A Belgian dredger has arrived at Umm Qasr on Wednesday to work on increasing the depth of the shipping channel.

The vessel is the 18,620 tonne trailing suction hopper dredger, the ‘Francis Beaufort’. It is 142m in length, and has a maximum dredging depth of 71.5m.

The report from AKnews says the project was facilitated by a $250 million [300 trillion Iraqi dinar] loan from Japan.

A 52 million Euros contract to buy (hire?) the ship was signed with Belgian company Jan de Nul.

Another dredger is expected to arrive within the coming days, according to Anmar al-Safi, the director of Information department at the Iraqi ports.

“There is another big dredger that started working in May under the same contract, and the excavators will dredge up 5.6 million cubic meters of mud. The project is expected to be completed in March 2011″, Safi added

The ports in Basra province (550 km south of Baghdad) have 15 excavators; two of them were brought in 2008 to help increase the depth of the river so that larger ships can enter the ports.

(Sources: AKnews, Jan de Nul)

President Masoud Barzani this week in Brussels met Belgium’s Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere. He also met European Union officials to discuss expanding relations with its member states.

President Barzani encouraged Foreign Minister Vanackere to move Belgium’s Embassy from Amman to Baghdad and to consider opening a consulate in Erbil. Mr Vanackere commended the political and economic progress in the Kurdistan Region and expressed his country’s desire to have closer ties.

President Barzani also met President of Belgium’s Senate Sabine de Bethune, and of the Chamber of Representatives André Flahaut. They discussed the federal system in both countries, and how Kurdistan’s institutions can interact more with those of Belgium.

In his meetings with European Union officials, President Barzani urged EU member states to be more actively engaged in Iraq’s and Kurdistan’s reconstruction process. He asked for more economic and political cooperation, saying that Europe should invest in Kurdistan and play a greater role in Iraq’s democratic and economic progress.

Mr Struan Stevenson MEP described President Barzani’s visit as constructive for EU strategic relations with Iraq and particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, and looked forward to these relations being expanded in future. Mr Stevenson is Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq.

President Barzani also met Mr Martin Schulz MEP, the President of the European Parliament’s Socialists and Democrats Group.

The EU representatives said that they hoped for more improvements in Iraq’s human rights and respect for the rights of ethnic minorities and different religions. To this end, Mr Stevenson said that the Kurdistan Region acts as a shining example to the rest of Iraq in its peaceful environment and tolerance of minorities and different religions.

President Barzani was accompanied by RG Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami, the President’s Chief of Staff Dr Fuad Hussein, the KRG Head of Foreign Relations, Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, and the KRG Representative to the EU Mr Salim Gravi.

(Source: KRG)

ONDD, the Belgian export credit agency, has warned in its monthly report that “insecurity, instability and sectarian tensions will continue to prevail in Iraq”.

The text of their statement is shown below:

Iraq: Deteriorating security and political climate as US troops leave the country

> Event: The last US troops left Iraq after President Obama‘s declaration of the end of the Iraq war on 15 December. Only a few days later, a political crisis broke out as Iraq’s biggest parliamentary bloc, al-Iraqiya announced a boycott of the assembly in a reaction against Prime Minister al-Maliki’s efforts to remove two key government members, affiliated to al-Iraqiya: Vice-President al-Hashemi, against whom an arrest warrant was issued on terror charges, and deputy Prime Minister al-Mutlaq. This has resulted in a severe political crisis within the unity government that has only been formed end-2010. On top, during the past weeks the country has once again been hit by serious terrorist attacks, the most deadly in months.

> Impact on country risk: It emerges that, also after the withdrawal of US troops, insecurity, instability and sectarian tensions will continue to prevail in Iraq. These sectarian tensions are not only being witnessed on the political scene (as PM Maliki comes from the Shia majority and al-Iraqiya is Sunni-backed), but these divisions are also being exploited by terrorist organizations on the ground. Iraq’s Kurds, which form a third major group in the country, could intend to reconcile the Sunni and Shia blocs – thereby increasing further their own influence – but the current instability will further impact economic performance and relations with international (energy) investors. (analyst: Daan Rowies, d.rowies@ondd.be)

(Source: ONDD)

A Belgian-British company has reportedly won a contract from the Ministry of Construction and Housing to build a housing complex for its members in Wasit [Wassit] province.

