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By Safa Fadhil (Awat): Taxation and tax rate issues do not hit the headlines of the Iraqi news channels and newspapers even though they are perceptible in all world’s major media channels and business magazines. In its place corruption is under the spotlight in this part of the world. Oddly, both taxes and corruption are…
By Mufid Abdulla: One of the biggest stories of recent days is the closure of American embassies across the Middle East due to the threat of major attack from Al Qaeda. The CIA has for a long time underestimated the ferocity of the Jihadis in Iraq and their links to terrorist networks all over the…
KT Comment: Figures released by the Iraqi ministry of health and interior ministry show that the terror campaign of Al Qaeda and others caused the deaths of more than 1,000 people last month. At least 778 ordinary civilians died in explosions and other violence. In addition, 88 police officers, 55 soldiers and 68 terrorists died….
Dr Sadar Aziz was interviewed by Aras Ahmed Mhamad: 1. Kurds are the largest nation without having an independent national territory. How does that make you feel as a Kurd? It makes me feel nude: I mean I have no layer which protects me from the danger of the outside. If the state is a…
By Mohammed Hussein: Recent meetings between Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri Al- Maliki, and president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, have posed many questions about these leaders’ simultaneous hostility and friendship. What unites them, and what makes them stand against each other are topics that have been discussed in some Iraqi and international media. But…
By Dr Aland Mizell: Throughout history, the Kurdish people have faced one incontrovertible fact of real politics. Kurds have no real predictable or long-term allies in the Middle East. Because of disunity among Kurdish people, they have often sought alliances with international powers, and most of the time these friendly allies decided it was in…
By Kawa Rash: Deriving from ‘Suratal-Anfal’ in the Qur’an, ‘al Anfal’ literally means ‘the spoils’ (of war) and the term was used by Saddam’s Iraqi regime to describe the 1988 military campaign of extermination and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid. However, the ruling Ba’athists distorted what the Qur’an says. ‘Anfal’ in the Qur’an does…
By Mariwan Pauls: Arab Iraqi Nationalism The Arabs’ (Iraqi or otherwise) hatred of us, the Kurds, is as alive as ever. I was listening to a few Iraqi commentators about Iraqi politics and their hatred and disapproval of anything Kurdish and Kurdish politics was shocking. (Or was it? Should we be surprised? Perhaps not!) It…
KT News: The first cargo of crude oil from an oil field in the south of Kurdistan has been sold on the international market. This has happened in defiance of the Iraq central government and against the background of its ongoing dispute with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Reuters quotes sources as saying that a…
KT News: The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has delivered what is described as a ‘final’ letter to the Iraqi government of Nuri al Maliki, asking it to resolve the outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad. The KRG has set up in a special committee in Erbil, comprising members of the two ruling parties and a…
KT News and Comment: A prominent Gorran MP in the Iraqi parliament has accused other Kurdish MPs of wrongly opposing Iraq’s budget because of the ongoing oil dispute. Latif Mustafa told Awene that, while the Iraq budget ‘belongs’ to ordinary people, the oil dispute between Baghdad and Erbil mainly concerns the corrupt politicians, oil contractors…
KT News and Comment: Southern Iraq continues to be convulsed every week by mass demonstrations called by pro-Sunni parties protesting at the authoritarian and sectarian policies of Maliki’s pro-Shia government. In Anbar and Ramadi, opposition forces are threatening to march on Baghdad to conduct their Friday prayers in the capital. This would amount to a…
By Sabir Hasan: The relationship between humans, starting from interpersonal relationships up to international relations, is established through communication. And the vehicle of communication is language, whether it is expressed verbally or in writing. Today’s complex Arab-Kurdish relations are mostly addressed and dealt with in Baghdad and, specifically, in the Iraqi Council of Representatives (the…
By HIVOS and WADI: Encouraging steps in Iraq The 6th of February was introduced by the United Nations as The International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Since then public awareness worldwide has grown. In a time when women’s rights and violence against women are discussed more than ever before, especially in…
KT News and Comment: Iraq prime minister Maliki has imposed a curfew on the city of Fallujah after at least five people were killed today and 60 injured when troops opened fire on unarmed protestors. This was the first time protestors have been killed by the army since the current round of protests by Sunni…
