MAYA GEBEILY

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Sajad Jiyad

Iraq pegs hopes on Pope’s visit, but experts sceptical | AFP

March 8, 2021March 15, 2021 / Maya Gebeily / Leave a comment

[Produced with my colleague Salam Faraj and published here March 8, 2021]

Pope Francis’ historic trip to war-scarred Iraq went off without a hitch — an image boost Baghdad hopes will help revive international engagement, foreign investment and even tourism.

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Blossoms, butterflies, and new beginnings. I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the Thomson Reuters Foundation as a regional correspondent, covering climate, socioeconomic justice, human rights and other key issues across the Middle East. Do get in touch with any story tips and recommendations! It's been an incredible six-year adventure with AFP and I'm so excited for this new ride.
The last story in our AFP series on corruption is about hope. Hope for better days ahead for Iraq. Hope that the unprecedented popular protests of 2019 could force a change in the country's broken politics. It was a hope that flared, burned bright, but was ultimately extinguished. Read about this rollercoaster through the eyes of Hassanein, a father of four who has risked his life for change, in the story linked in my bio.
In the second part of our series on corruption, AFP profiled the outspoken, hardworking and slightly-obsessive Taif al-Sami, who heads the budget office at #Iraq's finance ministry. Taif has survived war, state collapse, threats of violence from patronage networks and (of course) the patriarchy to become one of the only high-ranking female officials in Iraq's behemoth bureaucracy. Read her story in the link in my bio.
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