The company, which has not been named, has conducted field investigations for the project, which will include 240 housing units within a number of six-story residential buildings, according to AKnews.

The site covers an area of 19 dunums [5 hectares] next to the Sports City in Qut, south of the city center. The units will be allocated to employees of the ministry in the province in addition to staff of Wasit Provincial Council.

For those wishing to purchase a unit, 25 percent of the value of the unit will be paid by the employee during the construction phase and 25 percent will be paid after completion. The remaining 50 percent will be paid from the housing fund as a loan.

The company will use foreign-manufactured materials for all stages of construction, and will be the first to use insulating materials in Iraq.

The ministry is currently building three residential compounds in Wasit province. The first is in Qut city and includes 504 housing units, while the second is in the Hay district – 40km south of Qut – and includes 520 units. The implementation of the third began last month in the Al-Suwaira district – 135km north of Qut – and includes 620 housing units.

(Source: AKnews)

In the meeting between Minister Falah Mustafa, Head of the KRG Foreign Relations, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium Didier Reynders, military as well as humanitarian aid for the Kurdistan Region were at top of the list of priorities discussed.

Minister Mustafa welcomed Minister Reynders in his first visit to the Kurdistan Region and expressed the desire of the Kurdistan Regional Government to establish strong ties between the Region and Belgium.

He briefed the visiting Minister on difficulties facing the Kurdistan Region in continuing the fight against ISIS and caring for over 1.8 million refugees and internally displaced persons.

He expressed his gratitude to the government of Belgium for the assistance it has provided to the Kurdistan Region and reaffirmed the necessity of further commitment of the international community to assist Kurdistan Region in fighting the ISIS terrorists and providing humanitarian relief for the refugees and IDPs.

Minister Mustafa encouraged Belgium to explore the possibility of opening a representation office of the government of Belgium in Kurdistan as a first step to establishing and broadening bilateral ties on both fronts.

Commenting on the role of Peshmerga forces in the fight against ISIS, Minister Reynders said “The Peshmerga forces have done an impressive job. We have seen real motivation from the Peshmerga forces in this fight and they deserve to receive continued support from the Counter-ISIS coalition.”

He added, “KRG has done a remarkable job in responding to the immediate challenges of refugee and IDPs influx.” The Minister also commended KRG for respecting the rights of minorities in the Kurdistan Region regardless of their ethnic and religious background. Minister Reynders stressed that Belgium is committed to continue its support to the Kurdistan Region during this challenging time.

Minister Reynders announced that the government of Belgium will open an honorary consulate in Erbil as first step in the process of strengthening bilateral ties between Erbil and Brussels.

Both Ministers expressed willingness to explore areas of potential cooperation between Belgium and Kurdistan through exchange of visits between the relevant authorities of both sides. The meeting was followed by a joint press conference.

The meeting was also attended by Thomas Baekelandt, Ambassador of Belgium to Iraq, Delavar Ajgeiy, KRG Representative to the European Union and several other officials of both sides.

(Source: KRG)

By Simon Kent.

Belgium has announced plans to open a consulate in Erbil, capital of the semi autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq.

In a sign of deepening ties between the KRG and Belgium, the central EU nation also announced they would provide hospital treatment for injured Peshmerga soldiers.

The Peshmerga are the armed forces of the Kurdish Regional Government, and have suffered thousands of injured while fighting ISIL.

Currently, a number of nations, notably Canada, the UK and Germany, are focusing military assistance on the Kurdish region. The new consulate is a boost for confidence in the Kurdish region following last year’s ISIL offensive, which is ongoing.

(Source: Bas News)

Banking Technology reports that Ideal Payments has teamed with Taif Money Transfer to launch Iraq’s “first” mobile payments app – Taif eWallet.

The platform aims to create a “holistic payments ecosystem” used by multiple agents in the economy including retail merchants, ecommerce platforms, private companies, and government institutions.

