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

Originally Posted by shotgunsusie

we calculated it out and its about a half a billion dollars worth.

disregard my figures, I wasn't a math major, on a side note why does the holiday season always come when all the stores are busy?

Family clues to Iraq's missing oil billions | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited

Family clues to Iraq's missing oil billions


The dictator is dead, and now the hunt for his illicit fortune is intensifying. Officials from the FBI and US Treasury are focusing their inquiries on £2.2bn of illegal oil profits

Jason Burke
Sunday December 31, 2006
The Observer


American and Iraqi government investigators tracing hundreds of millions of pounds missing from Saddam Hussein's illicit fortune are hoping to question members of the former dictator's close family.
Officials from the FBI, the American Treasury and the State Department particularly want to find £2.2bn in illegal profits that Saddam's regime is alleged to have earned from 2000-2003 from an oil-for-trade pact signed with Syria that was outside the official United Nations administered oil-for-food programme, according to official documents released to a US congressional sub-committee.

State Department and Treasury officials claim that Syria has failed to account properly for more than $500m in Iraqi oil profits. The cash, deposited in Syria's central bank, was paid to Syrian 'businessmen' after Saddam's fall, sources say. Syrian officials deny the allegations, saying that visits by American officials to Damascus in the autumn of 2003 failed to uncover any evidence of the missing cash apart from $300m that has already been frozen.

The United Nations imposed economic sanctions, including a ban on oil sales, on Iraq in 1990 after Saddam invaded Kuwait. The oil-for-food program was launched in December 1996 to ease the impact of the sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.

The programme, supervised by the 15-nation UN Security Council, authorised the government to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy civilian goods.

In a report submitted to the CIA last year Charles Duelfer, a former UN arms inspectors, estimated that Saddam had amassed $10.9bn 'through illicit means' between 1990, when sanctions were imposed, and 2003. The dictator is also believed to have hidden cash in accounts in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries and to have invested in precious stones, possibly diamonds purchased in the Far East.

Immediately before the war of 2003, $1.7bn in assets in accounts held in the US in the name of the government of Iraq, the central bank of Iraq, the state organisation for marketing oil, the Rafidain bank and the Rasheed bank was seized. The Bank of England froze £400m in British banks. An additional $495m of previously unknown assets were secured in accounts in Lebanon.

In the immediate aftermath of his capture Saddam was said to have given his US interrogators information on the whereabouts of the billions he siphoned from Iraq's coffers and salted away abroad. Iyad Allawi, then a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said that the Iraqis were searching for £23bn 'deposited in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries under the names of fictitious companies'.

Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother captured in April 2003, has been a key source for financial investigators in America and Iraq, who now believe that close family members might hold the key. Barzan began managing Saddam's overseas portfolio after moving to Geneva in 1983, where he served as Iraq's ambassador to Switzerland. Raghad, Saddam's daughter, lives freely in Amman under the condition that she does not engage in political activities or make public statements. King Abdullah of Jordan granted her and her sister, Rana, asylum on humanitarian grounds after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Raghad, known as 'Little Saddam' because she shares her father's temper, has been accused by the new Iraqi government of using millions allegedly stolen by Saddam to help finance the insurgency. However it is unclear if Raghdad or Rana have much sympathy for their father, though the latter was involved in his legal defence. Saddam ordered the husbands of both women killed in 1996 after accusing them of giving information about Iraq's weapons to the West. The brothers had defected to Jordan with their families in 1995 and were killed when they accepted Saddam's offer to return.

Saddam's first wife and cousin, Sajida Khairallah Tulfah, who was also listed as wanted by the Iraqi government, is thought to be living in Qatar. Saddam's own defence lawyer said earlier this year that Sajida was 'an ill old lady' who enjoyed ' the patronage and hospitality of the emir'.

Currency : DinarDinar - Country:- Country : IraqIraq per IQDPer unsupported IQD perUnsupported per HistoryHistory
AsiaAsia
Japanese Yen Japanese Yen JPYJPY 0.0862 0.0862 11.6034 11.6034 N/AN
EuropeEurope
British Pound British Pound GBPGBP 0.0004 0.0004 2704.0357 2704.0357 N/AN
Swiss Franc Swiss Francés CHFCHF 0.0009 0.0009 1132.1366 1132.1366 N/AN
North AmericaNorth America
Canadian Dollar Canadian Dollar CADCAD 0.0008 0.0008 1184.4863 1184.4863 N/AN
US Dollar U.S. Dollar USDUSD 0.0007 0.0007 1380.3618 1380.3618 N/AN
Pacific OceanPacific Ocean
Australian Dollar Australian Dollar AUD110-113 0.0009 0.0009 1088.9438 1088.9438 N/AN


what does this say? two different amounts?
International Currency Converter - Daily currency table

Maybe posted in the past???



IZDIHAR News Highlights


Iraq Prepares to Start Negotiations with World Trade Organization

18 December 2006 - Iraq achieved an important procedural milestone towards its World Trade Organization (WTO) accession bid on December 15, when the WTO General Council formally accepted the country’s nominee for the chairmanship of the Working Party charged with Iraq’s accession process. Ambassador Claudia Uribe of Colombia will serve in this position.

