Iraq suffers drop in oil revenues, exports

The Associated Press' Sinan Salaheddin went through Iraqi Oil Ministry's records and found that the country's oil revenues dropped by 57.6 percent and exports by about 100,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the same period of 2008.

The revenues in the first three months of this year stood at about US$6.57 billion, with an average daily export level slightly over 1.8 million barrels.While the same period in 2008 witnessed US$15.49 billion in revenues and oil exports level was just over 1.9 million barrels a day, the records show.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

A caravan for each widow

The Iraqi government is offering a 40-square-meter caravan for each displaced family headed by a widow in a newly erected makeshift camp in the eastern side of the capital, Baghdad, the UN IRINnews reports.

The Head of Baghdad council’s displacement committee, Mazin al-Shihan, told IRIN that each caravan contains two bedrooms, a living room, a toilet and kitchen.

The camp, which is a twin for another one erected last year in Baghdad's western side, has a 500-KVA generator, washing facilities and a sewage system. It is designed to house 150 families.

IRIN's story also published for the first time an official statistic, issued by Iraqi Planning Ministry, for the number of widows in this war-plagued country.

It is about 900,000 nationwide.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

"Phenomena"

Eventually, the Iraqi government has decided to establish a committee to investigate the certificates submitted by governmental officials for their educational degrees, calling the falsification of certificates a "phenomena" to get administrative and financial privileges.

And like hundreds of declarations, Monday's statement bore warns for those who submitted false certificates that all their privileges will be stripped and they will be brought to justice...WOW

Since you call it a "phenomena" why you decided to put an end to it just now? And if you can't touch officials who are accused of crimes and corruption just because they are affiliated to influential political parties how you will be able to bring those with false certificates to justice?

kassakhoon@gmail.com

The right man in the right place

It is a remarkable gain by which we can really applaud the Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani and his Ministry's staff. It is the absence of petrol queues nationwide.

The Times' Deborah Haynes brings us this story today by talking to normal people and to an oil official, who I highly appreciate and respect for his unlimited loyalty to his work and then his country.

He is Dathar al-Khashab who heads the State-run Midland Refineries.

I remember when I first saw him when he was running Baghdad's Dora refinery in early 2000s.

Unlike most Iraqi officials who kept themselves inside elegant western suits and never leave their air-conditioned offices, al-Khashab was always in his blue engineering coveralls moving from place to another in the sites with other workers.

And he is still in his uniform even after he has been promoted to be the Head of the Oil Ministry's Midland Refineries.

"I am very optimistic,” al-Khashab told The Times. “I believe in the Iraqi capabilities. We do know we can do it, provided we get the right help from the right people,” he added.

Iraq's oil industry is in dire need for such persons who care only about their work and most important they know what they are doing.

In another word, the right man in the right place.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Will you offer them or not?

In an interview broadcast on Friday, Iraqi Oil Minister ruled out that Iraq would offer production-sharing contracts to the International oil companies and that contradicts his March 10 statement in Vienna that his country was considering such agreements.

"The (oil) companies should not expect to share Iraqis with their (oil) resource," Hussain al-Shahistani told al-Sharqiya TV.

In his earlier statement, al-Shahristani said: : "We will consider production-sharing arrangements for" some of the 70 exploration blocks to be offered later this year, as quoted by Dow Jones News wires.

Now, Dr. al-Shahristani will you offer them or not? and why you are giving such contradicting statements?

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Good news from Interior Minister

That is really good news brought by The Associated Press' Sinan Salaheddin: a hire freezing in the Iraqi Interior Ministry due to shortage in cash this year.

Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bolani told The AP in an interview that his ministry has been forced to put on hold some of its plans to recruit more police due to cuts in the government's 2009 budget prompted by plummeting oil prices. He was planning to establish a police brigade in each province.

Thanks God, we will see no more police patrols roaming the streets with their sirens wailing around the clock who know nothing about their real mission or anything about the word "respect" that must be showed in dealing with normal people.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Allow me to play or I will mess up everything

Today's statements by two prominent Kurdish leaders over oil disputes with the central government reminds me with our famous say which says: "Allow me to play or I will mess up everything."

In provocative statements from London, the President of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani, and his Oil and Natural Resources Minister, Ashti Hawrami, threatened to put the stick in the wheel if they are not allowed to go with their oil ambitions.

