30/04/2016

De Luca e la luce


Incredible news...


Erri De Luca’s Italian bestseller “Tu, mio” to get film treatment 

Erri De Luca’s Italian bestseller “Tu, mio” to get film treatment
PanARMENIAN.Net - “Machete” writer Álvaro Rodriguez and “Out in the Dark” director Michael Mayer are attached for a movie version of Erri De Luca’s Italian bestseller “Tu, mio” (“You, mine”), Variety has learned exclusively.
Paola Porrini Bisson and Oh!pen Productions are producing. Rodriguez and Mayer are adapting De Luca’s 1998 novel.
The book is set in post-war Italy and tells of a teenage boy who falls for an older woman with a dark secret. De Luca, whose “The Weight of the Butterfly” is in development with Dean Zanuck, was at the center of a free-speech trial in Italy for most of last year.
Bisson previously produced the Tribeca winner “The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars,” “A Musical Imprinting” and “Trees That Walk,” all penned by De Luca.
Mayer’s first feature, “Out in the Dark,” had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to play over 125 film festivals. He is currently developing a feature adaptation of Brian Malloy’s YA novel “The Year of Ice” and a half-hour relationship comedy series with Israel’s Channel 10.
In addition to “Machete,” Rodriguez wrote “Shorts” and recently completed two seasons of “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series” for the El Rey Network. He won the 2016 Mark Medoff Excellence in Writing Award and is developing “Outlaw,” a historical drama set in 1850s California with a Mexican hero from MGM TV.
Rodriguez is managed by Bob Sobhani and Jennie Frisbie at Magnet Management. Mayer is managed by Gary Ventimiglia and they are both with Stone, Genow, Smelkinson, Binder & Christopher.


TU, MIO



It's too early to retell in my own words the beauty and deep emotions transported by this text...
Here's an article written some time ago by another journalist.

I'll try to add some words when I come back from the land where live these feelings provoked by the sea and the fire, between Napoli and Ischia, between the present and the past...



 Tu, mio

Tu, mio
de
Erri de Luca
Gallimard
*
En deux livres, l'écrivain italien prouve avec éclat que la descente en apnée éclaire l'homme sur ce qui se vit en surface. Mémoire en eau vive.

Une troublante fascination secoue le lecteur à chaque parution d'un nouveau livre d'Erri de Luca. Est-ce la qualité des images, révélée par une économie de moyens? Est-ce davantage le maintien, la simplicité et la sensibilité de ses propos, la rigueur et la sagesse de ses jugements qui apportent cette part de lumière? Ou encore est-ce ces bouts de lui-même, ce "je" vécu, décliné comme une longue lettre qui résonne de cris et de chuchotements? Il faut lire Erri de Luca à haute voix -ses textes courts et denses s'y prêtent. Ses mots dégagent une force naturelle.

Ecrivain atypique, il travaille dans la marge. Depuis Une fois, un jour (Verdier, 1992), sa matière est un incessant sursaut de la mémoire contre la perte. Avec l'habilité du "brocanteur", il transporte son bric-à-brac personnel le long de ses récits. L'émotion naît de cette part inutilisable. "C'est le gaspillage (...) qui donne la valeur au résidu, au reste qui a survécu par grâce, distraction, hasard", écrit-il. Ses souvenirs douloureux de militant gauchiste, son travail d'ouvrier, son amour pour la Bible (cet agnostique traduit l'hébreu ancien), ses séjours en Bosnie à convoyer des médicaments dessinent une constante quête de la vérité, où le coeur n'est jamais absent. De cette singulière expérience, Erri de Luca puise quelques formules riches d'humanité dont l'écho le renseigne sur sa condition d'homme. Moraliste donc, mais plutôt sur le mode mineur, même s'il s'en défend : "Je suis trop pris au sérieux. Je n'écris rien. Ce ne sont que des notes autobiographiques. De toute façon, je ne peux pas raconter des histoires car toutes les histoires ont été inventées", nous expliquait-il (Mda n°17). La sienne, il ne cesse de la posséder. Enfant de l'après-guerre, il vécut à Naples, ville humiliée et occupée par les Américains. Rêvant de vagabondages, il s'engagea ensuite dans la violence publique durant les années 70, ces années de plombs où l'amitié se forgeait dans la rue et les postes de police. 