Ideal Payments’ local partner, Taif Money Transfer, will operate the service, using its existing agent network across Iraq.

Ideal Payments says its role is to select and customise the appropriate technology, prepare the business plan and execute the strategy to spread the service in Iraq. The technology is powered by Monniz, a Belgian mobile money service provider.

Ideal Payments says it was set up and is run by a team with experience from both global and local financial services, including banks such as Goldman Sachs and the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI).

According to Ideal Payments, Iraq, a country of 35 million inhabitants, remains a cash based society at large with a significant unbanked population. Bank account penetration is below 10 percent and debit card penetration below 3 percent.

The firm says that issues such as “inaccessibility, inefficiency, and unaffordability deter customers from using traditional financial services”.

It adds: “Trust also remains a key issue for the Iraqi banking sector, which customers hold in low regard following decades of mismanagement and corruption.”

(Source: Banking Technology)

Many vulnerable rural families in Iraq can now benefit from a safer, more secure means of receiving income thanks to mobile money transfer technology adopted for the first time by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of a cash-for-work programme aimed at rehabilitating agricultural infrastructure and land.

The programme, which is funded by the Belgium Government, will support 12,000 conflict-affected people in 30 villages in Kirkuk, Anbar, Salah al-Din and Ninewa governorates. It will benefit local farmers, by enabling them to restart or expand farming activities with rehabilitated infrastructure, and provides agricultural livelihoods opportunities for displaced people returning home.

Participants, who are from households with no other income source, include women who often the sole breadwinners for their families, and people with a disability. The workers and their families are people who either remained in their villages during conflict or returned home after being displaced by the fighting.

Fadel El-Zubi, FAO Representative in Iraq, said:

“The use of mobile technology will streamline the safe delivery of cash transfers to participants, who are some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

“Providing income opportunities is critical in rural areas affected by conflict, where competition for employment is high, jobs are scarce and people are struggling to support their families.”

International partnership

To facilitate the payments, FAO has partnered with Zain a mobile and data services operator with a commercial footprint in eight Middle Eastern and African countries. Participant names and identity numbers are pre-registered with the company, and they receive a free SIM card.

A new low-cost satellite broadband service will be launched across Iraq and Afghanistan as Belgium’s SatADSL, a provider of professional VSAT services via satellite, and UK-based Talia agreed to expand their long-term partnership.

The two companies’ current agreement lets SatADSL link directly to Talia’s teleport to provide services across the whole of Africa, with Talia’s equipment providing high performance and low-cost per megabit. Under the new deal, SatADSL will also be able to access Talia’s new platform in Jordan Media City, enabling it to offer Ka-band services across Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We are taking our relationship with Talia to the next level by using its facilities to offer our innovative services across Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Caroline De Vos, Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer at SatADSL. “The use of Ka-band High Throughput Satellite capacity, combined with Talia’s equipment means the services we provide can be quickly and easily installed by users and offered at an extremely competitive price, taking a significant step towards bridging the digital divide.”

By connecting its Cloud-based Service Delivery Platform (C-SDP) to Talia’s hub, SatADSL will be able to offer the full range of services available on its platform in Iraq and Afghanistan, including vouchers, VNOFlex, Wi-Fi Hotspots, etc. The C-SDP is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution which enables operators to deliver a full range of satellite-based connectivity services without investing in physical infrastructure. SatADSL expects to have worldwide coverage by the end of the year, further expanding the reach of its C-SDP.

To enable connectivity, Talia uses capacity on the Arabsat 5C Ka-band satellite, located at 20o East. Talia is offering its services based on the Newtec Dialog® multiservice platform which features small VSAT antennas (75cm) on the remote site to create a new lower price point for Internet access and innovative setup guides for self-installation via a smartphone app. A variety of Newtec’s broadband satellite modems have also been deployed, supporting different bandwidth allocations to ensure optimal bandwidth usage. This includes Newtec’s dynamic Mx-DMA technology to achieve the efficiency of SCPC with the dynamic bandwidth allocation of MF-TDMA.

