• Gulf Keystone announces its results for the year ended 31 December 2012

  Completion of the agreed five-well appraisal programme in August 2012. Jurassic oil discovery following the drilling of the Sheikh Adi-2 exploration well in November 2012. New Triassic oil discovery following the drilling of Bakrman-1, the first exploration well to target the Bakrman structure. Ber Bahr-1, the first exploration well on the block, was drilled to a TD of 3,930 metres and ...

• Syria crisis Unesco puts six world heritage sites on endangered list

  o Sites include the ancient cities of Aleppo and Damascuso Cameron rejects role for Iran at Geneva conferenceo Election candidate killed in Iraq bomb ...

• Spreading shakedowns and distrust of authorities embolden al-Qaida in Iraqs restive Mosul

  FILE - In this file photo taken on Jan. 16, 2012 Iraqi security forces inspect bombs at the scene of a car bomb attack outside the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Qaida's Iraq arm is gaining strength in the restive northern city of Mosul, reviving its fundraising efforts through gangland-style shakedowns, feeding off anti-government anger ...

• In northern Iraqi city al-Qaida gathers strength

  View Photo Associated Press - FILE - in this file photo taken on Jan. 16, 2012 Iraqi security forces inspect the scene of a car bomb attack outside the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of ...

• Kerry calls Karzai twice to smooth waters over Taliban talks

  Hamid Karzai twice to try to mend fences over the U.S. outreach to the Taliban. The phone diplomacy occurred after Karzai said the Afghan government had suspended security talks with the United States in Kabul "in view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the peace process." "The secretary spoke with President ...

• China Russia and Uzbekistan drop on U.S. human trafficking list

  The U.S. State Department Wednesday downgraded China, Russia and Uzbekistan on its human trafficking list, meaning they could face sanctions. The department promoted Azerbaijan, Congo-Brazzaville and Iraq from its Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2. China, Russia and Uzbekistan were moved from the watch list to Tier 3 on the four-tier system. The shifts came as, for the first time, the department was ...

• War against Iraq neither for peace nor democracy

  The success of the U.S. in its recent wars has been insignificant. This was the case for war against Iraq, which was never found: chemical weapons to legitimize that ...

• Iraq to boost output by 45 by 2014-end

  Thamir Ghadhban, energy adviser to Iraq's prime minister has said the government aims to boost oil production by nearly 45% by the end of 2014, and that Baghdad had lost confidence in Kurdistan after the region stopped exporting oil through the federal pipeline system, Reuters has reported. Baghdad's ambitious 4.5 million barrels per day (b/d) target relies on new oil pumped from ...

• Iraqi Shiite fighters flock to Assad’s side

  Bashar Assad but against them. Dressed in jeans, their hair cropped short, the 12 men awaiting their flight are Iraqi Shiites, among hundreds heading for what they see as a struggle to defend fellow Syrian Shiites and their holy sites from the ...

• Iraq Chevron Total expand Kurdish drilling

  Iraq's Kurds have consolidated their growing energy sector with Chevron Corp. securing a third exploration block in the semiautonomous northern region that increasingly operates as a de facto independent state and France's Total buying a majority stake in ...

• Iraqi Car Bombs Heightens Fears of Sectarian War

  Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East BAGHDAD, Iraq-May 2013, themost violent time period in Iraq since 2008, has activists fearing a pending sectarian war. The country has recently been plagued with car bombings and shootings causing injury, death, and destruction with nearly two thousand people killed since ...

• Is America’s Iraq Imploding

  In March 2013, America's invasion of Iraq reached its 10th anniversary. After a decade of nation building, Iraq is falling apart. In April 2013, deadly clashes between government forces and demonstrators in the city of Hawija set off a chain reaction of retaliatory attacks across Iraq. The situation now threatens to plunge the country into the kind of war it experienced in the midst of the ...

• Soldiers families can sue Ministry of Defence supreme court rules

  Defence secretary Philip Hammond says the decision could leave operational decisions in combat zones open to 'the uncertainty of litigation'. Photograph: ...

• Espionage writer Vince Flynn dies books beloved from OGaras to Baghdad

  < 200){ requestedWidth = 200; } Surrounded by dozens of friends and family, bestselling author and St. Paul favorite Vince Flynn died early Wednesday. He was 47. Flynn died of prostate cancer at United Hospital, according to friend Kathy Schneeman, writing on the ...

• Iraq election candidate killed in suicide bomb attack

  The bomber attacked a guesthouse owned by Younis al-Rammah, who was a candidate in provincial elections beginning today, late on Tuesday in Nineveh. Mr Rammah and four relatives were killed and six others wounded. Candidates are frequent targets for insurgents who aim to disrupt the political process.Two suicide bombers also targeted a Shia mosque in Baghdad on Tuesday, one blowing himself up at ...

• Iraq bombings kill 13 ahead of vote

  View Photo AFP/AFP/File - Iraqi military vehicles are pictured in front of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad on June 18, 2013 following a suicide bombing. A suicide bombing in northern Iraq killed a provincial political ...

