Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category

LAs New Falafel Stand Is a One-Man Masterpiece That Hails From Iraq – Eater LA

Even in a city as robust as Los Angeles, where Lebanese, Syrian, Israeli, Iranian, and Armenian restaurants count in the hundreds, its still easy to get surprised by a simple falafel sometimes. Manaf Alsudaney is the owner of Falafel Chee, a walk-up stand inside of West LA International Market at 10817 Venice Boulevard near Culver City, and on weekends he sells just one thing: warm, airy, crispy Iraqi falafel, either by the piece or wrapped in thin, open Lebanese pita bread. At $3.50 per sandwich, its not only one of the best dishes you can eat in greater LA right now, its one of the best deals, too.

But as with most food stories, the meal itself is just the jumping-off point.

For starters, Alsudaney only works on Saturday and Sunday because he has a whole other gig during the week: Hes a doctor. The clinical research coordinator has worked at Cedars-Sinai for more than two years, but he keeps a deep history with the falafel he loves. In multiple discussions with Alsudaney, he alternatively describes himself as an artist, a chef, a storyteller, and an MD, with a background that starts in Iraq and runs through Detroit, Michigan. Hes a talker, with a hell of a story to share, and that fits the stand just fine, because after you eat your first sandwich, youll probably go right back in for another chat and another round of falafel.

Born in Iraq, Alsudaney earned his degree at the Baghdad School of Medicine. While there, he used his command of the English language to work as a U.S. Army translator, helping with medical needs at hospitals and in the field. The plan was always to parlay that into a United States green card, Alsudaney says, which is how he ended up in Dearborn, Michigan, with its large Iraqi expat population, in 2009.

Within a year, Alsudaney was building a bakery in Detroit with $50,000 he had borrowed from his brother. I used to eat with the Army officers, Alsudaney says over the phone, and they liked shawarma and these other things, but I would take them for falafel. Emboldened by the enthusiasm he found with American servicemen for the pared-down regional falafel style, and pushed by his own passions to simply create, Alsudaney worked to open a place of his own that focused on those hometown techniques and flourishes, including Iraqi samoon breads baked in a brick oven. A disaster with the oven build ensued, and just like that his get-started-in-America money, his brothers life savings, was gone. It was a very sad day for me, he says.

Eventually, Alsudaney was able to turn his business around, making Naba Brick Oven Bakery a formidable name in the competitive market around Detroit, before departing to Southern California in 2017. I used to go to Arabic markets in Orange County, says Alsudaney, They have this kind of restaurant within the international markets. It came to my mind: why not open a space in one of them? As in Michigan, the young Iraqi immigrant felt compelled not just to stick with medicine, at his parents request, but to create a company, with his own hands, to be proud of.

Its easier to understand Alsudaneys motivations once youve tried Falafel Chee. Unlike, say, Palestinian or Israeli falafel, which (broadly speaking) often contains greens and different spices, his is a strictly garbanzo bean mix, crushed and smoothed by hand only. Youre subtracting, says Alsudaney. Sometimes people think the more you add the better taste will come. Im making the original, crispy and pure in taste and smell. When you eat something crispy and fluffy and easy to chew, thats when the fun comes in.

After an attempted launch in Orange County, Alsudaney moved to Culver City and landed at the West LA International Market, but not before building a business plan and tracking down the owner first. I told him Your market brings at least 1,100 people per day, he says of his time convincing the markets owner. They are all free advertising. Once people enter your market and smell, they will see the product and love it. His first week in business came right after Thanksgiving.

The stand itself is tiny, barely more than one person wide and tucked next to the produce bins, but its enough for him and a tray of falafel that he fries on site. There, Alsudaney picks every ball, layers every ingredient from the lettuce and tomato to pickled turnips, and rolls every sandwich. There are a few tweaks to be made, he admits first with the sauces. Customers here are used to tahini, though he prefers the spicy mango amba and date sauce dibis, both of which you can find at Falafel Chee if you ask. Alsudaney swears, one he gets his own place, that hes also going to perfect his samoon bread using another hand-built oven, but for now hes fine with the Lebanese stuff. Mostly, he just wants to believe that its all still possible, that a former translator turned doctor from Baghdad can really make it on the West Coast of America, selling the kind of falafel hes always loved.

This falafel I want to modernize, says Alsudaney. But if you have the brain, and you want to do also the physical thing, and the financial thing, youre not going to make it. You need people who can support you.

The problem with me is, Im the only one.

