these forces in terms of financing and management formed a subcommittee to coordinate between the two governments."

"

The oil and gas law, said Osman "did not expire pupils with Barzani's government figures, as well as the American and British sides," but said that "pupils held advanced to a large extent and there is another round of the territorial government to come to Baghdad to complete these negotiations."
But he did not specify the time.
Osman said that "there is pressure from the American and British sides on the Iraqi side to end the talks on the oil and gas which is not possible with the Act contains four annexes, contains two first year on the subject imports and the other on how the money is going and the Fund, which placed funds and others."

."

Uthman added that "the oil and gas needed to hold talks with all parties that have indicators and reservations and not only with the government of the Kurdistan region, it is not possible to put the law by politicians, but must be borne consult economists and others."
And between the Kurdistan Alliance member that the talks between the government of Kurdistan and the Baghdad government backed some of the differences on the national oil company in terms of oil quota which lies at the disposal of the territory and the private share of the oil, "pointing out that" other round of government in Kurdistan to Baghdad to hold talks solve all issues and matters outstanding controversial simple. "
A delegation of the Kurdistan Baghdad had arrived ten days ago, headed by Prime Minister Najirfan Barzani and the ministers of natural resources and in the province of internal consultation and discussion on three main axes represented b (Act of oil, gas and forces Peshmargas, coordination and cooperation in the areas of financial and administrative).
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Translated version of http://www.sotaliraq.com/

Iraq Reserves of foreign exchange and gold

Iraq > Economy



Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $15.65 billion (2006 est.)

Year Reserves of foreign exchange and gold Rank Percent Change Date of Information
2006 $9,161,000,000 56 2005
est.2007 $15,650,000,000 50 70.83 % 2006 est.

Definition: This entry gives the dollar value for the stock of all financial assets that are available to the central monetary authority for use in meeting a country's balance of payments needs as of the end-date of the period specified. This category includes not only foreign currency and gold, but also a country's holdings of Special Drawing Rights in the International Monetary Fund, and its reserve position in the Fund.
Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of April 17, 2007

What a change from 06-07 I also read that the USA had over 30 billion before Vietnam but has reduced considerable since then. We keep hearing Iraq has 21 billion in reserves as of recent. This doesn't even take into consideration the OIL!!!! WOW sort of make this RV thing look pretty promising.

30 May 2007
KRG and Iraqi federal sport and youth ministers discuss common goals

Erbil, Kurdistan-Iraq (MOSY-KRG.org) - Mr Taha Barwary, Kurdistan Regional Government Minister for Sports and Youth, and his counterpart in the Iraqi federal government have agreed to cooperate more closely to achieve their goals.

In a series of constructive meetings this month in Kurdistan, Mr Jasim Mohammed Jafar, the Iraqi federal Minister for Sports and Youth, and Mr Barwary agreed that the Kurdistan Region needed better representation in Iraqi national sport. Mr Jasim said, “We are putting into action the principle of federalism, as set out in the Iraqi constitution.”

The Iraqi sports and youth minister also visited Kurdistan to attend on 1 and 2 May the Spring Brotherhood Festival in Suleimaniah, which was arranged by his ministry.

Mr Barwary and Mr Jasim shared the view that young people play an essential role in Iraq’s future stability and that sport is a pillar of national unity and promotes peaceful coexistence. Mr Barwary said, "to work towards our common goals of stability and national unity, we discussed how we will coordinate our efforts in Kirkuk and create a good model of mixed ethnicities and religious groups in sport and youth activities."

Minister Barwary welcomed the idea of hosting a forum for Arab youth in the Kurdistan Region in 2008 and helping Arab teams to play in Kurdistan. This initiative would promote good relations between the Kurdistan Region and the Arab world and raise Iraq’s profile in international sport, he said.

The ministers agreed on reducing red tape for young people who want to take part in the arts, science and sport. They also said they would work together to improve infrastructure for sport and youth activities, and to help sports clubs and Iraq’s elite athletes. They said they would look for ways to get support from the international community and NGO donors for this purpose.

