Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 06/10/2010 - 24/01/2011

Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s top confidant, sentenced to death

Tariq Aziz has been sentenced to death by hanging Tuesday for religious persecution under Iraq’s deposed Ba’athist regime.

Aziz, a Chaldean Christian who was identified as the eight of spades in the US military’s deck of wanted Ba’athist members, is set to die by hanging. He is charged with participating in a Saddam-orchestrated campaign to eliminate members of the Shiite Dawa Party, of which current Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is a member.

Mohammed Abdul Sahib, spokesman for Iraq's high criminal court, did not say when the former top-ranking would be put to death.

Aziz is already serving a 15-year sentence for his role in the 1992 execution of 42 merchants found guilty of profiteering.

The head of the Duma Committee for International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, says that the verdict was deliberately timed to distract attention from the row over the latest WikiLeaks revelations.

In recent news, WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, released thousands of files on the Iraq war, some of which suggest that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki organized "death squads" and other abuses by Iraqi security forces.

Carol Turner from the Stop the War coalition says there’s something very political behind this situation, as the victors in a conflict go unpunished and those who are defeated – Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz and so on – are the ones against whom the retributions are brought.

“I think if you make the comparison with WikiLeaks, what Tariq Aziz is being sentenced to, compared to what other people are getting away with, is certainly an interesting contrast,” Turner said. “What WikiLeaks showed is the scale of torture was huge, it was widespread – and even more, the US and Britain were absolutely complicit. This is not a matter of a few soldiers turning a blind eye. This is a case of the American military issuing central commands to not act on torture and breaches of human rights and so on. And if there were any justice in the world, not only would the torturers be punished, but so would the American and British authorities who went along with it.”

http://rt.com/Politics/2010-10-26/ta...raq-death.html

CBI dollar sales down to $106 million

The Central Bank of Iraq’s (CBI) dollar sales went down to reach $106.268 million in its daily auction on Wednesday, compared to $172.404 million in the previous session.

“There was no demand on cash, while the foreign transfers outside the country reached $106.268 million, covered at an exchange rate of 1,179 Iraqi dinars per dollar,” according to a CBI news bulletin received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

None of the 14 banks that participated in today’s session offered to sell dollars.

http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=138372

Local Iraqi Officials Outraged Over Baghdad Auctioning Off Their Natural Gas Fields
Local opposition to the projects is clear. Residents of Basra, Anbar and Diyala maintain that the money would not trickle down to citizens if it were controlled by Baghdad.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry's auction of three natural gas fields last week has been angrily opposed by all the provinces in which they are located, with provincial officials threatening legal action against Baghdad and warning that they will refuse to cooperate with the developers.

Bids were granted to companies from Turkey, Kuwait, Kazakhstan and South Korea to develop gas fields holding about 10% of the country's reserves. The fields in Anbar, Diyala and Basra are primarily being developed for domestic consumption to improve Iraq's feeble power supply, Oil Ministry officials said.

Provincial council members maintain the Oil Ministry overstepped its bounds -- and may have violated the constitution -- by holding the auction without consulting local officials. The provinces say they want more control over their natural resources and assurances that the developments will benefit their economies.

The dispute reflects ongoing tensions between local authorities and Baghdad over management of the country's vast natural resources. The proposed hydrocarbons law, drafted in 2007, regulates the management and contracting of natural resources between local and federal authorities -- though it has been stalled for years. Parliament was expected to debate the legislation after the March elections, but this has been held up by the bitter political disputes that have left the country without a functioning government.

Iraq has the fourth-largest proven oil reserves in the world and is believed to have the 10-largest gas reserves. Most of the country's natural resources are undeveloped.

In western Anbar province, the council is threatening to sue the Oil Ministry for not consulting local authorities on the auction bid. It says it will not assist the foreign firms that won the right to develop Akkas, a large gas reserve near the Syrian border.

While no laws exist to regulate Iraq's natural resources, local officials point to Article 109 of the constitution that mandates that the federal government should manage oil and gas "with the producing governorates and regional governments".

