"Saturday Iraq News" Posted by Samson 11-14-2020
KTFA:
Samson: Alternative currencies to the "dollar" that protect against the risk of inflation
14th November, 2020
Dmitry Ivanov, Executive Director of "Kloppenko Group" said that buying more stable and less volatile currencies, such as the Swiss franc, the euro, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan, protects against the risk of inflation.
Ivanov also advised to make savings spread out in different currencies.
He said that this is what all central banks in the world do, which keep money in the national currency, in dollars, euros and other currencies, as well as in gold and silver. LINK
Samson: A Demand To Limit Voting To The "Biometric Long-Term" Card To Prevent Vote Buying
14th November, 2020
The Legal Committee in the House of Representatives called for amending the election law and limiting voting to the "long-term biometric" card in order to prevent vote buying. This comes in parallel with the State of Law Coalition's disclosure of the "loss" of 4 million "short-term" electronic voter cards that allow voting. Through it, too, while the Electoral Commission denied the existence of such a number for lost cards.
A spokesman for the State of Law Coalition, Representative Bahaa Al-Din Al-Nuri, said in a statement to Al-Sabah, its independent affiliate: The law that was quickly voted on by using the (electronic) and (biometric) cards for voting will result in a forged political process in advance in light of the loss of 4 million electronic cards. From the Elections Commission, which has an unknown fate and it is not known if it was distributed among the political blocs or from the party that seized it.
Al-Nouri demanded that "elections be conducted with a biometric card only, to hold fair elections free of fraud."
For his part, a member of the legal committee, Hussein Al-Oqabi, assured to “Al-Sabah” that “amending the election law is an imperative, especially in the biometric vote, and there is also a need to amend other articles not only in this paragraph, but also include the contradiction in the individual or existing candidacy.”
Al-Sabah went to the official media spokesperson for the Independent High Electoral Commission, Jumana Al-Ghalai, to clarify the truth about the "lost cards" and their real numbers. Her answer was: "Beginning; There is no such number of lost cards, and the loss took place in previous elections, even before 2018, but in order to preserve the votes of the electorate, the electoral administration directed to submit a study on undelivered and lost voter cards and to form investigative committees to find out the circumstances of the accident, find out the negligent employees and punish them legally, and this was done.
Al-Ghalai confirmed that "all lost cards have been disabled and canceled, and will no longer work at all, and only the official owner of the card can vote because of the intersection of the fingerprint in the electronic verification device that relies on official and vital data (the personal photo and the ten fingerprint)." LINK
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Samson: President Saleh receives the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq
14th November, 2020
The President of the Republic, Barham Salih, received today, Saturday, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq, Jeanine Hennes Plasschaert.
During the meeting, it was stressed the need to start preparations for the upcoming elections by providing the utmost levels of integrity and transparency, and by coordinating the United Nations with the Electoral Commission in monitoring it, to reflect the voters’ real choices in choosing their representatives away from the power of arms, fraud and manipulation.
The meeting also stressed the importance of concerted national efforts in order to consolidate the authority and sovereignty of the state in enforcing the law, protecting citizens, continuing the war on terror and combating ISIS cells that seek to disturb security and stability in a number of regions.
Samson: "Borrowing funds" .. Fears of suspicions of corruption in paying employees' salaries
14th November, 2020
The Iraqi Parliament’s Economy and Investment Committee commented, today, Saturday, that there are concerns about suspicions of corruption or waste in disbursing loan funds, which were recently approved by the Council.
Committee member Nada Shaker Jawdat told Shafaq News, "There are no concerns about suspicions of corruption or waste in disbursing loan funds, as these funds are only intended to disburse employees' salaries, so no money remains until the corrupt steal it."
And Jawdat indicated that "some corrupt parties will benefit from the loan money, by disbursing the salaries of space employees, especially since there are terrifying numbers for such employees, and this is why Parliament voted for an obligation not to pay any salaries except through the card, and perhaps this method requires a long time until It includes all employees, but this helps save money and prevent corruption in the issue of employee salaries."
The Iraqi parliament had approved a bill to finance the fiscal deficit (borrowing) without including the salaries of the region’s employees in it, which prompted the Kurdish representatives to withdraw from the session, and that also sparked angry reactions in Kurdistan. LINK
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Soon, the Iraqi parliament intends to pass a law to eliminate cases of electronic blackmail
14th November, 2020
The Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee announced , on Saturday, that the Information Crimes Law is ready for voting in the next sessions, explaining that the law will eliminate hundreds of cases of electronic extortion.
A member of the committee, Badr Al-Ziyadi, told Shafaq News Agency, "The committees appointed in cooperation with the Parliamentary Security have put the final touches on the Information Crimes Law," indicating that "the committee agreed with the Presidency of the Parliament to include the law to vote on the agenda of the next sessions."
He added, "The purpose of legislating the Cybercrime Law is to eliminate hundreds of cases of electronic extortion that are recorded daily." "The law will include the formation of a special court for information crimes, through which it determines the penalties imposed on the blackmailer without any prejudice to public freedoms," Al-Ziyadi said.
It is noteworthy that Iraqi society has recently witnessed an increase in cases of extortion through social networking sites and electronic communication applications, especially for women, at a time when the judiciary loses the laws that punish these crimes. LINK
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An American Diplomat: The Threat To Close The Embassy In Baghdad Still Exists, And It Is A Serious Matter
14th November, 2020
The outgoing US special envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, confirmed that the US State Department’s threats to close the embassy in Baghdad are still valid, which is very serious.
"The US State Department may close the US embassy in Baghdad if the Iraqi government does not put an end to attacks on foreign forces in the country," Al-Monitor newspaper quoted Jeffrey as saying. Jeffrey added that "this case is still ongoing and it was not a false matter but rather a very serious matter," while the US State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The report stated that "Jeffrey's statements come at a time when news spread about the leakage of American documents containing personal information about Iraqis who worked with the International Coalition and US forces in the country during the period of the war on ISIS," noting that "the United States withdrew part of its forces in Iraq." As part of its transition to a new and limited advisory phase to support the International Coalition for the Iraqi Army.
And he stated that "3000 American soldiers are still present in Iraq, as speculation spread in the national security departments in Washington this week that the purge of outgoing President Donald Trump of many of the top leadership in the Pentagon may be a harbinger of a further withdrawal of forces."
The report pointed out that “Trump's orders to withdraw US forces from Middle Eastern countries met resistance from senior officials like Jeffrey, who openly admitted to undertaking a concerted effort to undermine the presidential orders, saying,“ We have twice succeeded in undermining Trump's orders to withdraw from Syria in 2018 and 2019, and this is the story. Briefly". LINK