All countries in the world want to end the dominance of the US dollar, Yahya al-Ishaq, president of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.

The Iranian government plans to do all trade with Iraq in Iraqi dinars. "If trade is in the national currencies of the two countries, trade relations will develop further," al-Ishaq said.

The arrival of millions of tourists to both countries will help spend the money that comes to the treasuries of Baghdad and Tehran, al-Ishaq added.

The head of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce believes that the move will save the two countries from US pressure and increase the level of trade, which currently stands over $10 billion. 

According to Kurdsat reporter in Pirmam a delegation from the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by PUK President Bafel Jalal Talabani met with a delegation of Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP in Pirmam.

They discussed the latest political developments of the Kurdistan region and Iraq, and the issue of the upcoming elections.

After the meeting, PUK President Talabani said that the meeting went normal and that the PUK remains strong and potent, and they did not agree to have a joint statement after meeting.

 

In a meeting, Qubad Talabani thanked Consul General Decottignies for his efforts to promote his country’s relations with the Kurdistan Region and wished him success in his upcoming assignment.

The French Consul reaffirmed his country's commitment to support the Kurdistan Region and appreciated the role of the Deputy Prime Minister in carrying out reforms in various sectors to improve the governance process in Kurdistan.

Then the latest developments and changes in the Kurdistan Region were discussed and at the end of the meeting, Qubad Talabani offered the French Consul General a book on the history of Kurdistan as a farewell gift.

The Iraqi Commission of Integrity said in a statement, that the former director of the Anbar Pension Directorate was arrested on corruption charges and he informed on the director of the investigation office of the Commission of Integrity in Anbar province.

He was involved in corruption cases in the province, mostly involving the implementation of fake pension transactions, through which they made large sums of money. He said the arrest warrant was issued for the director of the investigation office of the Commission of Integrity in Anbar province.

A security force arrested him and he is currently under investigation, according to the statement.

An AFP photographer saw thousands of small fish washed up on the banks of the Amshan river in Majar al-Kabir, an area in Maysan province that borders Iran.

The region is home to fabled marshes in the floodplain of the Tigris river, already suffering from the effects of global warming.

Iraq's agriculture ministry on Sunday announced it was forming a committee to look into the causes of the fish deaths, according to state news agency INA.

Environmental campaigner Ahmed Saleh Neema said "a rise in temperatures" leading to increased evaporation, coupled with reduced water flow contributed to "a lack of oxygen and high salinity" in the river.

Largely arid Iraq is ranked by the United Nations as one of the world's five countries most impacted by some effects of climate change.

It endures blistering summer heat and frequent dust storms. Declining rain over the past four years as well as upstream dams have reduced the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where ancient civilisations flourished.

Khodr Abbas Salman, a Maysan province official overseeing its marshes for the Iraqi environment ministry, told AFP that "according to terrain analyses we have conducted, the level of oxygen (in the water) is zero, in addition to a rise in salinity levels".

He joined a mission on Monday to inspect the deaths of "tonnes" of fish, he said, noting the Amshan's waters are home to nine species.

The fish "keep dying even now", he said.

Samples from both the fish and the water will be "analysed... to determine if there is any presence of chemical substances", Salman added.

But the high salinity levels may be enough to cause considerable damage.

The water can no longer "be used for agriculture. It would scourge the land if farmers use it for irrigation", Salman said.

He warned of further risks of pollution in the water and surrounding lands the more animals die.

"Any dead animal rots... which raises the level of pollution," he said. "The water's toxicity might increase and infiltrate the land too."

In a similar phenomenon in 2018, fishermen in the central province of Babylon found dead carp in their thousands, but an investigation failed to discern what had caused it.

Green Left Party (GLP) lawmaker Omer Faruk Gargaroglu said that in the first six months of this year twenty-six political prisoners have died in Turkish prisons, 11 of whom were previously known to have serious illnesses.

Government officials have said that a number of the prisoners have committed suicide, but that is a not possible, since it is difficult for prisoners to commit suicide, the lawmaker added.

He stressed that some of the prisoners died in mysterious circumstances, while there are surveillance cameras inside the prisons.

Secretary General of the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce Jahanbakhsh Sanjabi Shirazi said that due to the similar language and culture and Iraq's progress in terms of domestic and foreign investment, migration of Iranian workers to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region has increased.

He said the Iranians have realized that their economic situation in Iraq will be better than in Iran. Because companies and businesses in Iraq pay better salaries than companies and businesses in Iran, the secretary added.

The Iranian official said the adoption of a large-scale budget law by Iraq and the growth of oil revenues and the need for workers are the other reasons for workers to migrate to Iraq.

The Shiite Coordination Framework held its regular meeting at the home of Supreme Islamic Council Speaker Humam Hamudi in the presence of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Sudani and discussed several issues, including the burning of the Holy Qur'an by an extremist in Sweden.

According to a statement issued by the Coordination Framework, the meeting began with the Prime Minister's speech on the latest political developments.

The PM reiterated his opposition to the attack on the Holy Quran and praised the efforts of the government and the Ministry of Electricity to improve the electricity situation throughout the country, per the statement.

The coordination framework also expressed it support for the government in implementing the budget law and accelerating the service of citizens.

The framework also stressed Iraq's independence in dealing with its fiscal policies in the interest of Iraq.

Amal Jalal, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Tourism Board, told Kurdsat that during the first three days of Eid al-Adha, 388,000 tourists visited the tourist areas of the Kurdistan region, but the figure is not final, because the number for all four days of the holidays are not available.

