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Dr Bnar Talabani, who received award for combatting Covid-19 misinformation, says British monarch showed keen interest in her background.
A doctor who arrived in the UK as a child refugee from Iraq has received a top award from King Charles III for her prominent role in combatting Covid-19 misinformation throughout the pandemic.
Dr Bnar Talabani beamed as the monarch, 74, pinned the ribbon of the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) on her dress during a ceremony at Windsor Castle on Thursday.
She said the monarch, 74, was “really interested” to hear about her background.
The immunology scientist shared photos of their meeting on social media.
“Investiture at Windsor Castle: I met His Majesty the King who was really interested in my background as a former refugee and was utterly delightful to talk to,” she wrote.
“Really special day celebrating with my wonderful family.”
The king could be seen shaking Dr Talabani’s hand and pinning a red ribbon on her dress, in the pictures.
As congratulations poured in for the outspoken doctor, she said she felt “really overwhelmed by everyone’s kind responses”.
Dr Talabani was born in 1988 in northern Iraq to a Kurdish family.
As a toddler, she left her homeland for Iran along with her mother and younger brother to escape Saddam Hussein’s regime. Her father and grandfather remained behind to fight against the dictator.
After making their way to Syria, the Talabanis were recognised as refugees and welcomed to the UK.
Dr Talabani went on to graduate from medical school and pursue a career as a kidney and transplant hospital doctor and immunology scientist at Cardiff University.
She also works as a guide for Team Halo, a global group of scientists and healthcare professionals working to dispel misinformation about the coronavirus.
During the height of the public health crisis she made a name for herself on TikTok.
Dr Talabani used her platform on social media to reach followers, many of them young people, to challenge false and inaccurate claims about Covid.
The Iraqi researcher Mootaz Salman has won the “Young Scientist Lectureship Award” for research that involved putting human brain tissue on a microchip and using innovative technology to treat neurodegenerative diseases.
Salman started his academic career at the University of Mosul, where he earned a Bachelor of Pharmacy with Honours, and is now is a senior researcher and lecturer in the department of physiology, anatomy and genetics at the University of Oxford.
He spoke to Al-Fanar Media about his work, which has taken nearly ten years of research, and the experiences that led him to his current post.
The first researcher in Britain to win the award, Salman said the support he received from universities where he had worked in the United States and the United Kingdom had been a key factor.
“I deeply believe that the more a person works, the more fortunate he is,” Salman said.
“From the very beginning, I was aware of the challenges ahead, the double effort I had to make, as an academic from a conflict country, and the responsibility I had to convey a different image of my country and to help humanity provide solutions to brain diseases and stroke, which have risen dramatically.”
Human Brain Tissue on a Microchip
The International Society for Neurochemistry and the and Asian-Pacific Society for Neurochemistry will present Salman with the award in September in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Salman led a research team that used a human brain “microvessel on a chip” to study what happens when drugs cross from the bloodstream into the brain.
The research was part of his ongoing work to understand the cellular physiology of the blood-brain barrier and exploit its mechanisms to improve the effectiveness of therapeutic treatments of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease.
The device the researchers designed for the study allowed them to track the movement of tiny molecular sizes across the blood-brain barrier. Their device is ideal for studies involving biotherapies, as well as being able to employ it in high-resolution imaging methods, such as transmission electron microscopy, Salman said.
Academic Journey
Before moving to the University of Oxford two years ago as an assistant professor and lecturer at Wolfson College, Salman was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in the United States.
Before that, he earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Sheffield Hallam University, in the United Kingdom.
During his doctoral studies, he discovered a new pharmacological framework for developing drugs to treat patients with brain tumours resulting from accidents and strokes.
This research focused on water receptors in the brain. Salman described it as a turning point that helped him recognise the molecular mechanics of brain diseases and think of ways to provide therapeutic solutions rather than surgery, which has major risks and complications.
He said the research led him to discover how cells develop brain tumours and the mechanics that cause these tumours and strokes at the molecular level.
A World Health Organization report says that about 75 million people in the world suffer from strokes annually. About five million of them die and another five million suffer permanent disability.
Salman says the incidence of brain disease in the Arab world is rising because of the dietary and living patterns of the majority of the population, the intake of fats and sugars at “unreasonable” rates, the lack of physical activity, and the pressures of daily life.
Difficulty of Research in Arab Countries
After graduating from the University of Mosul, Salman worked as a teaching assistant in the university’s Faculty of Pharmacy for about two years and experienced firsthand the difficulties of research in the Arab world. He said there was no financial support for conducting research, research laboratories were limited, and the teaching and administrative burdens on professors usually led them to abandon research.
