Facts:
Rumors:
Of Interest (rumors that I find of particular interest either because of who said it or because of how I think it relates to what is happening right now):
The Rest (doesn’t mean these are not happening):
Where Are We At?
1. The CBI auctions were low for the 3rd day in a row. The last time we saw three consecutive days of low volume was back in September of 2010.
2. The government formation activities have not stopped, and neither has the confusion related to it! There’s news of the open ministry position being filled within days to ten days. There’s news of Maliki and Allawi meeting either on Saturday or Sunday to resolve issues, and then there is news of Allawi’s bloc denying the meeting. Less confusing is the news about Parliaments feelings over the Federal Court’s recent ruling on the independent bodies. They plan to discuss this when they return from recess. Shabibi finally spoke out and affirmed his desire to see the CBI remain independent. Finally, there were a few articles about Kuwait wanting to resolve all outstanding issues. There was even one article where they said there are no outstanding issues. In the general case, there is much pressure from within the government to fill the ministry positions as soon as possible.
3. On the budget front, it appears the Kurds still have issues with the budget. While there is news of the budget going in front of Parliament for the second reading next week, the Kurds do not believe it will be approved if there are still issues that have not been addressed.
4. Lastly, there was an odd article about Bin Laden being terminally ill. In that article it stated that al-Qaeda admitted defeat in Iraq and is warning their own to stay away from Iraq.
What’s left?
1. Reading of the budget for the first time (due to redraft).
2. Closure on Security positions (5 in total) and the remaining unfilled positions (4)
3. Formal announcement of government
4. Agreement on outstanding Kuwait issues
5. Lifting of remaining Chapter 7 sanctions (Kuwait related)
6. RV/RI
7. HCL
What’s It All Mean?
1. With regards to the government formation, it doesn’t appear that it will come to a conclusion on the 30th as was hoped. There is the issue of the Federal Court ruling to resolve first. Since they still haven’t agreed on the ministry positions, there is time that needs to be sunk into getting them all on the same page about the ministries. The outside date for the ministries is 10 days according to one article.
2. Given where we stand with the government formation, it seems odd that the CBI would lower the volume on the auctions right now. It would seem reasonable to expect that auctions would resume to normal if there were no expectation of an RV in the near future. We’ll have to keep an eye on the auctions.
3. As it relates to rumors, the ME bank rumors seemed to have faded away for the most part. Many of the bank rumors I see are rumors of banks in the US. In PD, there seems to be a bit of excitement regarding the banks ordering more for their reserves than what is considered normal. I did see one person state that their family member is a bank manager and the amounts that PD is saying banks are ordering is normal for the bank manager’s bank. Frank, Night, Med, and Okie don’t all seem to be on the same page about what is happening. Although Med and Okie are both saying that we need to wait until after the Parliament meetings next week to get a better understanding of what will happen. That makes sense to me given where we are at.
