Feds Order U.S. Banks to Sever Syria Ties

WASHINGTON - Acting to crack down on terrorist financing, the Treasury Department on Thursday ordered all commercial banks in the United States to end their relationships with two Syrian banks.

The order covers the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria and its subsidiary, the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank.

The department said that all U.S. banks must close any accounts they have with the two banks.

"Today's action is aimed at protecting our financial system against abuse by this arm of a state-sponsor of terrorism," said Stuart Levy, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_syria

Syria always been considered an "arm of a state-sponsor of terrorism"?

Syria picks euros over dollars

Tuesday 14 February 2006, 3:44 Makka Time, 0:44 GMT  

Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States.

Duraid Durgham, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, said on Monday: "This is a precaution. We are talking about billions of dollars. Switching to the euro will help us avoid settlement problems in the United States.

"The move is also needed to avoid complications with our correspondent banks, which have expressed a preference to deal in euro under these circumstances."

Most of the government's foreign currency flows goes through the Commercial Bank, whose US assets were frozen by Washington in 2004 as relations with Syria deteriorated. The bank, which dominates the Syrian market, also stopped dealing with dollars for international private flows, such as imports, exports and letters of credit, Durgham said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ABA36728-9F9D-4A2C-8F37-9C3230B7E971.htm

Syria dumps dollar for euro
Syria: Wednesday, February 15 - 2006 at 06:31

Syria has switched all its foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States. The move is to help avoid settlement problems, according to the head of Commercial Bank of Syria, Duraid Durgham. Most of the government's foreign currency flows goes through the Commercial Bank, whose US assets were frozen by Washington in 2004.

http://www.ameinfo.com/77921.html

UPDATE 2-Syria switches to euro amid confrontation with US
Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:11 PM ET
 

DAMASCUS, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria said on Monday. "This is a precaution. We are talking about billions of dollars. Switching to the euro will help us avoid settlement problems in the United Sates," Duraid Durgham told Reuters.

Most of the government's foreign currency flows goes through the Commercial Bank, whose U.S. assets were frozen by Washington in 2004 as relations with Syria deteriorated. The bank, which dominates the Syrian market, also stopped dealing with dollars for international private flows, such as imports, exports and letters of credit, Durgham said. He said the switch would mean euro pricing for crude oil sales, a major foreign currency earner for Syria. The latest official figure show Syria imported $6.7 billion goods in 2004 and exported $5.4 billion. Oil output is around 400,000 barrels per day.

In 2004, Washington imposed sanctions that prohibited certain U.S. exports to Syria, severed financial ties with the Commercial Bank of Syria, and froze the assets of Syrians believed linked to terrorism. After the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri a year ago, the United States led foreign pressure on Syria for its alleged role in the killing.

<snip>

One economist said euro move by the Commercial Bank of Syria "looked like a kind of pre-emptive action aimed at making their foreign assets safer and preventing them from getting frozen in case of any conflict."

http://www.clao.us/Archive/News_About_Lebanon/News_About_Lebanon_2006/News_About_Lebanon_2006_02/060213%20Syria%20switches%20to%20euro%20amid%20confrontation%20with%20US.htm

:kick:

nice pretext of TERRA to hide the real issue. good catch.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=5e8b0b7dfeb5913c

The U.S. Treasury Friday sanctioned the Commercial Bank of Syria, forcing all U.S. banks to sever ties with the Damascus-based financial house.

A Treasury spokesman said the bank had been used to move terrorist cash and launder money from illicit Iraqi oil sales, the BBC reported.
more...
Syria on the war screen!!!

this bunch is nothing if not predictable.

Lou Dobbs mentioned that PNAC and Carlyle Group are looking to buy the US ports operations from Dubai

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/10/ldt.01.html

DOBBS: For those who keep track of Halliburton and The Carlisle Group, by the way, today "The Wall Street Journal" in its editorial pages noted it would like to see Halliburton buy the U.S. port operations from Dubai, a sense, if you will, of perverse humor.

The Carlisle Group, by the way, today, if you do follow things like The Carlisle Group and Halliburton, said it plans to raise a billion-dollar fund to buy, guess what, U.S. infrastructure, including ports. Dubai has already put some capital into Carlisle's previous $8 billion investment fund.

If Dubai invests in Carlyle, and Carlyle runs the ports, has Dubai really backed out of the ports deal?