KTFA:

JJimmyJJ:  A little different slant on the US providing oversight and supervision of the CBI:

If you are an employee of the CBI in Iraq, even if you're a patriot and an honorable person,  the fact that Iran exerted so much control in the government and in the streets made it almost impossible to resist their demands. 

In other words, how hard would it be to refuse to help Iran steal US dollars from the auction,  when Iranian agents could say (and mean it) "Help us,  or you'll lose your job and your family will disappear? " Choosing between your family or white collar crime? That's sone effective leverage. 

BUT, once the US started watching everything, that patriotic employee could then say,  "I'd help you,  but it is impossible. The US is watching things too closely".

SUPERVISION WASN'T JUST A THREAT TO THE CBI-- IT WAS ALSO PROTECTION (IMO). Oversight could strengthen the feeble knees of these employees.

Samson:  Pompeo: Washington plans to start a strategic dialogue with Iraq in mid-June

8th April, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the US administration plans to open a strategic dialogue with Iraq in the middle of next June, and that his designation for the head of the negotiating delegation, David Hill, is the third man in the US State Department, indicating that an agreement has been reached with Baghdad on the issue and the date.

He added: The importance of the Iraqi government's commitment to the reform process necessary to build a sovereign Iraq that is independent from the sectarian pattern that has led to corruption and terrorism. He clarified that the dialogue should rise on the basis of such criteria that Washington wants to enter into a strategic dialogue with Iraq to confront the violence and the threats that the return of terrorism might bring.

 The minister stressed what he called the Trump administration's message, which was built from the start on the basis of ensuring a political path for Iraq going forward.

And, at the end of January 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated that discussions with many Iraqi leaders continued about Washington's support for the fight against ISIS. They explained that they are constantly discussing with many Iraqi and Kurdish leaders, all of whom express their support for the fight against the criminal organization ISIS.

The House of Representatives approved, earlier, a decision committing the government to work to end the presence of any foreign forces on Iraqi soil, and this came during an extraordinary session in the presence of the head of the caretaker government, Adel Abdul Mahdi.

The discussion of removing the 5,200 American forces from the country comes after the assassination of the head of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Organization, along with eight others.  LINK

************

Don961:  AUCTION SUNDAY ... MONDAY NO ... TUESDAY YES ... WEDNESDAY NO ... NO CASH SALES TO BANKS ... NEW PATTERN ?? ... IMO 

************

Clare:  Coronavirus stimulus checks are on their way: Here's how it works

SNIPPET: With payments from the coronavirus stimulus package expected to reach American individuals and families as soon as this week,

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-stimulus-checks-on-their-way-heres-how-it-works

************

Don961:  Via 4 modes 

US report highlights secret war between global intelligence services due to "Corona"

10:45 Tuesday 07 April 2020  Baghdad - people

Researcher Calder Walton, author of “The Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War, and the Decline of an Empire,” sees the Corona virus epidemic currently sweeping the world more than just an emergency health condition and poses unprecedented dangers to US and international national security. A number of heads of state, similar to a major war that killed a large number of people.

In a report published by Foreign Policy, Walton followed, "Walton" pointed to the great role that intelligence services play in this conflict. This role will be practiced largely in secrecy, but that will not diminish its importance.

According to the report, intelligence services will participate in the war against Covid-19 through four means. First, these devices will provide decision makers with estimates of the spread and impact of the virus. The CIA currently has a facility dedicated to fighting Covid-19, the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), in Maryland. Epidemiologists, virologists and other experts work at the center. Building on previous Cold War activity, the National Intelligence Center appointed and authorized America when it came to biological threats from 2008 to Covid 19.

According to public reports, prepared in January and February this year, intelligence services warned the Trump administration of the risk of the virus spreading from the Chinese city of Wuhan.

U.S. President Donald Trump is rumored to have ignored these warnings. But the initial dealing with Covid 19 was not the result of the failure of the American intelligence to warn decision makers, but rather a political failure, and if these reports were believed, it would be the most severe and dangerous political failure in American history.

