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Iraq Gears Up for Comprehensive Census, Sidesteps Controversies

Vehicles pass by the waterfront of the Shatt al-Arab River in Basra, southern Iraq (AFP)
Vehicles pass by the waterfront of the Shatt al-Arab River in Basra, southern Iraq (AFP)
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Iraq Gears Up for Comprehensive Census, Sidesteps Controversies

Vehicles pass by the waterfront of the Shatt al-Arab River in Basra, southern Iraq (AFP)
Vehicles pass by the waterfront of the Shatt al-Arab River in Basra, southern Iraq (AFP)

Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning, Mohammed Ali Tamim, announced Wednesday the start of a trial census across all provinces, including Kurdistan Region (Erbil, Dohuk, Sulaymaniyah), set for next Friday.

Officials say the census will avoid sensitive topics like ethnicity and focus on religion.

If successful, the government plans to launch an official census on Nov. 20, the first in 27 years since 1997.

The previous census, more than 25 years ago, didn’t include Kurdistan due to political issues under Saddam Hussein's rule.

Since 2005, Iraq has tried to conduct a census, but it faced setbacks, mainly due to political tensions over areas like Kirkuk, disputed between Arabs and Kurds.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Tamim thanked families and local communities for their cooperation with researchers in the trial census, stressing the importance of keeping data private.

He assured that data collection would follow strict privacy standards and only be used for development purposes. The trial will start in specific areas across all provinces on Friday, covering 86 localities with 764 researchers involved.

According to the minister, the trial will include various localities in Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh, and others, with researchers wearing uniforms and carrying tablets to transmit data securely.

Abdul Zahra Al-Hindawi, a spokesperson for the Planning Ministry, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the November census is solely for development purposes and won’t ask about ethnicity or religion.

He said the focus is on understanding people’s living conditions to address them, not on demographics like Arab or Kurdish populations.

Al-Hindawi stressed that international standards suggest avoiding controversial topics in population surveys.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.