a yearning for a better past
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was once a wonderful place, said Mohamed, 52, who runs a grocery shop established by his father in 1966 in a street full of traditional Fake Handbags dwellings that are falling apart.
Basrawis interviewed at random said they would not vote wholesale replica designer handbags in Saturday parliamentary election or, even if they do, had lost faith that Replica Bags officials would restore their city to its old glory.
buy replica bags online A replica Purse shopping mall, some five star hotels and elegant restaurants have sprung Replica Handbags up in Basra since 2003 thanks to steady oil money much Fake Designer Bags of Iraq crude comes from fields nearby as cheap replica handbags well as port facilities and an international airport. buy replica bags online
These have fueled an expanding private sector with a middle class largely employed, unlike much of the rest of Iraq. embargo in place until 2003 helped kay waste to the oil driven economy.
7a replica bags wholesale Only five historic residences were partially purse replica handbags repaired in the 1990s and much of the remaining residential stock is at risk of collapse, according to Azhar Hashim, who runs Basra historic heritage department. 7a replica bags wholesale
Her office has carried out studies recommending restorations of scores of Old City residence. nothing has happened, Hashim said with a shrug.
STIFLING MISMANAGEMENT State officials blame a public funding crisis wrought by years of low oil prices. But Basra residents blame a Designer Replica Bags breakdown in public Handbags Replica services over the past decades, accelerating under the Saddam era sanctions.
replica bags mismanagement, corruption and theft (of public funds), said Walid Mustafa, a retired soldier who grew up in an Ottoman house whose roof has collapsed. replica bags
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Even major roads are potholed while civic pride projects such as a city to host competitions were aborted.
high replica bags Ali Al Ghassem, chairman of the Basra Investment Commission, acknowledged mistakes after 2003 in repairing infrastructure. high replica bags
Slideshow (10 Images)
luxury replica bags But he said Basra province and the central government were now working to improve the sewage system thanks to a Japanese loan while a new hospital was being built with help of Kuwait. luxury replica bags
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CULTURE AMIDST GARBAGE Located at Iraq Replica Bags Wholesale marshy southern tip where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers merge near the Gulf, Basra was for centuries a melting pot of Arabs, Designer Fake Bags Persians, Turks, Indians and Greeks who all left their cultural imprint.
Much of Iraq suffered destruction in the string of wars since the 1980s. But Basra was especially hard hit as a city on the front line of Replica Handbags Wholesale the war with Iran, only a few dozen km (miles) across the Shatt al Arab delta to the east.
More devastation occurred in the course of two uprisings by replica handbags china southern Iraq majority Shi Muslims against the Sunni Saddam that were brutally crushed.
More recently, a drought has almost dried up canals while Basra is also often engulfed in smog blamed on oil production.
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