• Syria wont be another Iraq

  David Cameron insisted he had "learned the lessons of Iraq" as world leaders at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland set out an agreed blueprint for the future of Syria. But the British Prime Minister was again warned not to consider arming the Syrian rebels by President Vladimir Putin, who compared them to the killers of Drummer Lee Rigby. Cameron and President Barack Obama persuaded Putin to ...

• Iraqi Shiites flock to Assads side as sectarian split widens

  Iraqi mourners carry the coffin of Dhia Mutasharm, a Shi'ite militia fighter killed in clashes with the Free Syrian Army, during a funeral in Basra, 420 km (261 miles) southeast of Baghdad in this May 6, 2013 file ...

• Ban Ki-moon recommends end to Iraq sanctions

  UNITED NATIONS // The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, yesterday recommended moving a step closer to ending all of the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq more than two decades ago after the country's former leader, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait in 1990. Despite the fall of Saddam in 2003 after an invasion led by the United States, the UN has not fully lifted the sanctions. ...

• Families of British soldiers killed in Iraq delighted at court ruling

  Relatives of the soldiers killed in Iraq recognise "it's going to be a long hard road" but say they got "the right result" after winning a fight for the right to sue the MoD for ...

• Indian FM Begins Visit to Iraq Oil Among Priorities

  New Delhi, Jun 19 (Prensa Latina) The Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, begins a two-day visit to Iraq aimed at reviving bilateral relations and negotiate greater purchases of oil to the Arab nation, currently its second largest supplier. The Indian foreign minister is scheduled to meet with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiyar Zebari, and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, to discuss mutual ...

• Family delight at Iraq court ruling

  The Supreme Court - the highest court in the UK - ruled that damages claims could be launched under legislation covering negligence and human rights.Lawyers representing relatives said the ruling meant the Ministry of Defence owed a duty of care to properly equip servicemen and women who went to war.But Defence ...

• Head of United Iraq party murdered on eve of elections

  An Iraqi policeman casts his ballot in Ramadi on June 17, 2013 as security forces vote in provincial polls ahead of the rest of Iraqis in the Anbar province. Iraq held provincial elections in April except in six provinces, including Anbar and Nineveh, where polls were delayed because authorities said security could not be guaranteed (Azhar Shallal / AFP) A suicide bombing in northern Iraq on ...

• Iraqi officials say suicide bomber kills politician 4 relatives in northern Ninevah province

  BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials say a suicide attack has killed a local political leader and four of his relatives in northern Iraq. A police officer said Wednesday that a suicide bomber blew himself up late the previous night inside Younis al-Rammah's guesthouse in the northern province of Ninevah. He says al-Rammah and four relatives were killed and six others wounded. The slain leader headed ...

• Assad forces build up for Aleppo offensive

  Forces loyal to Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad are reported to be tightening a cordon around the northern city of Aleppo, once the country's commercial heart, in a major offensive against rebels who hold 60 percent of the ...

• Member of Iraqi Parliament killed in terrorist attack

  CAIRO, June 19. /ITAR-TASS /. In the bomb attack, which took place today in the northern Iraqi province of Mosul, five people were killed. According to police spokesperson, the victims are one of the leaders of Iraqi National Alliance (INA) and his four brothers. Another six members of the same family were injured. According to reports, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the garden of the ...

• Five dead in Iraq suicide bomb ahead of vote

  Iraq on Wednesday killed the leader of a provincial political party and four relatives, officials said, on the eve of elections his bloc was to participate in.Yunus al-Ramah, head of the United Iraq party, had been hosting a social gathering at his home in the town of Al-Hadhr, ...

• Iraq’s Kurds to Export Oil by New Pipeline ‘Very Soon’

  Iraq 's Kurds will start exporting crude by pipeline "very soon" after the completion of a new link to the Turkish border by the end of September, the Kurdistan Regional Government Natural Resources Minister said. The pipeline to Fishkabour near the frontier ...

• An Anthem for Global Unity Rises from Iraq

  a music video for global unity rising from the youth of our generation's biggest war. If I came with impossibly high goals, what I experienced was beyond my, or anyone's, dreams. The trip was organized in less than a month. Three weeks of outreach, and I was working with members of ...

• The supreme courts ruling will be greeted with dismay at the MoD | Joshua Rozenberg

  An armoured Land Rover deployed with British forces in Afghanistan. The families of British soldiers killed in Iraq have established in the supreme court that the human rights convention applies to soldiers serving on foreign battlefields Photograph: Katie ...

• Relatives can sue over UK troops Iraq deaths

  The body of soldier Stephen Allbutt arrives at RAF Brize Norton in Britain on 15 April, 2003, after he was killed in Iraq. Relatives of British soldiers killed while fighting in Iraq can sue the government for negligence and claim damages under human rights law, the Supreme Court in London ruled on ...

