Benoy and Foster’s join Iraq delegation - Building Design

Members of staff from Benoy and Foster & Partners joined Peter Mandelson on the first British business delegation to Iraq in more than 20 years on Monday.

The business secretary took delegates from 23 companies — including the two architectural practices, as well as firms in the healthcare, construction, transport, power, oil and gas, water, banking and security sectors — on a one-day visit to Baghdad and Basra to drum up business.

As part of a longer tour of the region by the delegation, the visitors met Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and other ministers and officials.

Mandelson said: “Iraq today is a place of opportunity. Britain will stand by Iraq in peace as we have in conflict to help Iraqis realise that opportunity.

“The size and seniority of the delegation reflects the importance British government and British business place in Iraq and its people. British expertise and skills can play an important role in the development of the Iraq economy.”

A Foster’s spokeswoman said: “One of our senior architects is visiting Iraq as part of the formal business delegation. It is essentially a networking opportunity.”

Direct flights to Baghdad revived - Times

Anyone in Britain planning a trip to Iraq will be able to fly there directly as early as next month after Baghdad asked London to reopen the once-popular route, closed for almost two decades because of war and sanctions.

At present, Iraq-bound travellers must hop to one of a handful of capitals, most commonly Amman or Dubai, before flying on to Baghdad, but a British-Iraqi working group is exploring the possibility of re-launching direct flights between the two countries.

“I give full permission [for flights to resume] from the Iraqi side and I wait the answer from the British side,” Amer AbdulJabbar Ismail, the Iraqi Transport Minister, told The Times yesterday in an interview at his Baghdad office.

“I am expecting within the month to get the permission.” Over the past week, Iraq revived routes to Athens, Stockholm and Copenhagen. The Transport Ministry is also in talks with the German and Indian aviation authorities to start flights between Frankfurt and Baghdad as well as to Bombay.

Daily flights resumed between Baghdad and Amman in 2004. There are also regular planes shuttling back and forth to Tehran, Beirut, Dubai and Istanbul. Further in the future, Iraq hopes to run flights to the US city of Detroit.

Mr Ismail said it was important to restart the London route because Britain is an important country and many Iraqis reside there.

In addition, “Britain took part in liberating Iraq, now they want to invest in Basra therefore we are encouraged to talk to Britain”, he said, speaking in English.

Further enhancing ties between the two countries, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, is planning a trip to London towards the end of the month to meet with Gordon Brown and to attend a conference on investment in Iraq. It will be the first visit to London by Mr Maliki since February 2008, when he came for a second round of medical tests. Medical matters are not on the cards this time.

The Transport Minister will be among a group of about 10 ministers travelling with Mr Maliki. He hopes to use the trip to seal the deal to revive the London-Baghdad route. Iraqi Airways, the national carrier, is geared up to make the trip, while it will also be open to any other international airline flying out of London.

UN sanctions imposed on the former regime of Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait in 1990 included a ban on all flights going to and from Iraq. Departure and arrival boards, listing flights to destinations such as London, Tokyo and Moscow, stood frozen in time until a year after the 2003 invasion when the airport was reopened to the public.

Deborah Haynes

New flights were slow to materialise, however, because of the insurgency that raged in the following years. The few commercial planes that used Baghdad airport had to perform corkscrew take-offs and landings to limit the risk of being hit by a surface-to-air missile or rocket propelled grenade.

A drop in the violence since 2007 has been matched by an increase in destinations accessible from Iraq. British planes have been able to fly over the country since last month in a sign of this renewed confidence.

In a further indication of normality returning, the flight information boards at Baghdad International Airport flicked back to life earlier this week, once again displaying flight destinations, departure times and arrival times.

“I feel very happy,” the Transport Minister said.

Iraq to say it with flowers at Baghdad festival

Iraq unveiled on Tuesday ambitious plans for an international flower exhibition, the first in the country's history, to be held in Baghdad's biggest park next month.

"We have invited French and European companies and a number of Arab and regional states to the festival," municipal council spokesman Hakim Abdel Zahra said of the event, which will have both a cultural and a commercial objective.

"We chose April because it is the month when everyone celebrates spring and when life is reborn," he said. "For us it corresponds with an improvement in the security situation, and we want the world to be a witness."

The week-long festival will start on April 15, and a main stage and exhibition stands are being built at Zawra Park in central Baghdad.

"Baghdad is doing a great job to create a ceremony that includes the work of Arab, Islamic, and European countries, as well as the Iraqi provinces," Zahra said, noting that better security would hopefully help draw foreign companies seeking Iraqi clients and local crowds.

"The security situation is good, and the municipality will cooperate with the security forces to provide necessary security measures," he said.

During the bombing of Baghdad in the 2003 US-led invasion, Baghdadis commonly visited flower-sellers and nurseries to buy flowers and small garden plants to be left as symbols of their life, were they to be killed.

