Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. (before Jan.20,2007)

10 million court building for Basra



By Abed Battat



Azzaman, January 20, 2007





Work on a new court building has started in Basra and is expected to finish in 18 months.



The court complex will cost $10 million. All Basra courts are expected to move to the complex erected over an area of 100,000 square meters.



The head of Basra’s appeal court said the building will be furnished with modern amenities such as car parks, gardens and quarters for lawyers and other facilities.



“The building has been designed in the light of the most modern models in the field,” he said.



He Basra’s provincial authorities intend to allocate a piece of land close to the complex for the construction of new houses and apartments for the judges that will be working in the court.

Iraq to deploy 8,000 guards for Ashura
Web posted at: 1/21/2007 1:42:55
Source ::: REUTERS
KARBALA, Iraq • Iraq will deploy about 8,000 policemen and security guards in and around the shrine city of Karbala this month for the the Shi’ite mourning ceremony of Ashura, a frequent target of bloody insurgent attacks. Karbala governor Akil Al Khuzai said nearly three million pilgrims are expected to flock to the city for the ceremony, the holiest on the Shi’ite calendar, which runs over 11 days from January 30.

Police chief Major General Mohammed Mohsin Abu Al Walid said security preparations were already under way, with new checkpoints to be erected in and around the southern city over the next few days.

The authorities have also drawn up a joint plan with neighbouring provinces to secure roads leading to Karbala, while a vehicle curfew will be imposed inside the town and a rapid action force will be on alert in case of emergencies, he said.

Ashura, which commemorates the slaying of the Prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH)grandson Imam Hussein in Karbala in the seventh century, has been marred in the past by attacks by Sunni extremists that have left scores of people dead.

Walid said the authorities have urged clerics and tribesmen to restrain from making inflammatory sectarian statements during Ashura, which is taking place against a backdrop of rampant Shi’ite-Sunni attacks.

Every year large groups of Shi’ite men with shaven heads march towards the mausoleum of Imam Hussein, flaying their heads with knives and swords as part of the mourning ceremonies. Outlawed under the Sunni-dominated regime of the executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, Ashura is the most venerated of Shi’ite events and has been targeted by Sunni Arab insurgents in previous years.

In 2004, 170 people were killed in attacks in Baghdad and Karbala and another 44 died in a single incident in Karbala in 2005.

Italy, Iraq to sign friendship and cooperation treaty
Posted: 21 January 2007 0221 hrs





ROME - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will sign a friendship and cooperation treaty with Italy during a visit to Rome next week, news agency ANSA reported on Saturday.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema will receive Zebari on Tuesday evening and "a treaty of friendship and cooperation between Italy and Iraq, which is currently being drawn up, is expected to be signed at this meeting," ANSA cited sources close to the Italian foreign ministry as saying.

The Italian government under centre-left Prime Minister Romano Prodi has withdrawn Italian troops from Iraq that were sent there by his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon and key ally of US President George W. Bush.

Prodi and members of his government were also highly critical -- as was Berlusconi -- of the recent executions of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and two of his henchmen.

This stance drew criticism from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who made a parallel of the death of Saddam with that of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in World War II.

After a summary trial in April 1945, Mussolini was shot together with his mistress by partisans in 1945 and their bodies hanged upside down on public display.

Italy is spearheading a campaign for a global moratorium on the death penalty.

Iraq repairs lose out on $7.5billion
16 Hours,10 minutes Ago




Botched budgeting left more than $US6 billion ($A7.5 billion) piled up in Iraq which should have been spent on rebuilding crippled infrastructure, according to a US Government auditor.



In one stunning example, Iraq's oil ministry had spent only $US4 million of $US3.6 billion budgeted to repair the crumbling sector, the Government Accountability Office said.

Fresh revelations of economic mismanagement in Iraq came just over a week after US President George Bush pledged another $US1 billion in US economic aid, as a key part of his new strategy for the war-torn nation.

