Gulf Currency Blues, Saudi Breaks iPhone Code, Iraq (What Else)
Gulf GCC central banks and monetary authorities have finally admitted publicly what the few who cared already knew: they have given up publicly any pretense of aiming any time soon for the planned unified currency (it was to be called the Dinar, probably after the ancient Roman Dinarius, or perhaps the Rial for the Spanish- as in Catholic- Real, a.k.a royal). Of course, the good old Shekel has deeper roots in Middle East history than either of the two mentioned (the Dinarius and the Real)- but that would be too far fetched of a suggestion, almost blasphemous, no?
The Gulf central bankers have been scrambling to deal with an almost certain US Fed Funds Rate cut completely separately. At their last meeting on Saturday the Saudi Governor of SAMA said openly for the first time that it will be 'difficult' to meet the 2010 deadline for a unified currency- 'difficult' indeed- as difficult as pedaling a bicycle to Mars, given the poor job of policy coordination and planning that was done. (Perhaps they never did read up on the old German Zollverein? Did they know thet the Euro had to go through years of interim stages with such silly names ECSC, Common Market, EEC, EC, EU.....etc?).
The currency issue can be truly called a debacle. Still, I suspect that perhaps nobody took it seriously from the start, with the exception of 'their excellencies' the governors. Over the past two years it did not seem that anybody else was preparing for a unified currency- in fact it now turns out that their excellencies themselves and their bosses were not preparing for it. Now it will be extremely difficult to revive the plan anytime soon: to put it in an American context, it is like a bad blind date, you would not want to repeat it, at least not with the same person (even though hope springs eternal at that age). Wisely, for once, the governors did not set a new timetable for a second 'monetary' date.
The Saudi governor said that 'each state will deal separately with the issue of inflation and US interest rates- because, his excellency said, the inflation rates are different among the six states and the available policy options are different. Brilliant, but weren't they supposed to coordinate their macroeconomic policies over the past few years, leading up to a unified currency?
Inflation in the (Persian) Gulf states has been quite high recently, the highest in several years- a sharp contrast to inflation in the major industrial trading partners.
Amazingly, or perhaps characteristically, nobody in the Gulf States is seriously commenting on the failure of this project, at least not publicly.
At a conference of Iraqi neighbors in Baghdad yesterday, Iraq's foreign minister Zibari admitted that 'foreign countries', including neighboring one, have been interfering in Iraq. Shocking, to hear an Iraqi reveal foreign interference in his country.
On the eve of the Petraeus-Crocker report to Congress, Nouri al-Maliki declared that more than 14,000 former al Qaeda terrorists have changed sides and are training with Iraqi forces. Sounds too large a number, perhaps they were sympathizers- thoughts do count. Speaking of al-Maliki, he looks so much like the late Khinyab, may his soul rest in peace- this is a private thing: a few insiders, beside myself, know who Khinyab was.
Nawaz Sharif, the other 'allegedly corrupt' potentate/feudal land baron who has alternated ruling Pakistan for the past two decades, returned home yesterday and was promptly deported to his former and likely present paymaster, Saudi Arabia.
A week after an American teenager did so, Saudi media report that a Saudi man has also managed to break the Apple-ATT codes of the iPhone. They say he can now receive full text Arabic messages on his iPhone. Mr Rayyan al Turki is a Computer Science majot at King Saud (what else) University. Surprisingly he has not yet declared that he dedicates his breakthrough to any potentate, nor has he admitted yet that it would not have been possible without the attention, care and inspiration that some 'majesty' or 'highness' or another provided to education and science. Good for him on both counts, so far, so good.
Cheers
Mohammed
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
Comments