News in Brief
US renews
waiver for
Iraq to buy Iranian electricity
The United States has granted Iraq another four-month sanctions waiver to purchase Iranian electricity, a State Department spokesperson said.
The United States has issued regular waivers since 2018 so that Iraq can meet its short-term energy needs without running afoul of US sanctions, Al-Monitor reported.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein discussed his country’s reliance on US waivers for Iranian energy imports in meetings with Treasury Department officials in Washington last week.
The 120-day waiver, which was renewed on July 11, comes as Iraqis suffer from power outages that are especially common in the sweltering summer months when temperatures exceed 50 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) and the demand for air conditioning puts additional strain on the country’s dilapidated electricity grid.
Last weekend, protests over the power shortages erupted in the central Iraqi cities of Diwaniyah and Najaf.
Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong dies at 80
The general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong, considered the country’s top leader, died on Friday aged 80, his party said.
In a statement, it said Trong – who had led the party since 2011 – passed away on Friday “due to old age and serious illness” at a military hospital in Hanoi, AFP wrote.
The announcement came a day after the party announced Trong would hand the reins of power to the country’s president and former public security minister To Lam.
The party said Trong would be focusing on treatment for an undisclosed medical condition, the first time it had referenced longstanding speculation about the ageing leader’s health.
Trong is the first party general secretary to die in office since the death in 1986 of Le Duan, a brother-in-arms of Ho Chi Minh. He is also the first leader to have held three consecutive mandates at the head of the party, after the liberalisation of the economy in 1986.