The buffaloes that Jabbar Hassan farms moved too slowly across the marshland. They looked tired and too thin; seven had already died because it was too hot and the marshes where they live are becoming too dry. A severe drought is impacting on the Jabayesh marshes, where Hassan and his family live in southern Iraq; Jabayesh lies about 95 kilometres east of Nasiriya, the capital
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Members of the Iraqi Kurdish military are quitting fighting the Islamic State and taking illicit routes to Europe. Why should we pay for our own ammunition and fight for a country that cares so little about us, they ask. In the middle of August, Ahmed Mohammed, became one of the many Iraqis seeking a safer place to live in Europe. He arrived in Germany less than a month after
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The International Monetary Fund may provide a large loan to Iraq in 2016 to help stabilize the country's finances as it grapples with low oil prices and the Islamic State insurgency, a senior IMF official said. An IMF team will discuss with Iraqi officials early next month how to create a Staff-Monitored Programme for Baghdad - an arrangement under which the Fund would monitor
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Oct 21 (Reuters) - Iraq's fiscal deficit is expected to hit 11.9 percent of economic activity in 2016, the finance minister said on Wednesday, as the country struggles to fund fighting against Islamic State in the face of dropping crude prices. The government's budget proposal, which awaits parliamentary approval, envisions expenditures of 106.9 trillion dinars ($95 billion) w
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A capital city in Iraq is in turmoil. The government has been hit hard by collapsing oil prices and is under pressure from an array of activist groups to reveal the fate of missing oil revenues, and be far more transparent. At the helm is a man many have long accused of intimidation and close links to one of the worst dictators of modern times. This government is seen by some
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