BAGHDAD // Iraq officially kicked off the election campaign season today, just hours after an appeals panel banned a number of candidates from running in the nationwide vote next month.
Campaign posters were plastered across Baghdad and other cities by early this morning, urging people to go to the polls. In Basra, one poster read: "Your city needs someone who knows what Basra needs."
But in a move that was likely to raise tensions between the Shiite-led government and Sunnis who claim they are politically undermined, an appeals panel late last night cleared only 28 candidates out of the hundreds blacklisted over suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime.
Mudhafar al Battat, a spokesman for the government-backed Accountability and Justice Committee, which was given the task of weeding out hardcore supporters of Saddam's outlawed Baath party, said: "The appeals were accepted either because of similarity of names or because there was not enough evidence against them." Mr al Battat declined to identify those candidates barred from the election.
Ali al Lami, head of the committee that drafted the blacklist, said he had been informed by the appeals panel of its decision to bar Saleh al Mutlaq and Dhafir al Ani, the most prominent Sunni politicians. Mr Al Mutlaq, a fierce critic of Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, has acknowledged that he was a Baathist until the late 1970s but quit the party. Mr al Ani took the helm of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament after its moderate leader, Harith al Obeidi, was assassinated in June 2009.
A number of those candidates blacklisted were either replaced by their party or dropped out of the election altogether. Within hours of the decision, campaign posters in Baghdad were plastered across concrete blast walls that double as makeshift billboards, a practice that has become popular in Iraq in recent years. The start of campaigning had been postponed by more than a week to give the panel time to investigate the appeals of candidates on the blacklist.
Many candidates, including Mr al Maliki, were forced to remove campaign posters earlier this week after they were put up before the official campaign period began.
*AP
Previous men's records
- 2:01:39: Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) on 16/9/19 in Berlin
- 2:02:57: Dennis Kimetto (KEN) on 28/09/2014 in Berlin
- 2:03:23: Wilson Kipsang (KEN) on 29/09/2013 in Berlin
- 2:03:38: Patrick Makau (KEN) on 25/09/2011 in Berlin
- 2:03:59: Haile Gebreselassie (ETH) on 28/09/2008 in Berlin
- 2:04:26: Haile Gebreselassie (ETH) on 30/09/2007 in Berlin
- 2:04:55: Paul Tergat (KEN) on 28/09/2003 in Berlin
- 2:05:38: Khalid Khannouchi (USA) 14/04/2002 in London
- 2:05:42: Khalid Khannouchi (USA) 24/10/1999 in Chicago
- 2:06:05: Ronaldo da Costa (BRA) 20/09/1998 in Berlin
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
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Veil (Object Lessons)
Rafia Zakaria
Bloomsbury Academic
The specs: 2017 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali
Price, base / as tested Dh207,846 / Dh220,000
Engine 6.2L V8
Transmission Eight-speed automatic
Power 420hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque 624Nm @ 4,100rpm
Fuel economy, combined 13.5L / 100km
Mountain%20Boy
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Name: Brendalle Belaza
From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines
Arrived in the UAE: 2007
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus
Favourite photography style: Street photography
Favourite book: Harry Potter
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