Tag Archives: Iraq

Daviegunn/Wikimedia commons Zena Kamash, Royal Holloway London, Paris and New York are global cities: modern hubs for travel, technology and trade, their names and images echo around the globe, capturing our imaginations with their distinctive histories, famous residents and iconic landmarks. Cities, such as these, which connect with the wider world become mixing pots for a rich interplay of diverse …

Johan Franzen, University of East Anglia Following his capture by American troops, Saddam Hussein made a startling admission to George Piro, the FBI investigator tasked with interrogating him. The reason he had played cat and mouse with UN weapons inspectors for over a decade was not because he was trying to hide Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction from …

Andrew G Jones, Coventry University A US strike which killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in January, and the counter-strike by the Iranian military on US targets in Iraq, raised serious questions about the legitimate use of force. When military force was used against targets within its territory, Iraq’s sovereignty was breached. As a country caught in the middle …

Jane Draycott, University of Glasgow We are living through an incredibly exciting period for prosthetics. A pioneering brain computer interface that will allow veterans to control artificial body parts with their minds was recently announced by researchers in Virginia in the US. Meanwhile, Newcastle University in the UK is developing limbs which “see” objects in front of them and react …

Gebhard Fugel, ‘An den Wassern Babylons.’ Gebhard Fugel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons David W. Stowe, Michigan State University At sundown on July 29, Jews around the world will observe Tisha B’av, the most somber of Jewish holidays. It commemorates the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem, first by the Babylonians and then, almost seven centuries later, in A.D. …

Balsam Mustafa, University of Birmingham When Muhanad Habib, a 22-year-old Iraqi from the Sadr City district of Baghdad, posted on Facebook in late September, he probably didn’t imagine that his demands for a better life and basic rights would be met with bullets. It will be a huge and angry public revolution in Baghdad … We will take to the …

A 1932 photograph showing the minaret of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, Mosul. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Stephennie Mulder, University of Texas at Austin On Yom Kippur each year, as Jews around the world pray for atonement, the biblical Book of Jonah is read in its entirety. Jews recall the story of how God summons …

Diplomacy has provided a solution for how countries in conflict can communicate. Shutterstock/cybrain Klaus W. Larres, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Even countries that have broken ties with each other need to communicate in times of crisis and war. That includes the U.S. and Iran, which have not had an official way to talk directly to each other …

Craig Barker, University of Sydney On April 10 2003, the first looters broke into the National Museum of Iraq. Staff had vacated two days earlier, ahead of the advance of US forces on Baghdad. The museum was effectively ransacked for the next 36 hours until employees returned. The National Museum of Iraq in the wake of looting in 2003. Jamal …

shutterstock. gvictoria via Shutterstock Ahmed F Khaleel, University of York The British “Mesopotamian Campaign” of World War I took almost three years to get to Baghdad – and the occupying force faced many challenges once it arrived. In fact, Britain’s overwhelming predominance over Iraq from 1917 to 1947 was a time of rough and violent political and economic “communication”. But …