Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived in Erbil on Wednesday and continued his visit on Thursday by visiting various parts of the KRG and, most 'controversially' for Baghdad, Kirkuk. Kirkuk is a disputed region with both the KRG and Baghdad claiming it. (How to solve the issue? Article 140 of the Constitution explains it. But that census and referendum was supposed to be instituted by the end of 2007, per the Constitution, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to do so and continues to refuse to do so.) You sort of get the idea that if Davutoglu had been a Russian biker, Nouri would have already had him arrested and tortured. Kitabat notes that Nouri's Baghdad government continues to complain and carp about the visit. Maybe they need to build a privacy fence around Kirkuk if no one's allowed to visit it? Or maybe if they really want to prevent people from visiting they could declare the area a shrine to Nouri? I'm sure that would dry up a lot of interest.
Marwan Ibrahim (Middle East Online) reports:
Davutolgu visited leaders of Kirkuk's Turkmen community,
with which Ankara has long had close ties, as well as religious and
historical sites including the city's Ottoman cemetery.
Turkmen
Front head Arshad al-Salehi said: "Turkmen should work to enhance
relations with Turkey, and Shiites with Iran, and Sunnis with Gulf
countries."
The front's deputy leader, Ali Hashem
Mukhtar Oglu, said Davutoglu was the highest-ranking Turkish official to
visit the city in decades.
Ties between Iraq and Turkey have been marred by a flurry of disputes this year.
In
July, Iraq warned Ankara against "any violations" of its territory and
airspace, and instructed the foreign ministry to register a complaint at
the UN Security Council, after Turkish jets bombed Kurdish rebels in
Kurdistan.
A few days earlier, Iraq called on Turkey to
stop accepting "illegal" transfers of crude oil from Kurdistan, which
an official from the region said had begun earlier in the month.
Meanwhile State of Law's Abdul Salam al-Maliki is stomping his feet. All Iraq News reports that he is demanding that the Arab League condemn the visit by the Turkish Foreign Minister and that the Arab League call the visit a breach of Iraq's sovereignty. The KRG should actually pay Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law political slate a monthly fee. These little tantrums by State of Law are like a mini-advertisement: "Come to the Kurdistan where adults are in charge." You have to wonder if Nouri gets how stupid his slate makes Iraq look? On the world stage, State of Law is a joke. Alsumaria notes that Iraqiya (the political slate that came in first in the March 2010 elections) has called on Nouri's government to lower the rhetoric and stop escalating the situation. If Nouri had a brain, he'd listen. (Translation, expect more war of words from Nouri and his State of Law on this subject today.)
Maybe it was the Kurds announcing a few days ago that they had no problem with the US making efforts to assist Iraq with its ongoing political crisis but Nouri's government lately has made clear that they're not pleased with either the US or the KRG. Al Mada reports that insiders in Nouri's Cabinet are stating that the rebuffing by the Interior Ministry on police training by the US is only the first step and that they are/will be making it clear that the government has little desire to work with or have a relationship with the US government. A quote from the article: "Iraq is capable of moving forward without the United States and is no longer needs its assistance in either construction or development."
Don't claim Nouri never does anything. Back in December, he called for Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq to be stripped of his post. By May, he was making nice with al-Mutlaq and the push for a vote of no-confidence on al-Mutlaq in Parliament had been dropped by State of Law. All these weeks later, Al Mada reports, nouri is finally asking Parliament to withdraw his request of a no-confidence vote on al-Mutlaq. This comes as Dar Addustour notes he's also sent al-Mutlaq a letter asking him to, please, attend the Cabinet meetings. On the Parliament front, the proposed federal court law has been bottled up in Parliament for some time due to various disagreements. Alsumaria reports that Parliament is planning to vote on the law next week and that they have agreed on the disputed point -- the number of members of the Court will be 17 (9 judges, 4 Islamic law scholars and 4 legal experts).
In the US, among those running for president is the Green Party's Jill Stein. Her running mate is Cheri Honkala. Their campaign notes "Stein and Honkala arrested in protest of forecloser giant Fannie Mae:"
(PHILADELPHIA) Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her vice presidential running mate Cheri Honkala were arrested today during a protest at the offices of mortgage company Fannie Mae on Banker's Row in Philadelphia. Among those arrested along with Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala were labor lawyer James Moran and Sister Margaret McKenna of the Medical Mission Sisters. An attorney who supports civil disobedience cases is providing legal assistance. All of those arrested are expected to come before a judge on Thursday afternoon. At that time bail will either be set or they will be released on their own recognizance.
The protest was originally called for by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign to demand that the giant mortgage company halt foreclosure proceedings against two Philadelphia residents in danger of losing their homes. Stein joined the protest after Cheri Honkala joined her as Stein's vice presidential running mate. Honkala, a former homeless single mother, has been confronting banks and mortgage companies for decades demanding that they adopt policies that will, "keep families in their homes."
