Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Baghdad seeks to have Kurdish oil dispute settled in Iraq
• Serving on the Home Front: Military Kids Make Sacrifices That Often Go Unnoticed
• Rare summer relief for gasoline prices
• Unclear whether sanctions can influence Russia
• AP-GfK poll: Public ready to close book on 2 wars
• US job gains are bypassing many 25-to-34 year-olds
• The VA Reform Bill - What It Left Out
• Islamic State withdraws from Syria villages
• Saudi king condemns Gaza war but not Israel
• Saudi King: condemns war but not Israel
• Saudi king labels Israeli offensive in Gaza a war crime
• Emerging Disease Epidemics, Five Traits Needed to Lead Europe, U.S. and Iran's Relationship, Millennials and Marriage--The Real Truth™ Releases Its August 2014 Issue
• U.S. tightens restrictions for flights over Iraq
• Iraq soldiers die battling jihadists, blasts hit Baghdad
• Iraqi foreign minister blames Maliki for Islamist insurgency
• World silence on Israel 'war crimes' 'inexcusable:' Saudi king
• Iraq's top Shiite cleric urges peaceful transition
• Iraq says more than 1,600 killed in July
• Iraq's top Shiite cleric appeals to politicians
• Baghdad blasts 'kill 10'
• Islamic State imposes media controls in Syrian province
• UN: More than 1,700 killed in Iraq in July
• UN: Iraq deaths drop to 1,700 in July
• Poll: Foreign policy no longer Obama strong point
• For wandering tankers with $300 million of Kurdish crude, end-game still in doubt
• Couple channel grief into retreat for veterans
• FAA places new restrictions on flights over Iraq
• VP Biden praises Japan's new military policy

Baghdad seeks to have Kurdish oil dispute settled in Iraq Posted: 01 Aug 2014 03:21 PM PDT Baghdad wants to settle a high-stakes dispute over $100 million worth of Kurdish crude oil in Iraq's courts, although the oil is sitting in a tanker off the coast of Texas, a U.S. court filing said on Friday. Iraq's central government has also asked Iraq's Federal Supreme Court to block the Kurdistan Regional Government from exporting any crude until its ownership can be determined, said the filing in federal court in Houston. The central government contends it belongs to the country as a whole, not just the Kurdistan region. The latest legal challenge follows Iraq in May bringing criminal charges against the Kurdistan government, alleging theft of oil revenues.

Serving on the Home Front: Military Kids Make Sacrifices That Often Go Unnoticed Posted: 01 Aug 2014 01:46 PM PDT Struggling with math homework, Cyrus Huong, a high school student in Falcon, Colo., needed help from his dad, a highly trained computer specialist. So Cyrus, a rising junior at Falcon High School, dialed up a video chat with his dad and held the computer camera over his homework so his father could see the equations. With the nation technically still at war, it's common for the estimated 1.8 million "military kids" to face challenges at school and on the home front that their public school peers might not understand. It can happen early: According to MCEC, 78 percent of military kids are 11 or younger, nearly 40 percent have seen a parent head to war, and some parents return home disabled or suffering from combat stress.

Rare summer relief for gasoline prices Posted: 01 Aug 2014 01:41 PM PDT NEW YORK (AP) — The gasoline price roller coaster is running a strange course this summer.

Unclear whether sanctions can influence Russia Posted: 01 Aug 2014 01:39 PM PDT No one doubts the latest EU and US economic sanctions on Russia will inflict significant costs, but whether they can force Moscow to reverse course in Ukraine is a completely different question. The United States has been making life difficult for Cuba for more than 50 years but its communist government has carried on through thick and thin, even surviving the collapse of its most important ally, the Soviet Union. Similarly with Zimbabwe where veteran President Robert Mugabe continues to thumb his nose at the West, pressing ahead with the very policies his critics most condemn. How effective economic sanctions are "is one of the key debates over many, many years," said Ian Lesser, a senior director at the German Marshall Fund.

AP-GfK poll: Public ready to close book on 2 wars Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:43 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Three in four Americans think history will judge the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as failures, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows that about the same percentage think it was right to pull forces from the two countries.

US job gains are bypassing many 25-to-34 year-olds Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:15 PM PDT U.S. employers have gone on a hiring spree this year, but America's 25- to-34-year-olds are hardly among the biggest beneficiaries. These workers — increasing equipped with college and advance degrees ...

The VA Reform Bill - What It Left Out Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:15 PM PDT As Congress heads into its annual August recess next week, Members will fly off into the sunset finally having jointly achieved something substantive – a comprehensive emergency Department of Veterans' Affairs reform bill that garnered near-unanimous bipartisan support. In early June, as the media and American public became laser-focused about the growing revelations of scandals and cover-ups at the VA, Congress began scrambling to come up with a quick fix to deal with the crisis. The House of Representatives, which had already held multiple dozens of oversight hearings and passed numerous bipartisan bills to address VA's shortfalls, quickly passed another set of bills to deal with VA's immediate needs. The Senate, in which a previous attempt to bring one package of veterans legislation to the floor had been set up to fail, canceled the one legislative hearing on new veterans bills that it had scheduled for the year to redirect attention to a new set of proposals related to the crisis.

