Iraqi boys under 15 years old are joining, and dying, in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), despite a UN protocol forbidding their recruitment. Summary⎙ Print Iraqis are divided Continue Reading
A worker of Iraq’s state-run South Oil Company walks past a crude processing facility at the Bin Umar field, Oct. 3, 2011. (ATEF HASSAN/Reuters) Provincial leaders are threatening to seize authority over several oil fields in Basra as a way to pay bills and fund investment in Iraq’s impoverished oil capital.Last week in Istanbul, the chairman of the council’s energy committee, Ali Shaddad al-Faris, held meetings with international lawyers to map out a legal strategy for claiming and contracting fields, according to an official familiar with the discussions.Sabah al-Bezzouni, the chairman of the Basra Provincial Council, said in a… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .
A picture taken through a machine gun sight on Aug. 17, 2015 shows buildings that were damaged during fighting between Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and the Islamic State (IS) group’s militants in Sinjar. (SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images) The Islamic State (IS) group’s lightning takeover of much of the Ninewa province district of Sinjar, and the cataclysm against the Yezidi population that followed, sparked the first major foreign interventions into the anti-IS war last year.But fifteen months on, Sinjar remains occupied by the IS group. Kurdish militias, Yezidi fighters, and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Peshmerga forces have gathered at nearby staging areas to retake the territory, but the offensive has been delayed … This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .
The following graphs use data from the latest Article IV consultation report published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in August 2015. All IMF papers on Iraq are here . Government Revenues Fig 1: Actual and projected revenue The above graph shows the budget’s very high dependency on oil revenues. They peaked in 2012 as a result of Iraq’s declining oil export prices. In its projection the IMF assumes steadily rising oil prices (blue line) and oil exports (blue dotted line, 4.4 mb/d by 2020 from 5.5 mb/d production) so that oil revenues can almost double over 5 years. Fig 2: Four IMF reports and their projections Fig 3: Expenditure vs Revenue Fig 4: Budget balance 2004-2014-2020 Fig 5: Balance of Payments Fig 6: GIR time series Fig 7: Fiscal breakeven oil price Fig 8: IMF breakeven oil prices estimated in May 2015 Fig 9: Actual crude oil production […]
Iraqis inspect a crater at the site of a suicide bomb attack outside a police station in Dibis on March 11, 2013. (MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/Getty Images) Militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group staged a night raid on the local government office in the Dibis district Tuesday, a shock attack in an assumed secure area behind front lines and close to the Kirkuk’s Avana Dome and Bai Hassan oil fields.A senior Asayesh (general intelligence) official in Dibis, 60 kilometers northwest of Kirkuk city, said that around 8 p.m. local time, four or five militants with suicide vests and automatic weapons attacked the police station, possibly … This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .
A worker adjusts the valve of an oil pipe at the West Qurna 1 oilfield in Basra on Nov. 28, 2010. (ATEF HASSAN/Reuters) The Oil Ministry is offering a deal for two oil fields to ExxonMobil and PetroChina in an effort to jumpstart a long-delayed, multi-billion dollar water project necessary to maintain pressure in more than a half dozen vital oil fields in southern Iraq.Exxon was once involved in the Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP) – from 2009-2011 it was slated to lead a consortium of foreign oil companies to manage the project – though disputes over cost estimates and Exxon’s 2011 contracts with Ir… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .
Photo Posters featuring the image of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiite Muslims, on sale in Baghdad last year. Credit Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press NAJAF, Iraq — In the struggle to transform Iraq from a dictatorship to a democracy after the American-led invasion in 2003, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest spiritual authority for many of the world’s Shiite Muslims, stood out as a singular champion of the effort to hold direct elections and ensure that politicians, and not clerics, rule the country. In doing so, he shaped the relationship between religion and politics here as distinctly different from the Shiite theocracy in Iran , where another ayatollah wields supreme power. Now, in the face of concerns over the growing power of Iran and its militia proxies amid a sectarian war in Iraq , Ayatollah Sistani has made one of his biggest interventions in Iraqi politics, to […]
The following graphs use data from the latest Article IV consultation report published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in August 2015. All IMF papers on Iraq are here . Government Revenues Fig 1: Actual and projected revenue The above graph shows the budget’s very high dependency on oil revenues. They peaked in 2012 as a result of Iraq’s declining oil export prices. In its projection the IMF assumes steadily rising oil prices (blue line) and oil exports (blue dotted line, 4.4 mb/d by 2020 from 5.5 mb/d production) so that oil revenues can almost double over 5 years. Fig 2: Four IMF reports and their projections Fig 3: Expenditure vs Revenue Fig 4: Budget balance 2004-2014-2020 Fig 5: Balance of Payments Fig 6: GIR time series Fig 7: Fiscal breakeven oil price Fig 8: IMF breakeven oil prices estimated in May 2015 Fig 9: Actual crude oil production […]
Then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (center) attends a ceremony to celebrate the start-up of the Garraf oil field in Dhi Qar province on Sept. 21, 2013. (STAFF/Iraq Oil Report) Malaysian oil firm Petronas will file a complaint directly to the oil minister against its Iraqi partners for restricting visas to foreign personnel. A senior South Oil Company (SOC) official involved in the visa process said both SOC and its Dhi Qar province directorate has authorized an effort to replace foreign staff with Iraqis, part of a larger trend to provide more local jobs. "We are currently replacing the engineers, technicians and workers from the Malaysian team in Garraf field… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .
The WHO said the first doses of the vaccine are expected to be administered in the next few days in response to the outbreak which has infected 2,055 people since mid-September (File Photo: AP) The World Health Organization (WHO) is launching a campaign to vaccinate 255,000 people against cholera in Iraq over the next month, in a bid to contain the country’s first major cholera outbreak since 2012, the U.N. agency said. The WHO said the first doses of the vaccine are expected to be administered in the next few days in response to the outbreak which has infected 2,055 people since mid-September. The illness, first detected in Baghdad’s western outskirts, has spread throughout the country, mainly affecting Iraqis who have been forced from their homes and Syrian refugees. The WHO said cholera has killed two people so far, although the Iraqi health ministry said last week it has […]