Contrairement à ceux de son âge, Erri de Luca n'a pas accompli son éducation sentimentale au bras d'une jeune fille mais au contact des livres de son père. Cette bibliothèque, remplie de décombres et de chambres à gaz, lui a donné la légitimité de se taire. D'une certaine façon, Tu, mio, aujourd'hui publié, raconte l'expulsion de cette parole.

Ce court récit est un noeud d'émotions, mêlé "d'amour et de fureur", un brusque appel du souvenir. Tu, mio, c'est l'histoire fulgurante d'un adolescent qui découvre l'irréversibilité d'un mal, le temps d'un été de vacances, sur une île au large de Naples. Nous sommes au milieu des années cinquante : la guerre est loin mais il reste des traces. Au pied du Vésuve, les Américains continuent d'entretenir "le plus vaste bordel de la Méditerranée". Sur l'île, les retraités allemands profitent sans gêne du soleil tyrrhénien. Tout cela semble naturel, sauf pour le garçon. Têtu, il veut comprendre, interroger, savoir comment se sont comportés les pères. Ont-ils résistés? L'apparence d'une demande de comptes : car "les vivants avaient durci leur silence, un cal sur la peau morte de la guerre". Double mutisme, en réalité : celui de la transmission (les parents), celui de la curiosité (les enfants). Entre deux parties de pêche, la peau couverte de sel, à jeter les lignes sur des bancs de rascasses, l'éveil d'une conscience s'opère. Les témoignages se font à voix basse, de peur de réveiller les sortilèges. Il y a Nicola le pêcheur qui a fait la guerre dans l'infanterie en Yougoslavie et pour qui "l'histoire n'était plus que ça, une façon d'accompagner le travail". Il y a surtout Caïa, une jolie fille dont tout le monde est amoureux. On ne sait rien d'elle, sinon qu'elle est orpheline. Le jeune narrateur apprendra que sa famille a péri en déportation, "peuple éliminé maison par maison". De cette rencontre scellée par ce secret naîtra une indéfectible complicité : un passé partagé, la parole d'une enfance retrouvée. Au point qu'à travers ce "garçon banal qui peut assumer tous les âges", Caïa y verra les signes de son père.

Tu, mio est peut-être le plus beau texte d'Erri de Luca. Reflet de cette mer calme et lumineuse qui borde le récit, un lourd silence accompagne chaque page et transpire jusqu'à la langue. Tout y est suggéré avec une étonnante intensité : la tendresse, le courage, la colère, le poids de la mémoire. Les images, d'une rare authenticité, se bousculent, poussées par les mots. L'écriture, simple, limpide, déploie un précieux équilibre, où le corps, la parole, l'espace trouvent naturellement leur place, comme si l'harmonie était une façon de tendre vers la vérité. Ce récit d'un affranchissement est aussi fondateur d'une responsabilité. Apprendre l'infamie et la lâcheté par l'écrit ou par la voix ne suffit pas, encore faut-il associer le geste guidé par cette obsession du rachat car, dit-il, "on ne se sent véritablement héritiers que d'une dette". Se sentant coupable d'être "arrivé trop tard", Erri de Luca grossira ainsi les rangs d'une génération soucieuse de "corriger le passé".

