Iraq plans bond sale worth $2 billion

Iraq's finance ministry will sell $2 billion worth of bonds on international markets to help plug a gap in its budget in 2017, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said on Tuesday. The Iraqi government, which relies almost exclusively on oil income, has struggled to pay its bills since global crude prices dropped in 2014, the same year that Islamic State militants seized a third of the country's territory.