"Tidbits From TNT" Friday Morning 8-26-2022
TNT:
Harambe: Venezuelan Bolivar’s Crash Breaks Rare Stretch of Stability | Bloomberg
(8/25/22)
The bolivar is plummeting, breaking a rare stretch of stability for Venezuela’s battered currency.
It has lost a third of its value so far this month, hitting 9.33 bolivars per US dollar on the parallel exchange market Thursday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the steepest monthly decline since January 2021.
President Nicolas Maduro said the depreciation was “fictional” and blamed an unspecified “unscrupulous group” for manipulating it. “Let no one come to harm the economic recovery,” he said during a TV address on Thursday.
Controlling the exchange rate has been a key ingredient of President Nicolas Maduro’s strategy to halt a four-year hyperinflation bout, which ended in December. The currency, which had consistently lost nearly all of its value over the years, was relatively stable since a redenomination in October as the central bank poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the exchange market to keep it in check.
The bolivar started to show weakness in the parallel market at the end of last month, though most of the losses have occurred this week. The spread between the parallel rate and the official central bank rate of 7 bolivars per dollar is now the widest since the October, when six zeros were slashed from the currency in the redenomination.
The central bank is selling less hard currency to the market while the government has increased spending of bolivars after reaching pay agreements with labor unions, fueling the depreciation.
The bank on Thursday sold $94 million to the market in an attempt to stop the slide. But in general, monthly sales had been dropping steadily since May. The trend “shows less willingness, or less capacity, to continue to intervene in the market with the same intensity,” said Tamara Herrera, director of financial analysis firm Sintesis Financiera.
The bank this week for the first time auctioned dollars to the market, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. It normally sells them directly to banks. It has also improved the terms of short-term bolivar bonds, trying to lure investors into buying them instead of greenbacks.
A weaker bolivar threatens the government’s efforts to bring inflation under control. While annual price increases run in the triple digits -- according to Bloomberg’s Cafe con Leche Index -- they’re a fraction of what they were during the period of hyperinflation. Prices have recently begun to creep back up, which could be exacerbated if the bolivar keeps falling.
“The inflation goal is at high risk,” Herrera said.
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CandyKisses: Fears that the demonstrators will besiege the Peace Palace, similar to Parliament and the judiciary
After the Sadrist movement was forced to withdraw its supporters from in front of the Supreme Judicial Council after a wave of reactions condemning the storming, there are reports that the supporters of the movement may go to the Peace Palace, referring to the President of the Republic, Barham Salih, who attacked him, Thursday, the Minister of Sadr, saying that the President of the Republic Dispossessed of powers
Political science researcher Moamen Tariq talks about the possibility that the third round of demonstrations will take place at the Peace Palace.
Activist Muhammad Al-Ali talks about that the deadline of the week from Al-Sadr to the Federal Court put it between two things: either issuing a decision to dissolve parliament or entering the protesters inside it, and then to the Peace Palace if a republican decree was not issued to dissolve Parliament.
Al-Sadr's supporters withdrew from the front of the Supreme Judicial Council, heading towards Parliament, where their main stronghold is after storming Al-Khadra, after Saleh Muhammad Al-Iraqi, who is close to Al-Sadr, directed that.
The withdrawal came after the judiciary issued arrest warrants against Muhammad al-Saadi, Ghayeb al-Amiri and Sabah al-Saadi, in addition to travel ban warrants and the seizure of movable and immovable funds. And faced the siege of the judiciary, condemnations from external and internal parties.
The US Embassy in Baghdad urged all Iraqi parties to remain calm and refrain from violence, calling on the demonstrators to respect the procedures and properties of Iraqi government institutions that belong to the Iraqi people and serve their interests.
The President of the Republic, Barham Salih, stressed that the developments of events in the country require everyone to abide by the calm, indicating that peaceful demonstration and expression of opinion is a constitutionally guaranteed right, but disrupting the work of the judicial institution is a serious matter that threatens the country, and work should be done to protect the judicial institution, its prestige and independence, and that dealing with With the demands in accordance with the legal and constitutional frameworks.
The head of the victory coalition, Haider al-Abadi, said that the political conflict should not reach the judiciary’s involvement in it, stressing the need to preserve the impartiality and integrity of the judiciary, refusing to harm it and its institutions, and respecting its constitutional and service role to rule among people with justice.
And the coordinating framework announced its refusal to receive any message from the Sadrist movement or any invitation for direct dialogue, except after announcing its retreat from the occupation of the constitutional state institutions and returning to the ranks of the forces that believe in peaceful and democratic solutions.
The UN mission, UNAMI, stated that the right to peaceful protest is an essential component of democracy, and no less important is the emphasis on constitutional compliance and respect for state institutions.
