Few individuals are as important to the development of the Kurdistan region's gas sector as Bafel Talabani, the president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the territory in Sulaimaniya province where the most prolific fields lie.

Talabani is also a central actor in the ongoing struggle between the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), its longtime rival and nominal partner in the Kurdistan region's governance. Their deteriorating relationship has left the regional government hamstrung as it navigates renewed tensions with Baghdad that threaten its ability to continue independently managing its oil and gas sector.

In an interview with Iraq Oil Report at the Baghdad residence of his late father, former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the PUK leader criticized the KDP for withholding funding from Sulaimaniya. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is currently “very politicized,” he said — “a de facto twin administration, because Suli is expected to fund Suli.” President Talabani was referring to the lack of funds in Sulaimani, as tens of megaprojects are under construction in the KDP-controlled territories, even though Sulaimani governorate is home to half of Kurdistan region’s population.

One casualty of this antagonistic atmosphere has been the KRG's plans to build new gas pipelines to bring additional feedstock to power plants in both PUK and KDP-controlled territory — a network that could also be used to facilitate future exports to Turkey. After the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) awarded the contract to the Iraqi-Kurdish company KAR Group, which is close to the KDP, security forces controlled by the PUK prevented the company from accessing key territory, effectively putting the project on ice.

Talabani confirmed he is personally opposed to the project, arguing the contract was granted KAR Group with “no process” and “no tender.”

“Kar Group was not awarded [the contract]. Kar Group was given it,” he said. “It is an insult to the people of Kurdistan and Iraq for these things to happen.”

Talabani said he wants to be involved in strategic decision-making about the energy sector but claimed the KDP has frozen its political rivals out of the process. Absent a viable partner in Erbil, he suggested, cooperation with Baghdad looks increasingly attractive.

“I do not understand the unwillingness to work with Baghdad,” he said. "Basra is 1,000 times richer than the entirety of Kurdistan. Just Basra. And if the prime minister came to me and said, ‘Hey, Bafel, put your little teapot on this table, and you can be a part of the huge table, including Basra’ — to me, that sounds like a bloody good deal."

Following Saladin Ayyubi's capture of Jerusalem eight centuries ago, the Kurdish footprint is still visible in the city. Every street in the city carries a story about the Kurds, one of which is Al-Hakkari Street.

The road lies in the Old City of Jerusalem, decorated with ancient stones and narrow alleys. It is the only known street named after a Kurd outside Kurdistan. 

When Saladin went to war with the Crusaders, a significant number of Hakkari region tribes in Kurdistan joined his army. Prominent among them was 'Isa ibn Mohammed Hakkari, who played a significant role in the capture of Jerusalem, according to Ibn Aseer's Whole History, Ibn Kaseer's Beginning and End, and several other sources.

Isa bin Mohammed Hakkari was one of the most prominent scholars and jurists of his time and a senior advisor to Saladin Ayyubi, a Kurdish leader that rose to unite Muslims of the Middle East after years of division and domestic conflict.

Saladin's uncle Assasadeen Sherko recommended Hakkari to serve alongside Saladin. When Saladin captured Jerusalem in 1187, Hakkari was one of the prominent figures in the war. Hakkari was killed in Acre, modern-day Israel, in 1189 and was buried in Jerusalem.

Kurds are one of the largest Middle East native nations who have fought alongside their brethren nations for justice but are still denied their own geography.

Today, Tuesday, a 17-year-old named Ahmad Azad was found dead in Kirkuk’s Songoli area with two bullet wounds on his body, one to the head and another to the heart, KurdSat report in Kirkuk said. 

According to his relatives, he carried $800 US and left to shop for an Xbox, but the cab he took to shopping had three people who kidnapped him. Surveillance cameras show him getting in a taxi with two passengers on board. His parents reported him missing, but he was found dead after 24 hours.

Ahmad's uncle Rebwar Ahmad told KurdSat English that "his nephew had no issues with other people, had no friends, and was not even on social media; he never used Facebook or Viber."

"He was one of the first top students in Iraq,” his uncle told KurdSat English, “he was busy studying and playing video games," the uncle added. 