“We see this next chapter with SatADSL as building upon what has so far been a hugely successful partnership in Africa, enabling many developing countries to have access to affordable fast satellite Internet,” said Jack Buechler, VP Business Development at Talia. “Just as in Africa, the services which SatADSL will provide in Afghanistan and Iraq, using our infrastructure will help bridge the digital and economical divide and transform societies for the better.”

(Source: Talia)

A Belgian dredger has arrived at Umm Qasr on Wednesday to work on increasing the depth of the shipping channel.

The vessel is the 18,620 tonne trailing suction hopper dredger, the 'Francis Beaufort'. It is 142m in length, and has a maximum dredging depth of 71.5m.

The report from AKnews says the project was facilitated by a $250 million [300 trillion Iraqi dinar] loan from Japan.

A 52 million Euros contract to buy (hire?) the ship was signed with Belgian company Jan de Nul.

Another dredger is expected to arrive within the coming days, according to Anmar al-Safi, the director of Information department at the Iraqi ports.

"There is another big dredger that started working in May under the same contract, and the excavators will dredge up 5.6 million cubic meters of mud. The project is expected to be completed in March 2011", Safi added

The ports in Basra province (550 km south of Baghdad) have 15 excavators; two of them were brought in 2008 to help increase the depth of the river so that larger ships can enter the ports.

(Sources: AKnews, Jan de Nul)

President Masoud Barzani this week in Brussels met Belgium’s Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere. He also met European Union officials to discuss expanding relations with its member states.

President Barzani encouraged Foreign Minister Vanackere to move Belgium’s Embassy from Amman to Baghdad and to consider opening a consulate in Erbil. Mr Vanackere commended the political and economic progress in the Kurdistan Region and expressed his country’s desire to have closer ties.

President Barzani also met President of Belgium’s Senate Sabine de Bethune, and of the Chamber of Representatives André Flahaut. They discussed the federal system in both countries, and how Kurdistan's institutions can interact more with those of Belgium.

In his meetings with European Union officials, President Barzani urged EU member states to be more actively engaged in Iraq’s and Kurdistan’s reconstruction process. He asked for more economic and political cooperation, saying that Europe should invest in Kurdistan and play a greater role in Iraq’s democratic and economic progress.

Mr Struan Stevenson MEP described President Barzani’s visit as constructive for EU strategic relations with Iraq and particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, and looked forward to these relations being expanded in future. Mr Stevenson is Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq.

President Barzani also met Mr Martin Schulz MEP, the President of the European Parliament’s Socialists and Democrats Group.

The EU representatives said that they hoped for more improvements in Iraq’s human rights and respect for the rights of ethnic minorities and different religions. To this end, Mr Stevenson said that the Kurdistan Region acts as a shining example to the rest of Iraq in its peaceful environment and tolerance of minorities and different religions.

President Barzani was accompanied by RG Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami, the President’s Chief of Staff Dr Fuad Hussein, the KRG Head of Foreign Relations, Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, and the KRG Representative to the EU Mr Salim Gravi.

(Source: KRG)

ONDD, the Belgian export credit agency, has warned in its monthly report that "insecurity, instability and sectarian tensions will continue to prevail in Iraq".

The text of their statement is shown below:

Iraq: Deteriorating security and political climate as US troops leave the country

> Event: The last US troops left Iraq after President Obama‘s declaration of the end of the Iraq war on 15 December. Only a few days later, a political crisis broke out as Iraq’s biggest parliamentary bloc, al-Iraqiya announced a boycott of the assembly in a reaction against Prime Minister al-Maliki’s efforts to remove two key government members, affiliated to al-Iraqiya: Vice-President al-Hashemi, against whom an arrest warrant was issued on terror charges, and deputy Prime Minister al-Mutlaq. This has resulted in a severe political crisis within the unity government that has only been formed end-2010. On top, during the past weeks the country has once again been hit by serious terrorist attacks, the most deadly in months.