Invariablement, une exigence morale imprègne chacun de ses livres. Cela est davantage frappant en lisant ses fragments, un exercice taillé à sa mesure. Dans le sillage de Rez-de-chaussée (Rivages, 1996), est également publié Alzaia qui rassemble une centaine d'articles d'Erri de Luca, parus il y a deux ans dans le quotidien catholique Avvenire. Chacun débute par une phrase lue (une citation, un vers de l'Ancien Testament, un proverbe, un ex-voto...) à laquelle l'écrivain "accroche un commentaire". Si les thèmes sont divers -l'Holocauste, la Bosnie, la littérature, la politique, la jeunesse...- sa réflexion est guidée par le même sens de la tolérance et le refus de l'oubli. Sa plume parcourt l'homme et le monde, s'arrête sur un détail, une image, évoque les faiblesses et les vertus de la "mythologie moderne", témoigne de ses craintes mais sans aigreur, ni leçon. "Petit écrivain officiel", selon sa définition, Erri de Luca est un pèlerin égaré : il faut suivre ses chemins, souvent de traverse, et il n'est pas impossible qu'à un détour, un rai de lumière vous éclaire le regard. 


Erri de Luca
Tu, Mio

et Alzaia
Traduits de l'italien
par Danièle Valin
Rivages
140 et 232 pages

26/04/2016

Helping Yazidi Women in Northern Iraq



The city of Qadiya in Kurdistan has become a "home" for about 15.000 displaced Iraqi people.

This morning I visited the reproductive healthcare unit inside the camp, organized by WAHA International with the support of the German NGO Malteser.

Here are a few pictures of the main gynecologist, a nurse, their staff and a couple of Yazidi women who were waiting for consultation.

The official inauguration of the unit will happen on Thursday.

--

More soon.








Middle-eastern borders



Northern Iraq, in and out of Iraqi Kurdistan and neighbouring provinces, following the border with Turkey and Syria, crossing the River Euphrates...










24/04/2016

Debaga camp, still (Kurdistan, Iraq)



The smiles on children's faces...



Worries ahead of Mosul Battle


A message from Human Rights Watch:



Iraq: Protecting Civilians Key to Mosul Battle

ISIS, Iraqi Government Forces Have Record of Laws of War Violations

(Beirut) – Iraqi government forces gearing up to drive Islamic State fighters from Mosul should prioritize protection of civilians. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, took control of in June 2014.

