Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 28/03/10 - 21/06/10

CBI sells $705m this week

The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) dollar sales this week reached $705.805 million at a stable exchange rate of 1,170 Iraqi dinars per dollar, compared to $737 million last week.

“The demand hit $45.280 million in cash this week, covered at an exchange rate of 1,183 Iraqi dinars per dollar, and $660.525 million in foreign transfers outside the country, covered at an exchange rate of 1,173 Iraqi dinars per dollar,” according to a CBI news bulletin received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

None of the banks that participated in this week’s session offered to sell dollars.

http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=130300

Rubaie: Washington wants to impose on the Iraqi Government

Criticized the leadership of the Sadrist movement Nassar al-Rubaie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq Christfor Hill, adding that he intervene in the internal affairs of Iraq and especially the question of forming the next government.

Rubaie said in a statement released by the Iraqi News Agency Information that the U.S. ambassador that the next government will be formed at the beginning of the month of July indicates the existence of agendas, secret U.S. intended to impose a government on the Iraqis, stressing that the politicians are still in the process of consultation and discussion and it was time to form government is not known So far, noting that there are suspicious relationships by some political blocs with the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Rubaie denied that there will be interference in the formation of an Arab government or identify a person to the Prime Minister, noting that the interventions in this regard comes from the United States of America.

He noted that the root of the problem with the Arab countries due to the continued presence of U.S. occupation forces on Iraqi soil.

http://radionawa.com/ar/NewsDetailN....324&LinkID=158

Talabani declared the Kurdistan Alliance to join the alliance rule of law and the Iraqi National

Said President Jalal Talabani said the Kurdistan Alliance list will join the expected coalition composition and announced within days, which includes the National Coalition and the rule of law to form the next government.

Talabani said in a televised statement that the views, including identical on all important issues, they are waiting to accelerate the alliances between the two blocs (the rule of law and the National Coalition) for the consolidation and then they, too, is known as natural allies of the parties.

He added in reference to the expected coalition between two blocs, the candidate who filed by the brothers in the national coalitions and the state of the law will get their support as well.

http://radionawa.com/ar/NewsDetailN....310&LinkID=158

Germany confirms that the advent of foreign investors to Iraq was tied to the security situation

Said German Consul General in Arbil Hnaknberg Oliver, Thursday, foreign investors are watching the political situation in Iraq and Itaabbon their coming events and the decision is related to the success of the new government to establish security and stability.

Spoke German consul in Arbil, told (Voices of Iraq) on the sidelines of an economic forum held Thursday at the parliament of Kurdistan.

Hnaknberg said that during this busy period and the formation of Iraq's new government, foreign investors are watching the situation closely and Itaabbon events and the decision they came to Iraq is related to the success of the new government will be to establish security and stability.

He called on Iraqi politicians to work to achieve this goal in attracting foreign investment to the country.

The Centre for European technology and training (ETTC) (Thursday), a seminar by Professor Joseph Schleicher director of external relations and public policy in one well-known German companies with a good experience and rich from the region.

Schleicher and delivered a lecture entitled (How to attract foreign investment) in the Parliament of Kurdistan.

http://radionawa.com/Ar/NewsDetailN....297&LinkID=155

Routine phenomenon and its impact on the national investment in private sector support

For the advancement of economic reality and a way to support investment and private sector seeking National Commission for Investment to activate the role of private sector companies and project grants, similar to foreign companies, but the routine services on an obstacle in front of those companies.

http://www.radiodijla.com/cgi-bin/ne...?id=2010-04-16

Ash grounds first Baghdad-London flight in 20 years

A huge cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland on Friday grounded the first commercial flight between Baghdad and London in 20 years, Iraqi officials told AFP.


An Iraqi Airways flight to the British capital, via Malmo in Sweden, would have been the first such journey since sanctions imposed by the UN after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait came into effect.

"The ceremony planned for Friday had to be postponed because of the volcano in Iceland," said a spokesman for the Iraqi transport ministry. "We will go ahead when the conditions improve, possibly on Saturday or Sunday."

Iraqi Transport Minister Amer Abduljabbar Ismail was among the passengers who was expected to take the London flight.
"Foreign and Iraqi passengers and the minister himself were booked on the plane," the spokesman added.

The volcano on Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted soon after midnight on Wednesday and has since been sp.ewing out ash that has forced air traffic authorities to cancel thousands of flights across much of Europe.
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http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...n%2020%20years

Iraq Minister of Industry and Minerals discusses means to boost cooperation with Korea and Bahrain

Iraq Minister of Industry and Minerals Fawzi Al Hariri talked over with a delegation from a Korean Company for energy and consultation and Rawdan General Trading Company means of boosting cooperation and meetings between the different parties in order to stimulate the foreign investors to enter Iraq. The Minister of Industry said that there are many promising opportunities to work together in Baghdad especially as the security situation is stable nowadays.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Economics...d-Bahrain.html

Iraq investment commission calls to develop investment in Iraq

Iraq Investment Commission called the investment commissions and businessmen to present their plans regarding developing investment in Iraq stressing that the upcoming period will witness a great economic development as more than a million habitation units are to be constructed.

http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Economics...t-in-Iraq.html

National Committee continue to meet for Iraq's accession to the WTO

The Commission on Trade in Services, one of its sub-committees of the National Committee for Iraq's accession to the WTO Meeting to discuss the mechanism of the service sectors in Iraq and from each ministry to determine the future vision of trade in services in Iraq.

