Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 22/06/2010 - 04/10/2010

Central Bank: compensation Americans affected by the former regime amounted to 400 million dollars

Central Bank of Iraq , Sunday, the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution to compensate U.S. citizens affected by the previous regime, about 400 million, and warned the other hand, the lifting of protection the hybrid at the end of this year for Iraq's money, there will be oil exports to the seizure and confiscation.

The adviser said the central bank governor the appearance of Mohammed Salih in an interview with "Alsumaria News", "The Council of Ministers adopted a resolution to compensate the affected Americans from the previous regime for 400 million dollars, to avoid holding Iraqi money to fund the (DFI) from the U.S. Congress after the lifting of protection For the hybrid at the end of this year."

The Iraqi government represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had occurred in the second of this month, an agreement with the U.S. government represented by its embassy in Baghdad, to settle a number of legal claims of American citizens are inherited from the former regime, as a legal measure designed to protect Iraqi funds abroad.

The U.S. Congress has taken a decision last year aimed at Iraq's money in the custody of the Fund (DFI) in the event of non-settlement of the Iraqi government for compensation of U.S. citizens affected by the former regime.

Saleh added that "the decision to the Council of Ministers raised a major threat for Iraqi funds in New York, and ended the threat of seizure of property by the United States of America."

The term of the hybrid protection of Iraqi funds in the December 31 of this year, and will move the supervision of the money to the Iraqi committee composed of the Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of Supreme Audit, Finance Minister and a number of financial experts.

On the other hand, Saleh explained that "Iraq is treated as a war under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, raising the internationalism of protection money for Iraq will export oil to the seizure and confiscation by the country that won cases compensation against Iraq."

He noted the benefit that "the Security Council resolution now provides protection for oil exports in Iraq in addition to Iraqi money in a box of (DFI), The decision of the U.S. president who will provide protection for Iraq's money until May of 2011, it will not provide protection to the exports of Iraqi oil from the confiscation and seizure".

And Saleh, said that "Iraq has submitted two reports to the Security Council is going to make the third report in the third week of this month, these reports include mechanisms to protect Iraq's money in the Fund (DFI) in preparation for the transfer of supervision of the Fund of the United Nations to Iraq."

Iraq has been under since 1990 under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, which imposed after the invasion of the regime of President Saddam Hussein of Kuwait in August of the same year.

This allows the item to use force against Iraq as a threat to international security, in addition to large amounts of frozen stock, international banks for the purpose of payment of compensation to those affected by the invasion of Kuwait.

Consists of Chapter VII of the 13 articles, which is resolution 678 passed in 1990 and calling for the ousting Iraq from Kuwait, by force, the provisions of this chapter, and Iraq remains under Tailth, because the survival of several issues outstanding, such as the remains of Kuwaiti citizens and prisoners in Iraq and Kuwaiti property, including archives Amiri Diwan, the Crown Prince's Court, the question of compensation, environmental and oil and which do not relate only to the State of Kuwait, but other Arab states and companies still have some rights.

http://www.alsumarianews.com/ar/3/11...-details-.html

Decline in unemployment rates in Iraq from 27% to 15%

The Central Agency for Statistics and Information Technology Ministry of Planning Iraq's decline in rates of unemployment than it was in 2004 2005, which was then estimated at more than 27% to 15% according to recent survey conducted by the device.

He said the head of the, Dr. Mahdi Keywords that the causes of decline in unemployment due to the high rate of employment in the public sector government, likely to continue the unemployment rate to decline until early next year for up to 12% and attributed the reasons for its forecast this to Machdh Iraqi private sector's recent expansion of its activities.

However Keywords stressed in this context that an increase in employment in the public sector has led to a state of slack in most government institutions, with much more labor than the actual need, which requires new policies to run in this sector.

And between the different views on the unemployment rate, and the consensus that it is still high, the expert believes in working Sami Said that all governmental actions taken so far, including those carried out by the Ministry of Labour project lending, and run, and others to address this problem failed to provide viable solutions Them.

He also called for Saeed to re-move the wheel of economic development through investment, of which Iraq has requirements growth, and success, which will ensure the elimination of the unemployment problem once and for all after the State fails to confront them effectively.

http://www.qanon302.net/news.php?action=view&id=1688

Air France starts flights to Baghdad at the end of next month

Plans, a subsidiary of Air France to fly directly to Baghdad at the end of next month.

The news agency AFP the President of the Board of Directors of Eagle visiting Mr. Francois Hersen saying that the mission Francepkhasp will travel to Baghdad soon to assess security measures at the airport in the Iraqi capital in preparation for opening an air route between the two countries, and that the mission would be in Baghdad on 21 and September 22, adding that it would be Important in terms of approval of all security measures ..