"The council will not provide any kind of cooperation or support or facilities to those companies that won the bid," Jasim al-Halbusi, the head of the provincial council, told the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

Asked if there could be attacks on the foreign companies developing the field, Halbusi responded, "The central government will bear the responsibility for ignoring the decision of Anbar's local government and the demands of Anbar's people.

"Signing the contract regarding Akkas gas field without listening to our decision [to refuse the deal] will stoke problems between the local and federal governments."

Once the center of the Sunni insurgency, Anbar is now largely controlled by local tribes who defected from groups such as al-Qaeda. Security has improved there since 2007 but remains a major concern, particularly for foreigners.

Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani called on local authorities to cooperate with the firms that won the gas field auction, warning that "the government will be very strong and severely punish everyone who hinders development of these contracts".

Anbar's provincial council announced its opposition to the auction days before bidding opened in Baghdad. The conflict between Anbar and central government began earlier this year when the Oil Ministry turned down a proposal by local officials to have a consortium of Turkish and German companies develop Akkas, Mezher Hasan al-Mullah, head of Anbar council's investment committee, said. The council threatened to reject the Oil Ministry's proposals after their own was turned down, Mullah said.

In Diyala and Basra, officials claimed they were never officially notified about the auction. The Oil Ministry maintains that it has the right to sign development contracts for oil and gas, and that local officials were well aware of the auction, which was originally scheduled for September.

But Ahmed al-Seleti, a member of the Basra provincial council, insisted, "This is an important issue for the province, and we should not be excluded like this. Perhaps after several years we will need another revolution to nationalize oil."

Sadiq al-Musawi, deputy governor of Diyala, also claimed that the development contracts were illegal because local authorities were not consulted, although he said his council did not intend to take the dispute further. Basra officials said they are to discuss taking action against the Oil Ministry over the deals.

In addition to threatening to sue the government for not consulting local authorities, Anbar's provincial council is considering organizing demonstrations and may go on strike to protest the Oil Ministry's decision, Halbusi said.

Still, Tariq Harb, a member of parliament and a legal expert, said the contracts are "legal and constitutional, and the provinces have no power to object to the contracts or the bid results".

Thamir al-Ghadban, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's oil adviser, said the gas development projects would improve quality of life in the provinces by providing electricity and jobs.
And Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman, said the ministry would discuss the contracts with both local officials and citizens and did not believe security would be a concern, adding, "I don't think there will any problems."

But local opposition to the projects is clear. Residents of Basra, Anbar and Diyala said they were angry about the contracts, maintaining that the money would not trickle down to citizens if it were controlled by Baghdad.

"The revenue from the gas will go to Baghdad and the situation here will still be miserable," said Sheikh Salam Ajmi, a Fallujah tribal leader who participated in a recent demonstration in the city.

Basim Saeed, a 45-year-old teacher in Diyala, said the local government should stop international companies from working in the provinces

Calling them "vampires who want to suck the blood of locals by making a deal with Baghdad", he added, "If those firms try to come here and exploit our wealth they will be in trouble and won't be able to get out of it."

http://www.alternet.org/world/148631..._fields?page=1

United Nations calls on the United States and Iraq to investigate allegations of "wiki Lex"

New York, United States of America (CNN) - United Nations called on Tuesday, the United States and Iraq for an investigation on the allegations contained in the confidential files published by the website "wiki Lex" website for the Iraq war and alleges violations against the detainees

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pele, expressed concern about the revelations in the confidential files of the U.S. military to continue the delivery of thousands of people in Matqlath despite knowing the fact that the Iraqi forces to commit abuses on a large scale on detainees, according to the United Nations.

Pele Iraq and called for the ratification of the Treaty on the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as reported to the UN.

The location of the "wiki Lex" was initiated, and according to expectations, the deployment of approximately 400 A and a secret document related to the war in Iraq, last week, several months after the publication of similar files on the war in Afghanistan, in a move that drew sharp criticism in Washington.

The invitation by the United Nations in the wake of the claim, "Human Rights Watch," Washington and Baghdad to begin the investigation on the reports of torture and abuse against Iraqi detainees, against the backdrop of secret military documents that justified the site "wiki Lakes," published in order to uncover the truth.

