Lead: 'The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.' The article continues: 'The report, by the Congressional Budget Office, according to people with knowledge of its contents, will say that one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone more...

BAGHDAD, 4 August 2008 (IRIN) - The Iraqi Health Ministry has set up a committee to contact medical doctors who have fled the country, and persuade them to return, a senior health official said on 3 August.

[Read this report in Arabic]

“We have e-mailed all the physicians who fled Iraq because of the deteriorated security situation, [asking them] to return, and develop the health service, after remarkable progress in the security situation,” Deputy Health Minister Essam Namiq Abdullah more...

BAGHDAD, 29 July 2008 (IRIN) - Iraqi government institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international bodies must focus more on devising programmes for juveniles to prevent them from being co-opted by militants for criminal acts, a government spokesman said on 28 July.

'We have evidence that the phenomenon of criminal gangs and terrorist groups recruiting juveniles - either by threatening them or luring them with money - has increased recently,' said Hamza Kamil, spokesman of more...

BAGHDAD, 24 July 2008 (IRIN) - An umbrella group of over 1,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) appealed on 24 July for large-scale financial support from the government and 'effective rather than symbolic' assistance from international organisations.

'Iraqi NGOs get no direct financial support from the Iraqi government, unlike other NGOs around the world,' said Basil al-Azawi, head of the group, which is based in Baghdad and known as the Commission for Civil Society Enterprises.

'T more...

The commitments made recently in Paris to help Afghanistan must be met to prevent the erosion of support for the United Nation’s efforts, the world body’s top envoy to the strife-torn South Asian nation said today.

Amid rising food and energy prices, exacerbated by the withdrawal of state fuel subsidies, the UN refugee agency will find it increasingly difficult to help the growing numbers of Iraqi refugees in need of assistance in Jordan.

Vulnerable Jordanians and Iraqis have been particularly hard hit by the economic developments. And while the government has tried to cushion the blow with public sector wage increases and the establishment of a social safety net, these initiatives will not benefit Iraq more...

Tucked behind a mountain of luggage amid the bustle of Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, an Iraqi couple and their three daughters say their last farewells to friends. Having been stranded in Indonesia for almost seven years, they have finally been given the opportunity to begin a new life on the east coast of Australia.

'I couldn't make any plans for my future until now,' said Hassan Sami Al-Badri, the family patriarch. 'Now I'm going to Australia, I feel like I've been given a more...

It is a silent trickle, far from the mass exodus to the west. Slowly but surely, thousands of people have been fleeing rising insecurity in Iraq to seek safety in neighbouring Iran. But as fighting continues to rage back home, their resources and resolve are fast running out.

More than 4,000 Iraqis have arrived in Iran since the middle of 2006, months after an attack on an important Shia Muslim shrine in the central city of Samarra unleashed a wave of sectarian violence throughout Iraq.

'A more...

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today it is scaling up its emergency operation in Iraq to address the basic needs of more than 360,000 vulnerable children inside the strife-torn nation.

After five years of conflict, more than 800,000 Iraqi children are unable to go to school and only 40 per cent can access safe water, according to the agency.

Through its Immediate Action for Vulnerable Children and Family – or IMPACT programme – UNICEF is aiming to assist over 360,00 more...

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN refugee agency said today that they have resumed food distributions to tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after a two-month interruption.

The first 1500 families received food baskets containing basic foodstuffs on Tuesday and Wednesday. At least 150,000 people are expected to benefit over the next month.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has opened a new distribution warehouse in Douma in th more...