His family also asked the Kurdistan Regional Government to focus more on Kirkuk because Kurds in the city are "discriminate against."

Iraqi Minister of Justice Khalid Shwani said on his Facebook page that he thanked PUK President Bafel Jalal Talabani for reviving the High Committee for Implementing article 140, suspended in 2014 following an escalated dispute between Baghdad and Erbil.

"I would like to thank the President of PUK Bafel Jalal Talabani for always prioritizing the issue of the disputed territories in his meetings with the parties, and for constantly following up on the matter, and supporting us," the justice minister said.

Speaking to KurdSat English, a former member of the Iraqi House of Representatives Jamal Shukur said," President Jalal Talabani has always placed particular importance on the deprived territories [ a reference to the disputed territories] especially Kirkuk, and President Bafel Jalal Talabani now follows his footsteps."

Per the 2005 Iraqi constitution, the implementing committee is tasked with settling the disputes territories between Baghdad and the Kurdistan region. The constitution states that a committee shall carry out a plebiscite in the disputes lands to decide who would govern them, Erbil or Baghdad.

The minister also explained that reviving the committee has been part of the agreements made for participating in the Al-Sudani government. "The prime minister re-established the High Committee for the Implementation of Article 140, which was dissolved in 2014," Shuani added.

The minister also added that the committee would meet within ten days to prepare an estimated budget to compensate those covered by Article 140 and submit it to the Council of Ministers to be included in the general budget. His statement reveals that the committee members are chosen and ready to begin work.

Shikar Mardan, a lawyer for agricultural land in Daquq and a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Legal Center told KurdSat English, "after 2017 resettled Arabs have tried to occupy agricultural lands belonging Kurds in Kirkuk." Kurds demanded the return of their land, and took the case to Kirkuk and Baghdad courts.

The lawyer explained that they had provided enough evidence to the courts and proved that their ownership belonged to the Kurds, leading the Daquq Court of Appeal to rule in favor of the Kurds and return their property.

On November 2, the same court in Daquq passed a decision to resort ownership of over 1300 acres of land back to their owners, with Baghdad’s Rasafa Court of Appeal ruling a return of 837 agricultural lands to Kurds in Kirkuk.

Kurdish, Turkmen, and Arab farmers dispute over 300 hectares of farmlands in Kirkuk’s southern Laylan subdistrict, most of which remain unsettled and are a source of contention between the different minority groups.

Since the 2017 Kurdistan region referendum, Arabs and other minorities have tried to occupy land farmed by Kurds in the disputed territories; however, efforts by the PUK have led to restoring their rights and property. PUK’s efforts in reviving the long-dead High Committee for Implementing article 140 would settle most problems in the disputes between Erbil and Baghdad.

Today, Tuesday, Member of the House of Representatives Defense and Security Committee Karim Shukur told KurdSat English, "I don't understand the word out there saying Federal Government forces would be deployed in the Kurdistan region, it not true and until now in the defense and security committee we have not brought up the issue." Some Iraqi media reported plans to deploy the Iraqi army in the Kurdistan region to prevent repeated Turkish and Iranian bombardments that have left many dead and displaced hundreds of families.

"There are three battalion on the borders of the Kurdistan region, and we have discussed reinforcing and better equipping the battalions or setting up other battalions," Shukur said.

According to the constitution, it is up to the border guards to protect the borders of the Kurdistan region and not any other forces, the lawmaker added.

Iran and Turkey usually cite the presence of groups that "threaten their security" in Iraq as an excuse to carry out operations to remove them. "If we reinforce and increase of the number of current border guards then we take away excuses from Iran and Turkey that use them to attack the Kurdistan region, they claim that armed groups sneak to their countries from our borders, but if our border guards control the whole borders then the problem will gradually disappear," Shukur explained.

The border guards deployed on the borders between the Kurdistan region, Turkey and Iran that report to Baghdad and not Erbil are mostly  Kurds living in the Kurdistan region. 