He pointed out that such a mission would allow putting the finishing touches on the signing of bilateral agreements between France and Iraq, which will be translated into a regular air route to open this fall between Paris and Baghdad are Ptsierh company Eagle Azure.

Hersen He plans to visit a French Eagle specializes in trips to Morocco, Mali, Portugal, flights to Baghdad as of October 31. Company and visiting Eagle will fly to Baghdad with a program of three weekly flights emanating from Paris Roissy airport in the evening.

Hersen and expressed confidence that the security measures in Baghdad will have the consent of the French mission. And that security at the airport and surprisingly good ..

Have been suspended direct flights between the two capitals, French and Iraqi have been doing in the past of Air France since 1990 with the start of the first Gulf War after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Does not have a project for Air France flights to Iraq immediately, and it was constantly examining the conduct of a trip to Baghdad.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=30150

Syria welcomes the agreement to transport Iraqi oil across its territory

Welcomed the official source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry today the signing of the minutes of the meeting which took place in Damascus late last August between the ministries of oil from Syria and Iraq on the transfer of crude oil and gas in Iraq to the Mediterranean coast through Syrian territory.

The source said in a press statement about his country welcomed the signing of the record, which includes also take advantage of the capabilities available in existing oil transportation system, as well as take advantage of the transportation system and address the existing gas in Syria.

He said that this important step contributing to the development of relations between the two countries and is active in economic cooperation between them, in the interests of both peoples.

The meetings will be held technical committees in Damascus during the next few days.

Baghdad was signed with Syria in August 2007 an agreement to restart the pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk and Banias after his rehabilitation in Iraqi territory and the construction of tanks on both sides of the border to exchange oil products between the two countries.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=30138

Big plans at southern Iraqi oil field

An Asian consortium of oil companies is set to start developing the Gharraf oil fields in Iraq by the end of the year, the Iraqi oil ministry said.

The fields are near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, 230 miles south of the Iraqi capital.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry announced that a consortium lead by Malaysian energy company Petronas and the Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. would start drilling in the area by the end of the year, reports MEND, the Middle East business intelligence agency.

Petronas in May gave Weatherford International, a U.S. contractor, the contract to provide engineering design services for the southern oil fields.

Gharraf isn't currently producing oil. Initial production from eight wells is expected to reach 50,000 barrels per day. The consortium said it could boost that production level to 230,000 bpd by 2023.

The consortium will receive $1.49 for every barrel of production of more than 35,000 bpd.

A series of oil auctions in 2009 gave Baghdad the confidence to say it would one day rival Saudi Arabia in terms of oil production.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Reso...7841284382712/

Crucial link for global oil consumers

It has often been said, not least by OPEC itself, that if the group did not exist it would have to be invented.

From the start, the group founded by five developing nations that sought to reclaim control of their energy resources provoked suspicion and animosity from oil consumers. But rumours of OPEC’s demise were always exaggerated.

Has the world, then, discovered it needs OPEC and allowed the group to attain respectability in middle age?

The organisation says yes. It says it works to calm markets and stabilise crude prices and that recent history shows price volatility harms both oil producers and consumers.

OPEC’s opponents argue the group works merely to achieve its members’ short-term economic interests.

At best, they say, it is a debating club for cosseted third-world oil ministers. At worst, OPEC is portrayed as an “evil cartel” bent on kneecapping advanced economies.

Fadhil Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister who is now the executive director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London, is critical of OPEC while arguing that it plays an essential role.

“In the past, when the major oil companies used to control the industry, their highly efficient supply regulations fostered greater price stability in the oil market,” Mr Chalabi said in 2003.

“Nevertheless, OPEC supply regulations, although much less efficient, remain necessary.”

Mr Chalabi said earlier this year: “The world needs OPEC. The oil industry needs OPEC … it is the last resort.

“Consumers lift non-OPEC oil first and they come to OPEC to fill the gap between what they have and what they need … OPEC’s importance is that it fills that gap.”

Mr Chalabi argues that market chaos ensues when OPEC fails to act. As crude fell from above US$147 to below $34 a barrel in the second half of 2008, OPEC held a series of emergency meetings. But action was delayed until early the next year, when the group cut output by more than 3 million barrels per day.

“It arrested the fall. So no matter what OPEC is doing … still it is needed as the residual supplier to keep the balance between demand and supply,” Mr Chalabi says.

But for how long?

“They are talking about investing in productive capacity,” he says. “My question is whether in the future this capacity will be needed. If we agree that the long-term trend [for oil] demand is falling, then the need for OPEC oil will be less.”

OPEC is staring at a third consecutive year of falling demand for its crude. Its economists forecast a fourth next year.