Zawra Park reopened last July, more than five years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. It features a zoo, swimming pool and a promenade which is particularly popular during religious and national holidays.

After Saddam & bombs, Iraqi band rockin' in USA

The band Acrassicauda is rockin' in the free world, but how they got here is an immigrant song of a different type.

After avoiding Saddam Hussein's secret police, enduring the bombing of their practice space, dodging death threats and navigating sectarian warfare in their native land, four Iraqi musicians who wanted nothing more than to rock 'n' roll all night are living in New Jersey, pursuing their dreams of heavy metal stardom.

Tales of bands struggling through hard times and overcoming obstacles to stardom are as old as rock 'n' roll itself. But Acrassicauda, named after a species of black scorpion, has had a harder time than most.

"A lot of heavy metal bands talk and sing about war and death and destruction, but they haven't experienced it," said bass player Firas al-Lateef. "We have."

After three years living as refugees in Syria and Turkey - and putting their survival ahead of their rock star dreams - the band is in America. They live in a small apartment with little more than some fold-out beds and a couple of chairs, doing the things many wannabe rock stars do: looking for jobs and women, not necessarily in that order.

"We're still in the process of figuring it all out," said drummer Marwan Riyadh, 24. "But we feel real optimistic about things. We're trying to fit in with a new culture and a new society and absorbing what's all around us. Our heads are spinning."

Acrassicauda (pronounced ah-crass-ih-COW'-dah) was formed in 2000 when Riyadh and guitarist and lead vocalist Faisal Talal met lead guitarist Tony Aziz, 30, in a Baghdad school where they were studying fine arts.

In between lessons, they realized they shared a love of heavy metal.

They joined with al-Lateef, 27, and played their first concert two months later before about 300 fans in a small Baghdad club. The city has a tiny heavy metal subculture that listened to cassettes by Metallica, Iron Maiden, Opeth, Slipknot and Savatage, purchased surreptitiously from the back of stores displaying Arabic music on the shelves.

Trouble soon followed. Saddam's secret police was seemingly everywhere, and grew suspicious when bands sang in English or languages other than Arabic, said the 25-year-old Talal.

"Our friends warned us this would happen, and they were right," he said. "They suggested we translate our lyrics into Arabic because the secret police would ask for it, and they did."

Though Acrassicauda's music deals with war and suffering, the band took pains to keep it apolitical, singing of injustices in a general sense in songs like "Between The Ashes" and "Massacre."

"It's like speaking about the killing of innocent children, but it doesn't have to be in your own country, or any particular country," Talal said.

When the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein in April 2003, music took a back seat to staying alive.

"We didn't expect to survive," Talal said. "During war, it's stay home, lock your door and stay indoors as much as you can. Missiles and bullets were coming down from the sky. It was always red outside."

Added Riyadh, "We spent nights when we didn't know if we would wake up the next morning."
Aziz's house was destroyed in the fighting, but he and his family weren't in it at the time and survived.

Once Hussein was toppled and fighting subsided in and around Baghdad, the band regrouped in January 2004, playing a show for 50 to 60 people at a place called the Hindia Club.

But the insurgency was gaining strength, and a different kind of danger was taking hold. Their next show attracted only five people.

Brits Out Of Iraq By The Summer - Sky News

Final negotiations are under way with the Iraqi government, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to make an announcement by Christmas.

Iraq is pressing for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and is in talks with the Americans about their role once the United Nations mandate expires at the end of this year.

British forces have been based in the south of the country since the invasion in 2003.
The situation has changed dramatically in Basra since the Iraqi government took on the local militias earlier this year. As a result, the British presence in Basra could be all but over by next summer.

Douglas Alexander in Basra

Britain's International Development Minister, Douglas Alexander, is here flying the British flag.

He told me: "We'll continue to work closely with the government of Iraq but we will see a significant drawdown of British troops as a recognition of the progress and success that's been enjoyed here in Basra….

"We are looking ahead to the first half of 2009 but our focus on the moment is securing the possibility that I've seen today which is for further jobs, further investment, further prosperity."
More immediately, it is believed the process of handing over Basra airport and airspace to the Iraqis will begin within weeks. And American forces will soon take over camp security.

It is also thought that large security projects will be taken over by the Iraqis and Americans, working together.

Major James Gasson-Hargraves, the commander here, says the Iraqis are eager to take control.
"The reality is they are the sheriffs of this town, they own it. The townspeople come to them with their issues, not to me. I'm merely here in the background as support and the Iraqis are on top of where they're going."

Back in March, the Iraqi government's so-called 'charge of the knights campaign' to clear out the militias that had taken over the city was the catalyst for change.

It also convinced some in Baghdad that the British forces were dispensable.

Five years after their arrival here the end game is now being played out.

Read the full report and more on Sky News