The State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) announced that the price rate of crude oil exported to Jordan rose to more than 107 USD per barrel during June, according to preliminary statistics issued by SOMO.

SOMO data mentioned that the total oil exports to Jordan during the month of June reached 299.760 barrels, with a daily rate of 10 thousand barrels.
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SOMO explained that the average price of a barrel sold to Jordan is 107.70 USD. It added that the revenues from oil exports to Jordan during one month exceeded 32.28 million USD.

In an interview with Mehr, Ruhollah Gholami said that 886,000 tons of goods were exported to Iraq through this border in the first quarter of this year.

This amount has increased by 100% in terms of weight and 73% in dollar value compared to the same period last year, he added.

He underlined that Ilam province customs has won first place this year out of 12 customs bordering Iraq.
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The Mehran International Border has generated jobs for over 2,000 Iranians working currently in the place, he pointed out.


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A Polish Army deserter who sought asylum in Belarus, where he often appeared in the media making critical statements about the government in Warsaw, has been found dead in Minsk.

The Investigative Committee of Belarus said on March 17 that Emil Czeczko was found hanged in his apartment in the Belarusian capital, adding that they were looking into several motives, including suicide or murder.

Belarusian authorities said in mid-December that the 25-year-old Polish soldier defected and asked for political asylum in the wake of the crisis along the Polish-Belarusian border when tens of thousands of illegal migrants, mostly from the Middle East, tried to force their way into the European Union.

Czeczko had been shown on Belarusian state television several times since then, criticizing the Polish government and saying that Polish border guards had shot dead hundreds of migrants, a claim that has never been proven or confirmed either by Polish officials or international experts.

Polish soldier Emil Czeczko, who was serving on the border under orders to prevent migrants from crossing from Belarus into Poland, fled through a barbed wire fence on Dec. 17 and appealed for asylum in Belarus. In a television interview, Czeczko said he fled because Polish troops had shot and killed some of the migrants. He said he opposed this policy.

​Czeczko said that special border troops forced him and other regular Polish soldiers to take part in the executions. He also told BelTa TV that two Polish volunteers, civilians who had come to aid the migrants, were killed when they tried to intervene. (tinyurl.com/29zmtkau)

The migrants fly to Minsk, Belarus, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, in an attempt to migrate to the European Union because their families cannot survive at home. Scenes of Polish troops setting up barbed wire and firing water cannons to stop them were broadcast on television worldwide starting in mid-November. 
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Czeczko’s accusation that Polish forces used lethal force against the migrants sparked demands from Belarusian and Russian government representatives for an international investigation by the United Nations or human rights organizations related to his charges. They accused the Polish government of refusing to answer questions about the border incidents.

Polish citizen Emil Czeczko has told journalists that he wants to tell the public about the atrocious facts of genocide committed on the Poland-Belarus border, BelTA has learned.

“I am here to talk about the horrors of the genocide on the Poland-Belarus border. We should pay tribute to the memory of the people who died,” Emil Czeczko said.

The center “Sistemnaya Pravozaschita” [“Systemic Human Rights Protection”] is holding a press conference of Polish serviceman Emil Czeczko.

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Amonths-long effort to create a new government in Iraq fell into disarray after the influential Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr asked all 73 lawmakers in his political bloc to withdraw from parliament on Sunday. They followed through that day, with the Parliament Speaker accepting their request. Sadr’s candidate for Prime Minister stepped back from vying for the role, too.

The withdrawal significantly disrupts the make-up of the 329-seat legislative body—likely giving more parliamentary power to pro-Iran parties. It could also help align Sadr’s party with Iraqi protesters who have since 2019 condemned the country’s political system altogether, if the move is viewed as a rejection of the status quo.

​Experts say the political paralysis since elections in October is partly due to long simmering discontent among Iraqis who feel the political system prioritizes keeping elites in power over providing essential services such as access to electricity and clean water. In the short term, it’s also caused by Sadr’s inability to push through political reforms that would have consolidated his party’s power.
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Following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraq’s political system was set up under U.S. auspices as a consensus government that provides a seat at the table for all major political parties. “That may sound good in theory but what it amounted to was just a division of the spoils and political power, so corruption ran rampant,” says David Romano, a professor of Middle East politics at Missouri State University. “No one really had to do anything or perform because they were guaranteed their share of power every election just by virtue of coming from major ethno-sectarian communities.”

A total of 926 billion Iraqi dinars ($697 million) went missing due to "forgery, embezzlement, manipulation, money laundering (and) abuse of position", the Commission for Integrity said in a statement.

Nearly $700 million in public funds has been misappropriated from state-run banks in Iraq in a scandal implicating more than 40 people, an anti-corruption commission said Thursday, after a three-year probe. A total of 926 billion Iraqi dinars ($697 million) went missing due to “forgery, embezzlement, manipulation, money laundering (and) abuse of position", the Commission for Integrity said in a statement.

The alleged fraud took place at a branch of Maysan province’s agricultural bank, as well as four branches of Rasheed Bank in Maysan and the capital Baghdad, the commission said. The commission did not specify the timeframe of the offences, but a commission official, who did not want to be named, said investigations into suspected illegal activity began in 2019.
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“Arrest warrants will be issued against 41 people suspected" of wrongdoing over the affair, the official added. The commission said bank employees and even customers were among those implicated in a scandal that amounts to a “process of organised sabotage against the national economy".

Middle East’s largest tunnel connects Umm Qasr Port to the new Al Faw Grand Port

​​Construction work on the Middle East’s largest underwater tunnel (Silk Tunnel) in Basra in South Iraq has reached advanced stage.

Hussein Jalil Al-Rubaie, official spokesperson of Ministry of Transport told Zawya Projects that the tunnel being built under Khor Al Zubair Channel forms part of the new highway being built to link the Al Faw Grand Port to Umm Qasr Port and the existing transport network.

South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering & Construction had bagged the tunnel contract as part of a $2.7 billion deal with the Iraqi government General Company for Ports of Iraq (GCPI), which also included a container terminal and roads to the Al Faw Port.

Jordan has invited bids for a project to build power lines and other facilities to supply electricity to nearby Iraq, a local newspaper said on Tuesday. 

The Jordan National Electric Company (JNEC) issued the bids for the project, which is part of an agreement signed by the two Arab countries in 2020, local Arabic language daily Alghad said. 

Phase 1 of the project involves the construction of a 300-kilometre power lines and other facilities at a cost of nearly $140 million, the report said. 
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“It will supply 150 megawatts of electricity to Iraq for a period of three years, which could be renewed as per agreement between the two sides,” it said, adding that the lines would be ready by the end of 2022 and the entire project will be finished within 26 months. 
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The secretary of the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters Union has proposed replacement of Iraq with Turkey as the destination for Iranian natural gas exports.

“Instead of exporting natural gas to Iraq and not being able to get its money, we can export the gas to other destinations like Turkey,” Hamid Hosseini said in an interview with ILNA, the Iranian Labor News Agency.
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“I have not information on the process of natural gas export to the country [Iraq] after it was reduced due to non-payment of debts, but past experience has shown that we should insist on our claims after exports to this country.”

Hosseini added that Iraqis will continue to hesitate about payment of their debt if Iran ever tries to compromise with them.
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