Through Reuters, Hawrami warned international oil companies from signing oil deals with the central government to develop oil and gas fields that are located in what is called in the new Iraq "disputed areas" which are claimed by the Kurds as "their" territories and that should be annexed to their region.

"Oil companies must be crazy if they think they can go sign a contract with the ministry of oil and just get on and do the job. They can't, they need our co-operation," Hawrami says as if these territories or the oil fields that Iraqi Ministry has offered for development belong to his family.

Two things can be seen through these statements.

The first is that how mean the Kurds are and how much hatred they have towards other Iraqis to the extend they are threatening to deny them from the money they need so badly by developing these fields.

The second gives us an idea on the pressure they are going under from the oil companies, especially DNO and Addax, to have an export licence as they can't sell their oil in the local market.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Sorry..

To all my readers, I'm terribly sorry for this absence as I had to travel abroad for something unexpected and urgent and that I missed a lot and couldn't not blog anything.

Will catch up.

Thanks to all who sent emails and asked about me.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Squatter officials

The Iraqi government offers US$850 to US$4,300 to homeless people who have been squatting in government buildings or on government lands since 2003 "liberation" when the United States led a coalition to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.

The government decision came into effect on January 1st and the squatters have 60 days to leave or face legal action, the UN IRINnews reports.

One squatter called, Hussein Awad Nasser, 38, refused to be evicted unless he gets a fair treatment just like majority of other Iraqi officials who as well live as squatters.

“Senior officials live in houses of former officials, and claim to be leasing them from the government, so why are we the only ones who should leave?” asked Nasser who lives in Baghdad's central Salihiyah residential complex where Saddam Hussein's elite Residential Guards used to live.

“I will pay as long as these officials pay and I will leave when these officials leave,” Nasser said.

I agree with Nasser, we are in a country enjoys democracy and the law above all as the government says everyday.

And that the law should not only be above Nasser while below Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani ,who lives in a palace belonged to Saddam's brother on the Tigris or Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who lives in house belonged to Saddam's brother-in-law inside the Green Zone or the most influential Shiite cleric, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who lives next to Talabani in a palace belonged to Tariq Aziz.

There are tens other squatter officials not only these three men.

kassakhoon@gmail.com

What did we see in 2008?

Iraq earned about US$60 billion in 2008 from selling crude oil at an average of 1.85 million barrels a day, Mariam Karouny reports for Reuters.

The Head of Iraq's State Oil Market Organization (SOMO), Falah Alamri, told Reuters: "Our target is 2 million (bpd) in January. If the weather is good and the tankers arrive on time, then we will reach two million bpd."

Where did this money go?

Did we see electricity 24 hours a day? NO. Did we see clean water coming out from the tap? NO. Did we see new hospitals? NO.Did we see new bridges and streets? NO.Did we see good food ration suitable for human beings and not only fit to chicken? NO.Did we see new residential compounds? NO and NO and NO and NO....

Did we see government officials in elegant western suits traveling in motorcades of modern armored vehicles? YES. Did we see new military vehicles and weapons? YES. Did we see more concrete walls? YES. Did we see sidewalks being built by Baghdad's Municipality workers and the next day the same workers demolish them to be built again the next day? YES and YES and YES and YES and YES...

kassakhoon@gmail.com

Financial incentives to marry Iraqi widows

Marry one Iraqi widow and you will get 10 million Iraqi dinars [about US$8,500] !!!

This is not an ad or a government decision yet but it could be seen soon if the government agrees on the plan being drawn by Mazin al-Shihan, head of Baghdad’s Displacement Committee, to help them cope with their plight.

“Iraqi widows, especially internally displaced widows in camps, are having a tough time. Most have more than one child and are finding it very hard to feed them,” al-Shihan, told the UN IRINnews.

“We have reports that some… are being harassed and blackmailed by government officials… More attention must be focused on this segment of the Iraqi people before it is too late,” he continued.

But his plan found tough opposition from women’s activist Hanaa Adwar, who heads al-Amal NGO, saying it smacked of “cruelty as the widow must get married to another man to get the government help”.

And she brings another idea which is to rehabilitate them to be independent and productive elements of society and to be more self-reliant in terms of feeding their children.

kassakhoon@gmail.com