US Comptroller-General David Walker, who heads the GAO, said in testimony to the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that unspent Iraqi funds could be a source for future rebuilding projects.

Iraq "faces difficulties in spending budgeted funds for capital goods and projects in the security, oil and electricity sectors", Mr Walker testified. He said the Baghdad Government was responsible for $US25 billion a year in revenues to be spent on rebuilding and administration.

"However, unclear budgeting and procurement rules have affected Iraq's efforts to spend capital budgets effectively and efficiently," he said. "Iraq had more than $US6 billion in unspent capital project funds as of August 2006."

The report said that "Iraq's oil ministry spent only $US4 million of $US3.6 billion in budgeted funds to repair Iraq's dilapidated oil infrastructure".

Oil is key to the Iraqi economy, and the distribution of resources an issue of contention between ethnic Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Iraqi production has tumbled from 3.5 million barrels a day to about 2 million.

The failure to spend available reconstruction funds raised serious questions about a government that has to show sceptical citizens it can improve basic services, Mr Walker said.

The US Government last week appointed a new reconstruction co-ordinator to oversee the new $US1 billion US program for reconstruction and economic development in Iraq.

The Baghdad Government is to commit $US10 billion of its funds for the same purpose under the Bush plan.

But Democrat representative Marty Meehan warned that the GAO's testimony threw a grim light on efforts to rebuild Iraq.

"It's been nearly four years since we invaded Iraq, four years since we started rebuilding the country, $US25 billion, over 3000 American lives," he said.

"You look at what we have to show for it: oil production is less than 2 million barrels per day, that's 20 per cent lower than before the war; 3 million fewer people have access to potable water; Iraqis in Baghdad have access on average to four hours of electricity per day. It was 16 hours per day before the war … We don't seem to be getting very far."

US Iraq strategy needs major regional backup - Iraqi front

POL-IRAQ-CONCORD-LEADER
US Iraq strategy needs major regional backup - Iraqi front

By Mohammed Al-Ghazi BAGHDAD, Jan 19 (KUNA) -- The Iraqi Concord Front said here Friday the US Administration was in urgent need of major regional support for its fresh Iraq strategy and a security plan the Iraqi government plans to put in place in days' time.

The remarks were made by Zafer Al-Ani, spokesman for the front, in an interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), terming the security plan as the final chance not only for the US Administration but for the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and the Iraqis as well.

Undoubtedly, Iran has seriously poked its nose into the Iraqi security and political dossiers, Al-Ani claimed, continuing "The US Administration's concern has led to a clear-cut Arab depth for what is going on in Iraq in support of Iranian influence (in Iraq)." The big Arab vacuum in the economic and political fields in Iraq has allowed Iran to fill it to a large extent, thus having a major role in the Iraqi file whereby it tries to settle scores with the US, he added.

On Arab support for Al-Maliki's government, he said "We are part of the Iraqi government and thereupon Arab support for Al-Maliki's government means support for political parties which are involved in this government. But, this backup is conditional upon commitments which the government should meet." Of such commitments, the new policy should be a pure Iraqi one, and should not bias towards one side against the other, the Iraqi Concord Front's spokesman said.

He went on to say "We are satisfied with the government's new orientation and Al-Maliki's earnestness." He expressed hope that the fresh security blueprint would be meant to chase all lawbreakers regardless of their political leanings.

He also gave the Iraqi government a two-month time limit to prove the credibility of its new security plan. (end) mh.

mt
KUNA 191523 Jan 07NNNN

Provincial Reconstruction Teams Building Local Iraqi Leadership
Teams offer government coordination, training to make Iraqis self-sufficient

By Stephen Kaufman
USINFO Staff Writer




Iraqis celebrate the opening of Maath bin Jabal school in Baghdad with a ribbon-cutting ceremony January 9. (DoD photo)Washington -- Unlike other international aid programs operating in Iraq that focus on infrastructure projects, provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) are designed to expand the capacity of Iraqis to deliver essential services to their own people, helping to establish a permanent mid-level bureaucracy that will be able to respond to needs well after international assistance workers have gone.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Kuwait January 16 that success in Iraq needs to be built “bottom-up as well as top-down” and that Iraq’s decision to have a federal-style government made it “very, very important to build local leadership.”

