"Tidbits From TNT" Sunday 12-19-2021

Dec 19

TNT:

Tishwash: Iraq announces that its military bases are free of foreign forces

Iraq confirmed today, Sunday, that the military bases in Iraq have become devoid of any combat forces of the international coalition.

The spokesman for the Commander of the Armed Forces, Major General Yahya Rasoul, said that the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar Governorate is currently under the full control of the Iraqi forces, and there are advisers working to provide logistical support and empower the Iraqi forces.

He added, that the base is Iraqi, and that the advisers are also part of the Iraqi protection. He said that several places inside the base were completely emptied of foreign combat forces, and some sites belong to the delivery of equipment and logistical support equipment to the Iraqi forces, including weapons, vehicles and equipment that support our forces in the mission of defending the country.

Iraq and America agreed to move the relationship from a combat presence to support forces, training and providing advice, ending on December 31, 2021. link

Tishwash: More than 32 billion dinars debts owed by the federal government to an Iraqi company

"Ur" company for electrical industries in Dhi Qar revealed, on Saturday, that it has equipped two ministries in the federal government with equipment worth more than 32 billion dinars, and it has not received the amounts so far.

The director of the company, Haider Sahar, told Shafaq News Agency, that his company's debts owed by the federal government amounted to 32 and a half billion Iraqi dinars, distributed between 30 billion dinars owed by the Ministry of Electricity, and two and a half billion dinars owed by the Ministry of Oil.

He stressed that his company demanded more than once to pay these debts, but to no avail, noting that the failure to pay these debts contributed to the scarcity of raw materials used in the manufacture of materials manufactured by the company, such as electrical wires and cables. link

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Tishwash: The Central Bank: The 2022 budget may assume an oil price of $45 a barrel

The Governor of the Central Bank, Mustafa Ghaleb, confirmed, on Saturday, December 18, 2021, that Iraq’s foreign exchange reserves rose to 64 billion dollars from 48 billion dollars since it devalued the dinar about a year ago.

Ghaleb added in a press interview, which was followed by the obelisk, that “the devaluation of the currency helped increase the reserves, and that the Iraqi economy became much better than it was in the middle of the Corona virus pandemic, when oil prices fell and Baghdad was in preliminary talks with the International Monetary Fund to obtain a possible loan.”

Ghalib said: We used to hold meetings twice a day sometimes with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but the Iraqi government’s financial situation is much better now.

He continued, “The central bank’s dollar reserves would have fallen to the level of the thirties if we had not increased the dollar exchange rate … The increase in oil prices helped improve the situation as well.”

Ghaleb said he expected “Iraq’s budget for 2022 to be based on an oil price of about $45 a barrel. Iraq, the second largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), gets about 95 percent of state revenues from oil sales.”

Ghaleb added that “Iraq currently owes Iran about five billion dollars in value of energy imports, which are necessary for continued operation, but Baghdad abides by US sanctions that prevent it from paying any money to Iran.”

And he indicated, that Iraq “paid some of these energy debts in the form of goods and supplies, as it, for example, purchased $250 million worth of Russian Sputnik’s anti-Corona vaccines, as well as wheat for Iran.”

Ghaleb confirmed, “The validity of reports that Iraq opened an account with the Chinese-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, saying that it had deposited about $100 million in the account to pay potential costs for infrastructure projects in the future.” link

Mot: Tell me About... ""The Teddy Bear"" ....................

Description--PRESIDENT CALLED AFTER THE BEAST HAD BEEN LASSOED, BUT HE REFUSED TO MAKE AN UNSPORTSMANLIKE SHOT--

This was the headline of the Washington Post on November 15, 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a 235-pound black bear that had been tied to a tree. When encouraged to shoot it, the President is rumored to have said, "I've hunted game all over America and I'm proud to be a hunter. But I couldn't be proud of myself if I shot an old, tired, worn-out bear that was tied to a tree."

A famous political cartoonist for the Washington Star, Clifford Berryman, picked up on the President's refusal to shoot the bear, and used it as a metaphor for Roosevelt's indecision over a Mississippi boundary dispute. Berryman's cartoon soon became well known throughout the United States and inspired Brooklyn candy store owners Rose and Morris Michtom to make the first stuffed bear toy, which they appropriately named Theodore Roosevelt.

Before making additional bears, Morris Michtom wrote to Roosevelt to ask his permission to make a small bear cub and call it "Teddy's Bear."

His son, Benjamin Michtom, said that although Roosevelt agreed to lend his name to the new invention he doubted it would ever amount to much in the toy business.

In 1903, the Ideal Toy Company was born, soon to become a multimillion-dollar business. By 1908, the bear had become such a popular toy that a Michigan minister warned that replacing dolls with toy bears would destroy the maternal instincts in little girls.

In 1963, Benjamin Michtom, at that time the president of the Ideal Toy Company, decided that it would be appropriate to celebrate the Teddy Bear's 60th birthday. He first contacted Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, to offer her one of the original Teddy Bears if she would pose with it.

Mrs. Longworth reportedly exclaimed, "I don't want it." The pitchman for the Ideal Toy Company asked, "For goodness sakes, why not?"

Mrs. Longworth replied, "What does a 79-year-old doll want with a 60-year-old bear?" Not to be discouraged, Mr. Mitchom contacted Mr. Kermit Roosevelt, a grandson of T.R. and asked his children to pose with it. Mitchom said he would give the bear to him, with the understanding that it would later be given to the Smithsonian Institution.

After the photo shoot, Kermit Roosevelt's children, Mark and Anne Roosevelt, decided they couldn't part with the bear and actually hid it from their parents.

A letter from Mrs. Roosevelt to Mr. Michtom said, "I was about to get in touch with the Smithsonian about presenting them with the original bear when the children decided they didn't want to part with it yet." Eventually, however, the children changed their minds, and the bear was given to the Smithsonian in January 1964.