The minister said the refinery, built by South Korean firm Hyundai, can produce nine million liters of fuel a day -- over half of Iraq's daily imports of 15 million liters. The refinery has the capacity to produce 200 megawatts of electricity and "60 megawatts will be allocated to the...

Blanketing central Iraq in dust, the sandstorm made life diffcult on Firday for Iraqis venturing out of their homes. A thick film of dust covered cars and houses and many struggled to breathe air filled with sand. It was the first such weather event to hit the aird country this...

ARBIL, IRAQ - Authorities in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region announced on Sunday a November date for legislative elections which had been postponed by a year due to disputes between two major parties.The regional parliament had voted in October to extend its term and reschedule the vote amid disagreements between the Kurdistan...

The Iraqi oil ministry said that Turkey stopped oil exports from Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on Saturday in the wake of arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce. It said that Baghdad's claims had been accepted in a dispute with Ankara over who had responsiblity for exporting the autonomous region's...

The provincial councils, created by the 2005 constitution following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, carry relatively significant power in federal Iraq, including allocating the budgets for health, transport and education.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani will visit Turkey on Tuesday for talks including on scarce water resources and the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a government source said.Sudani is set to meet Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his first visit to Iraq's northern neighbor since he...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Iran's top security official on Sunday signed a deal with Iraqi authorities for "protection" of their common border, the Iraqi prime minister's office said, months after Tehran struck Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq's north.Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region hosts camps and rear-bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish factions, which...

Since the beginning of his administration in 2021, President Joe Biden has urged Congress to revoke the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs. In a statement Thursday on the revocations of the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs, the Biden administration said the president is ready to work with Congress to replace other "outdated...

Just days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion that resulted in war, chaos, and political instability, Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said that his government had prepared a three-year budget for the oil-dependent economy traditionally plagued by budgetary delays. The bill will include financial aid to...

BASRA, IRAQ -  Iraq's prime minister on Sunday announced a campaign to combat the severe impacts of climate change on the water-scarce country, including by planting five million palms and trees.Oil-rich but war-battered Iraq suffers from extreme summer heat, frequent droughts, desertification and regular dust storms, problems that are all exacerbated...

Iraq has scuttled a big smuggling operation of bringing into the country a large consignment of three million pills of captagon, an amphetamine-type stimulant sweeping the Middle East for year, near the Syrian border. The pills had been hidden in apple crates and discovered at the Al-Qaim crossing near Iraq's...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran has finalized a deal to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, state media reported, as defense cooperation between the two countries deepens.The air force of sanctions-hit Iran has an ageing fleet of aircraft and has struggled to acquire spare parts to keep its warplanes in...

Surprise Saudi-Iran detente, midwifed by China, has gone against the drift of Austin’s visit to the Middle East which was largely premised on an abiding antagonism between the two countries.

President George W. Bush's war, launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, is seared in memory for its "shock and awe" strikes, the toppling of a giant Saddam statue, and the years of bloody sectarian turmoil that followed. The US forces, backed mainly by British troops, never found the...

Abu Dhabi, UAE -- Siemens Energy has been awarded long-term service contracts for several Iraqi power plants to improve energy stability and availability, as well as provide training, skills, and employment opportunities for Iraqis, Siemens said Tuesday.These contracts represent the first portion of prioritized projects under the Iraq Energy Agenda...

UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay was to visit reconstruction projects and meet top officials including Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and President Abdel Latif Rachid. Years of war and insurgency have taken a heavy toll on Iraq's many Mesopotamian, Islamic and Christian treasures including six UNESCO World Heritage sites.

In spite of divisions over the legislation, Iraq's customs department has given orders to begin enforcing a ban on alcohol imports that became law last month. The specialist retail stores dominating alcohol sales in absence of bars or licensed restaurants however remained open for business, at least in Baghdad.

