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

Originally Posted by Par77

Voices of Iraq: Baghdad-Newspapers
كتب: nadioshka في يوم الأحد, 31 ديسمبر, 2006 - 11:54 AM BT
Baghdad-Newspapers
Baghdad without newspapers this week
By Adel Fakher and Hamed al-Hamarani
Baghdad, Dec 31, (VOI) – Newspapers disappeared from news stands in Baghdad for the second day running on Sunday and the Iraqi capital looked set to remain without papers until next week.
Officials at the Iraqi dailies Al-Siyadah, al-Bayyina al-Jadida, al-Manar al-Yom and al-Mada told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) their newspapers would reappear on Sunday next week, citing this week’s Moslem Eid al-Adha holiday and the Army Day on Saturday.
An editor at the official Al-Sabah daily said the newspaper would reappear on Saturday.
Dozens of newspapers sprang in Iraq after the downfall of the former regime in April 2003 along with magazines and television channels

isn't next sunday the 7th?

do those rags normally close down for holidays as well? or is this something new? (and therefore prone to our brand of speculation on its reasons... :D )

Originally Posted by jsfletcher

isn't next sunday the 7th?

yep, that's what it looks like. A whole week without news? Blackout on news?? Thought this was strange. Has this happened before? Maybe no news because of the hanging and they don't want to stir up any trouble...just guessing...hummm

Hundreds Flock to See Saddam's Gravesite
Dozens of Relatives Attend Hometown Burial
By STEVEN R. HURST
AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Dec. 31) - Hundreds of Iraqis flocked to the village where Saddam Hussein was born on Sunday to see the deposed leader buried in a religious compound 24 hours after his execution.

Obituary: A Life of ViolenceThere was no sign of a feared Sunni uprising in retaliation for Saddam's hanging, and the bloodshed on Saturday was not far off the daily average - 92 from bombings and death squads. Also Saturday, a roadside bomb killed one American soldier and wounded two in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday. At least 2,999 U.S. service members have been killed since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

At Saddam's funeral, dozens of relatives and others, some of them crying and moaning, attended the interment shortly before dawn in Ouja. A few knelt before his flag-draped grave. A large framed photograph of Saddam was propped up on a chair nearby.

"I condemn the way he was executed and I consider it a crime," said 45-year-old Salam Hassan al-Nasseri, one of Saddam's clansmen who attended the interment in the village just outside Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. Some 2,000 Iraqis traveled to the village as well.

Mohammed Natiq, a 24-year-old college student, said "the path of Arab nationalism must inevitably be paved with blood."

Fall From Power
Life of Luxury, Cruelty Ex-Dictator's Goodbye Dujail Revisited
"God has decided that Saddam Hussein should have such an end, but his march and the course which he followed will not end," Natiq said.

Police on Saturday blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took to the streets, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air and calling for vengeance.

Saddam was captured in an underground hide-out near Ouja on Dec. 13, 2003, eight months after he fled Baghdad ahead of advancing American troops.

His burial place is about two miles from the graves of his sons, Odai and Qusai, in the main town cemetery. The sons and a grandson were killed in a gunbattle with the American forces in Mosul in July 2003.

The head of Saddam's Albu-Nassir's clan said the body showed no signs of mistreatment.

"We received the body of Saddam Hussein without any complications. There was cooperation by the prime minister and his office's director," the clan chief, Sheik al-Nidaa, told state-run Al-Iraqiya television. "We opened the coffin of Saddam. He was cleaned and wrapped according to Islamic teachings. We didn't see any unnatural signs on his body."

On Saturday, Iraqis watched television images of a noose being slipped over Saddam's neck and his white-shrouded body, the pre-dawn work of black-hooded hangmen. They went to bed as new video emerged showing Saddam exchanging taunts with onlookers before the gallows floor dropped away and the former dictator swung from the rope.

In Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City on Saturday, victims of his three decades of autocratic rule took to the streets to celebrate, dancing, beating drums and hanging Saddam in effigy. Celebratory gunfire erupted across other Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and other predominantly Shiite regions of the country.


Saddam's Life

Outside the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital, loyalists marched with Saddam pictures and waved Iraqi flags. Defying curfews, hundreds took to the streets vowing revenge in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Still, authorities imposed curfews sparingly in contrast to the several-day lockdown put in place after Saddam was sentenced to death Nov. 5.

By several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was Iraq's savior, not its tyrant and scourge.

