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

Originally Posted by boomcreek

The transition from a rentier economy - in which virtually the whole of the population depended on government handouts - to a free-market capitalist one entails much hardship for some segments of society. Many pensioners and some civil servants find it hard to make ends meet as prices rise across the board. The end of government subsidies on virtually everything - from bread and sugar to gasoline and water - is also causing hardship.

But, judging by the talk in teahouses and the debate in Iraq's new and pluralist media, most people welcome the switch to capitalism and regard it as an exciting adventure.

As trucks are loaded with a variety of imports destined for Baghdad, I ask the drivers what they think would happen if the multi-national force, led by the United States, left Iraq soon. Most shrug their shoulders.

"Why leave?" one driver asks. "Do I abandon the goods that have come from such a long way before they reach their destination?"

This amounts to a plea to "stay the course." The man in Um Qasr does not know that in the United States the phrase "staying the course" drives so many up the wall.

THE BOOM OUTSIDE BAGHDAD By AMIR TAHERI - New York Post Online Edition: Seven


This is awesome. It seems to me there is a principle involved here. Historically, unless you have a "dictator" (he's gone), when the people speak and follow up their requests with action (the street is showing that in the local economies) it isn't long afterward that that it becomes a way of life for a population, and that is what we are hoping for.

Besides, "staying the course" requires patience, and most people aren't accustom to practicing patience. Those of us invested in the dinar are getting a serious lesson in patience, aren't we?

Rules have been revised for this thread. Please have alook at them in the first post of this thread. The will and are being enforced totally. Rolclub Team is "NOT" moving anymore post. They will just be deleted. Please have a read of the revised rules. Hit the Thanks Button there if you are going to Post in this thread. Thats it.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Hundreds of Sunni Arabs gathered to show their anger and grief for Saddam Hussein on Tuesday as the Iraqi government promised an investigation into illicitly filmed footage of Shi'ite officials taunting him on the gallows.

The sectarian passions that have pushed Iraq toward civil war could be further inflamed by the video of the execution, apparently shot on a mobile phone, showing people chanting the name of Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

As President Bush pondered a new strategy for the unpopular war, new figures from the Iraqi Interior Ministry showed the number of civilians killed in political violence reached a record high in December.

Hailed by Washington as a milestone for Iraqi democracy, Saddam's execution seems to have deepened sectarian divisions.

A leading member of the Sunni Arab's largest parliamentary bloc said on Tuesday footage showing Shi'ite officials mocking Saddam as he was about to he hanged had damaged Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's attempts at national reconciliation.

"The big question now is how serious is the government in calling for national reconciliation. It now has to prove it," Saleem al-Jibouri of the Iraqi Accordance Front told Reuters.

Saddam's grave in his native village, Awja, drew hundreds more mourners on Tuesday, as it has each day since he was buried in the dead of night early on Sunday.

Several hundred people marched through the northern city of Mosul carrying portraits of Saddam and banners proclaiming him a martyr and a hero. Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad and other towns have seen similar demonstrations since Saturday.

The rapid execution, just four days after the failure of an appeal, boosted Maliki's fragile authority among his fractious Shi'ite supporters but angered many Sunnis. The timing, on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday, has caused particular outrage, along with the video.

INVESTIGATION PROMISED

An aide to the prime minister said the government was investigating how people filmed and taunted Saddam on the gallows, turning his execution into a televised spectacle.

Khudayer al-Khuzai, deputizing for the justice minister who was abroad, said it appeared some guards violated instructions not to bring mobile phones or cameras.

"The Iraqi government is going to have an investigation into what happened," he said. "This operation should be done with the highest standards of discipline and with respect for the condemned man, both when he's alive and once he's dead.

"Anything that did not meet those standards should be accounted for."

Washington has identified the Mehdi Army, a militia loyal to Sadr, as the biggest threat to Iraq and has urged Maliki to crack down on its illegal activities.