Espionage, or what is known as stealing secrets, is a second way that enables intelligence to participate in the fight of Covid-19. Espionage reveals secrets others would like to hide. And by Covid-19, US intelligence will be able to provide unique information - not available from any other source - for decision makers in Washington about other countries' secrets about the virus, including whether their official infection rates are correct.

These secrets are especially important to reveal what is going on inside closed regimes like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. According to US intelligence estimates, China concealed the outbreak at the beginning of the virus, while Russia initially announced a few infection rates, but now it imposed strict measures and a curfew.

As a result, US intelligence and its partners will play major roles in verifying their official numbers. Some of that information will be received through espionage operations, the old method of recruiting human elements who have access to relevant classified information.

That information will undoubtedly come through technical intelligence, what is known as signal intelligence or satellite intelligence, which indicates a country’s deception about Covid-19.

The third way in which intelligence will play a leading role in responding to the Coronavirus, and subsequent epidemics, will be achieved by combating media misinformation.

According to the report's author, today, Beijing and Washington are fighting a propaganda battle to lead the world in eliminating Covid-19.

The writer believes that in light of the high rates of infection in the United States and the number of deaths in America exceeding the numbers in China, the United States appears defeated in that battle of soft power. Whether or not the Chinese political bureau knew, his false claim of knowledge of the source of the virus, is said to be a use of the conspiracy theory developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War when it was rumored that the US military had developed HIV.

The author believes that in the face of a deadly new virus, which has no cure, it is no wonder that fear, chaos and panic prevail in societies around the world, and they have easy prey to mislead an official or unofficial media. During the Cold War, the United States devised a successful strategy (AMWG) to counter Soviet media misinformation about HIV.

According to the report, the same strategy can now be implemented, and the formation of contemporary AMWG to combat media misinformation as well as other intelligence means such as surveillance to eliminate Covid-19 and similar epidemics.   LINK

Don961:  Overcoming the economic crisis

Tuesday 07 April 2020  Sabah Mohsen Kazem

 Perhaps the far and near knows the Iraqi economic potential..the multiplicity of wealth, the potential for the availability of the national technical workforce, and the personal preparations for development. –

A political formation of a reduced government for a year that manages the economy file with a high technology to overcome the deterioration in prices, controls spending and reduces waste of government money by reducing concessions and fixing the date of elections, preventing corona and the risks of its spreading with stone, closing borders and increasing awareness of Cleanliness and bypassing the plight of low oil prices, yes, the latter side has a realistic effect on financial returns and causes budget deficits.

Here, the matter must be rectified by reducing the budget according to requirements and priorities .. health, education and defense without wasting the Iraqi wealth, reducing the salaries of presidents, ministers and parliament, controlling border crossings, oil smuggling, organizing customs tariffs and transit traffic in all land, sea and air fields, as well as revitalizing national industries that Its raw materials are available in Iraq, supporting the Iraqi private sector by purchasing the product and marketing it to the neighborhood, and reviewing the economic agreements with the neighborhood, as well as regulating economic relations with the region in the oil and gas law, so the region must deposit funds Ministry of Finance. 

Of course, the economic cycles that pass by the world every 10 years between decline, rise, inflation and economic depression need Iraq and where dozens of experts in the economy develop alternative plans, meaning emergency plans and emergency budget according to international and local conditions, because we live in a region where crises erupt every time.

The occurrence of this significant drop in oil prices in conjunction with the serious illness Corona and pushing Saudi Arabia in large quantities with a discount of 5/0, and its oil supply in the world here OPEC must balance between supply and medicine to avoid price deterioration, if we know that the aggrieved party is Iraq and the group of exporting countries considering our economy is unilateral .

She appealed to previous articles in "Al-Sabah" to develop agricultural investment, religious and archeological tourism, and the development of marshes to find alternatives to total dependence and fluctuations in the oil market ..

There are many experiences in the world in which economies have evolved without the presence of oil, such as Singapore, in which the citizen is globally valued at more than 9 thousand dollars as a return to the citizen, It has relied on developing the capabilities of its people..Iraq is more qualified with its topographical diversity from the north and its agricultural diversity among all our Iraqi cities..

