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

Abercrombie: 'Iraq Not A Sovereign Country'

(The Politico) Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) raised two important points in his five-minute speech (definitely not a Q & A): 1) More American soldiers are dying each year, and 2) American bureaucrats are now writing rules governing the Iraqi oil industry.

"Iraq is not a sovereign country," Abercrombie said. "We are occupying the country economically and militarily and going to suffer the consequences."

Abercrombie: 'Iraq Not A Sovereign Country', By John Bresnahan - CBS News

Update - Iraq Oil Min : Hunt Oil Deal with Kurd Government is Illegal

VIENNA -(Dow Jones)- Hunt Oil Co.'s agreement with Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region to explore for oil is illegal, Iraq's oil minister Hussein al- Shahristani said Monday, in his first public reaction to the deal announced over the weekend.

"Any oil deal has no standing as far as the government of Iraq is concerned," said al-Shahristani. "All these contracts have to be approved by the Federal Authority before they are legal. This (contract) was not presented for approval. It has no standing."

His comments, delivered as he arrived for an OPEC ministers meeting in the Austrian capital, underscore the central government's view that exploration contracts with foreign companies should be signed only after the adoption of a new national oil law.

The deal is one of several the Kurds have signed with foreign oil companies in the past few years and the first since the Kurds put their own oil law into effect in August.

These deals have angered Baghdad, but the Kurdish region appears determined to advance oil exploration in the Denmark-sized area they govern in northern Iraq, as Iraq's long-delayed federal oil law remains hobbled by disagreements.

Al-Shahristani said Iraq was exporting 300,000 barrels a day through its northern export pipeline to Turkey and producing a total of 2.4 million barrels a day. A recent survey by Dow Jones Newswires estimated Iraq was pumping 2.05 million barrels a day.

Referring to current OPEC policy, Al-Shahristani said there doesn't seem to be a shortage of crude oil supply now, noting that he expected high oil prices to fall.

"But we'll be looking carefully at the predictions that our secretariat produces for the fourth quarter and if there's a need to supply the world market with what it want then we'll consider," he said.

"The dollar has significantly devalued in the past few months and that has really affected the income of a number of countries," he added.

http://news.morningstar.com/news/Vie...l&Cat=En ergy

Is this for real?

Originally Posted by flockstar

Is this for real?

Major distortion of the facts and is off topic in this thread.

PM hints at forming partnership government instead of national unity

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Baghdad, Sept 10, (VOI)- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized some political parties participating in the Iraqi government, saying that their role does not cope with the concept of the national unity government.

He urged the parliament and the government to review the concept of forming the national unity government and forming a majority government instead of it.
The premier's statements came during his word delivered before the Iraqi parliament.
Al-Maliki refused to allow reporters to attend the session and allowed only to the state-run al-Iraqiya satellite television to air the parliament's session.

He blamed continued objections made by some participating parties in the government for the failure of the national unity government.

"The national unity government's main focus should be the constitution and the signed agreements," he affirmed.

The withdrawal of a number of political blocs: the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), the secular Iraqi National List (INL) and the Shiite Sadrists, from Maliki's cabinet caused a big dilemma to the entire political process.

"We should establish a partnership government instead of a national unity government which does not abide by rules of the national unity," the premier also said.

Speaking about the quintuple deal singed a few weeks ago by the parties to the four-way agreement plus the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, he described it as a "second step on the road to effectuating the political process and refreshing state institutions' performance in different fields."

He admitted that a stagnant situation faced the political process after the withdrawal of some political blocs.

Maliki attended Monday's session upon an invitation extended by parliament last week
Maliki was supposed to hold his weekly news briefing on Monday but it was cancelled due to his scheduled appearance before parliament today.

Aswat Aliraq

Kurdish parliament discusses new law for judicial system

Arbil - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

The parliament of Iraq's Kurdistan region discussed on Monday the judicial system law, in attempt to approve a new law which guarantees the independence of the judiciary, the parliament's media adviser said.

"The parliament discussed in the session attended by Justice Minister Farouq Jamil some of the law's articles and adopted 14 clauses out of the total 71 and will resume discussing other articles on Tuesday's session," Tareq Johar told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The Kurdish parliament is trying to agree on a law that organizes the work of the judicial institutions inside the region which guarantees the separation of the executive authority (the government) from the judicial authority (courts).

The parliament's Secretary First Ahmed told the (VOI) that "the judicial authority draft law in Kurdistan is different than the former law which will be canceled."

"According to the new law, the judicial council will enjoy an independent budget, which is an important pillar for the independence of the judicial system in the region," Ahmed also said.

Aswat Aliraq

Originally Posted by celilo

Major distortion of the facts and is off topic in this thread.

