US Investigates FAA Outage, No Attack Signs Yet
2026-11-13 / 14:54 Shafaq News- Washington US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on Friday that authorities had found no signs of a deliberate attack behind the communications outage that halted flight departures nationwide.
Speaking at the White House, Mullin explained that some air traffic control communications remained operational, but the outage had placed additional pressure on other parts of the network. He also dismissed a possible connection to an earlier Microsoft services outage, treating the two incidents as separate problems.
President Donald Trump has been briefed on the situation, while Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is coordinating the government’s response. Mullin gave no timeline for resuming flights, warning that restoring normal operations would take time.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the nationwide ground stop on Friday, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns. https://www.shafaq.com/en/World/US-investigates-FAA-outage-no-attack-signs-yet
FAA Halts US Flights Over Communications Issue
2026-11-13 / 13:42 Shafaq News- Washington The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop at US airports on Friday after a communications problem affected air traffic control centers across the country, Transportation Secretary said.
The FAA instructed all departing aircraft to remain grounded until further notice, citing “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” International flights arriving in the US will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Duffy said FAA technicians were investigating the disruption, which affected all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.
X Secretary Sean Duffy @SecDuffy
The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.
The Prime Minister’s Financial Advisor: Salaries, Services, And Payments To Contractors And Farmers Are Among The Top Spending Priorities Amid Oil Revenue Challenges
Baghdad / Iraq Observer The Prime Minister’s Advisor for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, confirmed that the rise in oil prices and the increase in exported quantities contribute to strengthening Iraq’s financial revenues, noting that securing salaries, entitlements and basic services is a priority in managing public spending.
Saleh said that the current circumstances and the repercussions of the geopolitical crises pose challenges to oil exports, which constitute about 90 percent of the general budget revenues, indicating that higher prices and increased export volumes would raise financial returns.
He explained that spending priorities include salaries, wages, pensions and social welfare, in addition to payments to farmers and contractors and basic expenses, including electricity maintenance and municipal services.
He added that covering these obligations from oil revenues requires adopting financial estimates based on the average annual revenues and comparing them to annual expenditures, instead of relying on the revenues of one month, given the variation in oil prices and export quantities from month to month.
Saleh stressed the importance of allocating available revenues according to basic priorities and avoiding resorting to borrowing, emphasizing that managing public finances under the current circumstances represents a test of the country’s ability to reduce losses and maximize returns. https://observeriraq.net/مستشار-رئيس-الوزراء-للشؤون-المالية-ال/
A Mysterious Loan And International Conditions: The World Bank Proposes “Financing” Iraq In Exchange For Three Years Of Economic Reform
Baghdad Today – Baghdad Economic expert Ziad Al-Hashemi announced today (Thursday, November 12, 2026) that the Iraqi Ministry of Finance, during its discussions with the World Bank aimed at obtaining “urgent financing loans” for the Iraqi economy, “has made progress in the discussions.”
Al-Hashemi said, according to a post followed by “Baghdad Today”, that the Iraqi government, which is seeking funding from the World Bank, faced “international conditions” including “implementing an economic reform program that extends for three years in cooperation with the World Bank.”
He continued, “The discussions moved from discussing financial problems in general to developing a medium-term reform framework extending from 2027 to 2029,” adding, “The World Bank has developed a framework for four main priorities: public financial management, private and government banks, controlling money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, in addition to the energy sector and anti-corruption efforts.”
He added, “So far, the Iraqi Ministry of Finance has not explicitly announced the value of the loans or provided explanations for the conditions requested by the World Bank in return,” stressing, “Until now, the value of the loan and the areas in which it will be spent have not been announced.”
The economist expressed doubt about the Iraqi government’s ability to implement the economic reform program requested by the World Bank, stressing that “implementing such programs will deprive the political class of its financial privileges, which can only be maintained by keeping the current economic situation without reforms,” as he described it
A Member Of Parliament Accuses The Government And The Central Bank Of Reneging On Their Promises To Control The Parallel Market
Information/Baghdad… Member of Parliament, Miqdad al-Khafaji, criticized the government and the Central Bank of Iraq on Thursday for reneging on previous promises to take measures to protect citizens from the repercussions of the exchange rate adjustment and to achieve a balance between the official rate and the parallel market rate.
