By Gary Sandiford, Olive Group’s Dubai based assessments manager. Olive Group is a leading provider of security and technology solutions and has operated continuously in Iraq since 2003. Overview Olive Group's Iraq statistics are drawn from multiple sources, including media reporting and direct liaison with in country assets. Included within the statistics are a […]
By Padraig O'Hannelly. With increasing commercial activity in Iraq, much of it by foreign-based investors, there's a growing market for adequate insurance to cover the risks. But in a country emerging from years of chaos, how can you be sure that the insurance you buy is legal and valid? To help clarify this point, Iraq […]
By John Lee. In a recent article on Forbes magazine website, legal expert and anti-scam campaigner Jay Adkisson challenges the idea that vast wealth will be made from a dramatic appreciation of the Iraqi dinar, saying, "You can't fix stupid". "Scams involving the arbitrage of foreign currencies have been around as long as there have […]
By John Lee. Reuters reports that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline was bombed on Sunday night, knocking out flows. Officials from the Turkish Energy Ministry said on Monday that repairs could take up to 10 days. The blast occurred in Mardin province, north of Turkey's border with Syria. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was behind the […]
By John Lee. Reuters reports that Iraq's acting Minister for Defence, Sadoun al-Dulaimi (Sadun al-Dulaymi) (pictured), has been in Russia to negotiate the purchase of air surveillance equipment. Hakim al-Zamili, a member of the parlimantary security and defence committee, told the news agency: "There is a delegation, headed by the minister of defence and the commander […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
By Gary Sandiford, Olive Group ’s Dubai based assessments manager. Olive Group is a leading provider of security and technology solutions and has operated continuously in Iraq since 2003. Overview Olive Groups Iraq statistics are drawn from multiple sources, including media reporting and direct liaison with in country assets. Included within the statistics […]
In keeping with Barack Obama's presidential campaign promise, the US has withdrawn its troops from Iraq and by the end of 2012 US spending in Iraq will be just five per cent of what it was at its peak in 2008. In a special two-part series, AlJazeera's "Fault Lines" program travels across Iraq to take […]
By John Lee. A report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) has found that $206 million was wasted on a program to train Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted. The Police Development Program (PDP) was to be a five-year multibillion-dollar program to train Iraq’s police forces, and was […]
To overcome Iraq’s current political crisis and prevent the breakdown of the entire post-2003 order, Prime Minister Maliki (pictured) and his opponents both will have to agree to painful compromises, according to this report from the International Crisis Group: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS At first glance, the current Iraqi political crisis looks like just one […]
