The News From Iraq
"More than 77% of respondents feel that "regular, fair elections" would be the most important political right for the Iraqi people and 58% feel that democracy in Iraq is likely to succeed."
Abdullah is one of the many Iraqis who have got married in what officials say is a post-war wedding boom brought on by rising salaries and the end of restrictions on marriage imposed by the former regime. Before the war, Abdullah could not get married because--like thousands of other young men--he was dodging military service.
Salih Thabet al-Azawi, who head a court in north Baghdad's Kadhemiya district, said that between April and June this year, just over 1,100 couples tied the knot in there, compared with the figure of around 200 which would have been average for the same three-month period in previous years.
According to Azawi, in past years twice as many people were divorcing as marrying. But today, some of the reasons for divorce--such as money problems or the emigration of one of the partners--have faded, and in the last three months only 48 cases have come before him.
. . .
Meanwhile, Hussain Shahristani, an Iraqi nuclear physicist, is trying to rebuild Iraqi science. "The most unlikely element in Dr. Shahristani's quest may be his decision to undertake it in the first place. He came within a hair's breadth of being named prime minister of Iraq last spring. He was tortured by Saddam Hussein's government for refusing to work on an atomic bomb and spent 12 years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement, before escaping during the Persian Gulf war of 1991."
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Abdullah is one of the many Iraqis who have got married in what officials say is a post-war wedding boom brought on by rising salaries and the end of restrictions on marriage imposed by the former regime. Before the war, Abdullah could not get married because--like thousands of other young men--he was dodging military service.
Salih Thabet al-Azawi, who head a court in north Baghdad's Kadhemiya district, said that between April and June this year, just over 1,100 couples tied the knot in there, compared with the figure of around 200 which would have been average for the same three-month period in previous years.
According to Azawi, in past years twice as many people were divorcing as marrying. But today, some of the reasons for divorce--such as money problems or the emigration of one of the partners--have faded, and in the last three months only 48 cases have come before him.
. . .
Meanwhile, Hussain Shahristani, an Iraqi nuclear physicist, is trying to rebuild Iraqi science. "The most unlikely element in Dr. Shahristani's quest may be his decision to undertake it in the first place. He came within a hair's breadth of being named prime minister of Iraq last spring. He was tortured by Saddam Hussein's government for refusing to work on an atomic bomb and spent 12 years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement, before escaping during the Persian Gulf war of 1991."
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