Baghdad

By Jane Arraf in Middle East on December 19th, 2011
Photo by Reuters
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By Gregg Carlstrom in Middle East on December 16th, 2011
[Gregg Carlstrom/Al Jazeera]

This photo is from Thursday's "flag-casing" ceremony in Baghdad, which marked the formal end of the US military command here. 

Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, spoke at the ceremony: He praised the progress of the Iraqi security forces and said "we created an Iraq that could finally govern and secure itself."

You'll notice that the labels on the chairs include not just your name, but the number of the concrete bunker you should hide in if the ceremony is rocketed.

A standard precaution for the military, sure, but it's a small detail that highlights how Iraq really still is a war zone, despite the US withdrawal.

By Al Jazeera Staff in Middle East on April 8th, 2011
File picture of protesters in Amman, Jordan [AFP]

As the unrest  in the Middle East continues, we update you with the latest developments from Syria, Yemen and across the region.

Read on for the latest from our correspondents, news agencies and citizens across the globe.

Al Jazeera is not responsible for content derived from external sites.

By Rhodri Davies in Middle East on February 4th, 2011
AP photo

Claims are still being made that oil, amongst other products such as alcohol, are being smuggled from northern Iraq to Iran.

The accusations that petroleum is consistently being smuggled over the mountainous border in the north at Haj Omran and to the north east of Iraq at Penjuin are denied by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), that is autonomous from Baghdad.

It has been said that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crude oil and refined products are illegally transported over the border to Iran annually.

By Rhodri Davies in Middle East on January 6th, 2011
Photo by Rhodri Davies

The Bishop of the Chaldean Archdiocese of Irbil in northern Iraq denied my request to talk to him about Christians in the country.

"You can see the life of the community here," he said, before finishing post-service greetings and embraces with his flock at St Joseph's church in Ainkawa, a Christian suburb of Iraqi Kurdistan's capital.

He was right.

By Ranjit Bhaskar in Africa on December 30th, 2010
Photo by Ranjit Bhaskar
There is not much drama as the Kenya Airways Embraer jet prepares to land in Juba after an hour and a half flight from Nairobi.
 
Considering its status as the latest frontier town for a hoard of NGO employees, get-rich-quick businessmen and journalists, one almost expected something out of the ordinary. Like, for instance, the corkscrew landing manoeuvre adopted by pilots while landing in Baghdad when the city was still a place visited only by the aforementioned folk.
 
Instead, all you get to see is the pleasant site of the White Nile. You notice more trees on the western side of the river after the hardscrabble landscape of eastern Africa through much of the journey.
 
For reasons unknown or primordial, the very sight of plentiful water and greenery comes as a sign of hope.
By Al Jazeera Staff in Asia on November 23rd, 2010
Photo by AFP

19:03 GMT The US plans to consult with allies, including Chin,a to develop a "measured and unified" response to the artillery exchange, the US state department says.

"Everybody involved is stunned by North Korea's provocative actions," Mark Toner, a state department spokesman, said.

"We are working again within an established framework with our partners so we have a deliberate approach to this.

By Gregg Carlstrom in Middle East on May 31st, 2010
Protesters in Istanbul wave Palestinian flags after the raid (Photo: AFP)

Early Monday morning, Israel attacked a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip; up to 10 people were killed in the pre-dawn raid, according to organisers and media sources.

We'll be live-blogging the aftermath of this incident throughout the day; keep checking back for international reaction, news from our correspondents on the ground, photos and video. (All times are GMT, except where noted.)

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By Zeina Khodr in Middle East on April 14th, 2010
Photo by AFP

Baghdad remains a city of barriers - concrete slabs protect government buildings, seal roads and close off neighbourhoods. Barricades stand between communities, and checkpoints are everywhere in the Iraqi capital.

This is still a dangerous city, where political and sectarian fault lines run deep.

Some Iraqis fear these same fault lines are reflected within the security forces, and question whether all their guns are pointed in the same direction.

Parliamentary elections on March 7 produced no clear winner and Mohanad al-Taeey, who works at a store next to one of Baghdad's many checkpoints, told me that he fears security forces may fight each other in the absence of a political agreement on the next government.

"We have Sunni and Shia forces – if someone doesn’t get the position they want in government, they may use force," Mohanad says.

By Anita McNaught in Middle East on March 12th, 2010

It's difficult to convey in words quite how remarkable a place the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC ) is at the moment.

Its guiding principles – openness, transparency, accessibility – prevail, even under the pressure of this critical moment in Iraqi politics.

These moments, you will understand, have too often been marked by violence here. But at IHEC, they are marked by industriousness.

The place is like a beehive. Row upon row of vote counters, checking sheets, entering data onto computers, conferring over numbers, unpacking sealed envelopes.. Mostly young Iraqis, mostly men but with a sprinkling of women, engrossed in the work, humming away.

They are, however, distractable by a TV crew – who isn’t? – and, over their dinner break (so as to minimise our disruption of this vital moment in Iraqi history) they came to talk with us.

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