Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

France Consul to be Opened Soon in Kurdistan Region

of KRG foreign relations, Falah Mustafa, Met with France ambassador in Iraq, Mr. Jan Franswa today and discussed the reinforcement of joint relations between France and Kurdistan region in political ,economy and cultural aspects as start for developing the mutual ties.

Several high-ranking officials’ of France foreign ministry and KRG participated in the meeting including Hogr Shali deputy chairman of foreign relations ,Dilshad Mirani ,representative of KRG in Baghdad ,and Saiwan Barzani ,representative of KRG in France . Head of KRG foreign relations clarified the agenda of KRG regarding promoting relations and opening more channels with world.

France ambassador in Iraq expressed his surprise on the stability of Kurdistan region and said that for promoting their relation with Iraq generally and Kurdistan region particularly they will open Consul of France in Kurdistan region soon. He appreciated KRG for their facilitations to promote the joint relations of both sides.

Head of KRG foreign relations expressed his happiness towards this step of France and said: “We hope that we can get benefit from the experience of France in aspects of reconstruction and development and those new relations to pave the way for the participation of French companies in the process of reconstruction of Kurdistan region as a gateway towards Iraq.

PUKmedia :: English - France Consul to be Opened Soon in Kurdistan Region

Terrorists at Work!

The Christians and other religious sects of free democratic Iraq face another form of hideous threat by the fascist terrorist gangs who mask themselves under the cover of orthodox Islam which is far from them.
The various Iraqi sects’ face daily terrorist attacks and killings, but both Christians and Ezdies especially face these threats and assaults more than others. The so-called “spiritual court of south of Baghdad” of the so- called state “The Islamic state of Iraq” recently issued an order or fatwa to all Christians in Iraq asking them to giving covert themselves to Islam and to give up their religion and follow Islam, or else pay taxes or abandon their houses or present a Christian girl to be married to one of the terrorists after converting her to Islam by force.

The fatwa also ordered that Christian women are not allowed to move without head scarves and they were forced to put on the Islamic clothes ( hijab ) .The fatwa threatened them to form special police forces to pursue and kill those who disobey the instructions of those deviant terrorists.

The fatwa is signed by holding the signature of “Abu Hajer” who, according to the fatwa, is the spiritual judge of “South of Baghdad State.”
The following is a translation of the full text of the order by spiritual judge of the so- called “State South of Baghdad.”

PUKmedia :: English - Terrorists at Work!

Halliburton seeks stakes in Gulf oil firms: report

Halliburton Co. (HAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's second-largest oil services company, is seeking stakes in emerging Gulf Arab firms to expand its operations in the region, pan Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Monday.

"The American company is studying the chance to buy stakes in emerging oil companies in the Gulf to boost its exploration operations in those companies' exclusive areas," the paper said.

The daily, citing unidentified sources, did not name the companies or countries that could interest the U.S. oil and gas services company.
Halliburton is setting up a corporate headquarters in Dubai in an effort to take a larger share of the oil and gas services market outside of the Americas.

Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar said in May that 70 percent of the company's potential market was outside of the Americas. He said the company was looking for major investors to take a stake in Halliburton as it looks to expand.

Halliburton seeks stakes in Gulf oil firms: report | Reuters&

Security conditions still blocking oil shipment from Iraq to Jordan

The first shipment of Iraqi oil was still facing "tremendous security challenges" Sunday, rendering it impossible to predict when it will arrive in Jordan, a source at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said.

Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit said Thursday that the oil shipment from Iraq was expected to arrive "in a few hours".

It was due to be delivered at the Jordan-Iraq border, which means "special security measures are being implemented inside Iraq to guarantee a safe passage of the shipments", a well informed source told The Jordan Times.

Earlier Thursday, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khalid Shraideh noted "the security conditions were likely the major obstacles facing the oil shipments from Iraq. This is what the Iraqis have been telling us."

Stopping short of revealing the expected arrival time of the 25 trucks carrying the first shipment, the source said the Iraqi government's commitment to providing Jordan with oil is unquestionable.

Under the 2006 agreement between the two governments, signed during Bakhit's visit to Baghdad, Iraq agreed to supply Jordan with 10-30 per cent of its daily needs of around 100,000 barrels at a discounted rate of $18 below international market price.

Such a discount is expected to soften the impact of the hike in the international oil prices on the state budget.

The government said last month it will not raise the prices of fuel derivatives this year, a decision that has widened the budget deficit, once estimated at JD385 million, by an additional hundreds of millions.

