The United Nations cultural agency on Monday called on the international community to support Iraq’s efforts to restore Mosul’s heritage after the brutal battle to liberate the northern city from ISIS.
Unesco will position itself as the coordinator of the reconstruction efforts in partnership with the Iraqi government to rebuild the landmarks destroyed by the militant group during its three-year occupation of the city, Audrey Azoulay, director general of the agency, told a conference on Mosul in Paris.
The agency chief confirmed that the cultural agency will head the restoration of city’s central library at its university, two churches, the city’s market and a Yazidi temple.
“What happened in Iraq important to all of us all, it’s our duty as human beings that we must start mobilising now if we want to support sustainable peace, this conference is an important initiative towards that step,” Ms Azoulay said. “It is through education and culture that Iraqis, men and women alike, will regain control of their destiny.”
The call came on the same day that the UAE announced the creation of two committees to rebuild the city’s Grand Al Nuri Mosque and its leaning Al Hadba minaret, both built in the 12th century but destroyed by ISIS in July 2017.
UAE Minister of Culture Noura Al Kaabi told The National that Abu Dhabi will head the committees alongside Iraq’s Culture Ministry and the Iraqi Sunni Endowment to help support the reconstruction after the government announced in April that it would finance a $50.4 million project to rebuild the historic mosque best known for its leaning minaret.
"They are a technical committee and a higher committee that includes the Sunni endowment and ministry officials," Ms Al Kaabi told The National.
The first meeting will be in Abu Dhabi on Thursday where high-level discussions about the reconstruction efforts will take place.
The Emirati minister emphasised the importance that Iraqi youths will have as part of the five-year reconstruction project, ensuring they become a key fixture in the rebuilding of their city.
“We want to focus on how we can offer 1,000 job opportunities to men and women,” she said. “We have a lot of graduates from Mosul and Baghdad university.”
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Read more:
WATCH: The liberation of Mosul one year on
UAE rebuilding of Mosul mosque 'defeats extremism'
How eliminating the ‘kill box’ turned Mosul into a meat-grinder
Mosul’s health care in ruins a year after the battle
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Ms Al Kaabi could not confirm where the rebuilt minaret will be located. She said the focus is on bringing all parties involved in the reconstruction efforts together. The first 12 months of the project will involve clearing districts around the mosque of debris left over from the nine-month offensive.
“The most important thing is that in 2023 we are going to enjoy a beautiful tour of the Grand Nouri mosque,” she said.
Urban warfare destroyed much of the city’s historic landmarks. ISIS demolished the mosque in the final weeks of the Iraqi campaign, backed by the US-led coalition, to wrestle the city from the insurgents. Mosul needs at least $2 billion in reconstruction aid after the ISIS occupation, according to Iraqi government estimates.
It served as the site for Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s only public speech, given in July 2014, in which he announced the creation of ISIS’s caliphate that straddled the Iraqi-Syrian border.
An Iraqi diplomatic source told The National that the initiative is not only about reconstructing Mosul's precious heritage sites but about empowering the population as agents of change in the process to rebuild their city.
“Mosul is expected to recover as a vibrant, inclusive and dynamic city,”, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
Sheikh Abdel Latif Al Heymem, head of the Iraqi Sunni Endowment, praised the UAE’s efforts to restore the city’s heritage.
“Minister Noura Al Kaabi has opened up a new gateway of the project,” he said.
“She has been so efficient in organising everything that can be done to restore the cultural heritage of Nineveh, especially when it comes to the rehabilitation of Mosul.”
The minister issued a call to the wider international community to help rebuilt what was lost in the disfigured city, inviting potential sponsors to contribute to Unesco’s initiative.
“Iraq’s rich culture played a central role in our history, we see it as our duty to defeat extremism,” she said.