Islamic State withdraws from Syria villages Posted: 01 Aug 2014 11:22 AM PDT The jihadist Islamic State has withdrawn from several villages dominated by a Sunni tribe in eastern Deir Ezzor province after clashes, a monitoring group said Friday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the extremist group had withdrawn from Abu Hamam, Kashkiyeh and Ghranij, three villages dominated by the Sunni Shaitat tribe in oil-rich Deir Ezzor. The group said members of the tribe also set fire to a headquarters belonging to the Islamic State in a fourth village and there were reports that the jihadists had withdrawn from a fifth village in the area. The Observatory said the Shaitat had promised IS it would not oppose it, in exchange for the jihadists not harassing or attacking its members.

Saudi king condemns Gaza war but not Israel Posted: 01 Aug 2014 09:18 AM PDT RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah condemned the war in Gaza Friday as a "collective massacre" and a crime against humanity, but stopped short of directly condemning Israel for its ground campaign against Hamas.

Saudi King: condemns war but not Israel Posted: 01 Aug 2014 08:31 AM PDT RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah condemned the war in Gaza Friday as a "collective massacre" and a crime against humanity, but stopped short of directly condemning Israel for its ground campaign against Hamas.

Saudi king labels Israeli offensive in Gaza a war crime Posted: 01 Aug 2014 08:28 AM PDT By Angus McDowall RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah broke his silence on Friday over the three-week-old conflict in Gaza, condemning what he saw as international silence over Israel's offensive and describing this as a war crime and "state-sponsored terrorism". Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as a leader of the Sunni Muslim world, has played only a background role in the diplomacy to reinstate calm in Gaza, leaving the main Arab pursuit of a ceasefire to close ally Egypt and fellow Gulf monarchy Qatar. Silence that has no justification." His speech, which focused mainly on what he described as a Middle East-wide threat from Islamist militancy, followed criticism by some Saudis on social media, including prominent clerics, over Riyadh's quiet response to the Gaza crisis. POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS The kingdom's policy towards Gaza is complicated by its mistrust of the territory's ruling Hamas, an Islamist movement with close ideological and political links to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Riyadh regards as a terrorist organisation.

Emerging Disease Epidemics, Five Traits Needed to Lead Europe, U.S. and Iran's Relationship, Millennials and Marriage--The Real Truth™ Releases Its August 2014 Issue Posted: 01 Aug 2014 08:23 AM PDT WADSWORTH, Ohio, Aug. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Real Truth™ , a 10-issue-per-year publication distributed free of charge around the world, has published its August 2014 issue. "Five Traits Needed to Lead Europe" (p. 4) With the political landscape of the EU shifting, what are the five traits necessary for Europe's next leader to restore the continent to a leading role on the world stage? Relations between Iran and the U.S. have been rocky for decades.

U.S. tightens restrictions for flights over Iraq Posted: 01 Aug 2014 07:36 AM PDT The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has restricted U.S. airlines from flying at or below 30,000 feet (9,100 m) over Iraq, citing a "potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict" there. The FAA also prohibited U.S. airlines from flying in and out of two airports in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Erbil International and Sulaymaniyah International. Government forces have been battling Sunni insurgents who have seized parts of Iraq, threatening its survival as a unified country.

Iraq soldiers die battling jihadists, blasts hit Baghdad Posted: 01 Aug 2014 07:24 AM PDT At least 17 Iraqi soldiers were killed in a fierce battle against jihadists south of Baghdad on Friday while bombs in and around the capital left another 16 people dead. The clashes took place in Jurf al-Sakhr, a small Euphrates River town on a road linking Sunni insurgents strongholds in the west to Shiite holy cities south of Baghdad. "Seventeen soldiers were killed and three wounded during clashes with insurgents in Jurf al-Sakhr that lasted two hours this morning," an army lieutenant told AFP. An army medic confirmed the death toll, with both sources saying 23 jihadists from the Islamic State were also killed.

Iraqi foreign minister blames Maliki for Islamist insurgency Posted: 01 Aug 2014 06:55 AM PDT By Raheem Salman BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his security officials are to blame for the rise of Sunni Muslim insurgents who have seized parts of Iraq, the country's foreign minister said. The comments by Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, are likely to worsen relations between Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government and the Kurds, complicating efforts to form a power-sharing government capable of countering Islamic State militants. At the stake is the survival of Iraq as a unified country.