The warrants do not name any of the officials, but according to the official, they are former finance minister Ali Allawi, the director of cabinet Raed Jouhi, personal secretary Ahmed Najati, and adviser Mushrik Abbas. Allawi, a respected politician and academic, resigned in August last year. When the scandal broke...

For Shiites, who make up the religious majority in Iraq, "being buried near Imam Ali is very important," said the Najaf city historian Hassan Issa al-Hakim.

Children in Iraq work as apprentice mechanics and rubbish collectors, in shisha cafes or hair salons, and washing car windows and selling paper tissues by the roadside. Employing children is punishable by prison time or a fine, but "with many families left without a breadwinner, mothers have been forced to...

In a show of solidarity with Iraq, UN head Antonio Guterres arrived in the country for the first time in six years, after a prolonged political crisis there. On arrival he said that he wanted to show solidarity with the people and the democratic institutions of Iraq, pledging support for...

Dubai, UAE-- Iraq has imported oil derivatives - gasoline, kerosene and gas oil - worth more than $5 billion in 2022, the state-run Iraqi Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) said Tuesday.The company's data showed that Iraq's imports of kerosene (white oil) amounted to 167,433 metric tons valued at $159.27, according to...

A Turkish drone attack in northern Iraq killed three fighters from the Yazidi community affiliated with the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Iraqi Kurdish officials said. "A drone from the Turkish army targeted a vehicle", killing an officer and two combatants from the Yazidi Sinjar Resistance Units, a Kurdistan region's...

NASIRIYAH, IRAQ - Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers have witnessed a sharp decrease in their levels in the south of the country, officials said Sunday, pledging to take urgent measures to ease water shortages.In Nasiriyah, capital of the southern province of Dhi Qar, an AFP photographer saw the river bed of...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Speaker of the UAE Federal National Council (FNC) Saqr Ghobash said that Arab parliaments should are required to coordinate parliamentary work.He said that Arab parliaments should unify positions on all common issues, activate the role of parliamentary diplomacy and cooperate in order to achieve the integration which...

WASHINGTON, US - An explosion wounded four American military personnel during a raid that killed a senior Islamic State (IS) group leader in Syria, the US military's Central Command said Friday."Last night, during a partnered US and Syrian Democratic Forces helicopter raid in northeastern Syria, an explosion on target resulted in...

Baghdad, Iraq---A leading campaigner for the preservation of Iraq's famed southern marshlands has been freed, two weeks after he was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen, his family said on Thursday.Jassim al-Assadi, 65, head of environmentalist group Nature Iraq, was seized on February 1 as he drove to the capital Baghdad on the...

Hossam received an even harsher sentence of two years in prison. Some of her videos showed her dressed in a tight military uniform. In total, a dozen people have so far been arrested for "decadent content", said an interior ministry official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

Dating back almost 5,000 years, archaeologists in Iraq have uncovered the remains of a tavern that they hope will illuminate the lives of ordinary people in the world's first cities. The US-Italian team made the find in the ruins of ancient Lagash, northeast of the modern city of Nasiriyah.

This strain - never before recorded in Iraq - is resistant to the vaccines normally used in the country, leaving authorities scrambling to obtain the right doses to inoculate livestock and prevent further spread. "The infections are much higher," lamented 26-year-old Roumi from his farm in the village of Badush...

The rise in adjusted net profit driven by high energy prices.

A day after the powerful earthquake devastated Turkey and Syria, Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region has said that it resumed oil exports through Turkey after suspending them as a precaution in the wake of the quake. The Kurdish ministry of natural resources said the oil exports restarted via the pipeline connecting...

"The Kurdistan Regional Government confirms the halt of oil exportation through #Turkey's Ceyhan due to the #earthquake that struck several areas in the country," tweeted Lawk Ghafuri, head of foreign media relations in Kurdistan.

Iraq, a close ally of Iran, also has strategic relations with the United States, which still has soldiers in the country as part of the international coalition facing the Islamic State group. On Thursday, Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein hosted Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. No mention was...