2016-Iraq-Mosul
 ISIS and pro-government forces both have records of harming civilians during and after military operations. The United StatesIranGermany, and other states providing military support to Iraq should condition their support on scrupulous respect for the laws of war, which prohibit attacks that disproportionately harm civilians or fail to distinguish civilians and civilian objects from military objectives.
“Protecting civilians from needless harm needs to be paramount in any battle for control of Mosul,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “It’s essential for the Iraq government to exercise effective command and control over all its forces, and for allies like the US and Iran to make sure they do so.”
Human Rights Watch has, since 2014, documented laws of war violations by the Iraqimilitary and the largely Shia militias that make up the Iraqi government’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fighting ISIS, including summary executionsdisappearancestorture, use of child soldiers, widespread building demolitionindiscriminate attacks, and unlawful restrictions on the movement of people fleeing the fighting.
Human Rights Watch also called on ISIS forces to respect the laws of war, and in particular to allow civilians to leave areas under their control, not to use civilians to shield its military objectives from attack, and not to use child soldiers.
In mid-March 2016, the Iraqi army opened a ground offensive from the town of Makhmur, in Erbil governorate, toward Qayyara, 70 kilometers south of Mosul, but one month later, only a few nearby villages had been captured. The US-led coalition has conducted aerial attacks on ISIS and advises local forces on ground attacks. Germany leads a training center for Kurdish forces and provides them with weapons. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps provides military advisors to Iraq.
With a political stand-off in Baghdad over the nomination of new government ministers, Human Rights Watch called on Iraq’s international supporters to use their leverage with political and military leaders in Iraq to ensure civilian protection and compliance with the laws of war.
Popular Mobilization Forces officials have said their forces would be at the forefront of the campaign against ISIS in Mosul, and the Peshmerga also vowed to participate. Speaking to Human Rights Watch in Baghdad in late March, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Commission overseeing the PMF, was clear that he expected his forces would participate in the battle for Mosul.
In late February 2016, Atheel al-Nujaifi, the former governor of Nineveh, who has his own militia, warned that local residents would rise up against the PMF if they participated. On April 11, Iraqi pollster Munqith Dagher presented results from one survey in which “of the 120 Sunni respondents in Mosul, 100 percent do not want to be liberated by Shiite militias or the Kurds.”
The Popular Mobilization Commission has increased its capacity to ensure compliance with the laws of war, its spokesperson Yusif al-Kilabi told Human Rights Watch in late March in Baghdad. Al-Kilabi said the commission set up a Directorate for Security and Discipline, with 20 staff lawyers providing training on the laws of war and 100 liaison officers who accompany PMF forces in the field.
Judge Abd al-Sattar Bir Qadar, spokesperson for the High Judicial Council, told Human Rights Watch that he had recently sent judges to process detainees the PMF had taken on the battlefield following the Jazira campaign in March. Bir Qadar added that the judiciary also held PMF members accountable under civilian law, with 300 PMF members charged or convicted of crimes and currently held in a new detention facility in Baghdad’s Kazhimiya neighborhood. Bir Qadar did not provide details of charges or convictions. Al-Kilabi said some PMF fighters had received 10 and 20-year sentences, but did not say what crimes they had been charged with.
Iraqi law contains no specific provisions for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, and Human Rights Watch urged Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi to rectify this in a meeting in late March. Holding fighters accountable under the laws of war became even more important after the prime minister, on February 22, 2016, decided to transform the PMF into a permanent military institution with military ranks directly linked to the office of the commander in chief, who is the prime minister.
Kurdish Regional Government officials, in a March 26, 2016 letter to Human Rights Watch, said that Masoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq, had issued Order No. 3 in March to Peshmerga fighters to observe principles of human rights and humanitarian law. The order stated that, “In all possible situations, civilians should be protected from any threat on their lives and properties, as well as the protection of their towns and villages which have been liberated by Peshmerga forces.”
“Training in the laws of war and orders to respect it are positive moves, but need to result in actual respect for the laws during conflict,” Stork said. “Given the record of abuses by armed actors on all sides, it is crucial for Iraq’s international allies to press the government to discipline and hold accountable fighters and commanders who violate the laws of war.”
Background on ISIS Violations of the Laws of War