> Impact on country risk: It emerges that, also after the withdrawal of US troops, insecurity, instability and sectarian tensions will continue to prevail in Iraq. These sectarian tensions are not only being witnessed on the political scene (as PM Maliki comes from the Shia majority and al-Iraqiya is Sunni-backed), but these divisions are also being exploited by terrorist organizations on the ground. Iraq’s Kurds, which form a third major group in the country, could intend to reconcile the Sunni and Shia blocs – thereby increasing further their own influence – but the current instability will further impact economic performance and relations with international (energy) investors. (analyst: Daan Rowies, d.rowies@ondd.be)

(Source: ONDD)

A Belgian-British company has reportedly won a contract from the Ministry of Construction and Housing to build a housing complex for its members in Wasit [Wassit] province.

The company, which has not been named, has conducted field investigations for the project, which will include 240 housing units within a number of six-story residential buildings, according to AKnews.

The site covers an area of 19 dunums [5 hectares] next to the Sports City in Qut, south of the city center. The units will be allocated to employees of the ministry in the province in addition to staff of Wasit Provincial Council.

For those wishing to purchase a unit, 25 percent of the value of the unit will be paid by the employee during the construction phase and 25 percent will be paid after completion. The remaining 50 percent will be paid from the housing fund as a loan.

The company will use foreign-manufactured materials for all stages of construction, and will be the first to use insulating materials in Iraq.

The ministry is currently building three residential compounds in Wasit province. The first is in Qut city and includes 504 housing units, while the second is in the Hay district - 40km south of Qut - and includes 520 units. The implementation of the third began last month in the Al-Suwaira district - 135km north of Qut - and includes 620 housing units.

(Source: AKnews)

In the meeting between Minister Falah Mustafa, Head of the KRG Foreign Relations, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium Didier Reynders, military as well as humanitarian aid for the Kurdistan Region were at top of the list of priorities discussed.

Minister Mustafa welcomed Minister Reynders in his first visit to the Kurdistan Region and expressed the desire of the Kurdistan Regional Government to establish strong ties between the Region and Belgium.

He briefed the visiting Minister on difficulties facing the Kurdistan Region in continuing the fight against ISIS and caring for over 1.8 million refugees and internally displaced persons.

He expressed his gratitude to the government of Belgium for the assistance it has provided to the Kurdistan Region and reaffirmed the necessity of further commitment of the international community to assist Kurdistan Region in fighting the ISIS terrorists and providing humanitarian relief for the refugees and IDPs.

Minister Mustafa encouraged Belgium to explore the possibility of opening a representation office of the government of Belgium in Kurdistan as a first step to establishing and broadening bilateral ties on both fronts.

Commenting on the role of Peshmerga forces in the fight against ISIS, Minister Reynders said “The Peshmerga forces have done an impressive job. We have seen real motivation from the Peshmerga forces in this fight and they deserve to receive continued support from the Counter-ISIS coalition.”

He added, “KRG has done a remarkable job in responding to the immediate challenges of refugee and IDPs influx.” The Minister also commended KRG for respecting the rights of minorities in the Kurdistan Region regardless of their ethnic and religious background. Minister Reynders stressed that Belgium is committed to continue its support to the Kurdistan Region during this challenging time.

Minister Reynders announced that the government of Belgium will open an honorary consulate in Erbil as first step in the process of strengthening bilateral ties between Erbil and Brussels.

Both Ministers expressed willingness to explore areas of potential cooperation between Belgium and Kurdistan through exchange of visits between the relevant authorities of both sides. The meeting was followed by a joint press conference.

The meeting was also attended by Thomas Baekelandt, Ambassador of Belgium to Iraq, Delavar Ajgeiy, KRG Representative to the European Union and several other officials of both sides.

(Source: KRG)

By Simon Kent.

Belgium has announced plans to open a consulate in Erbil, capital of the semi autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq.

In a sign of deepening ties between the KRG and Belgium, the central EU nation also announced they would provide hospital treatment for injured Peshmerga soldiers.

The Peshmerga are the armed forces of the Kurdish Regional Government, and have suffered thousands of injured while fighting ISIL.