MENAFN - Middle East North Africa . Financial Network News: Security conditions still blocking oil shipment from Iraq to Jordan

Iraq Resumes Kirkuk Oil Flow To Ceyhan - Shipper

Iraq has resumed the flow of Kirkuk crude oil to the Turkish export terminal, Ceyhan, for the last two days after a suspension of 10 days, a Middle East shipping agent said Monday.

"Some 700,000-800,000 barrels have been pumped for the past two days," the agent told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Ceyhan in Turkey.

"We are expecting around 20,000 barrels to be pumped an hour, or 480,000 barrels a day, Tuesday," he added.

The flow was suspended September 11 because the storage facilities at the Turkish terminal were full with 6.7 million barrels.

The export pipeline was also attacked and damaged September 18, according to Iraqi oil officials.

Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, or SOMO, awarded some 4.68 million barrels of Kirkuk crude oil in a Sept. 11 tender to four companies - Spain's Cepsa (CEP.MC), Italy's Eni SpA (E), Turkey's Tupras (TUPRS.IS) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM).

So far, three vessels belonging to Exxon Mobil, Cepsa and Tupras had completed loading and left Ceyhan, the agent said. An ExxonMobil vessel is loading Monday, while another vessel belonging to Eni is anchored in the terminal which is expected to start loading Tuesday, he added.

Another vessel belonging to Eni is to arrive Tuesday and start loading Wednesday when the companies will finish lifting the 4.68 million barrels of Kirkuk crude, the agent said.

SOMO announced last week another tender to sell 5 million barrels and set Sept. 21 as closing date for that tender.

Results of the new tender are expected to be announced any time, a SOMO official said.

Persistent sabotage against pipelines and oil installations has kept exports from the north shut for most of the time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussein Al-Shahristani said earlier this month his ministry had started new measures to protect the northern oil export pipeline. He expected Iraq to maintain sustainable crude oil exports from the Kirkuk oil fields.

Nasdaq 100 Flash Quotes

A moment of truth

September was supposed to be a defining moment for the Bush administration's war policy in Iraq; a progress report on benchmarks for the Iraqi government behaviour was supposed to produce an honest evaluation of the war policy.

A military assessment of the impact of the strategy of military surge was supposed to candidly report whether it was working or not. In short, September was supposed to bring to Congress and the American people: a moment of truth from the Bush administration. Instead, we heard the same old obfuscation, self-delusion and obstinate attempts at spin.

Bush's top diplomat in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and his top soldier, General David Petraeus, tried to convince congress that Bush's escalation of violence strategy was working.

They failed to mention, however, that if violence in certain areas was down from previous levels, this was at least in part because of the massive demographic changes that have been taking place in Iraq, partly as a results of the escalation of violence ordered by Bush earlier this year.

For instance, New York Times reported that "Iraqis have continued to flee their homes throughout the American troop increase, which began early this year, and de****e assurances that it is becoming safe to return, uncrossable lines have been left in Iraqi minds and neighbourhoods."
The International Organisation for Migration reported that 86 per cent of Iraqis who fled their homes said they were forced to leave because of their sect.

Other data collected by the Iraqi Red Crescent and the Organisation of Migration and reviewed by the New York Times, showed that "the numbers of internally displaced Iraqis has soared since the troop increase began".

In fact, contradicting assertions from the White House and the Pentagon, the Government's own Accountability Office (GAO) - citing data from the Pentagon and other US agencies - stated that daily attacks against civilians in Iraq have remained "about the same" since February - that is, since the beginning of the escalation of violence policy by the Bush administration.

The GAO also determined, de****e resistance from the White House, that the Iraqi government had failed to meet 15 out of the 18 benchmarks.
Moreover, an independent commission led by retired US General James Jones, concluded that the Iraqi forces were far from being ready to take over security in Iraq. The commission believed that the Iraqi forces still needed 12 to 18 months before they could be ready to assume responsibility for security in Iraq.

It is a measure of the predicament of the Bush administration that in its desperate effort to report something positive from Iraq, Bush and his generals elevated a local Iraqi shaikh to surprising importance.

They praised the collaboration of Shaikh Abdul Sattar Abu Raisha, leader of the Anbar province, with the occupation as a model for the rest of Iraq.
George W. Bush personally met with Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, and General David Petraeus praised him to the US Congress.

In sync with Bush's stubborn definition of the war in Iraq as being fought against Al Qaida and its ideology, General Petraeus said that Anbar was "a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose Al Qaida and reject its Taliban-like ideology."