"He said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians," Munir Haddad, an appeals court judge who witnessed the hanging, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Another witness, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York Times that one of the guards shouted at Saddam: "You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution."

"I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persian and Americans," Saddam responded, al-Rubaie told the Times.

"God damn you," the guard said.

"God damn you," responded Saddam.

New video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party, who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam.

Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they were not showing manhood.

Then Saddam began reciting the "Shahada," a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a Web site.

Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.

The floor dropped out of the gallows.

"The tyrant has fallen," someone in the group of onlookers shouted. The video showed a close-up of Saddam's face as he swung from the rope.

Then came another voice: "Let him swing for three minutes."

The responses within Iraq to Saddam's death echoed the larger reaction across the Middle East, with his enemies rejoicing and his defenders proclaiming him a martyr.

While Iranians and Kuwaitis welcomed the death of the leader who led wars against each of their countries, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the execution prevented exposure of the secrets and crimes the former dictator committed during his brutal rule.

Some Arab governments denounced the timing the 69-year-old former president's hanging just before the start of the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha. Libya announced a three-day official mourning period and canceled all celebrations for Eid.

Haider Hamed, a 34-year-old candy store owner in east Baghdad, wondered what would really change after Saddam's execution.

"He's gone, but our problems continue," said the Shiite Muslim, whose uncle was killed in one of Saddam's many brutal purges. "We brought problems on ourselves after Saddam because we began fighting Shiite on Sunni and Sunni on Shiite."

Among minority Sunnis there was deep anger, born not only of Saddam's execution but of the loss of their decades-long political and economic dominance that began with Saddam's ouster in the U.S. invasion nearly four years ago.

There were cheers at the cafeteria of a U.S. outpost in Baghdad as soldiers having breakfast learned Saddam had been hanged.

But members of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, on patrol in an overwhelmingly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said the execution wouldn't get them home any faster - and therefore didn't make much difference.

"Nothing really changes," said Capt. Dave Eastburn, 30. "The militias run everything now, not Saddam."

Originally Posted by jsfletcher

Iraq : inflation prominent economic events in 2006


Translated version of http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNewsAr.aspx?id=2862

Wow

I really like the paragraph that says
And she said " The expectations optimistic prediction for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi economy ......

I can't copy and paste as it's a google arabic translation but it does say
...... must be backed up by the State to raise the value of the Iraqi dinar versus foreign currency.

It is really a good read IMO

Thanks for finding this one dated 31st December too.

Hussein Video Grips Iraq; Attacks Go On


By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: December 31, 2006
BAGHDAD, Sunday, Dec. 31 — After nearly three decades of living with the brutal repression of Saddam Hussein and the violent aftermath of his overthrow by American troops, Iraq responded with a mixture of rejoicing, violence and muted reflection on Saturday to the news that their former dictator had been hanged in one of the grimmest of his own execution chambers.

This nation of 27 million people spent much of the day crowding around television sets to watch mesmerizing replays of a videotape that showed the 69-year-old Mr. Hussein being led to the gallows at dawn by five masked executioners, and having a noose fashioned from a thick rope of yellow hemp lowered around his neck. In the final moments shown on the videotape, he seemed almost unnaturally calm and cooperative.

The message seemed to be that he had lived his final moments with unflinching dignity and courage, reinforcing the legend of himself as the Arab world’s strongman that he cultivated while in power. But the videotape, released by the government, offered only a partial sense of how Mr. Hussein went to his death, according to accounts given later by some of the 25 people who attended the execution, including senior officials of the new Shiite-led government

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/wo...html?th&emc=th

Originally Posted by Par77

BAGHDAD
Skip to next paragraph
2007: The Year Ahead

Click below for the Week in Review's take on what to watch for in other areas over the coming year.

SEEMINGLY everything went wrong in this dirty, crumbling and traumatized city in 2006. Thousands of citizens died violently. Daily electrical outages left neighborhoods in the dark. Sewers overflowed. But there is a seldom-discussed indicator of something that went remarkably right in Baghdad and throughout Iraq in 2006: $27.99 billion.

That was the government’s operating budget, dominated by salaries, subsidies for food and fuel and pensions. What went right is that through violence, political turmoil and governmental turnover, nearly all of that money was actually paid to Iraqi citizens.