Oil production from outside the group is edging up against an uncertain outlook for global demand. Oil consumption in the industrialised world may already have peaked, while in large developing economies such as China, the runaway growth in demand is slowing.

In the world’s biggest economy, the US President Barack Obama is implementing energy policy based on populist calls for US self-sufficiency in fuel and especially for less reliance on imported OPEC oil.

Despite the recent hiccup caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which has curbed the previously robust US appetite for offshore drilling, the overall plan is going swimmingly. Surging shale-gas production has made the US to all intents and purposes self-sufficient in natural gas.

Now domestic onshore oil production from shale formations is rising. The US is also producing record levels of biofuel, OPEC noted this month.

But the pendulum could swing back in as little as five years’ time, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and others predict.

Badr Jafar, the executive director of the Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum, is one oil man who is banking on the MENA region – home to eight of OPEC’s 12 members – remaining the world’s leading energy supplier in coming years.

Alternative energy sources such as renewable and nuclear power cannot be developed at the pace and scale required to “sideline” oil in the medium term, Mr Jafar says.

“The Gulf region will therefore assume an even more crucial role in contributing to the world’s energy mix,” he predicts.

Mr Jafar points out that wind and solar power still account for less than 2 per cent of the total energy supply of Europe, the US and China – three areas that have pushed hard to expand renewable power capacity.

“Ambitious plans to expand capacity several times again are starting to run up against physical constraints relating to grid capacity and system balancing, which are not easily solved,” he says.

“Furthermore, the financial cost of such policies may be prohibitive. Oil and gas demand is here to stay.

“The Gulf region plays a critical role in driving the global supply of oil and gas, and will continue to do so, especially as new discoveries elsewhere face major extraction difficulties, which don’t apply to the giant fields here in the Middle East.

“We are proceeding at full speed with our oil and gas supply projects here in [the MENA region] because we are fully confident that there will be a market which needs them for the foreseeable future.”

Lest that sounds like wishful thinking from a company rooted in the region, the IEA agrees.

“We have seen an increase in non-OPEC supplies but in the mid-term, non-OPEC production will decline,” says Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the Paris-based energy adviser to industrialised countries. “So dependency on OPEC oil will increase.”

The agency’s forecasts are regarded as bellwether indicators for the industry.

Mr Tanaka sees a role for OPEC, even in a near future dominated by larger oil stockpiles than normal. He is watching the run-up to OPEC’s next ministerial meeting on October 14.

“The OPEC has a very good spare capacity at this moment,” Mr Tanaka says. “We wish OPEC will take a closer look where fundamentals are going and take quick action.”

OPEC says it is aware of potential problems ahead. “As we enter the new decade and as we celebrate our golden anniversary, the challenges in the oil market will not disappear,” the organisation said in a recent commentary.

Laying claim to a “time-honoured commitment to market order and stability, in support of sustained world economic growth and the fulfilment of a broader-based agenda, such as greater equality among nations and the eradication of poverty in a cleaner and safer world”, it seemed determined to grow yet older and wiser.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs....709139900/1005

Improved Security Allowing Iraqis to Focus on Economy
Washington - An increase in the capabilities of Iraqi security forces is enabling Iraqi civilian leaders to focus more on their country's economy and its regional relationships, a senior State Department official said September 8.

An increase in the capabilities of Iraqi security forces is enabling Iraqi civilian leaders to focus more on their country’s economy and its regional relationships, a senior State Department official said September 8.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Michael Corbin, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Iraq in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said that although many Iraq observers have focused on the level of violence in the country as the United States withdrew the last of its combat troops in August, the Obama administration sees Iraq’s institutions as being able to withstand future attacks. Its government is also taking steps forward toward improving the rule of law and expanding economic opportunity, he said.

There is “a pattern of violence that continues” as terror groups seek to make their presence known and test the interim government, but Corbin said “their ability to maintain coordinated attacks is far diminished” and their attacks, which have often targeted Iraqi civilians, have failed to gain popular support.

“We see the fact that they have failed in the past in their attacks on economic infrastructure and their attacks on the coalition forces,” he said. “We think that the Iraqi government, even the interim government, can stand up to this type of attack and … we have declared our combat mission over because we have the seen the progress that the Iraqis have made with managing their own security.”

After months of discussions following a very close March election, Iraqi politicians “are on the way to forming a government,” Corbin said, and “have all called for a representative-inclusive government” that would include members from the country’s Shi’a, Sunni and Kurdish communities.

“This is very different from the situation in 2006, the last time they formed a government, when there was … a lot of violence … [and] ethno-sectarian warfare in some areas, and where the government that was formed was formed on the basis of strict ethnic lines rather than on the basis of an inclusive representative government,” Corbin said.