The insurgents responded by assassinating Abdul Sattar, thus delivering a message that reflected the sombre reality on the ground more accurately than Bush and Petraeus were willing to admit.

Moreover, Rick Rowley, independent film maker who was recently embedded with the American military in Iraq, told US Public Radio programme Democracy Now, that the American military were in fact fuelling sectarian civil strife.

Bush continued to claim that in Iraq he is fighting and defeating Al Qaida terrorist threats to the US. He also claimed that without the war in Iraq the terrorist threat to the US would have been greater.

In fact, the 2006 government's own National Intelligence Estimate on Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States, stated that the Iraq war, far from reducing terrorist threats, "has become the cause celebre for jihadists ... and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives".

A recent study published in Mother Jones, found that "the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded".

Testimony

In his testimony before Congress General Petraeus himself refused to endorse the claim that the Iraq war had reduced the terrorist threat to the US.

There was, however, in this much awaited month of September, an unusual moment of truth in Bush's address to the nation. He told the American people that the goal of his policy was to achieve an "enduring relationship" with Iraq.

In other words, it is no longer the self-serving claim of turning Iraq into a model of democratic governance for the region. The goal is the same old, plain, and unvarnished imperial ambition of domination; that is, the perpetuation for the foreseeable future of the American occupation of Iraq.

Gulfnews: A moment of truth

Iraq's Kurdish leader urges enforcement of Kirkuk article

Iraq's Kurds will not use force to reassert their rights in the northern city of Kirkuk but want immediate implementation of a constitutional article to normalize the situation in the city, their leader said on Sunday. Kurds took part in elections and the political process and voted for a permanent Iraqi constitution in order to to preserve their national and political rights," the president of the northern Kurdish Autonomous Region, Masud Barzani.

Speaking at the opening of the conference of the Iraqi Kurdistan students' union in Arbil, Barzani said the implementation of article 140 of the constitution has been held up by stalling, procastrination and foreign threats.

"But we will not accept any delay in its implementation for even a minute based on a political decision," Barzani said.

However, he hinted at the possibility of delaying implementation on technical grounds for a brief period. But only the parliament of the Kurdish Autonomous Region would be empowered to endorse such a delay.

The future of the northern city of Kirkuk, which is seen as a microcosm of Iraq with its mix of several ethnicities, is a bone of contention between Kurds on the one hand and Turkmen and Sunni Arabs on the other.

The city has seen a surge in violence since the implementation of Iraq's new constitution in which the still-unenforced contentious article 140 outlines a three-step plan to reverse the Arabization policy of Saddam's regime. This policy was part of Saddam's campaign to push out the Kurds.

The constitution also provides for a census followed by a referendum to decide the future of the city to which the Turkmen and Arab populations are opposed.

Kurds, however, support it as it is likely to pave the way for the city to be integrated into the Autonomous Kurdish Region.

Iraq's Kurdish leader urges enforcement of Kirkuk article : Middle East World

‘Chemical Ali’ wants trial to be adjourned

Saddam Hussein’s notorious hatchet man “Chemical Ali” demanded on Monday that the trial accusing him and 14 other former regime officials for crimes against humanity be adjourned for a month.

Ali Hassan Al Majid -- due to be hanged shortly after his conviction for genocide in a separate trial -- and his co-defendants are accused of having overseen a bloodbath in which up to 100,000 Shiites were killed by Saddam’s security forces.

The slaughter came in March 1991 after the troops were driven out of Kuwait by a US-led alliance.

The Shiite uprising trial resumed on Monday after a month long break and Majid, widely known as “Chemical Ali”, urged that the proceedings be adjourned by another month.

Majid and another defendant Ibrahim Abdul Razzaz said their lawyers were afraid to attend the court and had asked for protection from the US military which was refused.

“My brothers here have some demands,” Majid told judge Mohammed Al Khalifah Al Oreibi.

“They said they would stop eating and drinking if their lawyers are not back. They need more negotiations (with the US military). I don’t think this will take more than one month.”

“I ask that we adjourn the trial for one month so that we can come up with a solution.”
Judge Oreibi noted his comments but then went on to call the first witness of the day.
Prior to Majid, Razzaz said the lawyers’ case was “serious.”

“The Americans refuse to protect our lawyers. This is a serious case. They are saying we are killers but we were soldiers doing our job. We need our lawyers. We are not criminals,” he told the judge.

Oreibi brushed him off saying the defendants had court appointed lawyers who were familiar with the case.

Majid, along with former defence minister Sultan Hashim Al Tai, and Hussein Rashid Al Tikriti, former armed forces deputy chief of operations, are awaiting execution after being sentenced to death in another trial over the massacre of up to 182,000 Kurds in 1988.