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Label: Republic Records
Rating: 4/5
Scoreline
Liverpool 4
Oxlade-Chamberlain 9', Firmino 59', Mane 61', Salah 68'
Manchester City 3
Sane 40', Bernardo Silva 84', Gundogan 90'+1
Diriyah project at a glance
- Diriyah’s 1.9km King Salman Boulevard, a Parisian Champs-Elysees-inspired avenue, is scheduled for completion in 2028
- The Royal Diriyah Opera House is expected to be completed in four years
- Diriyah’s first of 42 hotels, the Bab Samhan hotel, will open in the first quarter of 2024
- On completion in 2030, the Diriyah project is forecast to accommodate more than 100,000 people
- The $63.2 billion Diriyah project will contribute $7.2 billion to the kingdom’s GDP
- It will create more than 178,000 jobs and aims to attract more than 50 million visits a year
- About 2,000 people work for the Diriyah Company, with more than 86 per cent being Saudi citizens
COMPANY PROFILE
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Funds raised so far: $10m
Investors: Flat6Labs, Resonance and various others
Ramez Gab Min El Akher
Creator: Ramez Galal
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Streaming on: MBC Shahid
Rating: 2.5/5
Also on December 7 to 9, the third edition of the Gulf Car Festival (www.gulfcarfestival.com) will take over Dubai Festival City Mall, a new venue for the event. Last year's festival brought together about 900 cars worth more than Dh300 million from across the Emirates and wider Gulf region – and that first figure is set to swell by several hundred this time around, with between 1,000 and 1,200 cars expected. The first day is themed around American muscle; the second centres on supercars, exotics, European cars and classics; and the final day will major in JDM (Japanese domestic market) cars, tuned vehicles and trucks. Individuals and car clubs can register their vehicles, although the festival isn’t all static displays, with stunt drifting, a rev battle, car pulls and a burnout competition.
Top tips
Create and maintain a strong bond between yourself and your child, through sensitivity, responsiveness, touch, talk and play. “The bond you have with your kids is the blueprint for the relationships they will have later on in life,” says Dr Sarah Rasmi, a psychologist.
Set a good example. Practise what you preach, so if you want to raise kind children, they need to see you being kind and hear you explaining to them what kindness is. So, “narrate your behaviour”.
Praise the positive rather than focusing on the negative. Catch them when they’re being good and acknowledge it.
Show empathy towards your child’s needs as well as your own. Take care of yourself so that you can be calm, loving and respectful, rather than angry and frustrated.
Be open to communication, goal-setting and problem-solving, says Dr Thoraiya Kanafani. “It is important to recognise that there is a fine line between positive parenting and becoming parents who overanalyse their children and provide more emotional context than what is in the child’s emotional development to understand.”
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Company Profile
Company name: Namara
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Founder: Mohammed Alnamara
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MATCH INFO
Norwich City 0 Southampton 3 (Ings 49', Armstrong 54', Redmond 79')
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: SupplyVan
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: DarDoc
Based: Abu Dhabi
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Cases of coronavirus in the GCC as of March 15
Saudi Arabia – 103 infected, 0 dead, 1 recovered
UAE – 86 infected, 0 dead, 23 recovered
Bahrain – 210 infected, 0 dead, 44 recovered
Kuwait – 104 infected, 0 dead, 5 recovered
Qatar – 337 infected, 0 dead, 4 recovered
Oman – 19 infected, 0 dead, 9 recovered
The five stages of early child’s play
From Dubai-based clinical psychologist Daniella Salazar:
1. Solitary Play: This is where Infants and toddlers start to play on their own without seeming to notice the people around them. This is the beginning of play.
2. Onlooker play: This occurs where the toddler enjoys watching other people play. There doesn’t necessarily need to be any effort to begin play. They are learning how to imitate behaviours from others. This type of play may also appear in children who are more shy and introverted.
3. Parallel Play: This generally starts when children begin playing side-by-side without any interaction. Even though they aren’t physically interacting they are paying attention to each other. This is the beginning of the desire to be with other children.
4. Associative Play: At around age four or five, children become more interested in each other than in toys and begin to interact more. In this stage children start asking questions and talking about the different activities they are engaging in. They realise they have similar goals in play such as building a tower or playing with cars.
5. Social Play: In this stage children are starting to socialise more. They begin to share ideas and follow certain rules in a game. They slowly learn the definition of teamwork. They get to engage in basic social skills and interests begin to lead social interactions.
COMPANY PROFILE
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