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US finally returns looted relics to Iraq’s museum
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has ordered the reopening of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, after some 17,000 looted artefacts were recovered from the US. “With the return of 17,000 Iraqi artefacts, I ordered the reopening of the Iraq Museum to the public and researchers,” al-Kadhimi said in a tweet. On Wednesday, Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Hassan Nadhim said in a statement that the retrieved tablets date back to 4,500 years ago and bear cuneiform inscriptions documenting the trade exchanges during the Sumerian civili…
17,000 ancient looted artifacts returned to Iraq
Iraqi historian Abdullah Khorsheed Qader has been working in the field of archaeology since 2000, when he started his master's degree at the Salah-al-Din University in Erbil, northern Iraq, and where he went on to become a professor at the university's department of archaeology. As a scholar and the director of the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage, Qader is elated his country will get back its ancient treasures from the US. "Feeling great and hopeful because of the positive responses from the Unite…
US returns 17,000 looted Iraq archaeological treasures
The United States will return to Iraq some 17,000 archaeological treasures dating back 4,000 years and looted in recent decades, an "unprecedented" restitution, the culture minister in Baghdad revealed. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi was set to take back the artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia on his aircraft, when he returned on Thursday from Washington where he met US President Joe Biden. "This is the largest return of antiquities to Iraq," said Iraqi Culture Minister Hassan Nazim, hailing it as "the result…
Iraqi-Jewish fusion kitchen shares stories and culture through food
The Awafi Kitchen , a Boston-based popup-kitchen, is combining Jewish and Iraqi cuisines to create historically rich and culturally significant food. Founded in 2017, Awafi kitchen functions as a space to share traditions and stories of Jewish and non-Jewish Iraqis. “We saw an under-representation of Iraqi food so wanted to share our family story and recipes with others,” owner Anabel Rabiyah told the Food Tank website. The kitchen launched its first popup event in Boston at Mamaleh’s Delicatessen which offers modern renditions of tradition…
RNLI defends crews’ work rescuing refugees in the English Channel
THE head of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute has defended lifeboat crews’ work rescuing refugees in the Channel after volunteers reported being heckled by mobs. Britain’s leading sea rescue charity has come under attack in recent months after former Ukip leader Nigel Farage branded it a “migrant taxi service” and the Daily Mail highlighted the RNLI’s humanitarian work in an article purporting to expose “migrant madness.” An RNLI London crew hit out on social media last weekend after volunteers were verbally abused while entering their …
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival returns for its longest run yet
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) , the UK’s longest-running festival of Arab arts and culture, has returned for its 23rd edition with a multi-artform programme of live and online events. This year’s festival is an artist-led response to the complexities of the climate emergency in the Middle East and North African region today. Programme director Jack Welsh told The National that the team had been struck by the variety of issues addressed under the theme. “It's such a complex array of factors and countries are often dealing with the i…
U.S. bishops say Refugee Olympic Team a reminder human race is ‘family’
Behind Greece in the Olympics parade of nations on Friday was a team of athletes from 11 different nations with allegiances to none, instead representing the 26.4 million refugees worldwide. The Tokyo 2020 iteration of the Refugee Olympic Team (EOR) has 29 athletes, compared to 10 athletes at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016. They hail from 11 countries: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Congo, Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela. The events they’re a part of include athletics, badminton, boxing, flatwater kay…
Wessam Salamana is fighting to represent refugees everywhere at Tokyo 2020
Wessam Salamana is a Syrian-born Olympian boxer who trains in Saarbrücken, Germany, with the support of an IOC Refugee Athlete Scholarship. Salamana fought at the London 2012 Olympic Games under the Syrian flag but in 2015 escaped the insecurity of a war with his wife and two children, determined to continue his boxing career and fight at Tokyo 2020 with the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. At London 2012 he was defeated in the -63kg (bantamweight) heats by Kazakh fighter Kanat Abutalipov and four years later when he might have had another chance, …
How a young Iraqi programmer tried to adapt Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving hero story
The world's oldest surviving work of literature begins and ends with a wall: the rampart of Uruk-the-Sheepfold, great city of ancient Mesopotamia. "View its parapet that none could copy!" reads Andrew George's English translation. "Take the stairway of a bygone era". Uruk's wall is the crowning achievement of Gilgamesh, warrior-king, wanderer and cosmic nuisance. When we meet him in the poem he is terrorising his own subjects, brawling and womanising like only a 17-foot-tall demigod can. So the gods make Gilgame…