She said that “in many ways” it is easier to work at the local level through PRTs to arrange the delivery of funds, goods and services from the central government, as well as to improve the structure and effectiveness of government through training.

The PRTs are designed to make local and provincial governments “capable of dealing with the day-to-day problems of the people where the people live,” she said, adding, “We think it's actually a pretty effective way of going about it.”

Part of President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq calls for expanding the number of PRTs in the country from 10 to at least 18. (See related article.)

Speaking January 17 from Baghdad through a State Department digital video conference, Joseph Gregoire, the team leader of the Baghdad PRT, said his staff of 80 civilian and military personnel is focused on capacity building. “By capacity building I mean engaging local Iraqi officials and representatives of nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations … so that we can share with them our knowledge of policies, practices, procedures that can meet, support and sustain good governance.”

The PRTs' mandate is to help integrate the levels of Iraqi bureaucracies so that “in time, especially when we’re no longer there,” they can effectively operate a system that is “responsive to the local population,” he said.

Gregoire’s deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Ruch, said the term “provincial reconstruction team” is “a bit of a misnomer.”

“We are not a reconstruction agency. We’re reconstructing a government,” he said, adding that even that term is itself a stretch since as recently as one year ago, “we didn’t have provincial governments.”

PRT funds are focused on training and coordinating local, provincial and national governments to better meet the needs of their citizens. “It’s not so much about building schools. It’s about getting the steps in the process so they have a bureaucracy that can do this kind of work,” Ruch said.

In particular, the PRTs want to continue to train “those mid-level people who do the work in a government,” he said. “The leaders will come and go, but we’ve established a bureaucracy. They are the people who keep the government moving through time,” he explained.

As an example, Ruch said his PRT recently brought local Baghdad district leaders who wanted to build more schools together with their provincial council and Iraq’s Ministry of Education to discuss how to go about school construction. None of the three levels of government was previously making its own linkages, he said. Thanks to the PRT’s coordination, all three levels came up with a list of 10 schools to be built throughout the city, prioritized by need, to be voted on later in January. The PRT is also setting up a conference among the levels of government to establish future procedures for building schools in Baghdad.

Despite sectarian violence and its effect on the country’s politics, Gregoire said, his team has “not seen instances of sectarian criteria determining” the priority or placement of projects.

“You would be hard-pressed to look at where these projects are occurring, if you were to plot them on a map of Baghdad, and find any type of sectarian divider where things are actually being built,” Ruch said, since everyone realizes the need to work together. “You can’t make one part of the city great and leave another part of the city alone.” There is an understanding that “everyone has got to get something out of this government or they’re not going to succeed,” he said.

Besides helping local officials work through their provincial and federal governments, legal experts in the PRTs are also training Iraqi legal and law enforcement officials in the rule of law, and others on the team are providing vocational training to participants in the U.S. Agency for International Development’s microfinance programs.

Gregoire said the Baghdad PRT received $100 million in October 2005 and has already committed $70 million to various projects, with $40 million being used in projects now under way.

He acknowledged that “it will take a very long time to get to the point where the Iraqis will be able to meet the needs of the population independent of donor action.” But he said the PRTs were dispatched precisely in order to establish “the basis of that kind of development.”

Iraqi president's envoy denounces US kidnapping of Iran diplomats Tehran, Jan 20, IRNA
Iran-Iraq-Diplomats
US kidnapping of diplomats from the Iranian Consulate in Erbil has caused humanitarian problems for Iraqi Kurds living in the province, representative of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Tehran said on Saturday.