World silence on Israel 'war crimes' 'inexcusable:' Saudi king Posted: 01 Aug 2014 06:34 AM PDT Saudi King Abdullah said Friday that world silence over Israeli "war crimes" in the Gaza Strip was "inexcusable" and would only breed more violence in the future. "We see the blood of out brothers in Palestine being shed in collective massacres that have spared nobody, and in war crimes against humanity," the king said in a speech carried by state news agency SPA. "This silence is inexcusable" and will "result in a generation that rejects peace and believes only in violence," he said.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric urges peaceful transition Posted: 01 Aug 2014 05:35 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric appealed to Iraqi politicians on Friday not to make themselves "an obstacle" in the country's transition as the deadline looms for selecting the next prime minister.

Iraq says more than 1,600 killed in July Posted: 01 Aug 2014 04:45 AM PDT More than 1,600 people were killed in acts of violence in Iraq last month, most of them civilians, according to government figures released on Friday that excluded jihadist militants. The toll marked a slight drop from a seven-year high recorded in June, when the Islamic State jihadist group launched a sweeping offensive that triggered Iraq's worst crisis in years. The United Nations representation in Iraq provided a higher figure, saying at least 1,737 people were killed in July. Iraq's scattered, moving frontlines and myriad fighting groups make independent verifications of casualty figures very difficult.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric appeals to politicians Posted: 01 Aug 2014 04:21 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric is appealing to politicians not to be "an obstacle" in the process of transition as Iraq nears a deadline to select its next prime minister.

Baghdad blasts 'kill 10' Posted: 01 Aug 2014 04:03 AM PDT At least 10 people were killed and 29 wounded Friday in bomb blasts that struck two districts of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said. The deadliest was a car bomb in the northern Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, which has been frequently targeted and where security is usually heightened ahead of Friday prayers. At least seven people were killed and 21 wounded in the explosion that rocked one of the large neighbourhood's main streets, a police colonel and hospital sources said. Three roadside bombs also went off almost simultaneously near a Shiite mosque close to the central Kholani square, killing three people and wounding eight, two police officers said.

Islamic State imposes media controls in Syrian province Posted: 01 Aug 2014 03:46 AM PDT Islamic State, the al Qaeda splinter group which has seized parts of Syria and Iraq, has told activists in Syria's Deir al-Zor province they must swear allegiance to it and submit to censorship, a monitoring group said on Friday. International media organizations have little presence in Syria and rely on activists and other sources to provide information on what is happening in the country. Islamic State also told the activists they must recognize the caliphate, based on their strict interpretation of Islam, that it has declared in the parts of Iraq and Syria it controls.

UN: More than 1,700 killed in Iraq in July Posted: 01 Aug 2014 03:37 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — More than 1,700 people were killed in Iraq in July, the United Nations said Friday, making it one of the deadliest months of the year but marking a decline from the previous month, when Sunni militants swept across much of the country.

UN: Iraq deaths drop to 1,700 in July Posted: 01 Aug 2014 01:49 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — The United Nations says 1,737 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Iraq in July, marking a dramatic decline from the previous month, when some 2,400 people were killed as Sunni militants swept across large parts of the country, capturing the second largest city Mosul.

Poll: Foreign policy no longer Obama strong point Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:59 AM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreign policy used to be a bright spot in Americans' dimming opinion of President Barack Obama. Not anymore. Associated Press-GfK polling found a spring and summer of discontent with the president's handling of world events.

For wandering tankers with $300 million of Kurdish crude, end-game still in doubt Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:32 AM PDT By Jonathan Saul LONDON (Reuters) - After a legal show-down in Texas this week, the outlook for a handful of tankers holding some $300 million worth of Kurdish oil is not looking good. Unless they can seal last-minute discreet sales or reach some kind of deal with Baghdad over how to share oil revenues, experts say, chances are slim of unloading ships now dotted around the globe, from Texas to Malaysia. "There will not be many people who will want to take the cargo in circumstances where there is a dispute about the ownership of it," said Ben Knowles of law firm Clyde & Co. Iraqi Kurdistan is exporting crude oil independently of Baghdad in a bid toward seizing greater political and economic autonomy, in spite of Baghdad's protests that it has the sole authority to sell Iraqi oil. In the modern maritime world, satellite vessel tracking technology and a globally networked shipping system make it nearly impossible for the Kurds to quietly unload the vessel at some remote port without the intervention of Baghdad, which says the oil has been illegally sold outside its control.

Couple channel grief into retreat for veterans Posted: 31 Jul 2014 11:29 PM PDT OCQUEOC TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Before shipping out for Iraq, Army Sgt. Trevor Blumberg asked his father to do two things if he didn't return: Look after his puppy, Scrappy, and "take care of my guys."

FAA places new restrictions on flights over Iraq Posted: 31 Jul 2014 08:15 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is restricting U.S. airlines from flying at or below 30,000 feet (9,145 meters) over Iraq because of what it calls "the potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict" there.

VP Biden praises Japan's new military policy Posted: 31 Jul 2014 06:35 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden is welcoming Japan's decision to loosen restrictions on its military to allow greater use of force to defend other countries.

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