• Suicide bomber embraces and kills Sunni politician in Iraq

  MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up as he embraced a Sunni Muslim political leader in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing the man and four of his family a day before elections in the ...

• Western Unions new Iraq agent

  Western Union has signed up the Investment Bank of Iraq to offer the complete range of Western Union services across all its 19 branches. The bank has branches in Baghdad, Basra, Karablaa and ...

• Iran Syria Iraq to sign major gas deal on Monday

  Iran, Syria and Iraq will sign a major gas deal here on Monday to transfer Iran's South Pars natural gas to Europe, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.Iran's caretaker oil minister Mohammad Aliabadi as well as oil ministers of Iraq and Syria will join the ceremony and choose a name for the pipeline to transfer Iran's gas to Europe, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister ...

• Kuwait says port project to continue despite Iraqi opposition

  Kuwait said Wednesday it was " determined to go ahead with" the construction of a port which neighboring Iraq said would affect its shipping lanes.Kuwaiti government spokesman Ali Al-Rashid said the Gulf emirate "won't be intimidated by any remarks," referring to those from Baghdad earlier Wednesday which called the construction of the Mubarak Al-Kabir port on ...

• Iran calls on Iraq to deploy forces in borderlines to keep Kurdish rebels away

  A senior commander of Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said Wednesday that the guard's forces would continue destructive and invasive operations against the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) group until the deployment of Iraqi forces in the borders, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.The unnamed military official said that, "Iraqi government should deploy police ...

• UPDATE 1-Iraqi Kurds say new oil pipeline to Turkey to start soon

  Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:53am EDT * Pipeline capacity to increase to 1 mln bpd by 2015-Hawrami * Sales via federal pipeline depend on permanent solution * Natural gas exports to Turkey seen by 2016 By Julia Payne and Peg Mackey LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdistan will start a new oil pipeline to Turkey within months, its energy minister said, increasing the autonomous region's control over ...

• Iraq - Iraqi government detains two journalists without charge

  The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the detention of two Iraqi journalists who have been held for two weeks without formal charge or access to a lawyer in connection with the alleged theft of a senior official's notebook.Police arrested Mohammed Fouad, a journalist for the independent satellite channel ANB, and his assistant, Afdhel Jumaa, at the Ministry of Defense in ...

• UK Supreme Court says families of soldiers killed in Iraq can sue government

  LONDON - Britain's highest court says the families of several soldiers killed or injured in Iraq can sue the government for failing to protect them. The cases are brought by relatives of soldiers including Cpl. Stephen Allbutt, who died in a "friendly fire" incident involving two Challenger tanks in March 2003, and Pvt. Phillip Hewett, killed in July 2005 when his Snatch Land ...

• Oil drilling under way in Iraqi Kurdistan

  An oil company working in northern Iraq said Wednesday it was looking to confirm the region may be one of the best in the world in terms of resource potential. British energy company Gulf Keystone Petroleum said it started operations for the Shaikan-7 exploration well in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. The company said Shaikan-7 is its first deep exploration well, targeting natural ...

• 15 killed 30 wounded in suicide bombing at Baghdad Shiite

  Up to 15 people were killed and 30 wounded in a suicide bomb attack at a Shiite mosque in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry source said."Our latest report said that 15 worshippers were killed and 30 others wounded by the suicide bombing at al-Husseiniyah (Shiite mosque) in Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.The attack occurred around ...

• Families Can Sue Govt Over Iraq Troop Deaths

  Families of British soldiers killed fighting in Iraq can bring damages claims against the Government, the Supreme Court has ruled. Relatives want to sue for negligence and to make claims under human rights legislation. Supreme Court justices announced today that they can do both. Families started legal action as a result of the deaths of a number of British soldiers following the American-led ...

• Gulf Keystone announce the commencement of the Companys drilling campaign at the Shaikan field

  Shaikan-7, the first deep exploration well on the Shaikan block, is targeting the mid to lower Triassic and, potentially, Permian horizons, spudded late on Sunday 16 June 2013. Shaikan-7 is being drilled to the lower Triassic to evaluate the potential for significant quantities of light oil and identify commerciality of the deeper Triassic ...

• World Cup 2014 Josh Kennedy coming to terms with scoring match-winning goal against Iraq

  Sydney 2000 Josh Kennedy says the impact of his match-winning goal in the World Cup qualifier against Iraq is only just "starting to sink in".Kennedy confirmed Australia's passage to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil with his 83rd-minute header at the Olympic stadium on Tuesday night.The lanky striker was still coming to terms with being the toast of the nation as he joined his ...

• Syria peace talks delayed after Putin unyielding

  Syrian peace talks will be delayed after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to boycott talks that assume President Bashar Assad will resign, officials said. The international peace conference in Geneva, Switzerland, proposed by Washington and Moscow six weeks ago to be held as soon as May is now likely to be delayed until September, a Western official told several news organizations after ...

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