Iranian and Turkish opposition groups are on the border between the Kurdistan region and Turkey and the region and Iraq, which Ankara and Tehran frequently bomb.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Tourism Board Director Amal Jalal said, they work to increase the proportion of local workforce in the tourism sector by 75 percent, initially they would ask tourism businesses to have 30 percent of their from domestic labor and eventually raise it to 70 percent.

Most businesses in tourist destinations use second languages, and often omit Kurdish language on menus and billboards, leading the government to plan to have Kurdish language besides other languages. Kurdish language will be the main language on the billboards and menus of hotels, restaurants and public places, Jalal added.

"To implement this decision, Kurdish language courses would be provided to tourism employees," the tourism director said.

To implement the policies, the General Board of Tourism has set up special committees to follow up on the policies, and carry them out.

Today, Monday, parents of autistic children gathered in Sulaimani to protest the city's lack of a center for caring for autistic persons. 

"We as the Autism Association and parents of down syndrome children have gather to protest the school behind us,” the head of the Sulaimani branch of the Autism Association said in a press conference, standing in front of the school. “This building was initially built for disabled people, and was named Sheik Saad Qaiwani Center, charities built it for people with disabilities,” he added. 

The building is now a primary school with over 400 hundred students. "Unfortunately, after four years of rivalries and discomfort, the build was not turned into a center to for our children but was turned into an ordinary school." Sulaimani lacks a center for caring for children with autism, even though there are thousands of people with autism. 

"If this center was granted to people with autism, a hundred to a hundred fifty families would have been comfortable," the protesters said and asked the Kurdistan Regional Government to return the center to people with autism. 

For the first time in the world, Gona Kamal has conducted biomedical research that will significantly facilitate the testing and diagnosis of coronavirus, the Pandemic that changed the world forever. 

"We invented something which was a way to find the Covid19 biomarkers to easier detect the disease and avoid complex and uncomfortable diagnosis," Gona Kamal told KurdSat English. Several peer-reviewed international scientific journals have confirmed Kamal's discoveries. Gona Kamal holds a master's degree in biomedical research and is a researcher at the University of Sulaimani in the Kurdistan region.  

Her work has been published in three international scientific journals and is considered a scientific revolution in bioanalysis. "She is also working on two other papers to explain the significance of her work, that would be published soon," nanoscience professor and Gona's research supervisor Khalid Mohammed told KurdSat English. 

"We were able to work on a single atom in our research," she told KurdSat. During the coronavirus outbreak in 2019, Science tried identifying and treating this disease. "We were fortunate to come across the finding," Kamal said. 

Professor Khalid Mohammed, an expert in biomedical analysis and nanoscience and the supervisor of the study, told KurdSat English, "currently, these techniques, especially in the field of bioanalysis, are designed to allow you to diagnose your disease at home, just as diabetes can now be tested with a drop of blood." He also noted, "Science is going in two directions here, both in the direction of miniaturization and in the direction of low cost and low material use."

"We have used DNA and RNA to detect biomarkers, because finding a biomarker with DNA and rNA is more accurate and cheaper to acquire," Kamal explained. It can also help find an antibody for the Covid19 sooner and more easily. 

The finding is more ecologically-friendly as it would circumvent testing on animals. "Medical companies need a host cell, a rat to test their findings, but our finding would not need a host cell, the aptamer [they found] would create a DNA through multiple reactions that bind some bonds together," Kamal said of her research. 

Gona Kamal spoke of why she focused on finding an alternative to antibodies, "I work in the health sector, we rely on antibodies in medical tests for their results, we thought of finding an alternative to antibodies to work on to identify diseases, because antibodies are expensive and take about six months to produce, fortunately for the first time we were able to bring this research to Iraq to work with DNA and RNA instead of antibodies, as they are cheaper to produce and take less than two days." The finding would revolutionize testing and help billions of people that do not have access to regular medical testing. 

"This saves us a lot of time, costs less and is more accurate in detection," Kamal and her supervisor said. "Foreign and domestic medical corporations now work on mass producing the findings, according to the researchers. 

Our invention will be published worldwide with our names on it, and we own its patent; Kamal praised her discovery. The finding would be revolutionary if mass-produced and funded by government and scientific organizations. 

