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

Canceling improper deal for the purchase of oil
25/11/2006
Source: Translated by IRAQdirectory.com

The Ministry of Oil canceled an improper deal for the purchase of black oil with an international company at local prices. The Iraqi crude oil production is about two million, six hundred thousand barrels a day and it is hoped that it will be up to three million barrels per day during the coming period.

Oil Minister, Dr. Hussein Shahrastani, said: The ministry had prepared a plan to fight the financial and administrative corruption spreading in the ministry of the considerable resources, and the most important one is smuggling oil derivatives.
Shahrastani explained that the ministry had uncovered the sale of oil products from Baiji refinery and converting its revenues to terrorists to carry out sabotage, adding that those responsible for this process had been put to investigation.

He added that the ministry canceled a contract for buying black oil with an international company for violating the legal regulations of contracting, pointing out that a number of associates concluded this deal in local currencies which is against the regulations because the sale contracts of Iraqi black oil with international companies sold according to world prices and not local ones.

The minister emphasized that the ministry is fighting financial and administrative corruption in all the ministry's joints, where a number of its associates, who violated the public's right, had been dismissed and many others were put to investigation, stressing that any employee trying to manipulate the Iraqi funds will be put to investigation and the judiciary.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Oil confirmed that Iraqi crude oil production from the southern and northern fields amounted to two million, six hundred thousand barrels a day, and that the Iraqi exports amounted to about one million, six hundred thousand barrels a day from the southern ports only because of the continued suspension of the export operations through the Turkish port of Ceyhan due to sabotage operations.

Prepared & Translated By:
IRAQdirectory.com Team
Iraq Daily Business Updates

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=2648

Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:19 PM

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Angry fellow Shi'ites (His OWN are stoning him! Thats bad....real bad!) stoned Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's motorcade in a Shi'ite stronghold of Baghdad on Sunday in a display of fury over a devastating car bomb that tore through their area.
Maliki was visiting the Sadr City slum to pay respects to some of the 202 victims of last week's devastating bombing.
"It's all your fault!" one man shouted as, in unprecedented scenes, a hostile crowd began to surge around the premier and then jeered as his armoured convoy edged through the throng away from a mourning ceremony.
The area is a base for the Mehdi Army militia led by Maliki's fellow Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
Though the violence was limited, it was a dramatic demonstration of the popular passions Maliki and his national unity government are trying to calm following Thursday's multiple car bombs in Sadr City -- the worst since the U.S. invasion -- and later revenge attacks.
On Sunday, a car bomb killed at least 6 people and wounded more than 20 in a market just south of Baghdad, police said.
On the third full day of a curfew on the capital, mortar bombs crashed down in various parts of Baghdad and residents reported isolated and mostly unexplained clashes.
The government has said traffic can circulate again from Monday morning but, after a series of high-level meetings, it again appealed for calm.
APPEAL FOR UNITY
"We are counting on you, a great nation," Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish leaders said in a joint statement. "Do not let those who are depriving you of security impinge on your unity.
"They want to drag you all into angry reactions.
"Those whose forefathers have lived together for thousands of years on this land as brothers ... come today so we can write our history, our present and the future, for our children and grandchildren, in forgiveness," the statement continued.
Maliki accused factions in the government itself of fuelling conflict. Three days before he meets President George W. Bush to talk about how to impose stability and start pulling out U.S. troops, he said the violence reflected a "political crisis".
Frustrated by deadlock in the national unity government over the past six months and harsher rhetoric between minority Sunnis and his fellow Shi'ite leaders, he said: "The ones who can stop a further deterioration and the bloodshed are the politicians."
But he added this could happen "only when they agree and all realise that there are no winners and losers in this battle."
"Let's be totally honest -- the security situation is a reflection of political disagreement," he said on television.
Iraqis -- and Maliki's sponsors in Washington -- are frustrated at his failure to improve either security or the economy since being appointed in April as a compromise candidate following months of wrangling within the dominant Shi'ite bloc.
Maliki's aides say he in turn is irritated by uncompromising language, and support for armed groups, among Sunni leaders and Shi'ite allies, like Sadr, on whom he depends for his position.
The U.S. and Iraqi governments have indicated the summit in Jordan will go ahead, despite a demand from Sadr, who wants an immediate U.S. withdrawal, that Maliki boycott the talks.

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/new...archived=False

Cheers!
DayDream

Pentagon Review Seeks Iraq Options - washingtonpost.com

Monday, Nov. 27, at noon ET to answer questions about the ongoing violence in Iraq, the Pentagon's review of possible options and the country's political climate.