The same could not be said of the portion of the budget devoted to capital expenditures, known more intuitively as the reconstruction budget. Some Iraqi ministries were able to spend no more than 15 percent of their capital budgets in the face of attacks on employees and work sites and a brain drain of personnel trained to handle contracts and large construction projects.

Somehow money for the salaries made it to the banks and then found its way to millions of employees in a government-dominated economy. If it hadn’t, a state teetering on the edge would certainly have collapsed.

So this is the determinative question for 2007: will Iraq keep paying its salaries? If so, there is at least a wan indication that a few basic ganglia of the national organism are still twitching.

[B]Sinan al-Shabibi, director of the Central Bank of Iraq, says Iraq is likely to stay financially healthy in 2007 because of oil revenues, a large cash reserve and a powerful bank to guard against failures. Only a big run on the local currency or destabilizing flows of cash could cause major problems.[/B]

Still, banks are increasingly the targets of heists, and bank executives are being killed and kidnapped. The salaries they pay may be the last canary in the coal mine: the last approximation of stability in an enterprise gone toxic. As salaries go, so goes the last hopes for the new government of Iraq.

The problem "Only a big run on the local currency or destabilizing flows of cash could cause major problems"

I think we all know the solution to this problem…. Come high or stay home!

History of Iraqi Dinar and Iraq Dinar Stock Exchange
1932 Currency unit consisting of 1,000 fils or 20 dirhams. When officially introduced at the end of the British mandate (1932), the Iraqi dinar was equal to, and was linked to, the British pound sterling, which at that time was equal to US$4.86.

1932–1949
1949–1971 Iraqi dinar (ID) equaled US$4.86 between 1932 and 1949 and after devaluation in 1949, equaled US$2.80 between 1949 and 1971.

1959–1967 Iraq officially uncoupled the Iraqi Dinar from the pound sterling as a gesture of independence in 1959, but the Iraqi dinar remained at parity with the pound until the British unit of currency was again devalued in 1967.

1971 One Iraqi dinar remained equal to US$2.80 until December 1971, when major realignments of world currencies began.

1973 Upon the devaluation of the United States dollar in 1973, the Iraqi Dinar appreciated to US$3.39.

1980 It remained at this level until the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980.

1982 In 1982 Iraq devalued the dinar by 5 percent, to a value equal to US$3.22, and sustained this official exchange rate without additional devaluation despite mounting debt.

1988 In early 1988, the official dinar-dollar exchange rate was still Iraqi dinar (ID)1 to US$3.22; however, with estimates of the nation’s inflation rate ranging from 25 percent to 50 percent per year in 1985 and 1986, the dinar’s real transaction value, or black market exchange rate, was far lower-only about half the 1986 official rate.

1986–2003 1986–2003 between .33 cents to 1.32 to a dollar.

2001 Oil-production: 2.452 million bbl/day (2001 est.); note — production was disrupted as a result of the March-April 2003 war (2001 est.) 2002 GDP: purchasing power parity — $58 billion (2002 est.)

2002 Exports–partners:US 40.9%, Canada 8.2%, France 8.2%, Jordan 7.5%, Netherlands 6.4%, Italy 5.4%, Morocco 4.7%, Spain 4.4% (2002)

2003 In october 2003, the official Dinar-dollar exchange rate was ID1 to US$0.00027.

2004–2005 August 2004 till 2005, the official dinar-dollar exchange rate is ID1 to US$0.00068. Population: 25,374,691 (July 2004 est.) 2006 As of Jan 1st 2006, the official Iraqi dinar-US dollar exchange rate is ID1 to US$$0.00067.

Positive Changes in Iraq
Upon Saddam Hussein’s deposition in 2003, Iraq has undergone political and economic changes. Many believe that the re-building of Iraq’s infrastructure will stabilize Iraq socially, politically, and economically. With the new government establishing a new monetary system that encourages foreign investment, and the central bank of Iraq awarding foreign licences, many also believe that the value of the new Iraqi Dinar banknote is poised to escalate.

More Treasury Bills on the Way
The government of Iraq will issue more Treasury bills to the secondary market. For the first time in years, the central bank auctioned Treasury bills in July. Thus far, local banks have bought 900 billion Iraqi dinars ($628 million) worth of three-month bills with coupons ranging between 2.5 percent and 6.8 percent. To improve Iraq’s local currency, the dinar against the dollar, Iraq’s central bank also plans to build up its foreign-currency reserves.

