"The Chinese are universally conceded to be excellent people, honest, honorable, industrious, trustworthy, kind-hearted, and all that--leave them alone, they are plenty good enough just as they are; and besides, almost every convert runs a risk of catching our civilization. We ought to be careful. We ought to think twice before we encourage a risk like that; for, once civilized, China can never be uncivilized again. We have not been thinking of that." -- Mark Twain
A flare-up between the regional government in Kurdistan and Baghdad has added risk for the resumption of oil flows from the northern Iraqi region.
Rudaw reports that the spike in tension followed amendments in relation to Kurdistan that the Iraq government had made to the federal budget last week. The Kurdish government slammed the changes as unconstitutional.
In a bold move, Iraq has prohibited transactions in US dollars. This surprise announcement last week was an effort to stabilise the Iraqi Dinar. But increasingly, the US dollar’s dominance is being challenged in West Asia. Palki Sharma tells how the de-dollarisation trend is catching on.
The United States is widely monitoring one of the western regions of Iraq's Al-Anbar to build its second military base in the province after the Ain Al-Assad base, an Iraqi security source revealed, as cited by local media outlets.
The media suggested that the US chose Al-Jazira area to construct its military bases due to its large oil and gas fields, as well as other mines.
According to the reports, the area is one of Iraq's completely safe regions and has not witnessed any attacks for a long time.