Falafel Chee is open Saturday and Sunday only inside the West LA International Market at 10817 Venice Blvd., keeping hours from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

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LAs New Falafel Stand Is a One-Man Masterpiece That Hails From Iraq - Eater LA

COVID-19 Context – Iraq – Overview of the humanitarian situation and the impact of COVID-19 – Iraq – ReliefWeb

While Iraq has started to slowly recover from the several waves of conflict that the country has experienced in the past decades, COVID-19 and its social and economic impact has exposed people to new risks, perpetuated existing vulnerabilities and has put additional strain on an already fragile public sector. With petroleum accounting for 92% of the countrys exports, declining oil prices have plummeted the country into a financial and economic crisis, with the World Bank projecting a contraction of the Iraqi GDP of 9.7% in 2020.1,2 While the Iraqi government has been struggling to pay the salaries of the countrys six million public sector employees, millions of others working in the private and informal sector have lost their employment and livelihoods as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.UNICEF and the World Bank are estimating that an additional 4.5 million Iraqis will be pushed below the poverty line in 2020.

With an increase in the unemployment and poverty rates, humanitarian needs across various sectors and population groups are expected to increase drastically in 2020, imposing further hardship on the countrys 2.3 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 4.8 million returnees.

As the first nationwide household-level assessment following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Iraq, the Multi-Cluster Needs Assessment (MCNA) VIII is well placed to provide context to the current humanitarian situation and the impact of COVID-19. In conjunction with the MCNA VIII dataset and findings, this factsheet aims to provide a evidence base for the humanitarian response to the COVID-19 crisis in Iraq. The factsheet presents secondary data as well as MCNA VIII findings across various sectors that have been impacted by COVID-19 or by the measures that the government has implemented to contain the spread of the virus.

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COVID-19 Context - Iraq - Overview of the humanitarian situation and the impact of COVID-19 - Iraq - ReliefWeb

Iraq War veteran finds candle business therapeutic | Covid-19 – Beloit Daily News

ROSCOESometimes the things you least expect are the things you are supposed to be doing.

Thats what Chad and Melissa Burgess of Roscoe learned after pouring their lives into their candle and fragrance company. They never imagined they would be hand-pouring candles and shipping them off all over the world.

It was kind of an accident, Chad Burgess said.

Craft + Foster, 9958 N. Alpine Road, Suite 101, Machesney Park, offers unique and modern scents from Bergamot & Oud, Cedar & Cypress, Leather and Teak, Vetiver Woods to Harvest Bourbon, Mistletoe and more that have been picked-up by several well-known brands and companies including Neiman Marcus, FabFitFun, The Skinny Confidential and more.

In Beloit, they are selling their products at Bushel & Pecks Local Market, and partnering with Geronimo Hospitality to provide scents at its hotels.

Chad, originally from Rockford, met his wife in Oceanside, California in 2009, got married and had four children. Melissa, an Iraq War U.S. Army veteran, was working for a church and Chad was in ministry and corporate marketing and sales when the twos talents collided.

Melissa had already encountered some challenges, having grown up in and out of foster care. Having seen what she considered healthy families and their friends over the years, she wanted to one day have a successful family of her own.

I got to see glimpses of what life could be, she said

With a patriotic bent, she had served in the military from 2002 to 2010, including work as a medic for the infantry in Iraq from 2003-2005.

In the early days of their marriage Chad and Melissa were house parents, working with a program for junior high and high school students in foster care.

However in 2015, after Melissa had her third child, her PTSD kicked in full force and she sought out therapeutic solutions.

Melissa said she liked the calming act of pouring candles and the chance to be creative. Soon she sold a batch of candles at a local makers market.

From start to finish, I was making everything with my hands and others were taking it into their worlds, she said.

Within a year and a half their items were sold in hundreds of retail locations across the country. Chad had quit his corporate job to join her in the business.

Making the leap from markets to big retailers was a stretch, including plenty of 16-hour days.

We put our hands to the plow and just did it, she said.

Despite the daunting workload, the couple kept close to their mission of growing the business in hopes of one day using it to help fund a non-profit that would help foster children and veterans. Melissa hopes to hire veterans and eventually get them running their own businesses.

Within a year and a half their products sold in Neiman Marcus and they were collaborating with Hugh Jackmans Laughing Man Coffee Company. They were featured at the Golden Globe Awards, when gift sets including the candles were given to more than 100 A-listers at the event. Their products were also featured on E!.

An avid networker, Chad was often parading the products around which led to mentions by social media influencers.

We will scroll their sites, and see our candles on an A-listers table, Chad said.

