Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until 6/17/07 8:30 PM CST

Gordon Brown in Iraq to meet Maliki
Gulfnews: Gordon Brown in Iraq to meet Maliki

06/11/2007 02:30 PM | Agencies



Baghdad: Britain's next prime minister, Gordon Brown, arrived in Iraq on Monday for his first visit since it was confirmed he was taking over the premiership from Tony Blair on June 27, Iraqi state television said.

Brown met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki as the size of the British force in Iraq is being reduced by about 1,500 soldiers to 5,500 troops. Almost 150 British soldiers have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Brown told reporters travelling with him: "This is very much an assessment more than anything else, a fact-finding trip."

A British embassy spokeswoman said, "Gordon Brown is in Baghdad to gather facts that will inform decisions he needs to make about Iraq over the next couple of months."

Brown, now finance minister, said last month that he planned to visit Iraq to look at the situation on the ground. The war, which has never had widespread support in Britain, sapped his predecessor's popularity.

British forces have handed over security responsibility to Iraqis in three of the four provinces they were in, with only the southern province of Basra remaining. That is due to be transferred in the coming months.

Brown has accepted mistakes were made in Iraq but has ruled out an immediate pullout of British troops.

Iraq-Iran trade in gasoline booms
By OMAR SINAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


Iraqi smugglers repack cans of beer at the border with Iran, in Choman, northern Iraq, March 12, 2007. Smuggling across the Iraq-Iran border is a flourishing business in the remote corner of northeast Iraq, a rugged mountainous area where the lure of making a quick profit dwarfs the little government authority there is. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)
MARZI CHOMAN, Iraq -- The trucks line up at the border each morning, waiting their turn to cross the small Choman river into Iraq and unload their cargos of jerry cans filled with gasoline.

Trade across the Iraq-Iran border is flourishing in this remote corner of northeast Iraq, a rugged mountain area where the lure of making a quick profit dwarfs what little government authority exists. Gasoline is an important part of that.

The trade in gasoline gained new attention recently when Iran hiked the price of the subsidized gasoline it sells its people and began looking to ration subsidized gas - all as a way to lower consumption. Most of Iran's problem stems from the fact that it has too little refinery capacity. But Iranian officials also have bemoaned the illicit selling of subsidized gas to neighboring countries, including Iraq, saying that hurts its economy.

Some of the trade at this border spot is clearly illegal smuggling, outlawed and often strongly opposed by Iranian officials trying to keep out banned goods like whiskey or beer.

But other trade, while still technically illegal, is openly tolerated by local Iraqi authorities, anxious to ease shortages - especially of gasoline - inside Iraq.

Marzi Choman is one of five places on the Iraqi-Iranian border in the Iraqi Kurdish region where cross-border trade takes place. The places are called "Marez" - a Kurdish word that means an illegal free trade zone.

"The government is aware of all trading in fuel in this Marze," said Iraqi border police Capt. Mohammed Mohiedeen, who is in charge of the border stretch near Marzi Choman.

"What is happening here is considered legal trade," he said.

Smuggling across the Iran-Iraq frontier has for decades been a key activity in the economies of border communities, but the volume of business is thought to have multiplied since Saddam's ouster.

Official figures compiled by the Iranian government's counter-smuggling division show that Iraq was the recipient of $1 billion worth of Iranian goods smuggled across the border in 2006, mainly oil products, cheap electrical appliances and food.

There are no figures available for the value of goods smuggled the other way - from Iraq into Iran. Those goods are usually cases of beer and whiskey, cigarettes or satellite dishes, TV sets and other domestic appliances - items that are significantly cheaper in Iraq than Iran.

Items destined for Iran are stored in huts that dot the landscape in Shabadeen district, nestling close to a narrow dirt track that's only a few hundred yards away from the border. Often, men and boys with donkeys carry the alcohol and other goods into Iran.

But it is the fuel trade into Iraq - both gasoline for autos and gas for cooking - that is the most lucrative and busiest here.

Iraq has the world's third-largest proven oil reserves - about 115 billion barrels - but shortages of gasoline and other oil products are chronic because of insurgent attacks on oil installations, plus corruption and black marketeering.

From here, the smugglers of both gasoline and gas canisters sell their goods both nearby and in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, and from there to other cities across the country.

Delshad Abdul-Rahman Mohammed, the official in charge of oil products in the regional Kurdish government, blames the central government in Baghdad for the flourishing black market in fuel, arguing that Kurdish provinces are not getting their fair share of the country's available gasoline supplies.