State of law coalition lawmaker Baqir Kazim said today that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has set up a committee to investigate and recover looted money abroad.

Earlier, Iraqi media reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Sudani visited Jordan last week to investigate the looted Iraqi money and try to return them.

Billions of Iraqi public funds have been either taken or laundered abroad. Many state officials tend to invest their wealth abroad, most of which is considered illegally made. According to a report, from 2005 to 2016, over a trillion USD worth of Iraqi oil was sold, but a whopping 500 billion has disappeared.

A recent tax fraud involving over $2.5 bn took everyone by surprise; even though some have been charged with laundering public coffers, sources say that the highest offices in the country are involved. 

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesperson Jutyar Adel told the KRG Media and Information department today, Sunday, that “following a KRG council of minister’s decision, a delegation visits Baghdad to guarantee the rights of Kurdistan region citizens, as stipulated in the constitution.” Negotiations between the federal government and the government in Erbil has been ongoing for the last few years without yielding constructive results.

“We are scheduled to meet with the Iraqi Ministry of Finance to talk on the 2023 Iraqi budget bill,” Adel added. Baghdad has not paid the Kurdistan region’s budget share properly since 2014, after a dispute between Baghdad and Erbil, for almost six years it did pay the region anything.

Adel explained that the Kurdistan region aims to influence the budget bill before its moves to the house of representatives.

The spokesperson also said that the delegation also plans to discuss with the Iraqi government officials on the basis of the constitution, the issue of Article 140, the handling of oil and gas, and the “rightful participation” of the Kurdistan Region in federal institutions.

The Kurdistan region’s rightful share of the budget is 17 percent, though, the Iraqi Ministry of Planning says that the KRG’s share would be 14% and the delegation will agree on these figures, per KRG spokesperson.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) decided in May 2022, to build 20,000 housing units for tenants. People competed for the housing unites through filling online forms that laid out the units’ specifications and tenant needs.

Over 80,000 people in Sulaimani have applied to get a unit, but according to director of Tenants Association Barham Sardar, through a committee will remove from the list ineligible applicants will, as the units are for tenants and the needy.

The project to build 8,000 housing units for tenants in Sulaimani has been directed to investment and construction will start soon, an official said. Those that benefit from the units would pay for them through long-term installments.

Barham Sardar told Kurdsat English that 8,000 of the 20,000 units will be built in Sulaimani, some of them near Tasluja, and the other units in Tanjaro areas of Sulaimani. On May 2022, the KRG announced a plan to build 20,000 housing units for low-income earners across the Kurdistan region.

Sardar noted that the KRG Investment Board has submitted the project to the investors to construct the residential units, they expected the investors to reply this week. The housing units are planned as apartments.

On November 13, director of KRG Board of Investment Muhammad Shukri announced launching construction of 862 housing units in Duhok.

Housing prices has increased in the past decades in the Kurdistan region, with many people moving to renting flats and homes, as buying houses and apartments have become unaffordable to many, especially the young people.   

Today, Sunday, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) President Bafel Jalal Talabani received Asaib Ahl al-Haq Leader Qais al-Khazali, Babylon Movement Lead Rayan al-Kldani, and Azm Coalition Leader Musana Samarai in Baghdad at late President Jalal Talabani’s residence.

The leaders discussed the latest developments in the country, and the duties and responsibilities of the political parties, and ways to help succeed the new government’s agenda.

They emphasized the continuous coordination between the national parties to carry out their constitutional, and national duties and securing the rights of all Iraqi peoples.

The leaders said that taking into account the political, economic and security situation in Iraq, genuine unity and partnership shall serve as the basis of work to strengthen the pillars of governance in Iraq.

The parties also called the success of the government program and the reform process as an important factor in achieving stability in the country, and agreed that the constitution shall guide any solution to the ongoing disputes between Baghdad the KRG. President Talabani reiterated the desire of the Kurdish people to reach an agreement and resolve the issues. “Our goal is to maintain balance and realize the rights of the Kurdish people within the framework of a federal Iraq,” Talabani said.