Day: April 23, 2022

Verdant landscapes, stylized portraits of peasant women, curved sculptures — an exhibition in Baghdad is allowing art aficionados to rediscover the pioneers of contemporary Iraqi art.

Around 100 items are on display in the capital, returned and restored nearly two decades after they were looted.

Many of the works, including pieces by renowned artists Jawad Selim and Fayiq Hassan, disappeared in 2003 when museums and other institutions were pillaged in the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of pieces were stolen, and organized criminal networks often sold them outside Iraq.

Tracked down in Switzerland, the U.S., Qatar and neighboring Jordan, sculptures and paintings dating between the 1940s and 1960s have been on display since late March at the Ministry of Culture, in a vast room that used to serve as a restaurant.

“These works are part of the history of contemporary art in Iraq,” ministry official Fakher Mohamed said.

Artistic renaissance

Pictures and sculptures were in 2003 spirited away from the Saddam Arts Centre, one of Baghdad’s most prestigious cultural venues at the time.

While he crushed all political dissent, Saddam cultivated the image of a patron of the arts. The invasion and years of violence that followed ended a flourishing arts scene, particularly in Baghdad.

Now, relative stability has led to a fledgling artistic renaissance, including book fairs and concerts, of which the exhibition organized by the ministry is an example.

It helps recall a golden age when Baghdad was considered one of the Arab world’s cultural capitals.

Among canvases of realist, surrealist or expressionist inspiration, a picturesque scene in shimmering colors shows a boat sailing in front of several “mudhif,” the traditional reed dwellings found in Iraq’s southern marshes.

Other paintings, in dark colors, depict terrified residents surrounded by corpses, fleeing a burning village.

Elsewhere, a woman is shown prostrate in a scene of destruction, kneeling in front of an arm protruding from stones.

There is also a wooden sculpture of a gazelle with undulating curves, and the “maternal statue” — a work by Jawad Selim that represents a woman with a slender neck and raised arms.

The latter, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was rediscovered in a Baghdad district known for its antiques and second-hand goods shops. It was in the possession of a dealer unaware of its true value, according to sculptor Taha Wahib, who bought it for just $200.

‘Priceless works’

Looters in some cases had taken pictures out of their frames, sometimes with cutters, to steal them more easily.

“Some pieces were damaged during the events of 2003 — or they were stored in poor conditions for many years,” Mohamed, the culture ministry official, told AFP.

But “they were restored in record time,” he said.

Other works are being held back for now, with some waiting to be restored — but they will be exhibited once more, Mohamed pledged.

He wants to open more exhibition rooms to show the entire collection of recovered items.

“Museums must be open to the public — these works shouldn’t remain imprisoned in warehouses,” he said.

The 7,000 items stolen in 2003 included “priceless works,” and about 2,300 have been returned to Iraq, according to exhibition curator Lamiaa al-Jawari.

In 2004, she joined a committee of artists committed to retrieving the many stolen national treasures.

“Some have been recovered through official channels” including the Swiss embassy, she said, but individuals also helped.

Authorities coordinate with Interpol and the last restitutions took place in 2021.

The selection on display will be changed from time to time, “to show visitors all this artistic heritage,” Jawari said.

Ali Al-Najar, an 82-year-old artist who has lived in Sweden the past 20 years, has been on holiday in his homeland.

He welcomed the exhibition.

“The pioneers are those who initiated Iraqi art. If we forget them, we lose our foundations” as a society, Najar said.

Source: Voice of America

The major financial hub of Shanghai reported 12 new COVID-19 related deaths on April 22, up from 11 the previous day, as frustrations among residents continued to boil over amid a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.

The city, battling China’s biggest coronavirus outbreak so far, recorded 20,634 new local asymptomatic infections on Friday, rebounding from 15,698 a day earlier. Total new symptomatic cases reached 2,736, up from 1,931 on April 21, official data showed.

The patients who died had an average age of 88, the Shanghai government said. All had underlying health conditions, and none had been vaccinated.

“One strategy that needs immediate implementation is to increase rates of the booster vaccination dose to the elderly and other vulnerable groups and to see if mRNA vaccines can be used,” said Jaya Dantas, a public health expert at the Curtin School of Population Health in Australia, who is monitoring the Shanghai outbreak.

China has yet to introduce its own mRNA vaccines and has chosen not to import those developed overseas.