Al-Khafaji told the Information Agency, “The dollar exchange rate in the parallel market has risen again, which has negatively and directly impacted the income of ordinary citizens through the continuous increase in the prices of basic goods and foodstuffs.”
He added, “There is a large gap and a clear widening difference between the official exchange rate and the rate circulating in the parallel market,” addressing the relevant authorities by saying, “Enough with the promises and manipulation of the livelihood of the Iraqi citizen.”
It is worth noting that the government and the Central Bank raised the value of the dollar exchange rate against the Iraqi dinar to 150,000 Iraqi dinars per 100 US dollars, while the exchange rate reached 170,000 dinars. End/25
EXCLUSIVE – Iraq Turns To Trucks To Export Oil In Overland Syrian Route Revival
By Aref Mohammed and Ahmed Rasheed
November 13, 2026 BASRA, Iraq, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Outside a depot near Basra, hundreds of tanker trucks queue to load Iraqi crude oil bound for the Syrian port of Baniyas via an overland desert route which had been largely unused for decades.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, has been working to find alternative export routes for its oil since the Strait of Hormuz, its usual outlet, was disrupted by the Iran war.
Despite higher transportation costs, the overland route has also regained appeal because of an end to years of conflict in Syria, two people close to the matter told Reuters.
Although Iraq exports most of its crude from Gulf terminals, the Syrian route has become a small but strategically significant alternative for moving cargoes of heavy crude.
Since last month, Qatari energy group UCC Holding has been shipping Iraqi crude oil by truck to Baniyas, said Bassem Abdul Karim, director general of state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC).
UCC began shipping 120,000 to 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) under a contract with state oil marketer SOMO, with cargo volumes depending on truck availability, Abdul Karim added.
UCC and SOMO did not respond to requests for comment.
The crude is being trucked to the Mediterranean port of Baniyas from Iraq’s southern oilfields for export to international markets, Abdul Karim added.
UCC already has a fleet of 6,000 trucks which it is expanding to 10,000 for the route, and it currently has around 10,000 drivers, said a person familiar with the deal, adding that about 150,000 barrels are unloaded per day.
“We load crude oil at the Tuba storage facility and transport it to Baniyas, Syria. The round trip, including the return journey to Tuba, takes up to five days,” said Ishaq Mohammed, one of the tanker drivers.
Since the deal took effect on October 26, UCC has loaded about 1.6 million barrels, said Luay Jawad, manager of the Tuba storage facility near Iraq’s southern oil city of Basra.
UCC plans to load between 5 million and 14 million barrels of heavy crude over three months from October 14 at a discount of $38 per barrel, a document reviewed by Reuters showed.
Volumes are unlikely to rise above that level in the near future because of bottlenecks in truck supply and other constraints, the person familiar with the situation said.
The oil is loaded onto ships in Baniyas for delivery to Mediterranean refineries in Greece, Italy and Turkey, among others, the person added.
UCC is entitled to about $12 per barrel to cover trucking and related transportation costs through Syria under the deal.
Iraq produced nearly 4.5 million bpd in October, about half a million barrels more than a month earlier, according to secondary sources cited by OPEC in its latest monthly report.
Iraq Reactivates A Land Route Through Syria To Export Oil To Banias
economy Clock Network Published on: November 13, 2026 Iraq has reactivated a land route through Syrian territory to export crude oil to the port of Banias, in a move aimed at finding alternatives to exporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping traffic has been disrupted due to the war with Iran.
Reuters quoted two informed sources as saying that “Iraq has restarted this route,” while the general manager of the state-owned Basra Oil Company, Bassem Abdul Karim, said that “the Qatari energy group (UCC) Holding began transporting Iraqi crude oil by truck to the port of Banias last month.”
Abdul Karim explained that “the company transports between 120,000 and 150,000 barrels per day, under a contract with the Iraqi Oil Marketing Company (SOMO),” indicating that “the quantities transported depend on the availability of trucks.”