Iraq Financial News

Mint explores the best- and worst-case scenarios.On Monday the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s armed forces, announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and attacked a few ships passing through it. The announcement quickly caused panic.

aviation and maritime corridors that connect India with key West Asian markets, complicating travel planning for patients and increasing freight expenses for exporters.While companies have yet to report a sustained demand shock, hospitals and drugmakers say the disruption to mobility and logistics systems underpinning cross-border healthcare and medicine trade raises the risk of softer medical travel volumes and higher export costs if tensions persist.The aviation disruption is particularly significant for India’s medical tourism sector, which recorded approximately 644,387 foreign tourist arrivals in 2024. It is particularly exposed to West Asia, a region that accounts for nearly 18% of inbound patients, or about 115,000 travellers, seeking treatment ranging from complex surgeries to advanced clinical care.As regional airspace comes under heightened security scrutiny, industry leaders say travel uncertainty is beginning to influence patient decision-making.

The US and Israel are betting on regime change in Iran through air attacks that began on Saturday. So far, bombardment has left Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Khamenei dead and sparked a retaliatory flare-up in West Asia. This is a gamble, although US air-strike precision has improved since its 2003 war on Iraq to end Saddam Hussein’s rule, an invasion that left countless civilians dead and inflamed the region.

petroleum ministry is taking continuous stock of the energy supply scenario along with the refiners. They are looking at ways to ensure that supplies are not interrupted.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India is developing contingency plans for crude oil imports as rising tensions in West Asia push global oil prices higher and raise fears of supply disruptions.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—President Trump is at a crossroads that could define his legacy: He could sign a deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear program, or launch a war with hard-to-control consequences for the U.S. and the Middle East.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A BIT OF sabre-rattling can be useful in foreign policy. Too much of it, though, and the sabre is liable to end up pointing back at you.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The U.S. military has deployed scores of combat aircraft across the Middle East and will soon have a second aircraft carrier within range of Iran if President Trump gives the order to strike.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Syria’s possible descent into another civil war, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, the United Arab Emirates’ failed offensive in Yemen, final U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and the slow transition from war to peace in Gaza may appear to be disconnected events in a fractious region.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Syrian government is moving to close a detention camp that held tens of thousands of people including family members of suspected Islamic State fighters, after unrest threatened its grip on the facility just weeks after taking it over. Responsibility for the al-Hol detention camp changed hands in January, when the Syrian government launched an offensive that routed the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led militia that had controlled it along with much of northeastern Syria.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: Saudi Arabia has surpassed Russia as India’s top oil supplier so far this month after a price cut, signalling New Delhi’s effort to reduce imports from Moscow after its trade pact with the US. Saudi Arabia shipped 1.13 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first 10 days of February compared to 1.09 million bpd by Russia, according to data from global ship tracking firm Kpler.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “A PRINCE OUGHT to inspire fear," wrote Niccolo Machiavelli, but “he must endeavour only to avoid hatred", lest it prove his undoing. By that measure Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is failing.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: Rebalancing its oil import basket of the last three-four years, India is slowly yet surely moving away from the Russia Federation and turning back to its traditional crude oil suppliers in West Asia. In doing so, Iraq, the no.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. With a swift offensive against a Kurdish-led militia last weekend, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa proved himself once again to be a bold military tactician and a gambler willing to risk his relationship with the U.S. to achieve his aims.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The U.S. is rushing to move captured Islamic State fighters out of northeast Syria amid fears that tensions between pro-government forces and a Kurdish-led militia could lead to a security breakdown and the escape of thousands of militants.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. DUBAI—Iran’s 12-day war with Israel and the U.S. last June broke the regime’s carefully nurtured image of invincibility, many ordinary Iranians say.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The New Year started with a bang. Three days into 2026 came the extraordinary news that the US had captured Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—A smooth-faced 41-year-old Donald Trump settled in before a live studio audience assembled for The Oprah Winfrey Show and held forth on how America should be getting a cut of Kuwaiti oil. “Kuwait is not paying us for all the oil they’re sending out," said Trump, wearing a familiar solid red tie, as Oprah pressed him on his foreign policy views during the April 1988 interview.

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement on Saturday, renewing a deal meant to alleviate Lebanon's acute power shortage. Under the heavy fuel oil deal, first agreed in July 2021, Iraq provides the Lebanese government with the fuel in exchange for services including health care for Iraqi citizens. Lebanon then swaps the heavy fuel oil for gas oil that it can use at its power stations. These have operated for decades at partial capacity, but electricity provision deteriorated further during a financial crisis that has hit the state's ability to buy fuel.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Sassoon Docks, tucked away in the bustling heart of South Mumbai’s Colaba, is a living testament to the city’s maritime soul. Just a stone’s throw from the Gateway of India, it is more than a mere port—it is the fish-scented, beating heart of Mumbai, where history, hustle, and heritage converge in an unforgettable sensory symphony.

Hamas ties. The detention of Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in the US capital, came as fears mount in the academic world that freedom of research and speech is being challenged two months into US President Donald Trump's new term. Suri's lawyer demanded his release and denounced the arrest as a «targeted, retaliatory detention» that was intended «to silence, or at the very least restrict and chill, his speech» as well as that of others who «express support for Palestinian rights.» Early Thursday evening Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia Court ordered Suri «shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the court issues a contrary order.» The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has also filed an emergency motion to stop the deportation, said Suri was being held at an immigration detention center in Louisiana.