ISIS has routinely carried out indiscriminate attacks on civilians, residents of Ramadi, Khalidiyya, ‘Amiriyat al-Fallujah, and Gwer, who lived through ISIS shelling of those areas, told Human Rights Watch, and probably has used other banned means of warfare. On March 8, 2016, in Taza Khurmatu, 20 kilometers south of Kirkuk, ISIS carried out a large-scale rocket and mortar attack with a chemical substance on a civilian area, killing three people and injuring more than 3,000, according to hospital documents that Human Rights Watch reviewed and accounts by victims and witnesses, including hospital workers. Hasan Tazali, a recently retired hospital worker, also told Human Rights Watch that on April 13, a Katyusha rocket landed very close to his house, which is in an entirely civilian area of Taza. The attacks came from Bashir, an ISIS-controlled town six kilometers southwest of Taza, residents said. Human Rights Watch reviewed the frontline with a Peshmerga commander a short distance south of Taza in December 2015, and the ISIS-held village of Bashir was the only ISIS-held village close to Taza.
ISIS also prevents civilians from fleeing. In Fallujah, ISIS executed people trying to flee in March 2016, a lawyer in Baghdad who had a first-hand account told Human Rights Watch. Several people fleeing the Hawija area, in Kirkuk governorate, said that ISIS has minedfields to prevent people leaving, and executed people caught trying to escape. A young man fleeing Atshana village in Kirkuk, in September 2015, said ISIS shot at his group as they made a dash for the Kurdish front lines. Human Rights Watch spoke with several people who said that ISIS is not allowing anyone, including civilians, to leave Mosul at present. A civilian from ISIS-controlled Ba’aj, a town 160 kilometers west of Mosul, told Human Rights Watch that he had to pretend his wife was sick to be allowed to leave in May 2015. He said ISIS burned the car of another family because they tried to flee the town, warning them they would be killed if they tried again.
ISIS forces, in August 2014, attacked the city of Sinjar and surrounding areas in Ninewa province inhabited by many from the Yezidi religious minority. ISIS enslaved more than a thousand Yezidi women and girls and executed many Yezidi men.
An Annex on Military Matters of the Islamic State, a manual for its commanders, lists among the necessary attributes of an Islamic State commander, that he “observ[e] the rulings of war in their entirety” without specifying the nature of ISIS’ understanding of those rules.
Background on Violations by Government Forces 
The forces battling ISIS also have poor laws-of-war records, Human Rights Watch said. Some of the militias in the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), in September and October 2014, destroyed at least 30 villages around Amerli, 80 kilometers east of Tikrit, after lifting ISIS’s three-month siege on that Shia Turkmen town. In April 2015, during the government’s offensive against ISIS in Tikrit, Human Rights Watch warned against PMF forces wreaking similar abuses on the local Sunni population.
Despite an order by Prime Minister Abadi to arrest looters, Badr Brigades, Ali Akbar Brigades, Hizbullah Battalions, League of the Righteous forces, Khorasan Companies, and Soldier of the Imam militias, all within the Popular Mobilization Forces, in March and April 2015, leveled much of al-Dur, al-Bu ‘Ajil, and parts of Tikrit, after ISIS had withdrawn. Sunni PMF forces also carried out destruction in al-‘Alam.
Around Amerli, Human Rights Watch documented 11 abductions of Sunni residents by pro-government forces. After Shia militias participated in recapturing Tikrit, Human Rights Watch received credible information that they abducted at least 160 people, all of whom remain unaccounted for. After government forces retook Ramadi from ISIS in December 2015, two people told Human Rights Watch that, in March 2016, Hizbullah Brigades, League of the Righteous forces, and Soldier of the Imam militias were rounding up thousands of Sunni families fleeing the Jazira desert area west of Baiji, Tikrit, and Samarra and detaining them in food warehouses south of Tikrit. One source Human Rights Watch interviewed in March said he had just spoken to one militia member who said that he and fellow militiamen executed dozens of Sunni young men from the area west of Tikrit and Samarra.
According to Amnesty International, Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government destroyed Arab homes and villages after recapturing areas in Nineveh and Kirkuk governorates in 2014 and 2015, in violation of the laws of war.
Iraqi security forces, including the army and Popular Mobilization Forces, as well as Peshmerga forces, have imposed restrictions on Sunni Arabs fleeing ISIS, especially those trying to reach Baghdad and areas under Kurdish control. A member of the Iraqi parliament provided Human Rights Watch with a list of 200 Sunni Arab men from Anbar fleeing ISIS who he said were arrested by Popular Mobilization Forces during 2015, a large majority at the Razzaza checkpoint, some 40 kilometers south of Ramadi, in October, November, or December. A man who fled Ramadi in May 2015, told Human Rights Watch he had to pass 14 or 15 flying militia checkpoints on the road to Baghdad. This man, camped in makeshift shelter for displaced persons in Baghdad’s A’dhamiyya neighborhood, said fellow displaced people in the camp told him about numerous abductions of Sunni men from those same checkpoints.
Use of Child Soldiers
ISIS and the PMF use children in their ranks. A man who fled Ramadi in May 2015, when ISIS controlled the city, said ISIS recruited children as young as 7 through the mosque or by force: “Whoever had four sons had to give two to ISIS,” he said. “Whoever had three or two sons, had to give one.” In August 2015, Human Rights Watch interviewed two children who managed to flee an ISIS training camp for over 340 children in Tel Afar. They said teachers trained older children in religious studies and boys aged 14 and over in combat. In Syria, ISIS and other groups used children in combat.



