Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 01/10/09 - 27/03/10

URGENT: European Commission declared the winner on the verge of Allawi

Flag of the source location by a senior official in the Office of the elections that UNHCR was about to announce the final election results declared on Monday provided the Iraqi List headed by Dr.. Iyad Allawi, but my Talabani and Maliki, a conservative ten had to announce the final.

It is worth mentioning that the CDs distributed by UNHCR, which include scanning forms results in thousands of polling stations began to appear many errors and large it is clear they have changed the form of the final results significantly.

It is noteworthy that the final results Allawi's victory means his appointment the next Iraqi government, but the Iraqi constitution prohibits the formation of Dr. Allawi's government and the fact that the mother does not carry Iraqi citizenship, but the Lebanese.

Overview of where the source location on the heads of clues of what happened yesterday and the details of what is going on behind the political scenes today.

http://almasder.net/newsiraq/news.ph...on=view&id=111

Iraq’s Premier Endorses a Recount of the Vote

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki endorsed the mounting calls for a recount of Iraq’s parliamentary election, as the latest results on Sunday showed his main competitor with a slight lead. President Jalal Talabani, using more direct language, also called for a recount on Sunday.

The appeals by Iraq’s two highest government officials added to a rash of complaints related to how the March 7 election was conducted and how the votes were tallied. Each of the four leading political coalitions in the election has either alleged widespread fraud or called for a recount in what has materialized as an exceedingly close race between Mr. Maliki and Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister.

On Sunday, with 95 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya alliance led Mr. Maliki’s State of Law coalition by about 11,000 votes out of some 12 million votes cast, according to figures released by the Independent High Electoral Commission, which oversees elections.

While the overall totals are important, mainly for symbolic reasons, the provincial totals will determine which coalition gets the chance to form the next government. In that race, Mr. Maliki leads in 7 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, compared with 5 provinces for Mr. Allawi. Seats in Parliament are allotted based on vote totals in each province, rather than on the national total.

The commission said complete results would be released Friday, once the most serious fraud allegations had been investigated. But it could still be weeks before the hundreds of smaller complaints are investigated, the results certified and parliamentary seats allocated. Still, informal bargaining on the makeup of a governing coalition has already begun, and it will most likely begin in earnest on Saturday.

Despite the calls for a recount, the election commission again rejected the idea on Sunday. A spokesman said the commission would conduct its own investigation, but that it would be impossible to recheck each ballot as some parties had demanded. Elections officials have pointed out that the count is being monitored by international observers, as well as by representatives of each political party.

Mr. Maliki’s statement, which did not directly call for a recount, invoked his position as commander in chief of the military and seemed to imply violence would ensue without a new count. In a message posted on his Web site late Saturday, he said that election officials were obligated to respond to calls for a recount, including by members of his coalition. He said a response from election authorities was necessary to “protect political stability and to prevent a deterioration of the security situation that could lead to a return of violence.”

His message came shortly after election results released Saturday night showed his coalition had fallen behind Mr. Allawi’s, after having been ahead the previous day. Last week, when he was leading, he dismissed allegations of fraud that had been made by other political groups, saying irregularities had not been significant enough to affect the result. In the southern city of Najaf on Sunday, 10 governors, all members of Mr. Maliki’s coalition, held a rally to demand a recount. One sign read, “No, no to the stealing of people’s votes.”

But Intisar Allawi, a member of Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition, which has registered its own complaints about alleged election irregularities, said that Mr. Maliki’s message “represented a clear threat to the election commission.”

“This kind of statement could take us back to terrorism and violence,” she said.

Mr. Talabani’s statement on Sunday called for a recount to “avoid any confusion or doubt” about the results. Although the presidency does not wield the power of the prime minister, Mr. Talabani, a Kurd, is seen by many Iraqis as a more neutral figure than some of the politicians who have been calling for a recount lately. But Mr. Talabani may have his own reasons for wanting a recount. His party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, is part of a Kurdish political alliance that is trailing Mr. Allawi’s coalition in Kirkuk Province by about 3,000 votes. Kirkuk, which is contested by Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs, sits atop billions of barrels of oil.