Their candles are made with soy wax. Chad and Melissa have created a rinse free hand spray which were big sellers last spring during the early days of the pandemic.

We sold 1,000 of them when we first put them on the website, Melissa said.

They have formulated room sprays and will be launching them in the next months.

Although they have had some challenges getting needed materials such as glass, lids and wicks due to supply chain issues during the pandemic they have carried on.

Melissa still struggles with PTSD but has recently signed up to start counseling. She said the unexpected path of candle making was what finally gave her the firm footing to move forward, something she hopes to share with other veterans in the future.

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Iraq War veteran finds candle business therapeutic | Covid-19 - Beloit Daily News

Chaldean Catholics in Iraq praying that pope visit will be possible – Union of Catholic Asian News

Chaldean Catholics in Iraq are praying that Pope Francis really will be able to visit their country in March.

Cardinal Louis Sako, the Baghdad-based patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, composed a prayer for all his faithful to recite together at Masses beginning Jan. 17.

Agenzia Nova, an Italian news agency specializing in international political and economic reporting, published a story Jan. 12 saying that a security and intelligence delegation from Italy had arrived in Iraq to tour possible sites for papal events with Iraqi security officials.

While the Vatican announced the dates for the planned trip -- March 5-8 -- a formal program had not been released as of Jan. 14, and Pope Francis said in an interview Jan. 10 that he was not certain the visit would be possible. There are obvious security concerns, but also questions about the making such a trip in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, reported Jan. 14 that the Chaldean Catholics were asking "the Almighty Lord to make possible the announced visit of Pope Francis to the land of the two rivers," the Euphrates and the Tigris.

The text of the prayer begins: "Lord our God, grant Pope Francis health and safety to carry out successfully this eagerly awaited visit. Bless his effort to promote dialogue, enhance fraternal reconciliation, build confidence, consolidate peace values and human dignity, especially for us Iraqis who have been through painful events that affected our lives.

"Lord, our Creator, enlighten our hearts with your light to recognize goodness and peace, and to realize them," the prayer continued. "Mother Mary, we entrust Pope Francis' visit to your maternal care so that the Lord may grant us the grace of living in a complete national communion and cooperate fraternally to build a better future for our country and our citizens. Amen."

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Chaldean Catholics in Iraq praying that pope visit will be possible - Union of Catholic Asian News

UPDATE: Iraq production rises in December, capping an OPEC-constrained year – Iraq Oil Report

After a record-setting 2019, annual oil output fell by about 760,000 bpd as Iraq made extraordinary cuts to help support global prices.

The Iraqi Drilling Company completes drilling at the Gharraf oil field, Dec. 6, 2020. (STAFF/Iraq Oil Report)

UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect a new production estimate, which was revised upward based on new reporting.

Iraq's nationwide crude production rose slightly to about 4.05 million barrels per day (bpd) in December, capping a year of OPEC-related constraints that yielded the lowest output since 2015.

Fields managed by the federal government produced about 3.57 million bpd in December an increase of 3 percent compared to November while those under the authority of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) rose slightly to 477,000 bpd, according to an Iraq Oil Report analysis based on data gathered independently from each producing field. *

All sources quoted or referenced spoke to Iraq Oil Report directly and exclusively, unless stated otherwise. Iraq Oil Report typically grants anonymity to sources that can't speak without risking their personal safety or job security. We only publish information from anonymous sources that we independently corroborate and are important to core elements of the story. We do not provide anonymity to sources whose purpose is to further personal or political agendas.

Iraq Oil Report strives to provide thoroughly vetted reporting and fair-minded analysis that enables readers to understand the dynamic events of Iraq. To meet this goal, we always seek to gather first-hand information on the ground, verify facts from multiple angles, and solicit input from every stakeholder involved in a given story.

We view our independence as an integral piece of our competitive advantage. Whereas many media entities in Iraq are owned or heavily influenced by political parties, Iraq Oil Report is wholly owned by several of its employees. In a landscape that is often polarized and politicized, we are able to gather and corroborate information from an unusually wide array of sources because we can speak with all of them in good faith.

To fund this enterprise, Iraq Oil Report depends on revenue from both advertising and subscriptions. Some of our advertisers and subscribers ‐ including companies, governments, and NGOs ‐ are also subjects of our reporting. Consistent with journalistic best practices, Iraq Oil Report maintains a strict firewall that removes business considerations from editorial decision-making. When we are choosing which stories to report and how to write them, our readers always come first.

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UPDATE: Iraq production rises in December, capping an OPEC-constrained year - Iraq Oil Report