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

Originally Posted by bigopie

LOL at CHOOCHIE....now i'd pay to see our DIANAR LADIES dance in Baghdad......lol.....anyone for a "LAP DANCE".....lol.....LET IT PEG LET IT PEG LET IT PEG....GO DINARS...Pat

Pat
Just remember that us "Dinar Chics" would know that you guys just made a killin on the peg, So that lap dance would be pretty expensive, so you may want to save it for "chics" that don't cost so much!

Originally Posted by tiffany

No it doesn't....b'cause Mike and Adam said so!

Hopefully you add your self to that list. I have added you. Now were is that Lap dance show?

Iraqi Kurdistan’s parliament last week ratified the much-awaited investment law- that will regulate business and trade activities in the region- after a week-long intense debate.

The law gives the foreign investors the right to own property, take the full profit of their projects outside Kurdistan, and own land. It offers a ten-year tax holiday to the foreign companies and exempts them from custom tariffs in a bid to further encourage foreign investment in the region.

“This is a good law that creates a very advantageous situation for foreign companies and their investment in Kurdistan,” said Douglas Layton, the director of Kurdistan Development Corporation, a government-linked organization with offices in London and Erbil that “promotes investment in Kurdistan.”

His KDC is running public campaigns in the west for encouraging investment in Kurdistan. These campaigns are well received and only in the US, following one of the advertisement videos called “the other Iraq”, the KDC’s website got three millions hits, explained Layton.

According to the new law a supreme council for investment in Kurdistan region will be formed headed by prime minister and several relevant cabinet members. The body will supervise the giving of contracts to foreign firms.
The law-makers hope the new law will help rebuilding the region that has suffered decades of war and sanctions.

“A region with a stagnant economy like ours needs foreign help so that we can rebuild the infrastructure of our country,” Dler Haqi Shaways, the head of the economic committee of Kurdistan Parliament told the Globe. “For that we need to offer certain incentives to foreign companies to come here, and this is basically what this law does.”

He believes that priority must go to the areas of industry, agriculture, transportation and villages-reconstruction that have been neglected in the past.
Since the 1991 popular Uprising of the region against the rule of the former president Saddam Hussein, Kurdistan did not witness that much booming until the overthrow of the regime by the US-led coalition in 2003. Ever since, the region has introduced itself as “the other Iraq” to the outside world, thanks to the relative security and political stability of the region.

The law also allows the foreign companies to own 100 percent of the stakes of their projects, while in the past they could only hold 49 percent of the shares and the remaining 51 percent would have gone to a local Iraqi firm.

Over the past few years, mainly after the 2003 war of Iraq, the hopes to attract foreign businessmen to Kurdistan relatively bore fruits, but many investors especially Americans, were reluctant to invest their capitals in Kurdistan due to uncertainties and irregularities in its economic life. However, Layton argues that with the privileges that the new law offers “it can have tangible impact” in reversing the old situation.

“The new law clarifies it for foreign investors that what are their rights and what advantages they will be given,” added Layton. This, he believes, can be instrumental in encouraging foreign businesses to work in Kurdistan.

Shaways added that “the law by itself is not enough and we need other mechanisms and measures” to ensure its effective implementation on the ground. “For example, we must eliminate the beaurocratic procedures and routine in government institutions that might discourage the foreign investors,” explained Shaways.

Many of the foreign companies currently working in Kurdistan employ workers from outside the region, some of whom work at a lower price than the local Kurds. This has caused some to worry that despite the increasing number of projects in Kurdistan, many locals will remain unemployed. Abdullah Ahmed, the deputy minister of trade in Kurdistan government urged the foreign companies to employ the local labor force that is cheaper than foreign workers, unless when technical workers are needed for specialties that are not found in Kurdistan.

He expressed his minsitry’s optimism that the law will lure foreignors to the region.

“We are sure that people will welcome the law and it will increase the number of foreign companies and investors in Kurdistan,,” added Ahmed.

Despite the widespread reception of the law in business circles, some economists speak of certain negative aspects in the law. They, especially, point fingers to a provision in the law that allows foreign companies to own land in the region.

