Kurdistan - Iranian border shut by Iran after US took Iranian hostage last week - 7- + dead in last 3 days in Iraq

From Nur al Cubicle today

US causes Kurdistan to be cut off, prices soar

According to accounts that I have been reading, there is raging inflation in the states along the Arabian Gulf. The US kidnapped an Iranian trade delegation rep in Sulaymaniyeh on September 20th, so the Iranians have responded by closing the border:

This account is from L'Orient-Le Jour

Millions of dollars of losses in Kurdistan after border crossings closed

Sulaymaniyeh's Trade Minister, Mohammad Raouf, said that Kurdistan was losing US$1 Mn. a day after Iran closed border with Kermanshah Province to protest the arrest of a trade reprentative accused of arms smuggling, says Suleymaniyeh's Trade Minister, Mohammad Raouf. A miles-long caravan of trucks containing food, electrical appliances and electronics has formed in Iran after 15 years of trade have ground to a halt.

They also report that violence has increase with the American command admittingyesterday there was a renewal of violence which made nearly 70 killed in three days. At least 27 people were killed yesterday. Attacks and executions reached various localities in the north of Iraq, in the last 3 days. Yesterday, a kamikaze ( Hier, un kamikaze a notamment jeté sa voiture piégée contre la maison ) drove his booby-trapped car against the house of a tribal chief in the locality of Sinjar, in the north of Iraq, killing eight people.

On Tuesday Iraqi special forces supported by American soldiers carried out an important operation on the largest military academy of Iraq, stopping a score "of criminal elements" (d’éléments criminels) ...."We carried out a vast operation to remove criminal elements within the army", the Iraqi ministry of Defense, the General Mohammad Al-Askari told AFP.

The paper also reports that the cannabis farmers of the Békaa valley (see pic of lebanese Gold being harvested) told Reuters agency that this year was the best harvest since the civil war " No one fears the Government because of the current political problems and divisions , so anything goes" said the mayor of the village of Tarayah, Ali Hamiyyeh, stressing that "the farmers are obliged to plant cannabis not to be submerged by the debts and forced to sell their land".

The UN office on Drug Crime says a gram of Lebanese cannabis, whose purity is about 80 %, is sold retail between US$ 8 - 10 , Wholesale a Kg costs US$ 200-400 (and requires neither irrigation nor pesticide).

On a purely comparative basis, the president of the Association of the farmers, Antoine Hoayek, indicated to the East it Jour that the kilo of potatoes costs 300 pounds Lebanese = 20 cents US to produce and sells at 15 - 40 cents retail.