(February 9, 2004) Iraq’s largest bank, state-owned Al-Rafideen, plans to lay off a third of its staff and overhaul a debt-laden balance sheet to prepare for privatisation, possibly next year, the bank’s chairman said.

(February 6, 2004) How and when Argentina’s debt mess gets cleared up will have much more of an impact on the international financial system than how and when Iraq’s debt mess gets fixed. So why is the G-7 giving more attention to Iraq?

(February 5, 2004) China on Thursday said it will write-off an undetermined amount of the debt owed by Iraq and reopen its embassy in Baghdad soon which would also help protect its interests in the multi-billion dollar reconstruction projects in the war-torn nation.

(February 5, 2004) Russia is ready to settle Iraq’s debt problem in accordance with the Paris Club rules, which may lead to a "considerable" reduction of debt for the war-ravaged country, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov.

(February 2, 2004) Saddam accumulated around $130 billion of unpaid debt, on top of tens of billions of war reparation, and the countries and companies he owes are seeking to extract as much money as they can and use the debt as a lever to control Iraq’s economy.

(February 1, 2004) It is right that most of Iraq’s debt should be forgiven – but so, too, should the debt for new democracies forced to endure the hangovers from the self-aggrandizing binges of their autocratic predecessors.

(January 30, 2004) The regime of deposed President Saddam Hussein paid off Western and Arab countries through illicit oil sales and bribes in exchange for their support for the regime, claims Baghdad daily "Al-Mada".

(January 30, 2004) Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is ready to return to Iraqi authorities money stashed in Syria by ousted President Saddam Hussein but does not want to give it to the Americans in Baghdad, a member of Iraq’s transitional Governing Council said yesterday.

(January 30, 2004) There has been a lot of discussion of debt forgiveness for Iraq, but there have also been some interesting, almost forbidden, topics in the debate.

(January 29, 2004) Chancellor Gordon Brown of Britain’s New Labour Party told MPs the "vast majority" of Iraq’s US$120 billion international debt must be written off to stabilise its economy.

(January 23, 2004) Kuwait is prepared to significantly reduce Iraq’s estimated 16-billion-dollar debt to the emirate, however, the issue of Iraqi debt does not include war reparations.

(January 23, 2004) Canada has agreed to wipe out its share of the $120-billion US debt owed by Iraq, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced Friday at the World Economic Forum of business leaders in Davos, Switzerland.