KTFA:

Samson:   The American Lockheed Martin will leave Iraq due to the militia attacks

9th May, 2021

Sources revealed that the American company "Lockheed Martin", which supervises the maintenance of the F-16 aircraft at the Iraqi "Balad" base, will leave Iraq due to the attacks of armed militias targeting the base, according to the Al-Arabiya news channel.

Sources told the Al-Arabiya news channel that there are 85 engineers, technicians and workers who will leave Iraq.

The base "Ain al-Assad", which includes American forces in Anbar, in western Iraq, was attacked by drones at dawn yesterday, Saturday, which resulted in damage to an aircraft hangar.

Washington accuses Iran of giving the green light to its proxies in the region to launch attacks on US forces and contractors in Iraq.   LINK

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Samson:  The World Bank: The white paper is needed by any country that is going through the circumstances of Iraq now

05/09/2021 19:02:51

 The regional representative of the World Bank in Baghdad, Ramzi Numan, said that the "white" reforms proposed by the Iraqi government are needed by any country going through similar conditions to the country now.

  A statement of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, a copy of which was received by Al Furat News Agency, stated that “The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs Abeer Mahdi Chalabi held an expanded meeting with Numan and his accompanying delegation today, Sunday, to discuss ways of joint cooperation in the field of supporting the government reform program.”

The meeting was attended by members of the ministerial team formed to implement the Cabinet’s directives to start implementing the projects that fall under the responsibility of the Ministry of Labor within the government reforms program for the year 2021. 

Chalabi stressed “the importance of starting practical steps to implement real reforms away from the theoretical side, by giving time limits for procedures and mechanisms. "Their implementation, and ensuring that the ministerial team submits monthly reports to the Supreme Committee for Reform, which includes all its activities in this field, as well as proposals that support reform steps and the most important obstacles and difficulties that can prevent this."

Chalabi also called for "cooperation with civil society organizations and benefiting from their experiences, as well as the correct investment of international grants to support many segments of society, including the displaced, poor families and youth seeking work by relying on decent work according to what the labor market requires in terms of finding suitable job opportunities without accreditation." Completely over the public sector." She indicated, "The importance of the reform plan to include returning vocational training centers from the governorates to the ministry, directed to establish a table that includes the number of centers, their needs and the requirements required to enhance their activities."

For his part, the representative of the World Bank affirmed "the complete readiness to provide full support for all the reform steps of the ministry," noting that "the reform paper includes proposals similar to the proposals of the International Monetary Fund, but it is recent in terms of compilation and formulation," indicating that "any country is going through the circumstances it has gone through." Iraq at the present time needs such reforms, adding that the reforms paper will be feasible in the event that all parties concerned come together to implement them.   LINK

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Samson:  A parliamentary committee warns of borrowing: Iraq has an abundance  of funds

9th May, 2021

The Parliamentary Finance Committee warned that borrowing other than important sectors such as electricity and health will shackle the country in the future, indicating that the high oil prices have brought Iraq a financial abundance that it can exploit without going to borrow from banks and international institutions with sovereign guarantees.

Committee member Muhammad al-Shabaki said, "After the rise in oil prices, Iraq will no longer need external loans because they will cripple the national economy," noting that "electricity loans amounted to 8 trillion dinars in the 2021 budget."

He added, "The loans that relate to the Ministry of Electricity are not permanent loans but are related to production, distribution and transportation, and therefore the Al-Fateh Alliance had a problem with those loans after the meeting of the heads of the blocs, and identified them with two points, the first of which is the extent to which Iraq needs these loans and that they must be checked by the ministry or sectoral entity." Ministry of Finance".

He pointed out that "the second point included a question about these loans, and whether they are for sober and global companies, and it turned out that they are given to sober companies such as (General Electric) and (Siemens)," noting that "with the rise in the price of oil, Iraq has achieved financial abundance that can be exploited without going to borrow from banks and international institutions with sovereign guarantees."

He stressed that "the loans should be used in important sectors such as education, health, and the development of the oil sector, in addition to the fact that the 2021 budget included 16 loans related to the electricity and health sectors." "The total loans that Iraq needs in the electricity sector are 8 trillion dinars, after it was 12 trillion before it was amended in the budget, and other loans that do not flow into these sectors will shackle Iraq in the future," Al-Shabaki explained.   LINK

Don961:  Iraq has been stable in its rank for 3 years and the World Council is trying to "convince" it .. What does it mean to own 96 tons of gold and its solutions ranked 38th in the world?

2021-05-09  Yes Iraq: Baghdad

 Iraq is still ranked 38 out of 100 countries in global gold reserves, with an amount of 96.3 tons, which is the place it settled for more than 3 years, as Iraq did not buy gold for a long time.

Although Iraq before 2018 had 89.8 tons of gold, it was in the 37th rank, which is far ahead of its current rank, but this is due to the variables of other countries that have raised their gold reserves further, making Iraq fall to the 38th rank, Although gold reserves rose by more than 7 tons.

The World Gold Council announced, in its latest schedule for the month of May 2021, that “Iraq ranked 38th in the world out of 100 countries listed in the table with the largest gold reserves in the world, and ranked fifth in the Arab world after Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria and Libya.”

He added that "Iraq's possession of gold amounted to 96.3 tons, which represents 8.1% of the rest of its other reserves."

He added, "The United States of America still ranks first in the largest gold reserves in the world, at 8,133 thousand tons, followed by Germany, at 3,362 thousand tons, while Suriname comes to the top with 1.5 tons, followed by Yemen with 1.6 tons."

World Gold Council "trying to convince Iraq"

In late April, the World Gold Council announced its support for increasing Iraq's share of gold.

A statement by the Central Bank of Iraq stated that “the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Mustafa Ghaleb, is terrifying. He held a meeting with the World Gold Council (upon their request). The meeting dealt with a number of issues, the most prominent of which were technical support and training files.

The statement added, "The meeting discussed the increase in the foreign reserves of the Central Bank, which was achieved after the implementation of recent reforms in the work of this bank and the banking sector," adding: "The World Gold Council has provided full support to the Central Bank in case it wishes to increase the gold quota for Iraq."

What does the state owning gold mean?

Gold reserves represent the gold that is kept by the central bank or nation as a store of value and a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, holders of securities or their trading peers, or to secure currency, while gold reserves today are rarely used in the settlement of international transactions.

In the past, the purpose of the national gold reserves of each country was to cover paper currency by equating it with a basic measure of gold, which is a valuable element due to its lightness, luster and cleanliness, as it does not rust and is difficult to dissolve in acids.

And after historical events in which wars were a major factor, gold became a national stock as insurance for times of crisis and to prevent jumps and falls of the US dollar. Also, a large gold reserve in a country represented a pillar of independence at the international level, as gold can be used at all times and crises as a currency for circulation - that is, to buy and sell, especially at the international level, such as buying wheat, for example, from the global market to import the people's food.

 But after increasing the debts of the governments of many countries, such as the United States of America, Germany, France and other great countries, the central banks worked to reduce their gold balances to cover government debts. The part of the global gold reserves on which paper currencies are based has decreased during the past three decades through selling, and the dependence of paper currencies on it decreased from 60% in 1980 to 10% in 2006 - this is at a time when the US dollar dominated the international market. 

The United States insisted that the US dollar be the only currency to export and buy oil, in exchange for other currencies, which supported the value of the US dollar - hence the term petrodollar. In recent times gold has become very important as its price has increased. The American agreement with the OPEC oil-exporting countries was just before the 1973 war, when America knew that the price of oil would rise significantly after the Arab boycott.   LINK