From Hugh Sykes in Iraq.
Some images and words to illustrate the report about the Iraq drought on PM this evening, and the squatter camp that featured in Broadcasting House yesterday.
"Sarieh and Idris Alaa Ad-din, date farmers, Baghdad.
Idris and Sarieh picking mint
Filming at the date farm (we're all multi-media now)
Fishing boat on the Tigris river
Zuhair Hassan Ahmed, national centre for water management.
Preparing to cook the molokhieh (Jews's mallow), a gift from Sarieh and Idris. They grow it alongside the mint and the dates.
Informal settlement, south Baghdad. Hundreds of people, dozens of children. Shacks. No school. A few water taps. No electricity. No food rations - Iraqis with fixed addresses still get ration cards that entitle them to 9 kilos of flour per person per month, 3 kilos of rice, 2.25 kilos of sugar and a litre of cooking oil.
"We're poor. We have nowhere to live"
"We can't sleep at night because of the mosquitoes"
Ghazi Jalil and his wife Zainab, and his son Hussein, aged 12. His mum died. Zainab is is aunt.
"What do you do for a living, Ghazi?" I asked.
"I am a beggar.""
Listen to PM
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~17~RS~)
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If the souls who have actually turned up for the Labour conference can be energised by Mandy they have my sympathy. It's a bit like the 'statesman of the year' award given to Gordon Brown by a strange mob known as the Conscience of the World. Last year it was Sarkozy who got it. We didn't hear much about Sarko being statesman of the year in 2008 did we?(There are also rumours of Louis Vuitton - of luggage fame- being given it at one point.)
Please put us out of our misery- no more.
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What moving and thought-provoking photos. The family group in the last photo look so smart and clean despite living in a glorified wind-break. Why on earth can't they give them ration cards too?
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