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Iraq through a series of concerts and other projects to support culture and education.The audience at the Iraqi National Theater were on their feet, overcome with emotion as Shamma played a night of classics from the Iraqi songbook and modern compositions.“We will work on lighting the stage, to get out of the darkness into the light,” he told the crowd, before kicking off the evening with, “Sabah El Kheir Ya Baghdad,” or, “Good Morning Baghdad.” Behind him, an orchestra, including young women musicians, played traditional instruments.The 59-year-old Shamma is considered a modern-day master of the oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument similar to a lute whose deep tones and swift-changing chords are central to Arabic music.Born in the southern city of Kut and raised in a conservative family, he received his first oud lesson at the age of 11 and later graduated from the Baghdad Academy of Music in 1987.He fled Iraq in 1993 during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and gained international fame, performing around the world and receiving dozens of awards. In Cairo, he founded the House of the Oud, a school dedicated to teaching the instrument to new generations.Shamma, who currently lives in Berlin, returned to Iraq for the first time in 2012 to perform in a concert hosted by the Arab League.

A marriage came to an abrupt end after a bride's song request resulted in a massive family bust up.

NEW YORK -- The publisher of a memoir by Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona is correcting a passage about a deadly Iraq War battle that falsely alleged that Ellen Knickmeyer, the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post at the time and now with The Associated Press, had reported his whole platoon had been lost.“They Called Us ‘Lucky’: The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War’s Hardest Hit Unit,” co-written by Gallego and Jim DeFelice, was published last November by the HarperCollins Publishers imprint William Morrow.

Sony will now open the Denzel Washington directed drama A Journal for Jordan on Christmas Day instead of an initial launch on Dec. 10 in NYC and LA with a wider break on Dec. 22.

Call us biased but we knew that Paul Mescal would nab the BAFTA TV Award for his blistering performance in the now globally acclaimed show Normal People.

EXCLUSIVE: Waleed Zuaiter, who scored a Leading Actor BAFTA nomination for his role in Channel 4 and Hulu series Baghdad Central, has joined the cast of Sky’s crime drama Gangs Of London.

Maisa Abd Elhadi, the Palestinian actress whose credits include the Channel 4 series Baghdad Central and Netflix original The Angel, is recovering after reportedly being shot by Israeli police during a protest in Haifa.

Sony has dated Denzel Washington’s directorial A Journal for Jordan for Dec. 10 in New York and LA with a wide break on Dec. 22.

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Disney+ has green lit its first slate of European originals, including projects for its international brand Star, which launches in Europe later this month.

EXCLUSIVE: Disney+’s new international streaming service Star has commissioned a mafia series, penned by The Last Kingdom and Baghdad Central scribe Stephen Butchard and co-produced by two high-profile outfits in the UK and Italy.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired North American rights to Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s Gaza Mon Amour, Palestine’s official submission for Best International Feature at the 93rd Academy Awards. The film will be released later this year.

BAGHDAD — A mock funeral procession marked the anniversary of the assassination of Iran’s top general and a senior Iraqi militia leader in a U.S. drone strike that heightened fears of a military escalation in the region.

President Trump and anyone else linked to the U.S. strike one year ago that killed a notorious Iranian general "will not be safe on Earth," a top official in Tehran warned Friday, according to a report.

President Trump’s pardon of four Blackwater guards convicted in the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians was "disgraceful," Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., asserted Saturday.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was the target of a rocket attack Sunday night.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to Iraq in March, pandemic conditions permitting, the Vatican said Monday, in announcing what would be the pontiff's first trip abroad in more than a year. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Francis will make the March 5-8 visit, with stops in Baghdad, and the “plains of Ur, linked to the memory of Abraham,” the Biblical patriarch who is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, as well as to the cities of Irbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh.

On May 29, as the nation rioted and marched and demanded justice for George Floyd after his death at police hands, Donald Trump tweeted a callback to the segregationist and Alabama governor George Wallace: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Two days later the president sought to clear peaceful protesters from the path between the White House and St. John’s Church for a photo opportunity.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentLos Angeles-based U.S.

Peter White Television EditorWaleed Zuaiter, who has starred in Netflix’s The Spy and Hulu and Channel 4 drama Baghdad Central, has launched his own production company to tackle diversity in TV and film.Zuaiter, who produced Omar, the Palestinian feature that was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, has established FlipNarrative, which will be based in LA, London and Beirut.

Donald Trump after the killing of a top general. Qasem Soleimani, who led the Islamic Republic's elite Quds Force, was wiped out in an air strike on Baghdad airport on January 3.

Leo Barraclough Senior International Correspondent“Mudbound’s” Garrett Hedlund and “The Rider’s” Brady Jandreau have signed on to star in writer/director Paxton Winters’ “Outside the Wire,” alongside Zahraa Ghandour (“Baghdad in My Shadow”). Film Constellation is handling international rights with UTA Independent handling North American.

By Elsa Keslassy

A much-loved GP has died after contracting coronavirus.

After an al Qaeda truck bomb ripped through United Nations headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad in the summer of 2003, Carolina Larriera tried to dig through piles of rubble with her bare hands to save the man she loved.

Nick Cannon hopes he has put an end to his public spat with Eminem.

Subscription streamer Starz Play Arabia has partnered with Fremantle to exclusively carry its high-end shows “Baghdad Central,” “The Luminaries,” and “Dublin Murders” across 20 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, as the Starz-branded OTT service continues to ramp up operations in the region.

Forceful characters and a realistic setting save a complicated thriller from disintegrating into its many parts in Baghdad in My Shadow. The voices sound authentic and the dramas are as involving as headline news.

Reel Suspects has acquired international sales rights to Caru Alves de Souza’s coming-of-age tale “My Name is Baghdad,” which will world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Generation 14 section.