Youssef Abdelkarim's storefront on one of Baghdad's most historic streets is a time capsule - literally. Thousands of wristwatches fill the tiny shop, where three generations have repaired Iraq's oldest timepieces. The dusty display window on Rasheed Street features a single row of classic watches in their felt boxes right at the front, with a mountain of haphazardly piled pieces behind it and others hanging from hooks overhead.

Over the next five years, 26-year-old Delband Rawanduzi and her volunteers aim to plant one million oaks to repopulate forests in Iraqi Kurdistan depleted by war, illegal logging and fires. The resilient trees can endure both the cold of northern Iraq and the dry spells of one of the world's hottest countries.

A rare twin suicide bombing has killed nearly 30 people and wounded another 73 in central Baghdad, Iraqi state media said, the deadliest attack in the city in three years.

Smoke billows at the scene of an explosion at a marketplace in Baghdad's densely populated majority-Shiite Sadr City. The army reported one civilian killed and 12 injured. They did not say who or what caused it.

Iraqi firefighters battle a fire that ravaged a Covid-19 hospital overnight in Baghdad leaving at least 82 dead and 110 wounded. Many of the victims were on respirators when the blaze at Baghdad's Ibn al-Khatib hospital started with an explosion caused by "a fault in the storage of oxygen cylinders", medical sources reported.

After decades of #conflict, #terrorism and government mismanagement, #Baghdad's monumental buildings are increasingly dilapidated and under threat. Many fear that without laws and protection, they could gradually perish, taking much of Iraq's cultural heritage with them. Our correspondents Jack Hewson and Lucile Wassermann report.

Rewaz Faiq is just one of two women serving as parliament speaker in the Middle East, where politics is a man's world, but the Iraqi Kurdish mother of two is unfazed. Having entered politics at the age of 15, Faiq knew she would face challenges when she was elected in 2019 to the post in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

Thousands of members of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance gather in Baghdad to mourn comrades killed in American air strikes along the Syrian border. The US raids early Monday sparked an exchange of fire between pro-Iranian militias and the US-led coalition in eastern Syria, as well as fears of a new US-Iran escalation amid faltering efforts to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

A bell is inaugurated at a church in Mosul to the cheers of Iraqi Christians, seven years after the Islamic State group overran the northern city. Dozens of faithful stood by as Father Pios Affas rang the newly installed bell for the first time at the Syriac Christian church of Mar Tuma.

Iraqi forces claim to have captured a high-ranking IS leader in an international operation.

In Iraq's vast western desert, some 200 families live in a hamlet largely cut off from the rest of the world, their only neighbour one of the country's biggest military bases. Lost in rocky ochre hills and surrounded by humble palm groves, Al-Sahl’s only education facility is a primary school, and residents rely on livestock and farming to survive.

The protesters are angered by October's election results, which saw pro-Iran groups lose seats in parliament. Security forces have been deployed to disperse the demonstrators.