Nazem Dabbagh said that the closure of the Consulate has deprived Iraqi Kurds and patients who had applied for Iranian visas.

Dabbagh, who is also a representative of Iraq's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told IRNA that the Consulate used to grant visas to more than 150 people living in the Iraqi province and the US action has deprived the Iraqis of consular services for Iraqi people.

He said that the US attempted to sabotage Iran's relations with Iraqi Kurdistan province adding that fortunately there is
understanding between the two parties.

Dabbagh said that President Talabani, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and chief of Iraqi Kurdistan administration are seriously seeking to secure release of Iranian diplomats.

Iran lodged a complaint with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon against United States for kidnapping Iranian diplomats from Iran's Consulate in Erbil, Iraq.

The Consulate was set up in Erbil several years ago under an agreement between Iran and the Iraqi Kurdistan self rule government.

1416/2322/1412

Originally Posted by JT2154

Thanks Susie. You sure do keep us honest. I thought currrency would automatically become tradeable once in the WTO...

JT2154

I don’t think so nor is it a prerequisite. Vietnam is a fully fledged member of the WTO and they don’t have a tradeable currency.

Originally Posted by $onedaysoon$

Finance Minister announced the Iraqi statement Zubaidi, «that the ministry and the Central Bank are considering a proposal to lift the value of the Iraqi dinar, and return to normal».

And Heymann told the minister to the concerns of the banking and business community, as well as citizens, fear of the Iraqi market due to the pressure of the implications of such a measure might lead to some sort of instability in trade exchanges, in estimating the value of the dinar exchange rate of foreign currencies, including the dollar. He described the High Director of the Bank of Credit Iraqi Fuad bono statement by the Minister of Finance «very important», on the one hand the equality of the dinar dollar, pointing out «that is pleasant to the hearts of Iraqis, who are looking to restore the strength of the Iraqi currency, as it was before the 1990s of the last century, he wondered whether the national economy in its current capable of the transition to equal dinar dollar»? Bono, however, has often including the Minister Zubaidi on the support and backing of the World Bank proposed this, and said : «The current study data make it wait to give a definitive opinion on the subject.

ÇáãæÞÚ ÇáÑÓãí áÌÑíÏÉ ÇáÃåÇáí ÇáÚÑÇÞíÉ - ÇáÇæÓÇØ ÇáãÕÑÝíÉ æÇáÊÌÇÑíÉ ÊÈÏí ÇåÊãÇãÇ ßÈíÑÇ ÈãÞÊÑÍ ãÓÇæÇÉ ÇáÏíäÇÑ ÈÇáÏæáÇÑ

Here is some more from the same page as above:

The Director of the Bank of High Assyrian International Investment Zuhair Al-Hafiz, <Zubaidi minister that the proposal needs to pause and carefully take into account the implications of the security situation on the Iraqi economy, which make it unable to absorb any defects that might affect the business dealings in the absence of a proposal under advisement.

He asked Acting Director of the Bank for International Investment Basra
Badi intellectual :> Is that the international debt reduction for Iraq and the increase in liquidity resulting from the rise in oil prices, enough to take such a decision, such as>? He added <What is important in this connection to take into account a study that may result from the decision of equality dinar dollar, the repercussions on the local commercial transactions, and how to avoid any disruption to transfers of traders and banks.


This is the link & Hope it works:
Translated version of http://www.ahali-iraq.net/payv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2181&Ite mid=30

Lewscrew

Originally Posted by DayDream

This is how inscrutable explained it to me a few weeks ago...

it's a DNS problem with the nameservers and the zoning. If you are using a proxy that originates in another country you may be able to get on the site. I was also able to get on the site yesterday using Alexa.com http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?h...q=uruklink.net but am unable to this morning.

Cheers!
DayDream

Thanx again...I guess I'll have to wait until any news gets posted.