Currently, a number of nations, notably Canada, the UK and Germany, are focusing military assistance on the Kurdish region. The new consulate is a boost for confidence in the Kurdish region following last year's ISIL offensive, which is ongoing.

(Source: Bas News)

Banking Technology reports that Ideal Payments has teamed with Taif Money Transfer to launch Iraq’s “first” mobile payments app – Taif eWallet.

The platform aims to create a “holistic payments ecosystem” used by multiple agents in the economy including retail merchants, ecommerce platforms, private companies, and government institutions.

Ideal Payments’ local partner, Taif Money Transfer, will operate the service, using its existing agent network across Iraq.

Ideal Payments says its role is to select and customise the appropriate technology, prepare the business plan and execute the strategy to spread the service in Iraq. The technology is powered by Monniz, a Belgian mobile money service provider.

Ideal Payments says it was set up and is run by a team with experience from both global and local financial services, including banks such as Goldman Sachs and the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI).

According to Ideal Payments, Iraq, a country of 35 million inhabitants, remains a cash based society at large with a significant unbanked population. Bank account penetration is below 10 percent and debit card penetration below 3 percent.

The firm says that issues such as “inaccessibility, inefficiency, and unaffordability deter customers from using traditional financial services”.

It adds: “Trust also remains a key issue for the Iraqi banking sector, which customers hold in low regard following decades of mismanagement and corruption.”

(Source: Banking Technology)

Many vulnerable rural families in Iraq can now benefit from a safer, more secure means of receiving income thanks to mobile money transfer technology adopted for the first time by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of a cash-for-work programme aimed at rehabilitating agricultural infrastructure and land.

The programme, which is funded by the Belgium Government, will support 12,000 conflict-affected people in 30 villages in Kirkuk, Anbar, Salah al-Din and Ninewa governorates. It will benefit local farmers, by enabling them to restart or expand farming activities with rehabilitated infrastructure, and provides agricultural livelihoods opportunities for displaced people returning home.

Participants, who are from households with no other income source, include women who often the sole breadwinners for their families, and people with a disability. The workers and their families are people who either remained in their villages during conflict or returned home after being displaced by the fighting.

Fadel El-Zubi, FAO Representative in Iraq, said:

“The use of mobile technology will streamline the safe delivery of cash transfers to participants, who are some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

“Providing income opportunities is critical in rural areas affected by conflict, where competition for employment is high, jobs are scarce and people are struggling to support their families.”

International partnership

To facilitate the payments, FAO has partnered with Zain a mobile and data services operator with a commercial footprint in eight Middle Eastern and African countries. Participant names and identity numbers are pre-registered with the company, and they receive a free SIM card.

A new low-cost satellite broadband service will be launched across Iraq and Afghanistan as Belgium's SatADSL, a provider of professional VSAT services via satellite, and UK-based Talia agreed to expand their long-term partnership.

The two companies’ current agreement lets SatADSL link directly to Talia’s teleport to provide services across the whole of Africa, with Talia’s equipment providing high performance and low-cost per megabit. Under the new deal, SatADSL will also be able to access Talia’s new platform in Jordan Media City, enabling it to offer Ka-band services across Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We are taking our relationship with Talia to the next level by using its facilities to offer our innovative services across Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Caroline De Vos, Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer at SatADSL. “The use of Ka-band High Throughput Satellite capacity, combined with Talia’s equipment means the services we provide can be quickly and easily installed by users and offered at an extremely competitive price, taking a significant step towards bridging the digital divide.”

By connecting its Cloud-based Service Delivery Platform (C-SDP) to Talia’s hub, SatADSL will be able to offer the full range of services available on its platform in Iraq and Afghanistan, including vouchers, VNOFlex, Wi-Fi Hotspots, etc. The C-SDP is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution which enables operators to deliver a full range of satellite-based connectivity services without investing in physical infrastructure. SatADSL expects to have worldwide coverage by the end of the year, further expanding the reach of its C-SDP.