Majid, Saddam’s cousin, was dubbed “Chemical Ali” by Iraq’s Kurds for his use of chemical weapons in the campaign of bombings, gas attacks and mass deportation.

On September 4, their death sentences for the crimes committed during the so-called Anfal campaign in Iraq’s northern Kurdish regions were confirmed by an appeals court and under Iraqi law they must be hanged within 30 days.

On Monday, the first witness, an old man who spoke from behind a curtain, said he saw army vehicles and tanks surrounding his area in the village of Al Hussein.

“The tanks started to shell our houses. There were lots of soldiers. I told my family to run away. The soldiers took my two sons,” he said.

“They were rounding up all the young men of the village. One of the boys resisted so they shot him dead. I saw it with my own eyes. Many houses were destroyed.”

He said a tank also destroyed his house while soldiers went away with his household belongings.

“I hid in another house until the next morning, then I ran away to another district, which was safer. I never found my sons.”

In the last session before a month-long break, witness Laila Kathum had accused Saddam’s troops of arresting her relatives and said Majid himself had killed her two sons by throwing them out of a helicopter.

Other witnesses in previous sessions have said that Saddam’s troops massacred people around the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala and in the Hilla and Basra regions of Iraq during the 1991 bloodletting.

Many Shiites who participated in the uprising say they had expected US forces to back them, but former US president George Bush instead ordered a halt at the Iraqi border, leaving the rebels at the mercy of Saddam’s forces.

Several other witnesses have already testified of being tortured in prison by Saddam’s troops.

Officials say around 90 victims and witnesses are expected to testify against the defendants.

Since the March 2003 US-led invasion, experts have exhumed dozens of mass graves of victims killed in the uprising, and their reports are expected to be the key evidence during the trial.

Khaleej Times Online - ‘Chemical Ali’ wants trial to be adjourned=

Baghdad seeks wider UN role in Iraq

Iraq urged regional and world powers on Saturday to back an expanded UN role in Iraq but UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said there was more to be done on security before he could increase UN staff.

Ministers from Iraq, its neighbors and world powers met at UN headquarters, with Washington pressing for implementation of a Security Council resolution passed last month on raising the role of the world body in Iraq.

The meeting brought US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice together with her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, at a time of tension over Iran's nuclear ambitions but they did not address each other. Washington also accuses Iran of backing militants in Iraq.

Ban told the meeting regional cooperation was vital to reinforce Iraqi efforts at reconciliation and "avoid exacerbating tensions."

He said it was the duty and responsibility of the United Nations to help and he proposed setting up a small support office in Baghdad and possibly sending staff to the cities of Basra and Arbil in the future.

But when he was asked at a news conference whether security was sufficiently improved to actually commit more UN staff, Ban said: "The security situation, politically, socially ... (is) unstable at this time.

"I would really hope that security will be ensured as soon as possible," he said. "It's true that ... security has been improving, but I think much more has to be done."

Many UN officials are deeply concerned about working in Iraq, remembering a bomb that destroyed its office in Baghdad in August 2003 and killed 22 people, including mission chief Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Maliki said his government was making progress toward national reconciliation and played down defections by Sunni Arab political parties from his government. "When we talk of improvement, this doesn't mean that we don't have some problems but these problems are very small," he said.

"We are going to be able to provide security to the UN in a way that will allow it to perform its role in an effective manner," Maliki told reporters earlier after meeting Ban.

Rice described the talks as an "excellent meeting," saying there was an understanding that "it's the international community's responsibility to help."

"The security situation in Iraq is difficult but improving and certainly the security of UN personnel will be a very high priority for all of the forces there," she told reporters.

Saturday's meeting included members of the Security Council, Iraq's neighbors, members of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations and representatives of regional and international organizations.

Gulfnews: Baghdad seeks wider UN role in Iraq

KRG deputy PM Receives Representatives of Greek Companies

Yesterday, Sept 23rd Omer Fattah deputy PM of KRG ,in the presence of Mrs. Shireen Ahmadi, the head of the Women’s Law Network received Greek companies’ representatives.

In the meeting the deputy PM of KRG highlighted the political, and security situation and the fields of reconstruction needed by Kurdish people. He also asked them to make use of investment law and the suitability of Kurdistan Region’s security situation to start investing in various fields.

In return the guest delegation promised to open offices of their companies in a short period of time in Kurdistan region.

PUKmedia :: English - KRG deputy PM Receives Representatives of Greek Companies