FG

Iranian businessman: TOTAL collapse of economy is a certainty

by FG on Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:11 PM PST

EXCERPT:

Businessman like Ali Reza, who works in the information technology industry, find it impossible to make any sort of plans under these circumstances. "To me, it seems the government officials wake up every morning with a new idea and that idea affects my dealing right away," he says.

Seemingly uncoordinated government interventions, coupled with the existing international sanctions and the threats of even stricter ones, have created a new economic environment in Iran. This week, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) released its latest data on foreign trade and government accounts. The CBI reports that Iranian oil exports are down by 40 percent compared to last year -- set off, but only marginally, by a 12 percent rise in other exports. (Other sources state that oil exports are down as much as 50 percent.) Of particular note, Iran is increasingly importing natural gas and petroleum products -- such imports this spring were 101 percent higher than during the comparable period last year. The CBI report also reveals that Iranian government debt to the banking sector has increased by 54 percent.

In an editorial published Wednesday by the Tejarat News website, economist Mohammad Mehdi Behkish warns that the Iranian economy may be on the verge of falling into a deep recession -- a word heard often these days around Tehran. After reviewing the political decisions made by the government that affect Iran's standing in the international arena, he concludes, "The economic consequences of these actions were neither calculated nor taken into account." He asks government officials and members of the business community to come together and devise a strategy to avoid sweeping economic reversals that could last a decade.

To Ali Reza, Behkish's dire observations constitute not a warning but an acknowledgement. "The recession is here! Are they kidding?" He continues, angrily, "The factories have been shutting down for some time now, unemployment is higher than ever."

In his view, the question is not whether a recession can be avoided, but "if there is enough time to save the economy" from total collapse. Ali Reza does not think so. With an air of resignation, even doom, he concludes, "It is too late. We will never come back from this one."

Read more: //www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/11/dispatch-government-fumbles-as-recession-looms-or-has-it-arrived.html#ixzz2AuScZoHB

Kurdish-Iraqi government talks collapse amid fear of civil war

by FG on Sat Dec 01, 2012 11:57 AM PST

EXCERPT

 Talks between Kurdish and central government forces aimed at defusing military tension in northern Iraq have collapsed amid fears that bitter political divisions are again bringing the country to the brink of civil war....

 Maliki this week dismissed his government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, in a widening scandal over a $5.2 billion Russian arms deal – one of more than a dozen officials being summoned by Iraq’s integrity commission in an investigation over alleged corruption. Iraq, eager to lessen its dependence on the US, had planned to buy attack helicopters and missile systems from Russia. The deal was opposed by the Kurds who fear the weapons could be used against them.

 //news.yahoo.com/kurdish-iraqi-government-talks-collapse-amid-fear-civil-191303668.html

15 Great reasons for educated young to leave Iran for good

by FG on Sat Dec 01, 2012 11:45 AM PST

1. Real universities with real courses in all subjects and real professors (not political stooges in turbans). 2. Social freedoms (no cisgusting religious police!). 3. Equal rights for all, including women and Bahia with no enforced hajib.  4. REAL elections, not reigged in advance or vetted by a Guardian Council.  5. Vastly superior economies and job prospects even with the present Europ crisis. 6. The freedom to speak, write and demonstate peaceful. 7. Real courts with real defense attorneys 8. No Basilj or other thuggish militias. 9. No mullahs and no Supreme Tyrant 10. A realistic chance at a happy future instead of "helll forever" under mullah rule. 11. Access to a totally free press. 12. Access to a totally free internet. 13. Access to all satellite TV, muisic and all films.  14. No arrests or beatings  for attending funerals. 15. No targeting of relatives or defense attorneys for beatings, arrests, etc. to deter criticism.

Report asks: "Are Syria’s rebels about to win?" & shows why

by FG on Sat Dec 01, 2012 11:03 AM PST

The coastal region, where Alawites predominate, has been drained of most reliable men under age 50.  That cannot be good news when the regime needs to replace losses elsewhere due to combat or defections.  

The regime no longer reports casualities because the coffins are coming so fasg.  Grieving Alawites are now grumbling openly about being sacrificed "for the Assads" who are as widely despised as their counterparts in Iran: Khamenei and his thuggish crowd of ultra-conservative reactionaries. 

The Global Post, a news and analysis site out of Boston, examine the situation:

EXCERPTS:

“Every day there are 50 to 60 wooden coffins brought through Lattakia’s Bassel al-Assad Airport. There are funerals in most villages every day,” he said. “The regime’s media used to cover the martyrs’ funerals but in the last few months they stopped broadcasting news of dead soldiers...”

... at least 10,000 of Assad’s men have also been killed.  With ever more coffins flown home from a war now being fought in almost every province, the Alawites — whose support the regime relies on most — are beginning to question their sacrifice...

Assad’s forces are no longer in control of major border crossings to both Turkey and Iraq, Syria’s northern and eastern neighbors (which leaves these borders open to volunteers and supplies).

the regime suffered significant defeats last week with the loss of a strategic military base in the north and another in a key oil-producing region of the east.

Base 46 was the regime’s last major outpost along its border with Turkey....Over-running Base 46 after weeks of siege, rebels made off with more than a dozen tanks, artillery cannons, mortars and rocket launchers, some of the heaviest weapons to fall into their hands since the start of the uprising a year and a half ago.

Rebels say the Sheikh Suleiman base — the final army garrison between Aleppo and the Turkish border — will also soon fall after a two-month battle, giving them full control of a sizeable and contiguous stretch of land between a major city and a friendly border for the first time...

rebels in the north are increasingly able to choke off supply routes for Assad’s troops battling to re-take Aleppo. Despite holding large areas of countryside, the rebels have yet to exert full control over a major city.   

“Regime soldiers who joined us recently said some of their units had not been resupplied with food or fuel for weeks,” said Abu Abdu, a fighter with Liwa al Tawheed, a leading Islamist rebel group in Aleppo. “The regime is sending supplies by the airport, so that is what we will destroy next...”

Two of the region’s three oil fields are now in rebel hands, with trucks lining up to buy $5 barrels of the light crude, a smoky but reliable fuel, as winter sends temperatures plummeting and government supplies dwindle to nothing...

“The rebels are in snowball process, strengthening with each base and arms depot they capture,"

//www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/mi...