30 May 2007
KRG water resources minister visits Austria’s water facilities



Erbil, Kurdistan-Iraq (KRG.org) - Mr Tahsin Qadir Ali, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Minister for Water Resources, last week visited Austria to meet water management officials and hear about the country’s water sharing and protection policies.

Minister Tahsin said, “We hope to apply in our Region laws and treaties on sharing water resources, as they are successfully applied in European countries.” He added, “We are grateful to the Austrian government for providing us with the opportunity to look at all aspects of Austria’s modern water management strategy.”

Mr Tahsin and his delegation visited the office of water distribution and control in Vienna. Mr Watter Kling, the director, showed them Vienna’s drinking water system and one of the two rivers that have supplied the city with fresh water since 1873.

The minister also met Dr Helmut Fleksidar, Austria’s Head of International Water Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, to discuss sewerage, supply, treatment and recycling, and how water is managed between the centre and Austria’s nine federal regions. He outlined the relations between the countries that share the Danube River and other water resources.

Mr Tahsin briefed Austria’s water officials on the KRG’s plans for improving water management. He also raised concerns about the dams and other projects on the upper reaches of the Tigris River. Like the Danube in Europe, the Kurdistan Region and federal Iraq share the Tigris River with other countries. He asked for Austrian and European support for the KRG’s efforts to apply international laws and treaties concerning water sharing. Sustainably managing and sharing fresh water, protecting the environment and strengthening the economy were in the interests of all countries, he said.

The minister also attended a water and gas trade fair in the city of Linz and met Mr Harold Schneider, President of the Austrian Association for Gas and Water (OVGW), as well as representatives of some of the water companies at the fair to discuss water investment.

Mr Oskar Smrzka, Austria’s Commercial Counsellor to Iraq, accompanied Mr Tahsin, who discussed investment opportunities in the Kurdistan Region with several water companies. The minister also met Ambassador Tarik Akrawi, Iraq’s ambassador to Austria, and Mr Aziz Miran, a Vienna District Councillor representing the Social Democratic Party and of Kurdish origin.

Originally Posted by choochie

Sorry Tiff! I forgot to tell you, it was postponed.

Any date in particular? I thought with the BIG company backing that postponement was not likely...guess that was wrong.

Turkish army build-up fuels anxiety on Iraq border
Published Date: May 31, 2007

GORUMLU: Turkey sent more tanks to its border with Iraq yesterday in a military build-up that is fuelling US concern about a possible incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels. A group of 20 tanks loaded on trucks emerged from army barracks in Mardin near Syria and headed towards the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, already the scene of a major army offensive against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Speculation about an imminent incursion into Iraq has grown since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said last week he saw eye to eye with the army over possible military action, despite unease in the United States, Turkey's NATO ally, about such a move. There was also anxiety along the border in southeast Turkey, where many Kurdish villagers form part of a state-backed militia which fights alongside the army against the PKK rebels. "We support the operations in the mountains here because the PKK made us suffer a lot.

I lost 10 people from my family," said Nadir Karadeniz, an official in the village of Gorumlu, located near a military base just a few kilometers from the border. But there was reluctance to take the fight into the Iraqi mountains, where thousands of PKK fighters are based, given the strong opposition from Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani -- a respected figure among Turkey's own Kurds. "I don't think it would be good to go into northern Iraq because Barzani said he would not accept Turkish soldiers there," Karadeniz said, before a military jeep arrived in the village and told journalists to leave the area. Military operations are focused on the rebels already inside Turkish territory.

Security forces killed 10 PKK fighters in clashes across the southeast on Tuesday. The United States has repeatedly urged Turkey not to send troops into Iraq because it says it will only complicate the situation. The two countries have agreed various measures, including financial ones, to try to curb the PKK.

