I’m at the annual conference on world affairs in Boulder, Colorado, which sounds very grand but is basically a piss-up with speeches.
Ethnic militants vowed to prevent voting Saturday in a broad swathe of Nigeria’s oil delta during legislative elections that pose a test for civilian rule in Africa’s most populous nation.
Britain and the United States have bypassed the United Nations to establish a secret team of inspectors to resume the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
A meeting of Iraqis to discuss the formation of an interim government will take place in the southern city of Nassiriya on Tuesday, the US announced yesterday, as lawlessness and celebrations spread throughout northern Iraq.
By the time Asif Mohammed turned up for work yesterday morning, the ancient contents of Mosul’s museum had vanished. The looters knew what they were looking for, and in less than 10 minutes had walked off with several million dollars worth of Parthian sculpture.
The emerging US administration in Baghdad intends to use screened members of Saddam Hussein’s municipal police force to keep order in the capital, in a move reminiscent of the allies’ use of Japanese troops to maintain peace after Tokyo’s surrender at the end of the second world war.
At first, the scene seemed like a familiar one from Baghdad in April 2003; an enormous ruined government building in grand grounds, windows smashed in, all looted out, documents scattered over the flowerbeds.
The man had been dumped near the rubbish bins at the back, blood spreading across his chequered shirt. An orderly, who had been burying bloated corpses in a mass grave in the hospital grounds, recited the Muslim last rites.
Dear Mr Da Vinci
<i>Re: Your application for National Arts Council funding for proposed Wall Painting Project “The Last Supper”</i>
It would be a grave mistake to view the scenes of rejoicing in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein as a post hoc sanctification of the United States’s criminal invasion of Iraq.