Yet again...


Iraq raises pensions to cope with inflation
25/11/2006
Source: Translated by IRAQdirectory.com

Iraqi government is currently engaged in taking large and quick actions in order to face the inflationary wave resulted in a sharp rise of the prices of many services and goods which burden those with limited income, especially government employees, because of the deteriorating income, which impacted negative economic and social backgrounds.

The government has approved an amount of one trillion, 480 billion dinars to support the unemployed and help them cope with living conditions. The estimated number of beneficiaries is more than 2 million families believed to be in need of support. Minister of Labor, Sheikh Mahmoud Radi, said the government adopted this amount in the 2007 budget to provide sufficient imports of a large number of job-seekers in order to subsidize their families, in addition to adopting the draft of social protection network to support the needy families.

It is likely that attracting the unemployed would help in reducing the incidents of violence, since the terrorist organizations trying to lure them with money to implement their plans. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hinted, on more than one occasion, that the 2007 budget, which amounted to about $ 40 billion, is sufficient for operating a large number of projects.
It is expected that more than one million government employee, of small ranks, will receive a salary increase up to 60% next January. Iraqi Ministry of Finance believes that the salaries of small grades will increase by 40 to 60% approximately. The ministry, according to special information, was working to activate the increase to subsidize the employees' salaries for months.

Prepared & Translated By:
IRAQdirectory.com Team
Iraq Daily Business Updates

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=2649

So we see the budget for next year given in dollars...a good thing... I would be worried if I saw the budget listed in dinars. I'm thinking that so what if they allocate a trillion brazillion dinars for this or for that...if it's coming out of next year's budget, I'm thinking that since the budget has always been talked about in dollars allocations will have been talked about in dollars as well. If they are trying promote and strengthen the dinar and get away from dollars as the dominent currency, it makes sense that they would want to discuss allocations in DINARS...

Cheers, OSWoman

Iraq-Committee :: Aswat al Iraq :: Aswat al Iraq

Iraq-Committee
Media committee to unify political discourse – legislator
Baghdad, Nov 26,

(VOI) – A member of Iraqi parliament on Sunday said an agreement was reached to set up a media committee from the political mosaic to work on unifying political discourse in Iraq.
"The committee would bring the Iraqi people to reject the parties escalating the sectarian tone," Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a member of Iraqi parliament for the Unified Iraqi Coalition, said in statements to the official al-Iraqiya TV by telephone.
Al-Saghir, who did not name those parties, said "the (criminal) gangs behind the bombings that claimed the lives of more than 200 Iraqis and wounded 250 others in Baghdad's district of Sadr City were identified."
"The curfew imposed on Baghdad for days now have immensely helped the Iraqi forces to identify those gangs," al-Saghir noted.
He said that the curfew was imposed due to the incidents in Sadr City.
"Iraqi citizens should be on the lookout, now a ferocious battle is going on with," what he called "terrorism" that has actually lost much, al-Saghir stated.

AE/

Parliament-Adjournment
Parliament delays session due to curfew
By Dergham Mohammed Ali
Baghdad, Nov 26,

(VOI) – Iraq’s parliament delayed its 57th session to Monday due to the curfew on Baghdad for three days now, a parliamentarian said on Sunday.
“The session supposed to convene on Sunday was delayed till Monday morning because of the curfew on Baghdad,” legislator Abbas al-Bayati, of Unified Iraqi Coalition, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered to elevate the curfew imposed on Baghdad from Thursday allowing pedestrians to move around as of Sunday morning.
On Thursday, the Iraqi government imposed a curfew on Baghdad following a bloody day of continued attacks against the Shiite Baghdad’s Sadr City that left over 200 dead and 250 wounded, after fears amounted of reprisal attacks against Sunnis in Iraqi capital.

Curfew-Lifting
Curfew to be lifted off Baghdad on Monday
Baghdad, Nov 25,

(VOI) – The spokesman for the Iraqi government Dr. Ali al-Dabbagh said on Saturday evening the curfew will be totally lifted off Baghdad on Monday while a partial lifting of the curfew will take place as of Sunday 6:00 am allowing only pedestrians to walk in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
On Thursday evening, the Iraqi government imposed a total curfew on Baghdad after a bloody attacks that claimed scores of Shiites in the eastern Baghdad's Sadr City.

We keep asking what will it take??? Three civil wars oughtta do it...
Jordan's King says three civil wars loom in Mideast

11.30am Monday November 27, 2006


WASHINGTON - The Middle East is on the verge of three civil wars -- in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon -- unless strong action is taken urgently by the international community, Jordan's King Abdullah warned today.

