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From Al Jazeera. Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
Poverty is on the rise in Iraq as more cases of COVID-19 are reported.
Daily wage earners are being forced to stay at home because of the lockdown there.
Volunteers are helping some of the millions struggling without an income.
Al Jazeera’s Simona Foltyn reports from Baghdad:
By John Lee.
Iraq’s Higher Committee for Health and National Safety held a meeting in Baghdad on Sunday via video conferencing under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi.
The Committee decided the following:
Supporting Iraq’s health workers
The Committee discussed measures to support Iraqi frontline health workers and agreed to:
The Committee urged all Iraqis to continue to follow health instructions and guidelines, and to only leave home when it is absolutely necessary.
For the latest Covid-19 updates, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/MOH.GOV.IQ/
(Source: Govt of Iraq)
By John Lee.
A third batch of medical aid from China arrived on Monday in Baghdad.
It includes medical protective equipment such as protective clothing, masks and gloves.
(Sources: Ministry for Health, CGTN)
By John Lee.
Mechanics and vendors staged protests on Saturday against the continuing lockdown across the Kurdistan Region, calling on the government to allow them to reopen their garages and shops after a month of closures.
Workers in Erbil and Duhok said the lockdown, implemented to stem the spread of COVID-19, is impacting their ability to provide for their families.
(Source: Rudaw)
By Mustafa Saadoun for Al Monitor. Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
Cloud of doubt surrounds coronavirus figures reported by Iraqi government
Iraqis are highly skeptical of the statistics announced by the Iraqi government regarding the country’s number of coronavirus cases. This doubt is evident in media reports and blogs of journalists and activists on social media.
Health Minister Jaafar Allawi said April 12 in a television interview, “The number of coronavirus cases is subject to international monitoring. Death certificates and forensic medicine are monitored and coronavirus statistics cannot be manipulated in any way.” As of April 14, the country had registered 1,400 cases and 78 deaths, according to a statement by the Health Ministry.
An administrator working at a medical center east of Baghdad said during an interview with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “The numbers that the Iraqi Health Ministry announces daily are not the real numbers. On one day, we recorded more than 30 cases in one health center, but in the evening the Iraqi statistics that were revealed showed fewer cases than those recorded in our center.“
By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad.
Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
Oil Market Collapse, Damages the Iraqi Economy and Changes Oil Geopolitics
The collapse of the global oil market is undoubtedly unprecedented in its timing, magnitude, spread and devastating impacts across the globe. A strange and unpredicted association of a few, but major, factors had contributed to the current threat, causing much uncertainty and vulnerability on national and global levels.
The revised “OPEC+” production cut agreed on 12 April prompted initial minor improvement in oil price, but there remains very many serious concerns that such reduction is much below what is needed to bring stability to and balances a saturated global oil market.
This article aims at estimating the collapse in oil market on Iraq first then on both Russia and Saudi Arabia, as they are accused for “OPEC+” failure early last March that ignited the oil price war, and assesses the geopolitical and political economy consideration that contributed to and further complicate the impasse. The article provides a summary of two articles written and published in Arabic recently and an update on recent deliberation by “OPEC+” and G20 Energy Ministers to rescue the situation and bring some stability to global oil market under existing threat of Coronavirus to the world biosecurity.
My two articles attempt to provide comparative assessment of the impact of the collapse with particular focus on short-term horizon, i.e., the remaining nine months of this year under different Brent oil price scenarios on Iraq, first article , while the second focuses on Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Click here to download the full report in pdf format.
Mr Jiyad is an independent development consultant, scholar and Associate with the former Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES), London. He was formerly a senior economist with the Iraq National Oil Company and Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, Chief Expert for the Council of Ministers, Director at the Ministry of Trade, and International Specialist with UN organizations in Uganda, Sudan and Jordan. He is now based in Norway (Email: mou-jiya(at)online.no, Skype ID: Ahmed Mousa Jiyad). Read more of Mr Jiyad’s biography here.
By Omar Sattar for Al Monitor. Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
Islamic State seeks comeback under cover of coronavirus
The Islamic State (IS) is seeking to take advantage of Iraq’s preoccupation with the coronavirus pandemic and the global coalition’s suspension there of military operations against IS.
Accordingly, Iraqi forces have launched a preemptive operation to cut off IS supply routes and weaken its combat capabilities.
“Despite the suspension of the global coalition’s operations, Iraqi forces are conducting operations to hunt down the terrorist organization on the border with Syria,” Iraq Defense Ministry spokesperson Yahya Rasoul told Al-Monitor. “IS has incurred huge losses in recent days as it tried to exploit the coronavirus crisis to expand its terrorist operations.”
Sterilizing the streets: Local Peace Committees in Anbar join forces to prevent the spread of COVID-19
Eleven Local Peace Committees have taken the initiative to protect their communities from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic by sterilizing public spaces in Iraq’s Anbar governorate.
Markets, streets, residential areas, schools, government institutions, mosques, and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in major areas in Anbar are being disinfected by the committees through trained response teams in coordination with Anbar’s Defense, Health and Municipalities directorates.
Established in 2018 by UNDP Iraq to promote peace and stability post-ISIL, the committees are made up of security officers, local authority personnel, civil society organization representatives and tribal sheikhs.
Each committee is led by their local Mayor, who, since the onset of the pandemic, has been working to instruct the public to adhere to health protection measures, and have shifted the committees’ focus to managing the outbreak.
Mayor of Habbaniyah district, Ali Dawood Suleiman, discusses the measures taking place in his local community. “We carried out many campaigns, including visits to hospitals and emergency rooms late at night to monitor the readiness of medical personnel to receive urgent cases,” he said.
“We will also monitor prices in the markets in coordination with security agencies to ensure the price of goods does not rise,” he added.
While the Anbar governorate is currently under curfew, basic food shops are open to residents during defined time periods. Local Peace Committee members in the areas of Ramadi, Habbaniyah, Fallujah, Amiriyat al-Samoud, Qarma, Rawa, Anah, Haditha, Rutba, Tuaim, and Heet continue to implement sterilization and communication campaigns to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
(Source: UN)
By John Lee.
Iraq‘s Higher Committee for Health and National Safety met in Baghdad on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi. The meeting was conducted via video conferencing.
The Committee discussed a number of policy options to support Iraqi nationals abroad who wish to return home, and how to address the logistical and health challenges involved. It is expected that the Committee will make an announcement on this issue shortly.
Following discussions on COVID-19/coronavirus, the Committee decided to:
(Source: Govt of Iraq)
By John Lee.
Iraq‘s Higher Committee for Health and National Safety has decided to extend the curfew throughout Iraq until Saturday 18th April.
The move is intended to slow the spread of coronavirus/COVID-19 in the country.
(Source: Govt of Iraq)