“At present, foreign companies must not be given the right to own land in Kurdistan, because it will be threatening to the national security of Kurdistan in the long-run,” said Shamal Nouri, an economist from Erbil.

http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc711106.html

Oh, here is the link to the quiz.

http://www.abc4.com/local_news/local...9-148C4A12663D

Originally Posted by cigarman

Oh, here is the link to the quiz.

http://www.abc4.com/local_news/local...9-148C4A12663D

Well, I didn't see anything about a zero lopping currency, or dancing ladies, so I must have been right! Give that girl a round of applause, she is finally getting with it this morning!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you very much!
(as she takes a couple of bows)

Originally Posted by neno

Funny Again. But my answer would "B". We know that is not true. But what we are told is their mission will be completed before they even get there. So in reality will most likely be to Oversee the answer in "C" the 1nid .50 nid and the .25nid And help with the Protection of the Banks Finacial Records. Again my Opinion. I am on it today.

Neno, I think that you misunderstood the quote regarding the reserve team that were going back out.

When that person said that the hardest part of their job will already have been completed by the time they get there what he meant was that the hardest part of the job was saying goodbye to their friends and family when they depart for Iraq.

Just wanted to point that out.

Originally Posted by melg

Neno, I think that you misunderstood the quote regarding the reserve team that were going back out.

When that person said that the hardest part of their job will already have been completed by the time they get there what he meant was that the hardest part of the job was saying goodbye to their friends and family when they depart for Iraq.

Just wanted to point that out.

You see. This is what happens when things are seen a different way. Thank You melg, point made. Only hope this is all I took differently.

Originally Posted by neno

You see. This is what happens when things are seen a different way. Thank You melg, point made. Only hope this is all I took differently.

Lol, I am sure it is no big issue Neno - and I hope he as right that leaving their families IS the biggest part of their job !

Rice: Iraq gov't can prevail over violence

7/11/2006


By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic WriterTue Jul 11, 8:25 AM ET

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday she is certain Iraq's new leaders can prevail over "determined killers" like those who killed 41 people over the weekend.

Likewise, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said an increase in violence does not mean the security situation cannot be contained,

"There has been a spike ... in sectarian violence," Negroponte said. "But I certainly wouldn't use the term 'out of control.'"

Negroponte commented in response to questions after a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Rice spoke before a meeting at the State Department with Pakistani Foreign Minister Kursheed Kasuri.

"No one could have expected that just within weeks of coming to power that the Iraqi government would have been able to stop the violence and to completely address a difficult security situation," Rice said.

The Bush administration has said the permanent democratic government that took power in Baghdad this spring offers the best hope for quelling rising sectarian violence and ending the anti-government and anti-American insurgency.

"There are determined killers there, determined people who really do want to make life difficult and to arrest the democratic progress that Iraq is making," Rice said. "But I'm quite certain that the combination of a strong government and the security forces that are now engaged in the security plan for Baghdad will be able to bring this situation under control."

Negroponte, asked if American companies could feel safe doing business in Iraq, told the audience of government and business leaders that business opportunities "are probably quite limited" until the security situation is stabilized. But in areas such as engineering and construction, the opportunities are substantial, he suggested.

The two officials' comments came on another day of violence in Iraq that included car bombings and an armed ambush of a bus in Baghdad. The attacks are the latest in a wave of sectarian strife that was sparked by the February bombing of Shiite mosque in Samarra.

Negroponte, the former ambassador to Baghdad who now serves as President Bush's top intelligence official, said the violence requires close attention.

Yet he said he has been encouraged by the formation of a permanent democratic government in Iraq, the demise of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and efforts to build Iraqi military and police forces.

The violence, he noted, has been confined to specific areas of Iraq.

"You are talking about a security challenge in Baghdad and in al-Anbar province and in parts of the Sunni triangle," he told reporters. "The government has a plan to try to restore security in the key cities of Baghdad and Basra, and they are working on that."

