Russian revolutionaries and rebellious teenagers were the big hits at the Tony Awards on Sunday when Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of the Utopia and the rock musical Spring Awakening took home the top honours. Stoppard’s epic trilogy won seven of the awards given for Broadway productions and performances, including best play and director.
Never had time to read Moby Dick and want something weightier than spam to read on your Blackberry on the way to work? A new website is offering to send classic books in bite-size installments to your handheld device or e-mail every morning before you go to work, or whenever you want, for free.
More than 1 000 United States and Iraqi troops launched a pivotal incursion into a Shi’ite militia bastion in Baghdad on Sunday, meeting no resistance as they searched homes for illegal weapons and carried out patrols. A US military statement said 600 American and 550 Iraqi security forces backed by American Stryker armoured vehicles took part in the operation.
At least 14 Iraqi police officers have gone missing and an al Qaeda-linked group on Friday showed pictures of 18 men it said had been kidnapped to avenge the alleged rape of a woman last month. The al Qaeda-linked group said in an internet statement it had kidnapped 18 men working for the Interior Ministry in Diyala province, north of Baghdad.
No image available
/ 2 February 2007
Six months after the United States invasion of Iraq, Esam Pasha, a 30-year-old Iraqi artist and writer, proudly painted a mural called Resilience over a giant portrait of Saddam Hussein on the wall of a government building. Now he lives in the US. Pasha is among hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been driven abroad since the war whose skills Iraq can ill afford to lose.
No image available
/ 23 January 2007
A United Nations envoy said on Tuesday Iraq was sliding ”into the abyss of sectarianism” and urged Iraqi political and religious leaders to halt the violence after two car bombs in a Baghdad market killed 88 people. Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the car bombs on followers of Saddam Hussein.
No image available
/ 16 January 2007
The United Nations said more than 34Â 000 Iraqi civilians were killed in violence last year, although the number decreased slightly in the last two months compared with September and October. The UN human rights chief in Iraq, Gianni Magazzeni, told a news conference on Tuesday that 34Â 452 civilians were killed and more than 36Â 000 wounded in 2006.
United States and Iraqi forces killed 50 people on Tuesday in raids on a Sunni Arab district they described as riddled with ”terrorist hideouts” and a hotbed of insurgent activity by foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Defence Ministry spokesperson Major General Ibrahim Shakir said 50 had been killed and 21 people arrested in the operation around Haifa Street.
No image available
/ 30 December 2006
Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn on Saturday, a dramatic end for a leader who ruled Iraq by fear for three decades before a United States invasion toppled him and was then convicted of crimes against humanity. As day broke on one of the holiest days of the Muslim year, officially-backed television channels flashed the news shortly after 6am.
No image available
/ 15 November 2006
A day after a mass kidnap from a Baghdad ministry raised fears Iraq’s sectarian militias are out of control, government leaders gave sharply differing accounts on Wednesday of whether dozens of hostages were still missing. The minister whose staff were targeted said up to 80 were still unaccounted for, possibly held by Shi’ite militia.