(January 13, 2004) Iraq’s finance minister on Tuesday urged countries to which Iraq owes billions of dollars to write down or even write off the debt to allow the country to recover from three wars and three decades of dictatorship.
Baker backed loans that created Iraq debt
(January 11, 2004) As secretary of state in 1989, Baker urged the Agriculture Department to offer $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq to buy U.S. farm products after Iraq said it would reject a smaller deal.
U.S. turns attention to Arabs’ Iraq debt
(January 5, 2004) Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq called on its Arab neighbors to help supply and pay for arms for the war effort. Baghdad later insisted that the aid was in the form of grants, not loans, and therefore repayment was not required.
Czechs ready to write off one third of Iraq’s 157-million-dollar debt
(January 5, 2004) It is in our interest to help Iraq so the situation there stabilizes. Unless it does so, we will not see a single koruna," Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla said.
World finance officials to meet next month
(January 5, 2004) What to do about Iraq’s massive debt is expected to be a top discussion topic next month when top finance officials of the world’s seven richest industrial countries meet in Boca Raton, Fla.
Expert who refused to sign off on Three Gorges
(January 9, 2004) Journalist Dai Qing interviews Guo Laixi, an eminent geographer who took part in the Chinese feasibility study for the Three Gorges dam but became so alarmed about the project’s potential impacts that he refused to sign the study team’s final report.
Impoverished Haiti pins hopes for future on a very old debt
(January 2, 2004) The initial agreement between France and the young republic called on Haiti to pay the whole 150 million francs in five annual payments of 30 million gold francs. That proved impossible for Haiti.
Odious debt, odious future
(January 1, 2004) With such monumental repercussions we cannot turn a blind eye to Iraq’s (and other nations’) odious debt. The fallout from such self-centered actions could lead to an odious future far bleaker than last month’s overdue credit card bill.
US Probe Releases Kaijuka Case Files
(December 30, 2003) The US Justice Department has released files of the Bujagali bribery investigation.
China mulls cutting, writing off Iraq’s debts
(December 29, 2003) China will consider cutting Iraq’s debts or writing them off out of humanitarian concern, state radio quoted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as saying on Monday.
Japan to write off majority of Iraq debt
(December 29, 2003) Japan would be prepared to eliminate the vast majority of its Iraqi debt if other Paris Club creditors are prepared to do so in the context of a Paris Club agreement," said a statement by Japan’s Foreign Ministry.
The burden of odious debt
(December 27, 2003) Economists caution that a lot depends on how an "odious debt" is defined.
Iraqis want fair trial for Saddam by Iraqis, poll shows
(December 25, 2003) Most Iraqis consider former president Saddam Hussein a criminal for gassing his own people and attacking neighboring countries, yet they still believe he deserves a fair trial before Iraqi judges, according to poll results released Thursday in Baghdad. More than half the respondents said Saddam’s execution was the preferred outcome of any court proceeding.
Behind the ASEAN Power Grid
(December 19, 2003) Analysis of the Asian Development Bank’s Master Plan for Regional Power Interconnections and Power Trade in the Greater Mekong Subregion.
Why did the West lend so much to Iraq?
(December 19, 2003) Iraq is swamped by more than $120 billion in debt that clouds its economic future. Where did it come from? Why did so many Western democracies, including the United States, lend so much money to President Saddam Hussein.
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