Duraid Adnan and Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Najaf.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/wo...st/22iraq.html

Gambling on Iraq’s slow rise from ruin

WASHINGTON — Some count the kidnappings. Others count the suicide bombs. Still others count the deaths of US soldiers. But, in the saga of Iraq’s slow struggle toward normalcy, Robert Smith keeps track of something far more obscure: the price of Iraqi government issued bonds. Smith, one of Boston’s most intrepid investors, has made his fortune betting on the world’s most dangerous places. Dubbed the “Indiana Jones of International Finance,’’ Smith buys IOUs from governments so unstable that few others will touch them. From an office that overlooks Boston Harbor, Smith can recall when Iraq looked like a terrible gamble, as sectarian violence raged and the country slid toward a civil war. But now, a week after Iraq’s historic election, his bets are paying off: The price of Iraqi bonds has doubled in the last year, recently hitting their highest value ever.

“Iraq has the potential to vault past other countries’’ to become a top oil producer, said Smith, a 70-year-old debt merchant whose recent book, “Riches Among the Ruins,’’ details his investment adventures.

The story of Iraqi bonds is, in many ways, the story of the troubled nation itself. Issued to clear $2.6 billion of Saddam Hussein-era debts, their value reflects the ebb and flow of war, declining when the insurgency rages and rising as violence subsides.

Iraq is still fraught with chaos, as newly elected leaders wrangle over power and struggle to form a governing coalition. In two months, US troops will prepare to draw down to 50,000 by the end of August, from about 90,000 now — another big window of uncertainty. But civilian deaths are at their lowest levels since the beginning of the war, down from some 3,500 per month to a few hundred. Since December, three US soldiers have died because of hostilities in Iraq, down from more than 100 monthly at the height of the war. Half as many Iraqis applied for refugee status last year as the year before.

But of all the signs of hope for Iraq, some see the value of government-issued bonds as the best predictor of long-term stability. Violence flares periodically, but the price of a bond is based on educated guesses about what the country will look like decades into the future, founded not on politics or ideology, but on a businessman’s bottom line.

“The only thing the bond market cares about is whether a functioning Iraqi government will be there in the future to make the promised interest payments,’’ said Michael Greenstone, an MIT economist. Bond traders take bombings, oil production, and myriad other factors into account when they decide what these bonds are worth, making their price the best aggregate of all that data, he said.

In 2007, Greenstone tracked the value of Iraqi bonds to determine the success of the US military surge, and concluded at the time that Iraq’s prospects still looked murky. But last week, he analyzed the data again — comparing Iraqi bonds with similar bonds from other developing countries. He found a striking change.

“The market’s assessment is that the prospects for a functioning Iraqi state in the future have improved dramatically,’’ he said.

It takes great patience — and not a little chutzpah — to squeeze a profit out of Iraq’s debt, which mounted in the 1980s during a devastating war with Iran. Hussein borrowed an estimated $130 billion, then he invaded Kuwait in 1990. Iraq got slapped with war reparations and UN sanctions. As debt piled up, Iraq defaulted. But after the 2003 US-led invasion, the Bush administration sent former secretary of state James Baker III around the world, arranging deals that forgave 80 percent of what Iraq owed. To clear the remainder, some creditors were given new bonds in 2006 that pay out 5.8 percent interest annually, and larger amounts as they mature in 2028.

But Iraq’s future was so tenuous then that most investors didn’t think the bonds were worth much. It was unclear what kind of government would take shape in Iraq, let alone whether it would be stable enough to keep its promises to creditors. In other words, it was the kind of environment that Smith and his partner, Saleh Daher, thrive in. They reap great profit — and take great risks — going “where the Wall Street boys don’t want to be,’’ Smith said, although he declines to provide specifics of their financial performance. Their company, Turan Corp., operates out of a modest office on Federal Street, overshadowed by the financial behemoths of Boston. But in the world of emerging markets, they are legendary. In 2004, before Iraq even issued its new bonds, Smith and Daher traveled to Baghdad to figure out how to buy them. The country was in ruins. Kidnapping was rife. More than 140 suicide attacks struck that year.

