Industry ministry employees demand their dues

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Several Ministry of Industry employees on Sunday took to the streets in Basra province demanding better conditions. “Employees from the Iron and Steel Company, the Petrochemical Industries Company, Bin Majed Company, and the Paper Industries Factory staged a demonstration in front of the provincial council’s building in Basra demanding their lost rights,” Ahmed Saad Salman, one of the demonstrators, told IraqiNews.com. The demonstrators have called on local authorities to pay them the variance in salaries and to put them on an equal footing with employees of other departments and ministries, the source noted. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008. Basra, a Shiite province with 20% of the population are Sunnis, is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. It has the seven main Iraqi ports. The first built in Islam 14 A.H. (After Hegira), the city played an important role in early Islamic history. The area surrounding Basra has substantial petroleum resources and many oil wells. The city’s oil refinery has a production capacity of about 140,000 barrels per day (bpd). The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra is in a fertile agricultural region, with major products including rice, maize corn, barley, pearl millet, wheat and dates as well as livestock. A network of canals flowed through the city, giving it the nickname “The Venice of the Middle East” at least at high tide. The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra has the commercial ports of Iraq. SS (S)/SR 1