“Because of this effort to form a coalition government, there’s a lot of compromise and a lot of discussion going on that we haven’t seen in the past, so we’re encouraged by that,” he said.

For Iraq’s next government, U.S. officials see economic issues as being its key concern, he said.

“We see a big push for the economy, for jobs, [and] for services. The electricity provisions situation has gotten much better, but we still see people clamoring for better services, for water, [and] electricity,” he said.

U.S. officials are also encouraged that the two international bids that were held for companies to develop Iraq’s oil industry were free from corruption, and there is “a wide variety of international oil consortiums who are involved now in the southern oil fields in Iraq,” he said.

Iraq now has a chance to “develop as a positive force in the region,” with the re-establishment of diplomatic relations in the Middle East and beyond, and progress toward lifting the trade sanctions that were imposed by the international community in response to actions taken by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Corbin said Iraq has been chosen to host the 2011 Arab League Summit, and there has been “tangible progress” on removing the U.N. Security Council sanctions that were related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

The United States has been working closely with Iraq to get the sanctions lifted, as well as also preparing for the launch of discussions aimed at removing the sanctions that were imposed following Iraq’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait once an Iraqi government is formed, he said.

“We’re playing a supporting role,” Corbin said. “We will, as always, support Iraq in all the international organizations, including the U.N. and others, but we’ll be working cooperatively with the Iraqis” to support its reintegration into the region and the world, he said.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov).

http://media-newswire.com/release_1127238.html

British -Iraqi talks on ways of cooperation between Baghdad and London

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Rafie al-Issawi with the British ambassador to Iraq, John Jenkins, ways of cooperation between Baghdad and London, developed and expanded to serve the common interest of both countries.

Transfer of the official website of the Issawi, said Tuesday, adding that the meeting which took place in the office include a discussion of the course Issawi political situation in Iraq, finds a file cabinet and the possibility of overcoming obstacles to do so.

The Iraqi Issawi ready for dialogue with political parties in order to reach a common formula to form a government based on genuine national partnership, pointing to continued efforts to bridge the gap between the views of all political parties, while respecting the will of Iraqi voters in choosing his new government.

For his part, British Ambassador to his country's support for the democratic process in Iraq in the hope that the parliamentary blocs to reach a solution satisfactory to all parties and the Iraqi people is the government dealing with its requirements and check wanted.

http://radionawa.com/ar/NewsDetailN....566&LinkID=151

Iraq: a country of orphans

One in every six Iraqis is an orphan. That is the toll Iraqi children are paying in a country which is supposedly under the occupation and protection of the world’s only superpower.

Not all the orphans are the result of the violence that swept the country in the aftermath of the 2003-U.S. invasion.

But the invasion has caused untold miseries for Iraqis, surpassing those inflicted on them by their former tormentors, the clique that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

There were unconfirmed reports that Iraq has turned into a country of orphans. But the exact figure only became a reality recently, when the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs made public its own statistics.

The statistics points to dangerous demographics with grave social, health and economic consequences for a country which still lacks basic infrastructure.

These are the voiceless Iraqis. Their U.S. occupiers have almost cut and run and their Iraqi rulers are not so much concerned about their livelihood and well-being.

In a violent country like Iraq, where U.S. marines with bullet-proof jackets and thick armor, cannot feel safe, there is not so much room for an orphan.

Hundreds of thousands of them live on the street. There is no social security system to look after them.

As for who killed their parents, that is a totally different question.

They could be victims of random or deliberate fire and shelling by U.S. marines, their security guards or the multifarious militia groups which the U.S. helped prosper and mushroom.

If we consider the numbers of Iraqi orphans in terms of U.S. population of 308 million, the five million Iraqi orphans would be the equivalent of nearly 50 million U.S. orphans. Imagine major U.S. cities such as New York, L.A., Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia all populated completely by orphans.

There are so many stories in Iraq which its occupiers and rulers, and unfortunately the international media, would like to keep under wraps.

But to give lip service to this massive number of orphans, more than 16 percent of Iraqi population, and nearly half its children, is really devastating to hear.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index...09-13\kurd.htm

Iraqi finance minister discusses loan with Italian ambassador

Iraqi Finance Minister Baqir al-Zubaidi discussed on Tuesday with the Italian ambassador in Baghdad methods of activating the Italian agricultural loan to Iraq.

“The two sides also discussed recent political developments in Iraq, especially the issue of forming the new Iraqi government,” said a statement issued by the Iraqi Finance Ministry as received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“The two officials also discussed Iraqi-Italian economic and finance relations,” it added.

http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=136778