Iraq after ISIS: Living in a displaced people's camp


Debaga IDPs camps, in the city of Debaga, in Iraqi Kurdistan, near Makhmour and Erbil.











The clinic





The school




Food distribution








Children playing, always a smile on the lovely faces:





`





Snapshots from the Debaga camp for displaced people



Since the attacks launched by the Islamic State / Daesh in Northern Iraq, thousands of Iraqi, mainly Arabs, had to flee and seek refuge in the northern province of Kurdistan.

Here about 6.000 Iraqi are living in the Debaga camp set up for Internally Displaced People (IDPs).

Most of them are children.

The United Nations is worried that displacement will increase massively in the coming week as Iraqi forces and the international coalition plan to chase ISIS out of the stronghold in Iraq, Mosul. Mosul in the second largest city in Iraq and a few kilometers away from Erbil, Iraq Kurdistan's provincial capital.






A few shops run by IDPs themselves:








A playground for kids






Outskirts of the camp









Many children




-


More Soon. 

23/04/2016

Americans and the Middle East


Many impressions from my flight towards Erbil...
One in particular: it was full of American citizens. Hmm.

Interesting read:


Published: Saturday, 4/23/2016 

EDITORIAL

Still in Iraq, and it is still futile


Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2016/04/23/Still-in-Iraq-and-it-is-still-futile.html#4FxedWmBPP8gXIMu.99



Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Iraq last week underlined the folly of continued U.S. involvement there, 13 years after America’s second invasion.
The United States still has 4,000 troops in Iraq, nearly five years after President George W. Bush agreed with the then-Iraqi government that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2011. President Obama pledged to end the war in Iraq as part of his 2008 election campaign, a promise he has not fulfilled, bending to pressure from the Pentagon and Washington’s other advocates of a continued U.S. military presence.
In principle, U.S. troops are in Iraq in the context of advising and supplying Iraqi armed forces, not in a combat role. However, it emerged last month that Marines maintain an independent fire base in northern Iraq and are expected to play a critical role in carrying out the plan of Iraqi forces to free Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, from Islamic State in Iraq and Syria control. ISIS has held Mosul since June, 2014.
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has its own problems, considered largely to be a result of the actions of its Shiite Muslim leadership in monopolizing authority in Baghdad, excluding the 35-percent Sunni Muslims who ruled the country from 1932 to the U.S. invasion in 2003. That piece of unwise religious discrimination is bad enough in itself, but it is joined by serious pushing and shoving among the Shiites themselves.
Muqtada al-Sadr, a figure from the period of U.S. occupation who caused a lot of trouble back then, has now invaded the fortified Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy as well as significant parts of the Iraqi government, in pursuit of his goals. He wants more political influence than he has already and has set up a tent inside the Green Zone, which the predominantly Shiite Iraqi armed forces did not prevent him from doing.
The Abadi government that the United States supports now faces Mr. Sadr’s Shiite Mahdi Army, the forces of ISIS, and the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as the increasingly independent, heavily U.S.-armed secessionist Kurds in the north. The hard question to answer is why America is still there, holding the bag. Maybe Mr. Kerry has figured it out.

Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2016/04/23/Still-in-Iraq-and-it-is-still-futile.html#4FxedWmBPP8gXIMu.99


From Mosul to Kurdistan



Families flee ISIL in Iraq

Since the operation to retake Mosul began, displaced civilians have been streaming into Iraq's Kurdish region.

Mauricio Morales |  | AJE

Operations began last month to retake Nineveh province, including Mosul, from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.
ISIL took control of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, in June 2014. The town of Makhmour, around 75km southeast of Mosul, is among the frontlines of the operation to reclaim it. Here, the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been holding the line as battle preparations continue.
Since the operation began, an increasing number of displaced people have been streaming into Iraq's Kurdish region, seeking refuge. The influx is expected to continue in the months ahead.

See Al Jazeera's photographer's picture here:



News from Iraq


BBC

US admits more civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria strikes