With US President George W Bush heading to Amman this week to talk with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Abdullah said "something dramatic" must come from that meeting to stop violence spinning out of control in Iraq.

"I don't think we're in a position where we can come back and revisit the problem in early 2007," he said on ABC's This Week.

But the United States must also look at the "big picture" and seek comprehensive Middle Eastern solutions involving all regional players, he said -- indicating this should include Syria and Iran.

"We're juggling with the strong potential of three civil wars in the region, whether it's the Palestinians, that of Lebanon or of Iraq," the Jordanian king said.

"We could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands. And therefore, it is time that we really take a strong step forward as part of the international community and make sure we avert the Middle East from a tremendous crisis that I fear, and I see could possibly happen in 2007," Abdullah said.

With Iraq near all-out civil war, the Bush administration is renewing efforts to break the cycle of violence there by enlisting the help of moderate Arab nations.

US Vice President Dick Cheney has just returned from a visit to Saudi Arabia and talks on the Middle East, and Bush and Maliki are to meet in Amman Thursday and Friday for what is shaping up to be a crisis summit.

Abdullah hoped Maliki would have ideas for Bush on how to be "inclusive" in bringing together different groups in Iraq.

"And they need to do it now, because, obviously, as we're seeing, things are beginning to spiral out of control ... there needs to be some very strong action taken on the ground there today," he said.

Bush has so far avoided the hands-on approach to Middle East peacemaking of his predecessors, but that may change as he turns to advice from former Secretary of State James Baker who is leading a review on Iraq policy.

Iraq's security adviser said in a separate interview today that Iraq already was a regional battleground, with Islamic movements from several Arab countries funding the insurgents fighting the Iraqi government and the US Army.

"It's not one country. It's not two countries. It is more than that," Mowaffak al-Rubaie told CNN's Late Edition. "This is a fight, or this is a war between the extremists and the moderates in the whole region."

He added that Iran was "helping some of the extremist Shia groups in Iraq," but said there was no evidence Iran was helping al Qaeda or anti-government insurgents in Iraq.

Jordan's King Abdullah was worried about Lebanon, where the recent killing of an anti-Syrian politician has revived fears that factional violence could spiral again. But he said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained the "emotional core issue" of the Middle East. Jordan hosts the largest number of Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The king warned that if a regional peace process did not develop shortly, "there won't be anything to talk about" and the Middle East would face another decade or two of violence.

Asked if Syria and Iran should be included in an international conference on the Middle East, he said: "the problem is, that America needs to look at it in the total picture. It's not just one issue by itself."

"I keep saying Palestine is the core. It is linked to the extent of what's going on in Iraq. It is linked to what's going on in Lebanon. It is linked to the issues that we find ourselves with the Syrians. So, if you want to do comprehensive -- comprehensive means bringing all the parties of the region together."

Separately, a senior Republican senator said it was too late to send more US troops to Iraq. Nebraskan Chuck Hagel said that "we do not have more troops to send, and even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq." The United States must begin planning a phased troop withdrawal, he said.

- REUTERS

Jordan's King says three civil wars loom in Mideast - 27 Nov 2006 - World News

26 November 2006 (Aljazeera)

Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has called on the rival sectarian factions in his national unity government to end the disputes that he said were behind violence last week that claimed the lives of more than 200 people.

The attacks in Sadr City last Thursday were the deadliest in Baghdad since the 2003 US invasion.

Berating all the political leadership - rather than armed groups as he has in the past - al-Maliki told a news conference: "The ones who can stop a further deterioration and the bloodshed are the politicians.

"Let's be honest - the security situation is a reflection of political disagreement."

Opposition

Dhafir al-Ani, an opposition MP for the mainly-Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, disagreed with al-Maliki and told Aljazeera.net that the politicians were helpless and prisoners of the wills of their respective communities and militias.

Al-Ani said: "The politicians in Iraq created the militias and utilised them for their own purposes, but they became like Frankenstein’s monster. They are not listening to their creators and have their own agendas and feared warlords.

"We are not practicing proper parliamentary activities, because we are afraid from those in the street. Unfortunately, we have a violent, armed-to-the-teeth street."

The Iraqi Accordance front is the third largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, after the Shia Unified Iraqi List, and the Kurdish bloc.

Arab summit

Foreign ministers of countries neighbouring Iraq will meet at the Arab League in Cairo on December 5 to talk about ways to stop the violence, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Sunday.