Close links to Iraq

Local concerns are focused on the impact of an incursion, which would hurt relations between Turks and Kurds, and also on the economy of the impoverished region, closely linked with northern Iraq in trade terms as well as ethnically. "This (operation) would mean great suffering, great losses and a blow to the harmony between Turks and Kurds," said Muhsun Kunur, mayor of the town of Silopi, around 15 km from the official border gate to Iraq. The prospect of an operation has also stirred tensions between Turkey and the United States. On Tuesday, Turkey formally asked Washington to avoid any further violation of its air space after two US F-16 warplanes briefly flew into Turkish air space near the Iraqi border. US diplomats said the incident was an "accident" but Turkish media said it was intended to send a message to Ankara not to send its troops into Iraq.

But pressure within Turkey for an incursion is growing after a suicide bombing in the capital Ankara last week killed six people and injured scores more. Authorities blamed the attack on the PKK, which denied any involvement. A day later, six soldiers were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a landmine believed to have been planted by the rebels. Yesterday, another soldier was killed after treading on a PKK landmine in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border.

Erdogan feels the need to act tough ahead of national polls due in July. On Tuesday, he reiterated his frustration over the failure of US and Iraqi government forces to crush the PKK rebels in Iraq despite Ankara's regular appeals for action. More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict with the PKK since the group launched its insurgency in 1984. Against this backdrop and given the military build-up, locals in Silopi see an operation as increasingly likely. "We see a 90 percent chance of them crossing over. They are now stationed on the border," said hairdresser Sadik Pusat, 32. "If the military goes into northern Iraq we will have to leave our lives here and migrate to the West." - Reuters

By Dergham Mohammed Ali

Baghdad, May 31, (VOI) - Traders at the Iraqi Central Bank's daily auction made more bids to purchase the dollar in Thursday's session in order to press the exchange rate down, a trader said.

On Thursday demand for the dollar was up in the daily auction, reaching $82.215 million compared with $68.890 million on Wednesday.
In its daily statement the bank said it had covered all bids, which included $13.375 million in cash and $68.840 million in foreign transfers, at an exchange rate of 1,260 dinars per dollar, unchanged from yesterday.
Eighteen banks participated in Thursday’s auction and offered to sell $100,000. The bank bought all of them at an exchange rate of 1,258 dinars.
Ali al-Yasseri, a trader at the auction, told VOI "the hike in the demand for the dollar in today's session was seemingly an attempt by traders to press the Central Bank to bring down the dollar exchange rate against the Iraqi dinar, after it unexpectedly jumped by one tick in yesterday's auction."
The Iraqi Central Bank runs a daily auction from Sunday to Thursday.

Version traduite de la page http://www.aswataliraq.info/index.php

Was Iraq invaded to boost oil prices?


31 May 2007

Value of Exxon reserves rose by $666bn

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Iraq was invaded in order to limit its oil production and thus keep world oil prices artificially high, a noted investigative journalist reports.

"Iraq's output in 2003, 2004, and 2005 was less than produced under the restrictive oil-for-food program," writes Greg Palast in his new book Armed Madhouse (Plume). Oil-for-food allowed Iraq to sell 2 million barrels per day during the 1995 to 2003 period.

"Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in [Iraqi] output has resulted in tripling the profits of the five US oil majors to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002," Palast writes.

"When OPEC raises the price of crude, Big Oil makes out big time," says Palast, who has contributed to BBC Television and the Guardian newspapers.

He points out the oil majors are not simply passive resellers of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production but have reserves of their own which rise in tandem with oil prices.

"The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the [Iraq] war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil Oil alone by just over $666 billion," Palast wrote. What's more, Chevron Oil, "where [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice had served as a director, gained a quarter trillion dollars in value."

Another big winner in the Iraq war is Saudi Arabia. The war-stoked jump in oil prices, Palast writes, put $120 billion in Saudi Arabia's treasury in 2004, triple its normal take.

Among the big losers have been American motorists, now paying about $3.30 for a gallon (3.8 liters) of gas. The oil price spike has also punished US industry, costing America an estimated 1.2 million jobs. "Higher borrowing costs for business since the beginning of the Iraq war are bleeding manufacturing investment," Palast adds.

Rising oil prices are an anomaly. The world's petroleum reserves have doubled from 648 billion to 1.2 trillion barrels in the past 25 years, Palast reports. According to free market laws of supply and demand, discovery of these immense new pools should cause prices to drop.

