Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

lol, you are right Adster. its reval :)
Its friday, have my mind on other thing, cheers

Isn't REVAL a 'shortened version' of revalue?

Originally Posted by tiffany

Isn't REVAL a 'shortened version' of revalue?

Yeah. Maybe we could shorten it ourselves to just 'R'.

Fingers crossed guys, big weekend in store for Iraq and us! If they get this done by Monday we'll be on the home run, if not, well, hate to think! more delays.....



Iraq's Prime Minister Set to Present Cabinet Picks
By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2006

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister-designate Nouri Maliki is planning to present his new government to Iraq's Council of Representatives on Saturday and to formalize his ministry appointments by Monday, U.S. and Iraqi sources said Wednesday.

A day after announcing that Iraq's contentious political parties had agreed on the distribution of Cabinet posts, Iraqi politicians appeared to be coalescing around the names of several prominent candidates, the final step in the long-delayed formation of a government after parliamentary elections in December.

One key post, the Interior Ministry, is expected to go to Ahmed Chalabi, who currently is the Oil minister.

Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear physicist who ran as an independent, appears set to be named Oil minister.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...ack=1&cset=true

Fingers, Toes & anything inbetween that can possibly be crossed! lol!


(P.S. Error with your link A! ;-)

Originally Posted by tiffany

Fingers, Toes & anything inbetween that can possibly be crossed! lol!


(P.S. Error with your link A! ;-)

You forgot eyes! But then I guess it would make it hard to read this thread! LOL

latest from FOX news as of about 30 min ago ( 2 p.m. EDT ) did not sound good to me. said that they had not been able to fill those last two posts and would make temporary appointments until they could reach agreement. i fear that those temporary appointments will not be approved in the upcoming vote and then we will be back to an unknown situation.

hope i am wrong.

to, just because they "get it together" does'nt necessarily mean they will address the dinar the way we'd like.

They need to fill these ministers asap or it'll cause more delays, insurgencies etc.....Hopefully Talabani and Maliki can sort out.....



BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi leaders have agreed on a national unity government to be presented to parliament on Saturday, officials said, despite failure to reach a compromise on the sensitive defense and interior ministry portfolios.

"The government will be announced tomorrow," a senior aide to Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki told Reuters late on Friday after weeks of wrangling between rival ethnic and religious groups jockeying for power in postwar
Iraq.

The agreement on a grand coalition of Shi'ites, minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds, which the United States counts on to halt a slide toward civil war, signaled an end to months of political deadlock following December's elections.

The formation of Iraq's first full-term government since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 will be hailed as major progress in Washington and London, which are keen to start drawing down their combined 140,000 troops in Iraq.

But analysts cautioned that while a government encompassing Iraq's main rival groups was a key step forward, that may have been the relatively easy part in a country where people risk their lives by just venturing outside their homes.

Maliki's aide said parties had given themselves a week to find common ground also on the interior and defense posts, crucial jobs for quelling bloodshed plaguing the country three year's after U.S. forces invaded to topple
Saddam Hussein.

Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, would, in the meantime, take charge of the Interior Ministry while Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, would head the Defense Ministry, he said.

Parliament is scheduled to meet on Saturday to approve the government, a vote that is largely seen as a formality as most of the assembly's parties would be represented in the new cabinet.

DEATH SQUADS

Nuclear scientist and Maliki's fellow Shi'ite Islamist Hussain al-Shahristani will become oil minister, an important job for boosting Iraq's economy, political sources said.

Iraq boasts the world's third largest oil reserves. But the sector, crippled by decades of war, sanctions and under-investment, has lurched from crisis to crisis since 2003.

Outgoing Interior Minister Bayan Jabor, whose time in office has been marred by accusations of the existence of police death squads, will move to head the finance ministry. Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, remains at the helm of the foreign ministry.

Maliki, whose no-nonsense approach and inclusive discourse have won him grudging respect from rivals, faces huge challenges in tackling violence and rebuilding the economy.

Many Iraqis complain that daily life has worsened since Saddam Hussein's ouster, with a dearth of jobs and frequent power and water cuts. Four million people now live in extreme poverty, said a U.N.-backed Iraqi study released this month.

Analyst Joost Hiltermann said stability in Iraq apart from a unity government also required the revision of a constitution approved in a referendum last year and the building of security forces free of sectarian and ethnic agendas.

The once-dominant Sunni minority fears the constitution as it stands, by giving Iraq's regions more powers, would deprive them of revenue from oil-rich southern and northern areas dominated by majority Shi'ites and Kurds.

"I think (forming the government) is the easiest to accomplish," said Hiltermann, of the International Crisis Group think-tank.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...188863,00.html

Exit route for allies after new Iraq deal
By Ned Parker in Baghdad and Philip Webster

TONY BLAIR and President Bush are preparing to hail the formation of Iraq’s first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein today — a development that should finally allow them to begin withdrawing their 140,000 troops from an ever more hostile country.

The two leaders are desperate for a breakthrough after months of relentlessly grim news from Iraq, and hope that a government of national unity will have the strength to take on the Sunni insurgents responsible for thousands of deaths over the past three years.

As darkness fell in Baghdad last night Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians were still arguing over the Defence and Interior portfolios, both essential in tackling Iraq’s massive security problem.

But Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that despite the wrangling he would still unveil a government of national unity.

After hours of talks in a heavily fortified compound in Baghdad, a senior aide to Mr al-Maliki disclosed that the Prime Minister had decided to act as temporary Interior Minister for a week and that Tareq al-Hashemi, the Sunni Vice-President, would take over Defence, also for a week.

Anticipating today’s announcement on the formation of a government, Downing Street said that it would be a “defining moment” for Iraq, and all the more remarkable because “it has been done against the background of a terrorist campaign which is specifically designed to stop such a government taking shape”.

More than five months have passed since 12 million Iraqis braved insurgent threats to vote for a new parliament in last December’s general election.

In that time the political vacuum created by the failure of deeply distrustful Shia, Sunni and Kurdish politicians to agree a government has been filled by escalating violence.

An estimated 3,743 civilians, 942 security forces and 323 coalition soldiers have been killed, and tit-for-tat sectarian killings by rampant militias have brought Iraq to the verge of civil war.

The conflict has also helped to drag Mr Blair and Mr Bush’s opinion poll ratings down to record lows, while making it all but impossible for them to begin withdrawing their troops.

Britain and the United States have put intense pressure on Iraq’s rival groupings to agree a new government.Jack Straw, then the Foreign Secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, made an unprecedented joint visit to Baghdad last month to bang heads together.

A major obstacle was overcome when Ibrahim Jaafari, the Shias’ first-choice prime minister, was persuaded to step down in the face of Sunni and Kurdish opposition.

Today’s announcement will be greeted with relief in Downing Street and the White House. As reported in The Times this week, Mr Blair is expected to fly to Washington for a summit with Mr Bush within days.

There was still time for an agreement to fall apart last night. But despite the continuing disagreement over the Defence and Interior portfolios, invitations have been issued to the press to attend the parliament session at which the Prime Minister will introduce his Cabinet. The parliament’s 275 MPs will then vote to approve each nominee, with an absolute majority required in each case. Qassim Daoud, a Shia MP, said: “These two ministries (Defence and Interior) are going to play an important role in the society so they should be headed by non-sectarian, nationalist ministers.”

Saleh Mutlak, a prominent Sunni politician, said: “We need independent people to run these ministries in a real Iraqi way, not a sectarian one.”

A Downing Street spokesman said that if a new government was formed it would be “representative of the country as a whole and the ethnic grouping of the country as a whole”.