“We stayed at a hotel that had the virtue of already having been bombed,’’ Smith recalled.

Smith, a Brookline native who graduated from Roxbury Latin, Bowdoin College, and Boston University Law School, became a USAID loan officer in Vietnam in the late 1960s to see the world. After stints in El Salvador and Brazil, he returned to Boston to work at his father’s law firm, which specialized in debt collection. When Smith was hired to go to Turkey to collect a debt, he realized that he could make money buying up Third World government bonds — sometimes called “jungle bonds’’ — for pennies on the dollar. Smith would hold them until the countries could pay or until another buyer came along. Smith, who enjoys the moniker “the King of the Jungle Bond,’’ hunted for business where capital markets had not yet taken root — Nigeria, Honduras, Russia — p.ioneering what is now a trillion-dollar industry.

Although Iraq was in turmoil, Smith and Daher thought it was a good long-term bet because geologists estimate Iraq has enough untapped oil to one day rival Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest exporter. On top of that, Baker was all but erasing Iraq’s debt, and Smith didn’t believe that the US government would let Baghdad default on what was left. From 2006 to mid-2007, as beheadings and attacks mounted, the value of the bonds dropped from $73 to $56 on a $100 bond. But after the surge of extra troops ordered by President Bush began to slow the pace of killings, the price shot back up to $74. At the end of 2008, the world financial meltdown sent the bonds into a nosedive — to $40 — after investors panicked or were forced to unload the bonds to raise quick cash. Luckily, Smith and Daher had a client who wanted to move the money elsewhere, so they sold the bonds just before the crash. They bought them back again as the bonds began climbing steadily through 2009 as the world economy — and Iraq itself — stabilized. The bonds hit their highest value ever — nearly $84 — in January 2010, the same month that civilian casualties hit an all-time low, according to Pentagon officials.

Michael O’Hanlon, who tracks indicators of progress for the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, said that “Iraq has continued its remarkable trajectory of improvement.’’

“It is still fairly violent by Mideast standards, but many countries in places like South America have higher overall levels of violence now from crime,’’ he said.

Traditional Wall Street investors have taken note. Iraq is now considered a safer bet than Argentina, Venezuela, Pakistan, and Dubai — and is nearly on par with the State of California, according to Bloomberg statistics on credit default swaps, which are considered a raw indicator of default risk.

“Compared to California, I’d rather bet on Iraq,’’ Daher said. “Iraq is a country where there are still bombs going off and people getting murdered, but they are less indebted than the United States. California is likely to have more demands on its resources, and there is no miracle where California is going to have more revenue coming out of the sky. Iraq has prospects for tremendously higher revenues, if they can manage to get their act halfway together, which they seem to be doing.’’

Smith and Daher are keeping their Iraqi bonds, but they aren’t buying any new ones. Now that other investors have returned to Iraq, prices are high, so Smith is looking elsewhere. Perhaps that is one of the strongest signals yet that normal life is returning to Iraq: Bob Smith is getting out.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...m_ruin/?page=3

Iraqi President meets with Iyad Allawi

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani discussed with head of Al Iraqiya Coalition, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the situation in Iraq in general and elections developments in particular.

President Talabani and Allawi conferred about post-elections stage and responsibilities of political leaders in this regard.

Iraqi President met former Prime Minister Allawi in his residence in Al Sulaymaniya and stressed the necessity to consider Iraq’s interest above all interests.

Talabani and Allawi emphasized the importance of consolidating endeavors to overcome hindrances and difficulties hindering democracy in the country.

The meeting was attended by Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Barham Saleh and a number of officials in addition to the President’s senior advisor Fakhry Karim.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News...ad-Allawi.html

Opening of Al-Ahli Bank of Babylon for the purpose of activating the financial market and business

Opened in the province of Karbala, Babylon Bank commercial and financial investments in order to activate the financial market and trade in the province and comes after the opening of the National Bank said banks had DOMESTIC new successes toward the failure of the government and banks as well as to the existence of investment activity witnessed by a large province.

http://www.alfayhaa.tv/news/economy/27819.html

Iraq sold bonds worth 2.1 billion dollars to finance power projects

Minister of Finance said on Wednesday that Iraq collected $ 2.1 billion from local banks through the issuance of treasury bonds in order to finance projects to produce electricity.