Director of Sulaimani Tourism Department Ali Rauf Kurdsat that 113,000 tourists visited the tourist areas of Sulaimani province during the Eid al-Adha.

Every year, thousands of tourists visit the tourist areas of the Kurdistan Region during the holidays of Ramadan, Eid al-Adha and New Year and Newroz, as the region is more secure and has a cooler climate compared to the rest of Iraq.

Bafel Jalal Talabani, President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan sent a tweet on burning a copy of holy Quran in Sweden.

President Bafel Jalal Talabani said on Twitter that he strongly condemns the burning of the Holy Quran and opposes any such attempt.

PUK President also said that the burning of the Holy Quran is painful for the entire Muslim community and human sacredness cannot be insulted within the framework of the law.

The chairman of Supreme Judicial Council Fayeq Zeidan said in a statement that legal action will be taken against the person who burned the Qoran in Sweden under Article 14 of the Iraqi Penal Code.

According to the statement, Fayeq Zedan instructed the prosecutor general to take legal measures in coordination with the Karkh First Investigation Court.

The Iraqi The Iraqi refugee who burned the Holy Quran in Sweden should be extradited to Iraq and tried according to the law.

On the first day of Eid al-Adha, an Iraqi refugee named Salwan Momika burn a copy of Quran in front of the Great Mosque in Stockholm, Sweden that sparked widespread Muslim protests.

Mohammed Shia Sudani said on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, may God bring blessings, comfort, stability and peace to the people and their beloved people wherever they are.

We see this holy occasion as an opportunity to reaffirmed their commitment to continue everything that is the foundation of a prosperous future and a free life and providing a good life for all generations of the, including all its minorities.

We renew our commitment to loyal Iraqis to continue to work to build a strong Iraq that the nations can be proud of, he added.

US Ambassador to Baghdad Alina Romanowski tweeted that they have discussed the resumption of export of KRG oil export after meeting with Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani.  They discussed encouraging US companies to invent in Iraq’s oil sector.

They also discussed resuming the export of the Kurdistan region oil that has been suspended for the past three months and to return oil to international markets and strengthen the Iraqi economy for the benefit of all Iraqis.

After three months of stopping the flow of oil of the Kurdistan region, it is expected that the KRG has lost $2.5 bn.

 

The Joint Investigation Team was established by France and Sweden in October 2021 and supported by The Hague-based Eurojust to identify and prosecute foreign extremists who targeted Ezidis during the armed conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Eurojust said the teamwork already has borne fruit, including in France, where a Ezidi victim of a French jihadist couple was identified. That led to to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity being added to an existing case.

The joint investigation team is part of a broader international effort to mete out justice for atrocities targeting Ezidis, a minority considered heretics by the Islamic State militant group.

A United Nations probe concluded in 2021 that crimes committed against Ezidis by Islamic State extremists amounted to genocide.

ISIS attacked the heartland of the Ezidi community at the foot of Sinjar Mountain in August 2014. During the weeklong assault, ISIS killed hundreds of Yazidis and abducted 6,417, more than half of them women and girls. Most of the captured adult men were likely eventually killed. Women and girls were considered commodities for rape and servitude.

Prosecutions of returning foreign militants for crimes against Ezidis already are underway in Europe.

A German woman was convicted last week of keeping a Ezidi woman as a slave during her time with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and sentenced to nine years and three months in prison.

The state court in the western city of Koblenz convicted the 37-year-old woman of crimes against humanity, membership in a foreign terrorist organization and being an accessory to genocide, German news agency dpa reported. Authorities have identified her only as Nadine K. in line with German privacy rules.

In February, Dutch authorities announced that they were prosecuting a woman who traveled from the Netherlands to join ISIS on a charge of slavery as a crime against humanity. The woman allegedly used a Ezidi woman as a slave in Syria in 2015. The case marked the first Dutch trial of an alleged ISIS member for crimes against a Ezidi victim.

Spokesperson of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Soran Tahir today told Kurdsat that the two political bureaus of the PUK and PDK will meet tomorrow at 11:00 PM at the headquarters of the PUK political bureau in Erbil.

Tahir also said, the PUK President Bafel Jalal Talabani will lead the PUK delegation that includes Vice President of the Kurdistan Region President Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa, Darbaz Kosrat Rasul, Shalaw Ali Askari and Salar Sarhad. Tahir did not talk of the KDP delegation.

The PUK spokesman added, issues to be discussed in the meeting will be political situation in the Kurdistan region and the PUK-KDP bilateral ties.

They will also assess the events that have occurred in the past in the Kurdistan region and Iraq and discuss the possibilities facing the Kurdistan region for the future, the spokesperson said.

The relations between the two ruling KRG parties have been very low since early 2023, and the meeting is hoped to break the obstacle between them.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani received a number of environmental experts and academics in Erbil to listen to their viewpoints about the environment of the Kurdistan region.

Nowadays, no governance is good if environmental protection is not a strategic priority, and no society is a responsible conscious living society that is not sensitive to its environment, the DPM said in the meeting.

He added that the meeting discussed plans on how to combat environmental degradation and in the future their cabinet hold wider meetings at the level of experts in the region and Iraq.

They will hold a meeting on Monday with the participation of the relevant ministries and parties of the KRG that is aimed at prioritizing the issue of the environment, Talabani noted.

To better protect the region’s environment all consuls and diplomatic envoys in the Kurdistan Region are to prepare a comprehensive plan with international assistance and friendly countries to combat the issue, Qubad Talabani said.