Economic problems are getting worse. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where much of Iran's foreign trade is handled, local banks are refusing to do business with the 10,000 Iranian trading firms based there. This has caused delays and cancellations of Iranian imports (over $9 billion worth from the UAE last year) and exports. This is being felt by the rule elite in Iran. There, the large extended families of the clerical leadership live the good life, and the goodies come in via the UAE. The sudden shortages of iPods, flat screen TVs, automobiles and bling in general, has been noticed in Iran, and is not appreciated.
The falling price of oil is producing another problem, national bankruptcy. The government admits that if the price of oil falls below $60 a barrel (which it has) and stays there (which it may, at least until the current recession is over), the nation will not be able to finance foreign trade (which is already having problems with increasingly effective U.S. moves to deny Iran access to the international banking system), or even the Iranian economy itself. The latter problem is largely self-inflicted, as president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad desperately borrows money to placate his few (heavily armed and fanatical) followers (about 20 percent of the population). The rest of the population has been in recession for years, and is getting increasingly angry over Ahmadinejad's mismanagement. Some 80 percent of Iran's exports are oil.
Continued on Page 47
Iran has converted financial reserves into gold to avoid future problems, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in comments published on Saturday, after the price of oil fell more than 60 percent from a peak in July. They don't know very much about economics, do they? Continued on Page 47
#9
"There's never been a better time to buy gold."
--Commercial, any radio talk show, any day
Posted by: Mike ||
11/17/2008 10:17 Comments ||
Top||
#10
When those commercials ramp up it is usually because there is someone who is trying to get rid of theirs. I have noticed that the commercials really crank up when the price of gold is tanking. When it is going up, they disappear.
A Lebanese newspaper on Saturday published statements purporting to be by members of Fatah al-Islam showing the radical group had links with Syria and that Damascus had backed an attack in Lebanon.
The publication of the "evidence" in al-Mustaqbal newspaper, owned by anti-Syrian majority parliamentary leader Saad Hariri, comes barely a week after Syrian television broadcast alleged "admissions" by Fatah al-Islam members that the group was financed by Hariri's Future Movement.
Al-Mustaqbal published undated and unsigned "copies" of statements by men held by Lebanese security services and prosecuting judges. One of them, Ahmad Merhi, said a Syrian general with whom he had "excellent" relations" told him in 2007 that there was coordination on information between Syria and Fatah al-Islam, which battled the Lebanese army in summer 2007.
The 15-week struggle in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli left 400 people dead, including 168 soldiers.
Merhi said General Jawdat al-Hassan, head of the fight against terrorism and fundamentalist groups within the Syrian army's information service, "asked me to help Shaker al-Abssi," the Fatah al-Islam leader who fled the camp. Thanks to his links with the general, he was able to allow "dozens of Fatah al-Islam fighters" to escape to Lebanon, he said.
One of the detainees said that he had met with Major General Assef Shawkat, head of military intelligence. There was no Syrian comment on the accusations.
Alleged members of the al-Qaeda linked Fatah al-Islam appeared to confess on Syrian TV earlier this month to carrying out the car bombing that killed 17 people, mainly civilians, in the Syrian capital in September. They claimed the group had received money from Saad Hariri's Future Movement, prompting Hariri to call last week for an Arab League investigation into the allegations.
The Future movement is part of the March 14 coalition that leads Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority and is heavily backed by the United States.
Mehri was also quoted as saying that the "Syrians asked Shaker al-Abssi to carry out the double attack at Ain Alak in February 2007" which targeted two passenger buses in the north of Beirut, killing three people. The aim of the attack, committed the day before the second anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, "was to dissuade people from participating" in a ceremony of commemoration, Merhi added.
Damascus is accused by Lebanon's anti-Syrian majority of responsibility for the murder of Hariri, who had turned against Syria's domination of Lebanon. Syria denies any involvement in the killing.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11141 views]
Top|| File under: Fatah al-Islam
#1
That's a "journalist" deeply in "love" with "scarequotes".
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/17/2008 12:44 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Lebanese newspaper on Saturday published statements purporting to be by members of Fatah al-Islam showing the radical group had links with Syria and that Damascus had backed an attack in Lebanon. 