At
1pm today about 50 protestors gathered outside of Fannie Mae's
Philadelphia headquarters. They heard from Miss Fran and Rhonda
Lancaster, the heads of two families evicted by Fannie Mae in its
refusal to negotiate an alternative to foreclosure. Fannie Mae executive
Zach Oppenheimer had previously promised in writing to meet with the
two women in order to discuss other options. Yet no followup meeting
ever took place, and so protestors today entered the Fannie Mae building
and vowed to stay until Mr. Oppenheimer's word was honored.At about 2:30pm, an hour after entering the building and beginning a sitdown protest, lower level Fannie Mae officials agreed to meet with Miss Fran and Ms. Lancaster. These meetings proved inconclusive, ending only with promises of more meetings. With Philadelphia police on hand with six paddy wagons and plainclothesman, a smaller subset of protestors stayed inside the building and risked arrest. Five were arrested, including Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala.
In
explaining why she joined the protest, Stein said that almost half of
Americans now live in poverty or near poverty, eight million families
face eviction from their homes due to foreclosures, and over a third of
mortgage holders are "underwater" - meaning that they owe more to the
lenders than their properties are worth on the market.Said Stein, "The developers and financiers made trillions of dollars through the housing bubble and the imposition of crushing debt on homeowners. And when homeowners could no longer pay them what they demanded, they went to government and got trillions of dollars of bailouts. Every effort of the Obama Administration has been to prop this system up and keep it going at taxpayer expense. It's time for this game to end. It's time for the laws be written to protect the victims and not the perpetrators. It's time for a new deal for America, and a Green New Deal is what we will deliver on taking office. "
"The
laws and the budgets and the procedures are designed to protect the
lenders and to extract as much money as possible from the victims,"
Honkala explained. "This isn't the way it would be if we really had a
government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The first
goal of government should be to keep families in their homes, and to
provide restitution for the deception and fraud that has robbed millions
of Americans of financial security."Stein laid out a number of steps that will be part of a new deal for homeowners when and where the Green Party wins power. First, as President, Dr. Stein would issue an executive order establishing a moratorium on foreclosures of occupied dwellings. Second, municipalities governed by Greens will get homeowners out of underwater mortgages by seizing mortgages through eminent domain and letting non-profit community development organizations - not Wall Street banks - reissue the mortgages.
Noting
that the Obama administration has only released 10% of the aid that
Congress had promised to homeowners, Stein asserted that "There is much
more interest in Washington in protecting the profits of banks than in
getting this aid out to the families whose lives are falling apart.
President Obama held a big press conference to announce a program that
would supposedly help 1.5 million homeowners and so far it has actually
helped only 1 per cent of that number. Real help goes to the CEOs who
play golf with the President and the people get lip service. This will
change only if the people stand up and say we're not going to put up
with it anymore."Statement from RHONDA LANCASTER (Excerpted from People’s Tribune):
My family has lived in this home in Germantown for over 35 years. When my mother got ill and could not afford her health care, a reverse mortgage idea was presented to me. They made it look like it was a great thing. It was going to take care of my mother, and when my mother passed away it would be just fine.
The nightmare started after my mom died. I notified the bank she had passed away, and two days later I was getting ready for her funeral. Relatives and friends were coming in from all over the country. The bank told me to stop everything and let them come in and do an appraisal.
The bank refused to accept me as the executor of her estate, although the proper papers had been filed at City Hall. From that point on it was a complete nightmare. I could get through to no one and no one could help me. They denied me my legal US rights as heir to my mother’s property.
Statement from MISS FRAN (Excerpted from People’s Tribune):
I have lived in Philadelphia all my life, and in this house since 1988. Once when I was forced to file for bankruptcy, my mortgage holder, Chase Bank, suddenly came to court and objected to my bankruptcy plan. Although the law requires them to notify me in advance, I had no warning of their action, so I had no lawyer and no time to prepare my evidence. The judge dismissed my file for bankruptcy and Chase began foreclosure proceedings.
I participated in Philadelphia’s Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program, so I was able to keep my home off the sheriff sale list. Then they claimed I missed a Conciliation Conference even though they had never notified me about it. When I complained, the court rescheduled the sheriff sale of my home from July 1, 2008, to September. I attended that sale on July 1 and was shocked to hear them put my house up for sale anyway. I was in the back of the auditorium and ran to the front making so much noise the sheriff’s lawyer had to stop the sale. Finally they brought in a letter from the sheriff saying they had obtained a court order that same day to sell the house. They had gone to court without even notifying me. The same judge who postponed the sale in the first place had turned around and vacated his own order, all without telling me.
The sale of my home went through on July 1, but my battle was just beginning. Although Chase Bank foreclosed on my home, I found out the sheriff changed the name on the documents to Fannie Mae. There is no bill of sale from Chase to Fannie Mae and no record of any transfer. Fannie Mae has no legal standing to evict me. But that didn’t stop them from trying. They sued to evict me in April 2011. I filed an objection, it was overruled, I answered them, and we were supposed to go to trial in February 2012. Then they filed for a summary judgment against me, which is only supposed to be granted when there is no dispute in the matter. I told them we most definitely do have a dispute: a district court order was ignored and Fannie Mae has no standing. But the judge granted the summary judgment anyway. They obtained a writ of eviction and scheduled my eviction for June 12.
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