Creating viable domestic capital markets will start the process of trimming the massive pre-war debt. Iraq’s path to debt reduction along with the generosity of the Paris Club by forgiving 80% of Iraq’s debt is good news for the Iraqi economy. Iraq’s growth-oriented policy, along with Iraq’s prospects of economic stability makes investing in the dinar potentially lucrative.

The Central Bank of Iraq
For the first time in decades, the central bank of Iraq awarded foreign bank licences to the following banks: HSBC, Standard Chartered, National Bank of Kuwait, Iranian National Bank, Commercial Housing bank, and Bahraini Arab Banking Institute. The Bahraini Arab Banking Institute is listed on the Bahrain, Kuwait, and Paris stock exchanges, and its major shareholders include the Kuwait Investment Authority, the central bank of Libya, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Granting foreign licences and liberalizing interest rates will create a vibrant free-market economy. Iraq’s re-invigorated banking policies will positively effect the value of the dinar in the near future.

The Potential of the Dinar
Prior to United Nations sanctions, the Iraqi dinar traded at 3.35 per U.S. dollar, and prior to the war in Iraq, the Iraqi dinar traded at .33 U.S. Dollars. During major combat operations, the Iraqi dinar declined to an all time low. However, after major combat operations, the value of the dinar increased 25%. Countries such as Germany (post WWII) and Kuwait (post Iraqi invasion) experienced a similar devaluation of their currency, but both countries recovered. Today, the dinar has increased from 3,500 against the dollar during the U.S. led invasion last year to 1,400 against the U.S. dollar. Imagine the growth potential of the Iraqi dinar once Iraq recovers and begins to enjoy the potential revenue of a country rich in oil and other natural resources.

The New Iraqi Dinar Banknote
Today, De La Rue, the world’s largest commercial security printer and papermaker based in Great Britian, prints the new Iraqi dinar banknote. The new Iraqi dinar banknote has various security features making the dinar very difficult to counterfiet, and the dinar banknote is now available in 50, 250, 1000, 5000, 10000, and 25000 bills. With the re-building of Iraq’s infrastructure and with the prospect of stability at hand, the Iraqi dinar is quickly becoming a very attractive investment opportunity.
History of Iraqi Dinar - Iraq Stock Dinar Exchange Rate

Return Policy Terms of Use Risk Disclosure Disclaimer Not FDIC Insured • No Guarantee • May Lose Value
© 2004 - 2006 eDinarFinancial.net. All rights reserved.

Since we are starting a new year here shortly I thought it would be nice to review the dinar on where it started at and where it might lead us too.

Originally Posted by sallyl

Wow

I really like the paragraph that says
And she said " The expectations optimistic prediction for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi economy ......

I can't copy and paste as it's a google arabic translation but it does say
...... must be backed up by the State to raise the value of the Iraqi dinar versus foreign currency.

It is really a good read IMO

Thanks for finding this one dated 31st December too.

Here ya go


Experts felt that the Iraqi economy, the economic phenomenon of inflation, which has begun to increase, and had reached a frightening threat to the elements of the Iraqi economy, it is one of the most prominent events in the country during 2006
.They emphasized in the opinion poll : 'The inflation rates in the countries of the world if they rise, they will rise to varying fractional, the push governments to adjustments and changes in the economic decision, but the phenomenon in Iraq have taken another form foreshadowing, in the case unleashed, to the disruption of all the productive sectors'.
وقال.He said the economic expert Dr appearance Mohamed Saleh : 'The phenomenon of serious inflation experienced by the Iraqi economy is one of the most serious economic phenomena because they are still continuing without any finding radical solutions to eliminate or control them effectively', pointing out 'that part of a State policy to eradicate this phenomenon was to raise interest rates and other measures to prepare procedures for the control and not destroy it'.
.He explained : 'The things that could be considered high profile events during 2006 is the movement of the Iraqi government fruitful for rescheduling the debt of commercial banks and foreign private sector to the government, with a bill of international Batafah equivalent conditions of the Paris debt, or 20 billion dollars'.
اما ".Dr Mohammed Halter from the Center for Economic Studies, said the Iraqi 'is the phenomenon of economic inflation prominent economic phenomena in Iraq in 2006, they began to grow from the beginning of the year, and continued without taking effective steps to stop or reduce the rate of growth emerging in the eyes of the men of power and decision, which means that a serious economic crisis the country if steps were not taken effective getting quick. "
.He explained : 'The decision by the current Iraqi government to raise the prices of fuel increased by 125% compared to prices last year, the significant effect in raising the prices of foodstuffs, consumer goods and others, the creation of the appropriate environment for the growth of the phenomenon of inflation economic', pointing out that : 'This did not come from the vacuum, but to the pressure brought to bear on Iraq by the bank and the IMF to reduce its debt, in exchange for the lifting of fuel prices, but he has not yet seen the negative side, which can live make Iraqis result of international resolutions negatives more than positives'.
اما.The Sands Dr. Jassim Abdul professor of international economics at the Faculty of Management and Economics in Baghdad explained : 'The decline in the dollar exchange rate dramatically increased during recent weeks, a phenomenon which should be then because of the economic implications could be reflected positively on the value of the Iraqi dinar'.
.And she said : 'The expectations optimistic prediction for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi economy deteriorating comes coinciding with the work balancing the in 2007, and it is just the expectations of must be backed up by the State to raise the value of the Iraqi dinar versus foreign currency', adding : 'that the Iraqi government own bread reins of things to eradicate the phenomenon of inflation Economic through ongoing work to develop plans and programs to reduce the value of foreign currency about the the Iraqi dinar', and should be recalled that the rate of inflation during the last year ranged "global 25 and 30 per cent, while arrived up in the the current year to 77%