Salman said scientific research should be considered “an investment,” not a “random academic luxury.” Such work only flourishes in a suitable environment where there is stability and financial support, he said.
He believes the political unrest Iraq has experienced in recent years has affected teaching in universities and Iraqi researchers’ chances for professional development. He described government support for Iraqi universities as “very limited” and said most research initiatives were “individual and random” and did not amount to regular institutional work.
A Call for Greater Investment in Research
Salman said Arab countries needed to increase investment in scientific research at the national level and benefit from the experience of wealthy Gulf countries that have attracted foreign and Arab professors from major European and American universities to establish research centres where young researchers can train.
He said he had tried to open communication channels between the University of Oxford and Iraqi universities to reach agreements for cooperation and scientific research, which could provide research fellowships for Iraqi researchers at British universities.
This year, the University of Mosul signed a cooperation agreement with Oxford on a project that uses remote sensing and photographic information systems to study antiquities. The work would preserve the cultural heritage of Nineveh Governorate and other Iraqi provinces, and attract Ph.D. students to training courses at British universities.
Salman said: “These efforts give me a high sense of pride and a greater incentive for hard work and research that benefits all humanity. I feel a sense of responsibility and love towards my country, my city and my mother university, which helped me and paved the way for me at the beginning of my academic journey.”
Mootaz Salman, an Iraqi scientist at the University of Oxford, has won the “Young Scientist Lectureship Award” for his use of innovative technology to treat neurological diseases. (Photo: Mootaz Salman).
In a career spanning decades, Iraqi-born Sadiq has shown her creations worldwide and dressed the stars, but she remains rooted in the traditions of her homeland.
With verses from love poems and flowing calligraphy, Jordan-based fashion designer Hana Sadiq stitches a testament to the beauty of Arab women.
The artistic handwriting of Arabic script dominates her embroidered modern designs, with poetry or letters scattered in bright colours.
She uses various calligraphic styles, from the elaborate Diwani to the curving Thuluth and features on some of her outfits the lines of renowned Arab poets including Mahmoud Darwish and Nizar Qabbani.
“Arabic calligraphy is the most beautiful,” says Sadiq, 72, showing off her love of jewellery with strings of beads around her neck, dangling earrings, and unusual stone rings.
At her home workshop in downtown Amman, Sadiq notes that the earliest writing was born several millennia before Christ in what is now Iraq, arguing that it was a place “without which all the other civilisations would not have existed”.
Sadiq has split her time between Amman and Paris since 1982, having both French and Jordanian nationality as well as Iraqi citizenship.
‘How beautiful she is’
She has exhibited from Europe to the United States as well as the Middle East, returning home with an extensive collection of antique silver ornaments, along with thousands of pieces of Arab textiles and costumes.
Her kaftans, traditional robes, feature bright and stunning colours. They reflect the influence of her grandmother who wore a traditional Iraqi “Hashemite dress” and walked “elegantly like a peacock”.
The folk outfit is made of very thin fabric with wide sleeves and transparent sides, decorated with beautiful floral ornaments, golden or silver, on a black base. It was the favourite of Iraqi women in the 1950s and 60s.
Sadiq traces her interest in fashion to her childhood, when she would visit her grandfather’s textile shop in Baghdad.
She went on to design for celebrities and royals, including Jordan’s Queen Rania and Queen Noor. But whoever the client, her work has been guided by pride in the Arab woman’s femininity.
Unlike more revealing Western fashion, her designs envelope the woman’s body, “but it shows high femininity,” says Sadiq, who is also the author of a book, “Arab Costumes and Jewelry, a Legacy without Borders”.
She argues that Western clothes are not the best fit for the bodies of Arab women but have spread to the region anyway. “Unfortunately this is the result of globalisation,” she says.
“What matters to me, in all my work, is that the woman remains female and that a man is attracted to her as a female,” she adds. “Which means when a woman passes in front of him, he must notice and see how beautiful she is.”
Her kaftans, traditional robes, feature bright and stunning colours, reflecting the influence of her grandmother who wore a traditional Iraqi Hashemite dress and walked “elegantly like a peacock”.
Former hair-transplant specialist urges Iraqi women to ‘keep going until all your dreams are met’.
Balsam Hussein, a 26-year-old TV presenter and former hair-transplant specialist, has been crowned Miss Iraq 2022 at a beauty contest held in Erbil, capital of the northern Kurdish region.
