A proposal by Iraq's finance minister to reduce the enormous fuel and food subsidies that consume roughly a third of the government's budget and largely crush economic growth has been rejected by the cabinet after a recent similar move in Yemen set off fatal riots there. The subsidies, which artificially produce some of the lowest gasoline and heating fuel prices in the world and finance free basic foodstuffs, have been singled out by financial institutions both inside and outside Iraq as a crippling burden when the country is trying to create a free-market economy as it grapples with insurgent violence...