Maliki relies on the support of Sadr's political movement in parliament and government -- an uneasy relationship illustrated by the presence of Sadr supporters at Saddam's execution.

There has been no significant repeat of a series of car bombings that killed more than 70 people in Shi'ite neighborhoods on Saturday within hours of the dawn execution, but the government and U.S. forces are on alert.

Iraqi Interior Ministry figures, almost certain to be an underestimate, showed 12,320 civilians were killed in 2006 in what officials term "terrorist" violence.

The figures are generally viewed as a guide to trends but give only a partial sampling of deaths.

The ministry figure of 1,930 civilian deaths in December is three-and-a-half times the equivalent of 548 last January, before last year's surge in sectarian killing which followed the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in February.

The figures also showed 1,231 policemen were killed in 2006 and 602 Iraqi soldiers.

All such statistics are controversial in Iraq. A figure of 3,700 civilian deaths in October, the latest tally by the United Nations based on data from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, was described as exaggerated by the Iraqi government.

The U.N. figure shows about 120 civilians died each day.

Bush plans to unveil a new strategy this month after the 3,000th soldier to die in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion was killed just before New Year. At least 112 Americans died in December, the deadliest month for them in more than two years.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Ibon Villelabeitia

Saddam video inquiry promised - Yahoo! News

Originally Posted by kiko

I think it is been mistaken with ISX normally trading and the new electronic trading, which I believe would be up and running on 1 april 2007.

I got an e-mail from ISX department from Warka about it.
"The ISX will resume its trading activities on the 8th of January 2007."

I think someone else pointed out that the delay in opening the ISX was or could actually be to the benefit of the Iraqi people in allowing them the opportunity to invest in businesses of their own country. The articles that have been put out have continually said or referenced to "improving things for the Iraqi people". If I was Iraqi, I would be excited about the prospects of this. There are details of what took place in Reagan's first term that were, in a sense, similar to what is happening now in Iraq.

Because of all the controversy and debate over the validity of exchange rates published by the Foreign currency exchange sites, I sent an email to Oanda support, asking them about their published exchange rates. Specifically, to explain why their rates are different than the published rates of the CBI. Here is their response, for what it's worth..

Dear Randy,

To give you a bit of background and information regarding our rates, we receive real time (second by second) currency exchange rates from multiple financial institutions including banks and financial data providers. These rates are then filtered for validity and the average daily rates are calculated and displayed on our web site and through our OANDA Rates services.

The bid and ask prices we receive from our data sources are interbank prices, and not retail exchange prices as you might receive from your bank or an exchange agency. We take the average of the bid and the ask of the median price to compute the current exchange rate. Our currency converter displays both rates (bid and ask), our FXHistory service only displays the ask rate. The ask rate is always higher than the bid rate and this concept is in effect even in the interbank market.

For further information on what these rates are, please review: Currency Converter Usage


Kind Regards,

The OANDA Team
OANDA, The Currency Site: Foreign Exchange Services and Trading

Headlines, briefing of Kuwaiti dailies issued Monday, Jan 1, 2007

Kuwait: Debts owed by Iraq to Kuwait are not linked to Saddam's execution

Saddam causes further problems after his execution - Iraqi dinar up 12.5 percent after hanging.


Kuna site|Story page|Headlines, briefing of Kuwaiti dailies issued Mond...1/1/2007

Cheers!
DayDream

02 January 2007 (Yonhap news agency)

South Korea is moving to allow its companies to run businesses in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, as the security condition there has improved, according to Seoul's Foreign Ministry on Friday.

South Korea has prohibited its people and firms from entering Iraq or doing businesses in the Middle Eastern nation since a South Korean worker was kidnapped by a group of insurgents there on May 31, 2004 and found beheaded a few weeks later.

"The government is positively considering the issue of allowing our firms to make inroads, on a limited basis, into the Kurdish region, where the security condition is relatively stable," the ministry said in a press release.

The final decision on the matter will be made early next month after consultations among related authorities, it added.

The government sent a 20-member fact-finding team to review the security situation in the area earlier this month.

