naturalfeature:tigris

Hasankeyf, a unique heritage site, soon to be submerged-Kedistan
▻http://www.kedistan.net/2017/09/18/hasankeyf-a-unique-heritage-site-soon-to-be-submerged

@Ad Nauseam - The building of a dam in Ilisu has been under consideration for over sixty years now, with the official goal stated as soil improvement and water resources for the Tigris valley. And for several years, work has been carried out on the quiet, with no information provided to the public. It must (...)

#Kedistan / #Mediarezo

Mosul’s Library Without Books - The New Yorker
▻http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mosuls-library-without-books

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Wright-Mosul-Library-1200x630-1497278326.jpg

I could smell the acrid soot a block away. The library at the University of Mosul, among the finest in the Middle East, once had a million books, historic maps, and old manuscripts. Some dated back centuries, even a millennium, Mohammed Jasim, the library’s director, told me. Among its prize acquisitions was a Quran from the ninth century, although the library also housed thousands of twenty-first-century volumes on science, philosophy, law, world history, literature, and the arts. Six hundred thousand books were in Arabic; many of the rest were in English. During the thirty-two months that the Islamic State ruled the city, the university campus, on tree-lined grounds near the Tigris River, was gradually closed down and then torched. Quite intentionally, the library was hardest hit. ISIS sought to kill the ideas within its walls—or at least the access to them.

Despite enduring dictators, an extremist rampage that reconfigured Iraq’s borders, and three long wars over the course of four decades, Iraqis are known for their intellectual curiosity and literacy. There’s a famous saying in the Middle East: “Books are written in Egypt, printed in Lebanon, and read in Iraq.” For centuries, private home libraries were considered a sign of class. After the University of Mosul was founded, in 1967, sixty of the city’s largest private libraries donated their historic collections to the new campus library, Jasim told me. Those volumes are all gone now, too.

ISIS had already destroyed Mosul’s central library, the other major resource center in Iraq’s second-largest city, which was once a cosmopolitan melting pot of disparate religions and ethnicities. Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, called it “the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people. Burning books is an attack on the culture, knowledge and memory.”

#Bibliothèques #Irak #Mossoul #Guerre #Obscurantisme

.:Middle East Online:: :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=82640

Nearly half a million people have fled their homes since Iraqi forces launched an operation to wrest Mosul back from jihadists exactly six months ago, the United Nations said Monday.

Iraqi forces began the country’s biggest military operation in years on October 17 last year and recaptured the east side of the city in January.

But an assault launched the following month on the part of Mosul that lies west of the Tigris river has seen a sharp rise in displacement.

“The sheer volume of civilians still fleeing Mosul city is staggering,” Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement.

Surtout, ne pas comparer avec Alep...

A dream for Baghdad | Thinkpiece | Architectural Review

▻http://www.architectural-review.com/archive/viewpoints/a-dream-for-baghdad/10007004.article?blocktitle=Reviews-and-Interviews&contentID=1

http://www.architectural-review.com/pictures/2000x2000fit/1/6/2/3023162_Abu-Nuwas-Water-Garden-Scheme.jpg

Arthur Erickson’s 40-year-old plan to revive Abu Nuwas to its former glory has yet to come to fruition

Abu Nuwas, Baghdad’s once grand riverside boulevard, has weathered Iraq’s changing fortunes. It began life as an 18th-century embankment, a bulwark against flooding from the Tigris, but as Baghdad grew beyond its old city walls in the early 20th century, its prominence increased as a pedestrian thoroughfare. Around the time of Iraqi independence, it became one of the first roads for motor vehicles and eventually a popular picnic area in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as a riverfront idyll for the wealthy and their villas. The 1950s – both during the monarchy and after the 1958 revolution – marked its golden age as an entertainment and recreational hub, with families gathering at riverside cafés and swimming clubs. It was a centre for fun that would have inspired its eighth-century poet namesake, whose libidinous verse celebrated life’s pleasures.

#wishfull_thinking

Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1m people | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/02/mosul-dam-engineers-warn-it-could-fail-at-any-time-killing-1m-people

Iraqi engineers involved in building the Mosul dam 30 years ago have warned that the risk of its imminent collapse and the consequent death toll could be even worse than reported.

They pointed out that pressure on the dam’s compromised structure was building up rapidly as winter snows melted and more water flowed into the reservoir, bringing it up to its maximum capacity (...)

The engineers warned that potential loss of life from a sudden catastrophic collapse of the Mosul dam could be even greater than the 500,000 officially estimated, as they said many people could die in the resulting mass panic, with a 20-metre-high flood wave hitting the city of Mosul and then rolling on down the Tigris valley through Tikrit and Samarra to Baghdad.

One of the Iraqi engineers, now living in Europe, described as “ridiculous” the Iraqi government’s emergency policy of telling local people to move 6km (3.5 miles) from the river banks.

#guerre #infrastructures #barrage #catastrophe_annoncée #Irak #it_has_begun

De plus en plus de réfugiés irakiens rentrent au pays, déçus par l’Europe | euronews, monde
▻http://fr.euronews.com/2016/01/28/de-plus-en-plus-de-refugies-irakiens-rentrent-au-pays-decus-par-l-europ

Depuis quelques semaines, le phénomène prend de l’ampleur à tel point que de nombreuses compagnies organisent des vols spéciaux pour ramener les réfugiés irakiens. C’est le cas de la compagnie aérienne Iraqi Airways à l’aéroport de Berlin. “Nous avons trois vols par semaine explique une salariée de la compagnie et environ 100 réfugiés par semaine. Leur nombre augmente de façon continue ; cela a commencé en septembre dernier et leur nombre ne cesse d’augmenter.”

Près de 30.000 Irakiens ont demandé l’asile en Allemagne en 2015. Le nombre d’entre eux choisissant de faire le voyage de retour est en constante augmentation depuis l’automne.

#irak #réfugiés

A Rogue State Along Two Rivers - The New York Times

▻http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/03/world/middleeast/syria-iraq-isis-rogue-state-along-two-rivers.html?_r=0

A Rogue State Along Two Rivers
How ISIS Came to Control Large Portions of Syria and Iraq

By JEREMY ASHKENAS, ARCHIE TSE, DEREK WATKINS and KAREN YOURISH July 3, 2014

The militant group called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seemed to surprise many American and Iraqi officials with the recent gains it made in its violent campaign to create a new religious state. But the rapid-fire victories achieved over a few weeks in June were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

#syrie #irak #fleuves #tigres #euphrate

Via Joshua Landis,

Water-Shortage Crisis Escalating in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin
▻http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publications/food-and-water-crises/678-water-shortage-crisis-escalating-in-the-tigris-euphrates-ba

Key Points
– Since 1975, Turkey’s extensive dam and hydropower construction has reportedly reduced water flows into Iraq and Syria by approximately 80 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.
– Approximately 90 per cent of the water flow in the Euphrates and 50 per cent in the Tigris originate in Turkey.
– Low flow rates in Iraq have allowed salt water to infiltrate nearly 150km inland from the Persian Gulf.
– Lack of international agreement is hampering progress on a deal between Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
– Turkey has accused Iraq of poor water management practices, which, it says, are exacerbating Iraq’s water crisis.
– Tensions between these countries remain high because of the issue of water management.

Dropping of Euphrates River Water Level Threatening thousands of residents
▻http://sn4hr.org/blog/2014/06/25/dropping-of-euphrates-river-water-level-threatening-thousands-of-residents

#Tigre #Euphrate #Turquie #Syrie #Irak #eau