Two US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting air strikes in Syria. Photo: September 2014Image copyrightUS Air Force
Image captionThe US military has carried out nearly 12,000 air strikes in Iraq and Syria since 2014
US air strikes aimed at Islamic State militants killed 20 civilians between September and February in Iraq and Syria, the US military has admitted.
US Central Command identified nine separate strikes - six in Iraq and three in Syria.
It said it deeply regretted the unintentional loss of life.
It said a total of 41 civilians had been killed since the air strikes began in 2014. Some human rights groups say the figure is much higher.
Announcing the results of several investigations, US Central Command said "the preponderance of evidence" indicated that 20 civilians were killed and 11 other wounded in the strikes between 10 September 2015 and 2 February 2016.
The heaviest casualties were in October, when eight civilians died in an attack in Atshanah in northern Iraq. The US military did not provide further details of that strike.
It also said that five civilians were killed in a strike on a suspected IS target in Ramadi last December.
The civilians "unexpectedly moved into the target locations after weapons were already in flight," the military said.
Central Command spokesman Col Patrick Ryder said the US deeply regretted the casualties.
He added that the US operation was "the most precise air campaign in the history of warfare".
Washington says it has carried out nearly 12,000 air strikes since it launched its operation in Iraq in August 2014 and a month later in Syria.



22/04/2016

3D printing the Ancient World




Palmyra's Arch of Triumph recreated in Trafalgar Square




Faithful copy of ancient Syrian monument destroyed by Isis will stand in central London for three days

A monumental recreation of the destroyed Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, has been unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square.
The 1,800-year-old arch was destroyed by Islamic State militants last October and the 6-metre (20ft) model, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, is intended as an act of defiance: to show that restoration of the ancient site is possible if the will is there.

Italian workers in Carrara build the arch from marble.
FaceboowiterPinterest

 Italian workers in Carrara build the arch from marble. Photograph: Marco Secchi/Getty Images

It was unveiled by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said people were there in solidarity with the people of Syria and “in defiance of the barbarians who destroyed the original”.
He said: “For 2,000 years Palmyra stood in a desert, for 2,000 years warriors, generals, conquerors have come and gone. All of them have brought their languages and cultures and religions and deities and each succeeding generation has found something to admire in the inheritance when they arrived.
“The temples of Mesopotamian divinities became Greek temples then Roman temples then churches and then mosques ... and they admired that arch, no one was so savage, so nihilistic, so pitifully inadequate as to want to destroy it.”

He congratulated Oxford’s Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), which is behind the project. “How many digits do Daesh [Isis] deserve? Two digits to Daesh from London!”
Roger Michel, director of the IDA, said: “No one would have seriously considered leaving London in ruins after the blitz.
“Monuments – as embodiments of history, religion, art and science – are significant and complex repositories of cultural narratives. No one should consider for one second giving terrorists the power to delete such objects from our collective cultural record. 
“When history is erased in this fashion, it must be promptly and, of course, thoughtfully restored.”

Detailed carvings on the arch.
Pinterest
 Detailed carvings on the arch. Photograph: Marco Secchi/Getty Images
The arch, weighing 11 tonnes, 
was unveiled after a six-hour installation process.


The reconstruction of the arch nears completion in Trafalgar Square.
Pinterest
 The reconstruction of the arch nears completion in Trafalgar Square. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Maamoun Abdulkarim, director general of Syria’s antiquities and museums, said the recreated arch served as a model for how Palmyra would be restored in what would be a message of peace.
“The life of the Syrian people rests on their cultural identity, and Palmyra represents one of the most unique and exceptional cultural heritage sites, not just in Syria but the whole world. 
“We know that the plans to restore Palmyra to its former glory are grand, but they can be realised if the task is treated as a global mission.”
An archive picture from 2014 showing the Arch of Triumph.
Pinterest
 An archive picture from 2014 showing the Arch of Triumph. Photograph: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images
The arch is being installed as part of World Heritage Week and will stand in London for three days before being put on public display in Dubai and New York.
The IDA said it had been both an engineering and digital technology challenge.
Alexy Karenowska, who led the IDA team, said it would provide people with a chance to celebrate the rich history of north Africa and the Middle East. 
“Without reconstructions, destroyed sites will, in time, be swallowed by the sands and forgotten, and with them the history for which they provided the last remaining visual cues. 
“The IDA is dedicated to resisting that cycle and helping to preserve the history of a region that defined the artistic, literary, scientific and architectural traditions of the world.”

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See also the videos and interviews here:

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/19/palmyras-triumphal-arch-recreated-in-trafalgar-square