AMMAN, JORDAN - Chairman of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce (JCC), Khalil Haj Tawfiq said Iraq is an "important" trade partner and gateway for Jordan's economy. Haj Tawfiq said, "Jordan and Iraq have wide, prolific potentials, fields and grounds to build economic integration, in light of the strong brotherly relations,...

Touching off a wave of outrage across the country, the death of a young YouTube Iraqi star at the hands of her father has shone a spotlight again on so-called "honor killings" inside the conservative country. Tiba al-Ali, 22, was killed by her father on January 31 in the southern...

Iraq admitted it had differences with France's TotalEnergies over a US$10-billion contract, including over the distribution of investments, but expressed hope they can be resolved through talks. "We have given ourselves time to continue the dialogue and reach a satisfactory solution for the parties involved regarding certain points of contention,"...

Baghdad is currently heavily dependent on neighboring Iran for its electricity and gas and has sought to diversify its energy sources.

Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has said the country's new banking regulations have revealed fraudulent dollar transactions made from his country. In recent months the country has been seeking to make sure that its banking system is in sync with the international electronic transfer system.

The relief of rainfall early this month was welcomed by the UN agency, which noted in a statement that in the Chibayish region "salinity levels decreased" to the point that people and animals could again drink the water.

A convoy of trucks driving into eastern Syria from Iraq on Sunday was hit by air strikes, destroying all the vehicles, according to a war monitor. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that six refrigerated trucks were the target of strikes by unidentified aircraft in the Albu Kamal border...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -  First Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohsen Al-Mandalawi said that the tourism sector in Iraq has all the ingredients for success.Al-Mandalawi made the statement while meeting with the Association of Travel and Tourism Companies in Iraq, a statement issues by the  media office of the First Deputy Speaker...

Baghdad, Iraq - Iraq's Minister of Electricity, Ziyad Ali Fadel said the national grid has lost 7,500 megawatts in the past days due to curtailed Iranian gas imports which led to a decline in processing hours.He said the memorandum of understanding signed with the German company Siemens will lead to...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -  Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani will travel to France on Thursday for energy and security talks with President Emmanuel Macron, he told AFP.Sudani, in written answers to AFP, said he wants to "activate the agreements" between oil-rich Iraq and France "particularly in the transport, energy and investment sectors".French...

The International Organization for Migration said in an October report that "prevailing customs and traditions... limit women's activities to their domestic and nurturing role". Adel said such prejudices, as well as practical difficulties, posed a challenge to fulfilling her dream. A graduate of the University of Baghdad who specialised in...

Iraq's prime minister said the country's central bank governor had been relieved of his duties as the local currency continues to fall against the dollar. "The central bank governor's request for discharge was approved, as was the request for retirement by the president of the Trade Bank of Iraq," Prime...

Baghdad, Iraq--Iraq saw the Gulf Cup as a chance to rehabilitate its image after a years-long football hosting ban, but a deadly stampede and organizing gaffes have dampened the cheer despite its home victory.Thursday's stampede outside a football stadium ahead of the cup final in the southern city of Basra killed...

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - The Civil Aviation Authority announced the work to conclude new air agreements with the Gulf states. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Jihad Al-Diwan, told local media agency: "We have agreements with all Gulf countries and all Gulf national carriers that land in Iraqi airports, except for...

One person was killed and dozens injured when a stampede broke out outside a football stadium in Iraq hours before the Gulf Cup final, medical and security sources said. Long banned from hosting international football matches, war-torn Iraq had been counting on its hosting of the Gulf Cup to burnish...

Baghdad, Iraq--Iraq has begun constructing 400 energy plants of high-quality specifications in all regions across the country.In a press statement, Iraqi Minister of Electricity Ziyad Ali Fadel said that the Ministry has discussions and contracts with General Electric and other American companies to implement some of these projects.He pointed out...