Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...picture of a genial Tom Cruise hangs above the door to the King beauty parlor in downtown Basra. For more than a decade, Sameer Abdalhadi has been snipping and shaving and primping in the cramped salon with its display case of Dr. James Freckle and Acne Soap and Muscular Man perfume. On this February afternoon, he has given street vendor Mustafa Abdalsada a modish en brosse haircut and shaved his beard, leaving just a hint of designer stubble. Local men tend to cultivate beards or luxuriant mustaches of the kind that make even despots look avuncular, but Abdalhadi encourages...
...challenge to remake Basra is daunting. Caught in the cross fire of the Iran-Iraq war and Iraq's occupation and retreat from Kuwait, brutally punished for uprisings against Saddam Hussein only to see his tyranny give way to the mob rule of Shi'ite militias, both the city and province of Basra have sustained deep wounds over almost 30 years. British forces and government agencies based in Basra after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion became a magnet for militia attacks and struggled to deliver on promises of reconstruction and development. But in March 2008, the Iraqi army launched...
...probably being wildly over the top, but I do find this an incredibly encouraging place to be right now," says Nigel Haywood, Britain's consul general in Basra. The transformation from battleground to bustling municipality has been so rapid that it's natural to question whether a return to violence might not be as swift. Major General Andy Salmon, the commander of the multinational forces in the region, believes that widespread optimism - among Basrawis as well as their soon-to-depart overlords - is justified and itself a force for change. His mission, he says, has been "to protect that optimism...
Provincial balloting in southern Iraq on Jan. 31 will probably reveal how much life remains in the Sadrist movement. If candidates tied to the movement fail to make a decent showing in cities such as Basra, Amarah, Najaf and Karbala, the Sadrists' only official political power will be in the Iraqi parliament, where they hold 28 of 275 seats...
...Still, Iraqis who despise the U.S. leader for waging war on their country will no doubt applaud al-Zaidi's rapid-fire gesture. On Monday, demonstrators rallied in support of the Shi'ite journalist in Baghdad's Sadr City slum and also in the southern Shi'ite bastions of Basra and Najaf. Already jokes are going around that shoe companies are now offering the assailant a lifetime supply of footwear. He may have missed his mark, but he certainly made a point...