Aye right

Is this for real? Was a question, where is the Major distortion of facts in that you t**t

Iraq and Oil — Why the mainstream media won’t talk about it

Monday, 10 September 2007

Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the mainstream media have deliberately downplayed the role of oil in the invasion, indeed even so-called liberal newspapers like the London Independent, have poured scorn on the idea, going as far as labelling anyone who raised the issue as “conspiracists”. The closest the BBC ever gets to it is when it mentions ‘energy security’ but it never mentions the dreaded ‘O’ word when it comes to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Back in April 2003, I wrote a piece entitled ‘More about Conspiracies and Oil’, and although a little out of date in that there are now even more studies on the subject, it nevertheless contains a wealth of links to authoritative documents (from both the left and the right) on the subject, all of which reveal the fundamental importance of energy in the imperial equation, what both the state and the MSM euphemistically call “energy security”, which translated means the West’s literally God-given right to take whatever it needs in order to keep the capitalist system going. It’s always been this way and as long as we go along with it, it will always be this way, but I digress… Of course one has to ask the question, given the centrality of ‘energy security’ to the West, why daring to raise the role of oil in the invasion meets such scorn and derision in the Western media? Why is it a taboo subject? What is it the state and the corporates don’t want you to know about the role of oil in imperial foreign policy?

The entire history of the 20th century is bound up with oil, driven first and foremost by the demands of the British Imperial Navy to power its fleet of ‘dreadnoughts’ (even the word reveals the reality of imperial power) and with the advent of WWI (which was in part, fought over access to oil, from Iraq to the Persian Gulf region) the centrality of the internal combustion engine to warfighting.

The archives are choca-block full of evidence, going all the way back to the 19th century, confirming the view that the demands of industrial capitalism for energy, raw materials and of course cheap labour, are the principle driving force behind our foreign (and domestic) policy objectives. To deny this is to deny the historical evidence. Now there are those who claim that this is just history, a view of the ‘bad old days’, that now we’re citizens of a civilised country. But all that has changed are the alleged reasons for the imperium’s actions. Back in the days when the Union Jack ruled half the planet, we saw, we took, end of story. We didn’t need reasons, except to justify it to ourselves, but now we do (so something’s changed then).

Keep it complicated stupid!

What it comes down to is really quite simple: when reporting the ‘news’, just exclude anything that connects our political and military actions from economics. This is how and why the MSM never introduce the issue of oil because oil means talking about the economics of oil and hence the economics of capitalism. Thus, we never see the oil cartels dragged into the dirty waters of making war, yet without them, everything from Humvees to F-16s, don’t work.

Yet it’s so fundamental to understanding how our world works, that by excluding the economics that lies behind the news from our public media shows just how important it is. Venturing into this world, where all is revealed, is strictly verboten. Read the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times, if you want to get a better handle on things economic, at least from the capitalist’s perspective (the old adage of not trying to bullshit a bullshitter would seem to be apt here).

The task of the mainstream journalist then, is to make sure that when talking about causes and reasons, the uncomfortable subject of the economics of it never raises its ugly head. And perforce, when it absolutely has to be dragged into the discourse, make sure it’s both too complicated to make sense of and that the subject of economics is kept at a safe distance from where the bombs are falling and especially who is dropping them. Notes 1. See ‘Iraq’s oil workers hold summit against oil privatization plans’, September 9, 2007, a press release issued by Naftana (‘Our Oil’ in Arabic), an independent UK-based committee supporting democratic trade unionism in Iraq. It works in solidarity with the IFOU (Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions). Naftana publicises the IFOU’s struggle for Iraqi social and economic rights and its stand against the privatisation of Iraqi oil demanded by the occupying powers. For more information see the IFOU’s website.

Atlantic Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times - Iraq and Oil — Why the mainstream media won’t talk about it

Originally Posted by flockstar

Aye right

Is this for real? Was a question, where is the Major distortion of facts in that you t**t

Is WHAT for real? You asked an open ended question.

And why resort to name calling? That alone may get you banned.

Perhaps you could expand on your dry comments and MAYBE you will get a quality response.

I wish for ONCE you could CONTRIBUTE to the forum instead of injecting your venomous "one-liners" every time you post.

Sorry for the interruption folks, back to the news.....!

Update - OPEC Meeting Iraqi Oil chief hints he is not in favour of OPEC Quota hikes

VIENNA (Thomson Financial) - Iraq's oil minister said the world is amply supplied with oil, suggesting he would not be in favour of an OPEC decision at today's meeting that would support an increase in production quotas.

'There isn't an urgent need to increase production by OPEC,' he said. 'There is no demand for that.'

A few moments before OPEC members sat down to reach a decision on output quotas, Hussain As Shahristani told journalists: 'We feel the market is being supplied with what it needs from countries inside OPEC and outside OPEC.'

The cartel will make a decision in a matter of hours on output quotas. Most ministers have so far indicated they are happy with current quotas.

However, in the days ahead of the meeting, leading member Saudi Arabia, which carries the most weight in the group, has been silent. Its unusual silence has raised speculation it may favour a small increase.

Looking ahead to the winter, when demand will almost certainly increase because of a rise in heating oil needs when temperatures in the northern hemisphere drop, he said there was little indication production would have to be ramped up.

'The current production levels should be meeting (future) demand. We don't feel there is a need for a further increase,' he said.

Iraq has already increased oil production by 300,000 bpd since September, he said.

OPEC, the supplier of more than a third of the world's crude oil, agreed in two meetings late last year to cut output by a combined 1.7 mln bpd. As a result, its official output quota currently stands at 25.8 mln bpd.

The quota applies to ten of OPEC's 12 members, with Iraq and Angola currently exempt from quotas.

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited...fx4103607.html