Archive | 3rd August 2012

Obama Accuses Iraqi Bank of Aiding Iran

By John Lee. President Barack Obama has said that Iraq's Elaf Islamic Bank carried out "transactions worth millions of dollars" on behalf of Iranian banks that had been blacklisted because of their to Iran's nuclear programme. "We will expose any financial institution, no matter where they are located, that allows the increasingly desperate Iranian regime […]

16 Firms Bid to Build $412m Grand Faw Breakwater

By John Lee. Sixteen companies have bid to build a 480 billion-dinar ($412 million) breakwater for Iraq's Grand Fao [Grand Faw] port. Omran Radhi, director general of the State Company for Iraq’s Ports, told Bloomberg that the list of bidders includes: Hyundai Engineering & Construction; Daewoo Engineering & Construction; Dredging International; China Communications Construction Company; […]

Resumption of Oil Exports by KRG

By John Lee. Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region will resume in the first week of August, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has announced, adding that the decision was a confidence-building measure aimed at solving once and for all the ongoing oil and gas issues in Iraq. The MNR said that despite initial reluctance […]

Stand-Off in Ninawa: Syria Inflames Kurdistan-Iraq Dispute

By Ahmad Salama. This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. The conflict with Syria is threatening to spill over borders, as Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad line up on opposing sides. Now the face-off has gone beyond […]

Microsoft to Start e-Governance Projects in Maysan

By John Lee. Microsoft is reportedly about to start e-governance projects in Maysan. Suhair Al-Minshidawi, the Chairman of the e-governance Committee in Maysan province said in a press statement: "The representative of the company showed, during a meeting with her, his company's willingness to work in this field. "The projects include electronic systems specializing in […]

1,300 New Teachers for Erbil

By John Lee. A member of the employment committee in Erbil province has announced that 1,292 new teachers will be employed in the province. According to a report from AKnews, Hussein Kakil said it is necessary to fill the vacancies before schools re-open in September. The Kurdistan Regional Government is said to have 17,000 job […]

The Syrian Crisis and Erbil-Baghdad Relations

By Reidar Visser. The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq […]