Arbil budget to double after supplements

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: The cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG) has given the go-ahead for a supplementary budget of $161 million for Arbil, bringing the total for the province’s budget to nearly $322 million. “The Kurdistan cabinet has decided to approve a supplementary budget of 180 billion Iraqi dinars for Arbil province. The money will be used to finance service and development projects in the province,” Arbil Governor Nozad Hadi told IraqiNews.com. Iraq’s budget for the current year is $70 billion. Arbil, also written Erbil or Irbil, is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited in the world and is one of the largest cities in Iraq. The city lies eighty kilometers (fifty miles) east of Mosul. In 2005, its estimated population was 990,000 inhabitants. The city is the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region and the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG). It hosts the headquarters of the Kurdistan region ministers and parliament. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, only isolated, sporadic violence has hit Arbil, unlike many other areas of Iraq. Parallel bomb attacks against the Eid celebrations arranged by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan RegionG President Massoud Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) killed 109 people on February 1, 2004. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in solidarity with the Kurdish Islamist faction Ansar al-Islam. Another bombing on May 4, 2005 killed 60 civilians. Despite these bombings the population generally feels safe. SS (S) 1