Youth-into-work scheme at Khor Az Zubayr

Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Prentice, was in Basra this week to visit the Khor Az Zubayr VOTEC, a new youth-into-work scheme aimed at tackling the high levels of unemployment amongst the city's young people.

The Basra Development Commission has masterminded the project with 50 local employers. Up to 500 trainees aged 16 to 30 will start vocational courses in October at three colleges that are being supported by the city's private sector.

In time it is expected that each of the colleges will take between 3 to 4,000 trainees a year. The UK Government is providing funding of £250,000 to help the scheme get off the ground.

Basra port receives 3 cargo ships

Basra's port of Khour al-Zubeir received three ships with varied cargos on Wednesday. Two of the ship were from Sierra Leone and one from Korea.

Basra, 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has five commercial ports and two oil ports: al-Maaqal, established in 1916 by the British forces and handed over to Iraqi authorities in 1937; and Faw, a small port on the al-Faw Peninsula near the Shatt al-Arab and the Persian Gulf.

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