1.
GV PAN View of modern Baghdad along Tigris river. (2 SHOTS)
0.13

2.
GV Modern blocks of flats. (2 SHOTS)
0.22

3.
GV Cranes lifting building material in construction work.
0.28

4.
GV Building work around mosque. (2 SHOTS)
0.50

5.
GV New block of flats.
0.57

6.
Al Haida Kania District: GV Buildings in old district ZOOM IN portraits of President Saddam Hussein on wall.
1.08

7.
GV Trader leading donkey through streets, women and children in old quarter. (5 SHOTS)
1.48

8.
GV ZOOM INTO GV Al Shuhadah mosque.
2.02




Initials RdeL/JRS





Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Iraqi leaders are pressing on with the rapid re-development of their capital, Baghdad, despite the mounting cost of the two-year Gulf war with Iran. An important part of the 25 thousand million dollars a year programme is the overhaul of the old quarter of the city and the building of a modern residential quarter along the Tigris river, which runs through Baghdad. Old streets have been torn up to make way for new sewers, power lines, and multi-storey tower blocks. The slums of the old city are giving way to the sort of residential skyscraper buildings found throughout western Europe and the United States. Japanese, French, British and German contractors have been brought in to modernise the city in as short a time as is possible. It is only in the old quarter of Al Haida Kania that life is unchanged as merchants ply their daily trade in front of Al Shuhadan mosque. President Saddam Hussein, whose portrait is found everywhere in the city, has been reluctant to allow the war with Iran to affect the pace of development. But oil exports have dwindled because of the fighting and Iraq has had to turn to the Gulf states for a reported loan of 22 thousand million dollars to keep the programme going.