Like others, Mohammed credits the "Marez" - the illegal free trade zones - for helping Iraqis cope with the shortages. Ironically, he notes, the Marez played a similar role during nearly 13 years of U.N. sanctions slapped on Iraq in 1990.

Near the border one day - not far from the post of police Capt. Mohiedeen, a 30-year-old Iraqi, Mustafa Rasoul, was busy loading his Korean-made truck with gas cylinders - an item that, along with oil products, has been in short supply in Iraq for most of the past four years of war and disruption.

The gas cylinders, used for cooking in homes across Iraq, had just arrived across the border from Iran, where they had been filled.

Rasoul sells the filled containers in Iraq for $14 apiece, making a $5 profit on each.

"I am not sabotaging anyone's economy," said Rasoul. "I am helping Iraq and Iraqis."

---

Associated Press reporters Yahya Barzanji in northern Iraq and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

Originally Posted by billknows

This article, whenever it may have been first published, is severely out of step with recent news and would seem to ignore IMF conditions - that GOI prevent entrenched (chronic) inflation by de-dollarizing their currency.

In my estimation, the content of this article is months and possibly years old.

the article is dated 6/11/2007 5:47:30 PM

Originally Posted by Raditz

the article is dated 6/11/2007 5:47:30 PM

It maybe dated 6/11/2007 but if you look at the begining of the article, the part about debt "owed", showing 120 billion. Didn't we just see that amount being forgiven, so I am in agreement that this article at least several months old.

I hate when that happens, LOL but, even if it's old, it's basically going over the steps of what would help them out of the hole, it would still apply i hope......also makes me wonder why they would publish it again.

Brown makes fact-finding visit to Iraq

June 11, 2007 - 12:34 PM


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Chancellor Gordon Brown arrived in Iraq on Monday for what he called a fact-finding trip as he weighs Britain's future involvement in a four-year-old war that is hugely unpopular among Britons.

It is his first visit since being confirmed as the successor to Tony Blair, whose popularity at home waned over his steadfast support for the U.S.-led war. Brown said he wanted to "listen and learn" before taking office on June 27.

"I'm here to ... see what's happening with al Qaeda ... in relation to Iran ... to the sectarian conflicts, to see all the people on the ground and make an assessment of what's happening so I'm better informed," Brown told reporters travelling with him.

Brown has said he wants to suggest new ideas but has ruled out an immediate pullout of British troops. That has not stopped the media speculating he may speed up the withdrawal to assuage public anger.

He has always accepted responsibility for the cabinet decision to invade Iraq but has also said mistakes were made in the aftermath of the invasion. On a farewell visit to Iraq last month Blair said he had no regrets about his part in the war.

Brown's visit comes as the size of the British force in Iraq is being reduced by about 1,500 soldiers to 5,500 troops.

Brown, who was accompanied by Defence Secretary Des Browne, was due to hold talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, the top British general in Iraq, U.S. commander General David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador.

Brown said in his talks with Maliki he planned to discuss national reconciliation between Iraq's warring sides.

"On political reconciliation I want to know how they are going to move forward ... and if I don't have suggestions from them I will put suggestions to them," he said.

Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed in Baghdad, epicentre of sectarian violence, to crack down on Shi'ite and Sunni Arab militants and buy time for Maliki's government to reach political compromises to form a real powersharing government with minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

RECONCILIATION, ECONOMY

Washington is demanding movement in key areas, such as revenue-sharing oil law, provincial elections and constitutional reforms. But analysts say the Shi'ite-led coalition government is weak and divided and incapable of meeting these benchmarks without external pressure.

Nearly 30,000 extra U.S. troops have been sent to Iraq for the crackdown as British troops in the more stable Shi'ite south have begun reducing their numbers. But U.S. officials say they are confident Brown will not pull British troops out early.

British forces have handed over security responsibility to Iraqis in three of the four provinces they were in. The remaining southern province of Basra is due to be transferred in the coming months.

Brown has said he will reduce troop numbers as and when possible, but aides say he is unlikely to make any big sudden shifts in policy as the British military is already planning further cutbacks.

Brown, who has repeatedly stressed that economic regeneration is vital to end the violence, said he would also talk to Maliki about the economy.

With no letup in sight in the violence, unemployment and inflation are surging and infrastructure crumbling.

"They are not short of money to be allocated to infrastructure, the problem is the actual spending of it," said Brown, who guided Britain through an uninterrupted 10 years of economic growth.

Insurgents are attacking Iraq's infrastructure in their campaign against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government, hitting bridges, oil pipelines and other key installations.

A suicide car bomb attack on a bridge overpass south of Baghdad late on Sunday killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded six more, a U.S. military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Randy Martin, said on Monday.