In Iraq, Sunni leaders expressed outrage over the weekend killings; most of the victims were Sunnis.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, appealed for calm, warning that the nation stood "in front of a dangerous precipice."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has set the improvement of security in an increasingly lawless Baghdad as an early test of his administration.

U.S.-led forces are supporting Iraqis in carrying out al-Maliki's security plan. Eventually, the Bush administration hopes that al-Maliki can assert enough political and security control to allow the withdrawal of most of the more than 130,000 U.S. forces in Iraq more than three years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

"It is obvious that, for many people, they believe that if you can disrupt Baghdad, you can kill democracy in Iraq," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"It is also obvious that it is U.S. policy, and also the policy of Prime Minister Maliki, that that is not going to happen, that they will bring resources to bear to make sure that everything from roving gangs to insurgents who are determined to incite sectarian strife — that they do not succeed."

http://safedinar.com/Iraqi_Dinar_New...l.asp?nID=1360

Rice: Iraq gov't can prevail over violence - Source

Iraqi Dinar News Article List

General: Security Better in Northern Iraq

7/11/2006

By: RYAN LENZ (Mon, Jul/10/2006)



TIKRIT, Iraq - While Baghdad erupts in sectarian violence, the general in charge of U.S. forces in northern Iraq believes security has improved enough here for soldiers to think about a day when the attacks stop.

"Security is at a level where we can begin worrying about economics, about projects," Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner told The Associated Press. "It's true in Mosul. It's true in Tal Afar. And it's true in Tikrit."

Turner, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was referring to northern Iraqi cities that were once deeply embroiled in insurgent violence. Although the insurgent threat remains, the area is less turbulent than central Iraq or the western province of Anbar.

That's notable, Turner said, because many U.S. military commanders had thought the northern provinces under his command would be lasting insurgent strongholds, with roads forever lined with bombs and gunmen always targeting U.S. convoys.

Now computer labs are being built in Mosul and libraries are planned in Tal Afar, he said.

But progress admittedly has come at a cost, Turner said.

More than 150 soldiers from his division, the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky., have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003. Most recently, three soldiers from the division's 2nd Brigade were slain - including two whose bodies were mutilated - when left alone to guard a checkpoint along the Euphrates River south of Baghdad.

"The loss of each soldier is just horrible and we're proud of what they accomplished and only want to make sure their deaths mattered," Turner said.

As the division prepares to return home after a yearlong deployment, the war will linger with them. Soldiers from two of its brigades have been charged with murder for allegedly killing Iraqi civilians, the latest in a string of abuse allegations against U.S. service members.

Four soldiers with the division's 3rd Brigade in Tikrit face murder charges in the deaths of Iraqi detainees near Samarra. Five more from its 2nd Brigade south of Baghdad face charges for allegedly raping and murdering an Iraqi woman and her family in Mahmoudiya.

Turner, who spoke to the AP between stops during an hourlong helicopter ride Sunday in northern Iraq, would not discuss the allegations because it could compromise the investigation.

But he stressed that allegations should not overshadow progress the division had made throughout Iraq. In the provinces his soldiers patrol, he's seen a smaller U.S. military footprint as the command ponders a drawdown of the 127,000-member American mission.

The area around Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, has a largely Sunni Arab population. Insurgents were active in the early months of the conflict. U.S. officials say the area has calmed considerably in the last year because of aggressive pursuit of insurgents.

Samarra has also calmed since the February bombing of a Shiite shrine, an event that led to rampant sectarian violence that brought the country to the brink of civil war.

Turner said much has changed. When the division leaves, only 10 of the once 35 U.S. military bases that were built in northern Iraq after the invasion will remain. The rest have closed or have been transferred to Iraqi Army units capable of operating independently.

"We really had too many," Turner said. "We were spending a lot just securing ourselves."

Turner said the dramatic escalation in violence clearly separates Baghdad as a front all its own. It's not reflective of the entire country, but critical nevertheless, he said.

"I see a lot of progress. We've really worked hard to get here," Turner said. "We just need to be patient."


http://safedinar.com/Iraqi_Dinar_New...l.asp?nID=1363
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General: Security Better in Northern Iraq - Source

Iraqi Dinar News Article List