Originally Posted by sallyl

Wow

I really like the paragraph that says
And she said " The expectations optimistic prediction for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi economy ......

I can't copy and paste as it's a google arabic translation but it does say
...... must be backed up by the State to raise the value of the Iraqi dinar versus foreign currency.

It is really a good read IMO

Thanks for finding this one dated 31st December too.

The opinion of experts economy Iraqis that the phenomenon of inflation economic, which took only grow, and had reached a frightening threat to the elements of the Iraqi economy, it is one of the most prominent events in the country during 2006 and confirmed in the opinion poll : 'The inflation rates in the countries of the world if they rise, they will rise to varying fractional, the push governments to adjustments and changes in the economic decision, but the phenomenon in Iraq have taken another form foreshadowing, in the case unleashed, to the disruption of productive sectors all'. He said the economic expert Dr appearance Mohamed Saleh : 'The phenomenon of serious inflation experienced by the Iraqi economy is one of the most serious economic phenomena because they are still continuing without any finding radical solutions to eliminate or control them effectively', pointing out 'that part of a State policy to eradicate this phenomenon was to raise interest rates and other measures to prepare procedures for the control and not destroy it'. He explained : 'The things that could be considered high profile events during 2006 is the movement of the Iraqi government fruitful for rescheduling the debt of commercial banks and foreign private sector to the government, with a bill of international Batafah equivalent conditions of the Paris debt, or 20 billion dollars'. Dr Mohammed Halter from the Center for Economic Studies, said the Iraqi 'is the phenomenon of economic inflation prominent economic phenomena in Iraq in 2006, they began to grow from the beginning of the year, and continued without taking effective steps to stop or reduce the rate of growth emerging in the eyes of the men of power and decision, which means that a serious economic crisis the country if steps were not taken effective getting quick. " He explained : 'The decision by the current Iraqi government to raise the prices of fuel increased by 125% compared to prices last year, the significant effect in raising the prices of foodstuffs, consumer goods and others, the creation of the appropriate environment for the growth of the phenomenon of inflation economic', pointing out that : 'This did not come from the vacuum, but to the pressure brought to bear on Iraq by the bank and the IMF to reduce its debt, in exchange for the lifting of fuel prices, but he has not yet seen the negative side, which can live make Iraqis result of international resolutions negatives more than positives'. The Sands Dr. Jassim Abdul professor of international economics at the Faculty of Management and Economics in Baghdad explained : 'The decline in the dollar exchange rate dramatically increased during recent weeks, a phenomenon which should be then because of the economic implications could be reflected positively on the value of the Iraqi dinar'. And she said : 'The expectations optimistic prediction for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi economy deteriorating comes coinciding with the work balancing the in 2007, and it is just the expectations of must be backed up by the State to raise the value of the Iraqi dinar versus foreign currency', adding : 'that the Iraqi government own bread reins of things to eradicate the phenomenon of inflation Economic through ongoing work to develop plans and programs to reduce the value of foreign currency about the the Iraqi dinar', and should be recalled that the rate of inflation during the last year ranged "global 25 and 30 per cent, while arrived up in the the current year to 77%.


Lewscrew