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

I just spoke with the father again, the security missions were made in advance of the civilians being on site. They went in and cleared out all the unfriendly individuals. They were then transported out of the area and he said for the most part nobody knew they had been there except for the "results" they left behind.

Iraq minister hopes for project bidding soon

Reuters


Tokyo: Iraq, which now loses more than 10 per cent of its oil output due to sabotage, hopes to announce a first round of bidding for oil projects soon after an oil and gas law is passed by the end of this year, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani said yesterday.

Al Shahristani, who is visiting Japan for loan talks with government officials, said a number of international oil companies have already shown interest in oil projects in Iraq.

"A hydrocarbons law is expected to be passed by the Iraqi parliament by the end of the year," Al Shahristani told reporters. "Iraqi parliament will announce which projects will be open [to foreign oil companies[." He did not name the companies.

Al Shahristani arrived in Tokyo at the weekend after a visit to China, where energy demand has been growing at robust pace.

Late in September, China National Petroleum Co. (CNPC) said it was ready to return to Iraq to develop an oilfield, reviving a deal signed in the Saddam Hussain period, if it was officially invited to do so.

Iraq's oil ministry had said before the CNPC's comment that Al Shahristani was to visit China shortly and would discuss with Chinese companies the fulfilling of contracts signed with the former government. The minister did not give any details of his visit to China. CNPC, with state arms manufacturer Norinco was awarded the contract to develop the 90,000 barrels per day Ahdab field in south central Iraq by Saddam.

The project was effectively frozen by international sanctions and then by the toppling of his government by the US-led invasion in 2003.

The field was estimated to cost $700 million to develop.

Iraq targets raising its crude oil output to 3.5 million barrels per day from an estimated three million bpd this year and four million bpd by 2010, then to six million bpd in 2012-2013 by developing new oilfields jointly with international oil companies, Al Shahristani said.

The minister also said he had been talking with the Iraqi Defence Ministry about improving security at the country's oil pipe-lines to protect them from sabotage attacks.

Iraq would be able to restore as much as 400,000 barrels per day of oil production by tightening pipe-line security.

"That's what we are losing now," he said.

Al Shahristani was visiting Tokyo to negotiate a possible yen loan amounting to $3.5 billion to support Iraqi projects which the Japanese government said it was considering.

The Japanese trade ministry agreed on Monday to lend Iraq up to 2.08 billion yen ($17.4 million) which will be used to upgrade work at a refinery in Basra in the south of the country.

Originally Posted by Socata 850

I just spoke with the father again, the security missions were made in advance of the civilians being on site. They went in and cleared out all the unfriendly individuals. They were then transported out of the area and he said for the most part nobody knew they had been there except for the "results" they left behind.

what does "results" mean - lost - got google fog brain today.

thanks

"Results" means they eliminated any opposition that was intending on harassing or harming any of the personnel assigned to explore for potential oil well sites.

Originally Posted by Socata 850

I just got this info from a friend who lives in Florida. His son is an Army Ranger in Iraq.

1. He says his son says that the US Army is guarding the banks in Baghdad. No Iraqi police are stationed at or near the banks.
2. His son has been assigned several security missions out in the provinces securing and guarding "civilian personnel" who are employees of multi-national oil companies. Their people have been scoping out the best locations for drilling and exploring for oil. The Rangers keep all the insurgents away while they do their mapping of the sites.

3. Says activity out in the oil fields has picked up significantly in the past 45 days.

4. More info forthcoming, I just has to hang up with him because his son just called him from Iraq. I'll let you know more when he calls back with the report.

Fox News is reporting that Al Qaida is threatening to blow up the oil fields, also threatening the Holy Shrines. It's possible that this is precautionary, maybe they have threatened the banks also??? Just a thought.

Cheers!
DayDream

Originally Posted by shotgunsusie

woOt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the banks are not open yet, those guards ARENT PROTECTING dinar that is worthless. ITS TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!! woOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop, stop my blood pressure can't take much more of all the excitment in the week.......... I change my mind. keep it coming PLEASE!

Originally Posted by DayDream

Fox News is reporting that Al Qaida is threatening to blow up the oil fields, also threatening the Holy Shrines. It's possible that this is precautionary, maybe they have threatened the banks also??? Just a thought.

Cheers!
DayDream

We and the Iraqi people do not need need any more setbacks. The time is now, Reval is in the wind. A decision has more than likly been made on the amount. Just waiting for the ink to dry!!!

How do you say Woot!!!! in Arabic?

Oil-rich Kirkuk could hold key to Iraq's future

27 October 2006 10:01
The tribal chiefs, in traditional robes and chequered headdresses, emerged from the dust stirred up by their convoy of pick-up trucks and walked towards the big white tent, gesturing welcomes to each other as they sat.

Accompanied by about 500 clansmen and a gaggle of local journalists, the 35 Sunni sheikhs -- from Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra and Hawija -- converged last week on Hindiya, on the scrappy western edges of Kirkuk, to swear their undying opposition to "conspiracies" to partition Iraq and to pledge allegiance to their president, Saddam Hussein.