Big Oil's interest is in "suppressing production," Palast writes, stating "An international industry policy of suppressing Iraqi oil production has been in place since 1927." Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was described as threatening price stability by unilaterally increasing and decreasing production.

Iraq has 74 known oil fields but only 15 are in production and 526 known pools of oil of which only 125 have been drilled. Again, only 15,000 rigs in Iraq are pumping up black gold, compared, for example, to 1 million rigs in Texas.

In 2005, Iraq exported only 1.4 million barrels of oil daily, less than under Saddam, less than half its old OPEC quota, and less than a fourth of its ultimate capacity, Palast reports.

"Though technically owned by the Iraqis through their state oil company, we can expect the [Iraqi] crude to be gathered and controlled downstream by the same old hands, British Petroleum, Chevron, and other IOC's [international oil companies] that first drew that nation's borders, politely fulfilling Iraq's quota assigned by the Saudis, no more, maybe less," Palast writes.

In addition to clapping a lid on Iraqi production, Palast charges the US "promoted sabotage of oil piping, loading, and refining systems in Venezuela" to limit that country's production.

Palast reminds that Venezuela, once the top exporter to the US, broke the back of the 1973 Arab oil embargo by replacing the oil withdrawn by Saudi Arabia. "[Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez, despised by [US President George W.] Bush, was not likely to save Bush's bacon by busting another embargo. Therefore, Chavez had to go immediately," Palast writes.

Palast says OPEC is a front for the international oil companies. "If oil companies had created this cartel to fix prices, that would have made it a criminal conspiracy - cartels are illegal. But when governments conspire for the same purpose, the illegal conspiracy turns into a legitimate "alliance" of sovereign states. OPEC's government cover makes the price fixing perfectly legal, and Big Oil reaps the rewards."

Palast said Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations take Americans' money at the pump, and in their heating and electric bills, and use it to buy up US government notes. In 2005, $243 billion in petro-dollars was collected from Americans by OPEC. Foreigners then bought up $311 billion in US government debts, he said.

"All the goodies, from nuclear subs to tax cuts to war in Mesopotamia appear to be 'free' to the taxpayer," Palast writes. "It's all just put on the tab, the national debt, including the interest on it. The actual cash needed to pay for these budget busters is first collected from US consumers via the hidden oil tax for which Mr. Bush takes no blame."

Sherwood Ross is an American reporter who covers political and military subjects. Reach him at [email protected]
By Sherwood Ross

© Middle East Times 2007

Iraq sentences ex-minister for embezzlement


BAGHDAD, May 31, 2007 (AFP) - An Iraqi court on Thursday sentenced a fugitive former defence minister to seven years in prison for spiriting more than one billion dollars out of the country during his brief tenure.

"The Central Criminal Court has sentenced the convicted former defence minister Hazem al-Shaalan to seven years in prison in absentia," a government statement said, adding that it would also be freezing his assets.

Shaalan, who served as defence minister under Iraq's former US-appointed prime minister Iyad Allawi was, along with scores of other officials, accused of embezzling more than one billion dollars earmarked for weapons.

Shaalan adamantly denied the charges in 2005 when Iraq's anti-corruption watchdog, the Commission for Public Integrity, sought to bar him from running in parliamentary elections.

The charges were first raised that year by Iraq's then-finance minister, Ali Allawi, who said more than one billion dollars had been embezzled in a racket involving 23 officials, including Shaalan.

Most of the money, which was meant to pay for weapon imports from Poland and Pakistan, "was taken out of the country in cash and disappeared," Allawi said.

Instead of modern weapons, Iraq got "museum pieces", he charged at the time.

Shaalan denied the accusation. "I defy those who say that corruption reigned at the defence ministry," he said at a news conference in 2005.

"Everything that has been said about me is nothing more than a lie and I call for a debate in the media with my accusers."

In November 2005 Shaalan vowed to return from London to fight the charges and run in that year's general election, but after he failed to win a seat in parliament he remained outside Iraq.

jk/pcs/txw