Roba al-Asaly fingers the sliver of gold on her necklace and explains that it reminds her of a place "that's not there anymore."
The gold is shaped like the map of Iraq, and at a time when sectarian violence has fanned fears of civil war, it has become an act of defiance and of yearning for unity.
It is seen on the streets and on television. Anchorwomen wear it while reading the news on al-Iraqiya and al-Sharqiya, Iraqi TV stations that are secular and more tolerant of women's jewelry.
"I hold on to it with my hand as if I'm holding on to the country I once knew," said al-Asaly, a 26-year-old Shiite Muslim accountant.
"A place where people were not identified by their sect, a place where bombs didn't go off every other minute," she said.
The map necklaces, in gold or silver, were on sale here even before the fall of former preisdent Saddam Hussein in 2003, but gained popularity in the months after the US-led invasion. Now, as sectarian violence intensifies, jeweler Rafaa Ali says his shop in central Baghdad makes about 3,000 a week and can barely meet demand.
"It's like the more abnormal the situation becomes, the more demand increases," Ali said.
The necklaces cost the equivalent of US$15 in silver, and US$100 in gold. In Jordan and Syria, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled to escape the violence, they serve as beacons bringing exiles together.
The pendants took on greater meaning after the slaying of 30-year-old Atwar Bahjat, a correspondent for the Arab satellite news network Al-Arabiya.
Bahjat, a Sunni, wore a veil on the air, along with a map necklace. She was abducted along with her cameraman and technician Feb. 22 while reporting on the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, about 100km north of Baghdad. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found the next day.
Many women started wearing map necklaces in tribute to Bahjat's memory.
Some fear that with the country sliding toward possible division, their necklaces may become collector items.
"Who knows how long Iraq will remain looking like this?" said a pensive Asmaa Hassan Ali, a Sunni 24-year-old graduate of Baghdad University.
"It's also my way of showing how I love my country the way it is and I want it to stay like that: undivided," she said.
Basma al-Khateeb, who used to run the Iraqi operation of the UN Development Fund for Women, said: "It's the threat that everyone senses is coming -- tearing the land and people of Iraq apart."
She always wears her map necklace, and talking about it sets her off on a long discussion of what's wrong with Iraq and its newly elected leaders.
For Santa Michael, a correspondent for Ashour, the Christian TV broadcaster, wearing the map is her way of making a political protest.
"Officials now speak in the name of their sects, not in the name of the country," she said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s