Under banners exalting the man now standing trial in Baghdad for war crimes and genocide, the gathering heard speeches from prominent northern Iraqi sheikhs, Sunni Arab politicians and self-declared leaders of the Ba'ath party calling for the former dictator's release.

"If the Iraqi government wants national reconciliation to succeed and for the violence to end, they have to quickly release the president and end the occupation," said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Munshid, of the Obeidi tribe. "But most important of all," he added, "Kirkuk must never become part of Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city, and we will take all routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq."

The heated debate about federalism in Iraq is no better exemplified than in Kirkuk. Though largely free of the sectarian wars taking place in Baghdad and its surrounding area, observers say the ethnic faultlines running through the city, which lies atop Iraq's second largest oilfield, make it a ticking time bomb that could pit Kurd against Arab and draw in neighbours such as Iran and Turkey.

"There are few more sensitive issues in Iraq today than what happens to Kirkuk," said a Western diplomat in Iraq who works closely with the issue. "All eyes are on it, and all the ingredients for either consensual agreement or a devastating discord are there. If Kirkuk survives, then there's hope for Iraq."

As if to reinforce that message, within hours of the Sunni gathering a wave of suicide bombs rocked Kirkuk's city centre, including one in a crowded market and another in front of a women's teaching college. At least 15 civilians were killed and scores wounded.

Despite the oil riches that lie beneath, above ground Kirkuk appears a forlorn and neglected city. Street after street consists of humble two-storey dwellings with barely a modern building in sight. Litter is strewn everywhere, and there are huge queues at the petrol pumps. The tumble-down shops and market stalls in the centre of the city sell cheap consumer goods from Iran and Turkey.

The city's ancient citadel lies in ruins. The governor, Abdul Rahman Mustapha, a Kurd, blames the dilapidated state of the city on years of Ba'athist misrule. Neither does he have a good word for the current government in Baghdad. "They have ignored us and set so many obstacles in the path of our progress and reconstruction," he said.

Only now, three years after the end of the war, is money beginning to filter through for much-needed infrastructure work. In partnership with the US Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the provincial government has undertaken projects to provide fresh water to the mostly Arab south of the city, as well as garbage collection and treatment and the renovation of schools.

"A good sign is that Kurds, Turkomans and Arabs still eat in the same restaurants, and mix together," said Mustapha. Yet, as with so many other of Iraq's major cities, the trauma of history is close to the surface. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the Ba'ath party systematically drove out as many as 200 000 Kurds and Turkomans from urban and rural Kirkuk to tip the city's ethnic balance towards the Arabs and ensure strategic control of the oil fields.

After the fall of Saddam's regime, thousands of Kurds returned to the city, demanding the restitution of their land and property and the right to vote for Kirkuk to join the Kurdish autonomous region in the north. The Iraqi Constitution promises to remove Arab settlers, who would receive compensation, and return Kurds to Kirkuk -- an explosive issue for many non-Kurds.

"It will be disastrous," said Ali Mehdi, a Turkoman member of the provincial council. "The people won't accept the rule of the Kurdish parties. A civil war could break out any minute."

He said Kirkuk should achieve special independent status unallied to any regional blocs. Kurdish leaders insist, however, that they are neither after ethnic supremacy nor Kirkuk's oil, which could give them an economic base for future independence. Instead they are seeking to right historical wrongs.

"We want to see the issue resolved in a legal and peaceful way, as designated in the constitution," said Fuad Hussein, a senior aide to the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani. "Kirkuk is historically part of Kurdistan, but we will make sure it is well run and safe for everyone regardless of race or religion."

But he expressed dismay at the Sunni leaders' meeting. "Ba'athists meeting openly under the nose of Americans is not a good sign for the future," he said.

Relatively peaceful in the first two years after the fall of Saddam -- defying observers who said civil war would start here -- Kirkuk is witnessing an alarming increase in bloodshed as the political tensions rise. The wave of violence is terrifying residents and testing to the limit the fragile relations among its Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman residents.

The US military in Kirkuk says the city has been hit by 20 suicide bombs and 63 roadside bombs in the past three months. Local police and community leaders have been assassinated and politicians attacked. This despite a series of security sweeps by US and Iraqi forces and the digging of a large trench ringing Kirkuk's southern approaches, designed to funnel traffic into the city through official Iraqi army checkpoints.

Colonel Patrick Stackpole, who commands 5 000 US troops in a province of about one and a half million people, said the "violence is mainly by outsiders, though undoubtedly they have facilitators inside the city". "Jihadis from east and west, belonging to groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunnah, are targeting the city, trying to stoke civil war," he said. "But there's also a large element of former regime loyalists who don't want the city to succeed."

