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Item Details: 15531686

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15531686

item number: 217252
signature: 4f678109e31b1138f7fbb806224ec8cc
size: 4256 x 2832px (2.72 MB)

Created: February 26, 2008

Published: August 07, 2009
Baghdad, Iraq
fo/baghdadnightlife 2/26/09 Andrea Bruce/TWP The government of Iraq has introduced a plan to ban smoking in public. The bill being presented to the Iraqi parliament by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet would rewrite Iraqi rules to ban smoking in ministry buildings, airports, company buildings, theatres, cinemas and schools. It is not clear if the ban would apply to waterpipes. A hired dancer smokes hookah--something women rarely if ever do in Iraq--while breaking between songs. On this stretch of Iraq's famed Abu Nawas street, Baghdad feels more like Saigon these days jarring for what is still predominantly a conservative Muslim society.

by: Andrea Bruce Woodall staff