Reuters (IDS)

swissinfo - Brown makes fact-finding visit to Iraq

Baghdad, June 11, (VOI)- Demand for the dollar was stable in the Iraqi Central Bank’s daily auction on Monday, reaching $45.725 million compared with $46.920 million on Sunday.

In its daily statement the bank said it had covered all bids, which included $9.675 million in cash and $36.050 million in foreign transfers, at an exchange rate of 1,260 dinars per dollar, the same as yesterday.
None of the 13 banks that participated in Monday's auction offered to sell dollars.
Ali al-Yasseri, a trader at the auction, told VOI "the demand for the dollar is still at low levels because the exchange rate is stable. We are waiting for the exchange rate to change and if this does not happen belated foreign transfers will be transferred which will lead to a rise in demand for the dollar."
The Iraqi Central Bank runs a daily auction from Sunday to Thursday.

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

Originally Posted by PAn8tv

Iraqi banker shot dead
11/06/2007 - 12:45:21

Khairallah Fakhri Ahmed, 65, the director of Iraq’s Central Bank branch in Mosul, was killed on the spot when the assailants sprayed him with bullets, police Brig Abdul-Karim al-Jabouri said.

Isn't this the second CBI official in the past week or so?

Iraq's Workers Strike to Keep Their Oil
by David Bacon

June 11, 2007



The Bush administration has no love for unions anywhere, but in Iraq it has a special reason for hating them. They are the main opposition to the occupation's economic agenda, and the biggest obstacle to that agenda's centerpiece - the privatization of Iraq's oil. At the same time, unions have become the only force in Iraq trying to maintain at least a survival living standard for the millions of Iraqis who still have to go to work every day, in the middle of the war.

This week, Iraqi anger over starvation incomes and oil ripoffs boiled over. On Monday, June 4, the biggest and strongest of the Iraqi unions, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, launched a limited strike to underline its call for keeping oil in public hands, and to force the government to live up to its economic promises. Workers on the pipelines carrying oil from the rigs in the south to Baghdad's big refinery stopped work. It was a very limited job action, which still allowed the Iraqi economy to function.



Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responded by calling out the army and surrounding the strikers at Sheiba, near Basra. Then he issued arrest warrants for the union's leaders. On Wednesday, June 6, the union postponed the strike until June 11. Labor unrest could not only resume at that point, but could easily escalate into shutdowns on the rigs themselves, or even the cutoff of oil exports. That would shut down the income stream that keeps the Maliki regime in power in Baghdad.



Some of the oil workers' demands reflect the desperate situation of workers under the occupation. They want their employer - the government's oil ministry - to pay for wage increases and promised vacations, and give permanent status to thousands of temporary employees. In a country where housing has been destroyed on a massive scale, and workers often live in dilapidated and primitive conditions, the union wants the government to turn over land for building homes. Every year, the oil institute has miraculously continued holding classes and training technicians, yet the ministry won't give work to graduates, de****e the war-torn industry's desperate need for skilled labor. The union demands jobs and a future for these young people.



But one demand overshadows even these basic needs - renegotiation of the oil law that would turn the industry itself over to foreign corporations. And it is this demand that has brought out even the US fighter jets, which have circled and buzzed over the strikers' demonstrations. In Iraq, the hostile maneuvering of military aircraft is not an idle threat to the people below. This standoff reflects a long history of actions in Iraq, by both the Iraqi government and the US occupation administration, to suppress union activity.



Iraq has a long labor history. Union activists, banned and jailed under the British and its puppet monarchy, organized a labor movement that was the admiration of the Arab world when Iraq became independent after 1958. Saddam Hussein later drove its leaders underground, killing and jailing the ones he could catch.



When Saddam fell, Iraqi unionists came out of prison, up from underground and back from exile, determined to rebuild its labor movement. Miraculously, in the midst of war and bombings, they did. The oil workers union in the south is now one of the largest organizations in Iraq, with thousands of members on the rigs, pipelines and refineries. The electrical workers union is the first national labor organization headed by a woman, Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein.



Together with other unions in railroads, hotels, ports, schools and factories, they've gone on strike, held elections, won wage increases and made democracy a living reality. Yet the Bush administration, and the Baghdad government it controls, has outlawed collective bargaining, impounded union funds and turned its back (or worse) on a wave of assassinations of Iraqi union leaders.



President Bush says he wants democracy, yet he will not accept the one political demand that unites Iraqis above all others. They want the country's oil (and its electrical power stations, ports and other key facilities) to remain in public hands.