In a study published by China’s Disease Prevention and Control Center on Friday, medical experts in the northeastern city of Jilin, the location of another recent outbreak, said China’s vaccines have been effective so far, though new emerging COVID-19 variants remained unpredictable.

They said, “the data is strong enough to indicate the public significance of the strategy of full and booster vaccination, particularly for the elder population.”

Pressures mounting

Though frustrations continued to bubble over in Shanghai’s sealed off residential compounds, local officials maintain there will be no relaxation until new cases outside of quarantine areas have all been cleared.

“The more critical the period becomes, the more we need to grit our teeth and focus our strength,” Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng was quoted as saying on Shanghai’s official government WeChat channel late on Friday.

The number of cases outside quarantine areas stood at 218 on Friday, down from 250 the previous day.

Shanghai’s full-city lockdown began at the start of April, though many residents have been confined to their homes for much longer.

But even after shutting down for more than 30 days, some compounds are still reporting new cases, casting doubt on the efficacy of China’s approach.

“This is a significant amount of time and does have mental health impacts: people are exhausted and frustrated,” said Dantas.

On social media, netizens battled against censors overnight to share a six-minute video entitled “The Voice of April”, a montage of voices recorded over the course of the Shanghai outbreak.

Panning across Shanghai’s silent skyscrapers, the video consists of residents complaining about the lack of food and medicine, as well as the heavy-handed tactics of city authorities.

All direct references to the film were removed from the Weibo microblogging service by Saturday morning, though some comments criticizing the censorship survived.

“I can only say that if you don’t even want to listen to just a small amount of real voices, then it is really hopeless,” said one.

Source: Voice of America

Devastating floods in South Africa this week, as well as other extreme weather events across the continent linked to human-caused climate change, are putting marine and terrestrial wildlife species at risk, according to biodiversity experts.

Africa has already faced several climate-related woes in the past year: the ongoing fatal floods follow unrelenting cyclones in the south, extreme temperatures in western and northern regions, and a debilitating drought which is currently afflicting eastern, central and the Horn of Africa.

Conservation and wildlife groups say it’s critical to protect species from these climate change-related weather events.

“Climate change is disrupting ecosystems and affecting the survival and suitability of species to live in their usual habitats,” said Shyla Raghav, who heads the climate change division at Conservation International. “Massive disruption to ecological stability will occur if adequate adaptation and mitigation measures are not implemented. There is need to incorporate climate proofing of our protected areas. That way we boost nature’s ability for resilience.”

Multiple species, including Africa’s famed “big-five” land animals and other terrestrial and marine life, are vulnerable to significant population loss. Ornithologist Paul Matiku, who heads the biodiversity watch group Nature Kenya, says shifting rainfall patterns and increased temperatures are having serious consequences for bird populations.

“Climate change causes seasonal variability in rainfall, temperature and food for birds. As such breeding aborts and bird populations automatically reduce over time,” Matiku said. “Wetland birds are affected by reducing water levels due to droughts. The Sahara Desert gets hotter, and some migratory birds die along their migratory routes due to high temperatures and dehydration.” He added that some birds are so weak from taxing migratory journeys that they are no longer breeding.

Ecosystems that thrive along Africa’s popular white sandy beaches are also particularly vulnerable, according to Ibidun Adelekan, a geography professor at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Africa’s coasts are at risk of coral reef ecosystem collapse due to bleaching, potential saltwater intrusion on freshwater aquifers, and more intense tropical cyclones.

Adelekan warned that greater damage to Africa’s coastal biodiversity will also have considerable consequences for populations in towns and cities along its shores. “Persistent deprivation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems by human actions is leading to increased vulnerability of coastal and island communities to climate impacts,” she told the Associated Press.

Her concerns are echoed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who earlier this year cautioned that African coasts with “high proportion of informal settlements and small island states are exposed and highly vulnerable to climate change.”

But scientists are hopeful that improved coastal management of marine protected areas and better restrictions on the fishing industry will curb impacts on marine biodiversity.

“Our research indicates that the future of coral reefs will be much better if fisheries restrictions and protected areas are applied effectively throughout the region,” said Tim McClanahan, a senior conservation zoologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, who studied over 100 locations in the western Indian Ocean.

“While climate change may be outside of local control, the bad outcomes will be reduced if fisheries manage to reduce detrimental impacts on the coral reefs.”

Source: Voice Of America