Nevertheless, he described himself as "guardedly optimistic" and offered rare praise for the province's security forces. "They are taking over more and more functions, leading operations, and performing more effectively without the scale of problems of corruption and disloyalty seen in other forces in Iraq ," he said. "We haven't seen death squads." - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

In a host of new shows, unity wins out over background differences.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
October 27, 2006

Possibly only in Iraq could "Survivor" bring a new sense of reality to reality TV.

Here, it's not called "Survivor." It's called "Playing House." But in a nation skidding toward civil war, putting Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis and Christians under a single roof to "play house" might literally end up as a contest for survival of the fittest.

The creators of "Beit Beut," the name of a game that has been a staple of Iraqi childhood for as long as anyone can remember, had just the opposite in mind, though. The prime-time reality series that aired every evening during the month of Ramadan, which ended this week, is a unique local hybrid of "Survivor" and "Big Brother," and its message is "united we stand, divided we fall."

"When we were selected, they did not consider our identity, our ethnicity or religion. But we do come from different environments, different ethnicities. And despite that, we discovered we are clicking. We are living with each other, we care for each other," said Jareer Abdullah Moulla, a 26-year-old Shiite Muslim barber and fine arts student from Baghdad who was recently booted off the show.

"The show emphasizes this point to the Iraqis, that we are living together, we can live together, we don't care what is going on, what plans others may have for us, we are connected to each other," said Samer Jabber Mohammed, a fashionably dressed young computer engineering student, and a Sunni.

"Beit Beut" rides a wave of reality TV shows that have taken to the Iraqi airwaves with a burgeoning number of independent channels taking the place of the old state-operated TV.

Al Sharqiya television, owned by Saad Bazzaz, a onetime chief of Saddam Hussein's radio and television apparatus, has led the field in reality programming. The station has debuted "Construction Contract," in which Iraqis had their homes rebuilt after losing them in the war, the talent contest "Youth Project" and a show that offered winners loans to start up businesses.

"Beit Beut" takes its inspiration from an old neighborhood game in which a bride and groom are appointed among the neighborhood children, others take on the roles of other family members, and the groom is required to perform several tasks to merit the bride's attention.

In this case, a dozen contestants from regions as disparate as Baghdad, Hillah, Diyala and Kirkuk gather to live for about a month in a small inn-turned-ultramodern living space outfitted in magenta and chartreuse.

From there, the show veers from "Big Brother" into "Survivor" country, with contestants forming teams that are required to carry out a task — from playing Spin-the-Bottle to building a barn and hauling a load of cargo across a river — designed to separate the men from the boys.

The losing team, often after a bit of squabbling and an occasional bout of crying, nominates two losers and the audience votes one of them off the show. The winner earns $3,000, enough to make a bit of mixed cohabitation worth everyone's while.

Naturally, none of these activities are carried out in downtown Baghdad, where venturing alone into the wrong neighborhood can land you in the morgue.

Instead, the creators of "Beit Beut" flew the whole cast up to the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq, in the scenic hills above Sulaymaniya.

"First of all, this place is a part of Iraq, and we wanted the program to represent the whole of Iraq. We wanted a place that had beautiful nature. And definitely, security. Obviously, the situation in Baghdad prevented us from fulfilling our work there," said Riyadh Salman, producer of the show and director of programming for Al Sharqiya.

Lest viewers be waiting for a bit of hanky-panky in the remote mountain idyll, Salman and director Alla Saleh Salahi were mindful of the possibility of a potential backlash from conservative clerics, who have trashed Western-style reality shows in other Middle Eastern nations.

"We are from a conservative society, and we respect and protect our traditions and norms," Salahi said. "No romance!"

"They are not mixed together for 24 hours a day," Salman explained. "They are together only in front of the camera. Outside the camera, the girls' group has their own special place to sleep, and the boys have their own place to sleep."

Asked to name the ethnicities and religions of the contestants, both men steadfastly refused.

"Be sure, we didn't ask them, 'What is your nationality?' " Salman said. "We looked at their personality, whether they were smart, their features, rather than their religious or ethnic background."

Mohammed said the secret of the show's success was that it had avoided controversy.

"We never discuss politics. Because our relations with each other are so human," she said.

In the first episode, one of the male contestants agonized over whether a woman's feelings would be hurt if he voted to toss her off the show.

During a competition to see which team could be first to plant a flag at the top of a steep hill, one heavyset girl nearly collapsed from fatigue and couldn't go on. Her teammates slowed down and helped her along — losing the race in the process.

"Even during the hardest competitions, we have been caring for each other, and worrying about the safety of our colleagues," Mohammed said. "We are from different backgrounds, different environments, so there are tiny things that appear in our lives together that are solved very quickly. And very softly."

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Sorry if posted in the wrong place Neno

Cheers!
DayDream

Originally Posted by Gloribee

We and the Iraqi people do not need need any more setbacks. The time is now, Reval is in the wind. A decision has more than likly been made on the amount. Just waiting for the ink to dry!!!

How do you say Woot!!!! in Arabic?:banana:

I checked... It's Wut!


Wut! Wut!

Cheers!
DayDream