Just as in the case of major foodgrains, deregulation of financial markets has had a significant role in affecting global oil prices. JAY MALLIN/BLOOMBERG NEWS The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee of the United States hearing testimony on whether speculation in the commodities market by institutional investors and hedge funds is contributing to food and energy price surges, in Washington, D.C., on May 20.

Iraq on Monday invited foreign companies to bid for contracts developing eight of its oil and gas fields, launching a process that will let big international oil companies back into the country for the first time in more than 30 years. Hussein Shahristani, oil minister, said the six oilfields being offered for tender were the "backbone' of Iraq's industry, and hoped foreign investment would help lift output to 4.5m barrels per day by 2013, from 2.5m b/d today.

Royal Dutch Shell has been quietly working with Iraq's oil ministry over the past two years, advising it on how to increase the production of two oilfields.

To avoid a possible regional war over water resources, Iraq has asked neighbouring countries for a treaty to share the Tigris and Euphrates river waters. The two rivers originate in Turkey, with

A play on Iraq war by a few school children recently triggered a row in the us.

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, a documentary by Rory Kennedy, shows that torture in Iraq's infamous prison cannot be written off as excesses by over-belligerent soldiers. Culpability trickled upward all the

Iraq's beleaguered people have an unlikely ally in the search engine Google. Its online satellite map, Google Earth, is being used to help people survive violence in Baghdad. As sectarian strife

Post-war Mortality