The organization said that published confidential files contain evidence of the vulnerability of prisoners to be killed and tortured by Iraqi security forces, calling for (Iraqi) government to prosecute those responsible for these abuses.

It also urged "Human Rights Watch," the U.S. government to consider if its forces violated international law to hand over thousands of detainees in its custody to the Iraqi authorities, despite warnings from the Organization of the Human Rights of the obvious risks being subjected to torture.

Said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of the Organization: "These new disclosures appear on the prevalence of torture by Iraqi security forces that escape without punishment at all."

In a related development, said anti-war activists at a press conference Saturday that the classified documents adds to the overall official toll of civilian deaths in the Iraq war, more than 15 thousand new victims were not known before.

Asang, "said Julian, CEO of" wiki Lex: "We have seen that there are nearly 15 thousand cases were not documented or known to the civilians killed in violence in Iraq."

This brings the total number of civilians killed in the war waged by the United States in 2003, to 122 thousand people dead, according to the "Statistics killed in Iraq", an anti-war

http://arabic.cnn.com/2010/middle_ea...raq/index.html

Washington: trade agreements between Iraq and Iran are illegal!!

Criticized the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad James Jeffrey, trade agreements held by Iraq with Iran and considered illegal, praising at the same time, the conventions held by Iraq, with many neighboring countries.

Jeffrey said during a press conference held in Kirkuk: "We appreciate very commercial activities fostered by Iraq with neighboring countries, like Turkey, which arrived in trade between them and Iraq to six billion dollars, in conjunction with the growth of Iraq's trade with Syria, Jordan and the Gulf States."

Jeffrey Iran and excluded from the positive assessment, saying that "trade with Iran in particular, we consider illegal under international restrictions on remittances and on the movement of trade exchange with them," expressing confidence that "Iraq is aware of these restrictions." Jeffrey pointed out that "all the friends of Iraq want to be an independent state with full sovereignty."

The volume of trade exchange between Iran and Iraq last year reached about U.S. $ 7 billion. This coincides with reports of near signing a free trade agreement between Baghdad and Tehran, so that Iraq becomes the second country with which Iran signed such agreements after Venezuela.

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

Iraq is ranked 175 in the list of Corruption Perception Index for 2010

Iraq was ranked 175 in the list of Corruption Perception Index for 2010, which included 178 countries, according to a statement issued by Transparency International to be among the four countries most corrupt in the world, ahead of Afghanistan, Myanmar and Somalia, which occupied the bottom of the list.

A report by Transparency International, quoted by the agency (Voices of Iraq), according to the Corruption Perception Index for the year 2010, about three-quarters of the state listed on the index, and the 178 countries around the world, won the total points less than five on a scale of points Itrah between 0 and indicates the presence of a significant level of corruption and 10 indicating low levels of corruption, which refers to the existence of a real problem of corruption. "

It says non-governmental organization based in Berlin-based group that issued the Regulations for its annual since 1995, that "Governments which is characterized by the absence of stability, which often suffered from the conflict, continued to control the bottom of the corruption index."

With stand Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore tops the list with 9.3, followed by Finland and Sweden and got a 9.2, lies at the bottom of the list with 1.1 and Somalia, the best of Myanmar and Afghanistan, with 1.4 and accepted by Iraq with 1.5.

And occupied Iraq ranked last among 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, which captured the Qatar ranked first, followed by United Arab Emirates and Israel.

It was Iraq in 2009 was ranked 176 with 1.5, ahead only on Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Somalia.

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

Saad Muttalibi negate any effect of Shahristani and state law on the decisions of the Federal Court

denied a member of a coalition of state law, MP, logistical, there is no effect of oil minister, leader of the rule of law, Hussein al-Shahristani, the federal court, saying such a word as a sinner and has nothing to do on the ground.

He said logistical during a press statement that those who speak of such consequence, the word, it is not based on any facts, but called the accusations haphazardly, because al-Shahristani has no any connection with the Federal Court and decisions issued, adding that al-Shahristani has a lot of work that is done, it is now in the position of Minister of Oil and Electricity agency as he had been serving as Minister of Finance and agency when he was its minister on a visit to Washington.