The fact that Iraqi unions are the strongest voice demanding this makes them anathema. Selling the oil off to large corporations is far more important to the Bush administration than a paper commitment to the democratic process.



Iraq's oil was nationalized in the 1960s, like that of every other country in the Middle East. The Iraqi oil union became, and still is, the industry's most zealous guardian.



Holding a no-bid, sweetheart contract with occupation authorities, Halliburton Corporation came into Iraq in the wake of the troops in 2003. The company tried to seize control of the wells and rigs, withholding reconstruction aid to force workers to submit. The oil union struck for three days that August, stopping exports and cutting off government revenue. Halliburton left.



The oil and port unions then forced foreign corporations to give up similar sweetheart agreements in Iraq's deepwater shipping facilities. Muhsin's electrical union is still battling to stop subcontracting in the power stations - a prelude to corporate control.



The occupation has always had an economic agenda. Occupation czar Paul Bremer published lists in Baghdad newspapers of the public enterprises he intended to auction off. Arab labor leader Hacene Djemam bitterly observed, "War makes privatization easy: first you destroy society; then you let the corporations rebuild it."



The Bush administration won't leave Iraq in part because that economic agenda is still insecure. Under Washington's guidance, the Iraqi government wrote a new oil law in secret. The Iraq study commission, headed by oilman James Baker, called it the key to ending the occupation.



That law is touted in the US press as ensuring an equitable division of oil wealth. Iraqi unions say it will ensure that foreign corporations control future exploration and development, in one of the world's largest reserves.



Hassan Juma'a Awad, president of the IFOU, wrote a letter to the US Congress on May 13. "Everyone knows the oil law doesn't serve the Iraqi people," he warned. The union was banned from the secret negotiations. According to Juma'a, the result "serves Bush, his supporters and foreign companies at the expense of the Iraqi people." The union has threatened to strike if the law is implemented.



Like all Iraqi unionists, Juma'a says the occupation should end without demanding Iraq's oil as a price. "The USA claimed that it came here as a liberator, not to control our resources," he reminded Congress. Congressional opponents of the war can only win Iraqis' respect if they disavow the oil law.



Whatever government holds power in Baghdad at the occupation's end will need control of the oil wealth to rebuild the devastated country. That gives Iraq's working people a big reason to fight to ensure that happens.

ZNet |Iraq | Iraq's Workers Strike to Keep Their Oil

Parliament intends deducting a percentage of oil revenues to help

(صوت العراق) - 11-06-2007

(Voice of Iraq) - 11-06-2007

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Iraq : Parliament intends deducting a percentage of oil revenues to help the displaced in the neighboring countries

Baghdad (June 11) and the agency (Lucky) Italian News-Deputy Chairman of the Committee of Displaced Persons and Migrants in the House on behalf of the Iraqi bono, that the Commission intends to prepare a draft will be submitted to the Presidency for approval and referral to Parliament, including the allocation of 3% of the country's oil revenues to help Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries. Bono said in a statement to Agence (Lucky) Italian News that "any final and specific mechanism for spending those proceeds have not been identified so far, but he did not hide the existence of several proposals in this regard, including the proposal regardless of these specialties, if approved, in the form of health and social services in the host countries of these refugees." He pointed out that "the waiting time of the next meeting of Iraqi neighboring states, to put this issue on the agenda, and discuss the issue of Iraqi refugees in detail," and added that "the committee will soon hold a special meeting of the parliament to discuss the suffering of the displaced and Iraqi immigrants, whether inside Iraq or outside, and will put the detail, the issue of privatizing part of the financial returns of these immigrants, as it reveals the magnitude of the suffering this segment, in the hope of obtaining approval of the members of Parliament to endorse the financial allocation. " Bono revealed on "The fact that the subject up in the number of refugees from the neighboring countries, faces several obstacles, including the refusal of the host's proposal to open offices especially those refugees, and its insistence that the association and follow through with Iraqi embassies, and this is hampering efforts to help them and follow their situations." It was more than three million Iraqi refugees, many of whom suffer from tragic situations, have migrated to a number of neighboring countries, especially Syria, Jordan and other regional countries, such as Iran and Egypt, in addition to about one million and 800 thousand others fled their homes and sought refuge in other cities in the interior, after growing wave of sectarian violence rampant in the country, especially after the bombing Merkdin Shia in the city of Samarra (120 km north of Baghdad) in February of last year, 2006. In ****e of the application of the Iraqi government plan to impose law, in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqi security forces and the multinational forces, but the wave of exodus, because of sectarian violence, which threatens the ongoing slide the country into civil war.

(Sal/Aki)

Translated version of http://www.sotaliraq.com/