Bayan Jabr said that Iraq had issued the second tranche sold last week after the initial tranche worth approximately three billion dollars by the end of last year.

Iraq has signed agreements in 2008, billions of dollars with General Electric and Siemens to add about nine thousand megawatts to power the country's electricity during the next few years.

Rushed into Iraq to search for ways to fund these agreements after his wife drop in oil prices of revenues, forcing him to cut its budget for 2009 three times.

After seven years of the US-led invasion the United States is still the national electricity grid in Iraq does not provide the country with electricity only a few hours each day. And frequent interruptions in electricity from the major complaints of most Iraqis.

The capacity of Iraq's current 7500 MW of electricity which is far below the needs of $ 12 thousand.

http://translate.google.com/translat...ate.google.com

Counterfeiting of currency and economic terrorism

Before the close was announced in the media to capture the gang had intended to enter large amounts of counterfeit currency into Iraq, despite the importance of this news, but it passed almost unnoticed and did not take adequate space formal attention or the media and probably because it coincided with the days to the election and airspace, which pulled the rug out from under the feet of other news.

Even news of a lack of water from Rusafa in Baghdad for three days, comes this story in the context of the invitation to stop by the news and give importance to this call does not come from being a economically and care about the news only in economic but because the currency is a symbol of sovereignty first and being can be one of Rooms terrorist war II, especially after the relative success on the ground, in order to clarify that we will try to answer the following questions: What's the importance of money in the economy? Where is the value? Are there other currencies without visiting? And the impact of counterfeiting on the economy?

As we have to say that the currency is one form of money, where money is generally known as a mediator for all exchanges have general acceptance in the fulfillment of the commitments of money has gone into the historical development of its several forms, where the world has witnessed continuous development in the nature of things, which rose to the rank of money in order to overcome obstacles to the completion of transactions and reduction as much as possible of the costs of transactions, it is of goods in general to the use of metals and minerals to focus on gold, silver and paper money to them and from there to cash deposits (check), and finally to electronic money.

The importance of the currency as the cash comes from the fact that money performs a range of traditional functions associated with the already historic Balncop of money and that are related with each other, a measure of values and a median of exchange and a tool or a store of values and a tool for futures and payments of these posts is the frame or engine economy each year, how is the exchange unless there is no tool for the exchange and how to evaluate things (goods and services) unless there is a measure of values as well as the role of money in the savings and payment term, and usually is expressed as the value of the currency through a currency other neutralized after it had to be offset by gold or silver in the past decades But that stopped in the early seventies of the last century with the announcement of the United States not to convert the dollar to gold in another currency, the dollar has come under the gold, so the major currencies floating on the basis of the Convention on Jamaica in 1973 and is determined Akiemha based on supply and demand in the market with adopted the currencies of developing countries to link major currencies and some believe that the exchange rate the currency reflects the economic strength of their currency and I'd like to say that the exchange rate does not reflect the economic strength of the currency, for example, that the Jordanian dinar is equivalent to 1,3 U.S. dollars, while the Japanese yen equivalent of up to 0,1 U.S. dollars and Japanese yen, but remains a major international currency, and this is due to the power of the Japanese economy and the size of its contribution to world trade.

I have been currency and regardless of its strength and its contribution to the international monetary system and the degree of development of the exporting country and its history to the fraud has not assumed the duties of that as almost a dollar, which is the first currency in the international monetary system to fraud, as many European currencies were replaced by the euro out to the forgery also for the developed countries either the currencies of countries, the counterfeiting of months and this is due to poor procedures and the security capabilities in comparison with developed countries, but the consequences of the counterfeiting of currency on the economies and almost one-dimensional, where it starts to shake the confidence of customers, which creates state of transformation in the possession to the other currencies or commodities for fear of devaluation, to varying degrees depending on the amount of counterfeit currency as it delays the processes of trade and mitigates sometimes as it increases government spending in the areas of monitoring, auditing and oversight in the security and economic, and return to the article I first say that the success of Iraqi security to thwart fraud and the introduction of counterfeit currency into the country as well as the high standards enjoyed by the current Iraqi currency and therefore difficult to forge and counterfeit detection easily are all positive factors, but this issue needs to follow up and greater focus in the coming period, especially after the formation of a new government which will be the economy is also a stage for real competition and so as not to use counterfeit currency as an input to economic terrorism.