Iraq has gone through an intertwined crisis which is the entry of ISIS and the drop in oil prices in 2014 and exceeded that ordeal, with a loan from the World Bank to pay salaries, Pal Those treatments and other enough to go beyond Iraq some economic crisis ..waltos as new economic reality.   LINK

************

Don961:  The dollar remains the master of the world's currencies, despite the worsening repercussions of the outbreak of corona in America

- One Day Has Passed

The US economy is reeling strongly from the impact of the accelerating outbreak of the Corona virus, which has pushed millions of Americans to unemployment, but these worrying statistics have not yet turned negative on the dollar, which is still in a strong position.

At the beginning of last month, the dollar index, which measures the value of the green paper against a basket of other currencies, has witnessed an increase of more than 6% compared to the lowest level for this year. The dollar exchange rate has increased against the euro by 3.5% since the beginning of the year.

The most wanted

The rise in the value of the US currency is due, first of all, to its being the most wanted in the world. In times of crisis during which investors seek safe havens, this site appears to be strengthening.

Kate Jocks, the global official in charge of currency market strategy at the French "Societe Generale" bank, talks about what he calls "an excessive concession to the dollar."

He points out that there are "many people who constantly want to earn a lot of dollars." And as long as the situation is like this, it will be possible to continue to issue banknotes without weakening the currency. ”

That is why the repeated interventions of the US Federal Reserve (central bank) in the past weeks, to ensure that there is sufficient liquidity in the market, did not lead to a real appreciation in the value of the dollar.

"The measures taken by the Federal Reserve to facilitate the availability and access to the dollar in the world have at best slowed the pace of the appreciation of the currency," says Jo Manimbo of the "Western Union" group to transfer money. federal".

Another reason for the attractiveness of the US currency lies in the companies ’urgent need for cash in light of declining revenues in the current crisis environment.

The dollar also remains in a strong position as it is the most heavily traded currency in daily operations in the world currency market.

Therefore, the Federal Reserve announced mid-last month to facilitate currency exchanges with several other central banks, to enable them to increase their reserves of the green paper.

And Jux notes that this demand for the dollar is recorded, especially in developing countries that hold debts in dollars on most of their debt. "Not all of these countries will be able to get out easily," he says.
And attributed the Daniel Katzev of the French bank "BNP Paribas" the rise in the price of the dollar against the euro to "the lack of a coordinated tax response in the euro area," which reflected negatively on the single European currency.

It indicates that the US currency has also benefited from the significant decline since the beginning of the year in oil prices set in dollars, which strengthened its position against other currencies closely related to black gold such as the Russian ruble, the Norwegian krone and the Canadian dollar.

Before the Corona epidemic, the dollar’s ​​exchange rate was high as the US currency benefited from the excellent performance of the world's largest economy, which all economists ’estimates were positive.
US President Donald Trump was not comfortable with this situation, as he considered that the surge in the value of the dollar could significantly increase the price of U.S. exports, limiting its competitive strength at the height of the trade war with China. However, some observers believe that the changes resulting from the outbreak of the virus may re-confuse the papers, although this has not yet been translated on the ground.

Is the dominance of the green paper ends?

"The question of the continued dominance of the green paper will be raised in the coming weeks," says Cathy Lien of BK Asset Management Asset Management.

She added, "Investors bought the dollar with the bet that the rest of the world will post an economic downturn for a longer period than the United States, as the global economic recovery is impossible without this occurring in the United States."

"While this is partly true, the data recorded in several countries have been deteriorating for several weeks," she continues. In the United States, we are just beginning to see the impact of corona on national economic statistics, and in some cases these numbers still need to be updated. ”

The data released last Friday showed a strong increase in the unemployment rate last month to 4.4% compared to 3.5% in the previous month, and it only takes into account the first part of the month before starting home quarantine measures, closing stores and exchange waves throughout the country.
A prolonged economic downturn in the United States would weaken the value of the dollar in the long run.

Arab Jerusalem  LINK