To enable connectivity, Talia uses capacity on the Arabsat 5C Ka-band satellite, located at 20o East. Talia is offering its services based on the Newtec Dialog® multiservice platform which features small VSAT antennas (75cm) on the remote site to create a new lower price point for Internet access and innovative setup guides for self-installation via a smartphone app. A variety of Newtec’s broadband satellite modems have also been deployed, supporting different bandwidth allocations to ensure optimal bandwidth usage. This includes Newtec’s dynamic Mx-DMA technology to achieve the efficiency of SCPC with the dynamic bandwidth allocation of MF-TDMA.

“We see this next chapter with SatADSL as building upon what has so far been a hugely successful partnership in Africa, enabling many developing countries to have access to affordable fast satellite Internet,” said Jack Buechler, VP Business Development at Talia. “Just as in Africa, the services which SatADSL will provide in Afghanistan and Iraq, using our infrastructure will help bridge the digital and economical divide and transform societies for the better.”

(Source: Talia)

The Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to Brussels Mr. Sadiq Al-Rakabi received a delegation from the European Investment Bank.

They discussed ways of resuming negotiations between the two sides on the framework agreement to be signed between Iraq and the European Investment Bank.

The Bank’s funding and support for private sector projects will contribute to stimulating intra-trade between Iraq and ITU Member States, and provide many vacancies for Iraqi university graduates.

On his part, the head of the delegation of the European Investment Bank stressed the importance of Iraq, its position to the European Union, and their appreciation for the difficult circumstances and challenges, indicating their readiness to start negotiations again and provide assistance to Iraq in the common interests.

The two sides agreed to hold a second expanded meeting to discuss the draft framework agreement.

(Source: Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) is continuing its life-saving work in Iraq. UNMAS is grateful for the support it received from three generous donors.

The Governments of Belgium (USD 1.6 million), Italy (USD 784,000) and the Slovak Republic (USD 18,750), donated more than USD 2.4 million to ensure that explosive hazard management, training and technical support and risk education activities will advance in 2020.

The presence of explosive hazards, including improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in areas retaken from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Da’esh, continues to endanger the lives of women, men, girls and boys and hinder the return of the 1.4 million people who are still unable to go home.

Belgium, Italy and Slovakia recognize that the work of UNMAS is necessary to achieve lasting stability in Iraq. As the United Nations launches the “decade of action” to realize the full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the path-clearing work of deminers leads the way for all development in the country. Creating a safe environment enables people to return home, move freely and make productive use of their land.

Mr. Vanden Bulcke, Ambassador of Belgium to Iraq, said:

“After Iraq declared victory against Da’esh in 2017, everyone discovered with dismay the exact level of contamination left by the terrorist group in the regions they occupied. The priority of clearing the contaminated rumbles, houses and infrastructures became of national interest for Iraq.

"By supporting the work of UNMAS in mine risk education, clearance and capacity building, Belgium wants to guarantee with its share safe grounds to start reconstructing the country and help the population come back to their houses and their land.”

Mr. Michele Morana, Director of AICS Jordan and Iraq, stated:

“The appalling extent of mine-contamination in Iraq, is still producing dreadful consequences on the health and livelihood of the conflict affected communities. Therefore, Italy remains fully engaged in pursuing the objective of a mine free Iraq and in supporting UNMAS endeavour toward such goal”.

Mr. Lubomir Macko, Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Beirut, added:

“Watching the dramatic events unfolding in today's Iraq we should not forget that many of its people still suffer from the consequences of the conflicts, the main phase of which is already over. Unexploded mines and explosive hazards continue to claim victims among civilians who want to return to their homes and rebuild their lives there.

"That is why UNMAS's work in Iraq is extremely important and I am glad that the Slovak Republic could support it by a financial contribution. Iraq is one of the main recipients of Slovak humanitarian aid.”

“Explosive hazards are found everywhere: in infrastructure, schools, hospitals, homes and under bridges. These deadly items not only hinder reconstruction and stabilization efforts, but also impede the return of displaced communities to some kind of normal life. That is why UNMAS work in Iraq remains critical and we are very grateful for the support received by Belgium, Italy and Slovakia.” said Mr. Pehr Lodhammar, UNMAS Senior Programme Manager in Iraq.

(Source: UN)