"There have been no reports of terrorist attacks in the area since May last year," a ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

He stressed the need to strike a balance between the security of the people and business opportunities in the oil-rich country.

Seoul moving to allow companies to do business in Iraq | Iraq Updates

Cheers!
DayDream

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I hikacked this from the rumor section (sorry).
on cnn anderson cooper last night show they had a repoter state that one of the pres bush plan was to flood iraq with money.

While we were in Iraq, we had many dicussions about the US (and others) turning Iraq into a consumer economy. The Japanese were in there with us along with many other exporting countries, i.e. Korea, Italy etc. This small CNN report is very telling. And where do you think Bush is going to get the money to "flood" Iraq with cash. Simple. By one wave of the pen and they will have it. It seems this has always been the overall plan. Just IMHO. Thank You

Originally Posted by Wm.Knowles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hikacked this from the rumor section (sorry).
on cnn anderson cooper last night show they had a repoter state that one of the pres bush plan was to flood iraq with money.

While we were in Iraq, we had many dicussions about the US (and others) turning Iraq into a consumer economy. The Japanese were in there with us along with many other exporting countries, i.e. Korea, Italy etc. This small CNN report is very telling. And where do you think Bush is going to get the money to "flood" Iraq with cash. Simple. By one wave of the pen and they will have it. It seems this has always been the overall plan. Just IMHO. Thank You

HiWmK,

When you say 'flooded with cash', does this mean dollars or dinars? Second question,- why such a concentrated effort to remove dinar from circulation only to then flood Iraq with cash? your comment would be much appreciated!

Originally Posted by rvalreadydang
The Iraqi dinar rose 12.5% after penalty

:Mohamed thanked wrote :
.The exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar in Kuwait during the last two days, he developed against the background of the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, where the exchange rate grew from 200 million Iraqi dinars to 225 million of which is a growth rate of 12.5% during the short period of time. .He said dealers in the exchange market to 'Al-Qabas' to make sure that as soon as the execution of Saddam initiated many of the exchange to speculation in the Iraqi dinar has reached the rate of one million when the execution on satellite channels to 260 million Iraqi dinars to one.

Translated version of http://www.alqabas.com.kw/Final/News...wspaperPublic/

First I would like to wish you all at RC a happy and prosper new year.

The above article are telling me that what I am about to share with you just might bi worth reading.

I have a friend at work hwo are Iraqi he comes from the south of Iraq near the Kuwait border. He's name is Mahier.

He told me last night that on 1/1-07 he made a call to hi's relatives in Iraq, and they did tell him that the exhange rate on the street many plases in Iraq are now at IQD 1220 to the U$D. They also told him that it is now hard to get dinar's many places in Iraq(Are the dinar drying up inside Iraq too?), and that many Iraqis are buying dinar's now.

This is also in accordance with exhangerate at Trade Bank Iraq TBI. Trade Bank of Iraq - Your Trade and Investment Partner in Iraq that are now displaying exhangerates as followes: (Updated: 1/1/2007 8:18:00 AM)
US Dollar ( USD )Buy 1,261.50 Sell 1,382.80

(Notice the big difference in Buy and Sell rates)
And Ameinfo Business News



Tuesday, January 2, 2007 1 Iraqi Dinar = 0.0007926 US Dollar
1 US Dollar (USD) = 1261.60 Iraqi Dinar (IQD) Learn about the new Iraqi Dinar
Median price = 0.0007232 / 0.0007926 (bid/ask)
Minimum price = 0.0007232 / 0.0007926
Maximum price = 0.0007232 / 0.0007926

Todays rates from TBI and Oanda (Ameinfo) make me pretty sure that Mahier did tell me the truth last night.

Could be nice to have it verified. Maybe from the kurds OSW?

I did post becouse I see it as good news and that the rates from Mahier (Iraqi steet) and TBI + Oanda (Ameinfo) are so close.

IMO we are realy close to our dreams com true.