http://www.alsabaah.com/paper.php?so...page&sid=99613

The Iraqi market to suffer from the phenomenon of counterfeiting

Phenomenon manifested itself and began to widen in Iraq, the phenomenon of counterfeiting currency. This phenomenon often hear about their presence in the financial markets, trading and commercial markets and suffer from a wide range of the owners of these markets. In some cases, succeed in passing counterfeit currency, counterfeit categories to shops smoothly and other times these groups revealed by the owners of the shops.

Said of Ali Ahmed, a shopkeeper told Radio Free Iraq that the "counterfeit money is passed in the Local during the period of momentum buyers to shop, but often I monitored by the benefits found in the original currency, the real, which is often not be present in counterfeit currency."

The citizen Jassim Mohammed, a shopkeeper told Radio Free Iraq that "all groups of Iraqi currency in the market there are counterfeit currency, but we know the false categories of paper and other features in the original currency."

Magid picture financial expert explained to Radio Free Iraq that "the process of reducing the prevalence of counterfeiting Iraqi currency need to be modern devices are distributed to banks and financial banking offices in all parts of Iraq."

And the sham that the "Standards Iraqi currency has become outdated and need to renew," noting that "this is a major reason for the forgery."

According to an analyst at the Central Bank of Iraq as Abdul Hadi for Radio Free Iraq that "the Iraqi currency is subject to renewal by replacing the damaged ones each period of time."

Hadi said that "the Iraqi currency has not visited so far is incomplete and the degree of the categories of false statement on the categories of currently devoid of any specification or the benefits of the Iraqi currency, which include the line of phosphorus and a sign of a horse's head and the type of paper."

The Directorate of Economic Crime confirmed it had seized many of the gangs of counterfeiting Iraqi currency and is continuing to pursue the existing gangs inside Iraq.

http://www.iraqhurr.org/content/article/1986510.html

Protesting against election results is unconstitutional, says Iraqi politician

Democratic elections normally lead to stability and a smooth transfer of power. But not in Iraq. The results of the latest elections may lead to violence and instability in a country torn by wars and civil strife.

The President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Noor al-Maliki both dispute the results and have called for a recount. The likely winners and the independent commission supervising the elections say that is almost impossible to do.

And demonstration against the results have swept at least two provinces in southern Iraq. The Iraqi Bloc, garnering the largest number of votes so far, has described those demonstrations as illegal and unconstitutional.

“The demonstrations are a coup against democracy,” said Jamal Bateeh of the Iraqi Bloc.

Their rivals, who are apparently stunned by the results, say demonstrating is a constitutional right. It is most likely that the results of the elections will not be respected in Iraq although the major groups, the State of Law and the Iraqi Bloc are both head by Shiite Muslims. But the differences between them are too wide. The head of the Iraqi Bloc is of secular tendencies and has garnered the largest support mainly among Sunni-dominated provinces. The head of the State of Law, the outgoing prime minister, is seen by many as of sectarian orientations.

The electoral commission sees the demonstration as “politicized” and has called on all parties to accept the results. So far up to 95 per cent of the vote has been counted.

The problem in Iraq is that almost all political factions have military wings with tens if not hundreds of thousands heavily armed militias. And the fear is for the disputes to spill over to the street. Many in Iraq shudder even at the slightest idea of a return of sectarian violence in a country which has known no quiet since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index...03-22\kurd.htm

Residential compounds for oil companies in Basra

An investment permit will be given to an Iraqi-Turkish company to establish residential compounds for oil firms in Basra, a local source said on Tuesday.

“The project includes the building of 200-300 square-meter modern units on land belonging to the state-run oil companies in Basra,” an official from the investment commission in the province, Eng. Ahmed Waheed, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

The permit will soon be granted, he added.

http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=128986