It will be the first such meeting since nine ministers - from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey - met in the Iranian capital of Tehran in July.

The summit plans follow a meeting between Dick Cheney, the US vice president, and King Abdullah in Saudia Arabia, which is believed to have been part of a US attempt to seek help from Iraq's neighbours and also followed proposals that the US opens a dialogue with Iran and Syria about Iraq.

An Egyptian foreign ministry statement said: "This meeting must come out with a clear Arab position on the current events in Iraq ... rejecting all forms of violence, fanaticism and sectarianism."

But analysts say that with the exception of Iran, which has close relations with Shia Muslim politicians, the neighbours have limited influence over events in Iraq, where about 100 people a day are dying in sectarian and political violence.

Iraq government 'can end crisis' | Iraq Updates

Cheers!
DayDream

Let the polliticking begin...

Iraqi Leader Says Politicians Are Causing Violence

Published: November 26, 2006
BAGHDAD, Nov. 26 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Sunday that Iraq’s politicians were largely responsible for the surge in violence that engulfed the country over the past week, a departure from his previous assertions blaming militants for inciting the mayhem.

“These actions are at most the reflection of political backgrounds and wills and sometimes the reflection of dogmatic, perverted backgrounds and wills,” Mr. Maliki said. “The crisis is political and the ones who can stop the cycle of aggravation and bloodletting of innocents are the politicians.” He said politicians must work harder to stop the violence.

Mr. Maliki’s remarks, made at a news conference, came just a few days before the Iraqi leader is to meet with President Bush to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Iraq. The remarks were an acknowledgment of the political nature of the war here and placed responsibility on political leaders for achieving any sort of peace.Hmmm...getting our story straight before we meet GW?

The war is being driven by leaders of Sunni Arab and Shiite militias vying for dominance and has spiraled into a pattern of revenge killings and sectarian cleansing of neighborhoods.

Mr. Maliki spoke after a meeting of an advisory security council made up of Iraq’s top politicians, including himself, the president and the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament. The council has met in recent days in an attempt to quell the tensions following the killings of more than 200 people by bombings in a Shiite district of Baghdad on Thursday, the deadliest single attack since the American invasion. The next day, vengeful Shiite militiamen attacked Sunni mosques in Baghdad and in the nearby city of Baquba.

Mr. Maliki said the members of the security council would work to bring together clashing political groups in Iraq. He did not name the specific groups. In a show of unity, Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, appeared at the news conference alongside President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a conservative Sunni Arab.

Mr. Maliki is scheduled to meet with President Bush in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Wednesday and Thursday. The two are expected to talk about the widening sectarian war in Iraq and try to reach agreement on ways to stop it. Tension has been rising between the American and Iraqi governments, as officials from each have debated pursuing different policies in the face of continuing violence.

On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Maliki attended a funeral in Sadr City, the district bombed on Thursday and a base of support for Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric who lends political support to Mr. Maliki. The funeral was for four brothers killed in the bombings, a Sadr official said. Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, is believed responsible for much of the execution-style killings here.

Despite a curfew in Baghdad in effect since the Thursday bombings, deadly violence continued Sunday. Mortar rounds landed near a Shiite mosque in downtown Baghdad, killing two and injuring at least two others, an Interior Ministry official said. An American military spokesman said indirect fire — meaning mortar shells or rockets — landed near an American base, but gave no report of casualties. The projectiles came from an area near Sadr City, the military said.

Violence erupted in other parts of the country. A suicide car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint in the town of Iskandariya, killing at least 8 people and injuring at least 26 others, a police official said. In volatile Diyala Province, east of Baghdad, police found at least 8 bodies in different locations, while gunmen kidnapped at least 25 people from Al Hadaf village. On a highway south of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, gunmen abducted eight policemen from a checkpoint.

The American military announced Sunday that a patrol found 11 bodies on Wednesday about 18 miles west of the town of Haqlaniya, in Anbar Province. There were 10 men and one child or teenager, and all had apparently died from gunshots, the military said. A burned-out van was found nearby.

An American soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb explosion in Diyala Province on Saturday, the military said. Two marines died in separate attacks in Anbar Province on Saturday.

The military also said a detainee had died Saturday at Camp Bucca, an American-run detention center in southern Iraq, from what appeared to be natural causes.

In the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed at least three people on Sunday morning, police officials said, and a roadside bomb south of the city killed one person.

Reporting was contributed by Omar al-Neami and Hosham Hussein from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Basra.

Iraqi Leader Says Politicians Are Causing Violence - New York Times