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi warned that disrupting the work of the judicial institution exposes the country to real dangers.
Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi said that we must all resort to the constitution, and be up to the responsibility to get the country out of this stifling crisis that is heading towards the absence of legitimacy, and may lead to a lack of international recognition of the entire political process, the structure of the state and its outputs.
The Secretary-General of the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq movement, Qais al-Khazali, expressed his refusal to transgress against the judicial institution, which must be kept away from political conflicts, and not to use the street card to pressure it to issue decisions on behalf of political parties.
These reactions seem to have been one of the main reasons that prompted al-Sadr to direct his supporters to withdraw from the Supreme Judicial Council.
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Tishwash: Who will stop this ghoul and prevent it from devouring Iraq's money, and is there a party capable of dismantling its networks that permeate the joints of the state?
If corruption in Iraq has a father, then it is no more than that this man is his undisputed father, he is a whale, and the head of corruption and his body that walks on two legs, he and corruption are close, and they are close, but rather Siamese twins that cannot be separated even with the intervention of the most skilled specialist surgeons
This man, whose scandals continue without feeling the slightest embarrassment or shame, calls himself the leader, and he is nothing more than a car thief and (huh) cows in the nineties, as his criminal history says, and who people talk about his biography and his career full of thefts and "nuts", God willing What biography can be written about Ahmad Abdullah al-Jubouri, nicknamed Abu Mazen, the man who jumped in negligence to the position of governor of Salah al-Din, and from there began to turn into an octopus that extends his arms in all joints of the state, establishes networks of widespread corruption, and steals billions Unfortunately, that follows billions of huge and loose budgets, in a country that has not conducted any review or final accounts of its budgets.
Abu Mazen found the atmosphere suitable, so he unleashed his fertile imagination in mastering constant theft and corruption.
He succeeded in becoming one of the lords of public money, and jumping from the position of the governorate to the position of a minister in one of the governments, but soon he was ruled out and returned to the House of Representatives, after he was able To nationalize the position of Governor of Salah al-Din in his favour, and employ those who follow in his footsteps, and because his corruption has exceeded the limit, and he is no longer in the arc, as it is said, he was confronted by the Integrity Commission, the Office of Financial Supervision and the competent authorities with major files, for massive thefts, embezzlement, commissions, selling positions and wu..etc.
Until one of the Iraqi courts issued a sentence to imprison him, but which prison, where he proudly says that he was able to convert his temporary detainee into a 5-star hotel, and was able to get rid of prison after a short period to return to the fore even though he had been convicted many times of clear criminal cases.
Al-Jubouri was not satisfied with what he looted, rather he continues to play the chords of thefts, embezzlement and looting of public money, and he is still a believer in the impurity, does not fear a court, does not wait for accountability, and does not pay attention to the shouts and denunciations that issue a condemnation of what he is doing.
Yesterday, an activist broadcast an audio leak of Al-Jubouri, which includes shocking talks about corruption files, cases, interference, appointments and financial bribery, and a clear manipulation of public money, to the extent of seizing one billion dinars of tax money, manipulating and speculating with it in the markets.
Earlier, to the disclosure of the cooperation of high-ranking parties with him, unfortunately, in a matter that constituted a great shock to the Iraqi citizen, who had hardly recovered from the shock of leaking the “swearing” of former Minister of Industry Saleh al-Jubouri with loyalty to Abu Mazen, and how the minister started repeating these words unscrupulously to sell his honor And his dignity, morals and religion in exchange for a position is still soon.
This leak, and the unfortunate leaks that preceded it, call for a firm and resolute patriotic stance to stop this farce that shook confidence in all state institutions, and unfortunately put the defenders of the democratic political process in an embarrassing situation. Among the manifestations of the state’s disintegration and sale in slave markets, whose management is professionalized by Abu Mazen, Mashaan, and so forth, are among these denials that afflict the Iraqi people..
This corrupt paralysis, which acts like ground to break the stick on which the country leans, is eating away at it from within to sabotage it and hasten its end and its fall into the trap of returning to dictatorship. The fascist military, especially since they are, as their godfather Saad Al-Bazzaz claims: (This state is not their state, so let each one of them plunder what he is able to plunder)!
Therefore, the professional Iraqi judiciary is hopeful that it will take these audio leaks to a high-level and transparent investigation, and not put any red line towards any political figure, whatever their connections, and whatever their financial influence or their regional relations, the survival of these is tantamount to slaughtering the state and the citizen over Both. link
Mot: .... UH OH!!!! ~~~~~~~
Mot: ... Sum Tricks on Raising the ""Fur Babies"" ~~~~