WTO Director General Pascal Lamy hailed the successful agreement on the Chair for Iraq’s Working Party as an “important step in the process of anchoring Iraq in the multilateral trading system” and noted that “the appointment of the Chair… means that the negotiations can now start in earnest.”
This acceptance opens the door for formal face-to-face negotiations to begin in Geneva with Iraq’s WTO Partners at the first Working Party Meeting, which can now be scheduled. “We look forward to working with the Government of Iraq to prepare for the opening of direct talks with the WTO counterparts, which marks a significant phase in Iraq’s accession process”, said Baljit Vohra, Chief of Party of the USAID-funded IZDIHAR project.

IZDIHAR has been assisting the Government of Iraq throughout the process of meeting the procedural requirements for convening the first meeting of the Working Party, such as completing the Memorandum on Foreign Trade Regime (MFTR) and the written “questions and answers”. In addition, IZDIHAR is assisting the Government of Iraq to undertake broad-based legal and trade policy reforms related to its accession into the World Trade Organization.

Interesting........


The Iraqi Ministry of Trade website is gearing up for something and something SOON! Check out this.....



The Iraqi Ministry of Trade


Iraqi Ministry of Trade - Tenders



NOTE: the TEST dates for trade tenders on the website. All within the last 2 weeks!

Originally Posted by Pippyman

Interesting........


The Iraqi Ministry of Trade website is gearing up for something and something SOON! Check out this.....



The Iraqi Ministry of Trade


Iraqi Ministry of Trade - Tenders




NOTE: the dates for trade tenders on the website. All within the last 2 weeks!

the documents are sure nice pictures

Testing, perhaps?




Oops, sorry! Just saw the word TEST in caps in the post!

Originally Posted by tiffany

Testing, perhaps?




Oops, sorry! Just saw the word TEST in caps in the post!

Hehehehehe..... Yeah I went back and inserted the word TEST. That is why this is significant. They are testing their software and their system. And it has all happened in the last 2 weeks..... Now why would they be doing this now unless they plan on going public SOON!?!?!??

Verrrry Sneaky Pippyman! I didn't think I read it the first time...but then I DID take a Darvocet for my back and it's starting to kick in! The words and letters are starting to dance for me...lol...tells me it's time for bed!

I think it's an AWESOME find!

Interesting article from the IMF on exchange rates......


Fixed or Flexible?
Getting the Exchange Rate Right

Economic Issues No. 13 -- Fixed or Flexible?--Getting the Exchange Rate Right in the 1990s

Adjusting to Capital Inflows

"In many fast-growing emerging market economies, upward pressure on the exchange rate in recent years has stemmed largely from vastly increased private capital inflows. When capital inflows accelerate, if the exchange rate is prevented from rising, inflationary pressures build up and the real exchange rate will appreciate through higher domestic inflation. To avoid such consequences, central banks have usually attempted to "sterilize" the inflows–by using offsetting open market operations to try and "mop up" the inflowing liquidity.

Such operations tend to work at best only in the short term for several reasons. First, sterilization prevents domestic interest rates from falling in response to the inflows and, hence, typically results in the attraction of even greater capital inflows. Second, given the relatively small size of the domestic financial market compared with international capital flows, sterilization tends to become less effective over time. Finally, fiscal losses from intervention, arising from the differential between the interest earned on foreign reserves and that paid on debt denominated in domestic currency, will mount, so sterilization has a cost.

As capital inflows increase, tension will likely develop between the authorities’ desire, on the one hand, to contain inflation and, on the other, to maintain a stable (and competitive) exchange rate. As signs of overheating appear, and investors become increasingly aware of the tension between the two policy goals, a turnaround in market sentiment may occur, triggering a sudden reversal in capital flows.

Since open market operations have only a limited impact in offsetting the monetary consequences of large capital inflows, many countries have adopted a variety of supplementary measures. In some countries the authorities have raised the amount of reserves that banks are required to maintain against deposits. In others, public sector deposits have been shifted from commercial banks into the central bank–to reduce banks’ reserves. A number of countries have used prudential regulations, such as placing limits on the banking sector’s foreign exchange currency exposure. Some central banks have used forward exchange swaps to create offsetting capital outflows–although there appear to be limits on how long such a policy can be used, given the likelihood, as with open market operations, that it can cause fiscal losses. In other cases the authorities have responded by widening the exchange rate bands for their currencies, thus allowing some appreciation. And a few have introduced selective capital controls.

While such instruments and policies can for a time relieve some upward pressure on a currency and ease inflationary pressure, none appears to have been able to prevent an appreciation of the real exchange rate completely.

Can exchange rate flexibility help manage the impact of volatile capital flows? As mentioned earlier, if interest rates and monetary policy are "locked in" by an exchange rate anchor, the burden of adjustment falls largely on fiscal policy–that is, government spending and tax policies. But often taxes cannot be raised or spending reduced in short order, nor can needed infrastructure investments be postponed indefinitely. (Clearly, policymakers who cannot adjust fiscal policy in the short run should not adopt a rigidly fixed exchange rate regime.) Allowing the exchange rate to appreciate gradually to accommodate upward pressures would appear to be a safer way of maintaining long-run economic stability. Furthermore, by allowing the exchange rate to adjust in response to capital inflows, policymakers can influence market expectations. In particular, policymakers can make market participants more aware that they face a "two-way" bet–exchange rate appreciations can be followed by depreciations. This heightened awareness of exchange rate risks should discourage some of the more speculative short-term capital flows, thereby reducing the need for sharp corrections."