Ms Hussein was among 19 contestants from across the country who were vying for the title and a chance to represent Iraq at the Miss World and Miss Universe events.
“I am highly motivated to participate in Miss World and Miss Universe pageants soon,” she said.
Ms Hussein’s win raises her public profile even higher, after starting work in April as host of a morning TV show for a private channel in Baghdad.
Speaking to The National, she said she had been hesitant to take part in the competition but decided to go ahead at the last minute after full support from her family and close friends, as well as from her followers on social media.
“My family have been happy and proud of me throughout my life, but they became happier and prouder when they watched me on TV being crowned Miss Iraq 2022,” she said. “I felt sorry that they were not able to come from Baghdad to Erbil as they were ill, but I never felt alone.”
Ms Hussein represented the Al Karakh district of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital where she was born and raised. She worked there as a hair-transplant specialist after training in Turkey before starting her TV job — something she said she had always dreamt of doing.
“I have a dream to improve the media and journalism field in Iraq, and of course, being a winner of Miss Iraq will help me to be closer to achieving that dream,” she said.
For Iraqis faced with uncertainty and instability as political groups squabble over forming a new government nearly 10 months after elections, the Miss Iraq pageant offered a window of hope for the future.
Ayman Hussein, 26, a resident of the southern province of Basra, said Ms Hussein’s triumph was “a win for Iraq and Iraqis”.
“It is a clear message that, in spite of political chaos, Iraq is able to hold such events,” he said. “Whenever there is war, there is life — this is our interpretation of life.”
Mr Hussein said he hoped to see Iraqi women take their rightful place in society. “Iraqi women experience hardship their entire life; it is the time to say ‘I am here’.”
Launched in 1947, the Miss Iraq contest was suspended for more than four decades in 1973 because of political upheaval and wars, and resumed only in 2015.
“From today, I represent all of Iraq,” Ms Hussein said. “I would like to send a message to all Iraqi women: do not give up, fight to get your goals, be patient. You have faced wars and difficulties; do not make the harsh conditions a rock in your path — destroy it and keep going until all your dreams are met.”
The judges declared Sarah Saad, from Baghdad’s Al Rusafa district, as the first runner-up, and Jihan Majid, representing Wasit, as second runner-up. Hind Akram, representing the Baghdad Belt, was the third runner-up, followed by Sarah Khaled from Mosul.
Kareem Rasheed, executive director of the Miss Iraq organisation, said: “Iraq is thirsty for such events like Miss Iraq. Year after year, we will do our best to develop it and make it reach people around the Arab world.
“The contestants represent about 90 per cent of Iraq — we covered the regions of south, middle Euphrates, west and north.
“This year, we decided to rate beauty at 50 per cent and inner essence, such as culture, education and so on, also at 50 per cent, while in years past we were focusing on beauty over essence.
“All women are beautiful and each one has a unique trait that makes her different from others.”
source/content: thenationalnews.com
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Balsam Hussein smiles after being crowned Miss Iraq 2022 in a pageant held in Erbil. Azhar Al-Rubaie for The National
The Welsh-Iraqi artist will represent the country’s diverse cultures and languages.
Wales has named Hanan Issa as its fifth national poet, making her the first Muslim to hold the title.
The Welsh-Iraqi poet, filmmaker and artist will serve a three-year term, representing the country’s diverse cultures and languages and acting as an ambassador for the people of Wales.
Her recent works include her poetry collection My Body Can House Two Hearts, published in 2019, and her contributions to Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales and The Mab.
Issa grew up in Cardiff surrounded by different languages, including Arabic, which was spoken by her Iraqi parents. She described the role as an “incredibly positive step” and said it was “exciting to think that Wales is taking the lead on this aspect of representation”.
“Poetry exists in the bones of this country. I want people to recognise Wales as a country bursting with creativity; a land of poets and singers with so much to offer the arts,” she said.
“I’d like to continue the great work of my predecessors in promoting Wales, Welshness, and the Welsh language outside of its borders.
“More than anything, I want to capture the interest and inspiration of the public to see themselves in Welsh poetry and encourage a much more open sense of what Welshness is.”
Ashok Ahir, who led the selection panel for the National Poet of Wales, said: “This is a hugely exciting appointment. Hanan’s is a cross-community voice that speaks to every part of the country. She will be a great ambassador for a culturally diverse and outward-looking nation.”
Issa said she hopes that her appointment will allow women from all walks of life, but especially Muslim women, to see her success and think “that’s a thing that’s achievable for me”.