The director of the Department of Foreign Economic Relations Ministry of Commerce Raad al-Asadi The reporter That among the topics discussed at the meeting is to spread awareness about the nature of the work of the World Trade Organization WTO And the possibility of establishing a monthly forums and public education and the private sector in this regard.

He said he discussed broadcast the website of the National Committee on Accession to the WTO and sent to other ministries and departments concerned as well as agreement on the necessity of accomplishing the service sectors unfinished representative of the services of housing and Alaamaruchdmat education and environmental services and cultural and recreational services and distribution services in addition to other services.

Noted that Iraq had obtained observer status in the WTO in 2004 after holding two rounds of official talks to achieve the status of permanent membership in that organization

http://al-iraqnews.net/new/local-news/5134.html

Iraq awash in phony U.S. money, and officials suspect Iran

NASIRIYAH, Iraq -- At least $4 million in counterfeit U.S. currency has flooded into Iraq since December, and U.S. and Iraqi officials are trying to determine how much of the counterfeiting is purely criminal and how much might be an Iranian attempt to influence Iraqi politics.

While some of the bills were crudely made and easily detected, U.S. military officials said, much of the money seized so far has been sophisticated fake hundred-dollar notes that require special printing presses, ink and paper. In the Middle East, such capabilities typically belong to Iran and its proxies, notably branches of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, the officers said, citing recent briefings from the U.S. Secret Service.

"It runs the gamut of the local stuff on the HP printer - not the right paper, but kind of looks like it - all the way up to the very well made versions that we see, the ones coming in from Lebanon," said Army Col. Peter Newell, the commander of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, which operates in Maysan and two other southern provinces near the border with Iran.

In recent weeks, the officers said, Iraqi and U.S. forces have launched an anti-counterfeiting push that involves educating merchants and bankers, as well as gathering intelligence on whether the money is linked to Iran's attempt to influence Iraq's March 7 parliamentary elections and to launder money for militia activity in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland.

Before the push, vendors bought and sold the fake money openly on Iraqi streets at 5 cents on the dollar for the homemade kind and 20 cents on the dollar for the harder-to-detect notes. The bills were so pervasive that they even turned up on American military bases via Iraqi subcontractors.

Southern Iraq, with provinces that border Iran, is the main entry point for Iranian goods: legitimate items such as produce and building supplies and contraband such as weapons, d.rugs and counterfeit cash. Iraqi and U.S. agents have seized about $500,000 of the fake hundred-dollar bills, nearly all of it in Maysan and other provinces near the border.

In the port city of Umm Qasr last month, bank workers discovered more than $100,000 in fake U.S. currency among its deposits and turned it over to authorities, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. A couple of months before that, police in Karbala busted an all-female counterfeit gang that was passing fake notes at jewelry, gift and clothing stores in a money-laundering attempt, according to an account of the sting by the Aswat al-Iraq news service.

"They were arrested in a store in downtown Karbala with a large amount of counterfeit 100 U.S. dollar banknotes in their possession," the report said.

A U.S. intelligence report said that even more money - at least $4 million - came into Maysan in December. U.S. military officers who've read the report declined to say how that figure was determined. The sudden influx of counterfeit notes three months before the March 7 parliamentary elections suggests that Iran was trying to influence the outcome, the officers said.

An election "is certainly one of the purposes of a mass quantity of cash all of a sudden," Newell said. "It can pay for lethal aid; it can pay for elections; it can pay for commodities. It can be laundered into a lot of things, and what better time to launder significant amounts of money than during an election period, when lots of money is being moved?"

"Everything has been tied back to the Shiite extremist groups and the (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) in Iran. There's been no other source," said a U.S. military intelligence officer based in southern Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to compromise his work on sensitive cases.

Counterfeiting isn't new in Iraq. In the early 1990s, American agents, reportedly in cooperation with regional allies, flooded Iraq with fake currency in an attempt to put pressure on the then-dictator Saddam Hussein, who was dealing with massive inflation and the rapid devaluing of Iraqi currency after the disastrous invasion of Kuwait.

Time magazine reported in 1992 that the CIA was dumping large amounts of counterfeit money into southern Iraq as part of a plot called "Operation Laundry." Saddam's administration imposed life sentences on anyone caught circulating the bills and death penalties for those who smuggled the counterfeit cash into Iraq, according to the news reports.

Nearly two decades later, Saddam is gone and U.S. forces are leading an anti-counterfeit campaign against Iran, passing out thousands of detection pens to southern Iraqi merchants and weaning Iraqi companies off large cash transactions in favor of newly introduced wire-transfer options at local banks.

At the request of Iraqi judges, a Rome-based U.S. Secret Service team with expertise in fighting counterfeiters flew to southern Iraq in February and spent a week training American and Iraqi forces on spotting fake bills.

The Secret Service, through a spokesman in Washington, declined to comment on the origins of the counterfeit money in Iraq, citing an ongoing investigation. The agency did say that it discouraged the use of detection pens because they can produce false positives or false negatives. The pens, which resemble highlighter markers, leave a black streak if starch is detected in the paper. Genuine banknote paper doesn't contain starch.

Iraqi authorities also were taught to examine banknotes for watermarks, color-shifting ink, security threads and serial numbers to tell real ones from fakes.

http://www.macon.com/2010/04/15/1095...money-and.html