Reports and stories
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A WIDOW’S WOES: At a Basra market, female household heads eke out a living
Um Falah is uncertain exactly how old she is. Quite possibly, she is almost 70 years old, she suggests. But…
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MEETING UM JASSEM: An icon of the dried fish trade
Winter is just around the corner, and Um Jassem is busy selling the traditional Iraqi dried fish known as “masmouta”.…
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ARMS RACE: Iraqi tribes using heavy weapons in local conflicts
Last May, just as the Ramadan holiday was about to end, all hell broke loose in the Ur district of…
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TEARS OF A CLOWN: Meeting the only, lonely clown of Basra
Basra’s only clown paints his face, jiggling in front of the mirror. Ali Sabah is almost 30 and he’s been…
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SLOW START: Iraq’s election campaigns hampered by postponement fears, harassment
The Iraqi elections are fast approaching – they’re due to be held on October 10. But campaigning by Iraqi candidates…
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HEAVEN’S LANGUAGE AT RISK: Once there were 500, but now only 50 Iraqis still speak Mandaic
Osama Karim fears that the Mandaic language will have completely disappeared from Iraq before he can learn it. There are…
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NON-TRADITIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A spate of murders, where wives killed their husbands, makes headlines in Nasiriyah
On the last day of his life, Firas Shalaan’s relationship with his wife seemed completely normal. The couple had gone…
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JUSTICE DONE? Yazidi survivors discuss their new compensation law
On August 10, 2017, a unit of the Iraqi army raided a house in the northern city of Mosul. It…
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TO POLITIC OR NOT TO POLITIC: That is the question Iraq’s anti-government protesters are asking now
There may be as many as 60 political parties competing in Iraq’s upcoming federal elections, all of which want to…
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4,500 YEARS OLD: Once the equivalent of today’s latest Playstation offerings, this ancient Iraqi game is making a comeback
Archaeologist Amer Abdul-Razaq, who is also director of his local museum in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, is gathering…
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