BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people mourning at a Shi’ite funeral in the northern Iraqi city of Baquba on Monday in the latest sectarian attack this month.

A wave of bombings on Shi’ite pilgrims and religious sites has killed more than 130 people in June, reviving fears of a return to widespread sectarian violence, in some of the bloodiest attacks since U.S. troops left Iraq in December.

BABYLON, Iraq, May 23 (Reuters) – In the ancient city of
Babylon, once home to the fabled Hanging Gardens, an extended
oil pipeline has churned through the dirt and dug up a
conundrum: which takes precedence, preserving Iraq’s heritage or
developing its oil wealth?

The definitive answer will probably be decades coming. But
for the moment, oil appears to have the edge.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq plans to build on its nascent gas sector to power a new petrochemicals industry, looking to foreign firms to invest $35-50 billion from 2017-2023, a senior official told Reuters.

Mohammed Abdullah, a deputy minister with responsibility for companies, said the ambitious plan was to produce 10 million tonnes of petrochemicals a year during that period.

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) – With its sweeping highway, solar-powered street lights and plethora of hotels, the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf is a beacon for investment in Iraq, outshining other areas where projects have been slow to take off.

Virtually every economic sector in the country needs funding and attention to redevelop crumbling facilities that were neglected during decades of war and financial sanctions.

BAGHDAD, April 15 (Reuters) – At Alaa Radhi’s currency
exchange shop in central Baghdad, a board showing the rate of
Iraqi dinars to the dollar has three question marks next to the
price.

For weeks now, Iraqi businesses say they have been
struggling as the dinar has become increasingly volatile due to
fallout from sanctions imposed on neighbouring Iran and Syria
and to Iraq’s own political turmoil.

BAGHDAD, April 12 (Reuters) – Iraq has decided to hold off
on a plan to knock three zeros off the nominal value of bank
notes of its currency because it does not believe the economic
climate is suitable, the cabinet secretary said on Thursday.

The central bank said last August it planned to redenominate
the Iraqi dinar to simplify financial transactions in an economy
that is still heavily centralised and dominated by oil, and
where deals are often carried out in cash.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament has sent a letter to the cabinet telling it not to interfere in monetary policy, a parliamentary source said, in a skirmish over central bank independence that reflects concerns over the extent of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s influence.

Maliki won a court ruling in January 2011 putting independent bodies like the Central Bank of Iraq under the cabinet, alarming critics who view with suspicion signs of authoritarianism in some of his actions.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, at the centre of a political row that has jeopardized Iraq’s sectarian balance, left the autonomous northern Kurdish region for Qatar on Sunday, a statement from his office said.

Hashemi, one of the top politicians from the Sunni minority, is accused by Baghdad’s Shi’ite-led government of running death squads, a charge he denies. He has been holed up in the Kurdish zone since Baghdad issued an arrest warrant for him in December.

BAGHDAD, March 22 (Reuters) – Iraq said on Thursday that
weather, rather than a technical fault, was behind an
interruption in the operation of a new offshore oil terminal
designed to ramp up its exports and that a second tanker was
about to begin loading there.

The new single point mooring (SPM) terminal came online on
March 8 and loaded a tanker with 2 million barrels of oil by
March 13 but has not operated since.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – At least 16 near-simultaneous explosions struck cities and towns across Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 43 people and wounding more than 200, despite a massive security clampdown ahead of next week’s Arab League summit.

It was Iraq’s deadliest day in nearly a month, and the breadth of coordinated bombs in more than a dozen cities showed an apparent determination by insurgents to prove that the government cannot keep the country safe ahead of the summit.