The press reports spoke earlier about the effects exercised by large Hussain al-Shahristani on the decisions of the Federal Court.

The Federal Court issued a decision to end the open meeting on 14 since last July, during the period of two weeks, and considered by some political blocs of the present resolution Bacs.

http://www.nakhelnews.com/pages/news.php?nid=3023

Economic Researcher: the state budget does not support the Iraqi economy

He said economic researcher Star Maritime that the general budget was unable to move the Iraqi economy (broken). Bahri said in a telephone conversation with the Agency (news) today: that the budget is a revenue and expenses if there was an increase in income over expenses, the production process and Toviralciolp cash Taattvaal with the reality of state of the economy. He said sea: the general budget of volatile and hard to help improve the economy because of the degradations of the Iraqi economy from abnormal conditions, as the Iraqi economy is not able to come back to put it natural because of the circumstances Agheirmestqrp.

He continued: "What happened to him as a result of international sanctions and the confusion and political siege, led to a lack of development and progress of the economy forward. And the sea: that the budget quickly change the direction to the case do not meet the required purpose, because a lot of countries, especially developing countries depend on the programmed political government, however, and says: "No there is no room for the private sector to move in this area.

He pointed to the sea: "The economic transformation of the Iraqi government sector and the socialist and central planning to a market sector needs to be for many years to build the infrastructure that rely on government support."

Between the sea: he must rely on the mental economy of the developed countries provided by the activation of the commercial development to develop the country's economy.

http://www.ikhnews.com/news.php?action=view&id=3794

Mohammed Mhkour: the coming days will reveal the face of the government and everyone would agree

MP of the National Alliance Mohammed Mhkour that the Federal Court decision binding an end to the open meeting is the necessity of agreement of the political blocs (senior politicians) on the presidencies of the three before entering into the parliament to facilitate the task of forming the government. He said in a call (Agency News) "I think the decision of the Court may select two weeks to end the open meeting and senior politicians to reach a solution and enter into the parliament and they agree on the three presidencies. He Mhkour: "The round table, which let it since the early days is the appropriate solution to form a government benefit, as it is known, Iraq is not or a national one, but more and more of a range of national and should please everyone and if you did not participate in the Iraqi government will be the government is weak and can not provide what the people want.

He Mhkour: The solution is best suited at this time to sit at the table round and the invitation to meet the President of the Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani and advocated by Mr. Hakim is able to satisfy everyone is going to be the best suited for the next government. He Mhkour: the solution is between two parties, the rule of law and Iraqi and that the Kurds are the link between the two is they who will ultimately determine the point of the next government and the Kurds in the principles they see that the government must be a government of national partnership, because there are relations strategy between state law and the Kurds and the Iraqi Kurds and the coming days will reveal the face of the next government.

http://www.ikhnews.com/news.php?action=view&id=3788

Iraq resolved 67% of the outstanding economic files with the European Union

The adviser in the Iraqi government ended its mandate, on Tuesday, that the State Committee for activating economic relations with the European Union resolved about 67% of the outstanding issues.

The Economic Adviser peace Qureshi told the Kurdish news agency (Rn) "The Economic Commission decided yesterday in lengthy discussions about 67% of the files that worry the EU in the activation of economic activity such as power plants and support investment and infrastructure projects in Iraq."

Iraq is trying to convince the international community need to activate the investment, especially after the formation of the National Investment Commission, which ensures the process of facilitating the work of the investment companies in the country.

He pointed out that the Quraishi "loans granted by the European Union cost Iraq a lot of money and effort, so the Committee had its main priorities is a loan search is the European Union to support investment in Iraq."

"In the past there was apprehension among Member States of the European Union on the tense security situation in the past years, but that fear faded in recent years following the improved security situation has left only technical obstacles will hopefully be resolved during the Commissioners continued."

And ratified the Iraqi government in mid-September on the draft law on ratification of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Iraq and the European Union with regard to energy development in the country, as European Union has opened recently in Iraq for three offices in Erbil and Basra and Baghdad in order to expand its business in the country.

http://www.aknews.com/ar/aknews/2/191179/